#SHE TEXTED ME AND SAID HE HAD BUSTED OUT OF HIS VEST BUT I DID NOT KNOW SHE MEANT LITERALLY

[mrprettywhenhecries]

don’t waste your time (on me) [g.t]

07. | Anything You Say Can and Will Be Held Against You (So Only Say My Name)

Gator Tillman ✘ Win Lewis (OC)

⇾ w.c. 6.2k words ⇾ tags/warning(s). canon x oc pairing, f!oc, misogynistic themes, death/blood, Roy being an asshole, cnc (consensual noncon), role play, rough sex, p in v, unprotected sex, dom!gator, spanking, pussy slapping, knife play, handcuffs, ownership kink ⇾ a/n. Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated! 💚

After Munch kills his partner and Gator gets a dressing down from Roy, he desperately needs to let off some steam and feel like a winner. Luckily, Win is only too happy to oblige.

[ masterlist • win bio ]

Gator’s watch buzzed on his wrist and he stirred, groaning as he lifted his head from Win’s lap.  He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the events from earlier had left him more exhausted than he’d realized, and Win’s lap and the way she ran her fingers through his hair after she’d sucked his soul through his dick was so comforting, he’d drifted off almost instantly.

The tv played softly in the background, but it seemed Win had fallen asleep as well, and Gator got up slowly, careful not to jostle her awake.  She looked so soft in her sleep, so vulnerable.  He still couldn’t quite believe she was his, that he got to see her like this – especially with how hostile she’d been when they first met, but it was that fiery personality that’d only made him want her more.

“Where’re you going?” she mumbled, stirring as Gator stood, adjusting his cargo pants and snug black t-shirt.

“Gotta head to work,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss the top of her head and she groaned, her lip pushing out in a pout.

“Do you have to?” she whined, her voice still heavy with sleep.  “Can’t you take the night off, since you’re injured?”

Gator frowned, he wished he could simply stay home with her, but he knew if he did, Roy wouldn’t be pleased and he didn’t want to look like a pussy that needed to be babied.

“I’m fine, ‘sides, I have a responsibility,” he insisted before softening once more.  “I’ll text you later,” he said, stealing one more kiss before shrugging on his tactical vest and bending to tie up his boots.

“Be safe!” Win called after him, stretching out on the couch and pulling a blanket over her.

Outside, Gator walked to the end of the drive and leaned against Win’s Chevelle to wait for Deputy Nugent to come pick him up.  Bringing his vape to his lips, he took a long drag, savouring the sweet taste on his tongue before blowing the vapour out, the white cloud hanging in the cool evening air for a moment before dissipating.

Soon Gator’d need to start wearing his cold weather gear.  The forecast for Halloween said snow, only a few days away.

Gator wriggled his fingers under the cast and grimaced, his jaw clenching at the pang of pain that raced up his arm and soon returned to a dull ache.  He took another drag off his vape, hoping the nicotine would dull his nerves.  Now that he didn’t have Win distracting him his thoughts returned to Ole Munch, the fucker who’d busted his wrist and gotten away.  For a moment he wondered where the skirt wearing freak would have gone.  Hopefully, into the wind and out of their hair, but he fought the urge to look over his shoulder, worry prickling in his gut that the strange man might come for revenge.  

If he was smart, he’d move on.

It stung, the fact that he’d managed to turn the tables on him so easily, and Gator still couldn’t banish the memory of his dad’s expression as he stood over him, Gator holding his useless arm to his chest, tears streaming down his face and the contents of his stomach still coming up–disgusted, but not surprised.

If he ever got his hands on Munch, he’d make the man wish he’d never been born.

Nugent’s police truck pulling up to the curb in front of him tore Gator from his thoughts and he pocketed his vape and pushed off Win’s car to climb in the passenger seat.

“Where’s your cruiser?” the other deputy asked, and Gator glowered at him, awkwardly buckling his seat belt.

“At home.  Win picked me up from the hospital,” he explained with a grunt and Nugent nodded, his eyes falling to Gator’s cast.  Noticing Win’s doodles, he let out an amused snort.

“Property of Win, huh?  Jesus, Gator, you’re so fuckin’ whipped.”

Gator’s brows pinched and he fought the urge to hide his cast.  “No I ain’t, shut the fuck up,” he huffed, adjusting the brim of his hat and scooting down further in his seat.

“She must be a damn good lay for you to put up with the rest of her,” Nugent chuckled, turning his eyes back to the road.

“I ain’t putting up with her,” Gator muttered sullenly, turning prickly.  “You’re just jealous cause she’s hotter than your fiance,” he drawled, earning him a hard look from the other man.

“Careful.”

“You fuckin’ started it,” Gator replied and Nugent didn’t respond, knowing Gator had a point.

“Seriously though, you can’t really be serious ‘bout her, are you?  You know Roy’d never allow it.”

Gator tensed, grabbing his vape and taking an angry puff.  “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, but I don’t see how it’s any of your fuckin’ business,” he snapped.  “Don’t we got work to do?” he added, hoping to steer the conversation away from his relationship.  He didn’t need any more reminders about how his dad felt about Win.

“Someone’s in a mood,” Nugent murmured, his voice tinged with amusement.

“Yeah well, let’s see how cheery you’d be with a busted wrist,” Gator muttered, glancing out the window.  “Turn off here, I gotta take a piss,” he said, nodding toward the lone filling station up ahead.

Nugent parked and climbed out as well to top off the tank while Gator headed inside, some asshole nearly hitting his bad arm with the door as he pushed it open.  Already in a pissy mood, Gator hastily stepped back out of the way, raising his cast and giving the guy a dirty look before stepping past him and into the convenience store.

Half the building’s front windows had been busted out in a recent shoot out, just the day before, and the gaping holes had been covered with sheets of plywood and plastic til they could be replaced.

Gator glanced around before heading back to the men’s room and stepping up to the urinal, freeing himself to take a leak.  The stall closest to the wall had caution tape across the door and Gator peered inside as he zipped his trousers back up, noting the busted toilet where one of the assailants had fallen and cracked open his skull.

Gator wet his lips.  He’d been the one to hire the man.

Not that he could really find it in himself to feel all that bad for his fate.  No, it was the woman who’d killed him that weighed on his mind.  

At one point Gator had thought he’d never see Nadine again, not after she left–disappeared one day, just like his mom, just like she’d swore she’d never do.

Gator left the bathroom and ambled to the drink coolers at the back, picking out a bottle of Mtn Dew and grabbing a bag of spicy jerky on the way to the counter to pay, drumming his fingers impatiently as he waited for his card to go through.

“You got the security tapes from last night?” he asked idly, glancing up toward the camera facing him high up on the wall behind the counter.

The attendant glanced back over his shoulder at where Gator was looking and shook his head.  “Nah, I think some other cops took the whole system already.”

Gator nodded, grabbing his snacks.  Back in the truck, he leaned back in his seat to wait for Nugent, taking a bite of jerky and washing it down with a swig of pop.

“What the hell’s takin’ ‘im so long?” he muttered under his breath, only to jerk back in alarm when he caught sight of Nugent’s lifeless body on the pavement near the back of the truck, a large hunting knife buried in his chest.

“Oh shit–” Gator swore, hastily reaching for his service pistol as he reluctantly climbed out of the truck, his head on a swivel as he rounded the vehicle–afraid that whoever had killed Nugent was still there, waiting to take him out as well.

Shuffling nervously toward his partner’s body, Gator took a shuddering breath, his stomach turning at the dark growing pool at his feet.  Careful not to step in it, he peered down at Nugent and frowned.  Pinned to his chest by the knife was a message scrawled on a piece of used cardboard.

You owe me.

Munch.

Gator let out the breath he’d been holding and holstered his gun, instead pulling out his phone.  Roy wouldn’t be happy about this, but they needed to get it cleaned up and he couldn’t exactly call it out over the radio.

“Yeah?”

Gator sucked air through his teeth at his dad’s brusque greeting, steeling himself.

“Nugent’s dead.  Munch got him.”

There was a long pause, followed by a heavy sigh.  “Where are you?”

“The Revere filling station outside of Beulah.”

“Stay there.  I’ll be there shortly.”

The line clicked and Gator glanced around.  Luckily, the area was pretty well deserted, but he couldn’t leave Nugent’s body just laying there in case anyone saw it.  While he waited for Roy to arrive, he set to work hauling Nugent into the truck bed and covering him with a tarp before finding a hose around the side of the building to wash the blood away.

When his father’s truck pulled up, Gator jumped down from the truck cab where he’d been waiting, having pulled around behind the building and mostly out of sight.

“Called you directly.  Didn’t want this goin’ out on the wire.  Didn’t know what to do with him, so I put him in the back.”

“And where were you?” Roy asked, lifting the tarp covering Nugent’s body.

Gator shifted on his feet, glancing away.  “I was drainin’ the snake, two minutes, in and out.”

Roy sighed, dropping the tarp and planting his hands on his hips.  “Did you get a look at the tape?”

Gator shook his head.  “State cops took the whole system last night on account of the other thing,” he explained before letting out a scoff and copying his father’s posture.  “Can you believe this guy?  Comin’ back to the scene of the crime?  Doin’ that?” he said, gesturing to Nugent’s body.  “Talk about big balls.”

“Yeah well, I bet yours shriveled up a little bit on account of him gettin’ the jump on ya… again,” Roy countered, giving Gator a hard look, disappointment radiating off him.

Gator glanced at Roy, realizing he was right before yanking his hat from his head in frustration, smacking against his leg angrily.  “Son of a bitch!” he growled, carrying on for a moment before his dad rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed at the outburst.

“Alright, are ya done?”

Gator heaved a breath, his jaw flexing as he fought to wrangle his temper, turning back to his father and slipping his hat back on his head.

“Tell me again where you found this… Munch guy?  Is that really his name, Ole Munch?” Roy asked and Gator shrugged, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably.

“He says it… Oola,” he explained.  “A-and I didn’t find him, I found his partner.”

“What, the guy with his head in the toilet?”

Gator nodded.

“Alright well… first order of business, we need information.  Find out who this guy is.  Priors, known accomplices, known hangouts.  Then we smoke him loose,” Roy sighed.

“If he comes for us again–”

“Oh believe me, he’s coming.  Sleep with your hammer cocked, is my opinion, if you sleep at all,”  Roy interrupted, shaking his head before returning to business.  “Alright, the truck goes in a ditch, Nugent behind the wheel, report the cause of death as accidental.  Then you go to his fiance’s and break the news.”

Gator nodded.  “What’re you gunna do?”

“Don’t worry about what I’m gunna do, alright?” Roy grunted, pointing at him.  “You’re oh for two here, kid.  How do I teach ya to be a winner you keep losin’ all the time?”

At his father’s words, Gator’s face fell.  “I swear to God, him versus me, man to man, I’d wipe the floor with him,” he insisted.

Roy snorted.  “Yeah right.  Like high noon?  Yeah, that only happens in the movies, son.  Real life, they’ll slit your throat while you waiting for the light to change,” he muttered, clapping Gator on the shoulder before turning away, leaving him to clean up the mess.

As soon as the Sheriff was gone, Gator pulled his phone from his pocket, shooting off a text to Win.  As much as he’d wanted to return to her bed after his shift, it seemed he’d have to wait.  Besides, if his father was right about Munch coming after them, maybe it was better if he didn’t put Win in harm’s way for the moment.

Win grabbed a clean bar towel to wipe down the counter, only half paying attention to the mostly empty room.  It was still pretty early on a weeknight and Frankie’s only really bustled on the weekends.

“Okay, who wants to be the one to tell the creep in the corner to order something or get out?” Lydia asked, pulling Win from her thoughts and she turned to where her friend had glanced moments ago.

Sure enough, sitting alone at a small table in the far corner of the room was a man Win had never seen before, and she knew all the weekday regulars.

“How long has he been there?” Beau asked, leaning through the kitchen pick up window.

“Nearly an hour,” Lydia answered with a frown.

“He’s just been sitting there?”

“Yeah, staring at Win.”

“Wait, what?” Win asked, her head snapping toward the others.

“Yeah, I’m sure.  You haven’t noticed?” Lydia murmured.  “Do you know him?”

Win turned back toward the stranger, a shiver racing up her back when she found him watching her, his hard gaze unwavering.

“No, never seen him before.”

“Should I call Frankie?” Lydia asked hesitantly, fidgeting nervously and Win sighed, shaking her head.

“It’s okay, I’ll go talk to him, see what the fuck he wants from me.”

“You sure?” Beau asked at the same time Lydia urged her to be careful.

Win nodded to her friends as she rounded the bar and made her way toward the man’s table.  Heading closer, she got a better look at him, tucking the details away in case she’d need to recount them to the police later��though he seemed placid enough for the moment.

As she approached, the man’s eyes narrowed, regarding her stoically, his weathered face giving nothing away.

“Hey,” she called, planting her hands on her hips as she stopped several paces in front of him.  “I’m gunna hafta ask you to order something, or you’ll hafta leave.”

The man barely reacted, his large mouth twitching downward as his gnarled hands balled into fists atop his knees.  Win noticed beneath his fur lined coat, he seemed to be wearing a pleated wool kilt with leggings and heavy leather boots–not something many locals would wear–and his hair was an unusual cut.

“C’mon man, don’t make this hard on me.  I don’t really wanna hafta call the cops,” Win said, holding her breath, ready to jump back if need be, but the man merely nodded slowly, ducking his head, and Win had to stifle a gasp at the large gash sliced through his ear.

“A man can drink,” he finally spoke, a strange cadence to his heavily accented speech.

“Good,” Win sighed, letting out the breath she’d been holding.  “What should I bring you?”

The man seemed to think for a moment.  “ A man will drink… whatever is cheapest.”

Win huffed in amusement.  “I’ll be right back.”

“What’d he say?” Lydia asked as soon as Win returned to the bar, pulling out a bottle of Natty Lite and popping off the cap.

“He ordered the cheapest beer,” she laughed, wiping down the bottle with the towel draped over her shoulder.  “Guess he doesn’t want any trouble.  Kinda weird though,” she mused, but Lydia frowned, looking doubtful.

“But then why’s he been staring at you?  I still say he’s creepy.”

“Maybe he’s got a crush,” Beau laughed, and Win swatted at his head before heading back to the man’s table with his drink.

“Here you go,” she said, holding it out for him.  For a long moment, he merely stared at it before accepting it, holding the bottle awkwardly as if he didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Win watched him for a moment before turning to head back to the bar, shaking her head as she went, but she only made it a few steps before turning back to him, unable to curb her curiosity any longer.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

The man lifted his gaze to her face, studying her for a second before answering.

“A man is… far from his home.  He has not seen it in many… decades.”

Win nodded slowly.

“I feel that, though I think you’re a little farther from home than I am, mister,” she murmured, planting her hands on her hips.  “You in town for a while, or just passing through?”

Again, the man deliberated his words carefully before answering.  “A man must stay… longer than he intended.  Circumstances outside of his control have… waylaid him.  Complications he did not foresee.  Complications that must be… dealt with before he can move on.”

Win nodded.  She didn’t quite understand the stranger’s cryptic answer, but she got the jist of it.  “Kinda sounds like how I ended up here,” she murmured, noticing he hadn’t yet taken a drink.

“Can I ask you something?” she said, wetting her lips, and the man tilted his head as if listening, waiting for her question. 

“You got a name?  You keep referring to yourself in the third person.”

The man’s lips twitched downward.  “A man’s name is irrelevant,” he muttered sharply, studying Win before heaving a breath, his expression softening.  “But perhaps… a girl could know it.  Long before a man arrived on this soil, he was called Oola, Oola Moonk,” he answered, a preciseness to the way he formed the words and Win nodded.

“Alright then, Oola.  Can you tell me why you’ve been staring at me since you came in?”

At Win’s question, Munch hesitated, glancing down at the bottle clasped between his hands.

“One learns many things by observing.  A man needed to observe.  To learn,” he explained and Win’s brows furrowed.

“And what were you hoping to learn?” she asked, an edge creeping into her voice.

Munch shook his head.  “A girl is not what a man expected,” he mumbled, more to himself than her.

“What did you expect?” Win scoffed, but Munch merely stood, looming over her as he set his untouched drink on the table along with a couple crumpled bills.  

“The man bids the girl goodnight,” he said, stepping around her and heading to the exit, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and bringing it to his lips.

“The fuck was that about?” Win muttered as she watched him disappear, more confused than ever.  Grabbing the beer, she brought it to her lips, so as not to let it go to waste when her phone vibrated in her back pocket.

🐊🖤: You off soon?

‘Yeah, in ten, everything okay?’ she responded, a spike of worry flaring in her chest.

🐊🖤: Shitty day.  Need to let off some steam.  You game? ⛓️

Win let out the breath she’d been holding at his response, and her lips twitched as she typed a reply.

“Bring it on.”

“Open up, police!”  

Gator’s hard voice echoed through the door, followed by his telltale pounding and Win took her time heading to the door, splashing some water on her face at the kitchen sink before answering.

“What seems to be the problem, Deputy?” she asked as she opened the door a crack, her breath catching at the sight of Gator’s face, a fierceness to his gaze that gripped her, holding her in place.

Gator didn’t answer, instead forcing the door open and pushing his way inside before kicking it shut behind him.

“There’s a warrant out for your arrest, Lewis, and I’ve been authorized to use any force necessary,” he drawled, his hands resting on his hips as he looked her up and down, his gaze taking in her bare legs and oversized t-shirt that hung from her frame, and he wet his lips, his eyes finding hers.

“Now, are you gunna come quietly, or you gunna make us do this the hard way?” he asked and Win swallowed, arousal flooding her at the arrogant tone of his voice.

“What do you think?” she countered, taking off in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen.

“I love a good chase,” Gator growled, easily overtaking her and forcing her against the wall, pulling his handcuffs from his belt to cinch around her wrists, trapped behind her back.

“Fuck you, pig,” Win hissed, spitting in his face as he turned her around, and Gator’s lips twitched downward, scowling as he wiped the glob of saliva from his cheek.

“Feisty, huh?  I like that,” he grunted, his gaze trailing her defiant expression.  “Didn’t your daddy teach ya any manners?” he drawled, lip curling into a sneer.  When Win didn’t respond, he pressed her tighter against the wall, one large hand circling her throat, the tip of his nose brushing the shell of her ear as he leaned in.  “Guess I’ll have to.”

Moments later, Gator’s lips crashed into hers, tongue forcing its way into her mouth and she kissed him back just as hard, stealing his breath before biting down on his tongue.

“Ow!  Fuckin’ bitch—“ he hissed, jerking back.  “You’re just askin’ for it, ain’tcha?”

For a moment, however, Gator hesitated, his grasp loosening around her neck and he swallowed, his lips parting as worry flashed in his eyes.

Noticing the way his expression faltered, Win locked eyes with him.  “Green,” she breathed hoarsely, her breath shaking.  “Keep going.  Use me, Gator.”

A groan caught in his throat at her words, his cock growing impossibly harder.  Picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder, he carried her to the bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously to the bed, grabbing her legs and pulling her roughly toward the edge.

“Think you’re a little overdressed for what I’m gunna do to you,” he drawled, pulling his pocket knife from his tactical vest before shrugging it off and letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud.

Flipping open the knife, he knelt atop the bed, one knee between Win’s legs, and as soon as she saw the blade, a small gasp left her throat and she began to struggle, fruitlessly trying to scoot away from him, but Gator merely clicked his tongue and leaned over her, bringing the knife up to her face and running the dull edge down her cheek.

“Quit squirmin’, unless you want me to cut you,” he chuckled darkly, the knife hovering over her skin as it moved down the line of her throat to her collarbone.  Pushing her shirt up, Gator groaned, finding her tits bare beneath, and he pressed the flat side of the blade to her nipple, watching it harden against the cool metal.

Wetting his lips, he moved to her other breast, tracing her hardened bud with the knife before leaning over her to take it into his mouth, his tongue echoing the blade’s path before flicking against her, playing with the piercing that adorned her pert nipple.

“Hope you’re not too attached to this underwear,” he grunted, dragging the knife down her stomach, past her navel, and catching on the edge of her panties.

“Fuck you—“ Win hissed, but Gator’s teeth flashed in the darkness, sending a shiver through her.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to,” he drawled, and with a yank of the knife, he cut through the fabric covering her cunt, pausing to marvel at it before folding the knife up and slipping it in his pocket.  

Drawing his bottom lip between his teeth, he spread her folds with his fingers before pushing them into her, scissoring them inside her tight heat.

“Look how fuckin’ wet you are,” Gator said with a sneer, pulling his hand away to show her his fingers, shining with the residue of her slick, a translucent string connecting his digits as he parted them.  “Such a dirty little thing, gettin’ turned on by that,”  he taunted, holding his fingers in front of her face.  

“Suck ‘em clean, whore,” he instructed.

When Win didn’t obey, his dark eyes flashed, and without warning he brought his palm down against her pussy with a sharp slap, making her gasp, her body jumping at the shock.

“I said, suck,” he repeated and this time she dutifully opened her mouth, wrapping her lips around his fingers and hollowing out her cheeks to suck, a whimper echoing in her throat.

“That’s more like it,” Gator growled, his hands going to her waist, flipping her suddenly, so she was on her knees, her cheek pressed into the blankets.  Leaning over her, he reached into his pocket once more and Win wondered if he was getting the knife back out, until she heard the cuffs unlatch and she knew what Gator wanted to do.

“Thought I should get a chance to cuff you to the bed, sweetheart,” he chuckled, yanking her arms above her head to string the handcuff chain between the bars of her headboard before closing the cool mental back around her wrist, locking her in place so she couldn’t get away.

“Such a pretty fuckin’ sight,” he breathed, slapping her exposed ass with his good hand, his palm connecting with a loud crack, leaving her skin stinging.

Win let out a cry, giving a jolt, her hands clenching around the bars she was restrained against.  Behind her, Gator hastily unbuckled his belt and unzipped his cargo pants, freeing his throbbing cock and giving it a couple quick strokes before bullying his tip between her dripping folds.  For a moment, he pressed into her slowly, his breath hitching as he watched her suck him in, her velveteen walls contracting tightly around him as he disappeared inch by inch into her tight heat.

Growing impatient, Gator made several shallow thrusts before snapping the rest of the way into her, barely giving her time to fully adjust to his size, and forcing another sharp gasp from her lips.

“Oh c’mon, you can take it, bitch,” he grunted, smirking at the way her body jerked with each rough thrust, the slap of skin on skin and the lewd squelch of her cunt filling the room, competing only with Gator’s heavy breaths and Win’s whimpered moans, until the bed began to thump rhythmically against the wall.

“That’s it,” he growled, his good hand tangling in her hair, yanking her head back as his fingers dug into the fat of her hip, his cast making it awkward to hold onto her as he rammed into her, her tits jiggling with each rut of his hips.  “So fuckin’ tight.  Whose cunt is this?” 

“Y-yours,” Win gasped, her eyes rolling up into her head as Gator’s cock dragged against her g-spot, sending electricity coursing through her, her pleasure building til her head swam, forcing any other thought from her mind.

“That’s fuckin’ right, babe,” he hissed, growing close, his thrusts turning jerky and desperate.

Sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, he fought not to cum before he felt Win tense, clenching impossibly tighter around him, her body nearly giving out beneath her as she cried out, Gator’s hold on her and the handcuffs the only thing keeping her upright before he finally emptied himself inside her, going rigid before collapsing over her.

For a long moment, Gator didn’t move, his forehead pressed between Win’s shoulder blades, his breaths coming in heavy pants as he calmed himself, his cock softening inside her.

“Gator?  Can you… uncuff me?  I can’t feel my hands,” she groaned and he gave a start, quickly straightening and pulling out of her, only allowing himself a second to marvel at the way his spend seeped lazily from her fluttering hole.

“I gotcha,” he mumbled, shoving his hand in his pocket to retrieve the key and unlocking the cuffs, loosening them from her bruised wrists.

As soon as she was free, Win let out a soft sob and collapsed to the bed, the sound wrenching at Gator’s heart.

“Are you okay?  I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he exclaimed, hovering anxiously, not really knowing what to do.

“I’m fine, just a little sore,” Win assured him, her voice cracking.  “Can you… can you hold me?” she asked, lifting her face to look at him, a vulnerability to her that made Gator want nothing more than to protect her.

“Course, just a sec,” he breathed, hurriedly undressing the rest of the way and crawling atop the bed to pull her into his arms, his chest aching as she instinctively buried her face in the crook of his neck.  Pressing his lips to the top of her head, Gator rubbed her back, coaxing her tense muscles to relax.  

“Did something happen?” Win murmured, her voice muffled somewhat by the way she nuzzled against him and Gator tensed at the question.

“What do you mean?”

Win shifted, lifting her face to look at him.  “I mean, not that I’m complaining, but did something happen to spur this on?” she asked, burying her fingers in the thick dark patch of hair on his chest.

“Oh,” Gator breathed, shaking his head as a heavy sigh rattled through him and his hold on her tightened as he thought of a way to word what had happened the night before without making her worry further.  “I uh, I fucked up at work, disappointed Dad,” he mumbled, his stomach dropping as Roy’s words replayed through his head.

“How do I teach ya to be a winner, you keep losin’ all the time?” he repeated with a scowl.

“The fuck does he know?” Win scoffed, prickling with anger as she pushed herself up to look Gator in the eye.

“You’re a winner,” she breathed, her lips pressing to his jaw before moving to his cheek.  “You’re my winner,” she echoed, kissing the shell of his ear.

“You’re my fuckin’ winner,” she whispered fiercely before her mouth found his and Gator let out a groan.

“Winnie—“

She hummed, continuing to press soft kisses to his face and neck.

“How are you so perfect?”

Win finally pulled back, resting her cheek against his shoulder.  “I’m not.”

Gator shook his head, looking down at her.  “You are to me.”

“Maybe you just deserve to be treated better than you have been,” she said, stroking his cheek as she laid back down, resting her face against his shoulder.

“Yeah, maybe,” Gator murmured, growing quiet.

After several minutes Win began to wonder if he’d already drifted off, silence filling her bedroom until he suddenly spoke, shifting beneath her.

“Why’d you leave Chicago?”

Win sighed.  She’d been waiting for him to bring it up ever since their dinner at the ranch.

“Too many memories,” she murmured, shutting her eyes and trying to focus only on him – the beat of his heart beneath her ear, the way his chest rose and fell with each breath he took, the warmth of his skin against hers.

“Bad memories?”

Win shook her head, breathing deep.  “Some bad, but mostly good memories turned bitter,” she explained.

“What happened?” Gator asked, the fingers of his good hand tracing idle shapes against her back.

“My mom died when I was fourteen, and about six months later my dad was already engaged to someone else.  I don’t know for sure, but I think he must have been having an affair with her while my mom was dying,” Win murmured, wincing at the thought.  

“So when they got married, we moved into her house and as soon as we got there, she dropped any pretense that she wanted anything to do with me, and her daughter, Delilah, treated me like absolute shit.  It was like she took joy in going out of her way to hurt me.  It was a fucking cliche, like right out of some stupid fucking fairy tale,” she scoffed, brows furrowing at the memory.

“And the worst part was, half the time my dad was fucking clueless to it and the other half, he didn’t have the balls to actually stand up for me.  So, when I turned eighteen, I left–moved in with some friends, couch surfed sometimes, had some bad relationships I stayed in even when I shoulda got out, all to stay out of that fucking house,” she explained, deflating, her voice wavering.

“So, uhm, now all those good memories I had with my mom and even my dad before she died, they’re all overshadowed by that bullshit,” she finished, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a shuddering breath.

Gator frowned, squeezing Win tighter to his side.  “I’ll arrest ‘em if you want.  All three of ‘em,” he offered, half serious, but it made Win smile, wrinkling her nose in amusement.

“I think that’s a little out of your jurisdiction, Deputy,” she teased, propping her chin against his chest, her eyes finding his.

“Hey, I’m the law, remember, sweetheart?” he said, his lips twisting in a lazy smirk.

“How could I forget?” Win chuckled, her chest feeling lighter.  “Okay, now it’s your turn,” she said, scooting closer, her forehead resting against Gator’s stubbled cheek.

“My turn for what?” he asked, his voice growing heavy with exhaustion.

“To tell me something,” she answered, tracing the dip of his collarbone.

“What kind of something?  Like a secret?”

“Mhmm,” Win hummed, her eyes fluttering shut.

“A secret, huh?” Gator mused, thinking.  “Okay, I’ve got one.  You know that time you blew me to get out of a ticket?” he asked and Win frowned hesitantly.

“Uh huh–” she breathed.

“Well, I may have fibbed a little about turning my dash cam off,” he admitted, bracing himself.

Win’s mouth fell open and she pushed herself upright.  “Gator!” she yelped, gaping at him.  “You fuckin’ liar!” she gasped, swatting at his chest, though she didn’t know why she was surprised.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself!” he exclaimed, holding up his hands against her half hearted attack, trying not to laugh at the scandalized expression on her face.

“Please at least tell me no one else has seen it!” 

“Just me, I swear!” Gator insisted.  “I have the only copy,” he assured her, and Win calmed somewhat, though she wasn’t exactly mad at him.

“You better not be lying this time, Tillman,” she huffed, jabbing a finger in his face.

“Cross my heart,” he replied, making an X motion over his chest and Win rolled her eyes, though a small smile played at her lips.

“You jerk off to it?” she asked, letting him pull her back down to the bed with him.

“More times than I can count.  I love seein’ you on your knees for me,” he drawled, grinning smugly when a thought occurred to him.  “Did you enjoy it?  That first time?” he asked, sobering slightly, and Win hid her face against his chest, feeling warm.

“I might’ve,” she admitted, clearing her throat.  “I thought you were a prick back then, but I couldn’t exactly deny you had a nice cock.”

Gator beamed at her praise, his smirk returning as Win settled into his arms, stifling a yawn that set Gator’s jaw cracking as well.

“I didn’t get to ask earlier, but how was your day?” he asked through his yawn, curling around her.

Win hummed as she thought back over what had happened, fighting the haze of exhaustion that tugged at her.  

“Mmm, it was alright, nothing too special, oh wait–” she said, remembering the strange man that had come into the bar, Moonk.

“There was this weird guy at work, though–foreign or something–wore a kilt and talked in the third person,” she murmured, not noticing Gator tense beside her.

“He say anything to you?” Gator demanded and the edge to his question finally alerted Win that something was off.

“I mean, a little.  It was like he was speaking in riddles though, it didn’t really make a lot of sense.  Mostly he just stared at me across the room–”

“Win, if he ever comes in again, or you see him somewhere, you need to call to me right away, and stay the fuck away from him,” Gator exclaimed, cutting her off and it was Win’s turn to tense, the alarm in Gator’s voice chilling her.

“You know him?  Is he dangerous?” she asked and Gator grimaced, realizing he’d have to tell her more than he wanted to.

“He… he’s wanted for… home invasion, kidnapping, and assault,” he listed, trying not to stray too far from the truth, but also not wanting to alarm Win any further, or reveal how he really knew Munch.

“Oh shit,” Win breathed.  “I bet that’s how he got that gash in his ear,” she mused.

“Just promise me you’ll call me if you see him again,” Gator repeated, unconsciously holding her tighter, as if that were enough to protect her.

“I promise,” Win assured him, squeezing him back, though she couldn’t help but feel there was something he wasn’t telling her.

“Good,” Gator breathed, burying his face in her hair.  

Cause if he touches you, he’s a dead man.

⇾ taglist. @sailorskunk, @heartbreak-sandwich, @super-unpredictable98, @tangerinesteve, @girlwiththerubyslippers, @cycat4077 , @thecreelhouse

[kindahoping4forever]

A super short clip of Disconnected from TMHT Nashville but it was when I first saw Ash's Unbuttoned Vest so I need to post it for the historical value, you understand 😌

Video courtesy of @cal-puddies, please do not repost!

[rukia-writes]

Sugar daddy! Shanks x Sugar baby! (Fem) reader

🎀Bonus Chapter 🎀

Chapter 1, Chapter 2

Setting: modern au

Warnings: 18+, no minors 🔞, Sugar daddy x sugar baby relationship, daddy kinks,

🎀A/N: it’s been awhile 🎀 Happy birthday to the goat 🐐 🎀

Shanks couldn’t wait to celebrate his birthday.

Of course Shanks wanted to have a few drinks and to go out and celebrate with his friends. Maybe, even take the entire week off and just relax.

Brilliant.

Shanks had been wanting a break from work for awhile now, and celebrating with friends while relaxing on his luxury yacht. There was just one thing he wanted to take his birthday week to pure perfection.

“A magician? that’s what you want to me dress as?”

“Yeah, I put a lot of thought into it and I think I want a magic show.”

Shanks and his newly sexy sugar baby were out a upscale restaurant in a private room. (Name) had to pout a little bit as she ate her favorite dish knowing she had an older sister who was a magician and worked in showbiz, spoiled, beautiful and smart.

Not that (Name) had any room to talk as Shanks spoiled her to her hearts content and was also beautiful herself.

“Well, since it’s for your birthday I’ll do it.”

“Sweet as ever, I hope you put on a good show for me.”

Sly with response Shanks gave a content smile as he rubbed his foot against (Name)’s leg making her turn bashful as it was a signal that Shanks had a few plans tonight, which was fine with her as Shanks looked amazing in his black suit and his hair slicked back.

Putting on a show for Shanks wouldn’t be all that bad.

It was just dealing with her sister.

“Ah, you have a sister who does magic right? Ask for her help.”

Shanks teased as he knew all about his sugar baby’s sister, and of course he knew the two didn’t get along sometimes.

“Easier said than done-do you know she stole my shoes and jacket. I was lucky I caught her wearing that-she didn’t even ask-not to mention she keeps reminding me about her movie deal-“

Shanks listened to (Name) go on and on about her sister as he kept drinking a bit more alcohol and would fill (Name)’s glass up with the same bottle of alcohol.

“—and did you know she calls her boyfriend daddy?”

“….(Name). You have called me daddy plenty of times.”

Shanks chuckled as he noticed (Name) had embarrassed herself remembering how she too was guilty of calling Shanks “daddy”. Clearing her throat and stuttering over her words (Name) tried to warn Shanks, but Shanks dismissed it all together and simply told his beloved that sugar baby to just perform one magic trick.

Left with no other choice (Name) would visit her sister in the morning, (Name) had stayed with Shanks that night. Honestly, Shanks knew (Name) could get along with her sister. The first few days Shanks would received text messages during work from (Name) saying things were going fairly well. At first (Name)’s sister didn’t want to share her magic tricks with her but that changed when (Name) offered to buy her a purse she wanted. By the day of Shanks birthday however, (Name) was confident that she was going to perform for Shanks.

When the day arrived for (Name) to perform Shanks was very pleased as he saw his sexy sugar baby in a sexy magician outfit with the stockings, hat, gloves, bow tie, shirt and vest.

Shanks was very pleased with what he saw.

However, what both weren’t expecting was the bunny that (Name)’s sister gave her was pregnant and had just had babies. So, the one performance (Name) could perform was a now bust. Shanks found it cute all the same as he petted each of the bunnies head as they were sleeping. Shanks was also glad to hear that (Name) her sister finally got along, even though her sister would still take some of her clothes with out knowing.

The night of Shanks’ birthday wasn’t a total waste as (Name) was able to perform another magic trick for Shanks, and the handsome sugar daddy didn’t complain at all.

Just moaned and said his sexy magician’s name over and over.

☘️Rukia-writes☘️

[fighterkimburgess]

Babysitting

Summary: Immediately post 8x15. Adam arrives at the next location, but isn't prepared for what he finds. Putting the entire fic under a cut because spoilers from line one.

Words: 1.1k

Warnings: massive spoilers for 8x15's ending, obviously. Adam's mind going some dark places.

Wanna join my taglist?

“50-21 Eddie do you read me?” Adam was only four blocks away, but Kim hadn’t said anything, hadn’t mentioned any movement in the three minutes she’d been at the location. It wasn’t like her. She’d been trained by Trudy to check in on radio for moments like this every ninety seconds, and that pit in Adam’s stomach was getting worse by the second. Her car was ahead, and he pulled in behind it. But as soon as he opened his door he knew there was something very, very wrong. Her car door was open. Kim wouldn’t do that.

The second he got close he realised just how wrong things had gone. Her vest was on the ground, blood on it. She was gone.

“I need the team here now. We have a missing officer. I repeat, a missing officer.” He could hear the shock come over the airwaves as Voight called a radio check, not willing to put on the air who was missing. The team came quickly, and Adam ran them through the bust. It was perfect from start to finish, but Kim was gone and there was no sign of her or her assailant.

By the time he was out, Voight had arrived, clasping an arm around Adam’s shoulder. “We’ll find her. Who’s with Makayla?” It shook Adam out of the spiral his thoughts were entering.

“The sitter. Kim said she’d be home by midnight. I…I’m the only other one allowed let her go home. Fuck, Sarge, I need to be here.” He ran his hand through his hair. Kim was unarmed and alone and she didn’t even have her vest.

“No, you don’t. You need to go to that apartment and let the sitter go home and look after that girl, understood? Drive back to the precinct to change, don’t scare her arriving in in tac gear.”

Adam did what he was told, ignoring the looks from the other officers. He probably looked like a prick leaving, but he had to be there for Kim’s daughter.

Fuck. Kim’s daughter.

His kid, if Kim didn’t…no his mind wasn’t going there. Not tonight. Kim would be fine. He was just babysitting. That was all.

Trudy had already heard the news, and she had his clothes waiting for him, turning her back so he didn’t even have to go up to the bathroom. He was changed in minutes, and watched as the desk sergeant nodded at him. It was just barely more than she’d normally do, and he was so grateful for that. If Trudy Platt showed emotion, he wasn’t going to be able to cope.

The drive to Kim’s was short, and he pulled up in his normal spot. Before he went in he grabbed Makayla’s spare car seat out of the trunk of the jeep, buckling it in position for the ride to school in the morning. It was a moment of pure domesticity, except this time he didn’t have Kim telling him he was doing it wrong.

He got upstairs, paying the babysitter. Makayla was asleep on the couch so he sat down on the far end, staring at the coffee table and the stupid stain he’d left on the rug. The girl stirred, so he turned to look.

“Adam? Where’s Kim?” She asked, half asleep.

“She’s got to work late, Bud. Told me to come here and keep an eye on you, then take you to school in the morning. Is that ok?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna sleep now.” Kim had told him how much her sleep had improved since getting the trouble dolls, and Adam lifted Makayla easily, carrying her into her bed. The dolls were securely under her pillow, and he tucked her in. She had the stuffed platypus from their trip to the zoo beside the bed so he grabbed it, tucking it under the girl’s arm.

She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to lose another parental figure. Not so soon, and honestly not ever. She didn’t deserve to not know where Kim was.

His phone buzzed, Adam picking it up and pulling up his texts. Every member of the team had checked in, making sure he was ok. Were his feelings for Kim that clear to everyone else? Was it that obvious he’d been in love with her for nearly a decade?

Probably, if he was honest. The last time this had happened - how the hell was there even a last time? - he should have worried about Hailey. He was dating Hailey. He was supposed to be in love with Hailey, or getting there. But instead he was terrified for what would happen to Kim. The cuts to Hailey’s face had hurt him, made him furious. But the bruises around Kim’s neck? Knowing that if they’d been even thirty seconds later that she’d have been dead? That cut him to the core. That was the moment he’d known no matter how hard he and Hailey fought for what they had built, it would come down like a house of cards. And he was glad, in a way. Hailey and Jay suited each other. He just wanted he and Kim to get that chance.

He could have slept on the couch. He could have curled up and dozed, the same way he had countless times before after too many beers and he and Kim insisting they weren’t going to have sex that night. He normally only stayed on the couch till three anyway, when she came out to the bathroom like always because she insisted on drinking a quart of water before bed, and she’d drag him into her bed citing that his back would be sore. And he’d get to lie beside her and hold her and kiss her. And he had to be able to do that again. He didn’t know if he could live without doing that again.

He texted Voight that he was going to sleep, but his ringer would be on. Makayla’s wake up time was six thirty, and he had to get her to school for seven forty, but he’d be in work then. Adam crawled between the sheets of Kim’s bed, smelling her conditioner on her pillow. He’d get to be in this bed with her again. He had to.

Taglist: @aruzlover @abbyscameron @morganupstead @adamruz @fullwattpadmusictree @redpoodlern @everythingaddictxx @write4life13 @lizlouisebrown @jeanjacketjesus @tuxieboy101-blog @thelittlepterophyllum @planecrazylex @sophiatellerrhodes @eternal-olicity @ossypooh @multicouple-lover @gins-potter

[sgtbradfords]

Love your writing

Please write “you look really tired”

Thank you anon and thank you for the prompt as well! Quick edited so I apologize for any mistakes. I hope you enjoy! :)

Lucy Chen had been though one hell of a shift. It started before she could check on duty, her favorite coffee cup falling off the counter, shattering into a thousand glass shards, her hair tie broke causing her immaculate bun to fall and then her phone died, all before she could walk through the doors at Mid-Wilshire. Needless to say, she was having a Monday on a Thursday.

“Hey.” Tim Bradford said as he fell into the open seat beside her. “You good?”

“Peachy.” She glared before a look of confusion casted over her face. “What are-“

“You sure? You never responded to my texts.” he quietly told her, twisting his chair back and forth.

Lucy grimaced.  “I’m sorry, I’ve just had a shitty morning.”

“Ok.” He said letting it drop, turning around talking to another officer that had walked in.

Lucy pulled her phone out, powering it on after charging it on the drive over to find her battery now at 10%, as messages and notifications began coming through as she started a new message, typing it out and quickly sending it.

‘We still good for tonight? Clock out at 4?’

“Alright, let’s get to it this morning.” said Sergeant Grey as he walked to the podium in the room. “Sergeant Bradford, thank you for coming in on your day off. It seems as though a large bust has fallen into our laps. Officers West, Holt, Raine, and Phillips will be assisting.”

Sergeant Grey went through the tasks still needing to be completed before dismissing the group of officers.

Lucy had just grabbed her vest camera and was making her way to grab her war bag before heading to get her shop, when her phone vibrated in her pocket.

‘I’ll pick you up around 5:30, that enough time to get ready?’

‘perfect’ she replied.

Lucy grabbed her shop, immediately plugging in her phone to the charging outlet of the car before she took a deep breath, cranking the vehicle.

As much as she hoped for an easy day, her day was non-stop as soon as she pulled out of the parking lot. A drunk and disorderly, two car accidents, a well-fare check, assisting on a shots fired call and defusing one verbal altercation later she was parking the shop and returning her gear. The clock on the wall in the locker room as she changed into her civilian clothing began ticking past four, as she quickly packed her uniform and belongings back into her duffle before walking out the door of the precinct.

She was both mentally and physically exhausted as she trudged to her car, throwing her things in before sitting behind the wheel, driving to her apartment on autopilot. Twenty minutes later she was pulling into her space, gathering her duffle and jacket, locking up the vehicle as she headed to the side door of the building.

As soon as she walked through the front door, she placed her keys on the small table beside the entrance, kicking her shoes off as she placed her duffle on the counter before making her way through her bedroom, heading for the bathroom. She removed her top and discarded her pants, throwing the clothing into the hamper before heading back out to the bedroom, sitting down on the edge of her bed as she stared at her closet, willing the perfect date night outfit to jump out at her.

The next moment she heard the sound of the handle from the front door hitting the sheetrock of the wall as she jolted up from the bed, her heart racing in her chest, not having enough time to reach for the weapon in her nightstand.

“Lucy!” the voice yelled before heavy footsteps barged into her room.

She could not help the yelp that escaped. “What the fuck!”

Tim stood in front of her, checking her over. “Are you ok?”

“I was getting ready for… what are you doing here? It’s not even five.”

Tim stared at her, his concern still evident on his face. “Lucy, it’s almost six.”

“What? No, it’s not-“ her words drifted off as she turned around, glancing at the clock on the other nightstand, the green numbers showing her he was right as it showed fifteen till six. “I must have fallen asleep.” She sheepishly admitted.

Tim let out a breath he never realized he was holding. “You weren’t answering your phone or the door, so I panicked. Two heart attacks in one day are not healthy on this ‘old man’s heart babe.”

“I’m sorry.” She whispered. “You’re not old though.”

Tim softly smiled. “No, but I am sorry. I shouldn’t have panicked like that at all but after last time…”

“I’m ok.”

“You look really tired.” He spoke. “How about we just cancel tonight and stay in?”

Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “Our date! Let me get dressed and we can go, I can’t believe I fell asleep, the last thing I remember is staring at my closet and-“

“Luce,” he said taking her hands. “Why don’t you grab my shirt from the other night off the floor and throw it on while I fix us something to eat.”

She pouted, pulling her hands out of his, wrapping her arms around his waist. “But our date, I’ve been looking forward to it all week.”

“And we can go out tomorrow night but tonight, relax.” He whispered, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

“Ok.” She smiled up at him tiredly. “I knew I was tired, but I didn’t think I was that tired.” Lucy stepped out of the embrace, moving to grab the shirt off the floor beside her dresser as Tim walked out, moving to the kitchen.

“How did the bust go? Did Grey call you in this morning?” she asked, pulling off her bra and stepping into a pair of leggings.

Tim shuffled through the refrigerator, finding enough odds and ends to make a meal as he began telling her about the large amounts of heroin they were able to take off the street, along with the large amount of cash and the five weapons recovered.

They ate forty minutes later, enjoying each other’s company, Lucy telling him about the calls she went on throughout the day, Tim giving her reassurance and advice when needed as they cleaned up the kitchen.

Lucy found a movie on Hulu, letting it play in the background as she cuddled into Tim’s side as they laid on the couch, both of their eyes drifting as Tim ran a thumb over the exposed skin where his shirt she wore had ridden up.

“I’m sorry for freaking out this morning.” He mumbled into her hair.

She sighed, wrapping her arms around him tighter as she slurred. “It’s ok. I’m sorry for us not going out tonight.”

“You wanna head to bed?”

Lucy shook her head. “I’m ok here if you are.”

“Ok, love you.”

Lucy placed a kiss on his chest, as she felt his breathing even out under her head, her eyes drifting close. She would take this, the quite moments and stolen kisses, over dressing up and going out any day of the week.

[crazyyanderefangirlfan]

The Rabbit of Night Raven: Chapter 1: Demons in high places. Pt 1

A collection of drabbles of Valerie and boys, the story takes place after the Diasomnia arc.

"Read pages 46-55 for tomorrow's quiz, otherwise expect immediate failure and remedial classes. You are dismissed" "Meow." Stated a familiar elderly teacher and his cat. One-by-one students were standing from their seats and filed out of the door.

"Gyaah! Finally, it's over. But studying all that sounds so boring." Cried a familiar black and blue trash cat as he slumped over the desk. He felt himself getting picked up by a soft pair of hands whose fingers began scratching under his chin.

"Aww. Don't be like Grim. If you want to be the greatest wizard, then you have to attend class." He felt the fingers gently bopping his nose before swatting them away. Valerie giggled at the sight of Grim feebly swatting away her fingers. She opted to cradle him to her bosom.

"Don't treat me like a pet henchwoman!" He cried but purred at the sensation of her fingers gently scratching his ears. The girl internally squealed at his cute expression.

"Are you done babying him now? Come on." A familiar voice called out to the girl and turned to the source, her first and best friends in Night Raven, Ace, and Deuce. The two boys were glowering at the monster who was engulfed by the girl's bust, but luckily for them, the girl and her monster did not notice.

"Yes, I am." She re-adjusted her bag and walked with them outside the classroom.

"So princess, we're heading to clubs; don't miss us too much." Ace teased and playfully pinched her cheeks. Valerie grimaced at the gesture and rubbed her cheek once he was done.

"I won't, besides at least I can take a break from your lack of brain cells." She smirked at their indignant expressions.

"Hilarious princess. But you still have to deal with Grim." It was Ace's turn to smirk but directed it to the vexed monster in her arms.

"What's that supposed to mean!? I am the great Grim, don't you dare say I'm unintelligent!" He was ready to blow a stream of fire towards Ace if it weren't for Valarie scratching his ears to calm him down.

"Grim, if you start a fight, I'll limit your cans of tuna for 2 months" She smiled, but the cat monster saw through the girl's mask, a sense of dread blowing a cold chill down his spine. Defeated, he let out a whimpering "Sorry."

"Great, now that's outta out of the way, we can text you when we're done." The atmosphere lightened up as Deuce's voice, with the girl returning the comment with a smile, "I have a new movie we could watch, maybe later tonight?" Deuce finished up, walking up to the girl, he places a palm on her shoulder.

"Jack, Epel, and Sebek can't come. They said they got caught up with some dorm stuff, so it's just us."

"Tonight it is." She remarked, giving the two a peck on their cheeks as she playfully walked out, causing the onlookers to eye the now blushing boys with an envious eye.

____________________________

The brunette happily hummed as she walked out of the school, and as she made her journey to Ramshackle, her thoughts drifted on how everything was now.

It's been months since her arrival in Twisted Wonderland, and honestly, she loved every second here. Don't get her wrong she missed her family and friends back home and wishes to go back. But she secretly desired for the crow to give up on his research if he did any that is, she loved it here too much, and it was beginning to feel like home. Surely her loved ones can live without her...

Valerie shook her head at the ridiculous thought. What was she thinking? Of course, they would miss her, she has to stop those ludicrous thoughts, she has to go home someday. 

"Valerie, we're here." Grim's voiced snapped her out of her head. Apparently, she was so focused on her thoughts, she nearly crashed into the gate.

"O-oh. Thank you, Grim. I didn't even realize we're here."

"Tch, honestly henchwoman, what will you do without me?" 

She laughed heartedly at his comment, but before she could step on the porch. She overheard a crashing sound. Both students froze. Valerie could feel Grim shaking in her arms from how loud it was.

"W-what was that!? I-I mean, I'm not scared, but where did it come from?" the poor monster tried to brush off his fear, but it was apparent on how violently she shook in her arms.

"It came from the back, let's go and check." He blanched at her words and started to squirm when he felt her move.

"Are you crazy!? I mean, I won't have a problem fighting it, cause no one is a match for the great Grim. But you? You have no magic!"

"I know hand-to-hand combat."

"Even so, you'll be obliterated!"

"Oh, look, we're here." Grim had to do a double-take on her words. Sure enough, they were in the back of the woods, and lo and behold, a large crater stood amidst of it.

"You have no self-preservation." She didn't respond. Instead, she peeked inside the crater. But the sight left both the girl and monster were dumbfounded on what they've discovered.

It was a young man, he appeared to be in his early 20's. His midnight blue hair was in disarray and matted with dirt, his bronze skin was littered with various scars and wounds. An ugly gash was near his forehead and bleeding profusely. His clothes consisted of a white dress shirt, a red vest coat, and khaki pants were torn and stained with blood. He was also missing his shoes.

"Oh my gosh!" The girl dropped the monster in her arms and rushed inside the crater and quickly hauled the young man onto her back, indifferent to the blood staining her clothes. 

"Grim! Go back to the house and tell the ghosts to prepare a medical kit, and hurry!"

"Are you seriously going to take him back with us!? What if he's doing some shady business? Or some kind of criminal?"

"Then I'll have the great Grim to protect me. Besides, helping others is the duty of a human being, regardless of their background." Grim sighed but did what she told him. Not before muttering 'how a reckless human she was' under his breath.

Valerie huffed as she tried to balance both her weight and the stranger's as she tried to get out, which proved to be difficult due to how deep the crater was, which caused her to slip from time to time. But thankfully, she managed to climb up and run full speed back to Ramshackle.

  ____________________________

The door was opened once she got there, and the short ghost came to helped her carry the man to the couch. The ghosts and Grim were waiting for them in the lounge, the medical kit was on the table.

"Jeez, who did he pissed off to get such a beating?" The skinny ghost commented as they watched the two placed the man on the couch.

"Thanks for the help, Bennett." The ghost merely tipped his hat and smiled.

"No problem, kiddo."

"Gerald, please go to my closet and get some clothes. An oversized shirt and a pair of sweatpants will do." The skinny ghost saluted and went upstairs.

"Wilbur, please fetch me a bowl of water, soap, and a towel from the kitchen." The stout ghost nodded and did what he was told. Valerie painstakingly proceeded to remove his clothes. She winced on the number of wounds inflicted on his body. What did he do to deserve such a severe punishment? 

Her heart stopped when she caught the sight of his right leg. It was gruesome, it was a third-degree burn, the skin was in a ghastly shade of black, the skin was so dry and leathery that flakes were falling off. She nearly cried at the sight of it, but she pulled herself together. Now is not the time.

Wilbur was first to come back with the things she needed. He winced at the sight of his leg. She sent him a grateful smile and began her procedure. She gently washed his body, thoroughly removing the dirt from his body, before she patted him dry. She carefully treated his wounds and wrapping them tightly with the gauze.

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

"So... Are you planning to tell the headmaster about your discovery?" Bennett inquired as he watched the girl sipped her tea.

The residents of Ramshackle were situated in the kitchen, discussing what to do about Valerie's unconscious guest, and whether or not he can be trusted. Valerie, currently sitting on the counter with a mug of tea in her hand and Grim on her lap, petting his fiery ears. 

"Of course I am, and knowing that crow. He'll probably milk money from him as a reward because one of his students saved his life. Because he's so gracious." She stated as she sipped more of her tea. The sarcasm on her voice was heavy when she spoke the last sentence.

"That guy will gladly take money for himself, and say it's for the school," Grim chimed in.

"But still. I'm bothered about not knowing who he is. He could be a dangerous criminal for all we know." Gerald voiced his thoughts.

"That's what I told her! But no! She refuses to listen to the Great Grim and decides to be a suicidal maniac." The monster exclaims while waving his arms for emphasis. She flicked his forehead. 

"Grim, we can't just leave him there. We live near a forest remember? Who knows what monsters are out there." The stern look she gave made him freeze. Before anyone could utter another word, an unfamiliar voice made Valerie dropped the mug from her hands and spilled the boiling liquid on the floor. Everyone's heads snapped towards the lounge.

"THE FUCKING HELL!? WHERE THE FUCK AM I!?" The sounds of crashing furniture, broken glass, and vulgar words filled the atmosphere. Scooping Grim on her arms, they all swiftly made their way to the lounge, to find their guest on the floor.

It looked like a hurricane pass through. Furniture was overturned, pieces of glass were littered around, and the man was on the floor flailing around like a fish out of water. The blanket that Wilbur provided for him was now acting as a straitjacket.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! You've got to be bullshitting me!" He let out another flurry profanities, before noticing his bewildered audience.

"Oi Sugar tits, get me out of this."

They were truly surprised by the man, but for different reasons.  Grim was amazed by how fast he recovered and how he managed to get into that position. The ghosts and Valerie were... Appalled by his choice of words.

"Young man, you should not talk to a lady like that!" But he merely rolled his eyes, annoyed at the ghost's nagging.

"Whatever the fuck grandpa. So anyway, get me out of here." Valerie quickly snapped out of her stupor and gently placing Grim down before helping him. Carefully, she placed him back to the couch before untangling the blanket from his frame. 

"Thanks for the help, Sugar tits." Upon closer inspection, she finally noticed the details on his face but was too busy saving his life. He had lovely almond-shaped eyes with long lashes, his left eye was taffy pink, while his right was cornflower blue. His surfer hairstyle complimented his diamond-shaped face. From his sitting position, she can tell he could possibly be Azul's height. He had pointed ears, which made her briefly wonder if he was a fae like Malleus and Lillia. 

The man stretched his arms but winced. He finally took a good look at himself and let out a low whistle.

"Damn, the fucker did a number on me. But you did a pretty good job in healing me up Sugar tits, even if you did a fucking sloppy job at it." He remarked, flexing his fingers.

 Valerie frowned, what was with this guy? He was starting to remind her of one the pervs in and out of school. She counted in her head to calm herself, before asking the question that was in everyone's mind.

"Excuse me, sir, what's your name?"

He looked at her in disdain, as if she made a joke that so awful that she needed to shut up. She wondered if she insulted his pride, but, oddly he chuckled and slung his arm around her shoulder.

"Good joke Sugar tits. Pretending to know who I am hilarious." He gave another mirthful chuckle and brought his hands up to her head to play with her bow. But, she slapped them away before they could even reach. He sat there stunned, eyes wide and mouth gaping as if no one has done that to him before. 

Valerie's lips were pressed into a thin line, her expression was calm. But everyone in the room, including the heterochromatic male, could feel a shift in the air. The aura surrounding the girl was foreboding, and her eyes were locked on him, like a predator watching its prey to make a mistake and go for the kill. Finally, she spoke.

"No. I do not know who you are."

The silence was thick as fog, the noises within the house seemed more prominent as the rest of the residents stared at two, giving uneasy glances to one another. Grim, who has been with her since the beginning, has known what her anger is like. He shivered at the thought of her hellish gaze and silently prayed to the Great Seven to let this man survive.

Her opal-Esque eyes held burning fire as she stared down the man. Her body tensed up, legs twitching erratically, waiting for him to make any reason for her to kick him in the gut.

The man studied her face to know if she's joking or not. Once he confirmed she genuinely doesn't who he is, his curled up in amusement.

"The name's Amane Mania." She sighed, at least one problem is out of the way...

"So I'm guessing you want your reward huh? So what do you want? Money or a fu-"

Amane didn't get to finish and suddenly collapsed on her. Stunned, she peered behind him to see Bennett with a cane on hand and a mildly irritated look on his face.

____________________________

"I could have done it myself," Valerie grunted as she carried the unconscious man again, but this time to one unoccupied but clean rooms of Ramshackle.

"I know you could, but I couldn't stand his attitude anymore," Bennet grumbled.

"Yo, Val we're h-WHO THE FUCK IS THAT!?." Ace exclaimed. She turned to find her friends gaping at her in shock, more specifically at Amane.

"Guys! Don't be so loud, I don't want to wake him up." 

"H-Hang on I'll help you." Deuce scrambled to get to the stairs with Ace following behind, once he got there. He grabbed his legs and began to make their way through the hall.

They came across one the doors and she gestured Ace to opened it. Once they were inside, they dropped him on the bed and Valerie covered him with a blanket. Quietly as they could, they walked out of the room and made their way to the now cleaned lounge.

"Okay who the fuck was that? and why does he look like he went through a war?" Ace questioned.

"Grim and I found him in the back of the woods. He was laying on a giant crater and I brought him to get fixed up. Then he woke up and started to call me Sugar tits-"

"He called you what!?

 "And Bennett him in the head. You guys know the rest."

Deuce took a deep breath and tried to organize his thoughts, before speaking.

"Valerie. You mean to tell us you brought a stranger to your home, who doesn't seem to have any respect towards females and healed him?"

"Yeah, that's it." He sighed.

"Valerie, as much as I admire your selfless nature, but you should be careful with strangers. Especially when you get people like that and don't know their intentions."

"Come on guys. You witness me took down people five-times my height. I can take care of myself."

"What he means Princess, we don't know what kind of magic he does or what he's capable of using." Ace injected.

"Well in that case. I'll just use a potion on him to make him feel weak. Professor Crewel already taught us that so I know I can make use of it."

The boys could only glance at each other in worry.

Amane felt a throbbing pain when he woke up.

Grunting, he sat up and held his head. He hissed when he grasped the side where the was gauze wrapped. 

"What the fuck was that?" He mumbled, before taking note of his surroundings. 

He was in a bedroom and spotted a first aid kit near his bed. He gazed down at his body, he was sporting a black shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants.

He tried to get out of bed but hissed when tried to move his legs. The pain was agonizing. He pulled up the right part of the pants and perceived how heavily it was wrapped.

He clicked his tongue. The bastard really went all out, and he was going to bring the pain back tenfold.

The sound of the door brought him out of musing. The girl was back with a tray of food, two boys one had ginger hair and a heart mark while the other had blue and a spade mark, and a weird cat monster of her shoulder. There was clear mistrust on their eyes when they stared at him.

"Glad to see you awake." she offered him a smile and placed the tray on his bedside. He scanned its contents. An egg and chicken fried rice. He knitted his brows and faced her.

"You ain't gonna poison me, are ya?"

"If I wanted you dead, I would have just left you in that crater." She asserted. She sat down on a chair next to him with boys leaning against it, and the monster stretched itself on the bed.

"Besides." The monster spoke, a male by the tone if it's voice. "She's too much a goody-two-shoes to let anyone die. Unless they pissed her off too much." Amane raised a brow on the last part but said nothing.

He took the bowl and brought the spoon to his mouth. He hummed it was pretty good. He began to devour the whole thing, finally realizing how hungry he was. He placed the bowl back once he was finished.

"You're a pretty good cook, Sugar tits." He licked lips in satisfaction. The girl, surprised by how fast he finished the food, narrowed her eyes. The boys scowled at him.

"Could you just ask me my name, instead of calling me that?" The exasperation in her voice was transparent. He raised a brow, but his lips curled in a teasing grin.

"Why should I? When that name fits you so well." Eyeing at her ample bosom. He snickered at how red her face is. She was so fun to tease and seeing the looks on those guys was priceless.

"Ow! The fuck!?" Pain shot through his body, clenching his teeth, he found her adding pressure on his wounded leg. All with an innocent smile on her face.

"Oi Sugar tits quit that!" He let out another string of curse words when she pressed harder.

"You know what she wants." The ginger boy's deadpan voice rang out. Another yelp of pain came out when he felt she dug her nails on his leg.

"Okay! Okay! What's your name!? Fuck." He sighed in relief when she stopped but glared at the still smiling girl.

"Ugh. What's you're name?"

"I'm Ace." The ginger started.

"Deuce." The navy waved.

"It's Valerie, and this little guy is Grim."

"That's the Great Grim, Henchwoman!" She playfully stuck her tongue out, while Grim growled. Valerie returned her attention back to him.

"So. How are you feeling?"

"Besides having a helluva headache, and nearly losing my leg. I'm good."

"That's great. Cause you need your all your sanity on what comes next." This confused him greatly. He was about to ask what she meant when the door slammed open.

 There stood a man in rather extravagant clothing and a crow mask. As soon as his eyes landed on Amane, he visibly froze. Mouth hanging wide.

"No.." He whispered

"Long time no see Crow shit."

"Sir, are you okay? What wrong?" Deuce glanced at Amane who looked like he wanted to laugh. He ignored his students.

"You look tacky as usual." He flinched at his words.

"I see you’re as rude as ever."

"As if I care. You old crow." 

"The nerve! What would you're parents say about your attitude?'

"Probably nothing."

"Such insole-"

A loud cough broke their dispute, and turn their attention to the sole girl in the room.

"Headmaster, don't you think instead of lecturing him about how to respect authority. Shouldn't you be focused on his well-being?" She gave him a pointed look, the man coughed.

"A-ahh. Yes, of course." He cleared his throat.

"I see Ms. Kemonohito has taken good care of you. It warms my heart to know my students are capable of such compassion and selflessness. Ah-huh huh!."

Aman arched a brow while the other four just sighed, already too used at this display. Crowley quickly regained his composure.

"So please tell me, how he ended up like this?"

She told him everything from the beginning. Crowley nodded once in a while. After she finished, he had a contemplative look on his face, or at least she assumed it was one with the mask and all.

"Hmm, how strange." He turned his attention to students.

"All of you come with me for a moment." Crowley quickly stood up and made his way to the door, gesturing his students to follow him. They all stood up, silently following him.

"What was that about? You know him or soemthing." Grim questioned.

"Do any of you know who he is, or at least his family." He finally spoke, the serious tone in his voice startled them momentarily but shook their heads. Crowley frowned.

"Oh dear, this quite a predicament. To think he’ll be back here in school." He muttered under his breath.

"Just what so great about his family?" Ace prodded.

"The Mania family is an old crime organization who ruled Twisted Wonderland before Crewel was born. Though they are disbanded and faded in history, their influence is strong. They have many businesses, and still manage to have loyal followers who will gladly do anything for them, and he was a former student here as well."

This information floored them. To think this guy was part of a mafia group and to top it all that. Now Valerie understood why he looked surprised when she said she didn't know him. She jumped when Crowley called her.

"Ms. Kemonohito, I thank you for saving his life. I'm so proud of having such a benevolent and caring student." He cried once more earning annoyed looks from all four of them.

"Seriously. How old is this guy?" Ace grumbled. 

"However, due to his critical condition, and lack of phone. He will remain in Night Raven until he fully recovers." He gazed at Valerie, she frowned. She knew what comes next.

"Which is why you, Ms. Kemonohito will let him lodge here until he recovers. I cannot ask the dorm leaders due to their duties, and the infirmary is full due to the last Magift practice."

"I have no choice do I."

"Unless you want me to cut off the dorm's budget, then no." She sighed.

"Fine, I'll do it." He beamed.

"Wonderful! I shall inform him right away." He went back inside. Grim glared at his back.

"Grrrr. This again, whenever something happens we always get the short end of the stick! Why can't he be useful for once in his life!"

"The day he's reliable is the day I go back home."

Which she secretly hoped that it never happened. They returned to the room, Crowley was already finished explaining to Amane about the situation, who couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or amused.

"I can assure that Ms. Kemonohito is a gracious host such as myself, will surely make feel right at home!"

"Oh, I'm sure she'll be a great host. Huh, Valerie." The way he said her name, made her instantly wary of him. Even more when he turned to her.

His smile was borderline sadistic, and his eyes held a mischievous glint in them. Valerie felt a shiver up her spine, oh Great Seven, please save her soul. She can already tell that this guy won't make it easy for her. Ace and Deuce scowled at him and formed a wall between them.

"Splendid. I'll be off then." With a flourish, he vanished.

_____________________________________

"Still a weirdo I see." Amane stared at the spot where Crowley vanished.

"Yeah, you'll get used to it," Deuce assured, scratching the back of his head. He turned to Valerie.

"So. Still up for that movie?" She perked up at his words, but before she could say anything, Amane beat her to it.

"Umm. Hello~ Are trying to exclude me? How standoffish of you Ms. Kemonohito. What would that crow say once he learned that you are being unkind?"

He had raised a single brow and propped his face to his hands, all with a shit-eating grin on his face. Ace fumed.

"Hey! You don't own this house asshole! She can do what she pleases!"

Amane turned to him, sporting a bored look on his face as he studied him. Seconds after, he had a lecherous smirk on his face.

"Why hello~ I didn't get a good look at you earlier, but now I do, I gotta say you're pretty hot. Say, after I recover, why don't we booked a love hotel hot stuff~" He purred as he licked lips and eyed at Ace's bottom with such fiery hot intensity.

Ace flinched at his words and shivered when he stared at him with such hunger. Amane then turned his attention to Deuce, who also trembled at his wanton gaze.

"You're not so bad too handsome. Maybe we should do a three-"

Valerie coughed loudly to get everyone's attention.

"Uhh...Why don't we get set up the movie here, Ace go and help Deuce get the projector, while I get some snacks. Grim, you stay here."

The boys briskly walked out before sprinting away from the room. Valerie trailed after them, ignoring Grim's protests. She found them hastily getting the stuff, both having shaken expressions.

"What the actual fuck was?" Ace was carrying an extension wire and mini wireless speakers.

"How...How could someone be so...Shamless." In Deuce's arms was the laptop.

After getting everything they needed. Wordlessly, they made their way upstairs and found Grim struggling to get out of Amane's grip, who was squishing his pink paws.

"Aww, aren't you a cute little piece of shit~"

"Fgua! Put me down ya weirdo!"

"Ahh. So mean."

Ace snickered at the sight, he would have laughed if Deuce didn't nudge his ribs. After setting up everything, Deuce showed them the movie. It was a comedy, Cater suggested it to him. Then he pressed play.

It wasn't even twenty minutes, and Amane began to make licentious and snarky comments about the characters, and the general plot of the movie. He called them out from their costumes to their acting. The boys covered Valerie and Grim's ears whenever he made a perverted comment.

"Dayum~ Look size of that guy. Bet he's packing something bigger." 

"Seriously? How the fuck people find that funny? Even burning trash has better humor."

"How much longer is this movie. It's fucking boring!"

As much as boys wanted to beat the shit of him, they can't due Valerie holding a vice grip on their arms, a silent plead to not to do anything stupid, lest they get in trouble. They grudgingly oblige but cast resentful glances at him. After the movie, the boys were very hesitant to leave her but assured them she'll be fine.

"I dealt with overblots. I can handle a rich boy."

That didn't reassure them but eventually left because she reminded them of  Riddle's curfew. After waving goodbye, she was headed to her room, when...

"Oi Sugar tits! Bring me another pillow!"

_____________________________________

(A/N: I decided to make this a two part chapter)

[fireblaze5555]

Kastle Drabble

A quick idea that struck me over the weekend.

Title: A Long Day

Summary: Frank and Karen deal with intruders in their apartment

Available on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26470678/chapters/64501375 

Part 1: Karen:

Karen half stumbled into the apartment, exhaustion and relief in equal parts making her clumsy as she tossed her keys down and kicked her heels off to beeline for the kitchen. She was more than ready for a beer, sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. The day’s investigation had led her in a wide circle around the city with very little viable information gained. In short, it was a complete bust and her feet were killing her. So, with practiced ease she flicked on the standing lamp in the living room, pulled a cold beer out of the fridge, opened and drained half of it with a satisfied sigh and headed for the bathroom, a hot bath calling her name.

It was nearly an hour before she emerged from the bathroom dressed in her favorite pair of sweats and most comfortably worn in t-shirt. The stress of the day was finally easing out of her shoulders and the aching in her feet had calmed to a dull throb so Karen was starting to feel much more positive about the rest of her evening. With a renewed sense of purpose, Karen ran long fingers through her wet hair and gave a determined nod, speaking quietly to herself, “Time to see if I can make some sense of what I did manage to find today…”

A creak in the living room made Karen turn sharply and just like that what hope for her evening she had managed to regain vanished into vapor, replaced with a spike of adrenaline and fear quickly followed by acute exhaustion and no small amount of annoyance.

She really wasn’t in the mood to be kidnapped or whatever the three men now standing in her living room had planned. Judging by the smug looks and weapons strapped to their waists, they weren’t here on a social call or even just to deliver a warning. It really spoke to her way of life and how much shit she had been through that now that the initial shock had worn off, she was just tired and annoyed. In the short time it had taken her to compute there was a threat in her apartment, Karen had already formulated a plan. There were weapons stashed all around the apartment and she knew how to use all of them, as long as she could avoid getting grabbed she felt fairly confident she could get out of the apartment mostly unscathed.

From where she stood a few feet outside of her bedroom doorway, Karen could see the kitchen and from the corner of her eye verified that her first choice for defense was tucked up under the island where it had been secured just the other day. She turned her attention back to the living room, watching the intruders again. They had moved a little further in and looked confident that their job was already done, no doubt assuming that a skinny blonde in her pajamas would be an easy take down. Karen felt the familiar hot rise of anger burn up her spine. When were men going to learn that underestimating her would almost always be their last mistake?

As subtly as she could, Karen flicked her eyes over again to gauge the distance between her and the gun fastened to her kitchen furniture when her eyes flicked over the neon numbers of the microwave flashing midnight. For a moment, through her clamoring thoughts, she tried to remember why the time seemed so significant. Then it clicked and some of the tension bled out of her shoulders.

One of the men took a step forward and looked like he was about to speak but Karen cut him off.

“You should leave. Now.” She said, her voice solid but laced with obvious weariness.

The man closest to her looked back at his friends with an incredulous little laugh before turning a patronizing smile to her, “Aw, but we just got here Karen. We can’t just leave before we have all the fun we have planned for y-..”

“Listen, I can honestly say I’ve heard several variations of this speech over the years and I just don’t have the energy for it tonight. I’ve had plenty of fun today, thanks anyway. You can go now.” The men continued to chuckle, eyebrows raised at her sharp tone and defiant demeanor. A heaving sigh escaped her. “Look, you really need to go before he gets home.”

One of the men, this one had a sharp smile, began to fiddle with a blade as he sauntered forward to stand next to his companion, “Ooh, you have a man living here with you Ms. Page? A real tough guy?” You have no idea , she thought but didn’t interrupt him. “Does he know that you’re snooping around where you shouldn’t be?”

Yes, it’s a never ending source of stress for him but he gave up trying to convince me to stop so I don’t see how that matters. Once again, she let him continue.

“Well even if he doesn’t, he’ll find out soon enough. We plan to carve every little problem you’ve caused for us into that pretty skin of yours, once we’re done with you, of course.”

It was so cliche it nearly made Karen roll her eyes. She didn’t though, she still needed to be focused, each time they got a little closer, she moved a little closer to her destination.

As much as she really didn’t like these men, and she really didn’t, she felt like she should try to give them one last warning.

“Whatever it is that I’ve done to piss you off, I’m telling you, it won’t be worth what’s coming. If you leave right now, I won’t report anything and you all don’t have to die.” Her voice was steady and earnest. If, by some miracle, they did decide to just leave she fully intended on reporting it to Mahoney, Karen was almost certain she knew what faction these men were from and it wouldn’t be hard to track them down.

As she expected, they just laughed.

“Well, we appreciate the warning Karen but I think we will stick around.” The gaze he scraped over her body made her give an involuntary shiver, “We are going to have so much fun together. Before we kill you and leave you here for your poor little boyfriend to find that is.”

Well, she did everything she could. Karen tensed, prepared to fight and watched the men across from her do the same.

Just as she felt like the tension was about to snap into a flurry of motion, there was a creaking behind her, the old floorboards protesting. Before she had time to process the new potential threat, three sets of eyes snapped to look over her shoulder, nearly identical sneers of bravado on each of their faces.

What Karen couldn’t see was death himself materializing from the dark of the bedroom doorway behind her. A face carved from granite and colored with deadly calm stared at the intruders, the deep set, nearly black eyes the only indication of the rage roiling under the surface. The men watched the newcomer advance with heavy footfalls, stepping around the mouthy private investigator to level a malevolent glare at each of them in turn. It was then that they took in the blood splatter across his face and the slow drip of blood from one of his fingers. He had a deadly stance that only a true killer could possess. Karen could see the confidence starting to drain from the men’s faces but it was the tactical vest that made them all go pale, taking several hurried steps back towards the door. A white skull stared back at them, the hollowed eyes seeming to follow their harried movement.

“Karen.” It was spoken quietly but the deep graveled voice seemed to fill all corners of the small apartment. “Did they touch you?”

“No, man! We didn’t lay a finger on her! We were just going to talk to her, I swear.” The cocky leader of the small group hurried to plead their case but Frank silenced him with a withering look, a low animalistic sound emanating from deep in his throat.

“I wasn’t talking to you asshole.”

Stepping forward, Karen laid a gentle hand to his shoulder, “No, Frank, they hadn’t done anything to me.” Yet , hovered in the air between them.

Without waiting to see what he would do, the men bolted for the door. They had been expecting an easy evening silencing a reporter, not a fight with the Punisher.

Frank tensed, ready to follow them but before he did he turned back to Karen. She knew he was going to kill them and was too tired to pick a fight on the matter. Instead, she looked him over quickly to be sure he didn’t have any obvious injuries from the mission he had just returned from and when her quick scan turned up nothing, she rested a soft hand to his cheek.

“Punctual as usual.” She said quietly. He had promised her he would be home by midnight and Frank didn’t break his promises to Karen.

He gave a small huff and some of the tension bled out of him before Frank leaned into the touch. He gave her palm a soft kiss then placed a softer, more lingering kiss on her lips.

“I’ll be back in less than an hour, wanna heat up some leftovers?” he asked, stepping back to check his ammo and stride toward the door, a predator on the hunt.

With a sigh, Karen leaned against the counter and for the hundredth time wondered how this was her life.

“Yeah, I’ll have it ready. Try not to get hurt, I’ve already taken a bath and I’m ready to go to bed.”

A crooked grin and a ‘Yes, Ma’am’ was all she heard before her apartment door clicked shut

Part 2: Frank

Frank slid through the bedroom window and landed noiselessly, trying not to wake Karen if she was already asleep. From a text she had sent him earlier it had been a rough day for her so he didn’t want to make it worse. Frank’s evening had been pretty standard, the targets he had been after went down without too much of a fight so the blood on him mostly wasn’t his, the shallow cut on his forearm the only exception.

The bathroom door opened just as he was settling the window quietly closed and he gave a little smile when he looked over his shoulder to see Karen emerge. She was in a loose pair of sweats and one of his worn in black t-shirts. She didn’t seem to notice him, taking a few steps out of the bathroom towards the kitchen, no doubt planning to do more work until he made her get some rest. Frank heard her mutter something to herself and just as he turned and started to poke a little fun at her for talking to herself, Karen’s head snapped to the living room to follow the noise he had just registered as well.

Instantly his body shifted back into battle mode, his muscles tensed and ready, his senses straining for any clues to the potential threat and with a few silent steps he saw the men standing in their living room.

Rage burned hotly through him along with no small amount of fear, Karen was far too close to the intruders. She was tense but he could tell she had already thought of possible scenarios and had probably already solidified a plan. His girl always was calm in the face of danger. Frank forced himself to only take a few steps forward and listen, he trusted Karen to protect herself, lord knows she had done it plenty before he came along, and if he could stay calm and pay attention he may be able to get information on what organization they are from. Just in case though he had his sidearm up and ready to take out the threat.

They stared each other down for what felt like an eternity and then Frank saw Karen glance to the side and just a hint of tension bled out of her.

“You should leave. Now.”

If he wasn’t so furious and anxious Frank would have smiled.

Listening to the exchange he was able to learn that they hadn’t come for her because of him. Which means she probably knew where they were from. Good.

“...Does he know that you’re snooping around where you shouldn’t be?”

Frank barely kept from scoffing. Oh, he knew. Every new gray hair he found he was certain was due to one Karen Page. Then the man threatened her, a wicked knife twirling in his hand and Frank was taking careful steps forward, pausing when Karen spoke up once again.

“...and you all don’t have to die.”

Oh, but they did. Now or later, it made no difference, he would find them. He felt a flare of pride, she knew he would be here for her. Karen may not realize that he is in the apartment now but trusts that he will be here because he gave his word. Another reason he didn’t deserve her.

Frank’s pride melted to anger when they laughed at her. The pieces of shit had no idea the mercy she was trying to grant them. Then again, they had come here to kill the only shining light in the city so they really weren’t all that smart.

When he saw all parties tense and prepare for action he took heavy strides out of the bedroom. Frank knew how capable Karen was but he wasn’t going to stand by and see her attacked when he was there to prevent it.

The soon to be dead men snapped their eyes to him as he carefully stepped around Karen and put himself between her and the threat. It was with grim satisfaction that he watched them realize their mistake and backpedal as quickly as they could. But it was too late for that.

“Karen.” He was trying to not let the rage take over. It would be best not to kill them in the apartment but now that he was closer to them he wanted nothing more than to end them. “Did they touch you?” He knew they hadn’t but a part of him needed the confirmation from her.

One of them had the nerve to speak for her and Frank nearly lost it. Just as quickly, he regained his composure when he felt Karen’s hand on his shoulder. She knew how to steady him.

The cowards fled quickly after that. He moved to go after them immediately but thought better of it, turning to Karen. As was tradition, she looked him over, scanning for injuries and reassuring herself that he was fine. It was a ritual they had adopted in their time together. A few moments to hover, dispel the worry then get back to living.

When she rested a cool palm to his cheek, Frank almost decided to not go after them for the night. He could find them just as easy tomorrow and he was tired. But he also knew he wouldn’t be able to truly rest until they had been eliminated. So with a couple lingering kisses he was headed toward the door.

“...Try not to get hurt, I’ve already taken a bath and I’m ready to go to bed.”

Christ he loved that woman.

“Yes, Ma’am.” he said around a smile and set out to wrap up some loose ends.

It wasn’t hard to find them, they hadn’t gotten far and their arrogance had returned once they were off of his home turf, thinking that he would not follow. Idiots.

So, true to his word, Frank was easing back into the apartment 45 minutes later to the smell of leftover pasta. He stopped long enough for another once over from Karen before reaching for a plate.

“Uh, Frank?” He looked over to her with a raised eyebrow,

Karen looked exasperated, “Do you think maybe you should, I don’t know, wash your hands or something?’ She shook her head at him when he stared at his bloody hands for a second. “Bathing in the blood of your enemies sounds real cool and all but practically speaking it’s just not sanitary, please let go of my good plate and go wash your hands at least.”

Frank gave an amused huff, setting the plate down and moving to the sink. Only after he had thoroughly scrubbed his hands and up his forearms did he return to the kitchen island. When he sat down Karen placed a kiss to his temple as she set a beer in front of him before settling in for her own dinner.

She filled him in on the details of her mostly failed endeavor today and became animated when she informed him that while he was gone she thought of another, sure-fire way, to get the information she needed.

Frank chewed slowly, hanging on her every word and throwing in his thoughts here and there but mostly just marveled at the woman before him, talking about her day like she hadn’t just had her life threatened and he hadn’t murdered a handful of people in the name of justice tonight.

For the thousandth time he wondered how this was his life.

Once they had eaten and Frank had scrubbed off in the shower, they stepped into the dark of the bedroom, both exhausted from the day's toils.

The last thing to be heard were murmured ‘I love you’s before the bedroom door clicked shut.

[nataliedanovelist]

GF - Shards of Glass 1/2

After over thirty years, Ma is getting paid a visit, all thanks to the persuasion of a sweater-making, pig-loving teenager. A loud HAPPY BIRTHDAY for Stanley and Stanford Pines, born June 15th 19?? (who cares?) Part 2 will be posted on June 30th to conclude the celebration of their existence. So stay tuned!

@thestanbros

~~~~~~~~~~

Mabel had never been on a plane before.

Well, okay, that wasn't entirely true; she had been on an airplane before, but she was so little back then and she didn't remember it now, so to her brain this was her first time on a plane, and she didn't like it much. She had to chew on gum the whole time to keep from getting a headache and the WiFi was too slow to function, so she daydreamed about the summer ahead as she watched the clouds roll by and imagined shapes.

Once, when she and Dipper were really little, maybe four or five, they had flown down to Ma Pines' house all the way in New Jersey for a holiday. Probably Thanksgiving since Mabel only had three memories of that trip. She remembered yummy sweet potatoes with marshmallows that she ate as much as she was allowed, she remembered the distinct smell of the flat, and she remembered…

"Attention passengers, we will be arriving in Glass Shard, New Jersey in five minutes. Please remain seated until instructed to exit the plane, and as always thanks for flying with us at…"

"Dipper, we're here!" Mabel cheered and checked her phone, her other hand busy petting a disturbed Waddles on her lap. By the time a message would load to her great uncles they would already be in front of them, so there was no point in sending a text to alert them of the arrival. "This is so exciting! A whole month sailing with my three favorite people in the world!"

"I'm so excited to see all the anomalies the guys were talking about." Dipper said, looking up from his special journal to smile at his twin. "Maybe we'll see a real adlet!"

"But first I wanna see where Grunkle Stan and Ford grew up!" Mabel piped in. "Maybe we'll see the cave where they found the Stan O' War!"

"Maybe," Dipper said, unsure how true that word was. "But don't you think they might not want to stay very long? I wouldn't be surprised if they want to set sail as soon as we get there."

"But what about their mom?" Mabel asked. "Don't they want to see her?"

Dipper looked down at the silver pinetree on his blue book. Their great-grandmother was a tough old bird (as Grandpa Shermie called her) and was still going in her early nineties. Grant it, she didn't do much besides give an occasional palm reading to keep herself busy, but she was definitely still around. Grandpa Shermie was good about staying in touch with her from what Dad said, and Dad called her every Sunday, but she was still relatively lonely due to the fact that her husband was gone (good riddance) and two of her sons hadn't spoken to her in thirty years. ("Stanford" had been very quiet during Stanley's funeral, had refused to attend Filbrick's, and when Grunkle Stan saw Dipper and Mabel being born he left just before Ma arrived at the hospital.) While a visit was way overdue, it might be too little too late.

"I'm sure they want to see her," Dipper finally said as he looked back up at Mabel. "But it might be too hard, now. And not just for them, you know? How would she take it? Would she even believe them?"

Mabel's attitude dropped a little bit more. She shrugged and scratched the spot Waddles can never reach. "I dunno… Dad took the news okay."

Dipper smiled. When their parents' had gotten Mabel's letter their mother didn't believe them, but their father took them seriously and only shrugged and said, "Yup, that sounds like my uncles, alright."

"I think it's a good idea to see Ma, but let's not pressure them, okay?" Dipper settled on.

"Don't worry, Bro-Bro." Mabel said confidently. "It'll all work out. Oo! Look, look, look! We're here! Look, Dipper, look!"

"Okay okay, I'm looking." Dipper chuckled as they both watched the ground come closer and closer, the plane landing safely on the runway and gliding peacefully.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ford had always been more collected and self-contained of the dynamic duo; this became apparent as he was able to stand perfectly calm in the airport with his hands on the pockets of his blue jacket while Stan tapped his foot impatiently and checked his phone every minute, even though he never received a notification or heard a ringtone. Ford smiled and came up with a joke to poke the bear with. "Well well, has Stanley Pines truly gone soft for two teenagers?"

"Shaddup." Stan growled but smiled back nonetheless.

"You know, a watched pot never boils. Just relax."

"I ain't worried or nothing, Poindexter," Stan defended. "Sorry that an uncle's excited to see his kids!"

"I'm happily anticipating their arrival, as well," Ford chuckled. "I'll admit it, Mabel's idea of sailing with us is a fantastic one. Why in the Multiverse she wanted to go so badly she felt compelled to beg for a month straight…"

"Believe it or not, the kids like us." Stan lightly punched his shoulder. "I'm sure all they want is to be stuck on a boat with two cool old men for a month with nothing but fish and an occasional monster for company."

"And a pig."

Stan snorted. "I try to forget that naked jerk."

"And we all know how great of a job you…" Ford cut himself off, turning red and fearing he had crossed a line, but Stan laughed loudly and slapped his knee.

"Okay okay, you got me there…"

"Stanley,"

"What?"

Just as Stan turned around, his eyes landed on the two most precious things in the world: a boy in a ushanka and navy blue vest with a green t-shirt and blue jeans, a journal in his hands and a large backpack on his shoulders, and a girl with shoulder-length brown hair kept back with a red headband, wearing a purple sweater with a big pink heart that held a golden fish and a golden six-fingered hand, a pig in her arms and a huge suitcase just busting at the seam with sweaters and arts n' crafts supplies.

Mabel grinned with teeth free of braces and tears in her eyes and let Waddles down so they could all run freely. Stan broke into a run for his pumpkin and ignored the squealing pig that arrived at him first by a split second, little hooves on his jeans and button eyes requesting cuddles. Stan scooped Mabel up into his arms and held her tight, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face in his shoulder. Dipper was at his legs in an instant and hugged him, not bothering to pretend it's a chokehold or a means to make the old guy trip and fall. Stan freed an arm to keep him close, and not even a second after Dipper joined the hug Ford was by his brother's side and Dipper adjusted to hug him, too.

Stan heard a small sniff and rubbed Mabel's back. "Sweetie, you're not crying, are you?"

Mabel lifted her head up from his shoulder to look at him, wiping away the tears on her cheeks and eyes. "N-No…" Her smile unwavering through her white lie.

Stan chuckled warmly and put her down next to her twin. "Alright, let us get a good look at you two."

"You've seen us at least once a week." Dipper reminded him. They video-chatted constantly and there wasn't a day they didn't exchange an email or a text message.

"This is different, now shaddap and let me work through my cataracts." Stan and Ford looked at the kids hungrily, who was looking back at them just the same, as if they couldn't absorb each other's appearances enough. Which was probably true. "You've both gotten taller."

"I'm taller than Mabel now!"

"By one milometer!"

"Now don't get short with your brother." Ford said with a smile, making every laugh, including Mabel, who shrugged with a "whatcha gonna do" atmosphere to it.

"And your teeth look amazing, pumpkin!" Stan commented; back in March she had gotten the braces removed and admitted to being unsure if her teeth looked good enough, but they dazzled beautifully when she grinned and apart from a painful reminder that she was growing up, Stan was pleased with the new change.

"And the pictures and video don't do your hair justice. You look beautiful." Ford got on one knee and ruffled her hair, making her giggle and playfully swat his hand away. "I must ask, was there a reason for the new hairstyle, or did you simply fancy trying something new?"

"Let's just say an arts n' crafts accident didn't leave me much choice." Mabel said with a wink.

"She set her hair on fire and we had to cut off the dead ends." Dipper spoiled.

"Dipper! I gotta keep some secrets! It makes me look cool and mysterious!"

"No more secret, sweetie." Stan laughed alongside her.

"And Dipper, my boy, you've certainly grown up a lot since we've last seen you." Ford noted as he stood back up.

"Yeah, who gave you permission to look more manly and junk?"

Dipper rolled his eyes at Grunkle Stan's comment, but Mabel chimed in first. "He's already grown five chest hairs! I bet he named them, too."

"I did not!"

"He won't let me see, though…"

"Last time you saw my chest hair you put it in your scrapbook!"

"That's cuz it was your first, Dip-Dip. The rest aren't as special."

The uncles laughed at the kids' playful bickering and Stan took Mabel's suitcase and they ventured out of the airport with Waddles in Mabel's arms.

With the airport being on the furthest side of town from the beach, Stan flagged down a cab and they piled in for the docks. The entire car-ride they filled each other in on their lives, the kids talking about school and the adults giving brief summaries of some of their adventures. Waddles moved from Mabel's lap to Stan's, and without a single comment and only funny looks from the others, Stan scratched the pig as he talked and listened.

At long last the cab pulled up to the docks and the kids ran out, tired of sitting after a six-hour flight and a twenty-minute car ride, while Ford paid for the ride. The younger set of twins raced to the boat they had only seen pictures of and marveled at the vessel before them. Already showing signs of harsh weather and tons of love, the Stan O' War II stood strong on the gentle sea salt waves, the white letter shining in the early-afternoon sun. With a cozy cabin with a downstairs bedroom and an upstairs everything room, a hardtop for astronomy and sunbathing, and a big enough cockpit for the small family, the Stan O' War II had been an excellent home for the old pair of twins and the younger pair of twins were excited to live here for the first half of summer.

"There she is, kids!" Stan said proudly, a hand on Dipper's shoulder. "This ole girl survived Fiji Monkeys, sirens, and five different krakens. It's completely and totally safe." And then a piece of the antenna for the TV fell off.

"Grunkle Stan, if we can survive in the Mystery Shack for an entire summer, I think we'll be fine here." Dipper said while Mabel ran up to the boat and climbed up with Ford behind her.

"What do you think, my dear?"

"It's BEAUTIFUL!" Mabel squealed and hoisted Waddles up into the boat with them, her eyes sparkling with stars as she took in every detail. "I can't wait to get splinters and name all the moldy spots!"

"Unfortunately, there aren't any moldy spots yet." Ford chuckled. "But there are some craters in the wood that haven't been named."

"Leave that to Mabel!"

When Stan and Dipper joined them, the old men took the kids downstairs to the bedroom to unload their things and get situated. What once used to only hold a set of bunk beds and a dresser now also hosted a set of hammocks hooked to the wall and the dresser, one on top of the other for the kids. Mabel squealed with delight and snuggled into the lower one (still a little afraid of heights) and Dipper said, "Whoa, cool! Thanks, guys."

"Well, can't have you two gremlins sleeping out on deck, can we?" Stan asked. He clapped his hands together and declared, "Alright! You two get settled while Ford and I get us out at sea…"

Mabel sat up on her knees, her hands on the edge of the hammock. "Wait, Grunkle Stan! Aren't you gonna give us the grand tour?"

Stan shrugged. "It's a small boat. Not much to tour, kid."

"I mean Glass Shard Beach." Mabel pressed. "You could show us that old candy store and your swing-set and the boardwalk you used to play in!"

Ford looked over at his brother; while he could stomach saying here a little longer, he wasn't sure how comfortable Stan was taking a trip down memory lane, but then again Stan was always preaching about how "the past's in the past" and "old memories shouldn't stop us from making newer, better ones," but that didn't excuse the fact that Stan had been quick to suggest leaving the docks as soon as they picked up the kids and get the supplies they needed when they first arrived.

But Stan smiled, crossed his arms over his chest, and smirked, "I don't see why not? You cool with it, Sixer?"

Ford smiled at his family. "I think it's a wonderful idea. The boardwalk should be open, maybe the Freak Show is still there."

"Freak Show?! Let's go!" Mabel hopped out of her hammock and the four left the boat for town.

Walking alongside the beach and letting Mabel ride on Stan's shoulders, the kids got a good glimpse of the town. They eventually decide to walk into it on the way to the boardwalk, the old men wondering how much Glass Shard had changed.

It was an odd combination of "nothing changes" and "everything changes". The buildings were still the same, not much torn down or rebuilt, but the interiors were mostly updated or something completely different. They passed the Juke Joint and Stan found he couldn't ignore the growl in his stomach. Nothing but the staff had changed (and the prices had gone up due to inflation), the wall art and food and music still the same, but they had a fun time in the diner as the adults told the kids why What's New Kittycat wasn't an option in the jukebox.

After the late lunch, they were just about to enter the boardwalk when they spotted the candy store that mostly sold saltwater taffy, but they also sold jelly jeans, toffee peanuts, peanut brittle, and any kind of candy anyone could want. Though the store had been given a clean update since Ford and Stan were children, the candy was better than they remembered and they all filled their pockets with bags of sweets. Then they strolled along the Boardwalk and while they didn't play many games, the Stan-twins had a lot of fun telling stories that came along with each and every booth.

At the end, in a giant tent with a devil at the front, stood the Freak Show. Of course, none of the adults from the old men's childhood were still around, except for one muscular guy with tons of tattoos who growled at Mabel like an animal but then broke into a smile as she complimented his look and asked where she could get a cool tattoo of a headless seagull.

"Well, tear off my limbs and call me the next human pickle!" The very old tattoo guy said, his hair white and his skin in wrinkles, but his muscles still somehow very toned and his tattoos still clear as ever. "Good ole Six Fingers! How've you two been? These squirts normies?"

Dipper pulled off his hat and pushed back his bangs. "Who you calling normie?"

The whole tent gasped and a woman with hair growing all over her face said tearfully, "One of us."

"Yup, these little weirdos are Dipper and Mabel, our brother's grandkids." Stan introduced proudly.

"Aw, well ain't that swell!" A puppet said for it's puppeteer.

"So wait, you knew our great-uncles when they were kids?" Dipper asked the oldest weirdo.

"Tell us some embarrassing stories about them!" Mabel bugged, her hands on the guy's knee.

The old tattooed guy laughed. "Embarrassing?! Ha! Your uncles were cool little weirdos who made this dock more bearable! Nearly caught a devil at ten-years-old to boot!..."

"You did WHAT?!" The kids gasped at their beaming uncles.

"... Stan over there knew more swears than anyone else his age and Ford knew more secrets than anyone ever. Those two were hands-down the best pair of twins this side of the Mississippi!"

Ford, who was rosy in his cheeks, had his hands in his pockets and commented, "The Sibling Brothers would have loved to disagree."

"What who now?" Mabel asked.

"The worst pair of uptight dorks you would ever meet," Stan growled. "Ascot and Dickie. Blond-haired rich kids who claimed that no one solved a case quicker than them, but who found the Jersey Devil first, ey?!"

"You found WHAT?!"

"I wonder whatever happened to them." Ford pondered as he held his cleft chin.

"Who cares?" Stan said and motioned the kids out of the tent. "Now let's get outta here so I can show you what happens when a pelican eats a firecracker!"

"Stanley, no!"

"Stanley, YES!"

When the sun was setting beautifully on the ocean, the grunkles bought everyone some ice cream and they sat at the edge of the boardwalk to eat. At one point Stan got ice cream on his shirt with a small "Boo!" and had to leave to clean it off, but then got sidetracked and tried to cheat at a booth. Ford went over to rangle his brother, leaving the kids alone.

"Isn't this place great?" Mabel asked with Waddles licking her strawberry ice cream. "They were so lucky to grow up on a beach! Piedmont is so boring."

Dipper smiled at his sister and opened his mouth to respond, but something else caught his attention. A pair of look-alike kids were snickering and laughing as Grunkle Stan and Ford fought off a mean seagull that was trying to peek at the ice cream on Stan's chest. It was a cruel snicker, one the old men couldn't hear, but the kids could, only being a few feet away from them.

"What a couple of fools." The girl with short blonde curls laughed with a slight English accent.

"And does that one have six fingers?" The boy sneered with peering eyes, his hair greased and parted down the middle. "Ugh."

"Hey, hey!" Dipper snapped and stood up, pointing at the rude pair of siblings. "Shut it." He said darkly.

The boy scoffed with a cheeky smile. "Or what? What does it matter to you?"

"Yeah, you leave Grunkle Stan and Ford alone!" Mabel demanded, standing by her brother's side.

"Wait," The girl looked back at the old men, still fighting off the bird, and she cackled a mean laugh. "Six fingers? Rags for clothes? Stan and Ford? Are you the Pines family?"

Dipper and Mabel glared at them. "Yeah? So what?"

"I haven't heard that name since Uncle Ascot and Uncle Dickie told us about how they conquered the Jersey Devil and tricked some monsters to make the boys run away crying." The boy marveled.

Dipper and Mabel glared daggers at the kids, ready to snap at them, but a pair of adults came up behind the mean kids and a voice said coldly, "Bernard, Silvia, play nicely."

Mabel snickered. "Bernard…"

Dipper looked at the men who were around Ford and Stan's age. Their blond hair was freckled with gray, one of the men had a twirly mustache and wore a red and brown sweater-vest combo while the other was clean-shaved and wore a blue polo with khakis. Their blue eyes were cold and mean, and Mabel and Dipper instantly didn't like them. Ascot and Dickie smiled maliciously; these kids looked nearly identical to those pains in their sides. "I see twins run in your family, as well, do they?"

"Excellent deduction, Dickie." His brother commented. "My my my, I didn't think this town could get any worse, but here we are. Once again terrorized by the discount Mystery Twins."

"Hey!" Mabel snapped. "We're awesome! Our grunkles are the best! They go on super cool adventures all the time!"

Meanwhile Stan kicked the seagull away, making it squawk and dive for his red beanie. While Stan grabbed his hat in time and tugged, Ford grabbed the bird and pulled furiously.

Ascot and Dickie rolled their eyes in unison. "We can see that."

Huffing and puffing, Ford and Stan walked up to their kids while Stan readjusted his beanie and smiled down at the best pair of Mystery Twins he knew. "Kids, if we hurry we might make it to…"

Ford's eyes widened and then narrowed darkly. "No. Way."

"What? What…" Stan looked up and growled like an angry bulldog, a hand on Dipper and Mabel's shoulder instinctively. "Oh, great. You two."

"And so the Pines twins come crawling back, eh?" Ascot snorted. "I do hope the mysterious findings out in the West have served you well, Stanford, as you preached it would." He and his family looked up and down at their faded jeans and gruff stature.

"Clearly not." Dickie and the let slip his downfall. "And here I thought your family couldn't sink any lower."

He screamed as a pig bit his ankle and Stan stole the moment of weakness for his advantage, punching the old jerk in the face and Dickie slapping him in return, the two getting into a fight. The moment Stan punched Dickie, Ascot nearly punched Stan in retaliation, but Ford jumped him and started rolling on the docks with him. Mabel shrugged and pulled on Silvia's hair and punched her on the cheek while Bernard and Dipper began slapping each other.

And that was how Stan and Ford ended up fleeing from the cops with a teenager in their arms. Stan had to pull Mabel off of the girl like an angry cat at the sound of the sirens and Ford carried Dipper merely because the old scientist was much faster than the boy.

Luckily no one was hurt, aside from some bruises on their limbs from fighting, but Silvia had grabbed Mabel's arm awkwardly at some point during the fight and her long nails scratched Mabel's skin, actually just deep enough to make a bead or two of blood. So Ford sat Mabel on the table, her sleeve rolled up, while he tried to disinfect her injury, but Mabel kept pulling away and whimpering at the painful medicine.

"Mabel, please, you're worse than Stanley was." Ford said to ease the situation.

Mabel smiled and gripped his hand a little tighter as the medicine stung her arm. Ford then quickly wrapped it up as he scolded. "And really Stanley, you couldn't have controlled your temper?"

"You're one to talk, you jumped Ascot!"

"He was about to attack you!"

"Whatever, you were both awesome!" Dipper cheered.

"Yeah! Did you see the black eyes Dickie had!" Mabel laughed. "He'll be avoiding cameras for weeks!"

"Who says it never ends well to see old friends?" Stan asked and opened the cabinet to get started on a late dinner.

Over baked beans and hotdogs, or Beanies and Weenies as the Pines called them, Stan and Ford shared their plan with Dipper and Mabel, the map laid out on the table and the trail through Canada's islands written in pencil. The kids were beyond excited. The plan was actually pretty straightforward; they were all going home to Gravity Falls together. After first exploring Boston (mostly so the nerds in the family could geek about American History), they were going up north past Prince Edward Island and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, crossing the Labrador Sea for the Baffin Bay, passing the Cornwallis, Bathrust, and Melville Islands, sailing over the Beaufort Sea, down through the Chukchi Sea, and dipping around Alaska and down south for America until they arrived at Florence so the Stan O' War II could rest for whatever remained of summer.

"This looks incredible!" Dipper said, eyeing the newspaper articles on monsters around Canada and the foggy photographs that accompanied it.

"I'm so excited!" Mabel cheered, shoving her cheeks full of Beanies and Weenies.

"Then we'll head out first thing tomorrow!" Stan declared.

"Actually, can we go see Ma first?"

It was like a record had screeched horribly. Stan's whole body tensed, his jaw was tighter, and he was gripping his spoon much tighter than necessary. Ford, however, looked like he was caving in himself, like an animal curling up in fear to hide, his back hunched over and his head a bit lower. Dipper glared at his sister. "Mabel," He hissed in his warning tone.

"What?" Mabel asked gently. "I miss her. It'd be good to see her again, don't you think?"

"Well yeah, but…"

"I didn't know you had met her." Ford mumbled with a soft smile.

Mabel grinned. "Yeah! We talked on the phone sometimes when Dad would call. And we went to see her once. She loves us! She's super cool! She's the one that told me I'd one day marry a really handsome guy."

"She only said that cuz you wouldn't quit begging her to read your palm." Dipper sneered with a smile. "You know all her fortunes were fake, right?"

"The love behind them wasn't." Mabel insisted. "Come on, can't see just go say hello? We're already here, we might as well. She'd be so surprised!"

"I don't think that's a good idea, my dear." Ford said quietly.

"Why not?" Mabel asked gently.

"Well… given everything that has happened… it would just be very difficult."

"So is defeating a triangle demon, but you guys did it together, didn't you?" Mabel said with a soothing smile. She covered one of Ford's polydactyl hands and squeezed it reassuringly. "I know it'll be hard, but I think we should go see her? Don't you want to say hello?"

"Of course I do." Ford said quickly. "She's my mother, but…" His eyes went to Stan, suddenly concerned about something. "Stanley, you've been very quiet."

Mabel looked at her hero to find him engulfed in shame. She wondered if he had looked like that after Ford was lost behind the portal. He held his head with one hand, his elbows on the table, and the strong grunkle she knew resembled a tired old man too much for her liking. Mabel's heart dropped when she came to the conclusion that she caused that pain. "Grunkle Stan…"

"Look, it's no secret I did a bad job of staying in touch with her even before the portal business." Stan started with. "I definitely went months without a payphone for her."

"You're not the only one to blame." Ford sighed. "I hardly called her when I was in college and nothing changed when I moved to Gravity Falls. Fiddleford was actually the one who encouraged me to call her one day the summer before… before everything happened. That was the last time I spoke to her."

"Yeah well, I kept that character trait in my portrayal of you, Sixer." Stan growled, his anger at himself. "You know her; she's too smart. One long look at me and she would've known who I was. You can't fool the best conwoman in New Jersey. So I just straight-up avoided her. I didn't even go to Pa's funeral and showed up early to see you two gremlins being born, all so I could avoid her. And I would've been too tempted to dance on someone's grave if I had gone to the funeral." He added.

"Stanley,"

"Kidding, that was a joke. The point is, just popping in after all these years seems too little too late in my book. So, no. sorry, but we're not going."

"Grunkle Stan," Mabel said as soft as a kitten and got down from the table to stand next to him. "I'm sure Ma would wanna see you."

"I don't think so, sweetie…"

"That's not true." Mabel said firmly. "She loves you both. All moms love their kids, no matter how many stupid mistakes they make, or how old and grunkly they get." She added, making Stan crack a smile that didn't last long. "It doesn't matter how mad our mom would be, she'd still wanna talk to us. She even forgave Dipper for breaking her favorite mug."

"Geez, it's been five years…"

"And you still haven't replaced it, Dip-Dip." Mabel said and focused her attention on both of the old guys. "If you two really don't think you can go see Ma, it's okay. We don't have to go. But I think you guys want to go, and you two need to go. She needs to know the truth, she needs to know you're okay, and even if she doesn't take it well, at least you can say you tried and you won't have to worry about it anymore."

Stan and Ford's eyes flickered to each other to use that awesome twin-telepathy they had or whatever. Or maybe they were just close enough to be able to read minds with a single facial expression to go off of. Either way, Stan gently ruffled Mabel's hair with a smile and said, "Alright, we'll go see Ma tomorrow after breakfast."

Mabel wanted to cheer and shout and punch the air victoriously, but she managed to catch herself in time and only allowed a quiet "yes!" before hugging Grunkle Stan and saying, "I'm so proud of you guys." She quickly hugged Ford before returning to her dinner, choosing to ignore the star-struck looks on the old men's faces.

~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours later and Mabel was sitting criss-cross in her hammock, wearing pajamas while knitting. The gentle clicking of her needles harmonized with the gentle rocking of the waves and her grunkle's humming from the tiny bathroom. Dipper was above her, reading a book quickly before bed, and when Stan emerged from the bathroom in his boxers and undershirt, taking his gray hair damp with a towel, and saw that his twin wasn't preparing for bed, he growled, "Sixer, do I have to drug you again?! Get down here!"

"I'm coming!" Ford called back.

Stan rolled his eyes. "Yeesh. You kids settled in okay?"

"Yeah," Dipper said casually.

"I love these hammocks!" Mabel said, rocking hers a little with joy. "Maybe we should replace the mattresses at the Shack with these!"

Stan chuckled as he threw his towel at the foot of the bunk bed and he noticed the beautiful deep violet yarn in his niece's lap. "Whatcha workin' on, Mabel? 'Nother sweater?"

"Yup!" Mabel said proudly to show a thick and cozy purple sweater that was a little more detailed than her usual creations. While this one lacked any pictures or designs, the sleeves had been woven with a special pattern down the arm and the wrists and neck were so thick and fluffy they resembled odd clouds you could sink into. "I wanna show Ma how much better I've gotten since she taught me."

Surprisingly, the mention of his mother made Stan smile, not frown. Ford came down the stairs just in time to hear Mabel say that, and they both smiled tiredly at their niece. "I didn't know she taught you how to knit."

"Oh yeah," Mabel said with a nod and resumed her work. "When Dipper and I were four or five we visited her for Thanksgiving with Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa. I don't remember much about it, but I remember the delicious sweet potatoes with marshmallows, the flat's smell, and that Ma taught me how to knit. Mom and Dad and Grandma were busy in the kitchen and didn't want my help (I still have no idea why), and Grandpa Shermie had fallen asleep while watching the parade. Ma sat in this rocking chair, and at first I thought she was a witch and doing magic, making two shiny sticks click together to make something, but Ma laughed and explained what she was doing and asked if I wanted to do it, too. So she let me sit on her lap and follow her hands as we made a really pretty blanket until dinner was ready. Ma even let me take some yarn and a pair of needles home with me, and I haven't stopped knitting since."

Stan smiled, sitting on the bottom bunk. "That's really cool, sweetie."

Ford, who had slipped into the bathroom to change into his blue flannel pajamas, called from the other side of the door, "She will love a Mabel Pines original."

"Thanks. I hope so." Mabel inspected her work and gave a quick nod of approval before packing it away in her suitcase and curling up for bed.

One by one everyone settled down. Ford emerged with clean teeth and pajamas and climbed up to his bed, putting his glasses up on a shelf by his head. Dipper turned off the lamp on top of the dresser, leaving only Stan's nightstand-lamp on, and he set his book down and began to settle. Stan was just about to turn off his lamp, but Mabel sat up and gasped, "Wait! You guys! Tell us about the Jersey Devil!"

Dipper sat up excitedly and sided with his twin. "Yeah! When were you gonna tell us that one, anyways?"

Stan shrugged with a cheeky smile and Ford chuckled. "Oh come on, you don't wanna hear about the first pair of Mystery Twins." Stan teased, waving the idea away.

"Yeah we do!" Dipper argued with a grin. "Come on!"

"It can even be our bedtime story!" Mabel suggested, snuggling into her blankets and smiling at her uncle with those adorable eyes and cheeks no man was immune to.

"How old are you again?"

"Oh, just tell them, Stanley."

"Alright alright," Stan rubbed his hands together with a toothy grin and wiggled his fingers to begin the story. "The year was 1960-something in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. Summer had just started, but before we could figure out which urban legend to hunt down that day, Pa called for Stanford and was really mad about something…"

"Now, hold on, Stanley." Ford said, sitting up a little from lying on his front and listening to his brother's story. "Pa called for both of us! In fact, we called for 'Stan Pines' but we both knew that meant he wanted us both."

"What?!" Stan gasped, pretending to be offended. "Me, innocent and perfect, being angrily called? Never!"

Dipper and Mabel laughed, not sure if Stan had ever truly been innocent, and so from that point forward the elder twins told the story together, interrupting each other with corrected versions of the story and doubling the runtime, but the kids weren't complaining. Hearing about the old Freak Show, killing the Sibling Brothers, and basically acting how Dipper and Mabel would act on a search for the devil, was hands-down the best bedtime story in the history of bedtime stories, and by the time they had gotten to the part where Shanklin the Stab-Possum saved the day, Waddles was asleep on Stan's bed and the kids were shiny-eyed.

"And that's how Stanley and I ended up grounded for the summer." Ford concluded with, adding in a shrug. "To be honest, we didn't even mind. Solitary confinement is't so bad with the right prison mate. Pa was angry when Stan confessed, but I think some small part of him appreciated the honesty. I guess I'll never know."

"And that's when you two knew you'd be adventuring together for the rest of your lives and everyone lived happily ever after!" Mabel cheered.

Ford laughed at her adorable nature and commented, "I suppose we did."

"Alright, everyone get some shut eye." Stan gruffed as he laid down, gently pushing Waddles out of the way so he could rest his legs, but all that did was cause the pig to trot up to his hand and lay underneath it for sleep. "G'night."

Three voices returned the wish for pleasant dreams and Stan turned off the lamp. The room was soon filled with the gentle snores of the four Pines, escaping into a world entirely their own.

[scribbuluswrites]

The Reveal

Happy Friday :) It’s time for the penultimate chapter! Enjoy and thanks for reading!

Kat groaned loudly into her dark bedroom. Coco was supposed to be on a run with the club, and yet, someone was banging on her front door at 2am. 

She grabbed her pistol off the side table, leaving off the lights as she walked down the hallway. Katarina carefully stood on her toes, looking out the peephole. His face was almost completely hidden behind his hood, but Kat would recognize Happy just by his silhouette. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” she grumbled, pulling the door open. Happy pushed his way past her, not waiting for an invitation this time. 

He closed the door behind him, making sure to lock the deadbolt. He walked to the window next, looking out between the curtains before making sure to close them tightly. 

Katarina was instantly on edge. Happy’s behaviour definitely gave her the impression that something was wrong. It felt like there was a hidden threat looming just outside her view. 

“Happy, what’s wrong?” she asked, moving towards the lamp. He caught her hand, dragging her back to her room. Happy closed the door behind them, finally letting Kat turn on a light. She gasped when she saw his bruised face as he pushed the hood back. “What happened?” 

Happy stayed silent, pushing her hands away when she reached for his face. Katarina squared her shoulders. 

“I’m not doing this. Either you tell me what’s wrong or you get out,” she told him, her voice firm. She had let him block her out plenty of times, but she wasn’t going to let it continue. “Now,” she added, staring him down. He took a deep breath, sitting down on the edge of her bed. 

“The dumbasses that broke into my house are making a lot of noise,” he admitted slowly, grinding out the words. 

“Noise? I thought all they wanted was who ordered the hit,” Katarina thought out loud, knowing she should have expected it to be far from simple. She grabbed a washcloth, wetting it with cold water. Happy hissed as she pressed it against a split just under his eye. 

“Prospect is somehow poking into things from the cartel side.” She looked at him for a moment, realising exactly how EZ was managing that. 

“Shit,” she swore, closing her eyes. “He’s looking for paperwork, and he knows exactly who to ask.” Kat shook her head briefly, focusing on cleaning Happy’s face up. She scrubbed away the dried blood. “That’s going to need a couple of those butterfly bandaids,” she murmured, patting at the cut on his cheek. 

“I’m gonna kill him, Kat.” Her hand froze on the first aid kit. Katarina was glad he had waited until she was just out of sight before saying that. She didn’t want him to see her flinch. 

“I’ll handle EZ,” she replied, walking back to him. She pulled out three little bandaid strips, glad she still had some of these supplies. Happy reached up, stopping her hand. 

“His brother told Bishop it came from you. He was protecting me,” Happy said softly, catching Kat’s gaze. “I made you a promise that no one would ever hurt you again.” 

“Let me reach out. If it doesn’t make a difference,” she paused, raising her shoulders. “Then you do what you think is best.”

“No, I handle it now,” he disagreed, starting to stand up. He didn’t have time to let her fix him up. This needed to be finished now. Kat put her hand firmly in the middle of his chest, pushing him back down. 

“You don’t call the shots anymore. You’re going to let me try, Hap, or so help me,” she snapped, shaking her head. Happy started to speak again, but Katarina talked over him. “I’m not going to argue with you.” He closed his mouth, the frustration clear in his eyes. “Now, let me finish this,” she instructed, standing between his knees so she could easily reach. Happy rested his hands on the outside of her thighs. 

Kat finished placing the third suture strip, leaning in to make sure everything was in place. Happy tilted his chin up, his nose brushing hers as she inspected the other large cut below his eye. 

“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you,” he murmured, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek. 

“Back at you, killer,” Kat whispered, letting him pull her in a little closer. She caught herself at the last moment, stepping back. “I can’t,” she said with a small smile. 

“He ever treats you as badly as I did, there’s a special spot just for El Coco.” He lifted the hem of his shirt, pointing to an open space on his stomach. 

“If he breaks my heart like that, you’ll have to beat me to it,” Katarina replied, looking down at her feet. The atmosphere around them felt heavy now. “You’re welcome to sleep here. EZ knows where I live, but I doubt he would tell anyone.” He shook his head. 

“I parked near the building.” 

“Honestly, I don’t give a shit who might see your bike out there. I just want to get some sleep, and it will go better if I know you’re safe at least for tonight,” she said, grabbing a blanket and pillow from the hall closet. Happy got up, walking towards the living room. 

-

Kat’s head snapped up as she heard a group of bikes approaching. She had taken the afternoon off from work and was sitting at the picnic table just outside the Mayan’s clubhouse, scribbling more notes on a work order. 

Bishop rode in first, closely followed by a few other members. She stood up and shielded her eyes from the sun, watching as Coco parked his bike. He nodded at something Bish said, hanging his helmet on the handlebars of his motorcycle. 

Another bike rode in, parking outside of EZ’s trailer at the back of the scrapyard. She recognized Happy’s Harley, making certain she didn’t stare for too long. It had been two weeks since he’d shown up at her apartment. 

“Hey, dulce. You miss me?” Coco asked, a grin on his mouth as he approached her. 

“Oh, yea,” she assured, nodding. Kat tossed her arms around his neck, feeling Coco’s arms slide around her waist under her leather jacket. He pulled her flush against him, kissing her in a way that made her ears go red. 

“Think you got time for me to come over tonight?” he asked, still dotting kisses against her lips. Katarina grinned. 

“As soon as you’re done here, I’m all yours, Cocopuff.” Coco groaned but didn’t argue.

“Coco, templo in ten minutes. Don’t show up with a fuckin’ hard on,” Angel snapped, walking past them. Coco leaned his forehead against hers, groaning. 

“You guys still on the outs?” she asked, stepping back enough to look at him. He tilted his head, shrugging. 

“Somethin’s still up his ass, but I got no idea what it’s about.” Coco caught sight of Happy walking out of EZ’s trailer, closely followed by the prospect. “Y’know why he’s here?” Katarina struggled to keep her expression neutral. 

“No?” she replied, shaking her head. There was no reason for Coco to assume she would know anything. Something was definitely on his mind. “Is there something I should know about?” Coco lit a cigarette, the corners of his mouth tipped down. 

“I got questions later. You wanna wait here?” Kat nodded, feeling entirely uneasy. 

Less than five minutes later, the Mayans came pouring out of the clubhouse. Happy and EZ approached the group, sensing something was wrong. Bishop stared at Katarina, giving her the definite impression of not being welcome. 

She took the hint, squeezing Coco’s hand as she walked past him. He’d let her know what was going on when he could, for now, she knew leaving was the smartest option. Happy’s bike was blocking her car, his way of manufacturing a moment with her. 

“Padrino’s in trouble,” Bishop explained, clearly thinking she was out of earshot. Kat made sure to keep her face neutral, knowing she wasn’t supposed to hear that. She slid into the driver’s seat, watching the guys rush to their motorcycles in her rearview mirror. 

“Sorry for blocking you,” Happy said loudly, waiting until Kat had leaned out of her seat to look back at him. He held out a hand, pretending to point at her rear tire. “Looks low.” She heaved a sigh, wondering what he was up to. 

Katarina walked to the back of the car, squatting down next to him. The first few bikes started up, giving them a little sound cover. 

“Whatever this is, it’s gonna get messy,” he said quietly, his gaze focused on the imaginary spot on her car. Kat’s heart seized. For Happy to say messy, it was likely they wouldn’t all be coming back. “I love you.” Happy stood up abruptly, brushing off the knees of his pants. 

“Hap,” she started, wanting to say more. He didn’t look back at her, tossing a leg over his bike and firing it up. Coco rode up beside him, glancing between Happy and Katarina. 

“Come back in one piece,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the bikes. She blew a kiss at Coco, forcing herself to act natural. He gave her a low wave before following the rest of the bikes out, Happy just behind him. 

-

Kat grabbed for her phone, relieved to see it was a text from Coco. They had been gone nearly eight hours, and her nerves were past frayed. 

*Get to the clubhouse. Lockdown* 

“Shit,” she muttered, grabbing her backpack and tossing a change of clothes into it. Kat jogged down the stairs, not stopping to talk to her neighbor on the stairs. A lockdown was serious. 

Coco was sitting outside the clubhouse, stubbing out his cigarette as she walked over. There was blood on his sleeve and dirt smears on his face and neck. 

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the spot on the table next to him. His tone was serious. “I didn’t wanna do this shit here, but…” he paused, taking a deep breath and looking away from her. 

Katarina perched on the edge of the picnic table next to him, reaching for his hand. Coco resisted, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it. 

“Padrino’s busted up real bad. Nestor took a bullet in the arm. One of Galindo’s other guys took two shots in the vest.” Kat lowered her head, catching his eye. Coco took a long drag, his next words slower, like he didn’t want to say them. “Happy ain’t come back with us.” 

Kat felt her heart stop. 

“I didn’t want you to hear it in there,” he continued, finally putting his hand on her knee. “You ok?” Kat blinked a few times, nodding at him. “Chucky saw his bike at your apartment.” 

“Ah, questions for later,” Kat realised, sighing. “You sent Chucky to check in on me?” she asked, trying to grin at him. 

“Is he your ex?” Coco asked. Katarina shook her head slightly. She assumed he already knew, but this was the first time he’d asked directly.

“I will tell you anything you want to know, just… I can’t think about it right now,” she said quietly, her expression blank as she boxed away her emotions. If she thought about it too much, she would breakdown in front of his brothers.

“S’why I caught you out here,” he admitted, moving his arm to put it around her shoulders. Kat swallowed and nodded. “We’ll figure it out, yea? This, the club business, the cartel bullshit.” Katarina leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Coco was her safe place now. 

Tags: @agirllovespasta @gemini0410 @scuzmunkie @woahitslucyylu @chibsytelford @ifoundmyhappythought @multiyfandomgirl40

[meeraria]

Hii, I'm so shy asking this but I read somewhere you have a list of upstead moments, would you share it with me? If it's not too much 🙈

I am very sorry I just saw this!! I hope you haven’t sent this a long time ago. I’ve finished the last season recently but I haven’t done this one yet. and pls don’t be shy!! I am so happy you asked. not many people like them.

I don’t have time stamps just some shorthand notes to remind me of the scene. and every instance they call each other by their names (I had this idea to gif them or make a video etc.) but all the moments are in chronological order so if you see the third moment before the first one when you’re watching an episode that means you skipped the first two. the list is under the cut.

ps. there might be some other moments that I liked that are not necessarily upstead.

4x21 first time at the back of a van

4x22 jay on haileys desk

        erin is the one who calls her hailey for the first time

4x23 hailey meets will

        hailey looks after jay when he leaves

5x01 jay touches hailey on the shoulder for bust

        hailey calls him jay for the first time, to Kev and Ruz

        look at each other at the hospital

        if you need anything

deleted scene: jay I got your back. he is quick to escape her. pats her back. she respects. he’s with his brother

5x02 looks at jay when he starts lying to suspect

        sits on her desk

        jay checks out hailey in the interrogation room

        jay calls him upton. for the first time

5x03 they open doors to cupboard at the same time

        butchers blade-look to each other

5x04 sb assumes hailey is ruzek’s gf

        stops a witness from prosecuting ruzek

        ruzek calls her hailey cause he thinks she’s gonna snitch, jay tries to stop him

5x05 hailey puts her hand on jay’s shoulder jay looks and she recants

        they save the kids look at each other

5x06 Le Snob (he’s not in love yet-doesnt look at her)

        jay brings her jacket

        mcgrady you run the log hailey they look at each other

        their hands touch when jay gives her the camera

        j: is this really about the case? h:see u 2morrow

        jay(grabs her shoulder): u sure u ok? let me know if you need anything

        how’supton? jay: idunno  

5x07 look at each other to open door

        voight: you got a take hailey? neutral

        microphone up (first time saying jay 2hisface)

        looks at hailey so she’d start the fight

        iknowwhathesaw, was what u said true. jay is pissed

        first fight: voight says hailey. she denies jay’s request

        jayx4 points the gun at her

        hailey calls him, he rolls eyes

5x08 first time calls her hailey (don’t need no babysitter)

5x09 hailey texts him, rolls eyes

        I’ll stay with the suspect hailey

        big potato talk (she’s driving)

        flirty let’s check out his alibi

        he looked at her and then they look at each other but it’s fast (questioning junkie)

        they take a selfie, he puts arm around her she wants to but stops herself

5x10* camila episode

        introduces her as hailey - but she’s gay

        we’re gonna talk about her, now (calls her jay) I’m fine lie.

        you can’t talk to her - jay you’re not thinking straight

        thinks she betrayed her

        “back off jay”

         looks at him over camila’s shoulder

         they look at each other - after camilla’s dismissal

         hailey is worried about him

         she threatens camilla, saying I - his real name is jay x2

5x11 if you’re not serious I need a new partner (shoulder tap)

        he wants back to therapy cause of ultimatum

5x12 “jay come back.” platt’s birthday (shoulder punch)- lookateachother

         he uses her desk like he doesn’t have one

         she pushes jays back to get to voight

         they’re hiding together

5x13  look at each other at restaurant

         how’s therapy going?

         “jay!” - spots the suspects

5x14  flag dispute

        look each other when they get shots fired

        sits on hailey’s desk

        I used to be a soldier-looks at hailey x2

        she admires that he respects the kneeler

5x15 she puts arm on his shoulder

        sits on hailey’s desk about q

        italian guy flirting, women are more loyal then men

        jay, you got her?

5x16 bomb-she falls down he grabs her

       he sitting on her desk

       cF(6x13) calls her to ask about voight

5x17 he’s sitting on her desk

        uh-oh i just saw a rat arm tap

5x18* titus episode: jay also calls adam ruz?

        how do u know this guy?

        looks after she explains

        i pitch jay as a potential buyer

        you look like a real couple

        hailey, thought he bit but

        you were hailey’s case officer, she’s my partner

        hailey, we gotta talk about this, did he rape you

        i can handle this jay- I said the same thing u called me out (shoulder tap)

        touches her arm, booth notices

        he asked me if i slept with her,

        hailey you’re way too emotional

        jay: me too. hailey’s solid,hailey’s gonna callme

        he reaches for his gun when booth gets handsy with her

        5 time hailey, please (grabs her shoulder)

        looks after her when arresting

        comes to her house, hailey u got him

        two deletes scenes: therapy is over

        you’re incredibly aloof about your private life

5x19 sitting on hailey’s desk, gives her jacket

        looks at homeless jay

        saves her life, you good? good.

5x20 look at each other during shootout

        talk about erin

5x21 he and kevin fight and she calms them

        h:I just talked to halstead

        sarge if you need sth - she’s same to everyone

        he’s sitting on her desk

5x22 hank x trudy hug (personal ship)

        jay comes back from crying grabs her shoulder, she grabs his hand

        jay sits on her desk

deleted scene: pushes her out of line of fire

6x01 trudy comes to see hank (personal ship)

        “jay” go be undercover junkie

         gets his jacket to him

6x02 look at each other in morgue

        she uses his computer

        she looks at him worried before they go busting

        damn it jay. jay, I almost shot you

        need me to talk to u. I don’t need anything jay.

        innocent man, jay. second fight? keeps looking at him

        jay, back off. she pushes him hard, grabs his chest

        she grabs his arm to pull him back

        “you’re too close jay” I’m done being your punching bag -his eyes never leave her

         he’s shot, she’s distressed jay x 4 (she checks his body)

         Hailey, I’m sorry. touches his knee as she gets up then cries

deleted scene jay I thought you were with will, pats arm working this case?

6x03 halstead calls her. she slept with adam

        I gotta meet jay

        you’re like never late. he looks at her after she dismisses him

        checks to see if she follows

        gonna grab halstead and dig in

        look at each other

6x04 greets her when nobody notices

        she gets  the suspect by jumping on him (gay moment for me)

        ready? eye contact

6x05 she knows how to handle idiots

        makes way for her like the first time they met

        I don’t care if we’re sleeping 2gether talk to voight (to adam) LOVE HER

6x06* voight learns about upzek

        i dont do violence

        adam undermines her, she gets angry

        look at each other when talking to voight

       keeps looking at jay when he talks

       hailey we gotta talk. I confirmed his alibi

       hailey you did what you have to, she cries to him about her guilt adam interrupts.

       nothing good comes from workplace romance (he has some feelings?)

       even when he’s debriefing; he looks at hailey. adam doesn’t

       I know u don’t wanna talk about it flirting. she’s sad

       tries to explain to adam: this halstead thing

6x07* looks at him when they’re listening to wire

        he wants to help kev, she grabs his arm to stop

        legally blind witness flirting

        bomb goes off - are u ok? grabs her

        va is dead, she checks on him, he look at her. all with eyes

        pushes her in the room, through her shoulder

        u got me? yeah.

        burqa woman incident. jay x2 , hold on. hailey x7, stop

        we’re not mind readers hailey. *whispering softly you’re not in war anymore*

        look at each other, in the interview

        she doesn’t believe the guy he does.

        sits on her desk

        introduces her as upton to racist woman

        save the commentary and scroll look

        this thing between us. I screwed up hailey. I have bias (her hand on his shoulder)

        looks at her when they walk (feelings maybe?)

6x08 u know she’s with me right?

        adam compliments, jay looks at her

        steals a pen from him in the background when antonio is on the phone

        kev’s suspect calls her out look each other.

        kev asks to talk to snitch, she taps jay to leave

6x09 when adam talks about commitment she gets scared

        jay calls everyone by surnames except “hailey”

        flying blind is fun flirting

        “jay” spotted a camera

        sweeps the house, touches her arm

        suspect pushes her, he catches her and adam punches

        she dresses kim’s vest (gay shriek)

6x10* hailey, come on x2

        she’s angry. looks at him. he look to voight

        voight: trudy. ride with me to the scene (personal)

        asks his opinion on ruzek and iad.

        he catches upzek. she’s upset he saw.

        “a guy I’m dating upzek talk with voight”

         we’re always gonna be good talk

6x11 kelton comes. look at each other.

6x12* he gets agitated, she supports him with her looks, he checks for support

        “jay you allright” kelton denied funds. hailey, we got him rn.

         looks at the bus stop. supporting love. looks.

        she catches him over the body “jay, you ok?” hailey arrived after me.

        she’s angry and he looks at her.she leaves he stays. head salute.

        hailey, what’s up. jay you went dark. is that what you think? jay…

        voight warns him. she’s worried behind.

        she looks you ok? he looks yes go. first nonverbal.

        voight compliments him.

        long week. u can’t right every wrong “jay”. flirting then adam calls. go..

6x13 surveillance flirting about kev

       what the hell look at her

6x14 kim catches upzek

        she gets kidnapped he’s worried

        he’s ok with voight’s tactics cause she’s missing

        he fights with ruzek.

        she’s proud of kim. (personal)

        ruzek goes to kim first.

        he stands up when he sees her. he’s so sad and angry

        she checks jay. he’s upset

6x15* he’s talking to her on the phone

        check if he’s coming behind her

        pushes back her chair to sit on her desk

        “Hailey he’s headed to you” “squad advise my partner ” x 2

         upton are you copying? copy jay are you ok? hailey he’s armed.

         jay! we’re coming in!

         you good? yeah you? yeah

         she’s driving

         jay we’re good. “do what your ladyfriend tell you to do”

         looks at her before he gets out

         they look at each other, he says no she listens

         she keeps checking on him, he assures her after

         he has a hunch, she supports him. he thanks with eyes, she says np with eyes

         he defends his hunch, she silently supports him. then look at each other for thx

         eyes talk: come with me? right now? ok?

         suspect says he’ll snitch, they look at each other we got it

         I’ll follow you blind talk. (she half-confessed her feelings to him)

6x16  “sarge what you don’t let me and hailey go?” “hailey?” and gets her jacket

         I’m halstead and she’s upton.

         I’ll catch up with you, forearm grip

         he waited at the entrance

         serial killer talks to her, he gets nervous

         runs to the car/him, “I got Hailey”

6x17 sitting on her desk

        looks at her, checking out buildings

        “oh yeah good one” arm pat

        looks at her when she’s not looking and looks away when she turns

        throws usb to him, he catches

        they judge the juvie guy together

        voight offers himself to suspect he checks her face to see what she thinks

        they look at each other this time when they been judgey

6x18  sitting on her desk

         hands on her desk when she’s not there like it’s his :)

6x19 towering over her while she looks at the footage

        jay! blue buick

        she tries to help the victim and looks at jay to see if she can he looks no

        she supports kim no qs ask when kim barges in, normally follows the rules

        ruzek keeps checking on kim-believes her immediately  like jay and hailey

        he was sitting on her desk since before hank came in

6x20 she doesn’t wanna meet ruzek’s family?? i dunno

        pats her arm after she’s shot at

        they shadow ruzek but she calls it off. jay doesn’t interfere & looks the whole time

        ruzek wants answers he tries to cover and supports her and tell ruz to let it go

        ruz thinks it’s cause of burzek but it’s not.

        “jay talked to”

         she holds off the op he’s worried a little in the car.

         upstead communicate silently and without questioning

         she checks on jay while he fights the suspect

         she questions her relationship with adam, platt says if he’s not the one end it

         she breaks up with ruzek, and admits they’re not the one for each other

6x21 she’s a bit cocky to the suspect and he smiles a little whilst he turns???

        TRUDY AND HANK what could have been

         they sit at their desk together

         “hailey tell the port supervisor…”

6x22* voight explains the plan, they look at each other worried

        he breaks into the car so fast she flirting

        “jay you close”

         she crashes to save him

         “I’m going where you go” they’re both surprised he said it

         he protects her first when they’re shot at in the van, ‘we’re good“

         she looks at her happily when there’s a lead

         they arrest their shooter together, “me and my partner”

         he’s pressured, she notices. “you’ll forget about me” “hailey” never.

         he want to confess sth but she stops him?

         adam kisses platt :)

         he’s sitting on her desk

[puckngrind]

Skating Lessons part 9

Summary/note: So I deleted half of this and had to rewrite.  The story line is the same...but I’m still sad I messed up.  Dudes date/girls pedis out.

Warning: adorableness

Word count: 1888

Series Masterlist

Before Josh leaves in the morning he tosses a jersey on the bed.  “If you want to wear this today I wouldn’t be mad.”  You open up the jersey to see Anderson on the back.  It’s the 3rd jersey so it’s different than Mason’s home one and you eye Josh who has a bashful look on his face.  

“I’ll think about it Babe.”  You lean up to kiss him and Josh laughs into you.

“I’ll see you tonight after the game okay? I gave my mom your number just incase.”  Josh pulls you up from the bed to plant a kiss on you again.

Before Josh leaves in the morning he tosses a jersey on the bed.  “If you want to wear this today I wouldn’t be mad.”  You open up the jersey to see Anderson on the back.  It’s the 3rd jersey so it’s different than Mason’s home one and you eye Josh who has a bashful look on his face.  

“I’ll think about it Babe.”  You lean up to kiss him and Josh laughs into you.

“I’ll see you tonight after the game okay? I gave my mom your number just incase.”  Josh pulls you up from the bed to plant a kiss on you again.

You once again park at Josh’s and walk over.  Your seats are planted firmly in the middle of the family section.  You see many of the wives and girlfriends you saw at the last home game you went to.  Natalie turns around from her seat to greet you and say hi to Mason.  Before the boys skate out the Andersons and Amy Jones find their way to the seats behind you.  Mason stands up to talk Michelle’s ear off and pulls his jersey up to show Amy he in fact has his Seth Jones shirt from Christmas on under his Anderson jersey which makes everyone around you bust out laughing.  When the team skates out Josh, Boone, PLD, and Seth make their ways to wave at Mason.  Josh holds up his fingers counting down by 3 and both him and Mason do their secret signal.

“So, that’s why he keeps doing that.  I’ve seen it every game.”  Michelle leans over to you and you look back to meet her eyes.

“Yeah, Josh and Mason came up with it awhile ago during a skate.  Mason does it in our living room.”  You pull out your phone to show her the video you’ve sent Josh.  Michelle and Amy awe over the adorableness of Mason’s video.  

“Momma, Momma, Momma!”  Mason tugs at your jersey and you turn around to see Mason dancing round looking up at the screen.  Sure enough the camera had landed on him and he was in heaven.  You wave and then the video cuts to Josh shooting on the ice.  You gulp and Amy places her hand on your shoulder.

“So pedis tomorrow, you ready for some girl time?”  Amy distracts you and you are thankful for it.

“I sure am!” Michelle chimes in and you shake your head to agree.  

The game goes well.  Michelle took Mason to get popcorn between the 2nd and 3rd period and Amy climbs into his seat.  Gary was engrossed in a conversation with the man next to him.

“You are doing well with this.”  Amy pats your leg and you look down to try to control your blush.

“I don’t feel like I am usually.”  You honestly tell her as the boys come back out to warm up.  

“It comes with time Honey and you’ve got time from what I see.”  Amy points as Josh makes another pass fully keeping his eyes on you and only you.  Your heart skips a beat.  He had a way of making you feel like no one else was in the room even when you were in a stadium filled with tons of hockey fans.  

The buzzer sounded and the boys won 2 to 1.  You grab Mason’s hand and head to see Josh.  In the elevator you see Mason tug at Gary’s vest.  Gary looks down, “So what was Josh like when he played hockey at my age?”  Mason had the most serious look on his face and then lets out the biggest yawn.

Gary leans down to Mason’s level, “I’ve seen video of you skate and he wasn’t as good as you are now but promise you won’t tell him, okay?”  He winks at Mason and stands back up when the elevator doors open.  Amy nudges you as you take in the moment.

Rounding the corner that leads to the locker rooms you here Mason shout Josh’s name and before you can grab him he takes off.  Josh is standing in the hallway being interviewed...with a camera.  Josh holds up his finger to Mason without skipping a beat in the interview and grabs his hand.  The interviewer finishes and heads into the locker room with Amy on his heals.  Josh scoops up Mason and they are chatting when you make your way to his side.  He pulls you in whispering how much he loved you then places a kiss on the top of your head.  You say goodbye to his parents and Josh grabs your hand to head to the car.  Pulling out of the drive was easier than the first time.  Josh has his hand on your thigh and you are rubbing your hand through his hair.  

“I’m not sure what they said on television about you and Mason but he was adorable dancing on the big screen.”  Josh squeezes your knee and your hand stops moving.  

“What do you mean...television?”  You gulp.

“Well Dubi pointed up to the screen when he saw Mason and I had to look away when they moved out to show you.  Too distracting.”  He breathes out a laugh and continues, “well normally what’s on the screen is what is on the televised broadcast.  They usually just talk about the game and our stats not what they are actually showing.  No worries.”  He moves his hand up your leg as he waits for you to process.

“So are you two staying the night?”  He doesn’t break his eyes from the road.

“Yeah, I thought it would be silly to go home just to come right back.  Our bags are in the car.”  You stare at Josh and see the corners of his mouth turn up.

“I was hoping you would say that.  I’m looking forward to our dudes day tomorrow.”  His eyes flash to Mason and hand squeezes your leg.

“It’s a big step, you know, keeping him....”  You jump out of the car to help Josh get Mason inside.  

“Yeah, but I think we got this.”  Josh leads you into his place and you two tuck Mason in to his guest bedroom then retreat to his room.

You wake up to laughter and the smell of bacon coming from the kitchen.  Slipping out of bed, you find one of Josh’s shirts and shorts he left out and head towards the noise.  You take in the moment.  Cartoons on in the living room, Mason standing on a chair leaning into Josh who showing him how to scoop the bread out of the french toast mix.  You grab a coffee and lean in to see.  Josh places his hand on the small of your back and a gentle kiss on your lips.

“Momma, we wanted to make you breakfast before your girls day out.”  Josh continues to help Mason and Mace shakes his head in agreement.  “So go ahead and get ready so we can finish this.”  he leads you out of the kitchen and you catch a glimpse of Mason in full concentration mode as you head down the hall.  You quickly get ready and join the boys at the table.

“So I left a key on the counter for you in case we go down to the Mile or something so you don’t have to wait.  Also, there is a package being delivered while I’m on the road. I was hoping you could bring it in for me.”  Josh doesn’t look up from his breakfast.

“Yeah, I think I can handle that.  What’s the package?”  You ask and Josh just smirks at you.

“Oh you will see.”  As he stands up to answer the door.  Amy busts in the room with her arms wide open.

“Let’s go get our pedis on (y/n)!”  She engulfs you in a hug as Seth greets you and finds a place on the couch.  Mason quickly joins him to catch up on the episode on the television.

“Have fun babe.”  Josh kisses you and you nod into him.  “Us dudes are sure going to.”  With that Amy practically pulls you out and to her car.

Michelle greets you at the nail salon with mimosas in hand.  You settle in and immediately Amy is taking pictures and videos.  You laughed so hard at Amy and Michelle’s banter that your side hurt.  It was so good to just be around women.  Then Michelle puts her hand on yours, “So do you really love him?”  Her simple question has a lot of power behind it.  You look down at your empty glass and look back at Michelle with water welling in your eyes.  

“I do.”  You breathe out.  You absolutely loved Josh but telling his mother was a big deal that weighed on you.

“Well I can tell you I’ve never seen my son so in love with someone.  He loves you more than hockey and baseball.  He loves Mason just as much.  It’s something special you two have.”  She pats your hand again and releases it so you can wipe the tear that started streaming down your check.  

“Well Shell, I’m still mad Seth didn’t see her first.”  And with that Amy got you laughing again.  “Let’s go round up those boys of ours huh?”  You said your goodbyes to Michelle and followed Amy back to her car.

Josh didn’t answer your text about coming home but you thought Mason must have had him running around.  As you enter his place you take in the surroundings.  You see a knee hockey goal set up in the hallway and a giant blanket fort around the couch. Seth is sitting in the chair playing a video game.  You scan the room again but you don’t here or see Josh and Mason.  You eye Seth who points under the blanket fort.  You bend down to see Mason asleep on Josh’s chest.  You snap a picture and here Josh clear his throat.  

“Did you just post that?”  He groggy voice and rubbing of his eyes proves he was napping too.  

“I mean it’s adorable...unless I should delete it and post my cute pedi!”  You wiggle your toes at him.  

“Progress.  I like it.”  Josh gives you a smirk.  You say goodbye to Seth and Amy.  Thanking Amy again.  Then crawl in the fort snuggling into Josh’s side as he shifts Mason to put his arm around you.  Kissing your slightly he asks about your girls day.

“Your mom told me that you love me more than hockey.”  You look up at Josh.  He smiles simply and plants a gentle kiss on your lips.

“She’s 1000% correct.”  He kisses you again and you snuggle into his chest with Mason.

[nona-gay-simus]

Peas In Pod

This is my short story for @hanniepee​‘s writing challenge. Day 3. Prompt: “Found Family.”

Summary: Two con artists artattemp to out-con each other and everyone is bisexual.

TW: Nothing, unless lying and robbery counts.

______________________________________________

Thalia straightened her vest as she peered through the French windows of Covington Inc.’s entrance. A valet with brown hair was offering Mr. Covington to park his car.

Wait, brown hair? Didn’t the last valet have black hair? This one seemed about half a foot taller too…

No, matter. She couldn’t get distracted now.

“Hello, Mr. Covington.” She beamed when he found her at the elevator door.

He gave her a once over, the frown never leaving his face. “You’re new.”

She was convinced he couldn’t recognize her in a doorwoman uniform and with her newly dyed black hair pulled back. He barely paid attention to the staff anyway, and she’d been dressed like a cleaning lady for the last two weeks. “Just stepping in for Mr. Jones.”

“Well, go on then.”

“Of course.” She grinned and pressed the elevator button. 30 floors. She had time. “I love your watch.” Thalia eyed his Rolex. “May I admire it from up close?”

Daniel Covington rolled his eyes. “I’m not looking to be anyone’s sugar daddy.”

Thalia tried not to cringe. He was at least thirty years her senior, and the thought of his wrinkled balls nearly made her sick. He would still be her sugar daddy though, he just wouldn’t know it for a while.

“Oh, you!” She giggled coquettishly and patted his chest.

No wallet? How was that possible? He always kept his wallet in his front right pocket. Two weeks of watching, planning, and for what?

The elevator dinged when the doors opened. He entered without another word.

Well, that was a bust! Two weeks and nothing. He wouldn’t be back until five. Perhaps she could try then.

A silhouette passed at the door and Thalia looked up. Brown hair, brown skin, dressed in a valet uniform. He held up a black leather wallet between two fingers and smirked a familiar smirk.

Alex. She should’ve known.

Thalia walked up to him.

“A doorwoman, Thalia?” He scoffed in his fake British accent. He was from Brooklyn. “This is beneath you.”

“A valet is beneath you, yet here we are. What d'you do with the real one, anyway? Tie him up in a closet somewhere?”

“Oh, nothing of the sort. I simply asked him out for a drink. And if he’s just waking up with no memory of last night, well. I can’t help that, now can I?”

“You roofied the guy?”

“Not for any nefarious purposes!” Alex gasped.

“You’re literally robbing his boss.”

He laughed. “Well, some nefarious purposes. What’d you do with the doorman?”

“He won a free Coney island Day for his entire family.” Thalia shrugged. Then she smiled at Alex, self-satisfied.  “You’re not gonna find more than a couple of hundred dollars in there, you know. He keeps all his money in credit cards. And I know all the codes. He’s been my mark for two weeks.”

“Ah.” Alex pretended to fall back, wounded. “You’ve beaten me yet again. How about a drink, for old times’ sake? Maybe by the end, you’d share the codes and we can share the money.”

As if Thalia trusted that little weasel. “It’s 9 a.m. By the time bars open, he would’ve realized he’s been robbed and deactivated all his cards.”

“I was thinking more soda and breakfast, but if you insist, there’s a restaurant close by…”

“Just lead the way.”

***

They sat at the counter of an IHOP as Alex told her about his last successful con. Thalia had tears in her eyes from laughter. His charming smile and even more charming words reminded her why she’d spent two years with him. They had been like Bonnie and Clyde — perfect crime duo, but without all the killing.

“Oh, Alex!” Thalia giggled, leaning against him. Then she leaned in. “You know, if this goes well, perhaps we could go back to my place — for old time’s sake.” Her hand slipped down towards his ass and she felt him up until — there.

“Sounds fun.” Alex’s brown eyes glimmered with lust and the endorphins of a successful heist.

“Excuse me, I need to visit the ladies’ room,” Thalia said, poking his nose lightly.

But before she could stand, a glass of ice tea spilled on top of her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The woman grabbed some paper towels to mitigate the damage. She had pale skin, long red hair, and a wore a revealing top. As she leaned in to soak up the liquid, her cleavage was right in Thalia’s face.

Thalia gulped. “You have a nice, um. Blouse.”

“Thank you. Gosh, I’m so sorry!” She kept saying and attempting to pat Thalia dry. “My, you have pretty eyes.” She blushed, staring into Thalia’s blues.

“Alright, alright,” Thalia said and pushed her off herself. “I think I need to see the damage for myself.”

There was a window at the back of the ladies’ room she could climb through. She touched her pockets once more to make sure… and found nothing.

“Goddamn it!”

The redhead. She must’ve been working with Alex.

Idiot. That’s exactly the thing she herself would’ve done, back when they were together.

Thalia came back inside, plastering on a fake smile. Target spotted.

“Hi.” She slid inside the redhead’s booth. “You know, most strangers wouldn’t even bother apologizing.”

“I feel so silly. Can I make it up to you somehow?”

Thalia grinned, hand inside the woman’s jacket pocket. Gotcha! “I suppose you could always buy me dinner.”

She smiled back. “Name the date and place.”

“How about I give you my number?” Thalia winked and handed her a note. “Just text me when you’re free. I’m Thalia, by the way.”

“Naomi.”

“Nice to meet you, Naomi. I just have to see my friend off.”

She came back to the bar, sliding on her coat.

“Seduction, Thalia?” He scoffed. “The oldest trick in the book? You really thought that would work on me?”

“And yet you tried it on me.” She said, bringing out the wallet.

On his part, Alex flashed the $200 and two credit cards. “I see you’ve met my new partner.”

Naomi turned around, flashing the other three cards.

She was holding an empty chunk of leather. Fuck.

“Partner or partner?” Thalia raised an eyebrow.

He cocked his head. “I decided not to mix business with pleasure this time.”

“That would be a first,” Thalia snorted. “And screw you both. You’re assholes. I’ve been working my ass off for this con.”

“Look, Thalia,” Alex spoke evenly. “You can share the codes and we all get a cut or Naomi and I can split these $200 and you get nothing.”

Thalia paused, chewing on her lower lip. “I don’t trust you, you know.”

Alex chuckled. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”

She smirked. “Fine. But I’ll be watching you both.”

“Fair,” Naomi, who had joined them, spoke. “Though know I have a con in mind that requires three people and we haven’t found a third yet. And I’m always free for that dinner.” She winked back.

Thalia cracked a small smile. “Let’s get our money first.”

[theinfamousdoctorf]

So I’m finally back...

 Those few who know me personally will be aware that me and @theoverworldqueen have purchased a small rural house together. <3 It’s taken the better part of a year to make it happen and several months apart while I negotiated a transfer with my job and she logged work history in the place we were moving too for the mortgage requirements. [So we were apart for several more months then we‘d planned on. ;_: ]

 It took me almost two months to pack our household by myself, and several days to actually load the truck. The ‘friends’ who had promised to help us move faded away when they were actually needed, and I had to utilize some local kids who received cash and some friendly neighbors who were paid in furniture [that didn’t fit in the truck] and booze.

  When the day came to actually leave, I still had no volunteers to drive the truck because none of my friends could get time off work. [I had to drive my car with our eight cats inside.] The only people available to help were my parents.

The exact people I was moving to get the fuck away from.

 My mother refused to do any driving because the big truck was ‘too scary’. My pathetic excuse for a father, [from here on called jackass], would be doing all of the driving. Despite the fact that he’d just had several toes removed for diabetic reasons. My mother planned the route, later I realized she not only planned it with a paper atlas rather then choosing the fastest route via Google, [because she didn’t know how to use the app and wouldn’t ask for help] but also planned a very circuitous route in a vain attempt to avoid driving through any mountains. [Because they are also just too scary.]  So we start driving. A 26 foot Budget rental truck with a small horse trailer on it, and my car with me and the cats. Before we even got out of Texas, the horse trailer hit a bump and lost a wheel. It was then dragged about a mile while throwing an ocean of sparks where the metal edge was grinding against the asphalt. This was because it happened on a narrow highway with no breakdown lane. I barely managed to avoid getting hit with the wheel that flew off as well. We sat in a parking lot all night waiting for a tow driver who basically told us the king nut flew off and it was totaled. I had a partial mental breakdown and had to abandon most of the things I’d packed into the trailer. The truck was already stuffed up to the door and what little I saved was jammed in my car and thrown on top of everything else in the truck.   The cats were riding in a pair of pop-up zippered tents and were pretty mad by this point. My car stank of piss and fear pheromones.

 And then we drove, and drove and drove. Keep in mind that my destination was Washington state and I was coming from Galveston TX. It should have been a 2 and a half day drive with a stop to sleep each night. Around the third day I demanded to see the map and realized she had sent us across the widest part of Texas and New Mexico before turning north. There was a lot of arguing. Especially because I realized jackass was a terrible driver. So I had no choice but to watch helplessly as this colossal asshole drove a truck rented in my name, with nearly all my worldly goods inside, over every fucking curb, bumping it up and down and weaving all over the road. He hit a call box outside a Jack in the Box, he scraped a parked truck, he hit signs at more then one gas station and skirted far too close to the pumps with the back end of the truck. I went beyond the reasonable limits of human stress.

 The cats destroyed the zippers on the carriers and I was forced to just let them roam the car. First panting in the heat and then huddled freezing as we got further north. [I had them all in little safety vests and that kept them mostly calm, pro tip.]  On the fourth night jackass drove into a truck stop and then behind it. Up an unlit dirt road that said ‘dangerous blasting area authorized access only’. He then turned around several times and went back down to the truck stop where I blocked him with my car. He and my mother were having a screaming match because he wouldn’t explain what he was doing or why and wouldn’t stop doing donuts in the restricted area when she told him too.  I lost my shit. I screamed in his face and when he didn’t respond, I grabbed his horrible scraggy beard and then his throat and repeated myself. I took the keys and went to try and get some sleep in my car. [With so many animals in tow I couldn’t get a hotel room and really couldn’t leave the car unattended at all. So I hadn’t been able to properly shower in days. Plus I’d forgotten to bring a spare pair of shoes and my sandaled feet were red and freezing.]  The bastard has always tried to make my mother choose between me and him. He’s a psychotic manic depressive on a whole rainbow of medications. He’s a misogynist who really wanted a son, plus a racist and generally stingy and awful person. A running argument revolved around his insistence on cutting my lawn three times a week with the mower blade on the lowest setting so he was just killing anything green and kicking up dust. [My mother is pure enabler, always apologizing for his terrible behavior and gaslighting me like I’m over reacting.] He’s literally alienated so many people where I was living that I’ve lost out on jobs because he insists that I’m the terrible one and trash-talks me to everyone he meets.  So we finally get back on the road.

 In Wyoming I tried to get some sleep at a rest stop and someone hit my car and busted out a tail light. Several times we almost run out of gas because her planned route avoided any cities in case there was traffic. At this point I have a massive rash under my bra and just take it off.

 On the fifth night we arrive in a gas station in Idaho. I go to pee and come back outside to find jackass laying on the ground with three people hovering over him. I inform my mother that he fell and go back to my car. So emotionally dead at this point I don’t feel anything. 

 I am informed that jackass has broken his hip.

 I’ve spent most of my life praying for him to die, so that part doesn’t touch me. The part that ripped my heart out was that my mother told me that I’m now ‘on my own’. She is going to the hospital with him. She left me in a freezing parking lot with eight cats in a car and a giant moving truck with all my things in it.  Terrified and heartbroken I call my girlfriend Lie. She is eight hours away and leaving now to come rescue me. She’s bringing our friend Ashley as well. So I huddle in the car with the cats and try to sleep. After several hours I get a text from my mother telling me to bring her luggage and such to the hospital. At this point I’m furious. I tell her I will not do that. She says I will. I stop responding.  In the morning my rescuers arrive and we begin the long final limp over the mountains.  I get several more messages threatening me, trying to shame me for just ‘moving on without them’ and ‘not caring if your father dies’.  I was instructed to deal with my own problems like an adult. So that’s what I did. At that point the rental truck needed to be returned and I hadn’t even arrived yet. My job was waiting on me to show up the next day for orientation, and she’d basically wasted all the time I’d budgeted for unloading the truck. There was no way in hell I was going anywhere to give either of them anything.

 But we did finally get here. The Budget guy sent me his ex-wife who happily took some cash in exchange for unloading the truck with me, and we finally got rid of the thing. Unfortunately my car overheated from all the punishment it took and it’s currently non-functional. My job gave me a little extension so I’m using the time to get our household set up again.  My Etsy shop [https://www.etsy.com/shop/PatchworkLaboratory ] is still on vacation for the moment because the previous tenant didn’t like mail and just didn’t have a mailbox, but it should be up and running again soon. My other site is still good though if you’d like some funky cloth and want to throw a few dollars towards me fixing my car. [ https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/infamousdoctorf] I’ve got a paypal attached to nightshade518@yahoo.com as well. It’s going to be hard financially to keep all the bills paid, but I just couldn’t stand being near my abusive family anymore.

In conclusion. Take your giant cockroaches, fire ants, heat waves, and hurricanes; and go fuck yourself Galveston. Have fun with my awful relatives.

WA is home.

[lfthinkerwrites]

Meanwhile, Back at Gotham Academy

...So, I haven’t been linking the last few chapters of this to my tumblr. Whoops.

Let’s get caught up a bit.

Previous chapters: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7

Meanwhile, Back at Gotham Academy...

"Attention, students. This is Principal Hugo Strange. Classes are now over for the day. Those students serving detention will remain on campus until 2:30 and those attending club meetings may remain until 3:00 pm. All students must be off campus by 3:30 pm or face severe consequences. That is all."

Harley took her seat at the head table in the chemistry lab and clapped her hands. "Alright! Everybody's here! Did you all bring the stuff?"

Kristen nodded in the last seat on the left. "I've got the graham crackers."

To Harley's left, Pamela put a box of chocolate bars down on the table. "I brought free-trade chocolate."

Next to Kristen, Selina put a wine bag down. "I brought the wine."

"And I've got the marshmallows and toothpicks!" Harley cheered. "Girl's Day is on!" She lightly jostled Penelope, who was sitting to her right. "And ta think, you wanted to stay in your office and work! Aren't ya glad ya came here instead?"

"We'll see," Penelope said, still looking a bit unsure. "How exactly are we going to make smores?"

"Oh, that's easy," Harley said. She reached to a bunsen burner that was set up in the middle of the table and turned it on. "Ta-da! Instant indoor campfire!" She stuck a marshmallow onto a toothpick and held it over the blue flame. "Come on, Penny! Grab a marshmallow!"

"Maybe later," Penelope said, her eyes wide at the open flame.

Pamela scoffed. "One would think with how many 'conferences' you've been to that you'd be used to these sort of shenanigans."

"Well, we've never had an open flame at the 'conferences'," Penelope muttered. "Not yet at least. Anyway," she said in a clearer tone. "What are our plans today?"

"You're looking at our plans," Selina said, pouring wine into plastic cups and passing them around the table. "Wine, smores-"

"And gossip!" Harley said. "It'll be just like a slumber party!"

Penelope and Pamela exchanged a look, then took a long sip of wine. Heavy footsteps alerted the women to the presence of another person in the room. Principal Strange had appeared in the room and was giving each and every one of them a disapproving look. "Ladies, and I do use that term lightly."

Harley gave him a cheeky wave. "Hiya, Hugie."

Strange's left eye twitched. "You know I detest nicknames, Ms. Quinzel."

Harley frowned. "Hey! That's Dr. Quinzel! I didn't go through med school just to be called 'Ms.' Quinzel!"

Strange sucked in a breath between his teeth. Escaping punishment from Superintendent al Ghul had emboldened the faculty to the point they were no longer intimidated by Strange. More was the pity. "Excuse me, 'Dr.' Quinzel." He turned his gaze to Kristen. "I am leaving for my meeting with the school board. I trust that everything will be taken care of in my absence, Ms. Kringle?"

"Yes, Principal Strange," Kristen answered while opening her box of graham crackers. "I can more than handle the administrative duties. I'm also in communication with Vice Principal Gordon regarding the trip."

"Excellent," Strange nodded. Then he turned his cold gaze to the three Sirens. "Coach Bolton is handling the students in detention. Under no circumstances are you to interfere unless at his request. In return, he will leave you to your own devices. Is that clear?"

"Crystal, Strange," Pamela said with a mocking salute. "Run along now. I'm sure the school board is waiting."

Strange's face colored, then he recovered. "Ladies. Enjoy your 'girl's day." He stomped out of the room. As soon as he was gone, Harley blew a raspberry.

"Well," Selina said. "Now that he's gone, what's on the agenda first, girls?"

A buzzing sound from Penelope's phone answered that question. Pamela rolled her eyes. "Edward?"

"Yes," Penelope answered, reading the text. "Oh my. It seems that Neil ate a rancid spanakopita and vomited on Karlo, which then caused their second fistfight of the day. Mockridge has given them fast passes so they can go on rides for the rest of the day."

Selina poured herself some more wine, then lifted her plastic cup up. "A moment of silence for the poor boys on the field trip today."

"Hear hear!" Harley agreed, raising her glass. Kristen, Pamela, and finally Penelope followed suit. She watched as the other four women lowered their glasses to take sips, then dissolved into laughter. She bit her lip.

"Selina?" she asked. "The three of you didn't cheat to stay at the school together, did you?"

Selina put a hand to her chest in mock affront. "Us? Cheat! Why we never!" Then she smirked and gestured to Kristen. "The keeper of the straws on the other hand."

Kristen laughed. "Mea culpa."

Penelope shook her head and took another sip of wine. She made a note to herself not to tell Edward about this. As insufferable as he could be when he was proven wrong about something, he was even worse when he was proven right. She looked back up from her cup to see that the other four women were looking at her, Selina, Harley, and Kristen with curiosity, Pamela with something that looked almost like pity. "What?" she asked.

"Speakin' of Eddie," Harley leaned forward. "You're up first for gossip, Penny! You and Eddie are gettin' pretty serious now, aren't ya? Do ya think you'll get married?"

Penelope felt her face flush and she took a larger gulp of wine. She almost wished she'd gone along on the trip.

Coach Bolton walked up and down the length of the detention room, looking over the three boys in his custody. Lonnie Machin, Jason Todd, and Roy Harper. Troublemakers, all of them. Spoiled little rich boys who thought the world owed them something. He'd bring them in line if it was the last thing he ever did. Finally, he walked back to the front of the room and behind his desk. "Do you three know what you need more than anything?"

Jason leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head and regarded Bolton with cold contempt. "To get out of this school?"

Bolton banged on the desk with a closed fist. "DISCIPLINE!" he yelled. None of the boys so much as flinched. "You three," Bolton continued. "You think that just because you have rich daddies, that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want."

"I'm not rich," Lonnie interrupted. "I got in this school on a scholarship. Don't lump me in with these two class traitors-"

"Get bent, Lonnie," Jason shouted. "I was born in the Narrows. I didn't choose to get adopted by a billionaire-"

Bolton banged his fist on the desk again. "SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!" Both boys fell silent, though they continued to glare at each other. Roy sat in a desk next to Jason with his feet propped up on the seat in front of him and a bored look on his face. "You three think you're such bigshots. Well, you're not! You're just a couple of little boys, acting like men." Bolton punched his hands together. "Well, you won't be little boys after I get through with you. When you leave my detention, you'll leave as real MEN!"

"That sounds dirty to me," Roy sassed. He looked at Jason. "Does that sound dirty to you, Jay?"

Jason snorted. "Sure does, Roy. I think we need an adult!"

"I am an adult!" Bolton shouted. "I know exactly what you two are doing," he glowered. "You won't break me! I'm not that spineless Vice-Principal Gordon!"

"Dork Squad broke you first, Coach," Jason said. "Speaking of which Roy, you smell something?"

Roy smiled, then wrinkled his nose. "I sure do Jay! Smells like a broken Port-o-Potty!"

Bolton's face flushed. "Keep yucking it up, you little brats," he seethed. "I can do this all day."

Jason and Roy exchanged a knowing smirk with each other. "'I can do this all day?' That's what Mr. Nashton said to Doc Young the other day in the teacher's lounge, isn't it Jay?" Roy asked his friend.

"That's what I heard," Jason said. "And they did it, all day. Now that's a real man, Roy."

Bolton gnashed his teeth. "Nashton's a sweater vest wearin' wimp! He's not a real man!

Jason smirked. "He's the sweater vest wearin' wimp who got the woman you wanted. If he's not a 'real man', what does that make you?"

Bolton's face went white, then he walked to the door of the classroom and stepped out, slamming the door shut behind him. As soon as he was gone, Jason and Roy laughed.

"Too easy," Jason laughed. "Did you see his face? It was like we kicked his grandma!"

"That was a low blow," Lonnie muttered. "But I'll admit, it is nice to see that sad sack of toxic masculinity be taken down a peg."

Jason smiled. "Lonnie, you might be alright. Look, Roy and I are gonna bust out of detention after we break Coach. You in?"

Lonnie rubbed his chin. "I'm in."

Before Jason could say anything else, Coach Bolton stormed back in, murder in his eyes. "Alright, you little shits," he said through grinding teeth. "You want to play hardball? We can play hardball." He placed a stack of paper and a pencil in front of each boy. "Write 'I am a failure' 500 times!"

Jason picked up his pencil. "Got it, Coach. We'll write, 'Coach is a failure' 500 times each."

"No!" Bolton shouted. You'll write 'I am a failure'!"

"Yeah, we'll write 'Coach Bolton is a Failure,' just like you asked, Coach," Roy said.

Bolton let out a frustrated scream. The three boys simply looked at each other and smirked. It wouldn't be long before they'd have Coach crying on the floor and be on their way to freedom.

[finderskeepersff]

16. Part 3

I swear to god I want to beat Leyton so bad, I wish the officers were not here “we just want to know he is safe” I suddenly feel like I can’t trust Leyton, he might say Cassius had a gun “officer it’s fine now, he’s back and that’s the main thing, my mother I think she is going crazy. She called you for nothing, waste of time I guess” I want them to leave, I’m just fed the fuck up “Leyton, is everything ok here?” The Officer speaks to my stupid ass brother that I want to kill already “I am, I just want to sleep” I breathed a sigh of relief, I’m just stressed the hell out right now. My brother being one and then my mother, I didn’t even know she did call them like where was I, I told her Cassius is coming back with this little shit. I don’t get why they are here “well try and not be out that late again son” thank god they are leaving, I’m sick to my stomach. My eyes are burning from remaining awake for so long “I will walk you out” my lovely mother said, glaring at her in annoyance. Cassius is there shouting at me when he is walking around with a gun and a vest, is he crazy. He lost his damn mind about this shit, I knew he was already out. The door closed and I am about had enough of my brother, my hand met his face, the very first time I have ever hit him “how fucking dare you!! How dare you do this to me and mom! You tell her now, where you was?” Leyton’ eyes filling with tears, in utter shock I hit him “I want to be with my dad!” He spat “he’s a drug addict! Listen to me Leyton, he had you in his house with drugs, Cassius told me” is he stupid “Cassius nearly killed me! He said he would shoot me, that he would kill me and make it look like an accident! You want to be with him? Over us” Cassius did have a gun “Cassius wouldn’t harm you, stop assuming things like that” I know he wouldn’t “how do you know Sofia?” Leyton asked “because he loves me to not do such a thing, anyways you’re back. Mother you have him back” turning on my heels walking up the steps, it’s been a long night and Cassius and I have fallen out which hurts. Ok I grabbed his gun but I wanted to know if he did have it but I guess he didn’t like it.

No text or phone call from Cassius and I do wish to know what he is doing, or even if he is ok. It’s like two in the afternoon and I’m awake finally, I can hear the games console from where I am stood up the stairs, he’s awake and he’s about to get it with me. Making my way down the steps “you decided to come down?” My mom said “you mean I’ve decided to be the mother and help with your child” walking towards the TV, I don’t know how to turn this thing off so I will just pull the plug “no!!!” Letting shouted, pulling the plug out “so you punish your son by letting him play games? Are you that deluded” I am so confused with this woman “Sofia please do not speak to me! I will come there and beat you myself” my mother pointed at me “but won’t beat your son? You have issues with me, why did the police come exactly? Riddle me that Grace?” Even I don’t understand why when we both said we were not ringing them “hopefully they can lock away another crackseller” she means Cassius “you going to apologise? My boyfriend has found your little bastard child and you call him what? So you called them to get rid of what exactly? You’re such a bitch! And Leyton you, you will never get far with this woman” I’m about done, she is a bad mother, my mom came over to me and I knew she was wanting to hit me but I pushed her back onto the couch “you’re dead to me mom, you and your son” I’m going, I don’t need to be here.

Packing my bags as I cried, it hurts. Everything I done for her, everything I done to make her happy. I did it for my mother because I love her, she deserves the best and she does this. I put up with being groped at a club for her to be ok, I paid for her bills, looked after her child. Make everything about her, made myself poor with no savings and this is what I get, she hates me. She hates me that much that she won’t punish Leyton but me she did, I sobbed out crying “don’t cry” Leyton spoke “fuck you Leyton!” I don’t want to hear his shit “Sofia can I come with you?” I sniggered as I wiped my tears “so you can lie about Cassius? I am going to start a new life, I don’t want to hear you or her! Grabbing my phone “this!!” Walking towards the window, I opened my bedroom window and threw it out “you can never contact me again, I’m done” Leyton stared at me in sadness “he had a gun Sofia, I was scared” zipping the duffle bag up “scared? That’s why you was out at night, you know what Leyton I came back here for you, I now know that you and mom are alike, it hurts because I thought you both loved me but I’m done” picking my bag up from the bed “you have no sister and if by anything Cassius don’t want me I rather be on the streets, than being with a bunch of liars and that bitch ringing the police. Not doing this” walking out of my bedroom for the very last time, they are dead to me.

I picked up my phone after, I mean the screen is cracked but it works. I was so determined for them to not ever contact me I took the sim out and made sure that it is bust. I feel such freedom, like the chains of my family gone. But I decided to come to Mia’ because it’s much closer to walk too and also she can drive me back, just a mess my life is. I feel like everything was a set up, just everything. When my mom said what she said, it was final in my eyes that she did. I am upset that Cassius and I have fallen out and now my phone is off, I’ll have to get Mitch to tell him. Knocking on their apartment door, I hope she is in but she must be, what else is Mia doing on Sunday. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cassius is in this apartment complex in his friends place “well hello bitch” Mia’ eyes dropped to the duffle bag “the hell happened to you” walking by her as I walked into the apartment “I walked out of my mothers house, Mitch can you call Cassius for me please and tell him I am here, thanks” sitting down on the couch “what did crazy Grace do now? Why are you even there anyways?” good question, why did I even go there “long story short my brother went missing, Cassius found him but yet they seemed to have found Cassius the bad guy, Cassius and I kind of fell out and I walked out because of their attitude, I am done. I got rid of my sim, so that is why I am here” Mia rolled her eyes “my god, what is wrong with your family, I mean Cassius found him?” I shrugged not knowing “hi Cassius, it’s nothing serious. Just that Sofia wanted to let you know that she is here. She has left her mother’ home” I hope he is not angry still, sighing out “ok I will ask her, Sofia he said do you want the family friend to pick you up?” he is still upset “if he can” I rather be back at home.

Cassius called Mitch’ phone for me to come back but I do wonder if he called my phone, knowing him he didn’t. He didn’t even come to the apartment, he said come down. I abruptly stopped as I saw his friends in the back, he got them in the car but the front seat is free. Is he really going to have them in the car, Cassius glared over at me, he didn’t give me the most welcoming look ever. He flicked his cigarette out of the car window and then looked away from me, he is still angry. Taking in a deep breath as I walked towards the car, he really gave me just a cold ass look like that. Pulling open the car door and climbed in “relax, keep the talking to a minimum” one of the boys said in the back, I am not sure if I say hi to Cassius or stay quiet, closing the door “you want dropping off at the apartment?” he speaks “yeah” looking behind me at the back seat, they all just looked away from me “are they riding with us?” Cassius drove off so clearly yes “I am out today, I have things to do” of course he does, shaking my head as I looked away from him.

The car ride here was awkward and ever so silent, nobody spoke “Cassius when are you coming home?” he can’t be out all day “tomorrow, I have things to do” he’s not going to let us talk “when are you going to speak to me?” I want to know “Sofia, it’s been what seven hours since I saw you and the police outside your crib, we all had a nice long night. Your friend has shit to do, now go inside” staring at Cassius in anger, he just equally stared at me “that was my mother, are you seriously not coming back tonight” did he even sleep “Kyle, sit in front with me” he ignored me “you’re being an asshole now” he really is “asshole is your brother Sofia, you think I am going to be played an idiot by you and your family, you touching my gun like that. You don’t do that shit in public, I don’t care where you are. Leave me be, if I die then don’t worry you will be set too, go and have a good time with your family” I want to slap him, getting out of the car “don’t wait up either, I ain’t coming back tonight” all I want to do is explain but he won’t let me “you don’t have to be an asshole to me” he really doesn’t need to be “I’m just being a family friend” slamming his car door shut.

[fordarkisthesuede]

At the Brink of Midnight - Chapter 9

*Arrives two days late with Starbucks* ‘Sup, guys! σ( ▼∀▼)σ These past 96 hours have somehow filled me with a weird chaotic energy, and I pumped out the longest roller-coaster of a chapter I’ve ever done in such a short amount of time!!! Thank you, whoever sent all the writing vibes my way!!!! ★>d(,,･ε´-,,)⌒☆ I’m sending out strong vibes to everybody in return! *May you get hit by the writing bug and have the opportunity and energy to completely translate your ideas to printed words!*

Buuut a big note before we get to the good stuff:  I realized too late that the original events of S2 take place in Spring. Like…April. I was writing all of this with the thought that S2 took place in fall; I mean, the characters can wear a leather jacket or a couple of layers comfortably, so I thought “yeah that sounds like early autumn”. Nope! So that means that for this story’s timeline, everything gets shifted into where it should be. On the downside, that means I had to go through and edit all the bits where it said “it was totally spring, you guys”. On the upside… IT’S NOW OCTOBER!!!!! THE SPOOKY SEASON THAT COMPLETELY FITS WITH WHAT’S GOING ON!!! And coincidentally, it’s my favorite time of the year, so I love writing about it even more! I get to add in a thing here and there about the spookiest time of the year, so I’ll have a nice list of what those little changes are uploaded here soon if you don’t feel like re-reading the whole thing. A re-read isn't necessary though, just keep in mind that the humid air of rainy spring in the city is replaced with chilling fronts and even more cloud cover than usual. Why am I bothering with this? Because I’m a stickler for keeping with canon as much as possible and I feel like an absolute fool for not remembering what goddamn time of year it was to begin with. (I mean, I went so far as to download all of TeamFourStar’s play-through because I watched it so often, you think I'd remember to go back and watch the very beginning once in a while…)

Anywho, thank you all again for your continuously loving support!!! 

♡~(ɔ ˘3˘)˘⌣˘ c)

Important Spoiler Tags: drugs (mentioned), swearing, canon-typical violence, electric shocks (mentioned), torture of flowers, flirting, almost an excessive use of emoji, crying, romantic dirty thoughts

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Read on Ao3 or continue below:

Chapter 9:  Grapevines

Bruce Wayne couldn’t remember the last time he’d conducted a meeting from his home office. It wasn’t as if he didn’t use it – the desk surface had hardly any dust settled on it and two empty coffee mugs he’d forgotten about on two different occasions just happened to be stacked behind the monitor – but it felt strange, like a lot of things did lately.

He knew part of the reason for that was watching houses down in the Batcave right now. Knowing he wasn’t alone in the house was comforting, but knowing there were two cops outside the Manor’s front door just waiting for a chance to grab his best friend-cum-houseguest was not, and knowing that they were both close to being thrown in hot water was even less so.

He figured the other reason he felt strange was because he was slipping back into his old habit as if it had never been shelved in the first place. He had time to kill before the video meeting started, so he’d been scouring for information on “Pam”, Jonathan Crane’s ‘old friend’.

There were a few Pamela’s in Gotham, but only one fit within Crane’s age-range and attended Gotham University at about the same time:  Pamela Isley, a forty-four-year-old former botanist with a record that ran the length of his arm. Theft, assault, threats, and attempted poisonings all done in the name of extreme environmentalism and social activism were sprinkled in her history before and after her days as a researcher, and according to GCPD records, she was now suspected of running her own drug-ring under the moniker of ‘Poison Ivy’. (Bruce found several recorded instances of people claiming to be Poison Ivy, most of whom were already arrested.)

Bruce would’ve wondered why on Earth she hadn’t been thrown in prison when she made a bomb-threat at a wealthy businessman several states away nearly a decade ago if he hadn’t seen her mug-shot from back then. At thirty-five, she looked every bit as beautiful as a top-billed Hollywood star, with natural orange-red curls cascading over her pale shoulders and ample bust in chemically-tamed waves, flashing the camera a come-hither stare that made it look like she was trying for a part in a high-budget porn flick rather than standing in front of a height chart for her criminal record. Pamela’s charges were mysteriously swept under the rug.

The latest photo he found of her reminded him a bit of those ‘cougar’ dating ads he’d seen – the older Pamela was blowing a kiss to the camera with a mocking look in her dark green eyes. Bruce glared at it. There was little doubt she was using people to cover for her constantly, and when she was in trouble, she managed to wriggle out of it with her looks.

Not this time. She was friends with Dr. Jonathan Crane, and that meant she wasn’t going to get out of this unharmed. The second his virtual meeting was over, Bruce was heading towards Toxic Acres, and hopefully the wounded Crane would still be there to see Batman’s fist hit his –

Bruce snapped out of his thoughts at the buzz of his phone. A message from the BatComputer…?

I’m bored :/

Bruce blinked down at the screen. John had found the emergency messaging system. Of course he had. He was just grateful that the encryption software on his phone was still up to date. Just what else did John poke his nose into down there…? (There was the chance that John would see files he shouldn’t, but Bruce kept those under a thumbprint encryption. He shouldn’t even entertain the thought.)

Stake-outs are usually pretty boring.

It wouldn’t be so bad if you were down here tho! :)

Bruce hovered his thumb over the keyboard, unsure of what to say. The feeling was kind of mutual, if he was being honest; having another person around on a stakeout would at least keep his mind wandering into the worsts of what-ifs and double-checking every last security issue…

No movement on either houses btw. Been reading Crane’s docs in the meantime but it’s DREADFUL!!! I feel like I’m reading a sleeping pill… =_=

You finish your WE stuff yet?

Meeting’s not for another 20 minutes. Been looking up stuff on Crane’s “friend”.

Oh??? :o Do tell!!!!

Bruce couldn’t help but smile at the enthusiasm.

Pamela Isley, former botanist w/ criminal rec., mostly extreme protest kind of stuff. Good chance she’s the head of a drug-ring that moved here a couple months ago; their leader goes by “Poison Ivy”.

They went to college together, but Pamela moved back here recently.

hMmMmm…. That means no burning the place down if we’re stuck! Bad fumes everywhere xP

Bruce focused on the word “we’re”. He hadn’t been planning on bringing John along. He wanted him safe, at home, where no one had a chance of seeing him and he wasn’t put in harm’s way…

Oh!!! You’ve got a bunch of sticky electro-shockers around - do you mind if I tinker with them? :3c pleeeeaaasssee?

What are you thinking of doing with them?

Making one BIIIIIG shock-bomb, of course! ;D I can wire them together so the shock spreads evenly in the space while it’s discharging.

Bruce reconsidered bringing John. He was still learning to curb his impulses, so being outside in a fighting environment would be a serious gamble, but... Maybe that could be their advantage, too. Bruce made a mental note to go dig out the spare bullet-proof vest from his closet’s secret panel.

You can do that?

I played around with making something like it before, but……well, you know.

Time + supplies for that project were low att. I figured I could always go back to it later anyway.

Bruce felt like his heart had deflated and swelled in such a short time that it hurt.

I mean I’m fine with throwing knives around too but I figured that would be less discrete ¯\_(ツ )_/¯

He’d been thinking of different methods of entering the “house”. Most of them featured a silent slip-in and as little combat as possible, but he knew that there would likely be some muscle around to stop any would-be intruders, and getting a quieter jump on them would certainly be helpful. He would certainly be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed that John had thought that far ahead even back then.

If you think you can get it done within 1.5 hours, then yes.

Ha ha ha with these supplies I can get it done in like 40 mins! >:3 just you watch!!!

Btw have you seen the news?

Not yet. Why?

I was on the morning edition! At least they used a good pic ;D

But also saw a guy getting fished out of the harbor. Your handy-dandy invasion software said he’s a registered Ryde driver.

I told you not to fiddle with that.

Sorry, but I only used it the once! Promise!!!

Bruce sighed through his nostrils.

Besides I thought you’d want to know. Think Crane stole his ride and dumped him by the docks? :v

Probably. I can get the plate from up here to verify. DO NOT TOUCH THAT PROGRAM AGAIN.

Yes sir ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Bruce wasn’t sure if that message was supposed to be flirtatious or mocking.

The incoming call from Iman Avesta stopped him from responding. He figured it had to do with John’s escape and the extra security added at Wayne Tower this morning, but why was she calling him now, rather than several hours ago?

“Iman?”

“Hey, Bruce. Hold on a sec – there we go, now we can both -”

“Bruce, what the fuck?” Tiffany asked over the line. “Are you at home right now?”

Bruce almost sighed at the attitude. “Yes, Tiffany, I’m at home, in my office.”

“Uh-huh. I keep getting alerts that your basement’s messaging system is being used. Care to explain that?”

Oh. Of course. He’d forgotten Tiffany had linked her phone to that, too. It’d just…been too long, he supposed. (She couldn’t read them, though, could she? He was fairly sure it didn’t give out mass-texts unless prompted.) “…where are you right now?”

Iman responded instead. “We’re in your second office.”

“…the line’s secure?”

“Of course.” Iman paused, and Bruce knew his new CSO was choosing her words carefully. “I’m guessing you have John Doe in the Batcave?”

“Yes.”

“Bruce, did you fucking break him out?” Tiffany asked with no shortness of impatience.

“I rescued him,” Bruce said firmly. “I know what you’re thinking, and I have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to say, but listen:  I had no choice but to take him with me. One of the doctors working at Arkham has gone rogue – he’d been doing experiments on patients, and I have a feeling he’s going to continue them on civilians. I need to find him before then, and John has been helping me.”

“Helping…? You’re not bringing him in the field with you?” Tiffany said disbelievingly. “After that psychopath almost killed us?”

Bruce could still see Joker running at Tiffany, knife in hand, his psychotic breakdown in full force. He could still see him being smacked against the railing, sheer madness played over his long, bloody face as he desperately fought to stab what was his hero.

But John and Joker were as much the same as Bruce and Batman were, and they were constantly changing.

The Joker in the Batcave wasn’t the same one from Ace Chemicals.  

“I know what John did,” he answered, trying to breathe even as something wanted to hitch in his throat, “and I know how far he’s come since then. I know you both regret-”

“No, I’m not listening to this right now,” Tiffany scowled, her voice fading in the middle her sentence like she was leaving the room. “Talk some sense into him.”

Bruce heard Iman’s voice call after her, and then nothing for a beat.

Iman sighed. “I’ll talk to her. But Bruce,” she started seriously, “Tiffany isn’t the only one worrying about you. Six months can’t possibly cure everything wrong with a man whose spent his life in an asylum.” He could practically hear her chew over her phrasing. “I need to know… If John goes too far – if he shows signs of regressing…or just becoming more volatile – I need to know you’re going to put your foot down.”

“I’m more than capable of handling him, Iman.”

“Please, Bruce, I’d rather not have to pull you off another broken pipe lodged in your kidney.” She paused, and Bruce let her continue, feeling the scar in his side twinge at the painful memory. “I know you care a lot about him,” she resumed in a softer tone, “and I know you trust him. But if you doubt him at any time, you need you to step back and re-evaluate your choices. I don’t want him to regress back into the Joker.”

That was a different Joker, Bruce wanted to say. He knew that wouldn’t sound the way it should. “I promise I won’t let that happen.”

“Good to know,” Iman replied, sounding somewhat relieved. “This doctor you’re hunting – is there anything we can do to help?”

Bruce shot a look at the clock in the corner of his monitor. He didn’t have as much time left as he would’ve liked before his virtual meeting started. “Tiffany can fill you in a bit, I had her help searching Arkham’s records before. Can you run a plate for me? I think Dr. Crane is running with a stolen car; I’ll send you the details in a bit.”

“Sure. We can check traffic cams for it, too, if you’d like.”

“If you would. And the second I have anything concrete on Dr. Crane, I’m sending Tiffany the details – I need her pull as Oracle to get the word out to the GCPD before anything happens. They’ll listen to their number-one informant more than a vigilante coming out of retirement.”

“…you’re…?”

He could almost see the shock in her face. They’d had a short discussion about his alter-ego when he decided to quit the first time; she’d been incredibly understanding about the whole thing. It was almost as if she’d seen it coming.

“Are you sure?”

He was as sure. She didn’t know about the instincts broiling underneath his surface every day. She didn’t know he never really stopped being half of himself. She wouldn’t know or really understand that he just shoved it all down and aside like he did so much else just to get through things. “I don’t have any other options at this point.”

“…you know you can count on us if you need the help.”

“Of course I do.”

“Right. Well, in the meantime we’ll keep the fort over here running as smoothly as possible.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good luck.”

The line went silent, and Bruce pulled his phone away, catching a glimpse of three unread messages.

Sorry, buddy, I was just kidding around, you know? Ha ha

Bruce???

Hello???????

Sorry, had a phone call and couldn’t reply. It’s fine.

Seconds ticked by, and Bruce began changing out of his black t-shirt and into his button-down. It wouldn’t do to appear as a CEO in anything less than a proper suit. He could leave the jeans on, at least.

“Oh! Uh…sorry, Bruce…”

He felt his heart stop for a second. That was definitely John’s voice, even though it crackled slightly from the speakers. The monitor didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. John must have been using the spy-camera feature on the Batcomputer; it was linked to most the devices in the house, and Bruce’s webcam was no exception. He’d almost forgotten it had a loudspeaker function, too.

“I didn’t realize you were…um, changing.”

Bruce glared at the webcam’s lens. “John, what did I tell you about fiddling with the Batcomputer?”

“…sorry. I was worried when you didn’t answer me.”

He sounded genuine, at least. Bruce could easily picture him running upstairs to find him, if there wasn’t a chance he would’ve been seen. “I answered you a minute ago. I was on a call with Iman,” he stated plainly, fixing the buttons on his sleeves.

“…oh, ha ha, there it is! Uh, I guess I’ll just…go, then…”

Bruce almost questioned why John was sounding nervous and distracted, but it wasn’t until he saw the webcam light wink off again that he realized his shirt was wide open, the scars littering his torso half on display from the waist up.

Thankfully, no one was around to see Bruce bury his face in the palm of his hand for a moment, feeling like his face was on fire from first and second-hand embarrassment.

It didn’t last long. Bruce took a few deep breaths as he fixed himself up, and dialed into the meeting with a fixed expression of calm, firmly ignoring the heat that had settled in his stomach that threatened to go lower at the thought that John was bound not to forget any of that.

Driving the Batmobile in full gear again was certainly something else. Bruce felt the weight of the Kevlar body armor press against his limbs as he sped down Gotham’s twisting alley streets, no one any the wiser that the Wayne’s red sports car was hiding Batman behind it. The city’s CCTV signal was scrambled with the flick of a switch as he came into driving distance of the alley’s camera, making him almost untraceable.

He’d given the Honda Accord a head-start; it couldn’t go nearly as fast as the Batmobile, and Bruce had to find a spot to safely change before going to go pick John up from his drop-off point, and the post-working-hours traffic had already gotten its usual early start. It was a slower drive than he’d like it to be, even with Bruce’s shortcuts.

The setting sun was completely obscured by a dark overcast. It made the orange streetlamps glowing over the decorations sitting here and there in windows and doors even more energetic, like every corner of Gotham was slowly growing with the energy of Halloween.

Bruce clicked the communicator in his cowl. “John, are you there yet?”

Silence for a few seconds, and then a rustling noise. “Sorry, I had to take this off for a bit. What?”

“Are you there yet?”

John giggled slightly. “Oh, yeah, I’m here. Just waiting on you, pal.”

He was already at the meeting point? How did he get there so fast? “You put everything back where it was supposed to be?”

“No, I stripped the seats and threw everything into the garbage,” John grumbled with dripping sarcasm. “Of course I did, it’d be rude not to put Jerry’s stuff back. What do you take me for?”

“…I’m just making sure you didn’t forget anything.”

“I didn’t.” There was a loud slurping noise, like the last of a liquid being sucked from a straw.

“John, where are you right now?”

“In the alley, waiting for you.”

“Did you make a stop?”

John giggled, a little louder, but not at all nervous. He was enjoying himself. “What can I say? Going out on the town with you like this makes me thirsty,” he said with a strange purr. “Besides, no one bats an eye at me when I look like this anyway.” He paused. “Well, no, I’ve gotten some eyes on me, but, uh, I think they’re more the appreciative type. I guess ZZ Top was kinda right about the sharp-dresser thing.”

Bruce felt his brows knit together. “You’ve always looked sharp,” he said truthfully, turning down a narrow alley.

“Yeah, but not thousand-dollar-suit sharp. There’s a difference! Plus I think this bullet-proof vest makes me look a little bulkier than I actually am.”

Bruce spotted him leaning against the graffiti-covered wall, a Burger Lord cup in one hand and a plastic orange bag in another. Just how much time did Bruce lose while he was changing?

John tossed the drink in the dumpster and practically jumped into the car, shoving the orange bag behind the driver seat and slamming the door shut as Bruce switched off the communicator. He took one look at Bruce’s questioning glower and gave a nervous sort of grin. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, there’s something in there for you, too.”

Bruce almost asked what, but decided that a lecture on keeping a low profile and not taking money from his house’s various hiding spots would have to wait. (Though he supposed whatever John got wasn’t expensive. He was quite frugal, and it wasn’t as if Bruce couldn’t afford to buy John whatever he wanted anyway.) He concentrated instead on heading down the twisting path towards Toxic Acres. At least the traffic over there was a hell of a lot lighter.

“Hey, when you drove me to the Batcave, did you go in fourth gear, or third?”

He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he honestly couldn’t remember. He just recalled putting his foot to the floor and keeping his eyes on the road, occasionally reaching over to check John’s pulse. “I wasn’t really paying attention to that; I concentrating more on driving as fast as possible.”

“Oh – so you didn’t know you could punch the shift down into third whenever you wanted? It was so fun! I can say I literally punched it out of the Batcave!” He laughed. “I’m guessing you can’t do that in this car?”

“…I’ve got paddle shifters.” They were starting to travel into the more deserted road leading into Toxic Acres. Bruce took a sharp turn onto the hill with the broken Do Not Enter sign, and checking that no one was behind him, flipped the switch to shift the car into armored plates and pressed the wheel-paddle for a lower gear.

They flew down the road with a whirring whine of the engine, John’s notorious excited laugh mixing with it, and Bruce allowed himself to smile a little at it, knowing his own little joyful thrill wouldn’t last very long.

John was soon tapping his fingers together in some kind of rhythm as they passed by more empty houses, Bruce moving a little slower to keep his eyes out for trouble. Sitting close to the river on the outskirts of the city, they were originally meant to be a long neighborhood for the middle and upper class to build their lives, but as the unemployment and crime rates rose, the place became abandoned. It didn’t help that the piping structure to carry water there had been faulty, making either lead poisoning or unfiltered dirty water a prominent problem and giving the section of Gotham its nickname.

“How do we know which place is the botanist’s?” John asked, his green eyes scouring the houses in front of them.

“I sent out another drone earlier for some aerial shots. There’s a place with camouflaged green-houses in the back on Aster Place.”

“Wow, you did that before I left? That was fast…”

“It was a quick job. I’m not picking up the other drone until later.”

They turned the corner onto Aster Place; the road would dead-end in a while, but Bruce knew the house wouldn’t be situated at the end.

“Oh, there’s the spot Jackie got shot at!” John pointed ahead. “I wonder if there’s a bloodstain left…!”

Bruce tightened his grip on the wheel. “We’re close.”

It was oddly quiet out there. There was no other sign of life in what was a hot-spot of criminal hide-outs. Bruce turned on the thermal vision in his cowl; a lot of the houses were actually empty for once.

Except for one. 1801 Aster Place. There were a group of people scattered around on the bottom floor and what appeared to be a lot of heat-lamps running on the top floor. If one of the people in the group wasn’t Pamela Isley, then she might have been holding up in the basement…

They left the Batmobile out of sight down the road, and Bruce and John moved swiftly behind the backs of the houses in the chilly night air, the taser bomb safely in John’s coat pocket; John was surprisingly quiet, only humming a familiar tune here and there. (Wasn’t it the theme from that old spy-thriller…?) Bruce managed to quiet him with a look, and John mimed locking his mouth shut and throwing the key away.

Two unknown people were standing in what used to be a kitchen; three more people were up in the front room of the house. There were no security cameras to be seen.  

“Stick close to me,” Bruce whispered, the modifier in his cowl deepening his voice. “We go in through the back window, take out the two in the kitchen quietly and throw the bomb up front so we can cuff the lot. If none of them are Ms. Isley, we find the basement.”

John gave him a thumbs up, pulling out the riot baton he had hidden away. (Bruce had still not remembered when he or Alfred bought that, but vaguely remembered stashing it in the towel cupboard with some other emergency gear. He wasn’t surprised John found it.)

The bathroom window’s locks weren’t difficult to break. They looked like they had been broken several times already. Bruce slid the insect screen up and slipped in through the thin opening feet-first, twisting his limbs just right to softly land on the floor. He had to help pull John through the rest of the way after he smacked his head on the bottom of the window; thankfully he hadn’t made any noise, but he did give Bruce a strange look as brushed himself off where Bruce had gripped his sides.

Bruce didn’t have time to think about it.

The two people in the kitchen stood in semi-darkness, watching through the patio windows with rifles leaning against the wall. There wasn’t so much a bare bulb to give off light. Bruce figured their eyes might have adjusted to the dark, and signaled John to follow as he crept up behind the two goons.

“I dunno, with all the hype surrounding episode four, you just know those guys are going to mess up somewhere. Remember when they decided to let Celestyne drop to his death back in season one?” The one with dreadlocks asked.

“Oh, come on, that was just to test the game’s limits. Besides, Celestyne couldn’t die; I don’t think Jane can, either,” the second person responded in a higher voice with a casual shrug.

“Dude, you know the game’s gonna make her a villain in the end, though, right? She might die…”

Bruce was ready. John was gripping the baton with a widening grin…

“Are you kidding me? They have her affection meter up so high I’m surprised the game doesn’t have a dating opt-”

Bruce slammed dreadlocked goon’s head into the wall just as the baton crashed down on the other goon’s skull, little smears of blood marking the plaster and paint with a satisfying crack.

John clutched the collar of the goon he’d struck, gripping the slightly bloody baton a little harder in his other hand. He seemed to be thinking.

Bruce took a zip-tie out and cuffed the goon’s hands behind their back, and wondered just what John was staring at until he’d turned the person around and caught a glimpse of them in the light of the window.

They were both women with little tattoos of vines creeping along the back of their necks.

If Bruce guessed right, those were ivy leaves on the vine. Poison Ivy had a loyal gang.

John zip-tied the wrists of the woman he’d struck and patted the part of her head that wasn’t wounded. “Sorry,” he whispered as if she would hear it. “Lauren’s ex,” John mumbled, gesturing to the woman on the floor as if he knew Bruce had raised his eyebrow at him.

Bruce simply swept onward, spying the door for the basement. There was a light on in the front room, and three women who looked like they could be professional boxers of different weight categories were sitting in different areas. One was sharpening a knife at the table, and another was cleaning a semi-automatic rifle as the third kept watch over a monitor showing security camera footage; three looked to be by the greenhouses (Bruce recognized the Foxglove variety growing in one under an opening in the glass, sitting next to something that looked primeval), and two were watching over the plants upstairs (marijuana, by the looks of it) and in the basement.

There was a figure in the last screen, working over a row of potted plants with low lamps. A zoom-in with Bruce’s lenses showed long red hair.

Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder, and John crept ahead him, the taser-bomb in hand: it looked like a mass of the sticky-bombs grouped together, colorful wiring connecting them all like some kind of net, and before Bruce could do or say anything, John threw it into the living room, where it tumbled into the middle of the floor.

The group began to shoot out of their seats in a second, and in the next the ball seemed to expand like a geometric toy, the wired tasers being thrown in the air with a flash before smacking people and surfaces alike as they discharged. All three people fell to the floor in trembling heaps, and John dashed out and started to cuff them, Bruce close behind.

The electric bombs were safe to touch now that they had fully discharged, so Bruce had no qualm about stomping on the lightly-burning sections of carpet underneath some of them to prevent any spread of fire as he pushed them aside. The bulkiest goon wasn’t quite down for the count; she was still conscious.

She yanked John off her fallen comrade by his shoulder and threw him into the table’s edge. Bruce threw a Batarang at her arm just as she was about to punch, and John gave a swift knee to her stomach as she flinched.

She fell to the floor with a louder crash and a grunt, pulling the Batarang out from her arm and letting it drop to the floor. “You fucker…” She said, glaring up at John before looking over at Bruce, her eyes widening as he approached with more Batarangs at the ready. “B-Batman…?”

“Yup! He’s real,” John said playfully before smacking the side of her head with the baton. “And so am I,” he added with a growl. He decided to tie her wrists behind the nearest table leg. “I hate not being able to call myself Joker like this… Really sells it better.”

Bruce felt his heart twitch at the name. “You can call yourself that, if it helps,” Bruce said gently, tying the monitoring-station woman’s wrists together, “Just not to people’s faces.”

“Kinda defeats the point,” John grumbled.

Bruce shot a look at the security monitor – Pamela Isley didn’t seem to have heard anything. Still, precaution should be used. “Let’s go,” he said plainly, sweeping out of the room with a swish of his cape.

John tucked a hand into his pocket and followed.

The basement stairs were carpeted and quiet, but Bruce was careful to walk on the outsides rather than the middle. Spiders had clearly made themselves right at home in the damp corners of the walls, and he had to duck to avoid getting the tips of his cowl’s ears stuck in one of their webs. A soft sort of click was heard behind his back, and Bruce figured John had gotten out his grappling gun.

Pamela Isley was bent over a row of exotic-looking orchids posed under heat lamps, dabbing something into the center of a blue orchid’s petals. Bruce saw several troughs full of hallucinogenic mushrooms sitting on the other side of the wall.

“There you go, my darling,” she cooed in a honeyed voice, acting like she was carefully painting the center of the flower, “You’ll soon be the belle of the ball…”

Bruce eyed the electrical box on the other side of the room. It wouldn’t do to drown the place in darkness; he’d be able to see, but John wouldn’t. The best bet was to tackle and restrain her.

Or…

Bruce took out his own grappling gun, and aimed it at Isley’s collar. One click, and it snagged her shirt with practiced ease.

“What the-?!”

Pamela Isley was suddenly dragged yelping through the air at an angle, smacking hard into one of the tables and spilling several unusual potted flowers to the floor.

Bruce grabbed her and threw her to the concrete floor, standing over her with several Batarangs in his hand as John cackled beside him.

“Jonathan Crane,” Bruce growled out, “Where is he?”

Pamela Isley sat up, shock written all over her face as she processed exactly what happened – it quickly morphed to a steely stare. “Batman,” she said slowly in a sweet voice, “I thought you were an urban legend,” she continued, wiping the corner of her mouth where a dribble of blood leaked out. “Do you always treat a lady this way?”

Bruce dragged her up by her collar and threw her against the wall, keeping her at arm’s length. “I know he bought plants from you today. Tell me where he is.”

“Or what?” She taunted, smirking widely at him. “You think I haven’t been knocked around by men before? I’ve been in whole worlds of hurt, honey.”

There was the distinct sound of the grappling wire rushing through the air, and then an enormous crash – John had taken out one of the mushroom tables, the fungi now breaking and bouncing against the floor it the scattered in the dirt.

“Whoopsie,” John hummed, a wide unnerving grin on his face, “butter-fingers.”

Isley looked rather taken aback, but the expression quickly warped into a mocking glare. “You think destroying my inventory is going to intimidate me?”

John shrugged, leaning back against a table and knocking over a several small tropical plants with a slide of his hand, shattering the clay pots and sending the plants scattering to the hard floor.

That definitely got her attention; her face paled slightly and there was tremble in her. “Stop that!”

Bruce glared at her, mentally thanking John for his quick thinking. “Tell me where Crane is and I’ll consider stopping him from tearing this place apart.”

Her dark green eyes glared at him with a slow-boiling dislike. “Let me go first.”

Bruce did a very quick once-over; she didn’t seem to have a gun holster on her, and she was definitely a lighter build than the rest of her gang. Knives were still a possibility. He decided to let go, keeping a Batarang between his fingers just in case as he stepped just out of her reach.

Pamela dusted off her green turtleneck. “I don’t know where he is, and I don’t care. He bought a few of my flowers and left,” she said, crossing her arms.

John laughed, fingering the leaves of the blue orchid she’d been attending. “With a hole in his shoulder? You didn’t even offer a band-aid for that?”

Pamela was closely eyeing the plant in John’s hand. “What if I did?”

“I know he’s a friend of yours, Isley,” Bruce growled. “You’re the only one who could know what he’s planning.”

“I told you, I don’t know,” she stated, “and I don’t care. I’m not his mother.”

“I can see why you were paying such close attention to this one,” John hummed, fingering the petals with a gloved hand. “It’s so pretty. You put a lot of effort into keeping all these, huh?” He grinned at her, almost looking like his usual self. “It’s not just some financial scheme for you, is it?”

“Of course it is,” Pamela stared at him, trying to keep her voice level; Bruce noticed her eyes kept flicking slightly downward, like she was watching the plant. “I breed and sell rare plants to collectors on the side.”

“Oh good! So this won’t bother you!”

In a swift move, John cut the blossom off the stem with the bowie knife one of the group upstairs had been sharpening.

The blossom fell to the table, and Pamela Isley looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

John picked up the blossom. “Let’s see – she’s honest,” he said playfully, plucking a petal from the stem, “she’s not!” He pulled another.

“STOP IT!” Pamela shrieked, making to rush at him – Bruce pulled her back and pointed the tip of the Batarang at her face. She glanced at it fearfully, but then looked back at the flower being torn apart in John’s hand, and it looked like she was watching a child die before her eyes.

“Stop that,” Bruce instructed; John hummed and held it still. “Talk, or my partner and I crush every plant in this place.”

Isley stared at the flower in John’s hand. “I… I don’t know what he’s planning,” she said quietly, her voice cracking slightly. John only touched the tip of a petal before she spoke again – “But-! But I know… He’s building something. He didn’t say what, but he asked for some muscle - I hooked him up with some of Maroni’s old boys.” She shut her eyes and took a breath before glaring at John like he was a complete monster. “I hope the lot of them tears you limb from limb.”

Bruce forced Isley’s hands behind her back and zip-tied them. “Down on the ground,” he growled, pushing down on the top of her head. John pointed the grappling gun in her face with a smirk; a good insurance if she decided to try and elbow Bruce in the face.

Pamela shot them both a hateful glare as she knelt down, and it didn’t waver as her ankles were tied, too. “I won’t forget this,” she spat.

Bruce sent off a message to Tiffany regarding the coordinates of “Poison Ivy”’s headquarters from his gauntlet. He knew she’d get the word out before he could even get back in the car. “Tell it to the judge,” he taunted, leading the way out of the basement, not missing the sparkle in John’s eyes as he followed, the severed, torn orchid blossom having been carelessly thrown at Pamela Isley’s feet.

John gathered up the sticky bomb device before they hustled back to the Batmobile, and it wasn’t until the doors closed that he spoke, and when he did it was in a tone Bruce would almost call revered.

“So, what do we do now, partner?” He asked, a definite glow on his face.

“We go look at some of the Maroni gang’s old haunts and see if we can find anyone recently hired,” Bruce said, the voice modifier in his cowl now disabled. He glanced at his recent text messages:  one from Tiffany giving the ok on Poison Ivy, and another from Iman with the last known location of the stolen Ryde car. “After we look into the motels in the red-light district. Crane might’ve stayed there.”

John laughed to himself, but for once he didn’t share the joke; instead, he pulled out a packet of jerky from the plastic bag he’d brought along. “I knew this would be a long night,” he said cheerfully, as if he was really looking forward to the whole thing.

It was well past one in the morning when Bruce arrived back home through the front gate, the Batsuit stowed away and the plates flipped back to red. The two patrol officers were only somewhat surprised to see him arrive back. Naturally, they reported nothing new, since John had been dropped off in the Batcave first.

Sore muscles were nothing new to Bruce. The old strained climb back up to his bed was just as annoying as ever. He honestly didn’t feel like he wanted to sleep, but after following several empty leads over the city and bruising a few heads alongside John, he did admit that he was physically exhausted. He knew lying down was better than nothing, and he still had to go to work in several hours like he didn’t have a double life. At least he wasn't starving, thanks to John thinking ahead and buying him protein-and-carb-filled snacks.

He forced himself to go through his usual nightly routine, despite the temptation to just flop into bed and lay there. He looked at the bruises on his back and ribs from where John had struggled against him under the influence of Crane’s drug, and decided not to bother putting the bruise-away cream on them, nor on the new ones forming on his shoulder from where one of the former mobsters had hit him.

When he did finally collapse onto the master bed in nothing but his boxer-briefs, his brain still decided to chat away at him.

There were no leads as to who exactly Isley had hired for Crane. Bruce cursed himself for not trying to work the specifics out of her. At least he knew she was arrested for drug possession and manufacturing, as well as smuggling illegal fauna.

There was no word on the whereabouts of Jackie Lant. Her car was missing, and she’d called into work sick. Her apartment hadn’t been visited in the entire time Bruce had his drone’s eye on it, and neither Tiffany nor Iman had seen anything when they looked into Jackie’s friends’ places, either. All Bruce knew was that she hadn’t called an ambulance to fetch her from Toxic Acres, that she hadn’t been admitted to a hospital, and that there was no sign of her body either in the Acres or in the Gotham River.

She was alive, somewhere, and Bruce didn’t know what she was going to do next. He hoped she was just going to lie low until he caught Crane.

Jonathan Crane was nowhere to be found. His house was still empty. He didn’t seem to be staying at any of the motels – or hotels – around the red-light district or its surrounding streets, and nothing had come of a quick credit-card check. The Ryde driver the GCPD fished out of the River that morning had been shot in the head, and his car was so common that if Crane could’ve switched the license plate with anything and been completely invisible. They’d done a quick search of the warehouse district and found no sign of him there, either.

Bruce had the nagging feeling that he wasn’t going to find Crane until the doctor reared his head.

The billionaire rolled onto his stomach, shoving the anxious thought away as he pressed his cheek further into the plush black jersey pillowcase. There were a couple more places he could check tomorrow…

The bedroom door creaked, and Bruce’s eyes shot open, a second away from grabbing the billy-club under his pillow – he could see John’s messy hair in his dark silhouette.

“Bruce? You awake?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“…can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Bruce noticed he closed the door behind him. Like he was planning to stay there.

That definitely put a new light onto the situation. A tense thrill was building in his shoulders as John deigned to sit on the edge of the mattress, his back to Bruce.

John was only wearing his Arkham-regulated pants, and the pale white of his bare skin almost shone in the light streaming in from the window. Bruce saw several bruises forming, one of which was from where he’d gotten grabbed by the shoulder by a Poison Ivy goon, and several more where he’d gotten knocked into.

“…I don’t think I can sleep in that guest room,” John sighed. “I mean, I tried my usual methods of sleep induction, but… It’s too big…and empty. I’m really not used to that.” His voice came out quieter and more contemplative. “I know it’s weird, but do you mind if I sleep in here?” He asked, turning halfway to look right at Bruce.

He felt trapped. If he said no, at the worst John would sulk, and at the best John wouldn’t get any sleep, and that was definitely worse for his mental health. John had mentioned before about how regular sleep cycles were supposed to help with that.

If he said yes, though, he’d know he was sleeping next to John, and there was the tiny worry in the back of his head that John might…try something. Or at least roll over too much.

“I promise I’ll stay over on my side,” John muttered, not tearing his eyes away.

“Alright.”

A sweet smile stretched on his face. “Thanks, Bruce. You won’t regret this.”

“If you keep talking, I might.”

John giggled as he slid beneath the covers on the far side of the bed, flopping one of the extra pillows down between them. “There – a no-roll barrier,” he said as if he had to explain the concept to Bruce.

It did not escape Bruce’s attention that John had decided to lie facing him and rest his arm on top of the pillow. John had pulled the covers up to just underneath his armpits; Bruce could see John's sharp collarbone and the lean wiry muscle of his chest. (Bruce made sure not to look for more than a moment's curiosity would allow.)

God, John’s face was actually his for the first time that whole night. Bruce had gotten used to seeing it in the natural makeup, but it was almost a relief to see it in its normal borderline-luminescent white. He looked like the man Bruce knew.

Acid-green eyes stared at him, flicking slightly and growing soft. “I…did want to talk to you about something, though. If it’s okay.”

“I suppose I’m still awake,” Bruce said in an attempt to lighten the tension in his arms. “Sure.”

“Do you ever…look back on something, and think about the worst thing that could’ve happened in that situation?”

He didn’t like to admit it, but he had. Usually in his worst moods, he’d think about how everything could’ve gone wrong. He’d usually think about everything he could’ve done better, too. “I try not to, but…sometimes, yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking about our fight a lot, lately,” John confessed, “At Ace. I used to think about it a lot when I got recommitted, but… You started visiting me,” he said softly, a light smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You remember when I told you I thought I’d messed things up for us?”

“Yeah.” It was Bruce’s first visit to John. He never forgot the sheer hopeful joy on John’s face upon seeing him. It was practically engraved in his memory.

“Ever since I started sessions with Crane, I kept going back to that night. He always tried to weasel my worst secrets out of me,” he said with a low scowl, “but when he started using that…toxin on me… I kept…thinking about what could have happened back there. I… I know I almost killed you.”

The sheer pain reading in John’s eyes was enough to make Bruce want to wrap his arms around him. It was beautiful and raw and honest, and Bruce found himself holding stock still, almost captivated by the expression.

“I kept seeing it. Over and over – it was like I could see myself throwing you over the railing or-or stabbing you, or...” Bruce saw tears welling up as John clenched the pillow between them. “I don’t want to come close to that again, Bruce,” he managed to say, his voice starting to hitch. “I don’t… I don’t want to kill you.”

Bruce threw his pride away and grabbed John’s hand in his. “You won’t.”

“You…you don’t know that,” John said with a light sob. “If…if I…go back to how I was… If I mess up...”

Bruce squeezed his hand, feeling the soft skin twitch under his fingertips. “I won’t pretend you’re perfect,” he said, honesty seeping through every word, “but I know you, John. I know you’re not going after Crane out of revenge, like you did with Waller. You reached out to me for help – but you were already trying to find a way to stop him without resorting to just stabbing him with the nearest shiv.”

John sniffed, a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth like he was almost smiling. “Yeah…”

“So you’re not the same person you were then, are you?” He soothed with a supportive smile. “Even if you feel you are going backward, I know it won’t be to that same point.”

“Maybe…” he said with another sniff, looking more serious. “But Bruce, you know there are things I can’t ever really stop, right? The auditory psychosis is pretty much going to stay with me the rest of my life,” he started, clutching Bruce’s hand back, “and I’m not going to lie here and pretend my pulse wasn’t pounding a mile a minute when we were fighting those mobsters out there.” He sported a small knowing grin at him. “You know what that’s like, though, don’t you…”

(Yes, he did.)

“…you know what’s funny? I used to think one bad day could turn a person completely upside down.” John managed to stroke his thumb against Bruce’s knuckle, sending a little shiver over the skin, and Bruce wondered if John knew how incredibly intimate that gesture felt as he stared softly at him from the pillow. “Especially after Waller came to town… But…I never really thought things could go back up after it. I guess it just…takes a while.”

Bruce knew there was something right in John’s line of thinking. It only took one day to turn his life on its head, and he felt he knew, despite John having no memory of his life before Arkham, that something similar had happened to him. “Well…they say time heals all wounds.”

“How much passed before yours started to heal?”

He almost didn’t want to answer. The truth was that he wasn’t sure at all if he was ever going to fully heal, despite knowing what his parent’s really were. Maybe it was because he knew the terrible truth about them that they wouldn’t ever heal right. Maybe he’d always have that miserable note in the background of his life.

“…I’m still healing.”

“I didn’t say you stopped, buddy,” John chuckled with a knowing look. “Still…got good days and bad days, huh?”

“Feels like it, yeah.” Today…was definitely more of a mixed day. Looking at John across from him, though, all honest and open, and thinking back to how it felt to fight alongside him again, and investigate with him, with that warmth and instant familiar comfort between that never faded away, he almost felt like he wanted to call it a good day. “Today might have tilted things right-side up.”

John laughed, a genuine, humored one that was almost infectious. “Now I know I’m rubbing off on you; that sounds like something I’d say!”

John slipped his hand away and turned to lie on his back, still chuckling to himself. The warmth still burned in Bruce’s palm, and he found himself reluctant to pull his hand away at all.

John turned to him once more, an all-too-familiar affection shimmering brightly in the green depths. It pulled Bruce in and made him feel like he should inch close enough to feel the warmth and security it promised. “’Night, Bruce.”

“Goodnight, John.”

John turned over, leaving Bruce to stare at the bruises forming on his shoulders. There was the terrible temptation in his hands to shove the pillow between them aside and wrap his arm around the man’s middle so he could lean into that pale, battered back and bury his face in a head of soft, green hair.

There was a worse urge, one so vivid it almost made Bruce’s head spin – he could just reach out and touch the bruises, feather-light, and trail his fingertips down the curve of spine until it arched with a pleased shudder, and Bruce could follow that trail with his mouth as far as John would let him.

Bruce turned his head away, the memory of John’s lips on his coming to the front of his mind, and he shut out the mental image of repeating that kiss right then and there, telling himself that he really shouldn’t feel that way towards someone who desperately needed support, nor to his best friend who he’d left scarred in more ways than one, and certainly not someone who was both.

It had been a long time since Bruce shared a bed with someone, and far, far longer when he shared one with someone he didn’t have sex with.

He hoped that was all it was. Just the bed’s memory getting to him, and nothing else…

Notes:  Super-sexy-plant-person-in-her-late-twenties Ivy is OUT. Cougar-aged-mobster-botanist Ivy is IN! >:) 

I really wanted a different Ivy. I’m tired of the young, uber-sexy walking plant-human-hybrid that’s immune to all toxins and diseases; plants get diseases, too, and she’s so plant-like she should have some kind of physical humanizing weakness! It’s much more interesting to have a human who’s just built up an immunity and uses her babies for weapons and business; I kept her serious environmentalist trait, though, because while I dislike the anti-hero thing she’s got going on lately and would love to see her as a straight-up villain again, we do have to relate to her somehow, and her love of nature is always going to be a good part of her. Since Harley’s older, too, I figured it would be alright if they had a ten-year gap between them, so when Pam eventually goes to Black Gate one day, they’ll be pals. ;)

And Bruce you complete fool!!!! You should’ve kissed him!!!  Why do you do this to yourseellllfff? D:

I'm sorry it took so long, but as you can tell, I had a lot to work on, and I’m doing my best to write the next chapter as quickly as I can while this nutty energy in my brain is still fresh. I’m trying to keep with my weekly schedule, but I hope you guys are okay with having a gap day, as appears to be the habit now. ( ._. ) I mean, no one yells at me or anything for being late, but I aim to please with my work, and part of that is being consistent. 

I shall continue to try my hardest! (*｀へ´*) 彡3 See you next weekend!!!