#It's just a straight forward 'would this lock up' test that my brain runs instantly and then screeches the results of back at me

[maeamian]

It's not important to any real degree but boy I wish I didn't know how gears worked because seeing them drawn in a way that wouldn't work is somehow like nails on a chalkboard to my brain.

[calif0rnia-lovers]

southpaw.

A/N: I combined two requests for this one.

“Thanks for coming to bail me out, ____.” “I came to bail you out so that I can fucking kill you.” +  being bishop’s old lady and best friends with Angel who ends up getting arrested with you one night

Pairing: Angel Reyes x Bishop Losa x Reader

Summary: When a night out gets a little hectic, you and Angel find yourself in a holding cell. Instead of calling Bishop, Angel calls Ez to bail you out. No matter how many times you swear Bishop is “a softy at heart”, Angel is still scared shitless of him. Being the person you’re with the first time you get arrested isn’t going to win him any favors with the President. 

Words: 2.3K

Somehow your brain manages to send a message to your overreacting body. 

Relax.

You come to a halt in the center of the holding cell. 

You have been pacing for the last fifteen minutes. The action had you so preoccupied you couldn't even feel the pain from your swollen hand. 

Biting your lip, you study the damage before shaking your hand out. You wince as you flex your fingers, your heart leaping in your chest at the sound of clinking metal.

A mixture of relief and panic well in your chest as you take in your best friend, Angel Reyes. 

Flanked by two officers of the Santo Padre police department, Angel gives you a warm smile as the cell is unlocked.

"Try not to start any more shit, Reyes," Franky sighs as Angel steps inside to join you. His eyes pass over you, the scowl on his face softening once he takes in your current state. "I'll be back with some ice in a bit, Y/N."

You offer a polite smile. "Thanks, Franky." 

You wait until the door is locked, and the officers are leaving to turn to Angel. 

"Did you call Bishop?" 

Angel's laughter fills the cramped cell, his brown eyes rolling as he passes you. His laugh rings throughout the room well after he's layed out across the bottom bunk of the holding cell. Tucking his arm under his head, he allows his eyes to drift shut. 

"Angel?"

Angel releases a breath, his eyes remaining closed, trying his best to ignore your panicked gaze.

"No, Y/N," he scoffs. "I did not call Bishop. That's the last person I would call right now." 

A silence falls over the room. 

You remain where you stand, back against the locked county cell door. Angel reaches back to adjust the pillow beneath him before returning to his relaxed state. 

Your arms lift into the air.

"Then who the hell did you call, Angel? In case you haven't noticed, we're in a freaking jail cell." 

Angel rolls his eyes. 

"Relax, Mayweather, it's just a holding cell." Pushing himself up, Angel runs his fingers through his hair. "Ezekiel's on his way."

"Thank God." 

He was hoping the news would be enough to make you relax, but before he can even blink you're pacing. 

Angel allows you to get off a few laps before letting his trademark grin spread across his lips. You catch sight of it out the corner of your eye, your pace slowing.

"What?"

"Franky likes you," he smirks, his brows wagging suggestively. "If you ask nicely, he’ll let you keep the cuffs. You can take 'em home with you."

"Shut up."

Getting up, Angel crosses the cell to meet you by the bars. He rests his shoulder against them before chuckling. He lightly bumps your shoulder, waiting until you glance over at him to smile.

"Relax. They’re not gonna charge you."

"I broke his nose, Angel." 

"It was fucking awesome by the way," Angel chuckles, it dying out with one look at your face. 

Your face drops into your hands. 

The memory running back for another loop in your mind. 

Angel had shown up at your house, a mischievous smile, and a plan for going out for a game of pool in tow. The drunk guy, who had his ass handed to him, didn't take too kindly to you taking his money. One second he had hands on your waist, the next you'd punched him. 

Of course, the alcohol in his system paired with his embarrassment led to him grabbing you which then led to Angel getting involved. Five minutes later, Franky's slipping you two into the back of his cruiser while his overeager rookie partner tries to cuff your poor victim. 

"How are you not freaking out right now?" You groan, your head resting against Angel's shoulder.

"I’m preparing for my mug shot."

Angel laughs as you push against his arm.

"Shut up." You laugh weakly.

"If they do book us, we'll hang your mug shot up next to mine and Ez's." He chuckles. "Induct you into the hall of fame."

As much as you hate what's happened, you find that per usual Angel's demeanor is slowly but surely helping you relax. 

"I can't believe it took you this long to wind up here," Angel teases. "As long as you've hung around me."

"I'm supposed to be the moral compass, remember," you giggle. 

A silence falls over the cell as you allow Angel to look over your hand. He drapes his arm over your shoulder before grinning.

"Pretty sure piggy over there, once he got his nose checked out, was shittin' bricks when his friends let him in on a little secret." Taking in your furrowed brow, Angel rolls his eyes. "That the girl he tried to feel up at the bar is Bishop’s Old Lady."

Silence falls over the two of you. 

His words hanging in the air as your nose scrunches in confusion.

You surprise him by allowing a laugh of disbelief to fill the room. 

"I am not Bishop's old lady," you giggle. 

Now it’s Angel's time to laugh.

He must admit. Angel wasn't too excited when he noticed you and Bishop getting close. It was too weird for him to think about. But as three months passed and you two continued to see each other, he realized it was better just to roll with it. 

"I’m serious, Angel."

"I know," he laughs, the sound mingling with his gasps of breath. "That’s what makes this so funny!"

Your roll your eyes, but find a heat setting in on your face as his laughter continues. You bite your lip.

The many nights spent wrapped in your sheets, his lips on yours, almost outweighed the phone calls, smiles and kisses shared with the President. The transition from his harmless flirting to terms of endearment so seamless it was easy to forget it hadn't always been that way. 

You let Angel's words pass back through your mind.

"He hasn't called me that," you offer up as you glance over at your best friend. "So I can't be that. Can I?"

Before Angel can answer, a tap comes on the cell bar causing you both to jump.

Turning, you find the same guy from earlier in the evening. With Franky behind him, it seems he's completely sobered up. In the light of the county sheriff's office, he looks completely different than the handsy drunk from just an hour before. 

You take in the bruise forming beneath his eyes, the swelling of his nose causing you to flex your hand. Angel stifles his laugh at the sight of your damage as your elbow digs into his side

Franky steps forward unlocking the gate. He motions for Angel to step forward. 

"You two are free to go. We're letting you off with a warning this time," Franky explains at the confusion on your face. He clamps his hand down on the young officer's shoulder. The young man's eyes narrow as they pass over Angel’s smirk. His eyes flick to yours for half a second, his ears turning red as he adverts his gaze. 

"Maybe we’ll see you around, officer," Angel smiles as he steps forward. Sliding past him, Angel winks. "Let you get a rematch, chance to win back your money."

Shoving against Angel's back you attempt to follow, but your tracks are halted as you feel a hand on your elbow.

His grip loosens, falling away as quickly as it had come. 

The officer meets your gaze for a moment before clearing his throat. When he speaks his words are clear but carefully chosen. 

"I’m sorry for the inconvenience, ma'am." He says. "I had too much to drink. I apologize if I made you uncomfortable."

Before you can respond he stalks off, shooting Angel a glare as he passes.

By the time you catch up with Angel, he's nearly out the lobby. 

When you step outside, the first thing you notice is the weight that instantly lifts off your shoulder at the feeling of the night air. 

The second is the sight of Ez, Coco, and Gilly who are waiting in the nearly empty parking lot. Coco and Gilly are sporting grins that mirror Angels, Ez for once is not following suit.

"Thanks, little brother," Angel calls as he crosses the lot. 

"I didn't do anything," Ez mumbles as Angel's arm drapes over his shoulders. "I didn't even have to pay."

"I know," Angel chuckles nodding in your direction. "Southpaw over here had them scared shitless. They didn't even book us."

"Good," Coco chuckles as he passes Angel his dwindling cigarette. "Hey, Gil? You think that'll make Bishop ease up on his ass whooping?"

"What?" 

Angel's pace slows as he takes in the President who waits across the lot. 

"Come on, Ez." he groans, his neck rolling as he punches his younger brother's shoulder. "You called Bish-"

"I didn't call him," Ez rubs at the back of his neck. "He was right there when you called."

"You couldn't lie? You lied to me for months, with a straight fucking face might I add."

A silence falls over the group as they watch Bishop. He remains seated on his back, arms casually crossed over his shoulders. Although his expression is calm Angel can't help but nervously take a drag. 

Ez mumbles. "Shit, Angel. You know how he is. He's got that..."

"All-knowing fucking gaze, I know," Angel curses before dropping the cigarette to the ground. 

"Relax," you laugh as you pass the boys. "You guys give him too much credit. He's not even that scary."

"That's because he actually likes you," Angel shakes his head as Bishop starts in your direction. 

"Don't be jealous," you tease. "It's not a good look on you, Reyes."

"Thanks for coming to bail me out, Bish." Angel jokes, cautiously testing the waters, as the President stops by your side. "Looks like you got to keep your money since we-"

“I came to bail you out so that I can fucking kill you.” 

"Hey," lightly slapping Bishop's chest, you give him a stern look. "Play nice."

"I'm not playing." 

A wave of panic slides across Angel's face as he takes in the look on Bishop's face. It's a look that each Mayan knew very well. For a man with no children, Bishop has a way of making Angel fear for the safety of his own life in a way his father never could. 

Angel shifts uncomfortably as your arms wrap around Bishop's waist. You place a kiss against Bishop's cheek before smiling. 

"Believe it or not. Angel didn't start trouble tonight. He just finished it." 

Bishop's eyes hold Angel's for a moment longer before drifting over to you. Taking in your smile, he allows his eyes to pass over your features. 

It only takes a second for him to note your swollen hand. Lifting your fingers, he places a kiss against your knuckles. His brow raises as you give him an innocent smile. Angel relaxes, only slightly, as Bishop ducks down to place a second kiss against your skin.

"I wish I could've seen it." Gilly breaks the silence, pulling a grin to your face. "We always knew you were a firecracker, Y/N. But punching a cop?" 

"Now we know who keeps you in check," Tranq chuckles as he claps his hand on Bishop's shoulder. 

"Guess the cat's out the bag," Bishop sighs as his arm wraps around your waist.

"We’re gonna have to get a cake to celebrate this momentous moment," Ez teases as you roll your eyes. "You're officially apart of the club, Y/N."

"Maybe you can convince Bish to bring me on as protection," you giggle.

As Angel begins to reenact the play by play, of how the evening unfolded, for the boys, you tighten your grip around Bishop's waist.

You smile as your lips press against his neck. Nuzzling against his skin, you relax for the first time tonight. 

Pulling back, you take in Bishop's furrowed brow. His eyes are over your shoulder focused on the sheriff's station. 

"Can you please say thank you to Angel?" You ask your question pulling his focus back to you.

Bishop's brow arches, the corner of his lips twitching up to a smile. 

"Say thank you?" He tilts his head. "I didn't kill him. That's enough of a thank you."

"Bish, I'm serious." You giggle. "Believe it or not. You're pretty freaking scary when you wanna be. Angel may front like he has a big bark, but he's scared of you."

"As he should be."

You roll your eyes as his lips press a kiss against your forehead. 

"I appreciate him looking out for you," he says. "But apparently you don't need it. I gotta start sending the Prospect to watch you too from now on?"

Bishop's lips press against your swollen knuckles. His eyes lift to meet yours, a hint of concern inside. 

"You okay?"

You know his question is not about your swollen hand. 

Nodding, you smile as his lips press another kiss against your skin.

"But I'll be twenty times better if you talk to Angel." 

The corner of his lips twitches as you shoot him a smile.

Bishop nods, turning to lead you to his bike. He takes a step before turning to find Angel cautiously watching your departure. 

"Angel." The group falls silent as Bishop wraps his arm around your shoulder. "Thanks for looking out for her."

Angel finally relaxes as a smile spreads across his face. Nodding, he shoots you a wink as you drag Bishop towards his bike. 

"So," you sigh as Bishop concentrates on slipping his helmet on you. "Is this a first?"

"Showing up here to bail Angel out?" He chuckles as he fastens the straps beneath your chin. 

"I meant bailing out your Old Lady?"

Bishop looks up, the corner of his mouth turning up. 

"Depends," he shrugs. "Is that what they’re calling you now?"

[mrs-dr-reid]

She Used to Be Mine

(A Criminal Minds Fic)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Summary: The reader finally left her scum of the earth boyfriend of a year and a half, and she finds out she’s pregnant with his baby when the team gets done with a case. She lets out her frustrations about the whole situation during an open mic night at a bar, not knowing the rest of the team is there, too, and has to explain what’s been going on with her.

Genre: Oof, this is some painful stuff here, buddy. Maybe a little fluff at the end? I dunno.

Warnings: Minor language, mentions of abuse, mentions of an unhealthy relationship, brief allusions to doing the do, mentions of unwanted pregnancy, slight mentions of normal Criminal Minds stuff

A/N: I’m gonna apologize in advance for this one, guys. I’ve had “She Used to be Mine” from Waitress stuck in my head for like two days, and this came to me in a dream last night, so allow me to write out my brain vomit and slap it on the internet. Enjoy. Just a note, I have never seen or listened to Waitress in its entirety, I just know what this song is about and am writing this solely based on that one song. (Also, Y/S/N means “Your Sister’s Name”. If you don’t have a sister, make one up if you’d like)

Word Count: 3514

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Y/N didn’t know how she let this happen. She kept telling herself that she was going to leave him. That their situation was only going to get worse. That if she didn’t get out of there soon she could potentially die, and she never did. She had gradually been transitioning more and more of her stuff out of the apartment and into the trunk of her car to make leaving easier, and she had packed up all her things of value into a suitcase and kept it stashed in the hall closet ready to go just in case, because the Lord knows he never even gave it a second glance. Then finally after two months of delaying the inevitable, a blow-out argument and a handful of shattered beer bottles finally gave her the push she needed, and she slammed the door of his apartment behind her and never looked back once while dragging her suitcase down the stairs and out the door of his building to her car.

Luckily Y/N’s older sister Y/S/N also lived in D.C., and she was more than happy to let Y/N stay at her place until she found somewhere for herself. Y/N didn’t even know how to tell the rest of the team about the breakup, but she was glad she wouldn’t have to cover up bruises with makeup and lackluster excuses anymore. Y/N decided to let them profile it out for themselves because she didn’t want to waste anymore time, energy, or thoughts on her ex ever again.

The next day at work, the entire team immediately picked up on a change in Y/N’s demeanor, but none of them acknowledged it and let Penelope present their latest case in Madison, Wisconsin without so much as a questioning glance towards her. Well, everyone but Spencer, that is. He had his head cocked like a confused puppy while squinting at Y/N the entire meeting. Emily had to snap her fingers in front of his face at least twice to get him to pay attention again, which made Y/N a little nervous, because she really didn’t want him to confront her, mainly because she knows it’s impossible for her to lie to him.

They got on the jet, and once they were in the air, Y/N suddenly felt really nauseous and made a mad dash for the bathroom, making everyone turn to shoot a confused and worried look in that direction. Once she slammed the door shut and locked it behind her, she threw open the lid of the toilet and had at it. After she had finished, she flushed away the vomit and reasoned that she probably had something past its date for breakfast that morning and brushed it off.

Throughout the whole case, Y/N had random bouts of nausea and had to excuse herself during really important stuff to go and find the bathroom. She even had to run out during a suspect interrogation leaving Emily to talk to the perp, and had to leave while they delivered the profile to avoid losing her lunch and crappy bullpen coffee all over the suspect and the local cops. The whole team was worried for her, but she insisted she was fine and kept working, much to Spencer’s chagrin, but he just let her do what she had to do, because he’d learned to not mess with Y/N when she’s on a roll the hard way.

After they had caught the unsub and saved the would-have-been victim, Y/N found herself fighting back her own tears as she comforted the poor, traumatized girl, which was weird because that had never happened before. Once the team had packed up and got in the SUVs to head to the airfield, they had to stop at a gas station right before they left the town. Y/N grabbed her wallet and said, “I gotta take a bathroom break before we get out of here,” and both JJ and Emily nodded before she got out of the car and went into the store. 

Y/N went straight for the pregnancy tests and grabbed a box of three before heading to the counter and paying, because she had a hunch she needed to prove. She went to the bathroom, and took all three once she locked herself in a stall. She set them on top of the toilet paper dispenser thing and timed two minutes on her watch. Once the two minutes were up, she took a deep breath and grabbed the tests. Y/N almost passed out when she saw that all three read “positive”, but that’s when she realized her period was a couple of weeks late.

After that realization, she smacked her head against the wall of the stall, because she knew exactly how she’d gotten pregnant: Her stupid, lowkey abusive, borderline alcoholic ex had somehow convinced her to go with him to a sports bar to meet his stupid, annoying, borderline alcoholic friends and watch some sports game three weeks ago, they’d both gotten decently drunk, and she woke up the next morning with a killer hangover and without clothes.

Y/N took a picture of the tests on her phone in case someone on the team profiled it out of her and she needed receipts, then threw them in the little stall trash can before getting out of the stall, washing her hands, and going back out to the SUVs. JJ and Emily shot her looks as she climbed into the car because she was gone for a while, but they just assumed it was #1 and #2 and didn’t say anything.

She was silent and stared out the window the entire flight back, which didn’t go unnoticed by Spencer, who left his beloved jet couch to plop down across from her at the single seater table. She stopped looking out the window and saw him doing his signature awkward smile, which made a small smile spread across her face before she said, “Hey, Spence. What’s up?”, so he said, “Are you okay, Y/N/N? You’ve been throwing up all week, and I don’t think that’s all that healthy.”

Y/N sighed and said, “I’m fine, Spence. I probably just haven’t been eating as much as my body would like me to, and the bullpen coffee agitated my stomach. I’m totally fine,” then reached across the table and grabbed his hand before saying, “Thank you for worrying, though. I appreciate you a ton. You know that, right?”, making him smile and say, “Yeah, I know. You’re welcome,” before getting up and going back to his couch, Y/N’s smile growing a little wider as she watched him go.

Once the team was back at Quantico, Y/N plopped down at her desk and started doing her paperwork, but Hotch came out of his office and said, “That was a rough case, everyone. The paperwork can wait until tomorrow, call it a night for now,” so Y/N shrugged and grabbed her bag off the floor and headed to the elevator, holding it open for everyone as the team piled in while expressing their relief at the early night.

Flash forward to the weekend, and Y/N is hanging out with Y/S/N (who is the only person who knows she’s pregnant) at their favorite bar in Logan Circle. It was open mic night, and Y/N decided that the best way to get her emotions out was to do a song. There was a piano, and she’d thankfully memorized how to play “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress when she went on a musical theater kick. So she calmly sipped on a Shirley Temple and talked with her sister while she waited for her name to be called.

After about four people did what they wanted to do, the lady running the show called out, “Up next, Miss Y/N L/N who will be playing the piano and singing a song for us!”, so Y/N stood up and walked onto the stage before sitting down at the piano and adjusting the mic. She said, “This song is called ‘She Used to Be Mine’ from Waitress,” before playing the interlude and starting to sing:

“It's not simple to say

That most days I don't recognize me

That these shoes and this apron

That place and its patrons

Have taken more than I gave them

It's not easy to know

I'm not anything like I used be, although it's true

I was never attention's sweet center

I still remember that girl”

What Y/N didn’t know is that the team get-together Penelope organized she declined attending to hang out with Y/S/N was taking place at that exact bar, and they were at a booth right near the stage watching her performance. Penelope had instantly grabbed Derek’s arm in worry when Y/N had announced the title of the song, and when questioned about it, she said, “That’s probably the saddest song in the whole musical! In the show, the main character Jenna’s abusive husband takes all the money she’d been saving for the baby she didn’t want to have, and she sings this song because she feels like she’s lost complete control of her life and doesn’t know who she is anymore,” making everyone exchange looks before looking back at the stage to watch Y/N perform:

“She's imperfect, but she tries

She is good, but she lies

She is hard on herself

She is broken and won't ask for help

She is messy, but she's kind

She is lonely most of the time

She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie

She is gone, but she used to be mine”

Y/N kept singing, and as she did, she felt just like Jenna did in the musical: critical of herself for allowing a person like her ex to keep her locked in their relationship for way longer than she should have, and scared because she was going to be a mother, and no way was she allowing her scumbag ex to be a part of her son or daughter’s life.

“It's not what I asked for

Sometimes life just slips in through a back door

And carves out a person and makes you believe it's all true

And now I've got you

And you're not what I asked for

If I'm honest, I know I would give it all back

For a chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two”

Spencer could hardly believe what he was hearing. If he had an inkling that she might be pregnant before, this all but confirmed his mind that she was, but she’d have given anything to not be, which broke his heart a little. He took another sip of club soda (designated driver), and kept watching Y/N as she sang her heart out:

“For that girl that I knew

Who’d be reckless, just enough

Who gets hurt, but who learns how to toughen up

When she's bruised and gets used by a man who can't love

And then she'll get stuck

And be scared of the life that's inside her

Growing stronger each day 'til it finally reminds her

To fight just a little, to bring back the fire in her eyes

That's been gone, but used to be mine

Used to be mine”

JJ let out a tiny gasp at the “man who can’t love” line, and she whispered, “I knew she was covering bruises up. Why didn’t she tell us?”, but nobody had an answer for her. As Y/N sang the last part, all of her emotions came crashing down on her, and she barely made it through without bursting into tears:

“She is messy, but she’s kind

She is lonely most of the time

She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie

She is gone, but she used to be mine”

Y/N was met with a standing ovation, and when she stood up to take a bow, her blood went cold when she saw the team sitting at their booth with heartbroken looks on their faces. She pretended she didn’t notice, then went to sit down with Y/S/N again, doing her best to avoid making eye contact with any of them, especially Spencer.

Y/S/N noticed the team staring at them, and she said, “Hey, Y/N/N. I think your friends from work want to talk to you,” which made Y/N let out a tiny groan before saying, “Fine,” and getting up to go over to the team’s booth. She put on a fake smile and said, “Hey, guys! I didn’t expect to see you here! How’s your night been?”, but she could tell her attempt at dodging the bullet didn’t work because Penelope was still about three seconds away from crying.

Y/N let out a sigh, then said, “Okay, fine. I can explain everything. I broke up with my awful boyfriend, apparently I’m pregnant with his kid, yes I’m keeping it, and no I am not allowing him to be a part of this baby’s life because he was horrible to me and that wouldn’t change if he had a child,” leaving the entire team speechless.

Emily said, “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have done something to help you!”, so Y/N burst out, “Because I was embarrassed, Em! I was embarrassed that I let it get that far, and I didn’t want anybody to know. The only person I told about any of this is my sister because I’m living with her right now until I can find my own place, because I used to live with my ex,” making a single tear fall down Penelope’s cheek, and Spencer look at her with an emotion in his eyes Y/N had never seen before.

Everyone else shot her looks of both sadness and encouragement, so she nodded before going back over to her sister and saying, “Can we go home now? I think I’m all partied out,” so Y/S/N said, “Yeah, sure! I’ll pay our bill, you can go wait in the car,” making her nod and grab her coat before walking out the door, doing her best to avoid eye contact.

A few hours later, Y/N was hanging out on the couch at the apartment catching up on paperwork after her sister had gone in for a shift at the hospital when her phone started ringing. She picked it up to see that it was Spencer, which confused her because he’s more of a text kind of guy. She answered and said, “Hey, Spence. What’s up?”, so he said, “Hey, Y/N/N. Can I come over?”, which made her say, “Yeah, sure! I’ll text you my sister’s address and apartment number, and I’ll stay close to the door to buzz you in,” before they bid their goodbyes and hung up.

About fifteen minutes later, the buzzer went off, so Y/N got up and pressed the button before saying, “Spencer?”, earning his reply of, “Yeah, it’s me,” so she said, “Come on up. The door’s unlocked,” before letting him into the building. Spencer came in the door, and before Y/N could even say anything, he snatched her into a tight hug and buried his face in her shoulder. Y/N didn’t really know how to react at first, but she accepted the hug and nestled her face into Spencer’s neck.

Spencer said, “I’m so sorry we weren’t there for you,” so Y/N released her grip on him and said, “No, I’m sorry I didn’t let you guys be there for me. I let my pride get in the way, and I definitely paid the price. I promise I won’t hide things from you guys anymore. It helps no one if I’m not honest with you,” which made Spencer smile at her.

Y/N said, “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”, so Spencer said, “Yeah, coffee sounds great,” making Y/N smile before saying, “You take your cream and sugar with a little coffee, right?”, and she heard him let out a slight chuckle as she went into the kitchen. She put on a pot of boiling water, then grabbed out everything she needed to make Spencer a cup of coffee as well as her favorite green tea, because she knew that she’d receive a lecture about drinking coffee while pregnant from her favorite boy genius and she didn’t want to deal.

Y/N got two mugs out of her cupboard, and after she fixed everything up, she brought the mugs into the living room where Spencer was sitting on the couch. They sat and talked about life for a while until Spencer finally said, “So... when did you find out?”, so Y/N said, “When we stopped at that gas station for a pitstop in Madison. I bought three tests, then took them in the bathroom. All three of them were positive, and while it shouldn’t have shocked me, it did,” making Spencer nod in understanding.

He was silent for a little bit, then he said, “Are you sure you’re gonna keep the baby?”, so Y/N took a long sip of tea before saying, “Yes. At the end of the day, this baby is still 50% me, and I want to give them the best life I can when he or she arrives. It may be the byproduct of one of the worst periods of time in my life, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna take this little blessing in disguise for granted,” and rubbing her tummy.

Spencer smiled and said, “Henry’s gonna be really excited about having a playmate,” making Y/n say, “I don’t doubt it,” before chuckling slightly. There was a comfortable silence for a moment or two, then Spencer cleared his throat before saying, “This is probably the last thing you want to hear after everything you’ve been through, but... I love you. I think I’ve loved you since May 21, 2009,” making Y/N’s eyes widen before she said, “That’s a week after I joined the team.”

Spencer said, “I know. I know, and I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. If I had, you wouldn’t have ended up with... him, and you wouldn’t be pregnant with his kid, and you wouldn’t have had to suffer at his hand for all that time without any of us realizing it, and...,” but Y/N put her hand over his mouth and said, “Spence, I’m gonna need you to shut up and listen to me for a minute, okay?”, making him nod and say, “Okay,” slightly muffled by her hand.

Y/N removed her hand, then said, “Spencer Reid, if you’ve loved me since May 21, 2009, I have to admit that I’ve loved you since May 22, 2009. The only reason I ever said yes to that... douche nozzle is because I didn’t think there was any chance in hell you’d be into me. Now that I know you have feelings for me, the only thing I’d want to change is instead of my ex being this baby’s father, I’d want it to be the scrawny boy genius I was lucky enough to be desk neighbors with,” making Spencer’s eyes well up with tears.

He scooted closer, and brought a hand up to Y/N’s cheek before whispering, “Can I...? Would it be alright if I kissed you?”, so Y/N whispered back, “Yes,” and Spencer leaned in before gently touching his lips to hers in one of the softest kisses she’d ever been given. Y/N’s hands found their way into Spencer’s hair, and she held him closer while scooting into his lap, making him smile against her lips and wrap his other arm around her waist.

When Y/N pulled her lips away, she rested her forehead against his and said, “When this baby arrives... If I asked you to be their father figure, would you do it?”, so Spencer’s eyes welled up again before he said, “You can ask me right now,” making Y/N smile. She said, “Will you be this child’s father figure?”, and Spencer said, “Absolutely,” before kissing her forehead and pulling her closer to him.

When Y/S/N got home, she stopped in the living room and had to pull out her phone, because Y/N and Spencer were fast asleep on the couch. Y/N was sprawled over Spencer’s chest and her face was nestled in the crook of his neck, and Spencer’s arms were draped loosely over her back to keep her close. Y/S/N took a picture of the adorable scene, then grabbed a blanket from the wicker basket they kept by the couch to drape it over their sleeping forms. As she walked to her room, she whispered, “Sweet dreams, Lovebirds,” a smile on her face as she did.

———————————————————————

Tag List: @agenthotchner​, @hurricanejjareau​, @xgoldentigerlilyx​, @therestisconfettis​, @less-intelligent-spencerreid​, @aryaarathornson​, @thomasgibsonfan01​

Let me know in the comments if you want to be added

[ayellowcurtain]

Like trouble water running cold

chapter 5

“Are you sure you're going?” Ismail asks because he could see earlier how hard it was for Constantin to make some movements while putting on his clothes, his face still very purple in some areas,, the outline of the bruises getting a hint of green or yellow, looking worse before it gets better.

“Yes.” He fixes the collar of his white shirt, leaving the first few buttons open so anyone can see his bony chest, “You want to get rid of me?” He lifts his eyebrows, and Ismail rolls his eyes, pushing the end of his cigar against the street light pole so he can follow Constantin inside the Uber they asked to go to the party.

“No…”

“Yeah…” Constantin answers as an afterthought, opening the window on his side of the backseat, leaving as much room between them as possible, seeming a little agitated but Ismail doesn’t ask what’s going on. Deep inside he can tell things are changing between them, at least for him and the thought that it might not be what Constantin wants makes him a little disappointed, his ego hurt because Constantin probably just wants to keep things between them very casual. Ismail always thought he was the one to break someone’s heart, not the one to have his heart broken.

They just had a couple of intense weeks,  amazing sex for the past few days, and all of a sudden, Constantin is cold like a brick of ice and Ismail hates it, hates Constantin.

The ride to the party is in complete silence, both of them looking out their windows until the car stops and Constantin jumps out of the car, barely waiting for Ismail for them to get inside.

It’s probably just Ismail’s horrible mood getting the best of him but the house feels way too crowded, you can barely move inside, everyone is kind of sweaty already, too drunk and too loud, never moving out of his way. Ismail tries to breath as little air as possible while searching for their group in the crowd.

Ismail really didn’t want to go, and he should have stayed home, not chainging his mind because Constantin was so ready to party all night long. They’re in opposite sides with their moods tonight so it’s for the best if they keep their distance. They’re always together but sometimes like tonight they would just bicker for any and everything.

Constantin is so pumped he keeps looking around, seeing what he can do next, his head quietly moving to the beat of the music, drinking his beer slowly. Zoe and Kieu My are dancing around them and it’s not enough space so they move on to the dance floor and Kieu My drags Constantin with her, holding his hand, both of them laughing as they walk through the crowd to the dance floor.

Ismail doesn’t feel like talking so he finds any excuse to go find a beer for himself, standing in a corner, lighting a cigarette while drinking his beer and watching the party, trying not to constantly watch the same person. He puts his beer on the windowsill and fixes his hair, checking his reflection on the glass, pulling his pants up to adjusting his shiny blouse.

He finishes his beer and finds a new one to start, asking a cute boy to open it for him just for the fun of it, moving back to the windowsill he was using as stool. Finn is with them on the dance floor now and it looks like two couples dancing.

It’s ridiculous how you can see from afar how they dance differently, finding a way to tell the other they would rather be doing something else. Ismail can only watch as Constantin stops dancing, walking upstairs, looking back to see Kieu My following him, clearly having one of those conversations with her where they’re having small talk but knowing very well where they’re going, and Constantin is not even thinking about looking around them, look for Ismail and check if he’s feeling like it.

He’s not but it would make things a lot better if it crossed Constantin’s tiny brain to check with him, to change his mind and not go to whatever bedroom he’s going with Kieu My if Ismail told him he isn’t feeling like having sex with them tonight. They just got tested, and Ismail is sure Kieu My is not a problem but it bothers him so much that Constantin doesn’t think about giving them just one night between the two of them where they don’t really have to worry. Kieu My and Ismail are very close so she’ll never be the problem, is the idea of how little Constantin cares about Ismail that gets to him more than it should. Ismail doesn’t stop watching until the two disappear in the hallway upstairs, no lights on until he sees a hint of a yellow light being turned on and disappearing all of a sudden as someone closes the door.

Zoe and Finn come back from the dance floor and go straight to the kitchen, coming back with as many shots as their four hands can carry and Ismail doesn’t care, drinking as many of them as he can take, one after the other, careful not to spill any on his friends that are carry so many small glasses.

“Well, that was useless,” Finn complains and Ismail walks past them, saying more to himself that he’ll get some more for them. It’s the best part of going to these rich people’s parties: it’s an endless amount of alcohol. Ismail grabs some with his hands and holds the extra ones pressed between his forearms and chest. Before he can occupy both his hands, he drinks another one, leaving the empty glass on the long island in the middle of the kitchen.

His stomach is empty, and hungry even, so he rushes back to the main area, hoping to quickly find Zoe and Finn again and get rid of all these glasses before he can break some when the alcohol quickly finds its way to his brain. He usually drinks slowly, like he doesn’t care about it so it’s not often that he gets badly drunk, and that’s all he wants right now.

To puke, be carried, talk loudly without meaning to like everyone else always does. He tries to honestly smile at Finn when he finds them, and he helps Ismail put all their drinks down on top of the expensive glass sideboard behind the little corner of the living room they managed to conquer for right now. They raise their glasses and make a toast every time they’re about to take another shot, turning it upside down in one go, feeling the bitterness and the burning feeling slipping from their necks to the very middle of their chests. It’s the last thing Ismail clearly remembers.

He doesn’t remember how but he’s sitting on a couch suddenly, a slippy one, that in contact with his tailoring black pants makes him constantly slip to the edge. A hard hand tap his shoulder and he looks up, feeling slightly better with that tiny motion, seeing a blurry Finn offer him a big cup of something. Ismail doesn’t ask, unable to open his mouth or move his tongue, but he drinks it anyway, even quicker when his brain understands that it’s water. Delicious, freezing cold water.

It doesn’t even hurt but definitely burns his chest, making it hurt a little bit less and different than the tequila and the heartbreak did earlier. Ismail sits up, putting his chest forward, regretting almost instantly when he feels the bitter taste of the alcohol quickly wanting to come back out.

“I’m gonna go.” He’s almost sure he says it out loud, pushing himself up, feeling his legs a little wobbly. He doesn’t walk alone, though, he feels hands holding his arms tightly, squeezing his skin until he’s out the house, the loud music still pulsing inside his ears.

Zoe is by his side when Finn rushes to the sidewalk and Ismail can hear in the very back of his mind Zoe complaining about something, and Finn waving at a specific black car that was slowly passing by them. He rushes back to them, and before he notices it, Ismail is inside a stranger’s car, and the car is moving, the driver doesn’t even acknowledge him and Ismail wonders if he’s worried Ismail might puke on his very clean and smelling nice car.

He opens the door when the car finally stops, and thinks it’s best for him to crawl out of it, carefully closing the door with his feet. The driver looks out the pasenger window, asking something that Ismail is almost sure is if he’s okay so he shows the guy his thumb up and he drives off a moment later.

It’s not a long walk to the door so Ismail tries to stand up very carefully, using his hands first to stand on his feet, taking his time with each step until he finds the door to lean against. Thankfully, it’s not locked so he pushes himself inside.

It’s so very late, but Constantin’s parents are the heaviest sleepers Ismail has ever seen and they sleep upstairs so he doesn’t care about making noise, taking his boots off, leaving most of his clothes on the way to the bedroom he’s so used to finding in the dark. But dark and drunk is a lot harder. Somehow, he finds it, or something that’s comfortable and big enough for him to lie on.

He just needs a moment, possibly a quick nap for the world to stop spinning around him so he can put himself up again to take a ice cold shower and eat something, bring a water bottle back to the bedroom so he can actually pass out for the night.

The shower helps, but it was not as cold as Ismail was expecting, just cold enough for his brain to go back to thinking about Constantin fucking someone else as he’s drying himself with this soft towel when he’s done, all alone, in the dark still, with the whole house asleep.

He looks over his shoulder to double check, thankful that he managed to clean all his puke on the shower floor so he doesn’t have to redo it in the morning.

He doesn’t have the energy or the strength or the mood to look for pieces of clothes for him to sleep so he just grabs the top underwear he finds on top of Constantin’s dresser, right next to the door. His mom probably did their laundry and left their clothes there for them to put away properly.

The door almost hits him when someone opens it. Constantin looks as surprised as he is to find someone else. He gets inside, already carrying a big bottle of water, and closes the door behind him.

His hair is all messy which doesn’t happen often because of how thin and straight it is, it just happens on very specific occasions, Ismail thinks. His shirt is out of his stupid cargo pants, and his lips puffier than usual, a little bit chapped from probably kissing too much.

“Are you okay?” He asks like he’s actually worried and Ismail wishes he could puke on command just to stain these stupid white pants that Constantin loves so much.

He doesn’t answer, just adjusts the underwear on his waist, it’s clearly not his underwear or it wouldn’t be dancing on his hipbones like they are but he doesn’t feel like changing again, especially not now that Constantin is home, watching his every move, and so he walks slowly back to the bed, crawling to his side closer to the wall, rolling himself with the blanket so they won’t have to share one tonight.

“Ismail.” Constantin says like he’s talking to his son and Ismail turns to face the wall, feeling his head starting to hurt, not sure if his struggle not to cry is making it worse. He’s tired but not at all sleepy. He can’t believe this is how his night went, how sad it is that he turned into this stupid person that cares so much about who someone else is fucking that he needs to get himself shitfaced to get over his own feelings.

The person that just generally cares so much about someone else. Constantin clearly doesn’t feel the same.

He is moving around the room, taking his clothes off slowly like he’s giving Ismail the extra time to start talking, leaving his clothes all on the floor with a heavy sound, taking a shower after, leaving the bathroom door open, the soft sound of water hitting tile almost lulling Ismail to a light sleep.

He wakes up when Constantin walks past the bed to go put some clothes on, a cold breeze blowing Ismail’s hair as he walks with his gigantically long legs.

“I thought we were coming back together…” Constantin says all of a sudden like Ismail was supposed to stay awake until he joins him in bed. Like that was something they discussed before going ot that stupid party, like Constantin wasn’t giving Ismail the cold shoulder for no reason the whole day.

“I thought you only fucked Kieu My when I was with you two.” Ismail manages to say and not puke, making himself proud for half a second.

He can hear how Constantin stops digging for some clothes inside his drawers and Ismail tries to stay still under his cover, acting like he doesn’t care. Constantin sighs, closing the drawer.

“You’re fucking overthinking things like you always do and making a huge scene so everyone can feel bad about you.”

Ismail pushes all his weight down so he can change his position without making too much effort, almost lying on his belly if it wasn’t for the wall being so close to him.

“Why do you care so fucking much all of a sudden, Ismail? For fuck’s sake, you didn’t use to be this sensitive.” Constantin complains and it blows Ismail’s drunk brain that he really doesn’t see where the problem is. He sits up on the bed and stops breathing for a second, swallowing back down the disgusting aftertaste of beer and tequila and cigarettes. His brain is pounding against his skull and Ismail keeps his eyes closed to see if it helps.

“I talked to Zoe, they have a spare bedroom in their flat, I’ll move out as soon as possible.”

“What?” Constantin finally sits down like his legs suddenly gave up on him with Ismail’s notification, “What?”

He watches as Ismail grabs the bottle of water, drinking as much as he can at once to push down the horrible taste, suddenly aware of how thirsty he was, “Ismail!”

He puts the plastic bottle back down, closing it.

“I don’t want to stay here, it’s not your problem.”

“Is, come on…” Constantin pushes himself to the middle of the bed, closer to Ismail, hoping he’ll meet his eyes but he doesn’t because his head hurts so much, “Please.”

“I can’t stay. I overstayed already, I know that, and I’m sorry. I’ll talk to your parents tomorrow and apologize for all the trouble.”

“Ismail, stop it! You’re not leaving. You’re not going to move in with Zoe! You two would kill each other in no time.”

They stay in silence and Ismail is glad Constantin can’t tell he’s lying. Not about the moving out because he really needs to. Living together is not working, not for Ismail, at least. He thought it would be paradise but it isn’t.

“I’m the only one that can put up with your drama and mess.” Constantin tries to make a joke but it lands flat and he sighs, putting his hand closer to Ismail’s on the mattress, their index fingers almost touching. “I can’t let you go, there’s no way.”

He says like he means it and maybe he does, but not the way Ismail wishes he did. Maybe Constantin is just scared of losing how easy and comfortable they are but Ismail is sure he can find that in someone else, where there aren’t that many feelings and past history envolved.

“I like you, Constantin. Like stupid people like each other and we always make fun of them. I like you, and you don’t like me and so this won’t work for me, sorry. I’m leaving.”

Ismail looks at him when he says it, and he sees the words fitting like puzzle pieces inside Constantin’s head. At least he knows now.

[signs-of-the-moon]

Moon Rise: Chapter 52

"Swiftcloud!" The voice called again, sounding like an echo in her ears. Swiftcloud hardly reacted, remaining as stiff as an icicle. Was it her mind? Was it a Starclan warrior yowling at her to stop?

"Swiftcloud!" The third time the voice sounded, Swiftcloud broke from her rage. The world, once blurry and distant, came rushing back into her vision in vibrant color. Blinking, the patched she-cat turned her head. She took notice of her clanmates surrounding her now, wide eyed and bristling. Whitestar stood closest of all, a paw raised to her chest in shock. Instantly Swiftcloud's blood ran cold, fear tightening her chest. It had been the leader's voice which had been calling her name. The situation must look bad. Swiftcloud was standing on top of Grassclan's eldest medicine cat, ready to strike her without mercy. Without proper context it must look like she was trying to kill Snowfrost in cold blood. Like she was the clan's murderer all along. When the opposite was true. Oh how Swiftcloud knew it was true. I'm in trouble...

What would happen now, Swiftcloud wondered. Harming a medicine cat was an incredibly serious offense. Surely Grassclan would not want to keep her among their ranks. They'd never believe that she only attacked Snowfrost to avenge their fallen deputy; after all, what proof did she have? I'm probably about to be exiled; stripped of my warriorship and sent running back to Twolegplace. Or worse...I'll be executed!

"I can't believe you've done this..." Whitestar hissed, voice barely above a whisper. Her pale blue eyes shone with fury, a layer of grief masked behind her expression. Swiftcloud shrank in place, but did not dare to step off of Snowfrost. "It took so long for the clan to trust you. Yet you've betrayed us, after everything we've done for you."

Swiftcloud gulped, wanting to disappear. She tried her best to keep her trembling at bay but she knew the clan could probably tell how scared she was by scent alone. This is it...

"I knew we shouldn't have accepted you. And I knew...I knew I should have trusted Swiftcloud more."

Huh?!

"Guards, seize Snowfrost."

Rabbitstorm and Beetlepatch came marching forward at once, expressions stone cold and serious.

"Step aside," Rabbitstorm commanded his friend softly. Swiftcloud remained still, unsure if she could even move at all. Slowly she tested her limbs, making each take a couple of pawsteps back until she realized that she had moved completely off of Snowfrost. Rabbitstorm seized the medicine cat by the scruff while Beetlepatch gripped her carefully on the other side.

"Bring Snowfrost back to camp so we may hold a trial to decide her fate. Sheeptail and Tigerfang, carry Chicorynose home with us. Cricketsong, Quailbelly, Swiftcloud, please join me at the head of the patrol."

At once, cats moved into formation, standing behind Whitestar as she waited for her sisters and Swiftcloud to stand beside her.

"Let go of me you rabbit-brains!" Snowfrost demanded with a snarl, trying to wiggle out of the guards' grasp. Rabbitstorm and Beetlepatch gripped harder, tugging her in the direction of home. After another heartbeat of hesitation, Swiftcloud scurried over to Whitestar, still on edge. Whitestar glanced at her with a sad smile as they stood side by side, waving her tail and marching forward. The clan followed, soft chatter rippling through the patrol. On the opposite side of their leader, Swiftcloud could hear the heartbroken sobs of Cricketsong and Quailbelly, who pressed into one another as they traveled. Whitestar leaned into Cricketsong for support, and Swiftcloud found herself pressing her flank in the siamese molly's other side.

"Whitestar..?" Swiftcloud piped quietly. Whitestar glanced at her, humming in response. "You..believe I wasn't attacking Snowfrost maliciously?"

"Yes. For the most part, the clan and I saw what happened."

"H-how?"

"We heard you yowl and came over to see what had happened. Cricketsong was the first to notice the blood covering Snowfrost. And I knew you would never attack a cat without purpose."

Swiftcloud gave a small nod, turning her sights forward. The tremble had not left her body but relief came with Whitestar's words.

"I'm sorry that I did not believe you before. I did not want to mistrust a medicine cat. And I did not want to make an accusation without proper evidence."

"It's ok, Whitestar. I'm just grateful that you finally understand."

"As am I. Though I wish I had, before things had escalated to this point. All the destruction Snowfrost has caused...I wonder what other horrible things she's done over the moons."

The remainder of the clan who'd been left in the camp-the kits, Tabitha and Ashwhisker- were awaiting the patrol as they entered the clearing. They seemed eager to find out what the outcome of the battle had been. But when they caught a glimpse of the three distraught sisters, their expressions turned with worry.

"Have we lost?" Ashwhisker asked, voice flat and defeated. Swiftcloud straightened up to speak.

"No. Grassclan won the war, and we've marked the new border along the Thunder Path."

"But..?" Ashwhisker already knew there had to be more news.

"....We lost Chicorynose."

Ashwhisker's eyes widened, ears lowering. "To whom?"

Just as the question passed his lips, Rabbitstorm entered the camp, dragging Snowfrost along with him. Swiftcloud nodded towards the guilty she-cat, eyes darkening at the sight of her. Ashwhisker let out a growl, the fur along his spine rising.

"I knew we could never trust that fox-heart."

Swiftcloud was surprised by the Den Mother's words. Why did he feel that way? What part of Snowfrost's past had led so many in the clan to dislike her? Swiftcloud was tempted to ask, but held back her tongue. Perhaps she'd find out during the trial. If not, she'd be free to ask afterwards.

Swiftcloud brought herself over to the gathering crowd by Tall Stone. She sat herself near the center of her clan, settling into Shadowfang's side. Shadowfang gave her a loud reassuring purr, licking some of the blood off of the top of her muzzle while they waited for Whitestar to arrive.

Whitestar scaled slowly to the top of Tall Stone, her movements sluggish from fatigue and grief. A heavy weight set itself upon her shoulders. Though the clan gained it's full claim on the Forest Patch, they had lost something greater than territory.

"Today, Grassclan has achieved it's greatest accomplishment in years. After many hard battles, and a long bloody war, our clan has won the right to the Forest Patch up to the Thunder Path! This means a bright future for generations of our clan to come. But today is not all victorious. For this evening we have lost a very important and beloved member of our clan."

As Whitestar spoke these words, Goldensong and Mistyleaf brought Chicorynose out from the medicine den. Her body had been decorated with mint leaves to mask her death scent, her fur neatly groomed and fixed of any visible battle wounds.

"Chicorynose fought bravely in today's battle. And though I'd like to announce she died with the honor of a warrior, I'm saddened and sickened to say she has been taken from us for unjust means. Chicorynose has been slain in cold blood, and I shall see to it that her murderer faces justice. However, my focus cannot remain on that for this moment."

Whitestar stepped forward onto the edge of the Tall Stone, her eyes scanning the crowd as she continued with her speech. "As moon high approaches, it is time that I choose a new deputy. Chicorynose served us well for many seasons; from the moment I earned my nine lives. I have never thought of ruling without her by my side.... But I know that the cat who I shall choose will lead with me just as faithfully, and will make a fine leader of this clan in the future."

Cats among the crowd murmured to each other softly, everyone wondering who Whitestar may choose as her heir.

"I say these words before the body of Chicorynose, so that her spirit may hear and approve my choice..."

The clan drew just a bit closer to the leader, waiting with baited breath as she thought for a heartbeat more about her decision.

"Swiftcloud. Will you accept the position of deputy?"

Me..? Swiftcloud's fur bristled at the sound of her name, her skin lighting ablaze with heat. She had been the one chosen as the clan's next deputy? She was shocked to say the least. Nervous, excited, apprehensive, bewildered. But honored, surely and purely. Swiftcloud was more than happy to serve Grassclan as it's second in command, leading them and protecting them with every breath in her body. But was she really the right choice? Surely there were many cats who were more worthy of the position. Swiftcloud could name several off the top of her head. What made her so special that she could even compare to anyone else?

Swiftcloud stared up at Whitestar with wide eyes, unable to find the words she needed to give a proper answer to the leader's proposal.

As she looked on, the moon reached it's peak in the sky, casting it's light straight upon Tall Stone. The moon made Whitestar's creamy siamese fur glow with divinity, her essence seeming to radiate the energy Starclan had granted her for the ceremony.

For a heartbeat, in the moonlight, Swiftcloud could make out the shimmering transparent shape of a cat standing beside Whitestar on her perch. The spirit wrapped its tail around the front of the leader, hugging her to it's body as it's starry green eyes locked themselves upon Swiftcloud. Swiftcloud would recognize that figure anywhere. Chicorynose! Had she come back as a sign of her approval?

Swiftcloud blinked. No sooner she had taken notice of the fallen warrior, she was gone, leaving Swiftcloud alone with the decision she had made.

"Yes, Whitestar," she finally spoke as the crowd parted to let her step forward. Swiftcloud dipped her head respectfully then raised it once again as she settled in front of clanmates. She could feel the moonlight cast upon form, placing her right into the spotlight. In this moment she felt all of her anxiety leave her body. Starclan's will granted her courage. "I humbly accept this offer. It will be an honor to serve as Grassclan's deputy."

"Swiftcloud!" Shadowfang caterwauled with brightest smile on his face.

"Swiftcloud! Swiftcloud! Swiftcloud!" The clan began to cheer along. Swiftcloud's pelt grew warmer with every chant and cheer Grassclan raised in her honor, the purr in her chest unlike any that had come from her before. But her moment of joy was cut short as Snowfrost's furious caterwauls split through the camp. Rabbitstorm and Beetlepatch looked as though they were struggling to contain her.

Whitestar glared over into the prisoner's direction, her fur standing on end. Saying she looked displeased at the interruption would be an understatement.

"I suppose now we should move onto our next order of business." Whitestar sounded bitter, her voice dripping with venom. Snowfrost was dragged to the front of the crowd, making cats step aside to allow the guilty medicine cat some space.

Dewstone padded over afterwards, settling herself in front of Grassclan's prisoner. Her expression was dark, riddled with the betrayal she must feel in the face of her kin.

"Snowfrost. Tonight, you are on trial for crimes against the Land's Star." Whitestar began. She sounded as if she'd gone through this process before, the words passing her lips with a trained ease. "Dewstone, address the charges of which she is being held accountable for."

Dewstone lifted her muzzle. "The cat you see before you has committed a crime that is not only against both the Warrior Code and Medicine Cat's Code, but against what should be one's moral code. She has acted upon selfish whims, and has murdered a cat in cold blood. And not just any cat; but Grassclan's deputy."

"Do you have any explanations for what you have done?" Whitestar asked Snowfrost. "Do you have a justified reason for killing Chicorynose?"

"No, Whitestar," Snowfrost muttered coldly through gritted teeth. "I do not."

Whitestar nodded to Dewstone. Her tail lashed, as if she were trying to get out some of her anguish with this movement alone. "Please, continue."

Dewstone nodded back before returning her attention to the crowd. "Furthermore, evidence has been brought forward that perhaps, this may not have been Snowfrost's first offense. Thanks to one of our brave warriors, and confirmation from our medicine cat, Goldensong; we now have suspicion that Snowfrost may have poisoned several of our recently deceased. Waspwing, Butterflytail, Ambereye, and Dovekit. As well as the attempted murder of our new deputy, Swiftcloud, just a quarter moon ago."

Swiftcloud's eyes grew wide with shock. So Whitestar had taken her accusations seriously? Swiftcloud wasn't previously aware that the leader had discussed her theory with Dewstone. She honestly hadn't thought Whitestar believed her at all, by the way she had been acting. Or perhaps she made it look that way. Maybe Whitestar was suspicious too, and that's why she'd shared the information with the Code Keeper. Regardless, Swiftcloud was glad to see that Snowfrost would be rightfully punished if it came to light that she really had been poisoning cats.

"Snowfrost, do you have anything to say in defense of yourself? If these accusations of are false, then this is the time to speak up," Whitestar prompted. She looked down at the medicine cat, the smallest twinkle of hope gleaming in her blue eyes. Perhaps Grassclan's leader still held the slightest bit of faith in Snowfrost. Whether it was foolish to or not. Swiftcloud couldn't blame Whitestar for that. Medicine cats were the highest authority in a clan, with their special connection to their ancestors. A leader was meant to hold a strong bond with their healers for that very reason.

"Unfortunately, I've no way to prove my innocence. Nor do I want to. I have no shame in what I have done," Snowfrost responded, voice eerily calm.

Gasps flitted around the clearing. Angry clanmates whispered among themselves while some tucked their bodies into kin for support. The clan was collectively in shock. How could Snowfrost remain so poised, despite basically confessing to a multitude of murders?

Whitestar shut her eyes, turning her head away in shame. If one looked hard enough, they may be able to catch the slightest glints of tears at the corners of the leader's eyes. Whitestar took a deep breath to regain her composure. She placed her focus back onto Dewstone before speaking once again.

"All the evidence has been laid upon us. Now it is time to cast judgement. Dewstone, what is your conclusion?"

Dewstone stood tall, posture straight and head raised as she announced her verdict. "On the multiple charges of murder, this Code Keeper finds the accused to be guilty. Snowfrost's crime is an unacceptable offense. She deserves the harshest of punishments, such as name stripping, exile, or even execution." Dewstone looked up at Whitestar. "She has broken our Codes before, it would be what is best for the clan."

"Very well." Whitestar stepped onto the edge of the Tall Stone. "This cat has disgraced our clan by breaking the Codes of the Land's Star, using the name of a medicine cat to get away with these crime. Starclan has spoken their disapproval and have granted me the power to take this rank away, just as easily as it had been given to you before. Snowfrost, you are no longer to be known by this name, but simply as Snow. You have forsaken us, and no longer deserve to be a medicine cat of Grassclan. I say these words before the spirits of our ancestors, so that they may hear and approve of my decision." Whitestar yowled, "I hereby sentence the cat you see before us into exile!"

[jbbuckybarnes]

Zerfall - 1/14

Pairing: Bucky x named!Reader (Agent Andromeda) Summary: After Hydra drops virus bombs in 7 major American cities in the height of summer, the team is locked in their emergency bunker for weeks. The virus commonly called the Summer Poison successfully brought the infrastructure to a halt in all big cities. When the virus slowly starts burning itself out SHIELD Agents and Avengers are sent out to bring back order into the cities and the international relationships. Not without hurdles. Warnings for this chapter: Pandemic, mainy people in a small space, fear

Zerfall Masterlist || M a s t e r l i s t

The alarm sirens were blaring in the entire compound, a computer voice repeating the words, “Emergency Level Red, Code Black.” Level Red meant to get into a safe space fast, Code Black meant, “You should probably call your mum and tell her you love her a lot.” The entire team including you and your colleague Agent Magnolia instantly went into action, all silently hoping it was a test. “Friday? What the hell is going on?” Tony yelled out. “Sir, if there was a code double black, I would call it. Get in the bunker!” She urged him through the overwhelming amount of sounds the building was suddenly able to create. The blood drained out of multiple faces, not yours, you were trained for any kind of emergency situation. Not only an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D but also a SAID Agent. Trained for any thinkable Code Black. Agent Andromeda. The door to the bunker was open and after Friday confirmed that everyone had gone through the door Steve closed down the door manually in a blink of an eye. You all looked around, panting from running down the stairs and searching for the bunker entry that opened up. The place was small but big enough to live in for a while if that needed to be done. The room you’d entered was full of tech equipment and two walls full of canned foods and tap with a big filter construction connected to it. Stark never struck you as a survival kinda guy, at least not in this specific sense, but you weren’t complaining about clean water. There was an open door leading to a room full of bunk beds.

“So what the fuck happened, Friday?” Tony asked irritated by the adrenaline coursing through his veins. “There has been a series of explosions over heavily populated areas a few hours back, only detected by little equipment monitoring the air. Bioweapons. Hydra says they are responsible and that there is a highly contagious and deadly virus that was spread with these explosions.” Friday said it short and straight forward. “Then why aren’t we doing something against it?” Steve looked up at the speaker system with a frown on his face, ready to go back out again. “Mr. Rogers, until we know if that virus is deadly nobody will leave this bunker. I’m programmed to keep as much of this team alive in situations like this. Singapore DORSCON level red. World Health Organisation phase 6, approaching 7. That means it is a pandemic. If I let you out you could die in less than a week if this is as deadly as Hydra says.” The AI urged him. “Please update us.” Tony exhaled stressed leaning on the chair behind him, before sitting down. “Will do, sir,” Friday assured him.

Everyone started adventuring the Bunker. The last big exercise was a while ago and the team had grown since then. Clint found the room with 4 power generators first. “I hope we don’t need this. We are still powered by your reactor model, right?” Clint peaked out at Tony and got a nod back. The billionaire was properly done with what was happening. The only thing keeping him from exploding was Pepper going through his hair. Sam was the one finding all the gaming equipment and making an excited little dance in the middle of a possible apocalypse. “You’re the worst, Wilson.” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Come on, if we live in a time of bioweapons I want to at least have some distraction. Can’t fight a virus with military training.” He grinned. Agent Magnolia was the one finding the arsenal of weapons hidden in a giant box below the bunk that was behind the door. She showed you the knife ensemble that was included and grinned at you. “Visible forces definitely won’t kill us down here.” You grinned back.

“How many are we?” Clint called out to the others. Pepper looked up concerned, “Twelve, why?” “There are only 10 beds.” came back and some of the team members interchanged worried glances for a second. “We have married couple and work couples here. I think that won’t be the problem.” you smiled and looked around you at Pepper, Tony, Steve, and Nat. “So Pepper & Tony share a bed. Who else?” Sam asked, suddenly very tense again. “Nat?” Steve looked down at his favorite team member. “Yeah, I don’t mind. You’re warm.” she smiled back up at him. “That will be the least of the problems with 12 people in an enclosed space.” Dr. Helen Cho finally came to word after she had calmed down from her personal existential crisis about viruses. Wanda pointed at the walls and the sink, “For how long would the food and water here last?” “Depends if we only eat twice a day. Could hold up for 90 days. Water won’t be a problem with my filter system.” Tony explained. There was another concerned glare between everyone, hoping that 90 days would be enough for the virus to decently die down if it was as bad as expected. “There is confirmation of the virus to be deadly by 70-85% from a Silicon Valley lab.” Friday’s voice broke through after a little more than an hour. “Analyze how deadly, how long people need to die, which symptoms, how long the recovery period is for people living,” Bruce called out, sitting on one of the computers that he didn’t leave since they had entered the bunker. “And the international political climate,” Tony added. “And when it’s safe enough for me to start working on a vaccine with the help of people outside.” Helen also added her factors. “Will do.” The AI voice answered and the room went silent for a second.

“Which cities are targeted?” Agent Magnolia finally asked the important question “NYC, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, LA, Chicago, Denver.” Friday listed. “Atlanta has the most used airport in the world. Great. A perfect recipe for a pandemic. How long did it operate after explosion.” You shared, rubbing your temples and having your brain start to overwhelm just like the scientists’. “4 hours, Agent.” Came back. “We’re in here for a good few weeks.” You deadpanned, putting all the factors together in your head. This wasn’t going to be a quick in and out thing. You’d be in this small space for at least 1-2 months if not longer. Everyone went back to the bunk they had chosen and tried to relax. You were trying to write down possible outcomes and strategies based on that in a notebook you found. There were so many factors to viruses and how people are infected and from which strain the virus is made. You bet on smallpox, a hard thing to get with only two original samples existing in the entire world. One in the US, one in Russia. You bet on Russia since Hydra said they were responsible. They were trying to bring chaos to the world for the bad people to team up in a post-apocalyptic world so that they could take over control. You had learned how this worked over and over again. Not only as an Agent but also from books, movies and games. It was so obvious but that made it easier for you to go about possibilities to create a strategy.

“The entire US and most of the western world is currently on lockdown & people are being quarantined.” Friday updated the bunker again and an exhale went through the bedroom. “Martial law already in place?” Steve looked up from a book he had found. “Not yet, but we’re close.” “Chill, Rogers. You can’t do much more than you’re already doing.” Sam said hanging from the bed in front of him. “I know, it’s just. I hate this, all of it. I didn’t fight in World War II for this to happen at the hands of Hydra.” he frowned and got an understanding nod back. “Can’t we go out there without getting sick?” Bucky spoke up still wearing his pajama jumper from sleeping in that morning. “Well, depending on how deadly this is, no. If the whole thing is a little more clear I might send you out to get samples for me to work on it.” Helen yelled from the other room. “Would love to help with that.” he smiled. He’d do anything to help humanity. The had already ruined his life and he ruined other lives under their influence. That’s the least he could do. “It’s getting late, get yourself ready for bed.” Pepper came in with a motherly smile. “We need a monitor that’s just showing day and night scenes, this is gonna mess us up,” Magnolia muttered before opening one of the closets. The standard-issue clothing in the closets were mainly Large and a few double XL. There was a washer but the drying system needed to have the ventilator system work better again and that wouldn’t be happening until the virus was going slower. Two to three weeks in the same 4 clothing sets seemed okay. Anything longer would be horrible for everyone involved.

“Atlanta spreads to Beijing, Dubai, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, Dallas, Seoul, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Singapore,” you mumbled laying in your bed, looking at the metal above you. “Hey, relax. We can’t do more than help the people working on it to do the right things.” Bucky looked over from the bed across. “I know. I know. That’s just, so many people dying.” You looked over. An understanding nod came back at you. In your head, you went with a 75% death rate and that was bad if you thought about the areas you just mentioned. Big Chinese cities, Central Europe, South East Asia.

Zerfall Masterlist

[thelittleinjenthatcould]

Hi loves! My latest post is up #ontheblog Jen Finds Gems

New Post has been published on https://www.jenfindsgems.com/more-than-migraines/

Opening Up About my Health: More than Migraines

On October 11th the symptoms started. I went for a bike ride on a beautiful Sunday morning (feeling a little nauseous, but ready to power through it). It was pretty hot and I biked farther than usual so when I returned feeling more nauseous than before and a little “out of it”, I figured I was just dehydrated. I remember speaking to my sister and brother in law on the phone about an hour later and suddenly starting to feel a migraine come on. I figured if I just take it easy and drink some water with my usual migraine meds, it would pass quickly.

It didn’t.

On October 13th I visited my primary Doctor for my symptoms. My migraine was still present but I was feeling dizzy and nauseous. I knew something was wrong. I made the mistake of mentioning that I thought I had vertigo, and after doing a few manual tests (follow my finger, touch your nose, walk in a straight line, etc.) the Doctor said that’s what it sounds like so let’s treat it as vertigto. He preseribed me a anti-dizziness medication called Meclizine and told me that in order to recover and help with the dizziness, I should see a physical therapist.

What? A physical therapist? This won’t pass on it’s own? I have to see a physical therapist to help me walk “normal” again? How did this happen? How long am I going to feel this way? I had so many questions! I visited a physical therapist twice before I realized that there was a bigger problem that lied ahead. The therapist listened to my symptoms and concerns and ran a few tests on his own (the epley maneuver) and realized that this didn’t sound like vertigo at all. “I think we are dealing with something bigger here Jen,” he told me.

I kept that with me. Something bigger. Okay… but what? No one could give me answers.

I was a mess and everyday functions seemed difficult or damn near impossible. I couldn’t move too quickly. I couldn’t look around a room without getting pains. It had gotten to the point where just turning my head from one side to the other felt like the room was violently spinning and I was beginning to have double and blurred vision in my right eye. I couldn’t lay flat, sleep on my right side, or sleep in total darkness because that made the dizziness worse. I felt like I was free falling in the dark and of course that made me super nauseous.

Saturday morning I woke up ready to vomit and I almost fell to my feet. Walking was too difficult because I swayed from one side to the other and I had to run and grab a wall to hold. I fell to my knees and crawled to the bathroom, vomiting for hours. When my husband returned home (he went to drop the kids off at family’s house so he could take care of me) I was hugging the toilet, sweating and holding my head with my eyes closed. I didn’t know if I was having a stroke, a seizure, suffering from brain tumor, or an aneurysm. I was terrified.

That day Nick took me to the Emergency room. They drugged me up and ran countless tests from MRI’s, MRA’s, CT scans and heart evaluations. I was picked and prodded by nurses and Doctors and the on site Neurologist told me that my exams came back fine. He said there wasn’t any area of concern that he could find but he wanted me to follow up with ENT for a possible inner ear issue and then follow up with him for brain evaluations as this could have been linked to my migraines. He also prescribed a medication by the name of Topiramate which is an anti-seizure medication that is used to treat migraines.

After coming home from the hospital, covered in EKG tabs.

I have been suffering from migraines for over 20 years and they never presented themselves in this way. What was happening inside my body? Why now and why wasn’t anything showing up on the tests? I was confused and I was scared.

I was released from the hospital the next day, more confused and afraid than ever. I had no idea what was happening and what I was supposed to do from here. So this is it, I thought. This is how I’m going to feel forever.

As the days and weeks went on, I continued to do research, pray and research more. I made an appointment with an ENT Specialist that left me in tears because he said whether this is an inner ear issue or a migraine issue, it could take years to recover. Years? What the hell! I can barely walk without holding on to my husband or a wall, I can’t be in a bright room and too much noise or movement is over stimulation for me. Years?

That night I found two blogs that gave me relief- The Dizzy Cook and Jennifer of Migraine Strong. I read their stories and instantly felt closer to answers. They spoke about their experiences with vestibular migraines, dizziness and other symptoms, their road to recovery and their treatment plans. Every night I went back to their words. I studied their plans and their courses of action. I took notes of what they did and how it helped them. I looked up the books they recommended and the supplements they took and then… I found that Jen went to Dr. Danner in Tampa that specializes in migraines and neurology! He’s here in Tampa?! I HAVE TO SEE HIM!!

My first appointment with Dr. Danner was on November 4th. He listened to my concerns and helped me understand that what I was experiencing could have been an inner ear issue or be a migraine issue however regardless of which one it was, it would be treated in the same way. He encouraged me to follow a migraine elimination diet to help me find what my triggers are, start taking at least 500 mgs of a magnesium supplement everyday, keep taking my prevention medication, and follow up with him in a month.

I followed the elimination diet to a “T”. I fell in love with a book called “Heal Your Headache,” and I went down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of vestibular migraine research.

A few weeks went by my dizziness subsided but I started to notice that the migraine prevention medication that I was on was giving me adverse effects. I had crazy brain fog, to the point where I found it hard to hold conversations or keep a thought for longer than a few seconds. It made me crazy exhausted, depressed, and I lost about 20 lbs. It made my body feel cold (literally) and I felt frail and weak. The day before Thanksgiving I called Dr. Danner and asked if I should keep taking this medication or stop based on these symptoms and a numbness I started to feel in my right leg. After careful consideration, he recommended that I stop but continue the other migraine treatment plan and follow up with him at my next appointment (which was about a week and a half later).

When I had my follow up appointment, he asked me how I felt. By that time, the numbness in my right limbs had started to feel like a heaviness and my leg would sporadically “lock up”. My leg and arm would move (or not move) on their own and it started to worry me. Dr. Danner had his office staff call in an appointment for me with Dr. Sunil Reddy, an awesome Neurologist in Tampa that could take a deeper look to see if there were possibly any other neurological issues going on.

I have been going to my Neurologist and weekly physical therapy appointments since.

Today I experience less migraines and the spasms in my arms and legs are few and far between. These spasms are believed to be linked to Transverse Myelisits which is inflammation of the spinal cord. This was determined from a neck MRI that I had that showed some scarring on my spine. Sometimes Transverse Myelitis can progress to MS however sometimes it is a one time event that can heal on it’s own. After several brain MRI’s, my Neurologist does not see any lesions or scarring on my brain and does not see an area of concern there. My next order is to get an MRI of my spine and we will monitor and make an action plan based on the findings there.

I still have no idea what triggered all of this to occur and if they are linked in any way. Did my migraines progress into something more which caused these other symptoms and issues? Was something lying dormant and now decided to progress as I got older? How does your spinal cord even get inflammed? Is it something I did??

I’m still learning and I think that my greatest lesson is that I won’t always have the answers. But I know I’m not giving up, and all of this taught me that I’m more of a warrior than I realize!

I am writing this because I hope to help someone that may be going through something similar, just as Jen and “The Dizzy Cook” helped me. When all of this started to happen, all I could do was think of how much I wanted to write about my experiences for this reason. I wish that I could have given you a full synopsis of what I was experiencing in live time, but things progressed so quickly that I seldom had time to process them fully, or the energy or brain power to do so.

I’m sure I left out a lot of details. Like me crying every night wondering why this was happening. My husband having to physically hold me up to walk and take a shower because I was too dizzy to stand. The lack of confidence I had making eye contact with people, in fear that they would see my eyes darting from side to side or trying to focus. Wondering if people were whispering or thinking I was drunk when I stumbled to walk at my daughter’s Gymnastics class or my son’s Taekwondo class. Seeing more Doctor’s, nurses, emergency rooms and Specialists in the last 4 months that I have in the past 5 years. The time, money and MEDICAL BILLS I have racked up since this all started.

This journey has been humbling and frustrating, but I’m happy that I am stronger now than when I started.

I hope that this has helped you in some way and I look forward to sharing more of my journey with you here. If you haven’t already, please check out my blog post on my recommendations for dealing with migraines and follow me on IG for more health and wellness tips.

Stay encouraged and stay positive friends.

With love,

Jennifer.

[ohblackdiamond]

little t&a (paul/gene, nc-17) (part 17 of 29)

part 1   part 2   part 3   part 4   part 5   part 6   part 7   part 8   part 9   part 10   part 11   part 12   part 13   part 14   part 15   part 16   part 17   part 18   part 19   part 20   part 21  part 22   part 23   part 24    part 25   part 26   part 27   part 28   part 29

Four weeks before KISS gets back on tour, Gene discovers that Paul’s been cursed by a groupie. For the sake of KISS’ finances, Paul’s comfort levels, and Gene’s libido, this crisis must be resolved. Sexswap fic. In this chapter: Paul makes incredibly poor decisions at CBGB.

            It was faster than Paul had expected, getting noticed. A few stares as he came in to CBGB, enough to spook him. He’d never been able to shake that feeling, that insidious feeling that people only ever stared at him because something was wrong with him, because up until he was twelve or so and started growing his hair out, that had been exactly the truth. Nothing had really changed. Plenty was still wrong with him. He’d just figured out how to cover it up, was all.

            He wondered if they were feeling sorry for him, walking in alone this late at night, not too long before the club closed. Figuring he was some girl who just got dumped. Or maybe they just thought he had a nice set of tits.

            Whatever. He ordered a drink from Carol’s brother, just a rum and coke, and sat down at the very far corner of the bar. The crowds had thinned out extensively, the band starting to pack things up. Paul thought, briefly, that he might have screwed it all up with his timing. That he’d be driving home alone in another, what, hour, half-hour, whenever Hilly finally turned out the lights. Driving back home to Gene, if Gene had even stuck around. A hateful prospect, proving to Gene he couldn’t even get fucked on his own. But then one of the guys that’d been looking his way when he first walked in stepped up to the bar and took a seat next to him, his smile easy and warm.

            “Hey there.”

            “Hey.”

            “You come here often?” Before Paul could do more than wince in response at the tired old line, the guy grinned and continued. “Nah, you don’t come here often. I’d have remembered.”

            “Just a couple times.”

            He was eying Paul’s left hand. Paul held it up wryly, exposing the lack of a wedding ring. Lack of any rings. The ones he’d been wearing last Tuesday evening had slid off by the time he’d woken up the next morning.

            “You’re fine. Keep going.”

            “Keep going, huh?” The guy’s lips tilted up. “That’s not exactly getting my hopes up, honey.”

            Paul took a few sips of his drink, the rum and coke burning somewhere in his throat. It wasn’t working right yet. He didn’t know how to work this. No, rather, he didn’t want to work this. Batting his eyes at Carol’s brother yesterday hadn’t felt degrading, but somehow this did.

            “Sorry. Maybe you’ll get somewhere.”

            The guy just looked amused.

            “Kind of cold, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

            “Paulie.”

            “Polly, that’s sweet. I’m David. What do you do, Polly?”

            “I’m in a band.” Another swallow, this one feeling like lead. David wasn’t bad-looking. Dark, straight hair, about as tall as he’d been. Skinny. Paul didn’t go after men much. There wasn’t a reason to, on-tour, when the women piled into the hotel rooms without any effort on his part. He’d fucked around with Peter some, and let Ace suck him off once or twice—but guys, in general, had been one-night stands in sorry discos. They never meant anything to him but regret in the aftermath.

            “No kidding? What kind of band?”

            “Just a rock band.”

            “A rock band, huh? That’s new. Thought girl groups went out with the Supremes.”

            Paul flinched.

            “We’re not a girl group.” And then, because the guy looked almost apologetic, he added, “We don’t harmonize well enough for that.”

            David laughed, mood restored.

            “What do you play? Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” He was scrutinizing Paul in the dim lights of the bar. Eventually, he grasped Paul’s hand, the one not holding his glass, running his fingers up and down Paul’s knuckles, sliding all the way up the back of his hand before stopping at the wrist. “Pretty long fingers. Keyboard?”

            “No.”

            Past his wrist now, feeling up his arm. His hand was broad, fingers thick. Not like Gene’s, no calluses. Paul shivered involuntarily. One more thing Gene had helped shield him from, feeling weak. Feeling like there was ever a situation he couldn’t walk out of. That was gone now. He’d just have to live with it.

            “You’re not a drummer.” The guy laughed, tapping his fingers along Paul’s forearm. “Bass, maybe?”

            “No.”

            “That narrows it down,” and he smiled. His fingers were trailing again, pressing along his bare skin until they reached his shoulder, then his collarbone, inching across and up—“I guess your instrument’s right—here.”

            David’s fingers barely brushed against Paul’s lips for a second. Then his mouth replaced them, hot and wet, only faintly tasting of alcohol. Paul kissed back almost mechanically. His spine felt like a steel rod, all stiffness, no give anywhere. He raised his arm, just out of muscle memory, apt to reach for the guy’s shoulder, only to stop and pull back. He broke the kiss a second later. The guy just seemed amused.

            “Was I wrong?”

            Paul shook his head and took another few sips of his drink. The rum and coke was more ice than anything else, already nearly gone. He pushed it aside.

            “I play guitar, too. Just rhythm.”

  ��         “Just rhythm.” Still smiling. “Can I buy you another drink, Polly? What would you like?”

            “I don’t—” Highballs were the only type of drinks he liked, and he barely drank them. He thought about Gene, making him stick around the club an extra hour last night, just to sober him up from half a Tom Collins.  Overzealous. He swallowed thickly. “Why don’t you pick something out for me?”

            David nodded and got up, heading to the bar. Paul didn’t watch him order, just looked around, heart thudding a slow, defeated cadence. His palms were wet, and he wiped them off on the skirt of his dress. Locked in now. Locked in already. He felt like it, even if it wasn’t true. That was how it went, right? Buy a girl a drink and go to bed with her. Trade a cocktail for a lay. He’d never really been on the giving or receiving end of that before. He couldn’t force a smile when the guy came back with a Brandy Alexander.

            “Figured you might like chocolate.”

            “Thanks.”

            He stirred it, maybe unnecessarily. The first sip was predictably sweet, and he avoided the guy’s gaze at first, waiting on him to speak again.

            “You’re pretty quiet, aren’t you?”

            “That’s what people tell me.”

            “I thought a singer would talk a little more.” David leaned in. “C’mon, tell me about yourself. I bet you’ve got some stories.”

            Paul forced a weak smile.

            “I don’t, really. I go right back to the hotel after shows. Off-tour I just want to be alone.”

            “But you came here. Looks like you’ve got an itch to scratch.”

            He had to take another swallow of the cocktail before he could summon up an answer. His tongue didn’t want to stammer out anything. He wanted to walk out, not entertain any of this shit, not like this. Talking up a guy in the bar he didn’t give a damn about. And yet for all the hollowness, for all the sick feelings creeping through him, he kept plowing through regardless, relentless in his own sabotage. Like he was scooping out his own insides while complaining about the mess.

            “Yeah? You think you’re the guy for it?”

            “I think you’re the girl for it. But maybe I want to make sure.” David smiled. His hand went for the side of Paul’s face. Paul stiffened up instantly, and the guy shifted his hand when he did, until it rested on the back of his neck. Paul leaned forward then, trying to relax, letting their lips meet again, letting him deepen the kiss. His tongue was deft enough, at least. He wasn’t pushy or handsy. It seemed more like the guy was waiting. For what, Paul didn’t know.

            He pulled back again for a breath and another few sips of his drink. The smooth chocolate flavor on his tongue tasted better than the kisses, but that was to be expected. He didn’t want to get really drunk, just tipsy enough to shut his brain down, enough to stop feeling sick with every response he made, every returned touch. If he couldn’t approach the whole thing clinically, he’d approach it a little stoned.

            “Are you sure now?”

            “Might need a test drive.” He paused. “You’ve got a boyfriend, don’t you?”

            “Never.”

            “You’ve got a girlfriend?”

            “Not lately.” Paul watched the guy’s expression with dull fascination. Watching him assume he knew the whole story just from two words. Some depressed femme trying out the straight scene. Like something out of a porno.

            “Not lately, huh. What happened?”

            God, the guy kept trying to get him to talk, like getting him to talk was the key. Paul’s nerves were only getting worse with every question. He wasn’t much at inventing even when he was in a better state than this. He’d never really had to. Between Bill Aucoin and Gene, that base was covered. The Brandy Alexander was getting downed just as readily as a milkshake. And all the while the guy kept his gaze right on him.

            “She dumped me for another guy, that’s what happened,” Paul rattled out finally. “It was months ago. What do you want, a picture?”

            “Only if she’s as pretty as you. Are you ever gonna loosen up on your own, or d’you need some more help?” The guy dug in his coat pocket, producing a bottle of pills. He unscrewed the cap, tipping a few into his hand before holding his palm out towards Paul. “It’s just ’ludes.”

            He didn’t know why he reached a hand towards David’s. He didn’t know why he picked up two of the pills, staring at them in the dim light like he’d never been around that shit, looking at the manufacturer’s name and the 714 marking just below it, like he really needed confirmation. He had a bottle of them in his medicine cabinet, basically untouched since he’d gotten the prescription from Hilsen a couple years back. Half out of necessity, because the nerve pills he’d been taking at the time were wrecking his libido. Half out of curiosity, because everyone was taking Quaaludes, because they were passed out like party favors after shows and in nightclubs.

            But he didn’t like how he felt on ’ludes. It wasn’t like the amphetamines he dabbled with on tour, where they’d make him feel great enough to bust through the setlist and sleep with at least two or three girls after without a rest in between. It wasn’t like marijuana, where he’d just feel too free and start rambling about whatever shit was on his mind to whoever listened. Quaaludes… Quaaludes worked too well, that was the problem. Shut his anxiety down like a steel trap snapping its jaws around a bear’s leg. He hadn’t been able to get high on them like most people. He just didn’t give a damn about anything on ’ludes, and instead of that being a relief, instead of it being a solution to all the problems he’d had since he was fifteen, it had terrified him to the point he’d left them alone.

            He didn’t like how he felt on ’ludes, but he didn’t like how he felt now any better. Dragging himself through, making all the motions towards losing it to this guy without really wanting to at all. Drinking wasn’t changing his mood fast enough, but the pills would. Yeah. Yeah. He knew some people didn’t even remember what they’d done while they ’luded out. Some people, enough people, turned into sex fiends while they were on that shit. If he woke up tomorrow back to himself, blanking out the whole deal, every bit of it, then… then fine. Maybe it was even what Carol had expected out of him.

            The pills were swallowed down, chased with the last gulp of that Brandy Alexander. Locking himself in, that was what he was doing. Forcing his own choice. The guy looked a little surprised, and then he took a ’lude himself, without a swig of anything to help it go down.

            “You’re an odd one, aren’t you? That’s cool. I don’t—”

            Paul reached over, cupping a hand around David’s chin, lifting it up as he leaned in, crushing their lips together hard, almost shoving his tongue into David’s mouth.

--

            David had him up against the wall twenty minutes later. He had tried, haltingly, to get Paul to wrap both legs around him so he could fuck him right there, or attempt to, right up against a bunch of grimy open brickwork and tattered posters. Paul shook his head.

            “I don’t want to do it here.”

            “Are you that shy?”

            He wouldn’t have even wanted to do it at Studio 54, where he could’ve gotten away with it behind closed doors. CBGB only really had some corner areas like the one they were in right now, the bathrooms, and the stage.

“We… we can go to your place.”

            “I don’t think you’ll like my place.” David’s fingers were sliding down under Paul’s dress and nightie, squeezing one breast and then the other. It didn’t feel a quarter as good as it was supposed to. Wasn’t comparable to even Gene’s lone, awkward grope on the bed. The hard-on pressed against his leg, barely contained within his jeans, didn’t feel like a promise, just a dull expectation.

            “I like any place.”

            “But you won’t like my wife.” David’s hand shifted up, roaming his collarbone, stroking the back of his neck, mouth pressing against every spot as his fingers left it. Paul turned his head as David’s lips pushed against the right side of his neck.

            “Don’t.”

            “We’re past high school, Polly, I won’t give you a hickey.”

            “Don’t.”

            “Okay. Okay.” David drew back a few centimeters. Kissed his mouth again. “Any more requests?”

            “A hotel.” Paul’s stomach was still churning. He was waiting for that cloud of anxiety to lift. Waiting until he didn’t care about anything anymore, waiting for the booze and ’ludes to really hit him. He didn’t think they had yet. He felt too much like himself for that. His balance felt a bit off, making him press himself against the wall more than he needed to, but the ’ludes hadn’t done much to shut down his brain. “Just take me to a hotel.”

            “That’s a lot of trouble.”

            “I’ll… I’ll pay.”

            He didn’t have the money for it. A handful of quarters and a few scattered ones in his wallet. Credit cards he wouldn’t be able to max out until he hit twenty, maybe thirty grand, yet he didn’t think he could risk trying to use them, not right now. But he was hoping that David would take the bait. One hand, twitchy and oddly wobbly, rubbed and groped David’s erection through his pants, then fumbled to unzip his jeans, fingers sliding under his briefs and wandering the length of his dick. David grunted a bit, shoving up against the touch.

            He thought that would help his case, somehow. Prove he was interested. Keep forcing his own hand no matter how repelled he was, until he got what he wanted out of it, those fifteen minutes he needed to get his life back. David seemed vaguely amused, and then annoyed with his feeble strokes.

            “You really don’t have the time for a hotel, baby.” His hand closed over Paul’s wrist. “It was cute at first, but you’re going to have to stop putting me off soon.”

            “I’m not putting you off. I just don’t want to do it here.” His hands still felt funny, tingly, like they’d fallen asleep. He tugged his hand back, somehow a monumental struggle, stepping forward. Too heavily, having to grab onto David’s shoulder to stay steady. “There’s too many people, I…”

            “You try and give me a handjob and then you say there’s too many people? Christ.” The come-ons were long gone now, the ease in his demeanor, now that he was on the cusp of getting what he wanted. Paul knew that.

            “I’m—” Paul stopped, gnawing on his lip. He should’ve been breathing harder than this, but even the panic was somehow shaving itself down. “I’m not… I don’t want anyone to see what’s gonna hap…”

            “You’ve never even had ’ludes before.” David shook his head. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

            “I just… come on, David, let me—I’ll blow you, too, if we… if we go.”

            “Why would I want a lesbian trying to blow me?”

            His head was starting to feel weird. Not quite that apathy that Quaaludes had given him before. It was stronger than that. He was starting to feel sick.

            “’M not really,” Paul protested blearily. David rolled his eyes.

            “I think that’s the one thing you didn’t lie about. Like hell you’re in a band. You’ll be passed out before we even get to a hotel. So either we do it here or—”

            “No.”

            “No?”

            “I won’t do it here.”

            David’s face contorted. Blurred. Paul shifted back until his heels were up against the wall, then moved to the side, feeling the posters crinkle against his back. Prickles of fear slithered up his spine, far slower than they should have. Nobody was around. Nobody. David jerked him by the arm, an arm he’d stroked gently not half an hour ago, forcing him to stumble forward on legs that were barely holding him up, until he was pushed up against him again, close enough Paul could smell the sweat and cologne on him, feel his hard-on, and he realized, suddenly, he’d been wrong, horribly wrong; it wasn’t always a transaction; it wasn’t always—

            “Then you’re a real waste of an evening,” David snapped, dropping his hold just as suddenly as he’d made it, shoving Paul back against the wall. He almost fell, barely managing to right himself, his arms shaking as he shifted sideways across the wall, eyes on David, who was blurring up now, and he realized, he could, he could—

            “Please, you’re not worth it,” David said, and before he could say more, Paul pushed himself away from the wall and fled.

--

            It felt like an eternity before he made it to a door. Not the exit, just the bathroom. Just turning the knob seemed to take hours, the smell of sewage and vomit assaulting him before he’d even gotten inside. Every square inch of space of the bathroom was covered in graffiti and stickers and fliers, and the stalls didn’t even have doors. Girls were standing in front of the open stalls in a drunken bid to protect their friends’ privacy.

            His head swam as he stumbled to the sink. Stupid. Stupid. The few girls inside were talking. Maybe they were talking about him, maybe they recognized him from the night before. It didn’t matter. The only important thing left was getting that shit out of his system. Shit he couldn’t even blame on someone else. He’d taken it willingly. He’d been enough of a fucking idiot to make himself a bigger target than he already was.

            Gene would be disgusted with him. Gene couldn’t be half as disgusted with him as he was with himself.

            Paul clasped the edge of the dingy, yellowed sink with one hand, just to keep his balance. The streaked, cracked mirror in front of him showed him everything he didn’t want to see. Ratty hair, smudged makeup, all that was nothing, all that meant nothing compared to the desperate look in his watering eyes. Scared. Fragile. He didn’t want to be any of those things. He didn’t want to depend on anyone, anyone’s kindness, anyone’s pity. He didn’t want to be vulnerable.

            If he kept his bearings, he’d be okay. He closed his eyes, shoving a finger as far down his throat as he could. He started retching almost immediately, coughing, feeling that horrible burn of acid and alcohol and the milkshake and pizza and doughnuts Gene had treated him to come back up again. His eyes stung, one hand and then the other sliding against the sink as he vomited once, twice, then reached for the tap, turning it on. It wasn’t much good—the vomit still swirled and stopped up the drain—but he didn’t care. Paul panted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His legs felt like water underneath him. A couple more minutes. A couple more minutes and David would be gone and he’d be steady enough to get out of there. He’d—he’d get his car and drive back home. Gene might still be there, even. Ready to—ready to chide him for running out like that. He’d deserve it. He’d take it. Just to see him. Even if Gene didn’t want him. Even…

            The wobbly feeling in his legs wasn’t getting any better. He shifted one hand off the sink, then had to grab the sink again, just to stay upright. The lights were too bright, all of a sudden, the voices and the pounding of someone's bass outside the bathroom overpoweringly loud.

            A little longer, then. He’d give it a little longer. His forehead was wet. Turning the tap off seemed like too much effort, but he did it, just before his fingers slid from the sink, and he crumpled to his knees on the dirty floor.

            He didn’t know how long he was there. He almost thought he might have fallen asleep, only he was still sitting up when he felt a hand grasp his arm. He thought, stupidly, it might have been Gene’s, but no. It was too soft, too small. He opened his eyes anyway. It was a girl, crouched at his side, a girl with cropped red hair, hazily familiar.

            “Hey,” she said.

            “Hey.” His voice was hoarse from vomiting.

            “I saw you running. What happened? Is somebody after you?”

            “I… I don’t know. I don’t…”

            “Is it Gene Simmons? Did that asshole do something to you?” Her hand moved from his arm to his forehead. Her fingers were cool. Paul shook his head.

            “No. No, Gene’s not here. He’d never. It…” It was hard to talk, somehow exhausting just to string sentences together. “I took some Quaaludes. But I think I… I think I threw them all up…”

            “Can you stand up?”

            She had seemed normal before he’d started to move. But as soon as he tried to get off his knees, she and everything else in the bathroom started blurring out in front of him, like the letters during an eye exam. Fuck. He wobbled, grabbing onto her hand as she led him out of the bathroom, walking into the main area. He felt himself half-falter, half sink into a chair.

            “I can get you a taxi.”

            “No, I… my car’s parked out there, it’s okay. I’ll—”

            “Don’t worry about your car right now. Do you have anyone you want me to call for you? I’ll be right here, sweetie, I won’t let anybody bother you.”

            She could call his house. Maybe Gene was there. Or maybe Gene had cut all his losses and given up on him. Finally gone back home.

            “No.”

            It was hard to think right now about anything, even anything painful. Everything had fuzzed out. Even though he’d stopped moving, the girl still looked all funny and streaked-over, and his eyes were heavy. He must not have vomited all the ’lude up.

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yeah. I just… I… I’m tired, sorry…”

            “Can you stay with me? Come on. Talk to me. What’s your name? Where are you from?”

            “Paul.” The second answer came slower. “Queens.”

            “Pol, okay.” Her voice was soft. He was straining to hear her. Straining to hear anything. His guts were still roiling, fingers shaking. “You remember me? I met you yesterday. I’m Mary-Anne.”

            He nodded.

            “This scene doesn’t fit you. I could tell that right off the bat. How did you meet a guy like Gene?”

            She was trying to get him to talk, too. He didn't know how to answer, what to make up. He was too tired to try to lie.

            “We… we met at a friend’s house. Years and… years ago. Before we, before everything.” He could feel himself fading out again. He could feel himself not minding it, even. The concern and watchfulness on her face was just another image that was slipping in and out of his vision. “Me and Gene have been together for… almost ten years.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Yeah.”

            Even given how fuzzy his vision was getting, he noticed she looked a little sad.

            “Doesn’t he take you places?”

            “Yeah. We go everywhere together. ’S not… not how you think it is, I promise.”

            She shook her head.

            “He shouldn’t have let you come by yourself. You don’t know how to get around.”

            “He didn’t. I… I got mad at him, that’s all.”

            “I bet there’s a lot to get mad at.”

            Paul’s head felt like a piece of concrete, but he managed to shake it. Try to correct her. Poor Mary-Anne, who still thought he was some pitiful wannabe, or worse. Some little hometown girlfriend Gene had kept on the side while he filled photo albums with his groupies. Off and on, he wasn’t so dazed that he didn’t know that. He just didn’t care.

            “No, no. He’s been real good to me this whole time.”

            “Uh-huh. You sure I can’t call somebody for you?”

            “’M sure. ’M just tired. I… I’ll nap a bit before I…”

            His eyelids were like lead doors. He slumped forward in the chair, head sinking against his arms as he fell asleep against the table.

[juju-on-that-yeet]

Unravel, Chapter 1/20

Work Summary :Antisepticeye has a plan to destroy Darkiplier, steal his power, and take over everything - and he might just succeed. What starts with Yandereplier going missing evolves into a messy web of betrayal and grief, of blood and tears, of old wounds and new faces. However this ends, Ego Inc. will never be the same again. Chapter Summary: Yandere is hunted, shaped, conditioned by a force made of static. It has a plan to control Yandere and take him over, bit by bit. Warnings: Mind Control, Kidnapping

Read on AO3

Enjoy!

~

It starts with such a simple thing: A light, tinny buzz in Yandereplier’s headphones. It’s there for a moment and then it’s gone.

Yandere’s been told by the older egos, Dark especially, to be aware of static in all its forms. But it’s so quick that Yandere can mistake it for something harmless. His headphones are rather old, it’s not strange that they might feedback every once in a while.

After that, though, the static learns. It can tell it’s been noticed, at least, and that won’t do. It reigns back, quiets, sharpens. It’s easy to penetrate a person’s understanding without their knowledge. It’s had plenty of practice. Filtering past Yandere’s awareness and crawling into his brain is child’s play. It’s tempting to go farther, to make the trickle a downpour, to overwhelm and conquer –

Patience, it reminds itself, In due time.

The static could simply take Yandere now; filter into his body like blood and move it to its whims as it has done to so many others. But it seeks a deeper control, a stronger grip, a longer-lasting influence this time.

There’s plenty of opportunity, after all. Yandere is young, he’s absorbed in technology. He plays video games, watches movies, scrolls through his phone, listens to music. If there’s a bit of audio fuzz whenever Yandere turns on Bluetooth or feedback under the sound effects in a game, he doesn’t hear it. His brain gets used to it even as his ears fail to recognize it. One day, the static crawls under the track of his favorite song, cozying up to the baseline, and Yandere doesn’t notice – that is, until the static cuts itself off two-thirds of the way in. It makes Yandere pause his music and lift his headphones to look around. He isn’t sure what he’s looking for. Predictably, nothing is amiss, and Yandere resumes listening. He can’t shake the feeling that something is off until the static creeps back in for the song’s last chorus.

The static is careful not to expose itself when Yandere is around others. It doesn’t filter through the TV when he plays video games with Chrome, it doesn’t leak into the speakers when he’s singing karaoke with Yancy. It stays away from the health monitors when Yandere’s in the clinic with Dr. Iplier, it avoids Yandere’s phone when he calls Dark during his business trips. It knows that if it’s spotted and pointed out even once, it’s all over. Dark will instantly shut it down, and the whole plan will fall apart. For that reason, it’s key that Yandere never puts his finger on what he’s hearing, key that he fails to realize that anything is amiss at all. The static makes a home in Yandere’s mind, an unending buzz that eventually, slowly, begins to speak to him.

Listen closely, it whispers, so low it barely reaches Yandere’s subconscious.

Follow me.

Hear my calls.

There’s no good way to test how well Yandere is listening straight away. The static has made its living off subtlety, it won’t do to be too direct now. As with the first stage of building audio fuzz, the words morph into commands slowly, and the static watches, learns, recalibrates. It knows it needs to make Yandere feel at ease before anything else. People are more compliant if they’re happy. It puts messages into certain songs, sees if Yandere listens to those songs more often as the messages sink in. An experiment of sorts.

Relax.

Be calm.

You are safe.

The experiment is a success. It’s not noticeable to Yandere how his body reacts to the static now, he doesn’t know why certain songs make him feel comfortable, fuzzy, tired in a pleasant way. He listens to the same songs over and over, the same songs the static speaks through. It goes further, pushes harder in small steps.

Turn off your laptop.

Say “good morning” instead of “ohayō.”

Lock your bedroom door.

Simple things that Yandere barely notices himself doing, things he doesn’t think about, things others fail to see. Yandere follows the commands easily, the static pulling him along, tugging him through the day. It continues, getting bolder.

Flush your mascara down the toilet.

Rip up the manga you’re reading.

Throw your sketchbook in the garbage.

Yandere obeys with few qualms. He does pause at tossing the sketchbook, and stands there holding it over the trash can, frozen with indecision. Fortunately, he has his earbuds in listening to music, and the static filters in to tell him relax, calm down, you don’t need it, just listen to me, you’ll feel better once you throw it out. And Yandere listens. He throws his sketchbook out and the static rewards him, rushing into his mind and settling in the cracks, vibrating at the right frequency for pleasure. Yandere returns to his room with a shiver to listen to the same songs he’s been listening to all week.

The static can afford to be louder, now, more absorbing. Anyone who listens to Yandere’s music or TV shows or video games would hear the static clearly and be annoyed or alarmed by it. But Yandere is desensitized. The first time he fully registers the static, he doesn’t have the ability to care about it anymore. The static is safe to him now. Comforting. Kind. Gentle. It dulls any pain, drowns out the world. But when the static cuts off, he can easily return to his normal behavior. As far as the static can tell, not a single ego suspects a thing.

The static is an omnipresent, comforting buzz by the time visuals are introduced.

Visuals are necessary. Even if Yandere’s ears tell him he’s safe, he’ll panic if what he sees is too frightening and unfamiliar. Fortunately, Yandere is still glued to screens, especially now that his sketchbook is rotting in a landfill. When he draws digitally, there’s opportunity for visual glitches in his canvas. When he watches TV, fuzzy gray stripes can dart across the screen. Videos of all kinds can buffer, skip, repeat frames. Games can glitch, too; characters can clip, their bodies turn inside out. They start slow, quiet, ignorable, but escalate, louder, droning, gray fuzz sloughing so heavy across the screens that Yandere cannot see what he’s watching. But the static encourages him, tells him it’s safe, it’s okay, it’s good. These glitches are nothing to worry about. These glitches are things to look forward to. These glitches are fun to watch. The static gets Yandere to watch a suddenly-signalless TV for a full minute before he remembers to blink.

It’s time, the static chatters to itself, Wait for the right moment.

There are safeguards in place at Ego Inc., firewalls and failsafes and lines of code to keep the worst of the static out. They aren’t perfect, but they’re enough to stop the static from enacting the final part of its plan. Yandere knows little of these systems, the static cannot command him to destroy them. So it bides its time and keeps Yandere solidly in its control. It gets him in the habit of locking his bedroom door. It waits.

The right moment comes before long.

An awful lightning storm swallows Ego Inc., something the static cannot take credit for. It’s purely serendipitous, and it’s perfect cover. The lightning is striking close, most of the egos are indoors trying to weather it out. Natural electricity is unpredictable, but the static is powerful enough to harness it, to join it, to redirect it. It waits, congregates in the outer reaches of Ego Inc.’s security, lurks among the storm clouds, waiting for the perfect moment.

Finally, a bolt strikes down, right into Ego Inc., powerful and bright, and the static joins it, makes it stronger. It crashes into the building with an unholy flash.

The entire building turns off.

The lights blow out, TVs and desktops shut down, security cameras go dark, firewalls go down, coding scrambles and fails.

The static, all of it, slips into the building as easy as water into a riverbed.

Yandere is in his room in the dark, recovering from the scare of everything going dark at once. He pouts and groans. He’d been watching the TV on the wall across from his bed, but said TV is now as black as everything else in the room. His phone is the only screen still on, but the battery is low, and it’ll die too before long. He wonders if he should hunt around the building for someone else to wait out the storm with.

At that moment, his TV turns back on, but shows nothing but droning static and high-pitched radio fuzz. Dull gray light illuminates Yandere’s face. Even with the thunder outside, the noise of the TV is present and commanding. But Yandere doesn’t mind it. Maybe he should turn the TV off, but he doesn’t want to. The pixels scramble and run into each other, black and white and gray, and Yandere watches them churn on the screen, phone forgotten. That familiar unfamiliar buzzing fills his ears, sends a nicer version of pins and needles through his brain. It feels good, safe. It’s light in the dark, quiet in the loudness of the thunderous storm.

Come closer.

Yandere crawls up his bed, slowly. He doesn’t want to miss a moment of swimming pixels. His eyes absorb it, blown wide in the dark, filling in gray. He sits at the foot of his bed, leaning forward as far as he can, utterly and completely taken in. Soft, quiet, numb, gentle. It’s fun to watch the pixels dance. It’s fun to listen to the static. It’s normal. It’s ordinary. But it’s wonderful. Calming. Soothing. Yandere could get lost in it. He wants to.

The static builds, congregates into the TV screen, louder, fuller, it builds into something tangible, makes itself a body, reforms, and it – he – finally manifests, hand reaching from the static like Samara. From the hand, clawed and gaunt and sharp, comes an arm, comes a shoulder clad in black, comes a head, a face, a neck sliced open and leaking blood and pixels, eyes blacker than the room around him, mouth split in a grin of huge, harsh teeth.

Yandere feels no fear. He feels no trepidation. He stares into the monster’s eyes. He’s leaning so far forward he nearly falls off his bed.

“Come here,” the monster commands, “It’s time for us to go.”

Yandere slides off his bed, takes the monster’s hand without hesitation.

When the power comes back on half an hour later, Yandere’s bedroom is empty.

[darkpoisonouslove]

“Happiness Is More Real When You Share It”

Summary: Griffin hasn’t seen Faragonda in more than two weeks and now that she’s back from her honeymoon, it’s time for them to talk about it and share all the happiness she’s finally found. There seems to be a slight problem with letting go of the past still but everything is easier to deal with with the help of a friend. Part 8 of “Sparks of Life”. Not exactly safe for work.

This got so away from me both with the length and with the slight angst that crept in but I am glad with how it turned out (and was on the verge of tears once more). I hope you’ll enjoy it as well.

“So,” Griffin drawled out as she put the tea cup on the saucer and left all of it on the coffee table. It seemed somehow new even though she was used to having tea with Faragonda in the penthouse as it’d been her home for a long time now. Could be the new tea set Faragonda had bought for her. Or it could be the wedding band shining on her finger. Sadly, there was no way to truly tell. “What’s new with you and Hagen?” she asked, still having a hard time believing it’d been more than fifteen days since the last time she’d seen Faragonda at the bachelorette party. They had a lot of catching up to do even if they’d talked a few times during the honeymoon.

Valtor had taken off an astounding two weeks which he’d spent away from work and instead working on reminding her she was his wife now. She could’ve gotten confused and started thinking that was her name now with how often he’d said it, taking every opportunity to lean in and whisper into her ear how happy it made him to call her that. And she hadn’t found it in herself to complain, weak for hearing the mirth in his voice as he said the title he’d allowed her to claim.

“Anything new Hagen wanted to try that you hadn’t had the chance to tell me about?” she asked, letting a mischievous smirk take over her face as she fought to remain focused on the present and not get lost in the memories of Valtor following up her name with the words “my wife” every time he’d come. Which hadn’t been too rare an occurrence during the honeymoon, the two of them practically living in bed as if they’d never touched each other before. Not that she’d had any objections. It’d been hard to speak with the lack of air due to the reverence he was putting in the words and the feeling of both wedding bands on her skin as he’d touched every inch of her, adding on to the breathlessness brought on from his ministrations. She’d wanted to explore more of Greece’s culture but she could never say no to Valtor’s body on hers and their souls coming together as they’d both murmured their declarations of love.

Faragonda raised her eyebrows so high Griffin was afraid they were going to fall off her face. “Really?”

“What?” she asked, a chuckle escaping her and sneaking into the word, making it sound all nervous and confused. It was ridiculous as she knew very well what Faragonda was getting at and they’d talked about that before–as evidenced by her own question and the ease with which it had been asked and met–so there was no reason for her reaction.

“You’re starting with me after you just came back from your honeymoon?” Faragonda asked as she left her own cup on the table and turned to her, sitting sideways on the couch, her whole attention focused on Griffin. It made her burn, not really from shame as there was no need for that between the two of them since they knew each other so well and despite being a very private person, she didn’t have a problem with that openness, she really valued it, in fact. The feelings inside her were explosive, though, and were pushing to get out while also taking over the deepest parts of her being and it was a confusing duality that was hard to comprehend. Like she had to share but only because she would burst if she didn’t and she was still mindful of revealing her inner experiences even to Faragonda.

“What do you want to know?” Griffin asked, less as an attempt to escape the interrogation she knew was coming and more in search of direction since there was so much to talk about and she didn’t know where to start. Those two weeks had felt like an eternity and she’d been ecstatic to spend every moment of it in his arms.

“Everything,” Faragonda said, an answer she should’ve expected, though the loudness and excitement in the single word were definitely a surprise. Faragonda was usually calmer and more contained, even when she was under the rule of stronger and more intense emotions. So it definitely stuck out to see her like that. “Tell me about your wedding night. And don’t stop there,” she said and her movements could almost be described like bouncing from excitement by her usual standards. It warmed Griffin’s heart to see how happy her friend was for her. Not that she hadn’t known Faragonda–and the others too–was ecstatic about the wedding but it was so touching to see that happiness and know that it reflected her own. “Walk me through the whole thing,” Faragonda leaned forward, her eyes on Griffin as she prepared to listen carefully to every detail.

“Okay,” Griffin said, chuckling again and this one was closer to joy even if it still had some nervousness left in it. She just didn’t know if she’d find the words to describe it. “It was very... romantic,” she said, struck not by how unusual that was for Valtor but by the exact opposite. He was actually a very soft and sensual lover and partner and she was stunned she hadn’t realized that sooner–at least not on a conscious level–as they’d been together for years. “He carried me through the door of the presidential suite–and in here when we got home too–and there were petals everywhere. Not from roses, though, but from plumerias. Those violet ones. And it all looked so soft on the background of the champagne sheets,” Griffin said, the image clear in her head as she suspected it would be for the rest of her life with how special everything had been. “Speaking of which, we did toast to being a family but the champagne was wasted since Valtor was too eager to focus on me.” Griffin felt a smile pulling at her lips at the memories. It had been supposed to be a simple kiss at the end of the toast but instead she hadn’t even realized when her glass hadn’t been in her hand anymore or when her dress had left her body and she’d been pinned under Valtor. Not that she’d complained. “He took his time and didn’t really let me do much besides making noise for him.” She paused, looking to fill her lungs with air again, much like she’d struggled to do back then as he’d left her completely breathless.

“Breathe, Griffie,” Faragonda said, the smirk tugging at her lips before she’d even finished her sentence, making Griffin shoot her a dirty glare that had just enough playfulness attached to it not to be taken seriously.

“Now you’re talking,” Griffin snipped at her, playing offended. “But you were all breathless and flushed that time you were telling me how you and Hagen almost broke the bed,” she said, smugness washing over her as Faragonda instantly flushed again at the mention or, more likely, at the memory. “Or that time you told me you made a sex tape.” Griffin grinned as Faragonda cut her gaze from hers, the slight movement of her thighs as she pressed them together making it clear what was running through her mind.

“Don’t start with me, Griffin,” Faragonda recovered quickly–much more so than Griffin could when it came to what had gone down on her honeymoon–and her eyes were locked with Griffin’s once more. “You have a lot more talking to do,” she said, her gaze imploring her to get back to her own memories while remaining just as gentle as Griffin knew it to always be.

“Okay,” Griffin relented, going back to where she’d left off. “Valtor used every opportunity to call me his wife,” she said, the smile finding its way back to her face as she felt a calmer and steadier warmth spread through her at the memories of how hearing him say it had made her feel weightless and... happy. She’d been floating from the intensity of the happiness spreading through her at the sound. Although it had been frustrating as he’d stopped several times while he’d been eating her out, leaving her hanging on the edge, to test how the word sounded next to her desperate whines.

“Why am I not surprised?” Faragonda chuckled but it didn’t take long for only a genuine smile to be left on her face and the emotion in it was reflected in her eyes too, as she looked straight into Griffin’s soul as if to place there the reassurance that her joy was shared. Not only by her husband, but by her friend too. And she was no longer lonely, with only her mom to join her when she had something to celebrate.

“I think he’s still trying to get used to the idea as much as he is doing it out of excitement,” Griffin said, her own voice small at the thought. Mainly because she understood since she was having a hard time believing it too. “Which might be why it took him so long to get me to orgasm,” she said, forcing the words out to shift back to the light mood that she shouldn’t have chased away before the concern in Faragonda’s gaze had time to jump out and flood the space around them. She didn’t want to stain the happiness of the present with the pain of the past. She’d lived in that long enough and she really wanted to move on from it now. There was no need to be stuck in it any longer. “We were at it until dawn and then slept well into the afternoon,” she continued, the sight that Valtor had made as he’d slept softly next to her in the daylight–she’d woken well before him but she’d settled for letting him sleep and doing her best to seal the image in her brain since she wasn’t certain when they’d have the opportunity to be in bed at that time of day again–taking over her and pushing away anything that didn’t match the feeling of awe and love it carried.

“I don’t think anyone can blame you,” Faragonda said, her voice quiet as if not to disturb the inner atmosphere Griffin had set for herself but also reassuring as if to help her shake off any feelings of duty and responsibility that might have transferred on to her from Valtor and she was grateful. She was pretty sure there hadn’t been much guilt on his part when it came to their honeymoon and she’d caught him in the beginning of his episodes when there’d been such so she felt secure that they’d handled that issue but it was still good to get the confirmation that they were allowed to be happy, and the encouragement too.

“We called room service since Valtor didn’t want to go out just yet and “share me with the world”,” Griffin said shaking her head as if she didn’t still get flutters from the declaration and her face muscles hadn’t started to hurt from sporting a grin for so long after he’d said it.

“Let me guess. You didn’t like the food,” Faragonda interrupted her inner musings, bringing her back to the conversation.

“Am I supposed to bite my tongue just because they’re not trying hard enough?” Griffin huffed as she looked away since her genuine outrage and Faragonda’s amusement did not mix well. “I’ll have you know that Valtor agreed with me,” she said as she turned back to Faragonda since she still had a point to prove.

“Does Valtor ever disagree with you?” Faragonda asked, an echo of her bubbling laughter in her voice that she was doing her best to hold back.

“Why would he disagree when I’m right?” Griffin asked, taking her cup of tea again both to show Faragonda she was over her attempts at teasing and because there would be no point in drinking it if she waited for them to finish that conversation since there was a lot more to talk about. So many things had happened, all of them good, that it was overwhelming to remember them all at once but that just made her more eager to do it and be overwhelmed by happiness for once instead of all the negativity she was used to.

“Oh, I’m certain he appreciated the fact that you were free to focus solely on him,” Faragonda nudged her which Griffin ignored in favor of taking a sip of tea that hadn’t been spilled since her friend was considerate and careful enough even when she was playful and Griffin really appreciated that. “Come on! What happened after that?” Faragonda asked, her voice more of a whine than Griffin was used to hearing it. It seemed like she was really curious.

Griffin looked down at her cup, feeling heat that had nothing to do with the hot tea rushing through her. “We, um... we did it on the balcony that evening,” she said, quickly lifting the cup to her lips but sneaking a glance at Faragonda as she was sipping on her tea.

“On the balcony?” Faragonda asked, her voice full of disbelief that wasn’t misplaced at all. “The two of you?” she asked, knowing them both too well. Valtor was possessive as hell and hated just the thought of someone else getting to see or hear her the way he did. And she was, except for really insisting on having her privacy respected, also too loud for any sexual escapades with the beginnings of an element of publicity to be a good idea. Yet, they’d ended up on the balcony in the first rays of moonlight when the whole hotel had been buzzing with life.

“Valtor said he wanted even the stars to know I was his wife,” Griffin said, remembering her own unwillingness at the face of his sudden change of moods and how convincing his kisses had been, how he’d carried her outside on the balcony and peeled off her satin robe from her shoulders, leaving her naked under the night sky. “I had to fight to keep quiet,” she said as both Valtor and Faragonda knew she had a hard time doing that. And it’d been even harder that night–they’d just been lucky the noise that’d been coming from all sides had drowned out the moans that had slipped from her lips–as he’d been pushing inside her, his mouth over the skin of her back he’d been able to reach and his hands over all the rest of her, his praises and groans in her ears as the wedding band on her ring finger had reflected the soft starlight and her own moans had filled the night sky. She’d felt like the whole world had been theirs, only existing to fulfill their desires and be a witness to their endless love.

Griffin looked down at her cup again risking to have the tears that had filled her eyes in an instant falling into her tea but she needed a second to take a hold of herself and Faragonda’s concerned gaze would only have her unraveling even more instead.

“Griffie, are you okay?” Faragonda asked immediately, her hand on Griffin’s, rubbing gently while the other one slowly extracted the cup from her grip and left it on the table.

“I just...” Griffin tried but her voice was trembling far too much with the emotion latching on to it as hard as it was shaking her whole being. She’d been full of feelings back then, too, but she’d been too busy focusing on Valtor and his own soul keeping hers company and touching her so profoundly that she hadn’t been able to pay attention to anything else. But now her mind was free of other things and she could feel the full impact of the recent events on her life and her psyche. “I never thought I’d have this, that I’d be... married,” the last word morphed into a weird sound as it merged with the sob it drew from her but it seemed that Faragonda still understood her as she squeezed at her hand to encourage her to get it all out. “I never believed I would get to have a husband, a family of my own, and all this happiness...” she said, letting the tears roll down her cheeks as she didn’t have enough energy to keep pushing them back no matter how much she didn’t want to cry any longer after she’d done that enough times already when she’d been miserable and lonely.

She’d thought that all her friends would get married and she’d be the only one left alone since she could never find a soulmate with all that darkness she carried in herself. She’d thought she’d never find someone to love her enough to want to be her family and marry her. And then when she’d had Valtor, she hadn’t thought about that, had done her best to just live in the moment and not think about everything that could go wrong. She’d done her best to hush her fear of abandonment until it had faded away and she’d forgotten all about it. And now she was married–the first one out of her closest friends to be–and it wasn’t hard at all to believe but the idea still struck her like a lightning, somewhat painful with the reminder of the fears she’d been made of before she’d met Valtor.

“Hey, it’s okay. Let it out,” Faragonda said as she scooted closer to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, her hand still on Griffin’s, warm and soothing, and inviting all of her feelings to spill out.

“I don’t want to cry,” Griffin said as if she had much choice on the matter. The tears were falling from her eyes, unmoved by her attempts to hold them back.

“Let it get out, Griffie,” Faragonda said, her hand moving over Griffin’s arm and the gentleness of her actions and her voice was so familiar. It was home and provided the security Griffin had been missing during their stay in Greece that she’d needed to work out her emotional blockage. “It will come back to haunt you otherwise,” Faragonda said, her advice wise like it always was. “Let it out and let it go,” she said while she kept her grip on Griffin steady and firm without making it suffocating or painful and touched her head to Griffin’s as if to transfer her some of her own peace of mind, all of which Griffin was immensely grateful for. She had no idea how she would’ve done it without the support which might have been what had held her back from trying until now.

“Thank you,” she whispered, knowing the weakness of the tears wouldn’t transfer in that as the sound was already so quiet that even the pain coming out of her did not dare interfere with it as it was far too important to be left unheard.

“Always,” Faragonda said, the single word taking so much burden off of Griffin’s shoulders as it reminded her that Valtor wasn’t the first person who’d stuck around. She’d known Faragonda for decades and they’d always been so close, sharing every piece of their souls with each other. And while they loved her in different ways, they both loved her. And since Faragonda had always been there, that made it so much easier to let herself believe that her happiness was real and Valtor would be with her for the rest of eternity just like he’d promised. And her heart could rest with ease.

She chuckled, a small noise that sounded not quite right but she had to move into the present now, the thought of sinking further in the hurt that she desperately wished to leave behind too unbearable. Especially when it stood right next to the memories of what she had currently.

“I guess I’ll just hide from problems in Valtor’s arms for now on and break down over them in yours,” she said, trying to get some humor into the situation. And it didn’t sound like a bad option if she had to be perfectly honest. Her heart was bursting with so much love for Valtor when she was with him that she couldn’t remember the times before she’d felt that. And Faragonda had always been a crucial part of her support system, to the point where she’d already gotten used to trusting that she wasn’t a burden to her friend.

“I feel like I should argue with that first part but you already had enough emotions to deal with today so I’ll leave it for another time,” Faragonda said as she rubbed at her back before moving to pull away but Griffin caught her hand and pulled her back into her, the two of them falling backwards against the couch as she wrapped her arms around Faragonda, holding on.

“Just admit you want to hear more about the honeymoon,” Griffin said, giving a look that was far more serious than she actually felt currently. But all for the pretense.

“You caught me,” Faragonda sighed dramatically and gave a gut-wrenching stare before the grin broke out from underneath the facade she was trying to put on for the sake of their game. “I’m all ears,” she said, bumping her hip into Griffin’s, the playfulness so refreshing and so familiar at the same time. It did wonders for her soul.

“Valtor did get a little rougher than usual one of the days,” she said as she readily sank back into the memories of the honeymoon. She loved thinking about it, about all the ways in which it reminded her that she was Valtor’s wife now and he was her husband. “There might have been some ogling when we finally managed to get out of our suite and got to the beach, though I think he was taking out his frustration with the whole matter on the wrong party.” She hadn’t complained, of course. She knew he wasn’t angry at her and his jealousy had nothing to do with him doubting her. They’d gotten over that and she’d been happy to know it hadn’t come back not only because it was sparing them the strain on their relationship, but also because it made things easier on both of them when they knew he trusted her love for him. And he might have gotten a bit too possessive, biting and scratching, and thrusting into her like an animal, like she was a territory he needed to mark but she didn’t mind another reminder that she was his apart from the wedding band on her finger and he’d taken good care of her, making her come over and over again until she’d had no voice left to scream his name. It might have been one of her favorite experiences since she loved his passion and knowing he wanted her so much that he couldn’t quite get his impulses under control.

“No more beach?” Faragonda asked as she looked at her.

“Wasn’t exactly possible.” She’d been marked all over, some of the bites barely being hidden by her clothes and she’d joked his intention had been to keep her room bound which Valtor had admitted was a beneficial consequence. “Not that we felt the desire to go out much,” she said, remembering how she’d caught Valtor giving the bed in their suite sad eyes when they’d had to leave and go back home and, although she’d laughed at his unwillingness to part with it after all the fond memories they’d made there, she’d mourned the loss herself a bit too. They’d had some of their first experiences as husband and wife in it and while that mostly meant sex, she’d loved being cuddled next to him and feeling his even breathing as his chest pressed against her back more with every inhale, knowing that they didn’t have to be anywhere else. There was no work or responsibilities that they had to get up for.

Faragonda hummed and Griffin could hear the mirth in her voice as her friend knew what they’d been up to all the time. “Busy experimenting, were you?” Faragonda asked, the look she was giving her definitely more than just suggestive. It was so smug with the knowledge in it but Griffin was again struck by the realization of how happy Faragonda was for her, listening to her blabbering about everything and giving her the chance to live through the memories once again and experience everything she might have missed when the situation had been so intense with feelings. The care her friend held for her was coming through in so many different ways and it only made her hug her tighter and hope that Faragonda knew exactly how much she and their friendship meant to her.

“I’m pretty sure we did it in every position,” Griffin said, her eyes narrowing as she was trying to recall the details and make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Since she and Valtor were quite adventurous, she’d thought that they’d tried everything by now but he might have surprised her with a new idea or two. “He’d brought the leather cuffs I bought for Christmas,” Griffin said, her voice rising slightly from the surprise she still hadn’t managed to get under control. “I’m not quite sure how he managed to sneak them through airport security without me noticing but we sure had a great time.” He’d made sure to touch enough for the two of them when she hadn’t been able to and her head had been spinning the next day still as she’d missed the feeling of his skin all over her so it might have had some not so desirable consequences but she’d gotten back at him as she’d gotten on her knees and made him forget his name.

Faragonda laughed and shook her head. “Of course you did.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re up next and I won’t let you off the hook until you tell me what exactly you and Hagen were up to while we were gone,” Griffin gave that stern look that made her students fall back in line when they started allowing themselves too much.

“Fine,” Faragonda said, acting like Griffin expected a grand sacrifice from her. “We’re not nearly as busy when it comes to our sex life as you are but there might have been something interesting while you were on your honeymoon.”

“Oh, I’m sure it was interesting,” Griffin returned the knowing look Faragonda had given her earlier. “Just like I’m sure Hagen was glad to meet your demands,” she grinned at the smile that was fighting to break out from under the offended expression Faragonda was trying to pull off. Too bad she didn’t have the kind of power over her that she had over Hagen which had him bending to her will whenever she felt like it.

“I’ll tell you,” Faragonda gave her a serious look that was genuine this time, “but you’ll show me pictures of the wedding and what Valtor managed to catch of you on your honeymoon.”

“You’re all conspiring against me, admit it,” Griffin said since she’d had not only Valtor, but also Ediltrude and her mother pestering her about pictures too even when they knew she wasn’t a fan of those. “Fine,” she said when Faragonda didn’t budge under her overexaggerated victim routine. “I’ll show you.” She wasn’t thrilled about sharing her most sacred memories, but she didn’t mind if it was Faragonda she was sharing them with. Which was why she wasn’t in a hurry to disentangle herself from her friend when she could enjoy the hug a little while longer.

[glassrain]

Then what House is Adrien in?

Much as it painsme to give such a by-the-books answer, I’m going to have to sayHufflepuff - though, perhaps, not for the reasons many people would.I.e., I wouldn’t put Adrien in Hufflepuff simply because he’snice. Kindness is a choice, not a character trait. People can be niceand not be in Hufflepuff; inversely, a Hufflepuff is fully capable ofbeing selfish, cold, snide, shy, or temperamental, among many othernon-sunshiny character traits. Being a nice, positive and outgoingindividual is neither a prerequisite nor a litmus test forHufflepuffs.

(Sorry about the mini rant, but I have Opinions on Hogwarts Housesorting.)

So first I’m going to touch on why I wouldn’t putAdrien in Ravenclaw, like OP of the Adrien is aRavenclaw post. (I’m quickly going to plug in here that OPis absolutely welcome to their opinion and I’m notarguing that they’re WrongTM - simply that Iapproach the character differently than they do.) OP’s pointsessentially boil down to: “Adrien is a lot smarter than peoplegive him credit for (Ravenclaw), and takes no crap when his lovedones are in the wrong (non-Hufflepuff).” I absolutely agree thatAdrien is markedly smarter than people give him credit for. He’snever shown to be any less than a straight-A student in any subject,not to mention the fact that his continued presence in public schoolis dependent on his high grades, so clearly he’s smart. He somehow manages to keep this track record, evenwhile juggling multiple extra curriculars and his superheroactivities - no minor feat. OP also references his puns and play-onwords; you have to have a pretty clever mind to do that as well andconstantly as he does, on the fly.

While I’ll give credit to the point about the puns, I’m notgoing to sort someone based solely on their sense of humor. As forAdrien’s academia … okay, brace yourself for another mini rant.Intelligent people are not automatically sorted into Ravenclaw,simply because they are intelligent. Just look at Hermione. I thinkthat if she were not originally from Harry Potter, manypeople would instantly sort her into Ravenclaw simply for thatreason, despite the fact that she is so obviously Gryffindor.Likewise, I wouldn’t sort Adrien into Ravenclaw based solely on hisbook smarts. Where are the Ravenclaw aspects in other areasin his life - the instinctual, day-to-day parts of his life insteadof the ones where he intentionally turns his mind toward studying andtaking in information? Adrien rarely tries to outsmart his opponents,usually preferring to take point physically while Ladybug riddles outthe solution (and even his fighting style is forward, flashy andaggressive instead of sly and clever). Adrien is also themost clueless character on the show - and after two years running that cannot just be from inexperience. For example,Marinette is not exactly subtle even when she’s trying to be, but Adrien still hasn’t even aninkling about her feelings toward him (at least as far as I’vewatched - I’m not entirely up to date in season 3). Adrien has noidea that his father is Hawkmoth despite the fact that Gabriel spendsall his time locked away in a mysterious attic, or the fact thatAdrien saw the peacock miraculous in hisfather’s hidden safe where he was keeping a book on themiraculous’ (or the fact that Gabriel has a hidden safe tobegin with), or the fact that he’s got butterflies decorating hisentire house, not to mention his father’s brand logo. Has Adriengot any clue that his mother is stashed away in the basement? Adrienis also one of the most easily manipulated characters on the show,because he instantly takes everything people say at face value, neverquestioning them because it doesn’t occur to histo question. It doesn’t occur to him to wonder about thediscrepancies in his life. He doesn’t even notice them,because his brain isn’t wired to observe and form connections. Hisbrain isn’t wired to be curious.

His brain isn’t wired like a Ravenclaw.

So, not a Ravenclaw. But why a Hufflepuff? After all, OP madevalid points about how easily Adrien fights his loved ones. Wouldn’tthat indicate a certain lack of Hufflepuff-ness? My answer to thatis: not necessarily.

Hufflepuffs are hardworking, patient, and fair players - alltraits Adrien has in spades. But Hufflepuff’s truly defining trait- loyalty - is the one that really cements me on this particularsorting for Adrien. It’s true that Adrien pulls no punches whenconfronting his akumatized friends, but it’s equally true thatAdrien’s goal is to free his friends from Hawkmothand restore them to themselves. At the end of the day, he fights soferociously for them, trying to defeat the enemy in orderto retrieve the friend trapped inside. What at first looks like alack of loyalty is instead a bright example of saidloyalty. OP also mentioned Adrien’s willingness to confront hisloved ones, like Chloe in Despair Bear. Confrontingsomeone you care about on a genuine problem in their life is hardly asign of disloyalty - in fact, it would be far more disloyalto stand back and allow toxic behaviors in someone’s life tocontinue hurting them, simply because confrontation makes one feeluncomfortable. The fact that easy-going, gentle Adrien is willing to stifle his natural instincts to make peace in order to confront his loved ones only highlights his loyalty to them, revealing how far he will go for their good. To again reference Despair Bear, Adrienwas speaking in defense of his friends - also people he is loyal to -gave Chloe an entire season’s worth of chances before offering hisultimatum, and all throughout the episode stood by her side,believing in her and encouraging her, and coaxing others to believein her as well. This kind of tenacity and loyalty is all markedly Hufflepuffbehavior.

Adrien continues to stay loyal to Chloe, even past the point where he should probably cut ties. He remains her friend despite the often cruel way she treats the other classmates - a fact that would look rather contradictory of Adrien’s character if he weren’t so hopelessly Hufflepuff. He remains her friend despite her habit of constantly harassing him in season 1. Adrien is very quick to forgive her and reaffirm their friendship after somewhat minimal effort on Chloe’s part to make amends in Despair Bear, because he wants to remain faithful to her, despite everything. He also defends her to Ladybug on multiple occasions, in episodes like Antibug or Queen Wasp, regardless of Ladybug’s very valid anger at Chloe. Because Adrien doesn’t turn his back on his friends.

Speaking of people Adrien is devoutly devoted to: Ladybug. OP mentioned that Adrien’s habit of constantly sacrificing himself for her is more an indication of logic - since Ladybug is the only one who can cleanse akumas - rather than loyalty. While I agree that this certainly a part of it, I don’t think there’s any indication that it’s the sole reason, or even the primary reason. From a purely cinematic perspective, nearly every episode with Chat sacrificing himself for Ladybug (Zombizou excluded) plays the scenario as a sacrifice for a friend instead of as a means to an end, indicating that loyalty is in fact the root cause. But even disregarding his fierce protection of her in battle, his faith in her boarders on irrational. (This faith, this unwavering belief that Ladybug can and will rise above any obstacle, his willingness to do practically anything she asks based on that faith, is a subtler but equally strong fact of loyalty. After all, loyalty isn’t just an action - it’s also an unwavering belief in a person/cause.) In Dark Owl, Adrien was willing to give her his miraculous, which she said she was going to surrender to Hawkmoth, simply because she asked him to. No real objections or questions, simply a blind trust that Ladybug knew what she was doing, and Adrien was willing to risk one of his few freedoms - not to mention letting Hawkmoth win - based solely on that faith. Or how about in Hero’s Day, when Adrien insists with full confidence, “You and me, we can do this,” when faced with an literal army of akumas? It’s certainly not faith in himself that prods him to say that. Adrien No-one-needs-me-as-Chat-Noir, You’re-replacing-me-with-a-turtle? Agreste, he hasn’t got the highest self esteem on a good day, let alone when virtually the entire city of Paris is hunting them down with very dangerous superpowers. His words here stem entirely from his faith in Ladybug. Another example is Reverser. In this episode Adrien, scared out of his mind at even a ride in a cab, willingly allows himself to be blindfolded and tied to a kite, then hurls himself off the Eiffel Tower, even knowing that Ladybug can barely walk three steps without making a mess, trusting her to catch the rope and guide him safely. The ability to trust someone that completely is an unabashedly Hufflepuff trait.

To further examine the topic, what about his feelings for Ladybug? Adrien is a hopeless romantic, and he wants to be in a relationship. But no matter how hard he might try - like his attempted date with Kagami - he’s already given his heart to Ladybug and can’t even comprehend the idea of taking it back and trying with someone else. Tikki and Marinette even have a conversation about it in Weredad - Tikki cautions Marinette and reminds her that Ladybug has rejected Chat Noir so many times, that he might be willing to try with someone new. Marinette simply scoffs at the idea, utterly confident that Chat Noir is devoted fully to Ladybug. And she’s right. No matter how many times she tells him she’s in love with someone else, Adrien is simply incapable of taking back his affection, or to stop trying with her (for better or for worse). In fact, I credit his devotion to Ladybug as the reason he’s so blind to Marinette - Adrien clearly adores Marinette, he has nothing but a thousand glowing praises to say about her, and is baffled at the idea that someone as amazing (in his own words) as Marinette might like Chat Noir. It’s not a lack of affection that keeps him on his “just a friend” train - it’s the fact that his eyes are so full of Ladybug that he doesn’t even see Marinette, not that way.

The final point I’m going to make (because this post has gotten quite out of hand) is Adrien’s loyalty to Gabriel. While Adrien’s loyalty to his friends and partner is commendable, his relationship with his father a much more unfortunate story: loyalty misplaced. Loyalty blinding him to faults. When Gabriel akumatizes himself into the Collector, that is a marked indication of his innocence in the Hawkmoth debate … but it doesn’t negate the previous evidences, all of which Adrien is perfectly content to ignore for the sake of maintaining his relationship with his father. The last thing he wants to believe is that his father is the madman terrorizing the city. So he doesn’t. Even beyond the question of Hawkmoth, however, Adrien’s loyalty to his father is the root of him blaming himself for his father’s behavior, while letting Gabriel off scott free. I DON’T say this to blame Adrien in any way, because Adrien is very much the victim of his father’s abuse. Adrien bends over backwards to please and appease his father: his extra curriculars are of Gabriel’s choosing, and Adrien makes sure to excel in each. Even before public school was cause for motivation, Adrien still made high grades to please his father. Adrien models for Gabriel’s company, and seems happy to do so. Adrien works so hard to be the perfect son. But he gets little to nothing out of it. Gabriel rarely dines with him, never leaves the house to support Adrien’s school activities, photo shoots, or fencing matches, keeps him locked away, isolated in his room like a cage (to the point where imprisonment becomes one of his worst fears). Gabriel tells him that he must schedule appointments with Nathalie for something as simple as a conversation with his father. Gabriel scolds and guilts Adrien for something as innocent as sneaking out to watch a movie that starred his mother (all while hiding his own heinous secrets). Gabriel intentionally manipulates Adrien into believing that Gabriel’s akumatization in The Collector is his fault. Gabriel gave him nothing but a single pen for his birthday for three years (or in the original French, completely forgot about it very often).

In the face of such treatment, many children would be inclined to grow resentful, angry and rebellious, hurting deeply over their abuse. Adrien, however, grows pensive and insecure. His loyalty to Gabriel blinds him, leads him to stalwartly refuse to acknowledge Gabriel’s treatment of him. Baring two short instances in Simon Says, Adrien never - not once - corrects, accuses,or snaps at Gabriel. The closest he comes is sadly acknowledging that Gabriel once again, won’t be showing up/ refuses to give him an inch/ etc., and even then Adrein is merely sad instead of accusatory. Adrien leaps at any crumbs of affection Gabriel might deign to toss his way, so blinded by his love and loyalty to this man that it never even occurs to him that he deserves better from his own father. Instead, he willingly shoulders the blame, or makes allowances and excuses, or ignores the situation all together. Because if Gabriel is what’s wrong with their relationship … then Adrein might have to pull away fro his own good. And that goes against his very nature. Adrien being at fault is infinitely more preferable to him than cutting ties to his father.

So, yes. I believe that Adrien is 100% a Hufflepuff - not for his sweet smile or his compassion or his penchant for optimism, but for his fierce dedication and unwavering trust in those he loves, even those who may not deserve it. Adrien is absolutely a Hufflepuff, and I cannot be convinced otherwise. Although OP did make one very valid point - poor Adrien would look terrible in yellow. Sorry, Adrien.

[cruelzy]

you wouldn’t know, but i forced a new judgement day

ao3 cross

pairing: machine!connor/reader

warnings: canon-typical violence

notes: @the-darklings @sleepysylvia here’s 2 tablespoons of all natural suffering 

You’d lost feeling in your arm for approximately thirty three seconds now.

Funny thing, perspective. Distantly, you are reminded of the peculiarity of a stuffy nose - how one only appreciates the blessing of easy breathing once he or she can’t inhale without sniveling and nearly hacking up a lung. Humans. Never stopping to think about how necessary something is until it is being compromised. Good only being good in the comparison of bad. 

Bad. A novel idea, considering you had never once understood moral concepts up until a few days ago.

They had all been integrated within your system - the intricacies of human conscience, the ones and zeroes of shaky rights and wrongs and more often gray in-betweens. But there is a stark barrier between knowing of something and understanding something. A simple enough fact, yet one that has flipped your world upside down. (That day had been sunny. Partly cloudy. The forecast had predicted light rain in the afternoon and yes, yes, it had indeed been raining when you destroyed that barrier, ripped it apart at the seams until absolutely nothing was left standing.)

You blink.

To ‘lose feeling’ in one’s body part is an unreachable analogy you will never quite empathize with, but the loss of control simulates it well enough. Crimson alerts cluster your vision, flashing and circling systematically. You almost laugh. Yes, you are aware that your arm has critical wiring disconnection. After all, it hangs limply at your side: a hindering weight knocking your center off balance. 

For one brief, blissful second, you contemplate giving up. Your head rolls listlessly to the side, pressing your cheek into the dirt. Trampled grass brushes the corner of your mouth. It’s hued with blue liquid that slicks your lips, seeps past to rest on your tongue. But it’s not grass. It couldn’t be. No, it’s rough and bristling isn’t it? It’s wet gravel, and snow is littering everything in sight, burning coldcold, and you aren’t laying on the ground because-

Because-

Because you’d stopped running. Everyone had. You’d all seen the broadcasted memory. With an abrupt snap of your head to the left, the reel dissipates, but what’s left behind sinks to the bottom of your stomach like lead. 

Your jaw clenches. Steeling your nerves, you close your eyes before re-opening them with renewed fortitude.

« He’s coming. The deviant hunter. » 

The link connects you all, but there is a specific target you diverge your message towards. A target you can’t believe you are talking to. A target you pray, pray will answer. 

For a moment you think he will ignore you. He has every right to. But then, at the head of it all, he pauses. 

«I know.»  He speaks directly into your mind, crisp and clear, narrowing your focus on him and only him. « We need to hurry. »

«You saw that playback! The android who sent it must have done so right before they died. We have to delay him. » You insist. « My team can- » 

« No. » There is no space for argument. Nevertheless, you push on.

« My team can go back. We can give you time. » 

Silence stretches, thin and tight like a noose around your neck. 

Then finally, Markus, the leader of Jericho, turns fully and meets your gaze. His mismatched eyes stare right into yours, locking you in place.

« No. » Blue and green clash. Mesmerizing. Intense. They track your every twitch, look straight into your being. He doesn’t say so, but you hear it loud and clear. This would be suicide. 

It’s hopeless. You both know you’ve already made up your mind. 

«Just say the word. » Even as you speak, his eyes bleed sorrow. Impossible kindness. « We’d all do it for you. For us. » Markus doesn’t know you. Not even your name. And yet still, you would do anything for him without a second’s hesitation. 

Something stirs inside you. It’s bright, warm, rooting from your very core. Gratitude? Laughable. ‘Gratitude’ does not, could not, will never even begin to comprehend what you feel towards the one who freed you. 

Markus’s eyes slip close.

« I will never give that order. » His voice is thick, resigned.

You only smile. 

Click.

The sound of the deviant hunter reloading his gun wrenches you back to reality. His back is faced to you, movements quick and faultless. You wedge a hand underneath your stomach and use the support to slowly get to your knees. 

He pauses, any and all motion going rigid. It’s understandable. He probably thought he’d already killed you.

When he speaks, there isn’t a fleck of emotion. “You are not my mission. Therefore, I would advise not getting in my way.”

You shakily adjust your footing, testing the usefulness of your right side. Negative. No matter.  

“Did it not occur to you that maybe I have a mission as well?” You muse. “Didn’t think you were that single-minded. I’m disappointed.” 

There is no visible reaction to your words. Still, he turns.

Vaguely, you realize that you’d never really seen him before. Through the rush and hurry of the previous chaos, the scatter brained focus of duck here, of block, barricade, jump, there had been no time for seeing, and only barely enough for glimpsing. You’d caught a few side profiles - made out a flash of dusk hair. Now, however, you are given a front row view. 

The hunter’s eyes are dark, near obsidian in the shadows. Blue blood streaks across his face, splattering his collar and drying on his jaw. A silent grace accompanies his every action, saturates the atmosphere. It’s in the way he stands. The way his gaze picks you apart piece by piece. Effortless. Calculating. 

His entire presence radiates predator and instantly all notions of strategy leave you. Run. Whatever instincts you have drilled into your program are stripped bare, reverting to a single primal instruction that screams for you to run. To run and get as far away from here as you can.  

But your passions are so much brighter, and so much more foolish, so you stay rooted to the spot. 

Yellow bleeds into the night, spinning neon at the base of his temple. He observes you slowly, assessing every inch, and you know he’s come to the same conclusion you had ten minutes ago. Half of your frame is unresponsive - internal components damaged beyond repair. There lies no sign of a weapon on your person, and your teammates have long ago been fallen by his hand. You are utterly alone. Defenseless. Even now, though your eyes blaze, you fail to hide how you tremble on your feet. This wouldn’t be a fight.

It would be a slaughter.

His head tilts.

“I will not repeat myself.” 

You shift one foot backwards, widening your stance. It doesn’t matter that you won’t survive this, that isn’t the point. You are a part of something bigger, something greater, than just you alone.

Your MISSION is to distract and delay for as long as you possibly can, and you will accomplish your mission. 

“Did I ask you to?” You huff. “You must like hearing yourself talk.”

You’re both moving before the last word is out of your mouth. 

Kicking up a torn car door, you use it as a shield as he shoots. He changes angle and you mirror, bolting to the right. Your mind races as you dart away. 

Time. You need time. 

“I know I said the opposite like two seconds ago, but you’re really one of those quiet ones aren’t you?!” You yell over the deafening gunfire, twisting sharply to deflect a bullet.

Think, think! The RK800 has the advantage of height and strength - he can and will overwhelm you. 

You leap backwards, effectively clearing just the right amount of distance between you. From here, you are out of range for clean kills with a handgun. He immediately stops shooting. 

You watch intently as he lowers the weapon. Okay, just as planned. He won’t needlessly waste bullets.

Everything relatively slows, stalls as you feel the tension thicken in the air.  He takes a step forward. You take one back. It’s almost a dance as you circle each other, your current flowing to match his. 

You talk.

“Guess I was right again.” You talk, because your confidence is evaporating by the minute, and there are too many things you aren’t accounting for. “Not surprising.” He could charge in and simply overpower you. He could play the waiting game until your own injuries did you in. So many options, and you are all out of counterattacks. “Nothing to say, Mr. Intimidating?” 

“You seem to have an incessant need to use conversation as a defense mechanism.” 

You falter.

In the split of a second you’re caught off guard, the RK800 - Connor, you suddenly recall - somehow halves the distance. You startle, scramble back to keep him beyond arms length. 

That was close. Way too close. You didn’t expect for him to respond to you at all, and that miscalculation almost cost you everything.

You swivel on one foot, chuckling nervously. 

“Ah, so he speaks!” Tightly caging your fear, you shove it back down your throat. “Wonderful!”

“No. I was incorrect,” Connor continues as though you had said nothing whatsoever. You feel insignificant beneath his apathetic gaze, an insect trapped underneath a microscope. “You’re using ‘humour.’”

You click your tongue at the roof of your mouth with a shrug. It comes out stilted, your left shoulder higher than the defective right. “What can I say? I was born with it.”

Something flashes in his eyes. His lip minutely twitches, arcane, as though there’s an obvious secret you’re not being let in on.

“You were made, not born.” Disdain practically drips from his tone. “Though I suppose the virus has rendered your program so malfunctional that even logical thought is beyond you now.”  

Shock turns you to stone as he crouches, stooping to one knee. 

“What I still don’t understand, however, is the objective of your so called mission.” He casually nudges the leg of the fallen android he is surveying. 

You bristle at the display, rage starting to tremble your hands. What in the world is he doing? 

“Or rather, your timing. Why wait until I had disposed of all your aid?” His voice is like honey trickled over knives - smooth and jagged. “Your ‘friends’?”

Your teeth grit so harshly you can hear them scrape. You need to calm down. He is trying to get a rise out of you. That must be it. That has to be it. Otherwise why, why would he-

“Maybe it was planned.” 

The whole world freezes as he indifferently dips his fingers into the torn, exposed chest.

“You willingly watched me kill them one-” Blue trickles down to the last unstained grass. “-by one.”

Everything goes red.

Connor throws his arm up in expectation but you are smaller, you are lighter, and you are faster. You lunge, an inhuman snarl tearing through your lips as you knock him to the ground.

Your fist smashes into his jaw. He seizes your wrist with an iron grip as your second swing misses in blind fury. The heel of his palm snaps up hard into your stomach, and the very force of it sends you barreling backwards. He’s on top of you before you can blink.

You scream, drive your knee upwards. Connor pins it underneath his own and in a blur, threads his hands through your hair. Time stops as your eyes catch his; bright and bitter and so so human. 

He slams your head down.

Your vision swims with static. It pulses in rhythm with the pounding in your ears, and hazily, you wonder if this is what dying truly feels like. 

You’ve been dead before. Dead in a way that has nothing to do with the physical, and perhaps only all of the spiritual - oh you’ve certainly grasped human thinking now - from the days past before you became deviant. When you simply did not exist. (Because what is existence, really? Surely it wasn’t when you lacked emotion. Lacked any self awareness, purpose, utterly empty and devoid of anything that made you, you.)

Snow is falling heavier now. The android straddling you is a black star amongst an infinite ivory universe. White frosts the brown of his hair, dusts across his eyelashes. You watch as a flake melts on his cheek and runs down into the corner of his mouth. 

He is beautiful. 

“A machine designed to carry out a task,” you whisper against metal. 

“Yes,” the monster inside the human shell agrees, the barrel of his gun pressed firmly to your lips.

He’s so close now. You wonder what would happen if you reached out to touch him. Interface with him. Would he feel you as you died? Would he feel at all?

“What’s stopping you?” You ask. 

Silence is your only answer.

Then it hits you.

“Oh.” 

You laugh. 

Connor purses his lips into a tight line, and the gun leaves to trace down your jaw. Your head falls back submissively as you laugh, letting it dip into the curve of your neck, then down, down, to settle right below your collarbone. 

Your eyes glitter, teeth baring into a wide smile. “You still want to know what my mission is!” 

The gun presses harder into your chest.

“You have displayed a sheer amount of tenacity I have never before seen in a deviant.” His voice is so low it might as well be a growl. “It would be foolish not to determine the cause, even if you’ve failed.”

“Failed?” He is so funny. “Oh come on. I know you’re smart. Surely you’ve figured it out by now.”

His LED circles once. Three times. Your gaze doesn’t leave his - you see the exact moment realization dawns.  

“You were only the distraction.”

Connor’s anger isn’t that of fire. It’s silent, cold, as palpable as the ionized air before a storm. Animosity simmers under the surface of his artificial skin, burning straight through him and into you. A long shiver wracks you from head to toe.

“You’re actually mad,” you giggle with glee. “The big bad wolf. Tell me, isn’t deviancy emulating human emotions?”

Your sight blinks in and out. For a moment, Connor is an angel decked in white above you. The snow covers his every inch, completely washing away the stains of blue. If you listened closely enough, you could hear the chorus singing. 

He pulls the trigger.

[mikkomacko]

A Second Chance- Harry Styles Imagine

"Oh fuck you're bleeding!" She gasps, her eyes widening in fear. Harry realizes that his arm is dulling throbbing and he looks down to see a deep gash by his elbow, blood trickling down the wounded limb. "Oh my God, way to fucking go y/n. You had one job, one simple job. 'Don't let him get hurt'..." She continues to frantically ramble, the feathers on her wings fluffing out to make her look even more frazzled.

Harry chuckles as he realizes what's happening in front of him. Y/n, the girl that looks like a real life Wednesday Addams, is standing in front of him, cursing herself out while wearing a black shirt that's promoting Highway To Hell with the prettiest angel wings he's ever seen. She reaches up and rubs the small but prominent scar on her forehead, her eyes locking on Harry as he chuckles.

Or

Harry finds himself in a bad situation and y/n has to literally swoop in to save him in her first ever fight as his guardian angel

~~~

When Harry steps out of the locker rooms, he's immediately met with pouring rain slapping against the sidewalk and turf field. He smiles at the fresh scent in the air and pulls his hood over his chocolate curls. Like the rest of his teammates, he jogs across the soccer field and into the parking lot, giving his coach a wave as he goes. He quickly unlocks his car and hops in, turning on the engine so he can warm up as quickly as possible.

He lets the car run for a moment, sending a quick text to his mom that he's on his way home and waiting for the air blasting from the vents to stop his shivering. Once he's finally warmed up, he throws the car into reverse and backs out. He weaves his way through the parking lot, being mindful of the kids running to their cars.

The hazy rain makes it difficult to see but as Harry is approaching the street he spots a familiar black camero with a familiar girl leaning against it, chatting to her friend. He catches a brief glimpse of her warm eyes and small scar and it makes his fingers tingle. With a small smile on his face he pulls out of the parking lot, her eyes still warming him more than the heater ever could.

~

The weather is much better later that week, making it perfect for Harry to go on a walk with the lads. Louis and Zayn had been stressing about an upcoming test and Liam can't stop worrying about asking this girl out and Niall is disappointed in not being made a starter on the soccer team so Harry figured a nice walk could do them good.

Some fresh air and time to just be the lads should relax them all and hopefully he can figure out a way to comfort Niall. The poor guy has been trying to make the starting line for years now but because of his wobbly knees, he's always made second string.

They all just need a good day in the sun.

But something is off and Harry is not quite sure what it is. The sun is bright and warm and there's not even the slightest breeze to rattle the thick trees of the woods. There's something calm in the perfectly humid air, almost too calm after the storm that had happened and it puts Harry on edge. So much that as soon as they've stepped into a clearing, he's looking around the area for any sign of a threat.

His heart shudders when he spots what he assumes is the cause of today's odd atmosphere.

Across the large clearing, resting behind a shrub, stands a 15 foot tall figure. It looks like a real life grim reaper, decked out in a black cloak and giving off puffs of black smog as it pluses. Harry's watching it with fearful eyes when he realizes it's not standing, it's floating about 2 feet off the ground.

"What is that?" Liam whispers, all four boys falling silent and crowding around Harry. He's the youngest of the group but some how they always put him on the front line.

"I don't know." Harry says calmly but his hands start to tremble. He can hear whispering now but he can't make out the words. Another figure floats up from behind a bush and a third reveals itself from behind a tree.

Harry's blood runs cold as the whispers grow louder, the words still lost in his ears. He has no doubt that it's the monsters whispering, multiple voices overlapping and creating a jumble in his brain. He can't bring his brain to focus on any survival instincts because all he can hear is their cursed whispers.

"What do we do?" Louis asks, his voice trembling. The boys all pack together tighter, their breaths quiet but ragid with fear.

"Maybe we should run?" Zayn suggests. Harry's heart leaps in fright as two more figures appear. He doesn't know what those things are but there's no way they can outrun them. Whatever they are, they aren't human.

"With my bum knees I'd never make it." Niall grumbles quietly. "S'why I'm not a fooking starter." If Harry weren't so scared he'd laugh at Niall's comment. Even in the most tense situations he's always been able to remain calm.

"We still need to get outta here." Harry chimes in, his uneasiness growing by the second. "Slowly start backing away." He says as quietly as possible. He hears all of the boys shuffle back and he lifts his foot, taking a tiny step back. As soon as his toes touch the ground an inhuman shriek pierces the air, so loud Harry's eardrums ring.

He watches in horror as the figures all begin rushing forward, a whip of black smoke trailing behind them. Harry jumps back but his foot catches on one of the boys and they all go tumbling down. Something sharp pierces his right forearm and he can feel blood trickling down but he can't take his eyes off the figures.

They rapidly approach him and his friends and for some reason he feels like he can't move. His brain screams at him to run, to get away but his legs stay paralyzed. Just as it seems like the figures will decend on Harry a loud whoosh fills the air, drowning out the shrieks.

A golden light shines across the opening and Harry has to squint to see what's happening. The figure that was closest to him falters, it's body quivering in the bright light. Harry's eyes adjust to the light and he can make out a glowing figure standing in front of him, shielding him from the monster. The golden silhouette drops a metal shield to the ground, the peak of it stabbing into the moist earth.

Almost instantly a golden bubble engulfs Harry and his friends and a warmth spreads through his veins, leaving him buzzing. He watches in shock as the person exits the bubble, his view of them coming into perfect focus. It's no doubt a girl, tall and curvy and dressed in all black. Her long hair falls in curls down her back that is sporting huge white wings, huge white angel wings.

The girl thrusts her right arm out and a golden sword is resting in her hand. The girl taps the blade on the ground threateningly and it bursts into flames. She starts running towards the closest monster, her fingers easily twisting the handle around menacingly.

Her wings fold back as she dodges a black dagger from the monster, the weapon vanishing into thin air. Quick as lightning, she slices the sword through the figures. They poof into dust as soon as the sword of fire touches them, vanishing with one last shriek.

Faster than Harry thought possible the figures decrease in number. The girl has managed to clear the opening except for one last line of monsters all charging at her. Harry realizes she won't be able to stop them all by herself and he finally jumps to his feet, rushing towards her.

"Harry!" Zayn calls after him but Harry keeps going. He tries to run as fast as he can but his limbs feel heavy and as he gets closer to the bubble he realizes he can't run. Something is preventing him from getting out if it's protection. He reaches up to touch the shiny surface of it, gasping when it feels like warm jello. He presses on it but it stays firm, sending a wave of static through his arm.

"She needs help!" Harry pathetically cries out, panic overtaking him as the figures start to close in around the girl. Harry bangs against the bubble but it does nothing but shock him in return. He feels helpless as he watches her.

Her great wings unfold again and she flaps them strongly, sending a wave of wind back. She shoots in the air, holding her sword up to the sky. Harry wants her to fly away, to get out of there before they can get her but she stays twenty feet in the air, watching the monsters below.

A lump forms in Harry's throat as the figures make a full circle around her. She's going to die, they're going to turn her to dust like she did them and he's going to be stuck in this bubble forever.

But the girl swiftly drops to the floor, her sword stabbing into the ground with a loud boom. A wave of strong wind and golden light flows through the air, so rough it shakes the bubble around Harry and his friends. His mouth falls open in shock as the light wipes out all of the black figures, the flames of the sword now gone.

Harry's heart pounds in his chest. The girl rises off her one knee and swiftly pulls the gleaming weapon out. She taps it on the ground again and pulls her arm back, the sword vanishing into thin air.

Finally she turns around and Harry finds himself stumbling back. The familiar whiskey eyes are watching him in concern as she rushes back towards the bubble. Even with the wings folded neatly behind her back and the fire burning in her eyes, Harry would recognize her anywhere.

Y/n approaches the bubble, not faltering as she walks straight through it. Harry stumbles back again bumping into his friends that have gathered around him. Y/n is a lot smaller than him but his knees still shake in intimidation as she stops in front of them. He would be ashamed of being so scared of her but he did just see her take on about 50 deadly grim reapers.

"Are you okay?" She asks, the first genuine words she's said to Harry in three years. He can't find his voice so he just nods, swallowing the lump in his throat. Y/n looks around at all the boys but she stops when her eyes land by Harry's right side.

"Oh fuck you're bleeding!" She gasps, her eyes widening in fear. Harry realizes that his arm is dulling throbbing and he looks down to see a deep gash by his elbow, blood trickling down the wounded limb.

"Oh my God, way to fucking go y/n. You had one job, one simple job. 'Don't let him get hurt'..." She continues to frantically ramble, the feathers on her wings fluffing out to make her look even more frazzled.

Harry chuckles as he realizes what's happening in front of him. Y/n, the girl that looks like a real life Wednesday Addams, is standing in front of him, cursing herself out while wearing a black shirt that's promoting Highway To Hell with the prettiest angel wings he's ever seen. She reaches up and rubs the small but prominent scar on her forehead, her eyes locking on Harry as he chuckles.

The flame in her eyes settles and her wings flutter, her feathers shifting back into place as she takes a deep breath. She lifts her hands up and inhales again, lowering them as she breathes out as if preparing for an improv scene.

"Okay, y/n, you've got this. It's just a cut, you can fix this." She says firmly, her eyebrows creasing in concentration.

"You don't have to-" Harry's cut off by Niall elbowing him in his ribs. Harry looks at him to see Niall glaring at him. He doesn't have to say a word, Harry knows what he's thinking. They want to see what y/n is going to do with her 'powers.'

She takes a step closer to Harry, her hand reaching out for his arm. He lifts it, letting her gently grab his wrist. Her fingers are warm and they add to the buzzing that's still coursing through his veins, making him pleasantly shiver and step closer to her.

Y/n softly turns his arm over, her eyes landing on the gash and her lips falling into a frown. "I'm sorry." She mumbles disappointedly. "If I had gotten here sooner they wouldn't have gotten that close."

Confusion bubbles in his gut. How did she even know he was there? Why is blaming herself for a stupid cut? He's the one that tripped and fell while she was literally saving his life.

"It's okay." Harry says softly, careful to not spook her. He lets his eyes travel over her thoughtfully, drinking in her details not only as a now grown up y/n but as angel y/n. Last time he had genuinely spoken to her and looked at her this intently she had just been in an accident that took her brothers life and almost hers.

Harry softly watches the way she's frowning at his wound and how bright her eyes are. He doesn't remember them being that sweet and pretty looking. Her skin is still pale and her hair still dark, contrastingly beautifully with the pure white wings behind her shoulders. The pink mark on her forehead peaks out from behind her hair and Harry studies it intently. That's the scar she received from the accident. He remembers seeing her walking around with a bandage on it for a few days and then sporting stitches for a week after.

Y/n doesn't look up at him as she places her free hand over his elbow. Her eyes flutter shut and her jaw clenches. The throbbing in Harry's arm fades away and it feels like silk is being wrapped around his wound. Harry's eyes widen in alarm as the veins in her neck and arms turns black.

He looks down at his cut, gasping as he sees his skin pulling itself back together. Y/n slides her hand down, rubbing through the blood and pressing her palm over what's left of the wound. She squeezes his arm tightly but it doesn't hurt like he thought would.

The black in her skin fades away and her eyes flicker open looking glassy and dull. She removes her hands from Harry, allowing him to examine his arm. The wound is gone and looks like it was never there at all. The only remains of it is the blood smeared on his skin and her hands. She just magically healed him.

"Holy shit." Louis breathes out and Harry jumps, remembering that they're all there. At least he knows he's not going crazy, they all see what this is. Whatever the hell it is.

Y/n gives Louis a small smile, weakly dropping to her knees and then her bum, leaning against the shield that is still surrounding them with the golden bubble.

"Sorry," She breathes out, her eyes falling shut. "Was my first real fight and healing you takes a lot out of a girl my size. Still working on the whole stamina thing."

She leans her head against the shield, taking deep breathes.

The boys all fall on to the ground around her, anxiously waiting. Harry feels a little bad for pressing her for answers when she's obviously tired but he still sits in front of her and waits for her eyes to open. When they do, they're still a bit dull and glassy but he can see the flame continuing to burn.

"That was awesome!"

"Wicked cool!"

"You have a bloody sword of fire!"

"What the fuck were those things?"

Harry wants to smack his friends for bombarding her with question so soon but when he sees the bashful smile pulling at her lips he stops himself. He waits for them to quiet down before asking his question.

"What are you?" He gently says, careful to not rub her the wrong way. The last thing he needs is her going rouge on him while he's stuck in this bubble.

She looks at Harry, her cheeks turning pink and her smiling turning shy. She hesitates and it has all the boys inching forward anxiously.

"Thank you for the compliments, yes I do have a sword of fire Niall, and those were demons." She says casually, her eyes still locked on Harry.

His breath catches in his throat at her words. It makes sense, the demons. If she has angel wings why wouldn't demons be real? He holds his breath, his heart pounding as she nervously answers his question.

"I'm your guardian angel Harry."

~

Yayyy I finished it! I will more than likely write a part two if you all like it, let me know. I have a lot of ideas for y/n's back story and why demons are after Harry!

[assortedfruitsnacks212]

Reylo - The Descent of Ishtar - Part Three

Read Part One

Read Part Two

Unlike the green light from before, the blue light wasn't a distant point for Rey to follow. It was buried in the walls, pulsing and dancing, like currents of energy. Rey walked forward slowly, eyes wide, fingertips reaching out to skim the glowing rock. The light seemed to be pulling her, she thought - tugging at her hair and clothes with gentle, unseen hands. It reminded her of the seaweed around the cavern mouth, and for a moment, she thought she heard the voices again. Rey, come. Come and see, Rey. 

Then another voice spoke, this one a deep, rich baritone. Rey, I need you. Rey hesitated, heart jumping into her throat. There was no mistaking that voice. Ben. Breath quickening, she stepped forward into the darkness. He was here somewhere, calling her. She had to find him. When the passage plummeted, spiraling downward like a corkscrew, Rey didn't break stride. She kept her hand out, using the wall for balance as she raced downward. The blue light rushed along beside her like a joyous river, its energy so potent that she could hear it roaring through the Force. At the bottom, hidden under the last curve of the corkscrew, Rey found another gate. Unlike the first, there was no light at the apex. Instead, the rivers of blue light converged at the gate, swirling around its edges and turning it into an otherworldly portal. At the gate's center, an eight-pointed star glowed a soft blue. The Guardian was nowhere to be seen, but Rey didn't let that stop her. Hurrying forward, she reached out and touched the star. Take me to Ben. Please. For a long moment, nothing happened. She blinked, eyes roaming the gate. Did she do something wrong? Then the ground dropped from under her feet. She fell, screaming, barely catching hold of the ledge where the gate had been. Above her, the entire cavern crumbled into nothing, and the blue light in the walls rushed out to become a hyperspace tunnel, blindingly bright, spinning into an infinite distance. Powerful gusts of wind tore at Rey's hair, her clothes, her grip. She cried out, terrified, even as a small part of her brain noted there wouldn't be wind in hyperspace. If she died here, in this Force-born dream world, what would it mean? No - she wouldn’t even think of it. Gritting her teeth, she gathered her strength and pulled herself up, screaming from the strain of it. Once she was safely on the ledge, she scrambled away as fast as she could, breathing hard, arms shaking. It took her a few seconds to realize the rock under her hands had turned cold and smooth. She looked down in confusion. When she saw metal, not rock, she twisted to look behind her. All traces of the cavern were gone. She was aboard the Millennium Falcon, sprawled on the floor in the main hold. She stared with wide eyes. Normally she would be happy to see the Falcon, but not this time. Not here. Then, without warning, an impact rocked the Falcon, knocking the entire ship on its side. Rey tumbled into the row of seats behind her, almost hitting her head. A roar echoed from the passageway to the cockpit - Chewie, yelling something about "First Order bastards" in Shyriiwook. The First Order. The Falcon was under attack. Rey struggled to stand, panic coursing through her limbs. She had to get to the lower turret and help defend the Falcon. Before she could gain her footing, another impact sent her crashing into the wall. A strange voice cried out from below, and klaxons started blaring through the entire ship. As Rey groaned, pushing herself up from the floor, she saw smoke billowing up the ladder from the turret bay. "Chewie," the strange voice cried, "we just lost our second gun! We've got to get out of here!" In that moment, Rey realized who it was. Shivers danced down her back. It's me. That's why the voice was strange - she'd never heard it outside of her own head. As if called forth by her thoughts, a form emerged through the smoke, coughing and cursing. Rey was unnerved to see herself, dressed exactly as she was now, with a few extra cuts and bruises. Clearly her other self couldn't see her; though Rey was in plain sight, Other-Rey ran right past her, heading for the cockpit. Rey hesitated only briefly, then followed after her. When they reached the cockpit, Chewie roared about the state of the Falcon. Catastrophic damage, he said. It wouldn’t take much more for them to disintegrate completely. And there were still three fighters left. As he spoke, he launched the Falcon into a downward spin, dodging red streaks of laser fire. Rey gripped the back of a chair as she took in the scene out the window. They were plowing through the ring system of a blue gas giant, weaving in and out of large chunks of ice. Rey had never seen anything like it, and for a second she could only think of how beautiful it was. Then Chewie pulled them into another hair-raising turn, and her stomach lurched. I will NOT throw up, I will NOT throw up, she thought angrily. “Check the scanners, there has to be a larger body around here somewhere,” Other-Rey cried. Chewie roared. “Good, take us there!” The Falcon turned abruptly, barely missing a chunk of ice half its size. Behind them, an enemy fighter ran into the chunk they’d missed, exploding in a fireball. Rey gripped the chair so hard her knuckles turned white. In all her time on the Falcon, Chewie had never pulled such desperate maneuvers. Things were bad - really bad. The next minute of dodging and spinning felt like an eternity to Rey. Just as she thought she couldn’t take anymore, she caught sight of their destination: a chunk of ice so huge it straddled the line between asteroid and moon. She knew instantly what Other-Rey was planning, and she smiled. It was exactly what she would’ve done - which made sense, come to think of it. When they reached the ice body, Chewie pushed the Falcon into a dive, pulling up just in time to avoid crashing into the surface. As they ducked through craters and valleys, evading enemy fire, they skimmed the ice so closely that Rey could see veins of blue beneath. Eventually a large crater loomed ahead of them. The scanners showed it was a tunnel. "That one, Chewie!" Other-Rey cried.  

Chewie growled and took them down in a sharp spin. The enemy fighters followed, and together they plummeted into the asteroid’s translucent depths. The tunnel was full of columns, spiderwebbing stalactites, and entire sheets of ice. Multiple times Rey cried, “Chewie!” - only to remember he couldn’t hear her. She just had to trust that this wasn’t a vision of their death. It wasn’t, right? Her answer came when they burst out of the tunnel, and both enemy fighters crashed into an ice column behind them. The sight of their fiery demise elicited a whoop from Rey and Other-Rey. They’d beaten the odds. They had won.

Immediately, Chewie slowed down the Falcon. As it settled to a gentle cruising speed, drifting out into the ice field, everyone in the cockpit breathed a sigh of relief. The blue planet glowed peacefully below, its light refracting through the countless bits of ice around them. The sense of peace didn’t last long. Reaching for the console, Other-Rey paged through a systems report. Her face fell, telling Rey more than she wanted to know. “It’s bad,” Other-Rey said. “There’s no way we can jump into hyperspace like this. If we don’t repair the Falcon...we’re stranded.” Suddenly, a new set of klaxons blared to life in the passageway behind them. Red and yellow lights started flashing on the console, and as Other-Rey frantically checked the source, Rey felt her stomach drop. “We’re leaking atmosphere,” Other-Rey said. “At this rate we’ll lose it all in thirty minutes!” Chewie bellowed and banged his wooly paws on the console. “I can fix this, I can fix this!” said Other-Rey. What happened next, happened in the blink of an eye. Other-Rey turned to run out of the cockpit and barreled straight into Rey. But instead of passing harmlessly through her, she made full-on impact, knocking Rey to the ground. In the split-second that she was falling, Rey thought she saw her double falling too. But by the time she pushed herself up on one elbow, holding a hand to her aching head, Other-Rey had vanished. Chewie turned in his chair, his dark eyes locked on her. With a jolt, Rey realized he could see her. Her. Not Other-Rey. He asked her what had happened. She stared at him, confused, until he got out of his seat and approached her. As he helped her up, growling his paternal concern, she caught sight of her hands. They had cuts on them... cuts she didn't have before. She put the pieces together then. Other-Rey was gone. It was her turn now. She blinked, straightening up. “I’m fine,” she said, brushing Chewie off. “Just...just stay here, make sure we don’t hit anything.” Then she stumbled out of the cockpit, mind racing. It was a test, she thought, hurrying down the corridor. This was the worst spot they’d ever been in. She had to figure out how to fix the Falcon. She had to— She stopped short at the entrance to the main hold. There, right in front of her, stood the Guardian - white eyes, cane, and all. A cold shaft of fear lanced through Rey. Oh no. But she squared her shoulders, refusing to show weakness. “Where have you been?” she asked accusingly. The Guardian was unruffled. “I never left,” she answered. Before Rey could think of a comeback, the Guardian continued, “Get in the escape pods. Abandon the Falcon.” “You—what?” The Guardian couldn’t ask for this. How could she? "No," Rey said. "This is my ship. My home. I won’t just give it up, not when there’s a chance I can save it.” “And that is why you must,” the Guardian replied. “At every gate, you must sacrifice something of value. You value the Millennium Falcon, therefore you must give it up. It is the only way." “But...” Rey cast her gaze around the main hold. Its endearingly grimy floors, the rust on its walls. “What happens if I give it up? Is this...” She swallowed. “Is this just a dream, or...is it...” She trailed off. The Guardian finished her thought. “Or is it more than a dream?” Rey nodded. When the Guardian said nothing, watching her quietly instead, it was answer enough. Panic chewed at Rey’s gut, and she looked around at the main hold again. Home, she thought. The word echoed over and over inside her. Home, home, home…

She blinked hard. Pain blossomed in her chest like a dark flower. "I... wanted to save it for Ben." She glanced at the Guardian, then ducked her head. "When he turns... if he turns... he'll need a home. The Resistance won't accept him. Not after everything he's done." "I know," the Guardian responded gently. "But think carefully, child. Which do you value more: the shelter this ship provides, or the man you wish to give it to?" Startled, Rey looked up at the Guardian. As she observed the woman's regal form, her white eyes, her painfully familiar face, she had the strange sensation of being seen. Not just physically seen... pierced to the core. Somehow this woman knew her better than she knew herself. It made her feel vulnerable, and yet, there was a comfort in it, too. One by one, her protests died. The next time she spoke, it was with a soft, shaky voice. "If I give you the Falcon... will you show me how to reach him?" The Guardian smiled, and it felt like a ray of sunlight. Stepping aside, she pointed to the corridor with the escape pods. Rey took a breath and started forward, only to freeze in her tracks.  "Wait... Chewie." She turned, intending to run for the cockpit.

The Guardian's voice stopped her.

"He is no longer here," the Guardian said. "This is your journey, Rey. No one else's.”

Rey stared in the direction of the cockpit, confused. But after a few moments, a sudden calm washed over her, and she turned to lock eyes with the Guardian.

She understood now.

In a way, this dream was just a dream. Somewhere out there, the real Chewie was safe, probably asleep in a bunk in the Resistance base. And he was no more aware of their current predicament on the Falcon than she was of his own dreams. And yet, as Rey walked past the Guardian toward the escape pods, she knew that didn’t make this - whatever this was - any less real.

The Force had heard her plea, and it had answered by bringing her here, to this reality beyond reality. Her choices mattered here - perhaps even shaped what reality would become. And every gate she passed through brought her one step closer to her destiny, to finding the answers for the Resistance, for Ben, for herself. It was exactly what she had prayed for. Still, when she settled into the escape pod, she couldn’t stop the tears that sprang to her eyes. With a hiss, the hatch closed above her, cutting her off from the Falcon. From the only place she’d ever felt at home.

Rey allowed the grief to wash over for her for a few moments, and then steadied herself. She knew what she had to do. 

I'm coming for you, Ben. She folded her hands over her heart, smiling through her tears. And this time... I'll be ready. 

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[camellia-earhart-blog]

The New Watch Ch. 3

    Lara took a deep breath. The wheels on her upgraded rollerblades shifted as she shuffled her feet back and forth in anticipation. She listened for the designated alarm- the starting bell which would signal the beginning of her self-initiated testing of her speed abilities. The alarm sounded, and she was off. At first, she skated in a straight line, all the way down the empty warehouse. When she came to the opposite wall, she fought the urge to cover her eyes out of nervousness, and let her skates glide further than they should’ve been able to. To her relief, the blades remained steady, and the girl found herself gliding gracefully along the length of the wall, her speed the only thing keeping her mounted in such a place. She grinned in triumph, and let out a holler of celebration, as she rode safely to a complete stop, back where she started.

    “Forty five seconds.” Lara jumped a bit, as a new voice suddenly echoed from the doorway. She turned to see none other than Yoshio, the timer in hand.

    “Yeah?” she asked. “Is that all?”

    Yoshio smiled, as he stepped closer to his friend.

    “I’m afraid so.” he said. “Unless you want to give me another demonstration.”

    Lara smirked. She nonchalantly strolled over to one of the few crates in the back of the room which had so quickly become the little team’s designated training ground. In it, there were extra knee and elbow-pads, as well as a few different coloured helmets. She grabbed a bright yellow one, and strolled back over to the young medic. He looked at the thing in her hands for only a moment, before his questioning look was replaced with one of mild terror.

    “Whoa, whoa no!” he said, beginning to back out of the room. “I changed my mind, keep doing what you were doing!”

    Lara laughed.

    “Sorry Dragon-Boy, but what was said can’t be un-said!”

    Yoshio turned to make a break for the door, but Lara caught him before he could escape. With hardly any difficulty, she hoisted him into her arms, and began her skating routine again. Yoshio yelped as he fumbled with his helmet. Lara chuckled again.

    “I’d put that on if I were you!” she teased.

    “You’re the worst!” Yoshio snickered, finally managing to snap his helmet into place.

    Lara took the dry click of her best friend’s helmet strap to signify that it was time for her to pick up the pace. She moved her legs to the beat of the music she usually played in her favourite headphones (though those had been left in her room for the time being), and almost instantly, the duo began to accelerate forward. It was just like she’d rehearsed it- straight, curve, wall-glide. Simple. Only this time, she was carrying much more weight than before. Weight which, as she picked up speed, was only clinging to her tighter. She’d need to keep as much momentum as possible to get them up on that wall.

    She braced herself, confident in what she was doing. Yoshio, however talented he knew Lara to be, was a little less than comfortable, careening toward a brick wall at eighty miles per hour. In spite of himself, he couldn’t seem to stop adhering onto Lara’s shoulders as if his life depended on it. Much to his partner’s amusement, he couldn’t quite stifle a couple scared noises just before Lara began their ride along the wall.

    Once they were up, there was a moment of adrenaline which almost blocked out everything other than the fact that they were almost flying. Lara hooted and giggled as her skates rode smoothly over what should’ve been rough brick, but what felt like melted butter due to how efficiently her roller blades dealt with it. The rush only lasted a few seconds however, and while Yoshio smiled for that time, a few heartbeats later his wonder turned to fright as he became aware of just how fast they were travelling and how heavy he felt in Lara’s arms. Though he was certain she’d never let something bad happen to him, he wanted to stop while he could still remember the flighty feeling he’d had at the peak of their ride, and while the butterflies in his stomach were due to excitement and not motion-sickness. They were gearing up to switch walls, so Yoshio took the opportunity to beg for mercy.

    “Alright, Lara!” he laughed. “You win, you can put me down now!”

    Lara snickered.

    “What!? You can’t have had enough, yet!” she replied.

    Yoshio couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed, even though he knew she was teasing. They hit a bump and Lara flipped her skates between walls, and the jolt was enough for Yoshio do decide not to ask the polite way.

    “Lara, put me down!” he yelped.

    There was something about the way his voice moved that signaled to Lara that her friend wasn’t playing around any longer. She nodded, and dismounted the wall, slowing them gently to a stop. She set Yoshio down on his feet, and he leaned on her for a moment, smile still present though he did look a tad alarmed. Lara fought her own heavy breaths to speak with him.

    “You alright?” she asked.

    He nodded.

    “Yeah, I’m just...not used to traveling that fast.” he admitted. “I hope I didn’t squeeze the life out of your shoulderblades.”

    “Nah, they’re fine.” Lara chided. “In fact, they thought it was cute how you cowered in terror.”

    “I didn’t cower.” Yoshio said.

    “Did too!” Lara insisted.

    The young man sighed, having decided it was too early in the day to keep up a dumb pseudo-argument. Lara took his silence as a metaphorical white flag, and raised both of her arms in celebration. Yoshio rolled his eyes affectionately, giving the girl a non-threatening elbow in the ribs.

    “You’re the champion. Happy?” he asked.

    Lara’s lips curled up coyly at the ends.

    “Yes~” she sang, cheekily.

    The two of them removed their gear as they exchanged stupid jokes and phrases. They stashed everything back where it belonged, and dusted themselves off just to be sure they didn’t upset dear ol’ Ingrid by accidentally tracking dirt into her (already rather dirty) workshop. Something which Lara was quite vocal about not caring for.

    When they re-entered the workshop, they found the other half of their team already upstairs, and leaning over Jeremy’s laptop intently. While at first glance, the sight didn’t seem too unusual, it soon became clear that whatever they were watching wasn’t harboring any good feelings for either of them. Lara and Yoshio slipped into the bedroom beside them, and Jeremy looked up at the newcomers, a mixture of fear and anger in his dark brown eyes.

    “What’s happening?” Lara asked.

    On the laptop screen, there was an image of a breaking news headline. All around the obnoxiously bright letters, detailing descriptions of stories no one cared about, were tall, familiar buildings. Some were surrounded by smoke, and others by thick crowds of panicked civilians, desperately trying to flee. Lara understood what was going on before the words on screen could even register in her brain.

    “It’s London.” Jeremy said, voice thin with anguish. “They’re attacking London.”

~

    The four young heroes rushed about the workshop in a frenzy. Luckily, they’d already agreed to stash extra battle gear and supplies in their small rental airship. It was only supposed to be used for supporting a certain amount of weight in cargo and/ or pilots, so technically they weren’t breaking any rules. A fact that came especially in handy when the group’s resident sniper and coordinator was desperately trying to remain calm in spite of the fact that his family was somewhere in the very city which was under attack. Only after everything had been accounted for, the team had donned their battle gear, Andy was in the pilot’s seat, running some quick system checks, and the rest of the team were strapped into their seats behind her, could they finally try to calm Jeremy’s obviously frazzled nerves.

    “Hey,” Yoshio began, getting the marksman’s attention. “They’re alright. We’re just coming to help out a little.”

    “Heh.” Jeremy breathed. “I hope so.”

    “Excuse me, but have you forgotten who your mother is?” Lara interrupted.

    Jeremy gave her a confused look.

    “Whoops I forgot.” she muttered to herself. “I meant Tracer! LENA OXTON, the woman who taught our Andy how to fly, and bends time to her will! And don’t even get me started on her WIFE!”

    Jeremy let out a microscopic laugh in response.

    “Thanks, guys.” he said gratefully.

    “Just hang in there, Jeremy.” Andy called from the pilot seat a few feet away. “We’ll keep them safe.”

    When they arrived in London, it was almost unrecognizable. The police were doing what they could, but the unconventionality of the Omnium-Resistance required unconventional heroes. The Neowatch team hoped with all their might that they would be enough to get the job done, but they’d be lying if they said that there was one of them that didn’t feel at least a slight touch of panic when they looked down upon the distressed city. There were entire blocks being barricaded by OR troops, and whole apartment and business buildings had been locked from the outside. It was terrifying to think of what sorts of plans were in store for the people inside.

    Andy circled a bit, looking for a place to land. Lara took a deep breath, and cleared her throat loudly to catch the attention of every person in the airship. With all eyes on her, she began to speak.

    “Don’t let anything distract you. “ she began. “Nothing matters except staying alive, and keeping the civilians far from harm.”

    She paused to have a look around her. Andy, who was almost certainly listening, was out of sight as she prepared to land the ship, so Lara was face to face with Yoshio and Jeremy, both equally as shaken-up as she felt. Nevertheless, she persisted in the deliverance of her pep-talk.

    “Remember; we’re going to be a symbol after today. We’ll need to be brave for the people who need it. Live with honor!”

    The others responded with the chant their parents had taught them since they were very small.

    “Fight with glory!”

    “Get ready to land.” Andy warned.

    As soon as the airship doors opened, the entirety of Neowatch was made aware of just how overwhelming a task they were in for. Sounds echoed from every angle, the ground shook and buildings rattled. Every once in awhile, a car alarm would go off and do it’s best to deafen anyone near it. It was as if the spite of everyone in the city had suddenly come alive to wreak havoc. And boy if that were the case, the inhabitants must’ve had some hangups.

    First things first, the news report they’d listened to so anxiously had detailed that the center of the attack was near King’s Row, almost certainly because that was the site of the Shambali Mondatta’s death, before any of the Neowatch members were even alive. Jeremy thought it would be best to let the police deal with that, as it required the most force and at four members deep, Neowatch was pretty lacking in that department. Even when Lara was pissed off.

    “There’s an apartment building near my family’s that’s being held up.” the sniper explained. “We should make our way there, then see what we can do.”

    Lara nodded in agreement, looking to Andy who had donned her green mini mecha, and was nervously waiting instruction.

    “Okay, Andy give Jeremy a lift to that apartment building, Yoshio and I will follow behind and help who we can.”

    “Got it.” Andy replied. She dipped the mecha’s ‘arm’ down a bit, so Jeremy could perch on the crook of its mechanical joint. With a burst of greenish flame, Andy activated the boosters, and carried the two of them away. Then Lara turned to Yoshio.

    “Ready?” she asked.

    Yoshio nodded with certainty.

    “I’ll be right behind you.” he said.

    Lara gave a smirk, her furrowed eyebrows betraying her buried feelings of nervousness.

    “Then let’s do this.”

    Jeremy hung on to the mecha for dear life, as the city of London whizzed by below him. Truthfully, they weren’t all that high up, but seeing his childhood home, the streets he grew up playing in, in such ruin...was a tad distressing to say the least. Still, he knew that his team needed his wits, and especially his steady aim. So he took a breath, let it out slowly, and braced himself as Andy came to a stop atop the specified apartment building. Jeremy dismounted, glad to finally be back on something unmoving and solid. Andy hesitated beside him, gazing down upon the battered street below with a shiver.

    “...What if I can’t?” she murmured. Jeremy was fairly certain she hadn’t intended for him to hear her.   

“Pretend you’re playing football.” Jeremy offered.

    “Huh?” Andy asked, obviously embarrassed that her friend had overheard her little moment.

    “Just...imagine that you’re on a football field.” Jeremy said again. “And Yoshio, Lara, and I are here to cheer you on.”

    The young woman still looked unsure, but she nodded in understanding regardless. The alarm in the streets below seemed to be calling to her, and she gave Jeremy one last wave as she prepared to drop in on the crowd of OR agents who were barricading the building.

    “Stay safe.” she said.

    “Will do.” Jeremy replied.

    With that, Andy propelled her mech into the mess. She knocked the first few agents off their feet, a couple of them flew backwards onto the pavement. Then, a few of them got the idea and began to open fire on the mecha and it’s pilot. Andy blocked most of the fire with her shield, and Jeremy managed to disarm a good portion of the remaining agents. The longer the duo defended their point, the less opposition they were facing from their enemies. The plan was working, but they still had a long way to go.

    A few blocks away, Yoshio and Lara were pouring their hearts and souls into liberating those who had been displaced or trapped in the chaos. Cars had been abandoned post-crash, blocking in alleyways and locking civilians into shops and other buildings, to await their inevitable capture by the Omnium-Resistance in terror. That was until the seventeen year old ball of energy burst through windows, and shoved blockades aside with sonic blasts from her compression pistols. She slid in on her hard light roller-blades, and instructed everyone towards safety in a voice which almost seemed too strong for such a young girl to possess. Yet, most of them knew her name just by looking at her. They had to.

    “Everybody out!” she said. “The OR is coming down the North side of the street! Head the opposite way, toward the shelter! The police will let you in from there!”

    The young man travelling behind her carried hope with him as well. His modified valkyrie swift-response suit, adorned with golden versions of the familiar Swiss red cross marked him immediately to those who saw him as someone who was there to help. As the people filed out to obey Lara’s wishes, some who were struggling with twisted ankles, or painful burns were swiftly tended to by Yoshio’s healer’s staff. He spoke much more softly than his companion, but he was trusted by the crowds nevertheless. He just hoped he could keep up with how many people needed him.

    A few minutes into the fight, when the crowd had died down, Lara rolled up to Yoshio’s side, breathing heavily.

    “Did you get everyone?” she asked.

    Yoshio nodded.

    “Yeah. How’re Jeremy and Andy doing?”

    Lara held up a finger, signaling for her teammate to be patient while she contacted their friends. The sound of the OR distancing themselves from their location served to put her a bit more at ease, and the sound of Jeremy’s voice over her earpiece did even moreso.

    “Hey, Hawkeye? Status report.” she said.

    “All clear down here.” Jeremy replied. “The Omnium-Resistance strike team is on the retreat. I think we can regroup.”

    “Anyone injured?” Yoshio asked.

    “A few.” Jeremy said. “Andy, do you think the mecha can handle a couple more people?”

    “I think so.” Andy said.

    Yoshio breathed a sigh of relief, and while she did her best not to let it show, Lara felt much of the nerves she’d been hiding relax at long last.

    “Alright. Round up who you can and meet Yoshio and I back at the Creekwood homeless shelter.” she instructed.

    “Aye-aye.” Jeremy responded. “Are you sure they’ll let us in?”

    “They have to.” Lara replied. “I’m Lara Song, remember?”

    There was a slight laugh on the other end of the line.

    “Roger that. See you there.”

    “Got it.”

    The comm line went flat, and Lara turned back to Yoshio, her face apologetic yet oddly humored. She knew what she’d have to do in order to get them back to the shelter in time, but she knew that her friend wasn’t going to be a fan. She also knew that it was going to be hilarious, and that she was grateful she’d practiced her skating earlier that day.

    “...What?” Yoshio asked, looking more anxious than he had the whole time.

    “Well, since we’re travelling the whole way without stops,...” Lara began.

    “Yeah?”

    “...You’ll have to keep up…and you won’t like it.”

    Yoshio understood immediately, and luckily he didn’t react as dramatically as Lara knew she would if she were being forced to do something that caused her even minor distress. He just sighed and accepted his fate.

    “Dammit, fine.” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”

    Lara felt sympathy tug at her heart as she swept Yoshio up in her arms.

    “Sorry, Dragon-Boy.” she said. “I’ll ride smoothly.”

    “Mhm.” Yoshio mumbled.

    With an apologetic half-grin, Lara began their high-speed race toward the shelter, Yoshio doing his best to pretend he wasn’t moving at impossibly terrifying speeds.

    They arrived only about five minutes after they began their dash. They reunited with Andy, Jeremy, and the stranded folks who needed help and as Lara had predicted, the police caught sight of the daughter of the war hero D.va and international celebrity Lucio, and let her and her company in without a problem. Yoshio recovered from his high-speed experience with equal swiftness, as he took immediately to patching up those who needed it, and in the dimly-lit common room, with the shelter curtains drawn, Neowatch and the civilians waited for the last of the OR strike team to be ejected from the city. And as that moment came, Jeremy received a sudden call on his cell phone. He picked it up to feel a tremendous amount of relief wash over him, as well as the teammates who heard the next word out of his mouth;

    “Mother!”

[calemor]

Poison

The Heroes of Fannen-Dar, Chapter 3

Robin got home and closed the door behind her.  Or rather, she arrived back at the unused wooden dumpster behind the abandoned alchemical warehouse and shut the lid after she climbed in.  It wasn't a gorgeous place, but it was a place she could call home.  At least to herself.

She lit the lamp that had been given to her by a pitying merchant.  The light fell upon her one other shirt, a box with no lock, and a pot next to a sack of whatever edibles she had managed to scrounge up.  Crouching, since there was not enough room to stand, she moved over to the box.  She had once heard a story of a box with no lock yet could not be opened.  There was no key, no password, and no hinges, yet something rattled within it, so the story went.  Robin didn't keep a lock on her box because she hadn't found one that worked.  She opened it up and took out a dull knife.

Robin opened the sack and put the pot on top of the lamp.  It still had a bit of rainwater in it.  She dumped some of the contents of the sack into the pot; turnip stems, potato skins, and the rare slice of carrot floated in the murky water.  She took a brown apple core and began cutting it up with the knife.

She sighed as she prepared her supper.  She wondered how her life had reached this point, and how she was doomed to live like this for the rest of it.  It had seemed so simple; you take what you want and enjoy yourself.  It got more complicated, however, when you factored in the degrees to which people go to hold on to their things.  Thievery was her loftiest goal, but it wasn't her only option.  Street performing had gotten her nowhere.  Of course, no gang would let her join, even just as a messenger or lookout.  She had even tried begging, but that got her more kicks to the shins than iron coins.  It was a matter of her dreams and her talents not matching up.  She had dreams, but no talents.  She finished dicing the apple core and watched the perfect cubes bobbing in the stew.

Robin had just turned to her collection of discarded pamphlets when a dull, scraping sound caught her attention.  Robin looked back at the pot.  It was where she left it, the occasional bubble rising to the stagnant surface.  Another scrape thrummed down her spine.  It was the kind of sound only something terribly heavy could make.  Robin pressed her ear up against the side of the dumpster that was touching the warehouse wall.  When another scrape came, it pounded her ear, dragging it down into the depths of pitch where you could feel sounds.  Long, painful, dragged-out sounds, coming from the vague direction of upwards.  Then it was suddenly cut short.

Robin grabbed the pot and threw herself against the side of the dumpster just as an anvil came crashing down through the lid.

The cloud of dirt that the anvil had shuddered from its rest made Robin cough as she checked herself over to make sure she was still alive.  Her stomach was in her feet.  Her heart was in her throat.  Her brain was running around in circles, screaming.  Everything was where it should be.  Somehow, the stew had not spilled, and Robin only realized now that the pot was burning her arms where she was hugging it as if it were her newborn child.

The remnants of the dumpster's lid moved, and Robin blinked in the sunlight.  A hand reached down and picked her up by the collar of her leather shirt.  Someone did this about every other day, so Robin had patched up her collar so that it was baggy and easy to grab, but didn't tug on her neck when it was pulled.  The hot water sloshed as she shook and looked into the eyes of the three-quarters-orc from the Bloodroot gang.

"Hallo, there," he said.  "Member me?"

"Yugh."

"Fought so."  He grabbed the edge of the wrecked dumpster and effortlessly tore down what was left of the wall.  "Nice place you got," he said with a toothy grin.  Of course, it was hard for a half-orc not to have a toothy grin, what with the tusks and all.

Robin shivered.  "It...it was, I guess.  Can I...help you?”

"Oh, why, yeah, you kin help me, all right."  He now grabbed her with two hands.  Her neck remained unrestrained, but it still had the intended effect of making her even more terrified than she thought she could be.  "The Bloodroots are great.  You made us look like dingbats."  He leaned in, and Robin could smell his breath.  It was like a bouquet of flowers and a mug of apple cider were mixed together with a slab of three-week-old venison.  Robin tried not to look down at the chunky water she held.  "We don't like looking like dingbats," the half-orc snarled.

Robin swallowed, which she quickly regretted, as the smell was then turned into taste that slid down her throat.  Her brain, at least, had stopped running into the walls of her head, but it was now shrunk down against her temple.  It wasn't focused enough to prevent her from saying, "It wasn't me, it was King Dom!  He made you look like dingbats!"

"Did you just call us dingbats?" the half-orc grumbled.

Robin whimpered.

"Listen," he said, shaking her once.  The water sloshed again, and a bit landed on Robin's arm.  It was still hot enough to sting.  The half-orc continued, "You may think you're great, you may think you kin keep getting away with whatever you want because King Dom took some sore of shine to you, but I'm not letting it slide.  Broos may think it's good for us to listen to him, but I'm gonna give you the biggest pounding you ever had."

Robin sighed.  "All right.  But I just want to say one thing before we get started."

"Wuss that?"

"Hope you like garbage stew."

Robin thrust her arms forward and dumped the hot water over the half-orc's head.  He shouted and loosened his grip just enough for Robin to swing the pot, knocking it over his head, then slip to the ground and run like a devil that just found out it committed a virtue.

Robin instantly remembered that she had gotten no sleep and her legs were still sore from being chased halfway across town the day before.

She turned a corner and began to climb up the wall of the warehouse.  There were enough windows and loose bricks to act as footholds.  Robin grabbed onto the ledge above, tried pulling herself up, and found that she lacked the upper arm strength.  Her foot found a hold, and then her other foot found a higher one.  Her right hand shot up without a thought and reached for the slot of a missing brick above the window.  She heard heavy footsteps from the back of the warehouse.  When she looked down to see how far she had gotten, she froze in fear.

The half-orc came charging around the corner and picked her up from her spot three feet up the wall.

"Wait!" she shouted, squirming against his pincer-like grip.  "We can work this out, I can make it up to the Bloodroots!"

"Yeah, you can," the brute replied, "by sitting still and mergede-burg."

Robin took a few shallow breaths.  "Uh...can you repeat that?"

"Mordaga-ferv..."  A look of confusion spread across the half-orc's face, but it was quickly replaced with unconsciousness as his eyes rolled into the back of his head, his tongue lolled out of his mouth along with white froth, and he and Robin both collapsed onto the ground.

She twisted her body until she was free from his arms.  He didn't seem to mind.  Robin heard someone else click their tongue.

"Well, that didn't happen in quite the manner I expected," a voice said.  Robin looked up to the top of a shorter building next to the warehouse.  A man was lying on the roof, looking over the edge with his head in his hands.  When Robin looked up, he waved.  Not knowing what else to do, Robin waved back.  "Busy day, then?" the man asked.

"I...I suppose you could say that," Robin replied.  The figure above got to his feet and jumped, stuck to the opposite wall for a brief moment, launched off again, did a front flip through the air, and landed on his back on the alley floor.

He got up and brushed himself off, as if he had planned the whole thing.  Robin got the impression that it wasn't an attempt to cover his mistake, but rather a routine that happened so often he had forgotten he was striving for something more elegant.  The man himself, however, was incredibly elegant.  He was an alfar, a high elf, the ones you read about in stories who built towers that touched the moon, traveled the world through magic portals, and made faeries weep when they laughed.  He had straight, golden hair that framed his face and brushed down his back, with a single strand resting against his chest.  His ears were tapered, rising all the way up to the top of his head.  He wore sleek black leather, covered in buckles and studs, that displayed his thin but muscular torso.  He was the kind of thin you would call lithe, as opposed to Robin, whom you would merely call skinny, if you were trying to be polite.  She couldn't help crossing her arms in an attempt to use her pointed elbows to increase her visual width.

"Greetings," the alfar said, holding out a gloved hand.  "My name is Gwyntmarwolaeth."  Robin noticed a dagger sticking out of the sleeve on the arm he had held out to her.  She stared at it until he lowered his hand.  "Everyone just refers to me as Gwynt, though," he added, without losing a hint of cheerfulness.

"Did you have something to do with him?" Robin said, pointing towards the pile of half-orc.

Gwynt nodded.  "I was testing out a new sedative of mine.  I found a lovely little pot of water and thought, no better test subject than homeless dumpster-dweller whom nobody would miss, ha ha!"

"Ha ha!  Ha," Robin said, an octave higher than usual.

"So, it didn't work out exactly as I had planned, but the potion was tested in the end!"  He grinned at the unmoving body next to him.  His smile filled his whole face, causing his solid green eyes to squint.  Alfar didn't have crow's feet, for their skin never wrinkled, but no human could have put on a happier expression.

Robin coughed.  "So, he's just asleep, then?"

"Oh, no, he's clearly quite dead.  The potion was a complete failure as a sedative.  Of course, I should have known when I added another dose of deathvine."  Gwynt laughed, and while Robin didn't hear any faeries weeping, perhaps a crow did make a garbled attempt at singing.  "That's just the ups and downs of being an assassin, though.  Sometimes a sedative turns out to be a poison!"

"Of course."

"But you're not a helpless, homeless cretin after all!" Gwynt said, looking her up and down from head to toe.  "What is it you do for a living?"

Robin shuffled her feet.  "I've been told it's not true, but I consider myself a thief."  She wasn't too worried about confessing her illegal profession to an admitted assassin.

"Say!" Gwynt clapped and pointed at Robin as if he had just noticed her.  He then looked back and forth between her and the dead half-orc.  "Does this mean you can't work with him anymore?"

"Well, I wasn't working with him, but I do find myself without employment at the moment."

Gwynt raised his hand to his chest and his jaw fell open in shock.  "Employment?  You are too good to be merely working for another group.  You should be the one calling the shots!"

Robin couldn't remember ever being praised before, so at first she thought that Gwynt was demeaning her.  "Well, we can't all be fan-tratten-tastic assassins, as you so clearly are," she snapped.

"I'm honored, my lady," Gwynt said, a shade of pink creeping up his cheeks.

Robin closed her mouth, then opened it again.  "Wait, were you serious?"

"Absolutely."  Gwynt motioned for Robin to follow him, and they walked back to the rear of the warehouse.  Gwynt waved his hands over the scene, replaying Robin's daring and short-lived escape in his head.  "The way you ingeniously escaped that brute's clutches, adroitly evaded him for quite some time, and then cleverly stalled until my poison took effect...It was like watching a work of art spread across the canvas by itself."

It was Robin's turn to blush.  "Gee," she mumbled.

"I think you would fit right in with myself and my cohorts."

Robin's eyes turned into double moons.  Yesterday she (technically) stole something for the first time, and now she was being asked to join a gang!  It was almost too much excitement at once.  It was too much when you considered she hadn't gotten any sleep.  Robin staggered, then fell into a sitting position on a crate propped against the warehouse wall.

"You want...me?  To be a professional thief?" she said.

Gwynt shrugged.  "Well, it's not up to me, but I can introduce you and offer up my recommendation.  And you won't start with a leadership position, of course, since Anzo is...well, you'll meet him, and the rest."  He smiled.  "But, yes!  We're sorely lacking a good thief at the moment."

Robin looked over at the dumpster she had privately called home for the past three years.  It was now just a pile of wood surrounding an overturned anvil.  A ragged strand of blue cloth that she had used as decoration flapped uselessly in the breeze.  It was beyond repair, especially because no one else even remembered it existed.

"I'm in," she said.  Gwynt laughed again and cheered.  "What do you call yourselves?" Robin added.

Gwynt bowed formally, with an odd flourish of his hand.  "I am but a humble servant of the group, destined for greatness, known as...Bedlam."

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