could you write a fic where curt gets captured and owen goes absolutely feral trying to get him back? i need angst :D
I will absolutely write that, I think both of us need Owen to go a little apeshit for a while 👀 remember the movie Taken? "I will hunt you down. And I will kill you." ?? Yeah...
Oh yeah, and I 100% used the same case that was referenced in the panic attack prompt because I fell short of ideas, so essentially I'm creating one large cinematic universe worth of ficlets (/j) and this is set about five months before that panic attack
Cynthia Houston called. Cynthia Houston— head supervisor of the American Secret Service— had personally called Owen Carvour— very much not American operative of the British Military Intelligence— with three words on her mind that changed the state of his mental state immediately.
Curt's been compromised.
That was all she'd said before Owen's heart started pounding in his ears.
"What do you mean, he's compromised?" Owen had asked, but he knew. There were a limited number of ways that this could go. One of them compromised him too, and forced his hand. He wasn't so afraid of that option anymore. He'd spent that long preparing for it that he knew the exact reaction to it, and exactly what he was supposed to do.
The other one was dangerous, and meant that Curt's life was in jeopardy. That wouldn't be a matter of concern for another agency under any other circumstance, but Cynthia was able to pull strings, to get him involved in matters that he had no right to even know about. If she wanted him for a particular mission, then there was a very good chance that he was going to be on that mission.
He braced himself subtly, waiting for Cynthia to tell him to start making preparations to run for a long time, or for her to tell him where she needed him in the next few hours.
"Captured. For once, he didn't expose himself, but all the same, he got caught… I think you might be familiar with the case load?"
Owen's jaw clenched tight. Part of him was relieved, but this was the dangerous option, and that meant he didn't have the space to be relieved. "Tell me."
"There's a group of arms dealers led by a man they call Jenner, you know him?"
"Yes. Yes, I know of him and his little organisation. Do you have anything on where he's based?" He knew that Cynthia had more sense than to tell him information like that over a telephone line, but he also knew that he didn't care when he got the information, so long as he got it. It was more than clear that she wanted him on the ground to help them find him, or bring him back, so he knew he was going to get what he needed at some point. She'd likely pass him off to someone else with the intel, and he'd have to fill in the gaps from whichever debrief he was given.
"Always so efficient… you know I'm not gonna tell you that. Not here."
"I thought as much."
"But, make it to Manhattan, Agent, and there will be someone dockside to meet you… Say, tomorrow morning?"
Owen wrote that down on the notepad next to the phone. Tomorrow morning. January 7th. He was expected at the Manhattan harbour, presumably by someone who was supposed to blend in with the crowd. "Tomorrow morning. I'll be there."
Cynthia sighed, then. Owen had a one track mind, it was notoriously hard to pull from focus. Knowing him, he wouldn't stop until Curt was on safe ground once again, no matter how long he worked or what it took out of him. That likely included whatever journey was going to happen that night. He knew about the stakes now, there was truly going to be no stopping him. "Oh, and Owen?"
Owen stopped, briefly taken off guard by hearing Cynthia call him by anything other than a formal title. Of course, she knew his name, she just never used it. What was with the sudden drop in formality? Was this her way of going off the record? If it was, what the hell else should he be expecting out of this mission?
"… Yes?"
"We need you at your best. And I know you have a tendency to… Overthink. Take it as easy as you can tonight… We need you prepared for tomorrow… Curt has a habit of being fine. You know that as well as I do."
"Michael Jenner is a dangerous man, Miss Houston. There's no telling what he could do in an hour, let alone overnight!"
"I'm not telling you not to think about it, I'm just saying, we're gathering intel as we speak, so… Try not to do anything stupid before you get here."
"I understand…" He resigned, drawing in a breath. "Tomorrow, then."
Needless to say, with the stress of everything currently piled in his mind, and the long journey to New York, he didn't sleep all that well. Cynthia had said she wanted to see him at his best, but all things considered, she wasn't exactly going to get him at his worst... By the time he reached New York, he was tired, and he'd managed to think about the scenario enough to really piss himself off, so Cynthia's informant found him in a state so far beyond riled that he was almost serene, and wired on the first cup of coffee he could get his hands on.
"So, you're Agent Owen Carvour... I've heard a lot about you."
"Is that so?" Owen raised an eyebrow, finishing off his coffee. That was strong enough to get him by, he supposed he'd be a little more in control of himself now that he felt less like his mind was trying to betray him for being too slow. If Curt turns up dead, this is on you. The Americans made sure the blood was on your hands, no getting out of it now.
"Mhm. Word is that you're quite the operative... If what they're saying is right, then I dare say I should be impressed."
Owen just hummed in response, having only caught about half of what had just been said on the grounds that he simply could not focus on anything that wasn't the outcome of this mission, or the the crushing weight on the inside of his chest that demanded he get on with it. He was both eager to get to the point, and eager not to find out what the Americans were saying about him. Thanks to Curt, most of it was probably complimentary, but either way, he didn't want to take his chances. "You know why I'm here, don't you?"
"Sure, you're here to help us with Mega... Cynthia tells me you already know the guy at fault?" The informant watched Owen nod, then produce a well broken in notebook from his pocket and lean back against the harbour wall. They'd told him to expect a man who was spectacularly prepared for any eventuality, and judging by the notes written on the page he could see, Owen fit that description down to the letter.
"Jenner, yes. I've been on a case of his before. I didn't fully intend on making him my business again, but what can you do?" To tell the truth, Owen was nervous, but desperate not to let it show. The longer he stayed here, the less time he had before things reached a critical point with Curt. But, the last thing he was going to admit was that he was afraid of the outcome of the mission. He was a professional, and professionals didn't so much as think of the word fear, least of all not on the job.
"He's gotten himself a full team, by the sounds of things. Mega reported at least half a dozen bruisers. Real heavyweights, not to mention the number of specialists he's likely got under his belt."
"Specialists as in..?"
"Arms, explosives... You name it, really."
That seemed to ring some bells. Owen could recall Jenner being the mastermind behind some millions of dollars in transactions involving something of that caliber. And since then, he had grown something of a small empire, which seemed to only be growing by the second. "Where are the likes of him based without anyone noticing the massive transactions passing from hand to hand?"
"That's the thing, isn't it, Agent? Not to be based in one place..."
"In an arms race of this size, it's only logical..." Owen answered automatically, tapping his pen against the notebook spirals. This state of serenity beyond the rage was starting to beome dangerous in itself. He felt like a badly fused explosive, programmed to explode at an entirely random interval between now and the foreseeable.
"Alright then, I'll specify. Where was Curt? And where is he now?"
"Mega's assignment was in Stamford, Conneticut. We don't have any reason to believe he's anywhere different now..."
Owen nodded, making a note of that, and reminding himself that Manhattan was suddenly a very convenient place because Conneticut wasn't actually that far away. He hadn't been told of anyone who was going to be joining him, and that led him to the all too fair assumption that Cynthia had sent him and him alone. Part of him wondered why; his business wasn't in American affairs. He was a British operative, and he'd turned down the offer of working for the American Secret Service before, on the grounds that it may well border on treasonous. He was still sure of that fact, knowing that he betrayed his country for the sake of taking up what may have frankly been a better and more convenient offer was not worth his life, that much he was sure of.
But, the other part of him realised that Cynthia probably had him on such a direct line of contact for a good reason, and it may not have had so much to do with the fact that he was talented enough to catch her eye. At the end of the day, she could near enough do whatever she wanted, and that may have included protecting the secrets of one of her best agents for the sake of not letting him go on a technicallity like that.
Did she know? He had to wonder… Did it make sense for her to know and to still trust the pair of them as much as she did? What they were doing could cost them way more than just their jobs if they were found out by the right people, and yet she seemed to be aware of their closeness. If she wasn't, he was convinced that he would've never known that Curt got captured, not unless he saw him in person and had to work through the mess inside his mind to get to what really happened.
No matter whether Cynthia knew and was actively protecting his secret by proxy of Curt, she had called him in for a job, and it was a job that he was going to do.
Just as he suspected, the journey to Conneticut didn't take him long. Manhattan was the most convenient location because apparently, there was a substation in the harbour that few people actually knew about, where a small team of field scientists were waiting to kit him with a communications wire and walk him through a map of the block they'd managed to narrow it down to. When Curt's signal was corrupted, they had no way of telling which way he went, but they were confident that, should he have stayed in the facility, that block would be within the margin of error.
One of the scientists had promised to keep him updated through the wire, to let him know when he was in range, and he in turn had promised to make this as swift a job as he could manage.
It was the least he could do. Especially since his nerves wouldn't leave him alone, and especially since he was practically being dragged towards saving Curt as fast as possible, on the grounds that he didn't know how his fragile, ticking bomb state of mind would react if he saw him even vaguely injured.
"I've reached the block, I believe. Just off Third, at the intersection." He looked around. There wasn't an awful lot going on that wasn't perfectly within the norm. for a while, he was going to be going about some kind of life too, looking like he didn't have the full intention to flip the kill switch.
"The crossroads?"
"I'm at a crossroads, yes."
"Which way are you facing?"
"I'm on the corner of Mayberry and Third, that's what's in front of me, at least…"
He could feel the fuse on the locked box of his half-suppressed rage fizzling to a dangerous point. He was getting closer, and that meant that he was getting closer to being able to take this storm of righteous anger out on whoever dared to get in the way. It wasn't called a license to kill for no reason, and it came equipped with all of the repercussions already taken care of. All that meant for him was that he could get away with giving Curt a little bit of justice. It would look like they got in the way of his mission, or that he was pursued… Depending on how well organised it was, and how he executed his arrival.
As the scientist started giving him directions, he took a breath. Not yet. Not yet… Prevalent justice would have to wait for a few minutes, until he was no longer public facing. There was a pistol in the inner pocket of his jacket, he could feel it against his side, with the spare clips sitting on the other side, the exact same reach away from his seemingly eager grasp.
That fuse blew when he was alone, when he was wandering the corridors of the facility, looking for anything that might class as a sign or some kind of pointer towards Curt. Instinct told him to get lower, to find sub-floors and basements that facilities like this wouldn't want exposing to the public eye. Upon descending the sirst flight of stairs, he heard a scream that was clearly a long time in the making. The way it echoed through the corridor made him stop in his tracks, and it was in that exact moment that the box blew open and everything exploded onto the outside.
Red tinged rage flooded his senses. He knew that tone well, though it wasn't so often that he heard him so distressed. Curt was good at keeping face under pressure or interrogation, it was one of the things he definitely gave himself credit for, and one of the things that he definitely deserved to do so for. Owen knew that he was more than capable of giving his adversaries as much shit as they gave to him, and also being so cosmically annoying that they have no choice but to make things harder for him…. It was really one of those situations that could go either way…
Curt— if he was right in trusting his instincts and believing that he'd found him— had broken. That meant that he was injured beyond comprehension, and part of that thought was what tipped him over to the side of unfiltered rage. After that, it was a flash of knowing what needed to be done, and knowing how to do it. His pace quickened, his breath sturdy, his mind focused… Owen was unshakable, and definitely no cause for competition. Those who were unfortunate enough to get in his way found themselves gravely injured at the hands of his aim, even those who thought themselves lucky enough to have escaped him by running down the corridor.
He stopped at nothing and nobody; there was not one obstacle that could get in the way of a man like him, on a mission like this.
It took an apparent maze of corridors before he managed to break open a door that led him directly to the one thing that made this whole thing worth it. Heaving a breath as he scanned the room, he finally— finally— laid eyes on the man who had been inadvertently guiding him towards his location the longer he was in pain.
Curt.
And he was a mess. Blood poured from his temple down the side of his face, and there was a sizeable gash running his shoulder and tearing the fabric of his shirt. He looked up when the door was thrown open, and his eyes went wide. He tried to fight showing how relieved he was, but it was hard to do that when his face was such an open book, when he was so relieved to see his partner.
Owen made a signal— a sign that all of this would be over in a matter of minutes— and levelled his pistol. One breath, and the man closest to Curt had fallen, a crimson river pouring from his forehead. Another, and the man advancing on him had fallen victim to a couple of sizeable holes to the chest in quick succession. A third, and Owen had stolen a knife from one of the fallen, and he was looking for the best angle to break Curt's ties so they could leave as fast as possible.
The knife didn't make easy work of the thick cord keeping Curt in place, but Owen found a good angle as he crouched closer to the ground, and managed to get Curt free before anyone else found out he was there.
His breath came out shallow, he was clawing at the last scraps of the rage, fighting not to let it subside into concern too early. But, on the other hand, the concern was justified too, because every time his gaze darted over Curt, he saw something else worth noting. Now was not the time to think about that, not until there was a solid guarantee that they could both get out of there safe, and there was a clear window for curt to get back to his agency.
"Can you stand?" He asked, as softly as he could manage it.
Curt nodded initially, but then realised how much he had been overestimating his own abilities, when he actually tried to stand and Owen had to rush to his side to stop him collapsing. Tear tracks stained his cheeks, Owen could see them from this close. It gave just enough of a spark to that slight of fury that he had left, just enough to seep in a deep desire to see this place— and by extension, Michael Jenner— crumble until there was nothing left of it.
"How'd you… How'd you know?" Curt asked, looking up at him as they trailed the corridor Owen had come in through backwards.
"You wouldn't believe this, but Cynthia called me."
"Wait, seriously?"
Owen nodded. "Apparently I can be useful when I want to be."
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Genuinely don't think I've seen anyone talk about chapter 25 as a pivotal moment for Dazai so I'm gonna put this out here because I think his reactions here kind of negate that whole omnipotent Dazai interpretation which I hate with every fibre of my being.
Firstly, he's like, clearly caught off guard here. And don't try to tell me he wasn't, because this is just one instance of his genuinely horrified reaction to Q's release and when he realized what was actually going on with Atsushi, Naomi and Haruno.
Him being caught off guard carries significance here because you'd never catch him screwing up this bad later in the series - which is exactly my point.
I wrote a post earlier about how I don't think Dazai really is very much like Mori or Fyodor at all, and I stand by that, because their motives are different. Tldr for that post: Mori and Fyodor are ambitious and proactive, while Dazai is empty/numb and reactive.
What this leads me to believe is that Dazai is less a chess master like those two and more of a contingency planner - he's so good at "predicting" because he is uncannily good at thinking like his opponent and then planning for literally any possibility under the sun he can come up with. He's no gambler. Everything and everyone is practically (and unknowingly) micromanaged. It's almost paranoid in a sense, and I definitely think it's a trauma response to something he went through that we don't know about yet - after all, he was more than capable of this before he even met Mori.
...which brings to me to Mori's influence here. It's straight up like Dazai forgot how willing Mori is to gamble huge risks for a good outcome. It's like he forgot the mafia could be a real threat to his best-laid plans.
Going to throw out a wild claim here that I don't think is actually all that baseless - I think it's widely assumed that Dazai molds himself to what he needs to be (true!) but I think this misses the idea that he is also easily influenced by the mindsets of the people around him (see: the difference between Entrance Exam Dazai and early manga Dazai, the whole "the longer he was in the mafia the darker and more incomprehensible he became" thing from Stormbringer, how dark his eyes get in the prison sections with Fyodor, etc.). I could go on, but for the sake of not making this post too much longer, let's assume this is true because it suddenly makes sense as to why he failed to predict Q but predicted other events much later that were inherently more difficult to predict:
He was in the wrong mindset. He was thinking like an Agency member, and dare I say, he even got a little complacent. He started to get used to not having to manipulate every last variable - he was removed from a toxic environment - only for Mori to pretty much instantly fuck that up in one scene.
Let's also not forget what happened the last time he miscalculated Mori's intentions.
The consequences of this blunder could've been a lot worse and he knows it.
In his mind, thinking like an ADA member wasn't good enough to stop a potentially awful outcome - awful outcomes that could bring him pain. So, he goes back to what he knows - think like the demon prodigy. Think like Mori. Later on, think like Dostoyevsky. Because it seems to me that he believes as long as he is still working for the light that it doesn't matter if he uses these horrifically manipulative and inhumane methods of getting there. But he is wrong. Darkness within the context of good intentions is still very much darkness, and it hurts people all the same.
In the very next chapter, Dazai arranges Ango's car accident. And he only gets worse and worse throughout the series as he regresses back into his paranoid darkness that manifests as this omnipotent facade - his safety net that ultimately prevents him from developing in a positive, more human direction.
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If the Graveyard kids were demigods, which Greek god would they be the child of? (Riodanverse AU)
For Ashlyn, I believe she would just be another of Apollo's kids, keeping to herself most of the time. Nobody really paid her any mind because out of the dozens of Apollo kids, there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about her. She wasn't the Head Counsellor or anything. She liked it that way. Ashlyn discovered she was a demigod when she was young and spent two full years at the camp to fully prepare for living as a demigod in the mortal world before becoming a summer-only kid. Her sensitivity to sound is one of the strange abilities she inherited but isn't fully able to control, which is why she wears enchanted earplugs that keep sounds at a more tolerable level. Beyond that, she was a pretty average Apollo kid. She was good at the basics like Archery and Music but not beyond that of a normal Apollo kid. The only thing that really stood out was her dancing. It was her special interest, incorporating it into her daily life as a demi-god as often as she could. Her fighting style was based on ballet in canon and she preferred fighting with her legs over her hands--even going as far as putting a weapon in her shoes so she could still use her legs to attack. So she is an average demigod overall. Until one day she discovers that she was one of the few to inherit Apollo's nosokinesis, the ability to create and control diseases (like her ability to open rifts and trap people in them in canon). There's also the fact that her name literally means 'dream' or 'vision', so considering the fact that Apollo is literally the god of prophecy, I think being a child of Apollo fits her very well.
For Logan, I feel that for a long time, he would just be another unclaimed kid. He didn't know anything about his real parents and his grandparents were always super cagey about it until he was older and got attacked by a monster and they finally took him to the camp. He still doesn't know who his biological mother was. Then one day after being pushed too far by bullies, he snapped just like in canon, and was claimed by Ares, the god of war. Much to his and Barron's (another child of Ares) dismay because what the fuck do you mean this dickhead is my half-brother?! He had initially believed that his parent was related to his love for space and astronomy or maybe even his intelligence and love for math but Ares?!
For Aiden, I think being a child of Hermes suits him best. I've done some tests and got answers like Ares or the Big Three, which I don't think those really fit him. But for some reason, I like the idea that he has the favour of/is a legacy of Hades or Hecate from his dad's side while being completely unaware of it until much later (the unexplained connection his dad has to Maverick). Children of Hermes tend to be more hyperactive than other demigods and are often referred to as a jack of all trades and I think those things really suit Aiden. When he was younger, his parents sent him to camp year round in hopes that it would help him and he came back with dyed blond hair, red eye contacts and a reckless streak a mile wide.
For Ben, I believe that this kid is and always will be a child of Apollo. His deep love and talent for singing and music, his rage and hurt at having this taken away from him. His knack for medicine despite only having experience through taking care of Aiden. He only discovered he was a demigod after his voice was destroyed so he never learned that he could heal people with his voice/singing until one of the others, maybe Taylor, were fatally injured and he had no supplies to save them so as one last attempt to comfort them, he breaks his years of silence and sings for them. To his complete astonishment, they started healing and were able to stay alive long enough to get the medical help they needed. He felt pressued to sing and use his voice after that because it could heal people but Aiden or one of the others nipped that in the bud and told him he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to. The idea of him also having premonitions when something bad is going to happen is cool, especially if it's the reason why he ends up catching little details the others fail to notice (a little nod to Canvas Ben for being so goddamn observant). His relationship with Aiden is also cute because children of Apollo and children of Hermes tend to get along, although not all of them do (Aiden and Ashlyn lol).
For Taylor and Tyler, I believe the twins would be children of Hephaestus. In some cultures, identical twins are treated as one entity/soul that was separated into two people and the same could be said about the Hernandez twins in this AU. Although they are different people with different interests and goals, that is how they are perceived as mortals. On the divine side of things, however, they are seen as a single soul split into two. That's why their connection goes far beyond that of regular mortal twins. Their abilities also reflect this. Taylor is a brilliant craftswoman and has a way with technology that separates her from the rest. She's also extremely fire-resistant, which proves to be useful considering her brother has the ability to manipulate fire. Tyler, on the other hand, has the basic skills needed to be a mechanic due to growing up with Taylor but it isn't instinctive in the same it is for Taylor. He is one of the few children of Hephaestus to have pyrokinesis, something he had to learn to master on his own because there wasn't anyone to teach him. They complete each other.
Although Aiden and Ashlyn spent a year or two in the camp, their paths never crossed and they were just another faceless person in the crowd of campers until they officially met when Ben and Aiden began to go to her high school in her sophomore year. Aiden clocked her as a demigod as soon as they met at the bus and was excited to meet another one of them outside of camp. He was also curious to know if she figured out what she was yet and if not, he could protect her from monsters and lead her to camp! Ashlyn recognized both Aiden and Ben as demigods but preferred to avoid mixing her mortal life with her mythological one so she avoided Aiden's needling to the best of her ability. When Ben finally told Aiden that she was another child of Apollo at camp, Aiden doubled down on the pestering which irritated Ashlyn beyond belief. Unfortunately for her, this wasn't the last she was going to see of him.
Mid-way through the first semester, Ashlyn received a prophecy from the Oracle stating that she and five others were to go on a quest. It was a shock to her and everyone in the camp because she was pretty unremarkable yet she was the one that had to go on the quest? It was ridiculously vague beyond the fact that she specifically had to go to Savannah with a group of five others. So she had to pick five other members for her team.
Nearly everyone tried to volunteer and because Ashlyn didn't particularly care who went along, names were drawn out of a bowl. With her luck, Aiden and Ben's names were both drawn out of the bowl, along with the Hernandez twins and Logan. She wasn't particularly happy with those chosen but she supposed it could be worse. Especially when she considered the fact she could've been going with him.
Barron was throwing a fit about how an unclaimed coward like Logan couldn't have possibly been picked but Tyler told him that no one would even want to go on a quest with him considering the only thing he cared about was glory and honour for himself.
And so, the six of them packed their things and started their journey to Savannah, Georgia where it all went to hell.
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