#Never watched or read Christine or Fear and Loathing but I know of them

[legendary-guest]

Even more Motor Ed headcanons because I really, really like him! A.K.A things I forgot.

A Gen 1 Transformers fan. Giant robots that turn into cars, bikes and planes? Say less. Megatron is his favourite but he's mad at the fact that he turns into a gun. Begrudgingly has to say he prefers Optimus Prime. You can't go wrong with a fire engine....

This issue is amended in Beast Wars where Megatron is a T-Rex. He's happy.

Christine and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are his favourites, both the books and movies. (Classic car possessed by a she-devil who transforms a geeky teen into a ruthless killer, written as if they were girlfriend/boyfriend. Come on. Come on. Fear and Loathing is nutty and chaotic enough for him; classic cars, drugs, motorcycle races).

A natural blond; and, like many natural blonds, his hair turns, well, less blond over the years and, okay, maybe he tints it, alright! Seriously.

[notaghost3]

Fic asks: 3, 7, 13, 18

3. Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around?

Usually start to finish, my especially for one-shots with lots of different separate scenes, I’ll jump around!

7. Which part of writing do you struggle with most?

The writing part ;p Hahaha, no probably describing or basically anything that isn’t dialogue. If I could all my stories would be dialogue with as little anything else as possible! haha

13. Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth?

Hmmmm...probably de-aging? The stories where a character suddenly gets turned into a baby...I’ll read it but I probably wouldn’t ever write it!

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

This might get lengthy hahaha, but the first thing to come to mind is the 5th chapter of Heathens, where we finally get into Christine’s head for the first time and the reader begins to realize that things might not end happily ever after after all...so I might quote the whole chapter below! Italics is story, bold is my DVD commentary!

Her breath came out in a hiss.

How long had it been? Days? Months? Minutes?

The throbbing (this is a double meaning, the throbbing being her craving for blood and also her craving for Erik) continued, hidden deep within her. An awful, never ending sensation that followed her, haunted her through day and night. Or perhaps just night, for there was no day here in the cellar she was trapped in (not a blatant reference, but in Leroux’s novel, Erik controls the clocks in his house and I always wondered if he was changing the times to trick Christine into thinking time was passing slower/quicker depending on what he wanted and this Erik for sure would. Plus...vampires, darkness, night). Only night, only darkness, only thirst, only despair, only maddening need- (This Christine, and this chapter especially is full of purposeful repetition as if she’s collecting her thoughts and I really love the way that turned out!)

Only him.

That was the trouble of it all. It was not that she desired him, not that she loved him but that without him she could not survive; dependence was all she knew, the only familiar friend that kept her company in this underworld of horror. 

She wanted to crush dependence like a bug beneath her foot. (Defeat the vampire patriarchy!) 

She hated the dependence that he had forced upon her with this "new life", this "new chance" she had been gifted by him, she loathed the "freedom" she was offered by being forever held in a prison cell disguised as a house (this came from me wanting to start introducing the concept that she was actually miserable as a vampire vs. alot of vampire E/C fics or vampire fics in general where the person turned into the vampire just adapts to immortality beautifully and loves it and I think Christine is just too much of a sunshine person to ever be happy :/ especially in this AU since she actually didn’t know Erik before hand). She spat upon this life. Cursed, condemned and damned it in her mind until she broke down and prayed for forgiveness. Prayed for forgiveness from a God she wasn't sure was even listening to her desperate pleas anymore. Why would he? She was just as cursed, condemned, and damned as the creature she tried to pray away. (LOVE that last sentence, I love when I see the chance to flip the monster/man scenario on Christine since she can’t view it as an outsider anymore, she has to herself as the monster too. I touch on that in the last chapter to, but I really like this one because it includes the God convo because do vampires have souls? Do anyone? Christine is really doubting it now and she doesn’t like that she’s having to.) 

It was then that she cried.

It was the strangest thing: she could cry. So many other human traits had been taken away but that one remained. Each tear burned, but she relished in the pain. At least the tears were her own, at least he didn't command when they fell, at least she could feel the pain they brought as she was made numb to so many other things. It was these times that he came to her and wrapped her in his arms, apologizing and shushing her gently on the floor of the cold stone that no longer felt cold compared to her skin. (The sad thing about this AU is that Erik really does love Christine, despite her very obviously hating him and I picture in these instances, he is really actually upset and caring for her but he doesn’t realize [yet anyway, he will by the end of the last chapter] that she feels like a songbird trapped in a gilded cage. Also the cold is a reference to the legend that vampires have unnaturally cold skin.)

Compared to her heart.

For a moment, she could almost fool herself that she was human and so was he. That there was genuine care between them and that she genuinely wanted comfort from her fears. For a moment, she could almost love him. 

But almost love was far different from the real thing. (UGH Christine is under the impression that she is being manipulated which she is and she is very suspicious of any and all of his actions toward her, but a part of her feels drawn to him...)

He claimed to love her, but she knew this monster too well to be charmed and deceived by the false promises of love he offered her. (love this sentence!) She hadn't asked for this life, hadn't asked for him but here she was. Here they were. He told her he loved her every chance he saw: loved her voice, loved her hair, loved her eyes that now mirrored the shade of his own, loved her soft skin, loved the wetness that he coaxed from her, loved the scars he had left on the back of her throat...she could go on and on (this is in reference to Leroux’s Erik and how he spent a ton of times those 2 weeks he kidnapped her proclaiming his love!) She knew better. He was nothing more than a snake, poised and ready to strike.

Rattlesnake and songbird- she'd heard this tale before. (This was the first sentence I had planned for this chapter! I had just gotten into Hadestown and I realized that Hades and Eurydice in “Hey little Songbird” where Hades enticed Eurydice into the Underworld was such a good parellel and in the musical Hermes has a line about rattlesnake vs. songbird and I feel like Christine would’ve probably heard the Orpheus/Eurydice tale probably from Erik or maybe her father so I had to include it. This whole chapter blossomed from this sentence basically.)

But then he'd lean down and settle on the ground beside her, he'd cup his hand under her chin, and he'd raise her face to his-

Then she'd see his eyes. (Hypnotization! I decided the reason Erik used it so much was because he thought because of his ugliness, Christine would never stay on her own terms...and the reason Christine hasn’t tried it for herself is because she simply doesn’t know she can)

Those beautiful, awful, dangerous eyes.

And the world fell away.

She knew she shouldn't look at them. Shouldn't give way to temptation and lock stares with him, giving herself willingly over, but it was better then. She wasn't in control then, she was a lifeless doll that was docile and willing. She couldn't think when she was lost in his eyes, didn't have time to dwell on the ill-fated deck of cards life had dealt her. Instead, there was only life, only surrender, only pure bliss- (Here’s the mirrored repetition from earlier in the chapter!)

Only him.

It was like drawing a circle in the sand. (Lowkey hate this sentence, but i couldn’t think of anything better in the moment.)

She would look at him and believe every word he uttered.

Then he would kiss her, slowly and passionately just like a lover should, and she would hitch her leg over his hip as she let him lower her against the ground... (*Side Eye*)

Why couldn't she just hate him? (ah yes, the question of the century..., and also in reference to the scene in Leroux where she tells Raoul that she cannot hate Erik.)

Why after every lie and manipulation did she come back? Crawling after him like a drunkard in need of alcohol. Why did some part of her compel her to stay, what gene in her dared to act on its curious instincts? It wouldn't be so difficult to hate him if he didn't provide her with the solution to her throbbing, with the water for the flames that constantly raged inside her, grasping to be released (that whole sentence can be applied to both of her pressing *needs*). It was easy to pretend then as the creature took over and she wasn't in control of her actions and desires. It was quite simple to be content in those moments. (Here she is, trying to reason that she is just the victim, just the outsider and not the monster).

But that too ended.

And he would look away.

And the world would come crashing back down.

It was quite easy to hate him then.

The throbbing continued, beating between her legs in a battle against the burn of her throat. The two constant, consistent needs that only he could fill. (One of my FAVORITE sentences I have ever wrote!)

Only Erik... (and here’s the final reference to the “only��� repetition theme Christine has had going on this whole chapter!)

Her eyes narrowed from her place in the doorway of his music room as she watched his fingers play out notes that she was positive had been tapped on the inner most parts of her. Music was perhaps the only wholesome thing she had left but he was in every note, his voice the most incredible thing she ever had the misfortune of hearing. (Another sentence I’m really proud of! Also this was actually the first paragraph I had written for this chapter and it just sat at the end of this document while I tried to fill in the middle!)

Christine wasn't sure of many things, but as her tongue traced over her blood-stained lips she was sure of one thing: she had to escape. (In my OG outline, the chapter actually kept going from here, but I decided that this had really nice punch to it and I left it alone! And I’m glad I did. I also like how it ties the whole chapter back to Earth as you realize Christine has had all these thoughts while shooting Erik daggers with her eyes in the doorframe.)

Well, hopefully you made it through all my ramblings! I feel like I could do this with the last chapter of Heathens to, but I made a whole video about that one! The password is heathens if anyone is interested in listening to me ramble hahaha

Thank you, @a-partofthenarrative!!

[ironstrange-is-the-endgame]

Kidnapped

Whumptober, day 7

tw: canon-typical violence, graphic description of violence, blood

The last thing in the world Stephen expected was a phone call from Peter Parker. Not because he didn’t get along with the kid, quite the opposite, but because usually Spider-Man swung in with a happy smile on his face and spoke with Stephen about his day, school, and Aunt May every couple of days, when he was not interning at the Stark Industries.

Since Strange started to date Tony, the kid and his aunt started to be steady presences in his life too. May was more delicate, never stepping boundaries and always showing up with some threat - and even if whatever she cooked was absolutely terrible, Stephen noted that Wong seemed to enjoy it, maybe it was that famous Sorcerers’ diet Stephen’s body didn’t need still, or maybe the very same reason why May didn’t seem so sad the last time Stephen had to leave the Sanctum, not that he cared, though; while Peter was a little hurricane eager to know new things and do it by touching them. Which was the reason why, at the end of the day, a call from him was weird as fuck.

“It’s Stephen,” He answered, instead of the formal ‘Doctor Stephen Strange’, but, again, it was the kid so no need to be formal. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr Doctor, sir,” Peter’s voice has something wrong, though Stephen decided to let him speak before questioning him about that: if he knew the teen week enough, he would explain himself soon. “I was wondering… Doesn’t happen that Mr Stark maybe is at the Sanctum?”

“No, I’ll meet with Tony after your lab session,” It was a weird question, truth to be told, but maybe Peter was in dire of help. “There’s something I can do for you?”

“It’s just… Happy didn’t hear from him since last night and Friday told me he didn’t come back, so…”

Stephen would have paid for every other answer from him. Even a stupid one about how he would look great in the Cloak and how cool the name Spider Supreme was. Everything was better than those words: “Tony didn’t come back.”

They were together, the previous night. They had a nice dinner and a very, very nice dessert at the Sanctum and them Stephen suggested to portal him to the Tower but Tony insisted to drive. “Did you try to call Nat or Rhodey?”

“Yes, and yes,” Peter’s voice was worried, even more now that he knew Tony wasn’t at Stephen’s. “Mrs Romanoff told me she last saw him yesterday for the afternoon at the meeting, while Colonel Rhodes is on a mission with Captain Danvers. I also called Doctor Banner but…”

“He and Christine are out of the country, I know,” Stephen said, trying to think who he could call. “I could track him but you know…”

Tony still loathed magic. It didn’t matter that he dated a sorcerer, he couldn’t stand the idea of magic and location spells were more invasive than people were willing to admit. Stephen loved Stark too much to do something like that. “What if - I don’t even know.”

Peter was panicking, and Stephen couldn’t blame him. But Tony was a grown man, and he could do whatever he wanted to. “He probably had to go abroad and forgot to tell it to anyone, Pete.”

Stephen didn’t really believe that, though it was better than any other option which crossed his mind.

—

Tony Stark was declared missed one week later, and by now not even Stephen could keep his darkest fears away. At first, it thought that Tony decided he needed a little bit of peace but when he used to do that, he sent something from whatever he was to let them know he was ok. Not that happened frequently since they started to date, but it did after some bad arguments. And, usually, it lasted for a couple of days before Tony texted Stephen to reach him, and the did a lot of make-up sex.

That time was different, Stephen could feel it. And despite hating to voice it, when Wong suggested him to go to the police, Strange took the advice immediately. Actually, the policeman who found himself facing Doctor Strange and a teen telling him Tony Stark went missing looked like someone made him the worst joke ever. It didn’t matter, that wasn’t their only way to look for him they had but was more.

—

Friday went off-line one week and two days after any of them had last seen Tony. Rhodey was the one who awknowdeleged it. He was running through Tony’s last fly paths both with the suit and with his jet when the AI simply stopped to work and any attempt to restart her went in the blue.

Even Shuri tried to re-upload her from remote but there were few things she could do, she said to them.

“Whatever Tony is doing, is bigger than we all thought,” She said, looking almost defeated from her own holographic projection. The problem was that Stephen wasn’t sure there was Tony behind all of this. Whatever it was.

—

The world knew about it three weeks after Stark’s disappearing, when Steve and Bucky rescheduled their wedding. Captain America said that he wasn’t going to getting married until all his family was back, and Tony Stark was part of the said family.

Maybe he hoped that would have brought him back, though Stephen knew better. By now, he was sure that if his boyfriend could go back he would have done that long time ago.

—

The day after they went public with Tony being missing, Peter called him again. By now, there was no news: the kid called him to be updated about Stark or just vent when he needed it, and Stephen was there to help him as far as he could.

“Hey, kiddo,” He answered, trying to sound casual. In the end, he gave up and used magic to track Tony down, with the only conclusion of facing the dread truth: either Tony wasn’t on Earth, or he shielded himself from magic. “How are you?”

“Stephen…” If he didn’t call him ‘Mr Doctor’ or ‘Doctor Dad’ it meant it was serious. “Can you please portal there?”

“Sure, where are you?” Stephen asked he could sense the urgency in Peter’s voice.

“Home, please, hurry up.”

Stephen took his sliding ring and started to open a portal. “Is May all right? Do you need medical assistance?”

“Yes, and no, just… It’s easier if…” The moment Stephen stepped outside from the portal, he found himself facing both the Parkers and he slightly calmed down seeing that May was, indeed, fine. Just very, very pale and visibly shocked. Peter looked the same but he was holding something in his hands apart from his mobile. When he saw him, the boy stood up and hugged the sorcerer. “Stephen… You are here… I… Someone… Mr Stark.”

Stephen caressed Spider-Man’s brown hair looking at him a moment later. “Yes, of course, I’m here, you called me,” He said, receiving a small smile from May. He knew she tried all she could to help Peter with the superhero thing, but she was glad he had Tony in his life for that, and she told him she was glad that Stephen was looking after her boy as well. “What’s wrong?”

“I found this in the daily mails,” May answered. Peter frozen in the hug, and was now holding Stephen’s as if his own life depended on that, the sorcerer didn’t care. He entangled his hand from Peter’s curly hair and took the sheet May was handling at him. It was blank, with just a website printed on it and two words: Tony Stark.

“Did you…?” Stephen asked, and Peter showed him his mobile phone. Thanking a god in which Stephen didn’t believe, the quality of the video was crappy because the man bonded in chains to the chair in the middle of an empty dim lighted room was Tony Stark.

Around him, there were men with dark military gears and dark masks on their faces. One was keeping a gun pressed against Tony’s temple, the other was in front of the genius, asking him something - the video didn’t have audio and they were too far from Stephen to read Tony’s labial while the man’s lips were covered by the mask - and hitting him everytime no answer came from Stark. Stephen’s hands were shaking so violently that he was afraid he would let the phone fall. Though he couldn’t help himself to watch, hoping to find some detail that may suggest him where Tony was.

He had no idea how long it went, but the man with the gun at some point turned to the camera and said something to his companion. By now, Tony was more passed away than conscious. The man with the gun did something because then audio came from Peter’s mobile.

“Doctor Strange, I suppose, or maybe young Peter,” The man said and Stephen shivered. They could see if someone was online. Which meant it was really a live stream. And, somehow, that was good news at least because it meant that Tony was still alive. “We will release Tony Stark once we will have the SHIELD secrets he kept from himself.”

Both Peter and May dumbfounded and Stephen was sure the wear a matching expression. He had no idea about what the man was speaking. He knew of the downfall of the SHIELD, of course, like everyone else, probably, but he couldn’t see why Tony should keep something from himself. Stephen wanted to look at Tony but the man’s silhouette was covering everything else and he wanted just to throw up right there and now. The man didn’t add anything and covered the camera. Stephen looked at Peter and knew he was as pale as the kid.

“Call Nat, she can help us hacking the site and we may know from where they are streaming,” Stephen said tracing runes with the point of his hands on the sheet. Maybe there was a track of it as well.

—

It was Afghanistan all over again, that was what Rhodey told him, looking at the screen of his own StarkPad. With the only difference that back in the day they knew what the kidnappers wanted.

Stephen has always been the best working under pressure but he couldn’t think right now. Not with the image of Tony in front of his eyes even if he wasn’t looking at the screen.

Natasha was trying to track the signal, but whoever those people were, were fairly equipped to protect themselves and the fact that magic couldn’t help was another proof of that.

“They took down Karen too,” Peter said, walking into the room. Nat was speaking with Maria Hill, trying to understand if she knew something about those files. Steve and Bucky were looming in the corner, more men of action, Sam was trying to find some background sound from the video, but without Friday it was all pointless.

“Probably because if Tony can use her to track you, it works both ways,” Rhodey suggested.

Stephen was trying to think about what he could do, though the room was too loud and everything that came in his mind every time he dared to think about Tony was his bloody face. Rhodey closed the video after one of the men kicked the genius on the floor but in Strange’s mind that scene evolved and grew worse.

He almost punched Captain America when Steve approached him.

“We will find Tony,” He said. The two of them had never spoken, not for things which didn’t concern missions or Wanda’s well being in Kamar-Taj, so everything Stephen did was nodding at the man who tried a smile before going back at his fiancé’s side.

—

It took them four days of no-stop searching before some progress had been made. Stephen was physically exhausted and more than once Peter and May tried to force him to sleep until Wong grew annoyed and dared to drug his tea if he didn’t get some rest.

And he was kind of sleeping, or better his body was resting while his astral projection was trying to find Tony’s aura which was still shining in all those wonderful colours - the thing calmed him only slightly: it just meant that Tony was alive -, when Peter’s mask went on and Karen’s voice filled the Compound. Apparently, Ned and Shuri successfully hacked into Spider-Man’s AI and bring her back online.

Stephen didn’t even care to go back in his physical body and all but rushed in the Tower main room. At some point, during one of their numerous brainstorming, Pepper suggested running through Stark Industries employers because the only way someone could hack Friday was being in touch with the AI and Tony kept her running also for the R&D teams. Stephen didn’t lose a second to look at the information which appeared on the screen connected to Karen. He rushed back in his body and opened a portal to the closest location he knew from the man’s address.

Stephen has sworn an oath. That was what he was repeating to himself while he climbed two steps at the time of the building where the suspect lived. He swore not to take lives. He never killed, just once and it was because his own life depended on it, and the sorcerer still felt guilty about that. He sworn not to cause pain in others, he sworn to do everything in his power to protect lives.

He swore those very same things when he became Sorcerer Supreme, though he wasn’t protecting just lives but the entire multiverse. He has sworn those things to Tony too, holding the man between his arms. And he kept swearing that every night Tony woke up after a nightmare.

But he broke those oaths. He choose between lives when he was a surgeon, he harmed nobody but he could have taken more risks, save more people, he broke the laws of nature, back in Hong Kong, and now he let someone take Tony. He wasn’t able to protect him. So, now, all that Stephen Strange wanted was revenge. What he didn’t expect reaching the seventh floor of the building, though, was facing Peter, Rhodey and Clint outside the suspect’s apartment. “What?” He asked.

“I heard Karen’s message too, and she called Peter probably. Nat, Steve and Bucky are on the main entrance, Wanda, Shuri and Bruce on the back,” Clint explained to him, a cocky smile on his face. “We are a team, Doc, we do not avenge by our owns. Now, if you mind, we should knock the door.”

Which meant shooting an explosive arrow without warning, apparently. The point was, Stephen couldn’t think straight or he would have waited for back-ups. According to Karen, whoever the man was, he was a made up identity and he was probably a former Hydra agent went in the dark after Natasha exposure of SHIELD’s files.

How he passed Stark Industries background controls what a mystery, but he most definitely didn’t work on his own.

The apartment was empty and after having checked with the outside teams who reached them inside, it was clear that the man didn’t leave the building after their arrival. “He probably left when they took Tony, but it was worth a shot,” Nat said searching for something between the man’s stuff.

“Wait, that’s Tony’s, isn’t it?” Clint came out from the bedroom with a SarkPhone. “It must be his at least our friend hacked into Tony’s private server.”

Tony’s screensaver was, indeed, a very private picture the genius saved from one of the multiples videos he had Friday recorder. In that one, a six-armed Stephen was stripping Tony off of his clothes holding his hands above his head. None of them was naked, though it was clear how it would have ended. Stephen had no idea that photo even existed and he would have been more flattered in any other occasion.

“We couldn’t track his mobile, which means whatever they are using to shield both tech and magic must be close,” The sorcerer said, taking the mobile from Clint’s hands.

“We can search in the other buildings around there,” Bucky suggested. “Rhodey and Pete can use the thermal view, to shield that is harder.”

They divided again. The area wasn’t so close but, at least, it was smaller than the entire world, or space as he feared at first. Though, what was driving him crazy was that he had seen how Tony had been tortured. They couldn’t fail. If the man went back in the apartment and realized the phone was missing before they found Tony, he was gone, for good.

Searching for Tony’s aura, Stephen could almost say how close he was to his beloved boyfriend. It wasn’t as precise as a location spell or a GPS position but it could work as in he was on the right path. Which was how he found himself rushing the moment Peter’s voice reached him from the roofs: “Doc, six different sources of heat in the building in front of you.”

Too few for being an apartment complex, too many for being a casualty. He nodded. “Get it, alert the others.”

And before Peter could say something, the Cloak lifted him and Stephen was on the building roof.

—

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. That had been the last time Stephen had seen Tony. And all that time he had been in New York, in the hands of some psycho former Hydra agent. And Stephen thought the man just wanted to broke up with him and didn’t know how to say it. He had been terribly stupid, and if Tony would have broken up with him after that, he could understand.

But Stephen didn’t care. He only wanted to see the love of his life breathing. That was the only thing that mattered.

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. And Stephen was rushing down the stairs, entering from the emergency stair into what looked like an abandoned factory, the Cloak on his shoulders flipping to a nonexistent wind.

Peter told him there were six heat sources inside the building. Five enemies, between him and Tony. He didn’t even care about being silent, at this point, while he rapidly summoned two orange shields shining in the otherwise pitch-black building. The first bullet melted against them, the Cloak was on the man in an eyebeat, dragging him down from his sniper position. Stephen didn’t even stop when he heard the deaf sound of a body against the concrete.

Other two men were on him the moment he walked in the dim-lighted room. It was probably the one from the videos, and Stephen tried not to think about the fact that the floor was bloody red. The sorcerer knocked one of the men out and used his magical ropes to tie the other. His hands were shaking and hurting, but Stephen didn’t care.

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. And only two other men between him and Tony. Without thinking about the amount of blood Tony had possibly lost and about the other men who might have reached the building - he doubted that if they were Hydra there were just five agents guarding Tony Stark, it didn’t matter how advanced their technology seemed to be - he followed the bloody footsteps into another room. This was larger, but Stephen didn’t mind to look at it because Tony was there, probably passed out seeing how he was lying on the floor, and no, Stephen refused either to believe or think that he might have been dead, also because it was clear that they wanted him alive.

“Tony,” He said, rushing toward the unresponsive body. He was breathing, though, and that helped Stephen to control his own respiration. “I’m here, I’m here…” He whispered, holding his boyfriend’s body between his arms. He could hear footsteps at his back and he imagined those belonged to the kidnappers who wanted to attack him while he couldn’t protect himself but he didn’t care. He was there, with Tony, and he was alive, the other Avengers were arriving so he just had to protect him, didn’t matter if they try to kill Stephen instead. And then, a red shield rose in front of his eyes and he was sure that it belonged to Wanda.

“We have this under control, Doctor,” Steve said, and Stephen didn’t even notice they entered the building. “Bring him home.”

Stephen didn’t wait for them to have second thoughts and portalled Tony to the Sanctum.

—

Stephen took care of Tony thanks both to his own magic and his studies. He didn’t want anyone to get close to the genius without him being in the room but for Peter and Rhodey and didn’t sleep in the two days Tony slept.

When he woke, Stephen wasn’t in the room, but he could hear the fretted breathing of his boyfriend. It took some minutes for Tony to realize he was safe in the Sanctum and he stopped to shake only when he saw Stephen walking inside the room. “Steph…” He let out, and Stephen’s lips curled in a smile.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen whispered his hands softly on Tony’s face still marked with bruises. “I should have realized before you didn’t run away, I should have…”

“It’s not your fault, babe,” Tony’s voice was weak, raw because of his sore throat. Stephen let a glass of water appeared in his hands, placing it on the duvet between them because he knew Tony hated when people handled things at him. Tony drank without opposing. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Stephen pushed softly his lips against Tony’s, and they stayed like this for some minutes before the genius tried to stand up. Only to meet Stephen’s stoniest expression. “You are not going to leave anytime soon, Mr Stark, you are officially my prisoner until you will have rest and all those bruises will have fade.”

And maybe it was too soon to joke about Stephen kidnapping him, but Tony laughed anyways.

[acsversace-news]

In the summer of 1997, a little more than half a lifetime ago, I got my first proper summer job. The job, with one of the many branches of Canada’s federal government in Ottawa, covered the entire tuition for my sophomore year of college (such things were possible in the late nineties). The gig itself was worlds away from my current occupation as a crime writer. “Inventory asset management” was the vague, jargony title that described the mix of my duties: lifting heavy objects—furniture, office supplies—and computer data entry.

It was meant to be tedious, a spirit confirmed by the office’s gray cubicles, the recycled air, and the lack of ambition among my colleagues. But my mornings were not boring. I began my summer gig the first week of July, and within a week I had developed a lively routine. One of my coworkers—perhaps even my then boss—left a stack of printouts at my desk. They weren’t for my job. They were something else entirely.

“Hey, Sarah!” he’d say. “Here’s the latest on that spree killer you’re obsessed with.”

And every morning, I’d sift through the papers, then search on AltaVista or Lycos for the latest on a twenty-seven-year-old fugitive named Andrew Cunanan. I needed to know more. I needed to know why.

Two decades later, I suppose I still do.

*

Most people didn’t start to pay attention to Andrew Cunanan until after he murdered Gianni Versace: Just after nine A.M., on July 15, 1997, Cunanan walked up to the front steps of Versace’s Miami Beach villa, shot him twice, and fled. Another week of intense law-enforcement searches and media scrutiny followed, and then both started to wane when Cunanan killed himself on July 23. Now, the new series American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, currently airing on FX, implies, from its title, a singular focus on that murder.

I’d already bought in months before, just after the murder of the Chicago real-estate developer Lee Miglin in his garage on May 4. The FBI added Cunanan to their Most Wanted list after that savage crime. The poster, with several different photos of Cunanan, appeared on broadcast after broadcast. And when it wasn’t airing, I’d log on and look at it on what passed for newspaper websites in the spring of 1997, and then discuss theories and speculate on newsgroups and message boards.

Like so many other bored teens, I was a bored teen with a hobby. The only difference was mine was obsessing about crime. It began when I was young: tallying a list of baseball players who were murdered; reading about the disappearances of Etan Patz and Tania Murrell, the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, Christine Jessop and Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan; following hometown newspaper accounts of two still-unsolved murders of sex workers, Melinda Sheppit and Sophie Filion. My life was order; crime was chaos. Even when those crimes had solutions, new cases re-created the chaos.

From my reading on Cunanan, I decided that it didn’t seem likely that he would cross the border into Canada to continue his spree. Still, I wondered if he might. He had traveled from California to Minnesota, on to Chicago. He’d go east to New York City and New Jersey, then down to South Carolina and Miami, switching cars and swapping license plates, before the killing was over.

It was like chasing O.J. Simpson’s Ford Bronco, but it stretched out over months. It was Charles Starkweather without Caril Fugate (unless David Madson, Cunanan’s former lover, qualified: he was hostage and witness to the murder of victim number one, Jeff Trail, before he became victim number two). The pace was fast and then it was unbearably, excruciatingly slow.

I looked for crumbs in the details, from the barking dog in Madson’s apartment to the screwdriver used to bash in Miglin’s head. So many rumors. So much speculation. None of it seemed real. None of it seemed knowable. “None of you really know who I am,” Cunanan was reported to have told friends in San Francisco before flying north to Minneapolis, where his killing spree began. “None of it is real,” the fictional Madson (Cody Fern) tells Cunanan (Darren Criss) in an early confrontation in the new series. “It’s just one of your stories.”

For the men Cunanan murdered, and their surviving families, it couldn’t be anything but real.

*

Because I followed the case in real time, it was jarring to watch The Assassination of Gianni Versace unspool in reverse. It opens, of course, with Versace’s murder, as dramatic a scene in a television show as it had to have been on the morning of July 15, 1997. Of course, we then need to step back and understand what drove Andrew Cunanan to transform obsession into murderous action, while also learning how Versace rose from obscure Calabrian designer to become one of the most famous men in fashion.

Tom Rob Smith, who wrote all nine episodes, is an accomplished screenwriter (London Spy) and an excellent thriller writer (Child 44, Agent 6). I sensed the struggle he likely had in twinning these two disparate stories, forging distant connections—Versace and Cunanan apparently met in San Francisco—into something more substantive, if imaginative.

One problem may have been the series’ source material: Maureen Orth’s Vulgar Favors (1999) was based on a Vanity Fair article she was working on before Versace’s death forced her to rewrite it on the most impossible deadline. Orth relayed the facts through the prism of Cunanan’s celebrity obsession, looking for larger meaning where there wasn’t one. Her descriptions of early 1990s gay life clang like an out-of-tune bell; the TV series does a far superior job showing the casual homophobia, the still-prevalent fear of AIDS, and the concepts—like gay marriage—that were unthinkable then.

Gary Indiana’s Three-Month Fever, also published in 1999 and reissued last year, was more imaginative than Orth’s factual account. Indiana includes sections from Cunanan’s point of view, with thoughts the author could never have been privy to. But Three-Month Fever felt the more honest of the two books in its attempt to override a “narrative overripe with tabloid evil” in order to concentrate on “the somewhat poignant and depressing but fairly ordinary thing.”

Cunanan’s and Versace’s stories diverged because their lives operated on different planes. Versace strove and succeeded beyond his earliest ambitions. Cunanan strove and failed, time and time again. Versace was open about his sexuality, other opinions be damned. Cunanan masked his homosexuality when it suited him, and played it up at other opportune moments. Versace was never anyone else than himself. Cunanan, the chameleon, had no self to be.

The only true convergence was that morning of July 15, 1997, when Cunanan forced himself into Versace’s story like the proverbial spider eating the fly.

*

By design, The Assassination of Gianni Versace is a male-dominated narrative, and its performances are generally strong. (Darren Criss, in particular, inhabits Cunanan’s narcissism with queasy brilliance.) It takes as its subject homosexuality (both its embrace and its condemnation) and ranges from flashy Miami Beach bacchanalia to the despair of being closeted in a military setting. Homophobia, and closeted self-loathing, are casual and catastrophic. Women are not the story here.

But the scene that stuck with me the most, from episode 3, centers on a woman and her emotions. It’s when Marilyn Miglin (Judith Light), who has just come home from a Toronto trip to the news that her husband has been murdered, sits in front of her bathroom mirror. She touches up her makeup. She makes sure her hair is perfectly in place. She’s already, in a clipped voice that brooks no opposition, informed the police captain that the family only cares about the capture of Miglin’s killer, without airing any of the sexual peccadilloes.

“I know what they are saying about me,” says Marilyn Miglin. “Where’s the emotion, where’s the grief … How could a woman who cares so much about appearance appear not to care?” Light, as Marilyn, is all controlled fury in this scene, especially when she utters the line, “You’re weak.” Here, even before the inevitable breakdown, all of the contradictions are plain in her face and in her hands. She loved her husband. She knew him better than anyone.

Hers is the story I’d like to see fully told. But Marilyn Miglin has never again spoken to the press about her late husband, though she kept on with her cosmetics company and regular appearances on the Home Shopping Network. Their son, Duke, broke his own silence last May, to a Chicago television station. “There’s never really closure in a situation like this,” he said.

*

The spell broke on July 23, 1997. I don’t remember if more printouts showed up at my desk, or if I’d heard the news later on, after I’d gone home for the day. Andrew Cunanan was dead by suicide. No note, no motive. No answers, no solutions. Books and films, more books and then television shows followed.

There were no more stories to print out every morning. My coworkers found other topics to interest them, and I suppose I did as well. The world moved on, most definitively, when Princess Diana died in a paparazzi-induced car crash on August 31. My own interest in true crime waxed and waned before becoming my preeminent occupation. But I’m no closer to knowing why Cunanan killed five men.

Maybe it’s as simple as this: All his life, Cunanan had a core narrative. He believed that he was special, and that people would love him as a result, no matter how outlandish his stories. There were multiple versions of himself, depending on the audience. It was false, a story with an expiration date. But when the expiration date came due, when the core narrative couldn’t sustain him anymore, he was over. No more Andrew Cunanan. The story that enabled him to live no longer worked, so he had to die. To keep the story alive, he killed others, out of rage, opportunity, or obsession with fame.

No wonder the blanks remain so blank, ready to be filled in by eager journalists, novelists, screenwriters. Because it’s a void. Andrew Cunanan was no mythic figure. Even comparing him to Tom Ripley is lazy, though I suppose Patricia Highsmith might have been intrigued by his behavior. Cunanan’s crimes were awful not because of the tangential celebrity but because of their mundane horror. They deserve airing to help us understand not him but ourselves.

[pinetree-in-hatchetfield]

Taking Big Steps - A Spideychelle Fic

A/N: So I’m working on 2 other fics right now, this is to fill the space between the last fic and the next two. Also I’ve been sitting on this idea for like a month. Anyway, Enjoy!

It was Ned’s idea. All of this eventually traced back to Ned. Well, mostly it led back to Ned.  Okay, it was kind of Peter’s fault too.

Peter Parker had always loved theater, especially musicals. Some of his fondest memories growing up were of him, Uncle Ben, and Aunt May reenacting scenes from Sound Of Music or Singing In The Rain. Even then the three things he wanted to grow up to be were Scientist, Actor, and Iron Man.

So when the school play came around, Ned knew that Peter would love to participate. Being his best friend he also knew that Peter would never voluntarily audition. Peter was too concerned about drawing attention to himself and, though he wouldn't admit it, was worried about being rejected.

So, with Peter's best interest in mind, Ned spent the next week pestering Peter about joining the play. Peter wasn't too fond of his own tactic being used against him, but hey, it was for the greater good. Eventually it worked and Peter agreed to audition, once.  Peter was a smart cookie, though. He knew that if he was going to audition, he was going to go big. Lead role. There was no way that he could get something like that. Then Ned would be off his back and he wouldn't have to worry about embarrassing himself in front of the school.A few days later a flaw grew in Peter's plan. A major variable that was completely unaccounted for. They liked him. Like, they really liked him. And now Peter "Looking Out For The Little Guy" Parker, was leading for Midtown's play of the year.

As much as he wanted to loathe it, he was kind of excited. Okay, really excited. But he was allowed this, he had been dreaming about it for years. May and Ned were excited too, they knew how much he wanted this. So for the next few days reading  the script and memorizing his lines. Ned and May would stand in if need be.

One fateful night however, as Peter was rereading the finale he came across one simple line he had somehow missed every time before. Maybe he didn't want to see it, maybe he was too excited, just somehow. This time however, this one simple time,  he couldn't help but see it. There in bold the page read "James raises arm victoriously and kisses Christine."

Kiss? No, no way. He had to have read it wrong. "And kisses Christine, shit." He mumbled to himself. Something about this had to have been wrong, why would they have random high schoolers kiss for some little event? Then again, it was a basic play, he was playing the knight, this is how most of those stories ended.

Still, this was huge and terrifying. Peter had never kissed anyone before! What if he messed up? What if he did end up embarrassing himself before the student body? Now he was in full on PANIC MODE. Hurriedly he pulled out his phone and called Ned."Dude!" He shouted.

"What?" Ned asked

"I'm kissing someone!" Peter's voiced dripped with terror.

"...Like, right now?

""What? No! Play! I have to kiss someone for a scene!"

"Oh, why is that a big deal?"

"Because! I don't know what I'm doing! I just meet someone and then I'm kissing them?! How am I supposed to do that?!"

"Oh. OH!' Realization dawned in Ned's voice and Peter nodded in response, despite the fact that Ned couldn't see.

Ned seemed to understand though and he theorized any way he could to help. In the end neither of them could think of a plan solid enough to work. Peter was thoroughly screwed.

The next day at school Peter was either freaking out or super mopey, there was no in-between. MJ took notice of this during lunch as Peter was in Mope Mode™. "So were you sentenced to death row recently, or?" She asked. Peter slowly lifted his head from the table to make eye contact with her.

"Hm?" he asked

"You're all," she gestured to him with an almost uncomfortable look on her face, "eh today."

Peter gave a small smile and nodded. "I may have, kinda, sorta, signed on for something I'm not prepared for." MJ snorted.

"Of course you would, so what's the thing?"

Peter tried to think of a gentle way to explain without explicitly saying the kiss part. Before he could Ned sat next to him and said plainly "Peter's freaking out because he's never kissed anyone before." Peter shot Ned a wide-eyed glare that seemingly said 'Dude!' to which Ned just smiled in response. Peter shifted his gaze back to MJ, who seemed unimpressed.

"Really? That's it?" She asked, "I thought you'd be better than that, Parker." she finished while squinting at him.

"It's not just that. I'm also supposed to kiss someone for the play." Peter explained, resting his chin on the table.

"So who are you going to mack on?" She asked with a smirk. Peter groaned.

"Don't say it like that." he whined. "And they haven't cast her yet. Which doesn't help." Peter sighed as he rested his forehead on the table again. MJ gave him another judging look before taking her latest read from her bag and resuming her page.

During the class following lunch Peter felt something softly hit the the top of his head and land in his lap. He picked up the foreign object to see it was a crumpled up ball or paper. He opened it, trying his best not to tear it. Turns out it was a note. It read: "I can help, if you want. - MJ" Peter turned around to toss a look to MJ, but she was staring at the board, as if she hadn't just thrown a message across the room. Shaking his head lightly he turned back around and took out his phone.

He texted her something he thought got his message across quickly and effectively. "???"

She texted back quickly, "What?"

"You can 'help'?"

"Congrats, you can read."

"MJ."

"What?"

"What is help supposed to mean?"

"Gym. After school."

Before Peter could ask what that meant or push for more answers there came a sharp, "Mr. Parker!" from the front of the room. He was so startled he nearly fell out of his seat as he scrambled to set his phone down and appear on task. He gave the teacher a nervous smile and the lesson continued. After glancing backwards to MJ again he could see she was trying not to laugh. After class he saw another text from MJ that came during the period. It read simply, "Amateur." Thanks MJ.

Peter found himself almost anxious during the last few periods. What the hell did MJ mean by help? What was she going to do? Sure she wouldn't like, kill him or anything. Well, maybe. Oh god, was she going to kill him? He made a mental note to tell May how much she meant to him if he made it home today.

But eventually the last period came and and the bell rang. Peter was one of the first ones out of the room as he jogged down to the school's gym, a mixture of fear and curiosity fueling his journey. Surprisingly when he got there it was empty. Well, mostly empty. Because somehow both expected and unexpected to Peter, MJ was sitting in the middle of a set of bleachers on the left side of the room, reading the same book she was during lunch as if she had been there all day.

Once he made his way to her, Peter cleared his throat to announce his presence. Slowly she placed her bookmark in the novel and set it beside her. She raised an eyebrow when she saw that he was standing.  She motioned to the empty space to her right with her head and Peter sat. "So, what was with the note?" he asked

"You freaking out like a dork is embarrassing to watch. I'm willing to help if it means putting a stop to that." She explained like it was obvious.

"Freaking out? I don't-" He trailed off as he suddenly understood. "H-help? How are you gonna help?" Panic began to set in again. An entirely different kind of panic.

"I was going to run through the scene with you," she again spoke like this was all common sense. "Then you can stop being a loser. Can't be worried if you're familiar."

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god. The panic doubled quickly. Was she serious? Did she know what she was offering?

"A-are you, I mean, did you, I just. Really? You're sure?" He managed, to which she nodded. Soon enough MJ had the copy of the script Peter kept on hand, and they were practicing the final scene again. MJ was surprisingly into it and was really good at it. She gave emotional and realistic reactions and deliveries.

Eventually they came to the dreaded line. 

"James raises his arm victoriously and kisses Christine."

Peter raised his arm victoriously as he faced MJ. Any confidence he had through the scene was instantly gone. He took a step closer to her, their noses were almost touching now. "Last chance to back out." Peter whispered.

"That's not staying in character, Parker." she whispered in retaliation, but nodded to answer him anyway. Peter leaned forward ever so slightly more, and there they were. Kissing, in the middle of an empty gym that belonged to a now empty school. Neither Peter nor MJ knew exactly how long they stood there like that. Somewhere between 5 seconds and 500 years. Probably.

Eventually though, they separated when Peter's phone started going crazy. Apparently May needed him back home for a project. "Sorry, May needs me." Peter began as he looked back up, "Thanks MJ, that was," Oh god how was he supposed to finish that sentence? Cool? Awesome? What I've been dreaming of? There wasn't a non creepy way to end the statement. Why did he start it? She was just doing a favor for a friend. It wasn't like that. Eventually he decided on "Thanks." and he grabbed his bag and made a break for the door.

Then as MJ stood alone in the empty gymnasium she made a decision. She had to be Christine in the play. For Peter, of course. He wouldn't want to kiss a stranger, right? She was protecting him. Yeah, it definitely for Peter.