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calwrites · 4 years ago

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The Masked Singer (Spencer Reid x Reader)

Summary: The team has become obsessed with The Masked Singer, an extremely silly singing competition about trying to guess what celebrity is singing behind a mask. Imagine Spencer’s surprise when he hears a familiar voice.

Warnings: none (unless you count bad writing lol)

Word Count: 6.2k

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Spencer wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but it had. The team was obsessed with The Masked Singer. One morning, JJ, Prentiss, and Garcia had been talking about it before they had to brief a new case. Apparently they had found the first season online after they had too many glasses of wine and had made it through half the episodes in one night.

“It’s just trying to guess what famous person is singing while wearing a mask?” Morgan had asked. “That doesn’t sound very hard.”

“Yeah it should be obvious, but it’s not and that’s what makes it so addicting. They disguise their voices when they talk and they give you these cryptic clues about who they are.”

Emily nodded along to Penelope’s point. “Plus the judges’ guesses are everywhere, which doesn’t help.”

“Maybe you should watch, Morgan. Put those profiling skills to use,” JJ teased.

Derek was opening his mouth to respond when Hotch walked into the room. “Unfortunately, we have a case that needs our profiling skills.”

Spencer thought that would be the last of it. They spent the next few days tracking down another serial killer, and he was looking forward to relaxing on the jet on the way home. Maybe he’d read for a bit if no one wanted to play chess with him. What he wanted more than anything, though, was to be able to go home to Y/N. But he couldn’t.

His thoughts of you were interrupted by Penelope popping up on a screen. “I have a wonderful surprise for my favorite crime fighters.”

“Well don’t just tease us, baby girl,” Derek prompted when Garcia paused for dramatic effect. Instead of answering, Garcia started playing something on another screen.

“Oh there was a new episode on last night,” Emily said excitedly. “No one looked up who was unmasked, right?” After getting verbal confirmation that no one had looked up who was unmasked the previous night, Emily and JJ gave the rest of the team a short rundown of who had already been sent home.

“And people actually agree to do this?” Rossi asked in disbelief when they were done. The girls ignored him, focusing instead on the show. Rossi and Morgan shrugged at each other, but Spencer could tell that they were both a little curious about the show.

“I know Donny Osmond, and that is definitely Donny Osmond,” Rossi yelled approximately twenty minutes later. “Just look at how he walks.”

“I think it should be cheating for Rossi to guess when he might actually know some of these people,” Derek complained. Emily and JJ both nodded in agreement, so Derek turned to Hotch. “Hotch?”

“It’s cheating.” Hotch was trying to seem like he wasn’t also paying too much attention to the show, but he wasn’t doing a very good job. Rossi threw his hands up and started arguing his case, but JJ shushed him as the clues for the next performer started.

And just like that, the team had a new tradition. Garcia would play any episodes they missed when they were on the jet on the way home from a case. If they were without a case when there was a new episode, they would get together at someone’s house, usually Rossi’s, to watch it as it aired.

Emily and Derek were probably the best at guessing correctly, but Rossi sometimes had the advantage of actually knowing the celebrity behind the mask. Hotch and JJ blamed their incorrect guesses on not having time to stay up to date on celebrities because of their kids. Most of the time, Spencer didn’t even bother guessing. He had no idea who most of the celebrities were, but he enjoyed watching as the rest of the team got into trying to figure it out. Garcia had been banned from guessing after the team found out she was doing her own research. She had tried to argue that if they could use their super profiling powers, she could use her internet sleuthing powers, but the others weren’t having it.

Spencer had mentioned the show to you when you two were on the phone chatting before he went over to Rossi’s for the season 2 premiere. Curious about the show that managed to captivate and puzzle actual FBI profilers, you had decided to start watching on your own. Now, you and Spencer discussed the show whenever you had both watched the new episodes. It was nice having something new besides work to talk about. Of course, you, like Rossi, had the advantage of actually knowing some of the celebrities.

“How did you know it was Sherri Shepherd?” Spencer asked you after he got back from Rossi’s one night. “You said you knew it was her from the first time you heard her sing.”

You laughed at the frustration in your boyfriend’s voice. More than anything, you wanted to be cuddled up with him on the couch. But you were on opposite coasts, so imagining his furrowed brow would have to do. “I’ve met Sherri Shepherd. I’ve been on The View. Or did you not watch that interview?”

You were just teasing him. You knew that Spencer watched every interview you did. He was the most supportive boyfriend ever, even though you knew that some of the answers you had to give in interviews hurt him. Every time you were asked about dating, you had to give an answer like ‘No one special,’ ‘Not looking for anything right now,’ ‘Too busy to start anything.’ Truthfully, you were too busy to start a new relationship. You were constantly filming a new movie, doing press for a new movie, or getting ready for a new movie. Plus, you already had a boyfriend. Why would you want another one?

It was hard being away from Spencer so much, but you both knew that it was what was best for your career right now. You had met Spencer when you were a struggling actor who had just finished filming your first major movie. Now, you were an Oscar winner who was constantly getting offers. Spencer had told you that you needed to take advantage of those offers to really cement your place in Hollywood. You had both decided that the best way to keep each other safe, from both the media and psychopaths with grudges, was not to go public with your relationship.

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It was over three years ago. You had just finished filming in DC. Most of the cast and crew had already gone back to LA or wherever they called home, but you had decided to stay in DC for a few more days to unwind before going back to your empty apartment in New York. It was probably about time to accept the fact that you should move out to LA, but you preferred the East Coast to the West.

You wandered through a park, when a cluster of chess tables caught your eye. More specifically, one man sitting at the chess tables. He looked to be about your age, but what made you watch him was the way he was playing three games at once. And winning them all. When the games were over, his opponents all grumbled as they walked away, leaving the man looking at the boards almost sadly.

You knew how to play chess, but you wouldn’t say that you were great. Still, you had to talk to this guy. So you sat down across from him, startling him as he replaced all of the pieces to their starting positions. He blinked at you in surprise instead of saying anything, so you took the lead, moving a pawn out first.

The two of you played in silence for a few turns. You smiled every time you caught him looking at you, and he blushed every time he was caught. He was cute. You quickly realized that you had no chance of winning, so you abandoned any sort of strategy and began moving pieces at random. You watched as he became more and more confused at your moves.

“It’s going to be a tie,” he said finally. His voice was lovely. “I mean, I could still win, but looking at our moves throughout the game, it seems most likely that it’s going to be a tie.”

“Is there any way I could win?” Truthfully, you hadn’t even been expecting a tie, but you wanted him to keep talking.

He shook his head. “No. You actually had a decent chance of winning until I took your rook four turns ago. If you had moved your queen instead, then I would have had to move my knight, leaving my king open to check.”

You blinked at the man for a moment. “Do you remember every move we made?”

He nodded shyly. “I have an eidetic memory.” You had no idea what that was, but it sounded impressive. At your blank look, he launched into an explanation of an eidetic memory and how it was different from a photographic memory. You weren’t really sure what he was saying, but you liked listening to him.

“So, it’s probably going to be a draw,” he finished shyly, painfully aware that he had just spent way too long explaining something to you that he hadn’t asked him to explain. To his surprise, you grinned at him, taking his breath away.

“Well, I was going to say that if I win you have to tell me your name, and if you win I have to tell you my name. Since it’s a draw, I guess we’ll both have to tell each other our names. I’m Y/N.” You stuck out your hand, but he looked at it awkwardly.

“Considering how many pathogens are passed during a handshake, it’s actually safer to kiss. I’m Spencer,” he continued quickly as a blush spread across your cheeks.

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Spencer. Honestly, I feel a little bit like I cheated. I started moving pieces randomly after about three turns.” Spencer looked shocked at your admission before he started laughing. “To make it up to you, can I buy you dinner tonight?” You were a little shocked at your own confidence, but thankfully Spencer seemed to like it.

“Only if I can buy you a coffee now.” You had agreed, obviously. The two of you spent the rest of the day together, getting to know each other. By dinner, it was like you had known each other forever. You had stayed in touch when you had to go back to New York. Spencer didn’t have a lot of free time, but you didn’t have any jobs at the moment, so you went down to DC whenever possible.

You and Spencer had only been officially dating for two weeks when your movie premiered. You weren’t ready for the media to scrutinize you two, and Spencer wasn’t ready for his coworkers to profile you, so you had agreed to keep your relationship on the down low.

Then you name blew up. The reviews for your movie, and your performance in particular, were glowing. People started suggesting an Oscar nomination for you. You started getting offers for roles your couldn’t refuse. So you packed up your life in New York and moved out to LA. You and Spencer talked all the time. He had even started texting you. Plus, you flew to DC whenever possible to be with him, even if it was just for a few hours. But it was still hard for you two to be apart for so long.

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The season premiere of Masked Singer is tonight. Maybe you guys can watch it on the plane.

Spencer read your message and smiled. You knew it had been a tough case without him even having to say it. Sometimes he thought you could read his mind. You had a way of always knowing what he needed, even when he didn’t know.

A new season of their favorite show was just what the team needed. Spencer sent a quick text to Penelope to ask if it was possible for them to watch the show on the jet as it aired. She had responded not to underestimate her, which worried Spencer slightly.

The team sat in silence for a few minutes, the engine the only sound, until the screens came to life and the opening for The Masked Singer appeared. “I forgot this was coming back tonight,” JJ sighed in relief as the rest of the team smiled at the show. They settled in, ready to start trying to profile the celebrities in wacky costumes.

“And now, our very own royal contestant: The Queen,” the host said as a new clue package began to play. Spencer stiffened as The Queen began to talk. Despite the voice modification, Spencer could recognize the way you spoke. Your word choice. Your cadence. Even the way you walked onto the stage. Everything screamed Y/N. Spencer couldn’t help but smile at the mask you had chosen. It was like the top of the queen chess piece. Not the mention the tight white costume looked great on you. What would really confirm Spencer’s theory was your singing, so he waited with baited breath and hoped no one on the plane would notice his sudden heightened interest.

“If I should stay, I would only be in your way.” Spencer’s breath caught.

“Aww. Whitney,” Derek exclaimed. The rest of the team joined in with similar comments of surprise and joy as the music joined your voice on screen, but Spencer was too focused on you to notice them.

As he watched, it was like the cape on your shoulders turned into the blanket he kept on his couch that you had wrapped around yourself. The microphone became a spatula that you held to you mouth instead of using it to flip the pancakes, belting this very song much to his neighbors’ annoyance. It was a scene he was used to, having seen it many times.

“That was amazing. There’s no way you’re not winning this season. But I have no idea who you are,” one judge said when you were done. The other judges echoed similar thoughts before they all started throwing around some possible names. Spencer smiled to himself as his teammates were similarly confused. No one mentioned your name. And they probably never would.

You were very insecure about your singing voice, though Spencer often told you that you shouldn’t be. However, you never even mentioned singing in any interviews, and you didn’t sing in front of anyone that wasn’t Spencer.

“So what brought you onto The Masked Singer?” one judge asked.

“I’m actually a big fan of the show, but the real reason was because it’s my boyfriend’s favorite show. I wanted to surprise him.” Your voice shook nervously as you spoke. Spencer couldn’t tell if it was because you had stage fright or because you had publicly announced that you had a boyfriend for the first time. Not that anyone knew it was you. You and Spencer had been talking about going public with your relationship for a few months now, but you had both always found reasons to keep putting it off. Spencer knew what you were doing. Once you were unmasked, you would have to acknowledge that you had a boyfriend.

Of course, some part of Spencer’s mind reminded him that all of this was filmed in advance. There were people somewhere who knew that you were The Queen and that you had a boyfriend. Spencer just hoped that the NDAs that they had signed were enough to keep that from getting out before the episode aired. Not that he had time to worry about that. You were still talking to the judges.

“Do you think he’s going to be surprised when you’re unmasked eventually? Not that that’s going to happen any time soon.”

“Definitely not. He probably knew it was me the minute I walked on the stage. Plus, he has to hear me sing all the time when I’m home.” It made Spencer’s heart soar hearing you refer to his little apartment as home. You spent more time in your Beverly Hills house than his apartment, but whenever you talked about going home, Spencer knew you were talking about getting back to DC. Getting back to him.

As the rest of the team continued to discuss guesses about your identity, Spencer pulled out his phone to text you.

The Queen sounded amazing.

Spencer knew that, wherever you were, you would smile when you read that text.

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Pretty soon, the new episodes of The Masked Singer were the highlight of Spencer’s week. He was always antsy when they couldn’t watch an episode when it aired, desperate to make sure that you hadn’t been eliminated yet. He loved watching as your confidence in your voice and you stage presence grew.

Surprisingly, it was after you did a cover of Heart of Glass by Blondie that the switch flipped. Spencer could pinpoint the moment it happened. Your performance became electric and there seemed to be a pull, even in the jet, that drew everyone to you.

Spencer had seen it happen before. About a year after you had started dating, you and Spencer had met up in New York for a weekend. Spencer was in awe of the way you managed to seem completely normal, allowing the eyes of all the tourists to slide right over you, despite the fact that your face was on a billboard in Times Square.

The two of you were eating lunch in a pizza restaurant. Spencer had wanted to do research to find the best place to eat, but you had pulled him into a random place. Although he hated to admit it, the pizza was really good.

It was easy to hear the conversation of the two girls, high school students if Spencer had to guess, in the nearly empty restaurant. Spencer saw the look of joy on your face when you realized that the girls were talking about your movie. You both had to smile that they were now talking about how obsessed they were with you when they had walked past you a minute ago without even realizing it.

You looked at your boyfriend with an unspoken question in your eye. Spencer nodded his head at the girls, letting you know that he didn’t mind if you went over to talk to them. As you stood up, it was like the air around you changed. There was no difference in the way you held yourself. If Spencer believed in things like vibes, he would have said that you just started giving off a different vibe. Suddenly, everyone’s eyes were on you.

You spoke to the girls for a few minutes before taking some pictures with them and returning to your table. You seemed unaware of the effect you had on everyone, but Spencer couldn’t shake a strange feeling. It was like for the first time he had seen Y/N Y/L/N instead of his girlfriend Y/N. When you finally got Spencer to tell you what was bothering him later that night, you had confided in him that you often felt intimidated when he talked about his job.

The two of you had grown past that as your relationship went on, but it was strange seeing the effect that you had on his friends.

The closest he got to spilling your secret was the next week. As you got closer to the finale, the competition began heating up. In an effort to prove that you were more than just a good voice, you had chosen 1,2 Step, complete with your own twist on the iconic, according to you since Spencer didn’t really know, choreography from the music video.

“She has some serious stamina,” Emily commented as you got through the rap flawlessly despite all of the dancing you were doing. Spencer knew all about your stamina.

“And look at how her body moves. She can dance.” Spencer’s fist clenched at Derek’s comment. He knew that Derek didn’t mean anything by it. Your body moved fluidly through the dance. It was easy to see in the tight costume you wore. But something seemed to burn inside Spencer as he watched Derek watch you. He wanted nothing more than to tell Derek that last weekend he had used his stamina to keep you up until the early hours of the morning.

But Spencer stopped himself. You had said that you had a plan for telling people about your relationship. He just had to wait for you to put that plan into motion.

The judges were still clueless about your true identity, though Spencer still thought that all of the clues should have made it extremely obvious. Still, it was amusing listening to their guesses.

“I think-no, I know who this is.” Spencer settled in, ready to hear Ken Jeong’s latest wild guess. Last week he had been sure that you were Leona Lewis and the week before it was Mariah Carey. “This is Y/N Y/L/N.”

Spencer tried not to react as everyone in the jet, and on the screen, shook their heads at Ken’s guess.

“Y/N doesn’t sing,” one judge told Ken as another said, “Y/N’s not a singer. No way.”

“But Y/N won an Oscar for her role as a queen. Plus, and stay with me here, in the clue package we’ve seen things about agents. She has an agent, who gets her roles and probably got her on this show, so welcome to the show Y/N Y/L/N.”

“The Queen is in a long term relationship, and Y/N isn’t dating anyone,” one judge pointed out. The other two judges nodded along, so Ken gave up his fight. Spencer realized that, if anything, Ken guessing it was you would convince people that it couldn’t possibly be you.

“Hey, Spence, didn’t you have a little celebrity crush on Y/N Y/L/N?” JJ asked as the commercials started. The rest of the team turned to look at him. Spencer tried to hide his blush, but the smirk on Derek’s face told him it wasn’t working.

“Yeah,” Emily continued, “You go to see all of her movies. Multiple times.”

Spencer tried to shrug nonchalantly. “I just think Y/N is a good actor.” Luckily, the team soon lost interest in teasing Spencer, so he could focus on texting you about your performance.

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“Thank goodness we finished in time to catch it.” Everyone nodded in agreement to Emily’s statement. They had just finished another case earlier that day and had made it to the jet in time to watch the finale as it aired. The team settled into their seats and quickly began sorting out their bets about who was who and who would win.

“Reid, you want in?” Rossi asked. So far, Spencer had abstained from all of the betting about the show they did. But now he wanted to have a little fun with his team.

“I think The Queen will win.” Most people nodded. That was a popular opinion. “And I think The Queen is Y/N Y/L/N.”

“Oh c’mon, kid. You’re just as bad as Ken,” Derek complained, but he was smiling. Spencer felt slightly guilty. He knew that he was at least partially right. He had been tempted to ask you whether you win, but held himself back. There was no doubt that you signed some NDAs, so you really weren’t supposed to tell him.

Spencer had a hard time caring about the other performances. He was looking forward to hearing you again and to seeing the faces of his friends when he was right about your identity. Finally, the other two finalists had gone and it was your turn. Unsurprisingly, your performance was amazing. The best of the night in Spencer’s slightly biased opinion.

Spencer was so relieved when third place was announced and it wasn’t you. Some celebrity he didn’t know took their mask off. There was some exchanging of money among his friends. But then it was time to announce the winner.

“And so, the winner of this season of The Masked Singer, who will go home today with The Golden Mask trophy is,” the host paused for dramatic effect. Spencer had to remind himself to breathe. “The Queen!”

Spencer breathed a sigh of relief as he watched you jump up and down onstage before being ushered to a throne where you would watch the runner up take off their mask. It was another celebrity Spencer didn’t know and didn’t care about.

“I guessed Miley Cyrus when you sang Jolene a few episodes ago. I don’t think that’s right, but it’s the best guess I have, so I’ll go with Miley,” one judge said when it was time for their final guesses. This was it. You were about to be unmasked. Spencer wasn’t quite sure why he was so nervous. You had won! And he already knew that it was you under the mask.

The other three judges threw out their final guesses, but no one was very sure of themselves. Except Ken, who confidently said, “It’s gotta be Michelle Obama,” earning lots of laughs from everyone watching.

“Well, let’s see who it is. Take it off. Take it off.” The host started the chant, which the audience and judges quickly took off as you pretended to struggle to take off your mask. Spencer found himself joining in with the rest of the team as they chanted too.

And finally, you removed your mask and Spencer could see your beautiful face. As great as you looked standing on the stage with your hair and makeup perfectly done, Spencer couldn’t wait until you were back home in a week and he could see you huddled on the couch wearing pajamas.

Chaos erupted, both on the screen and on the plane. It seemed like no one could believe that it was you. The rest of the team was too busy yelling in shock that they didn’t notice the look of absolute adoration Spencer was giving you.

“This might have been the most shocking reveal in Masked Singer history,” the host said into his microphone as the judges and audience began to calm down. “I mean, no one even knew you sing, Y/N. Why did you decide to come on The Masked Singer?”

You laughed uneasily into the microphone. Spencer could tell that you were feeling equal amounts of joy and nervousness. It was understandable, he thought. You had just won a singing competition despite having never sang in public before.

“I’ve always loved to sing, but I’ve never had much confidence in my voice. I’d love more than anything to be in a big movie musical. I guess I was hoping that this would be a good place to build my confidence.”

“You have an absolutely amazing voice,” one judge said. You ducked your head shyly, smiling slightly at the ground before looking back up at the judges. “I think after people see your performances you’ll have no problem doing a musical. I mean, you tackled so many different genres, and you sounded amazing doing all of them.”

You thanked the judge before turning to the others. A smile remained on your lips as they all congratulated you, but Spencer could tell from the way you kept shifting your weight that you were uncomfortable with all of the attention.

“Wait so you said that one reason you did this show was that it’s your boyfriend’s favorite show?” Spencer’s heart fluttered as he watched your smile grow at the mention of him. “That really threw me. I didn’t know you were dating anyone.” The other judges agreed.

“Yeah my boyfriend and I have been together for over two years. We’ve just kept it a secret.”

“Well the secret is out now.”

“You still don’t know who he is though,” you pointed out. The judges laughed and agreed.

“Whoever is dating her is a lucky man,” Rossi commented as the show wrapped up. Spencer tried not to let his heart skip a beat. What would his team think when they found out about you two?

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“I still can’t believe that The Queen was Y/N Y/L/N,” JJ sighed. The team was in the elevator on the way up to their floor. They all needed to drop some stuff off, but Hotch had told them that no one was allowed to stay late tonight. They needed to get home and relax.

“I can’t believe she managed to have a secret boyfriend for over two years without the media finding out,” Emily added. “You know Garcia is probably already trying to uncover the mystery man.”

The team laughed as the elevator doors opened. Spencer made a mental note to warn you about Garcia. He had already texted you to congratulate you, but he missed you. You were supposed to finish filming in a few days and then you’d be back home in about a week. Still, Spencer was a little bummed that you would miss your third anniversary, which was actually tomorrow.

“Hey, Pretty Boy, who’s at your desk?” Derek asked.

It took Spencer a moment to really understand what he was seeing. It didn’t quite make sense in his brain. Every time you got home, you would immediately shower (to wash off the airplane germs), throw on one of Spencer’s old sweaters and some leggings, and curl up on the couch with whatever book Spencer had left laying around until he got home. And now here you were, wet hair and all, sitting at his desk. He barely had time to admire the look of concentration on your face as you tapped at your phone, probably texting your agent.

“Wait, is that-” But Spencer didn’t let Emily finish.

“Y/N!” he called as he pushed through the doors into the bullpen.

Your head shot up at the sound of your boyfriend’s voice, a huge smile growing on your face. You dropped your phone onto the desk (your agent could wait) and rushed over to him. Completely ignoring the fact that his team was a few steps behind him, you threw your arms around Spencer, wrapping your legs around him too when he picked you up. He began to spin you around, causing you to shriek in glee.

Finally, he put you down. You started to move away, but he surprised you by putting his hands on either side of your face and connecting your lips. You smiled into the kiss, so happy to finally be back with your boyfriend.

“Does anyone else feel like they’re missing something?” You two broke apart at the sound his coworker’s voice. You smiled shyly at the man who had just spoke, Rossi you assumed, based on Spencer’s stories about his team.

“Everyone, I’d like you meet Y/N. My girlfriend.” The team looked between Spencer, who was looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered, and you. You could feel the blush on your face, but that didn’t stop your own goofy love-struck grin.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you guys,” you finally said. “I’ve heard so much about you all.”

“We can’t say the same,” the blonde, JJ, slowly replied. You could feel Spencer shift uncomfortably beside you, before he pulled you even closer to his side.

“That’s my fault,” you said before Spencer could say anything. “I wanted to keep our relationship a secret so it didn’t get out to the media.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Spencer corrected you quickly. “I wanted to make sure that Y/N didn’t get targeted by anyone because of my job. She didn’t want anyone targeting me because of her job. It was a mutual decision.”

“And you couldn’t even tell us?” JJ asked. You could tell, even without knowing her, that she was hurt. You knew that she was Spencer’s best friend, so it was understandable. In fact, every face was looking at the two of you with some mixture of confusion, surprise, and hurt.

“I didn’t want to risk it,” Spencer said uncomfortably. “I figured that the more people who knew, the more likely it would be to get out. Y/N already had to tell some people, so I didn’t want to add to the list.”

“I only told my agent, my assistant, and my security team. And I only told my security team because they thought they caught Spencer trying to break into my house one day.”

Spencer’s face went bright red as he remembered that failed surprise. “I think we need to hear that story sometime.” The rest of the team quickly agreed with Prentiss. It seemed, for now at least, they would let the whole secret thing go.

“What are you doing here?” Spencer asked suddenly. “Not that I’m not happy to see you. I am. You’re supposed to be in LA filming.”

You grinned mischievously at him. “I managed to get the filming schedule rearranged a bit, so I could finish early. I shot my last scene this morning, then went straight to the airport. I wanted to surprise you, so we could finally spend an anniversary together.”

“When do you leave again?” The softness of Spencer’s voice broke your heart. He was preparing himself for you usual answer. You’d be here for a week or two and then have to leave again. But not this time.

“Not for months.” A smile of disbelief spread across Spencer’s face. “I’ll have to go to LA and New York for a few days here and there, but nothing long term. I want to be here with you.”

The two of you had, once again, forgotten that Spencer’s team was standing in front of you. It was so easy to get wrapped up in one another when you were both used to being alone together.

“Did I hear something about an anniversary?” Rossi asked, shaking the two of you out of your little bubble.

“It’ll be three years tomorrow.” You grinned up at your boyfriend. It was the first anniversary you would get to spend together.

“Let me host a dinner for you,” Rossi offered. “I’ll make one of my famous meals. We can break out some nice wine that I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”

Spencer began to shake his head, but you grabbed his arm and gasped. “Spencer please,” you begged. “You know I’ve always wanted to go to a dinner at Rossi’s place. You only talk about them all the time. Please. Please. Please.” Spencer finally gave in to your pleading, nodding reluctantly.

You hugged him in excitement before moving to properly introduce yourself to his friends. As you chatted with them, you could hear the clicking of approaching heels.

“My favorite crime fighters will be unhappy to know that I haven’t been able to find anything about Y/N Y/L/N’s secret boyfriend.” You looked up at the brightly dressed woman, definitely Garcia, who had just walked into the bullpen.

“Actually, baby girl, I think we figured that one out ourselves.” Garcia looked up from her phone at Derek’s words. Her eyes widened as she saw you standing among her coworkers.

“Wha-? Who? How? What?” she stammered. In response, you grabbed Spencer’s hand, pulling him closer to you. He wrapped an arm around you, grinning apologetically at Garcia. “Spencer Reid, I would be so mad at you if I wasn’t so happy about meeting Y/N.” Without wasting another second, she rushed over and hugged you. You laughed at the look of jealously on Spencer’s face as you were taken from his arms. This would take some getting used to.

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You smiled happily, watching Spencer’s friends laugh at a story you had just finished. “I think this was a much better anniversary than burning dinner and then ordering takeout would have been,” you whispered to your boyfriend. Rossi’s food had not disappointed. Nor had his wine. You were feeling comfortably warm as you cuddled up with your boyfriend.

“It’s what we would have done after dinner that I was looking forward to.” You tried not to shiver at Spencer’s words.

“There will be plenty of time for that,” you reminded him. “I’m glad I’m getting to know your friends. They’re so important to you.”

“I’m glad they’re getting to know you. I think you all will be friends. That might not be good for me though.” You laughed at the embarrassed look on your boyfriend’s face. His friends had plenty of embarrassing stories about him, so you had been swapping stories all night.

It was easy for the team to see how absolutely in love the two of you were. Even if they hadn’t been profilers, the looks you two shared were so obvious. What had surprised them was how open Spencer was to your touch. In fact, he was the one initiating most your contact. You had been prepared to control yourself for the sake of Spencer’s professionalism, but he didn’t seem to have the same thought. Any time he could, he would grab your hand or wrap his arms around you.

That was how you had gotten to be cuddled up next to him. After dinner, the party had moved outside. You had been heading for a seat in between Emily and Penelope when Spencer’s hand had reached out and grabbed yours, pulling you onto the outdoor sofa beside him. Not that you were complaining. So you had stayed like that the rest of the night, leaning comfortably into your boyfriend’s side.

A couple weeks later, you posted a picture that Penelope had taken of the two of like that onto your social medias. It was time to introduce the world to your boyfriend.

#spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #matthew gray gubler #mgg #mgg fic #spencer reid x you #calwrites #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction

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stereksecretsanta · 4 years ago

Text

Merry Christmas, happyjuicyfruit!

For @happyjuicyfruit. I'm not going to lie, I saw your request and an idea was born and aside from sleep and work I wrote non-stop until this was done because it felt so good to write it. So cathartic. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing.

Read On AO3

*****

Falling into Place

“The best feeling in the whole world is watching things finally fall into place after watching them fall apart for so long.”

Unknown

The warm hum of the TV mingled with the sound of the running shower through the small studio apartment Stiles rented in Sacramento. He scrambled on his small double bed (tucked into the corner alcove opposite the bathroom door) to try and get his sweats on without applying any pressure to his injured foot. He awkwardly half-hopped on one leg, falling back on his ass on the mattress as he held the cuff carefully open to maneuver his bandaged foot inside. Mission successful, he star-fished on the bed, fully clothed at last, damp hair mussing the sheets and his foot throbbing.

He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, listening to the sounds of the shower, then forcing his eyes shut tightly to try and banish the image of exactly what body parts the less than average water-pressure might be crashing down on. Swallowing thickly, he hopped awkwardly along the narrow space, around the bookshelf he’d used as a divider at the end of his ‘sleeping area’ and into his roughly eighteen feet of living/kitchen space.

Careful not to clip his injured foot on anything, he managed to get the leftover lasagne out of the fridge and into the microwave with minimal disaster. He then frantically searched through the pile of unwashed dishes and cutlery to find enough for two people to eat with.

For some reason, it bothered him, the idea of Derek seeing his dirty dishes. He froze then, wondering if he’d left his laundry hamper spilling over. He didn’t have much time to panic, because the second he thought it, the shower shut off.

A few moments later, Derek stepped out into the room, steam billowing behind him, hair damp and…wearing Stiles’s t-shirt and sweats which looked a little tight in the shoulder and chest and across Derek’s thighs but mostly fit him just fine. Luckily Stiles preferred baggy. He didn’t realise he was staring until Derek started talking.

“I took them off the clothes dryer in the bathroom. I hope that’s alright? I washed mine in the sink. They had blood on.”

Stiles blinked, struck mute for a moment, still not really over the way his sweats clung across Derek’s hip area to form words. “Ah, no, sure, all good,” he managed at last, using the washing up to distract himself. “At least I’ve filled out a bit since the last time you had to borrow my clothes, right? And you’re lucky I had some spare. Laundry day is well overdue, to be honest. I’ve just been working on my assignments, which I got in on time, but then I found out about this case, the one with you in it and I had to find a way to convince them to let me in on it, to try and get you out, you know? So I’ve been so busy I just haven’t had time to–”

“Stiles,” Derek said, cutting his rambling off. “It’s fine. Really. This is hardly the worst place I’ve stayed.”

Stiles laughed. “Wow, ringing endorsement. Better than an abandoned bus station. Well, I’ll have you know this is a steal so close to HQ and it may be small but it’s just been done up. I am the first tenant to tarnish this kitchen. And because it’s one of the many investment properties Natalie Martin got out of the divorce, and of course Lydia is using emotional blackmail to my advantage, I can actually afford to live here without bankrupting my dad even further. Plus the roof-terrace, it’s amazing. I mean, I never actually go up there but some residents have this communal allotment and the view is amazing. Or, you know, it would be if I went there.”

Derek had crossed his arms, had rolled his eyes with that sigh, all of which weretelling signs Stiles was annoying him. And yet there was a little twist at the corners of his mouth that made Stiles’s stomach flip.

The microwave pinged then and Stiles came back to himself, prodding at the centre of the two chunks of lasagne to check they were heated properly before decanting them onto two plates. He went to offer one to Derek, complete with cutlery, before hesitating. He winced.

“Uh, would you mind carrying mine over to the ol’ dining area there? It’s a second hand couch but it’s in pretty good shape and I don’t wanna get lasagne all over it by hopping over there with my plate.”

Derek frowned at him for a moment, then down at his foot, as if he’d forgotten Stiles didn’t magically heal like he did from gunshot wounds – or, you know, splintered fragments of cement that had ricocheted off the wall from the gunshot that had largely missed him, but still. He’d been on the run again, Stiles knew, and before that likely just with Cora since he and Braeden had gone their separate ways. If their texts over the last few months or so were anything to go by, that is. He’d probably not spent much time with humans since last Stiles had seen him, except the ones trying to trap or shoot him.

Eventually, Derek took both plates and stepped back a little into the makeshift doorway between the wall and the shelf that stood as a screen at the end of the bed. It held his books, nicknacks and a TV that swivelled to face either the living area or the bed because Lydia was a goddess and a genius. Stiles hopped awkwardly passed him, supporting himself on the arm of the couch as he eased down onto it. Derek offered his plate to his sturdier lap rather than his hands, likely a survival skill taught after years of observing how erratic Stiles’s hands could be, before settling next to him on the couch.

The late night news was reporting the raid on the warehouse as a drug bust but they knew the truth. Thankfully, the FBI didn’t seem to know the truth, that the guy they’d been pursuing, namely Derek, was a werewolf. He thought they’d managed to get out of it without exposing that and hopefully, if Scott’s dad came through for them, Derek would be out of the spotlight soon enough.

Stiles had set it all in motion the second he’d seen Derek’s face on a slideshow of live suspects, but when he’d discovered they were planning on raiding a possible location of Derek’s, he hadn’t been able to wait for Rafael McCall. He’d made many contingency plans, but the one that’d ended up going into motion had been such a cliché he was almost disappointed in himself and the institution he was interning with.

He’d snuck in a spare FBI jacket and in the chaos, had managed to get Derek into it and offered up his cap and they’d literally walked out of there. Well, Stiles had been carried really, but semantics.

He hadn’t planned for there to be hunters there, who had happily started shooting the second the FBI had burst in looking for Derek. Derek, who had only been there because somehow those hunters were connected to the murders the FBI had linked Derek too. Stiles hadn’t gotten the full story out of him yet. But anyway, he hadn’t planned for there to be idiots there wanting to go on a shoot-out with the FBI, for bullets to be flying everywhere. He hadn’t planned for getting injured by exploding concrete, which was pretty much a bullet wound anyway.

That’s what his bosses were classing it as anyway – wounded in action pretty much. They were so pleased an intern that shouldn’t have really been there hadn’t been killed and that he was pretty much taking near-death in his stride that he thought maybe his reputation might have gained a few more points if anything.

And once Scott’s dad finished subtly helping Stiles’s team to connect the hunters to the murder instead of Derek, exoneration hopefully shouldn’t be too far behind.

“Where did you get this from?” Derek asked as he gulped down another mouthful of lasagne like a starving animal. Really, Stiles wondered when his last decent meal had been.

“Uh, I made it,” Stiles said with a mostly empty mouth. “I can’t afford to live off take-out, dude. I gotta live smart while I’m still an intern.” Even with the FBI an internship didn’t pay a luxurious dividend. “I can make a few things that can keep in the fridge for a few days. This is the last of the lasagne though, buddy, so if you want seconds the take-out menus are on the fridge.”

Derek blinked at him, looking almost owlishly startled which was sort of adorable on him really. He looked tired and confused and a few stray droplets of water trickled down his neck from his damp hair. “No, this is good. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“Well, they haven’t given me my Michelin stars yet but I can eat a lot better than some of the other interns by being smart about it and thinking ahead.” Stiles finished the last few bites of his own and set the plate on the floor by his feet. “If I hadn’t learned to cook and make food stretch a little more, dad and I would’ve had to sell the house to keep us in take-out.”

Derek had gotten the larger portion, Stiles was a good host, so he was still eating and seemed to consider Stiles’s words for a long time before saying between mouthfuls, “Your mom taught you?”

Stiles offered a wistful smile.

“Yeah. Not gourmet or anything but cooking was our thing. I wasn’t the kind of kid that could sit down and watch TV while their mom cooked. I was always under her feet so she made me help, made me useful. Some things stuck, I guess. I learned enough.”

He thought that was going to be the end of it. They fell quiet and the late news bulletins had long-since finished and returned to some late-night comedy talk show. But then Derek spoke, quiet and distant, like he was somewhere far away, in a tone way Stiles wasn’t sure he’d ever heard from him before.

“My dad was the cook. He didn’t really teach me meals, Laura always used to help him in the kitchen. But he did teach me to make his salted caramel brownies.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what to do with that.

It’d been a long day, a long few weeks for Derek, really. He looked both world-weary and yet less troubled than he had since Stiles had last seen him. He sounded at peace with a part of himself Stiles had only ever glimpsed in their two years or so of chasing monsters together around Beacon Hills.

“Those sound amazing,” Stiles offered with a little smile, because it was the truth. Derek’s face turned to him then, empty plate still in hand, the glow of the TV and kitchen light making his features soft and warm.

He studied Stiles for a long time, eyes roving his face as if he were relearning him, before he said quietly, “it’s really good to see you, Stiles.”

Stiles smiled and chuckled a little self-consciously, “well, you know, likewise. And hey, I’m always willing to put you up when you’re a wanted fugitive, you know this from experience.”

Derek raised a brow, lips twitching. “Did you mention that in your interview for your internship with the FBI?”

“Oh, we got a sense of humour since we last met, huh?” Stiles laughed, but as he put his foot down to rise, he winced, remembering his injury. “Holy shit,” he hissed, grasping his ankle in lieu of his throbbing foot, thinking of the medication the hospital had sent him away with, sitting on the kitchen counter.

When they’d made their initial getaway, Derek had literally skulked around in the shadows while Stiles reported to the field leader, before taking himself to the hospital. In matter of fact, Derek had taken him to the hospital, giving him sideways looks like he was equal parts pissed off and concerned. And he hadn’t left Stiles’s side until they’d come back to Stiles’s apartment and they’d taken their respective showers.

To be honest, sitting in Derek’s rental car while he picked up Stiles’s prescription was a bizarre feat he kept coming back to. Not an unpleasant one though. He was definitely more than capable of looking after himself, had proven that a hundred times over, really. But it felt nice, having someone there who looked worried, who took the dinner plates and set them in the sink, who brought his medication and water to take them with in the only clean glass and…oh god…

“Dude, you don’t have to clean my dirty dishes, you’re a guest–”

“Technically, I’m a fugitive in hiding,” Derek cut across him neatly, running more hot water into the sink, the last of it until the tank filled up again after two showers, Stiles thought. “Besides, you need to stay off your foot and if you leave these dishes another night they might run off on their own.”

Stiles glared at him as he drank from his glass and then downed his pills. “This is a small apartment, buddy, there’s only room in here for one wise-ass.”

Derek ducked his head as he started the dishes, but Stiles caught his smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Stiles woke up with a little start, the kind you got when you caught yourself drifting off on the couch in front the TV. Except it didn’t look as if he’d caught himself. It looked like he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV and Derek had carried him to bed. The medicine must’ve knocked him out, Stiles thought, blinking blearily at the narrow strips of pre-dawn light peeking around his blind to the side of the bed.

He could hear soft breathing in the quiet from beyond the wall that the double-sided bookshelf made and it felt comforting. Even now, nearly a year-on from the event, he still had trouble with the feeling of waking up too quickly. He wondered why his initial panic hadn’t woken Derek, but then, he supposed Derek had been on the run for so long, again, it was no wonder he was dead to the world.

The fact that he felt safe enough to crash in Stiles’s place was another thing to think about all on its own. The insinuations and repercussions swirled around in Stiles’s brain as he fully came aware of himself, cursing the pain in his foot before sliding tentatively out of bed. He used the bathroom as quietly as he could, then realised if he wanted to take more medication, he’d have to eat something first and to do that he’d have to turn the light on in the kitchen to find something.

The sounds of Derek sleeping sounded so peaceful that he felt like a dick for contemplating it. In the end he crawled quietly back into bed, careful to keep the leg attached to his wounded foot out of the blankets and tried to ignore the pain.

It didn’t work. He fidgeted uncomfortably, the discomfort making him uneasy, letting his mind stretch to strange places, to worries that apparently simply had to be solved at 3am. It was cold in the apartment too which didn’t help, but Stiles was one of those defiant people that waited until he was cold enough to be wearing a beanie indoors before he would put the heating on – more blankets before heating.

He’d worked himself into a state wondering if maybe the nurse he’d seen earlier hadn’t managed to get all the fragments out of his toe and that was why it hurt so much, when he heard Derek shifting around on the sofa. On instinct, he squeezed his eyes shut, guessing he just wanted to take a leak, but his brow furrowed when he heard a click-clack sounds on his wooden floor. It reminded him of Scott’s old dog loping across the kitchen floor and it took him a moment to register what that noise meant until he felt a cold, damp nose snuffling around his foot.

An image came to Stiles behind his closed lids and he remembered the black wolf darting into the fray in the desert, eyes glowing blue.

He twitched at the contact, but Derek either thought that was an instinctive motion out of sleep or didn’t care if he was awake because he hopped carefully up onto the bed and draped his front legs over Stiles’s. One of his heavy, warm paws just rested over the place where Stiles’s sweats had ridden to expose his ankle and it was as if Stiles could feel all of the pain draining away from his throbbing foot through the place where Derek’s warmth rested.

Opening his eyes at the sheer relief, he of course found the same black wolf sprawled half over him, warm and soft and staring right back at him with piercing blue eyes that glowed in the dimness. Stiles could just make out his shape and without really thinking about it, he reached out to touch. It just occurred to him that maybe Derek didn’t want to be petted like a dog and that maybe he might give him a reproving nip when he felt soft, fine fur under his fingers and the pressure of Derek leaning into his touch.

Stiles stroked one downy ear and then, emboldened, scratched his fingers over the wolf’s head. It felt cathartic and he wondered absently about those therapy animals, before the flick of Derek’s tongue against his wrist.

A low, tired chuckle rippled out of Stiles, hoarse and sleepy. He thought in the pre-dawn dimness, in the little alcove the bookshelves created around his bed, that maybe anything was possible without complications. There were no rules, no posturing or pride or uncertainty. Derek had sensed his discomfort, his pain, maybe even his loneliness – maybe because it mirrored his own. The low, grumbling sound Derek made when Stiles stroked the side of his head and scruff told him Derek was as happy for it as he was.

Then Derek, still the wolf, laid his head down on Stiles’s torso, breathing evenly and Stiles fell asleep stroking his fingers over his fur. Fell into a slumber that was light and painless and full of dreams.

Derek was already gone from his bed when he awoke well into the morning. When he sat up and hobbled out of bed, Stiles found him doing push-ups in the space between his couch and the TV. He stared at him dumbfounded for a moment, still finding it surreal, a half-naked Derek Hale exercising in his tiny apartment with sweat beading between the muscles of his shoulders and down to the small of his back.

He had the terrible feeling that he was staring and that his lips were parted, as if ready to spill something embarrassingly appreciative so he quickly turned into the kitchen area – only to stop dead. It was spotless. The dishes were cleaned and stored away, the units were practically gleaming and to make it worse, there was a laundry basket in front of the fridge piled high with clean, neatly folded laundry.

Holy shit.

“Dude, please tell me you did not do my laundry?” he pleaded, dismayed.

Derek seemingly ignored him for a moment, pushing up from the floor, the tight line of muscles in his back drawing Stiles’s unwitting gaze until he eventually rose. He snagged the glass of water off the side and drank it down greedily.

Stiles couldn’t help but wonder how many push-ups a werewolf had to do before getting all sweaty. But then the thought drifted off on a tangent about how long a werewolf might have to do other things to get that sweaty. How long, how hard…

Oh god, his face was burning.

Green-hazel eyes considered him for a long time, bright with the sunlight streaking through the window and Stiles had the horrible feeling Derek could tell his thoughts by smell or something. Whether he did or not though, all he said was, “I had to wash the blood out of my clothes. It just made sense to take yours at the same time. It’s no big deal.”

“Even my dad doesn’t wash my dirty underwear, Derek!”

Derek snorted, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t roll around in them, Stiles, I tossed everything into two washers.”

Stiles spluttered at the idea of Derek rolling around in his laundry and his hands flailed. “You’re a wanted fugitive until further notice, you could’ve been caught!”

Rinsing the glass in the sink and setting it on the draining board to dry, Derek turned back to face him, leaning slightly against the units. “I went to the utility room downstairs. No one was going to be looking for me there. I don’t get what the problem is.”

Well no, Derek wouldn’t, would he? Because he’d always been awful at looking after himself. Because he hadn’t had to share space with a human since…forever and Stiles was hyperaware that Derek could probably tell his every activity for the last few weeks on his dirty clothes, that he could probably read Stiles’s mind from chemo-signals or whatever and Stiles was only just realising exactly how much he had to hide.

Clearing his throat awkwardly, Stiles scrubbed at his hair and the back of his neck. “Ummm, you’re right, it’s nothing it’s…I still haven’t really woken up yet. Thank you, for…basically sorting my life out while I slept the morning away. You didn’t have to do that though, you’ve probably been under more stress, being on the run than I have doing an internship.”

“An internship with the FBI who have no idea about werewolves when you know pretty much everything there is to know about the supernatural sounds pretty stressful to me,” Derek offered lightly, glancing out the window and down at the city thoughtfully for a moment. He seemed to be struggling for the best way to phrase whatever it was that was on his mind, but then, Stiles supposed he hadn’t had much in the way of company the last few weeks.

He knew Derek had been with Braeden briefly, then Cora, then on his own when his life had turned upside down again. And there was a lightness to Derek’s face this morning that Stiles thought mirrored his own. Like last night had been the first time he’d slept well in a long time too. He looked more at ease than Stiles had ever seen him in his entire life and he was technically still a wanted fugitive.

Dragging his hand through his hair again to distract from his wandering thoughts as best he could, Stiles hobbled into the kitchen area properly and shoved the last two slices of bread into the toaster. Hmmm. He’d have to get some groceries. His foot was throbbing though.

“I have to report to work via video conference later, since I can’t really walk much.” He glanced to the crutches the hospital had given him on loan for a couple of weeks and tried to imagine scaling the insane amount of stairs he had to climb everyday. He’d probably end up with a broken neck. Luckily he had loads of paperwork, which he was good at and didn’t mind doing. They’d probably let him do it from home for a few days, if only so they didn’t have to do it.

His efficiency with the paperwork was probably a big part of why they liked him so much, since most of his classmates tried to beg out of it. But his single-minded concentration that came with his ADHD, as much as it was easing as he got older, was a godsend apparently. When it was a subject he had interest in, i.e. his job, he was like a machine.

“Can I stay?”

Stiles turned slightly to look at Derek, still staring out the window at the grey sky. “Until things are sorted out with the FBI. Can I stay?”

He sounded warm and awkward and almost longing, voice a little husky and Stiles swallowed tightly.

“Dude, stay as long as you want. You’re always welcome. Mi casa, es su casa, always. You don’t have to ask.”

Derek looked at him at last, lips slightly parted as if he were going to say more. In the end, his mouth closed and he nodded determinedly.

Work was pretty gracious about his request to work from home. He had reports to type up and some other paperwork to keep him busy for the rest of the week at least. Plus he was entitled to some medical leave if he couldn’t walk easily. Besides that, they were thrilled that one of their unsolved cases seemed to be coming to a close because of ‘his help’.

Rafael McCall had apparently planted the necessary evidence into the system to connect the guys they caught at the raid the other day to the murders Derek (although the FBI didn’t know his identity) was accused of. One of them with similar build to Derek had even sustained serious burns to his back during the raid, which Stiles had reasoned could be where the suspected tattoo was that they’d used to identify the unsub they were looking for. It was the idiot’s own fault really, for being an immortal hunter who murdered countless people, for packing a flamethrower and trying to turn it on the FBI.

Stiles had zero sympathy for people who wielded fire. Maybe it was just because he had seen what fire could do in the Hale house, on Peter Hale’s face before he’d healed himself. It was a dick move. Even if he’d technically done it himself once, he supposed.

So it all tidied up nicely, really and by the time the video call had ended, Stiles was sure Rafael had managed to erase any evidence with anything similar to Derek’s face or body. He should’ve felt bad using the guy, he supposed. But he’d never claimed to have scrupulous morals and besides which, it was Scott’s idea to ask for his help in the first place.

Daddy McCall had infinite favours to do before he could make it up to Scott, Stiles supposed. But in the mean time, as long as Scotty approved, he would use Rafael McCall’s powers for good and maybe the guy would get his head out of his ass along the way.

He’d shot a text to both McCalls, one a curt message of thanks, the other assuring Derek should be safe as soon as they were sure the guys they caught were going to stay caught. The only problem was, Derek had snuck out while he’d been on his conference call. He’d noticed mid-conversation with his boss and so hadn’t been able to act on it. The second the call came to a close, however, he shut the laptop and sprang up. Snatching his phone up, he dialled.

The phone rang and rang. Stiles was already toeing a shoe onto his good foot and reaching for his crutches when he heard the jingling of keys outside his door. He stopped dead at the sound, looking up just as the door opened. Derek stepped inside, arms loaded with brown paper grocery bags. He blinked at Stiles’s proximity to the door, as if surprised and neatly side-stepped him to set the grocery bags down on the kitchen floor.

“Where the hell have you been?” Stiles demanded.

Derek raised a brow, pausing in loading fresh fruit and vegetables into the fridge drawer. His expression said it all.

With a scowl, Stiles gestured to the front door. “For the next few hours you’re still potentially on their system as most wanted, Derek. You can’t just go for a walk around Sacramento.”

“Stiles, you have a grocery store around the corner – literally. I was in there for ten minutes. I wore your Mets cap. I kept a low profile – I know how to do that, I’m very practiced at it.”

Stiles hesitated. “You went to the rich people supermarket?” That was the only grocery store on his block. Sometimes Stiles hit it up on payday for their luxury cookie range when Lydia came to visit.

Rolling his eyes, Derek continued to load the groceries into the fridge and cupboards. It was all so domestic, the scene, the bickering and it made Stiles feel sort of funny.

“Nobody noticed me. There was no way you could manage the groceries on your own and you hopping around on crutches and fighting me over who was going to foot the bill would’ve made more of a scene that me going in alone.”

“Dude, I can be stealthy and I don’t need you to fill my fridge–”

“You do if I’m going to eat all your food,” Derek interrupted, tossing the paper bags into the recycling bin before turning to face him. His nostrils flared and he stared Stiles down for a long moment before shaking his head. “Sometimes you need help too, Stiles,” he breathed, exasperated and fond all at once.

Stiles swallowed thickly, darting his gaze to the side. He didn’t even like accepting his dad’s help at the best of times. With Lydia and Scott, loved them though he did, they had their own stuff going on and he couldn’t ask for their help either. Or he could but he didn’t want to. It was easier just to struggle through. And yet Derek was standing there, watching him expectantly, with that mixture of softness and annoyance on his face and Stiles didn’t want to reject the symbolic hand he’d been trying to grasp since he was sixteen. That had often come close but had never felt within his reach until now.

A sudden buzz on his intercom for the front door made Stiles jump.

“I also ordered Chinese,” Derek smirked, “think you can manage to get the door?”

Stiles muttered under his breath at the indignation of it, but still buzzed the delivery guy in.

“You don’t have to bribe me with food to let you stay,” Stiles said as they set the take-out boxes on the minute counter space a few minutes later. It smelled so good that the argument Stiles had been forming in his mind dissipated in the delicious smelling steam rising from the boxes. “You’re welcome here, even after your name is cleared for a bit, if you want.”

Derek huffed as he split the contents of each dish out equally. Because Stiles may have been human but he had the appetite of a wolf. “Nice to know, but this isn’t a bribe. It’s just something I want to do. Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?”

Feeling like he was getting some of his equilibrium back, Stiles grinned. “Isn’t this like…a courting ritual, a wolf sharing food or providing food?”

“Shut up, Stiles,” Derek barked, ears flaming. He snatched the bowls out of Stiles’s hand and carried all of them over to the sofa so Stiles couldn’t hop across with them and, most likely, risk sending it all to the floor.

Some old movie was on with Humphrey Bogart – Stiles’s mom and dad had liked watching his movies together so he left it on and they ate and Derek half-watched with a wistful little look on his face that made Stiles wonder if someone in his family had liked the movie too.

Stiles talked about Katherine Hepburn and how his mom had loved her, how she’d watched her movies with her mother. He talked about World War One’s impact on Africa and how he’d drifted off on a tangent about it in the middle of one of his papers about World War Two, and how his dad had just smiled quietly through the whole meeting with the teacher when he called his dad in about Stiles’s attention span. And through it all, Derek smiled slightly, that private little half-smile as he sucked noodles into his mouth and toed off his shoes in the middle of Stiles’s apartment. The apartment that Derek had cleaned and it just made Stiles feel so…warm. Comfortable. He’d never felt comfortable with someone and yet hyperaware of their every little movement at the same time.

Derek had polished off most of his chow mein and shifted back on the sofa a little as Hepburn dumped Bogart’s gin into the river, relaxing with Stiles until their knees touched.

Heat swelled in Stiles’s stomach and he covered up the little splutter he gave and distracted himself by chugging down some more noodles.

“I haven’t had good Chinese take-out since I moved up here,” he sighed happily, licking the sauce from his lips. He turned to Derek more fully then and swore he caught those eyes dropping to the movement of his tongue and back again. Huh. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. We can alternate–”

“You’re injured–”

“And you’re a guest,” Stiles protested but Derek just shrugged, looking back to the TV.

“The couch is comfortable enough when I shift, and plenty warm. It’s fine, I’m not turfing you out of your own bed Stiles and that’s the end of it.”

Stiles’s tenacity was sidetracked by curiosity. He set his now empty plate down, sitting back a little to let his leg stretch out and relieve any pressure on his throbbing foot. He’d had medication with his food and it was starting to kick in. “Do you always shift when you sleep or is my couch just that uncomfortable?”

“It’s fine, Stiles,” Derek half-groaned, polishing off his rice now, thumb tracing the edge of the plate distractedly. He stared at the screen without really seeing it. His silence only lasted a moment longer than it should have, but Stiles noticed. He noticed everything, he noticed the way Derek was still relaxed next to him, not uncomfortable at their proximity, the way his mouth had a slight shine from his tongue and the way the light struggling to peak through the clouds touched his cheekbones.

“I don’t shift in my sleep a lot. But it’s…it’s like letting go, I guess. A release of tension.”

Stiles nodded. “It feels good. Like sinking into a hot bath or eating really good food. It lets you process stuff?” he suggested and when Derek nodded his own lips twitched. He couldn’t help himself. “So that’s why you’re so zen now, huh? You’re one with the wolf and the wolf is one with you?”

But Derek didn’t laugh, didn’t really seem to register the joke, he looked hesitant, oddly vulnerable even as he was obviously trying to guard himself. “I can control it. If it bothers you.”

“Nah, you do you. Just don’t shed on my sheets or anything.”

With a scowl, Derek watched as Stiles snatched the last prawn cracker out of the complimentary bag between them. “I do not shed. I’m a werewolf, not a dog.” But there was that fond exasperation again that made Stiles a bit giddy. It made him feel stupid and hungry and happy and brave and scared all at once.

He drummed his fingers nervously along his thighs as he chewed and swallowed, and then of course his mouth moved of its own volition.

“Thanks, by the way. For…you know, last night. Taking the pain? And, well…you know, I…” He looked at Derek for some sort of clue, because Derek hadn’t mentioned last night and Stiles was almost half-convinced it’d been a dream. That was until he saw the way Derek’s eyes were molten and so, so close.

Stiles gave a nervous, breathy little laugh. “You’re better than that crap the hospital gave me.”

Considering him for a beat, Derek seemed to scan every inch of Stiles’s face. “Probably not half as addictive anyway.”

Stiles wasn’t entirely sure about that.

He spent the rest of the day doing his paperwork while Derek seemed quite content to alternate between reading one of Stiles’s books, flicking through the TV and messaging Cora on his phone.

It felt like they’d always shared this, comfortable and easy and gravitating around each other. When Stiles finally went to turn in, he found himself hesitating. His hand rested lightly on the bookshelf as he turned back to look at Derek, who was curled up under Stiles’s blanket that he snuggled up under on the couch on the colder evenings. For once in his life though, words failed him and after too long staring at Derek on the couch, all he could say was “goodnight Derek,” before heading into the bathroom.

His head was buzzing as he watched his reflection scrub his teeth, eyes too bright and face a little pink. Because it felt like everything he’d thought he’d imagined between them, once Derek had left them in Mexico, had just picked right back up where they’d left off. The easiness, those little half smiles that made something twist deep in his belly. He spat into the sink and splashed his face and throat with cool water to try and compose himself. Then he turned on the extractor, just in case there was some whiff of Stiles’s emotions or whatever in there.

It took another forty-eight hours before he got the short, not quite curt phone call from Rafael McCall saying Derek’s appearance was officially off the FBI’s radar (and unofficially off their records completely, as if it’d never been). But Derek stayed. He watched Stiles as he finished the call and then as he hung up, he held his gaze as he asked simply, voice warm and almost husky, “can I stay?”

Stiles wasn’t even thinking about the way Derek kept his apartment clean and his laundry done as he said, “as long as you want.” He thought about the fact that they liked the same cheesy old movies, that Derek liked to curl up with Stiles on his modest couch in the evening to read, while their feet pretty much touched under the blanket because the apartment was still a touch too cold, but not cold enough to turn the heating on yet.

He thought about their bickering and the way he liked to listen to Derek breathing as he drifted off. But mostly he thought about the way Derek had looked at him in Mexico, as he’d gotten into that car.

Now he was as safe as he was going to be, Derek used his modest little rental car to give Stiles a ride to work, saving him from struggling on the crutches all the way there. There were lifts in the actual building so it wasn’t so bad and Stiles’s life returned to a new sort of normal, but one where Derek picked him up after work. Where, when Stiles was poring over something for work on his laptop, Derek went out for a run and came back sweaty and breathless, or brought home the fresh doughnuts from the bakery a few blocks away until Stiles sang his praises through a mouthful of delicious warm sugar and cinnamon.

Stiles’s toe was healed enough that he could walk without the crutches in record time (if he was careful), so he soon started walking to work. But his heart still skipped a little when he walked out of his work building one evening to see Derek leaning against one of the fountains, just across from the glass doors.

“Hey,” Stiles breathed, feeling warm at the sight of him. He stayed late, he always did and Derek knew that but he’d still waited. Only a few of his fellow interns walk passed, looking interested. Stiles watched as Derek cleared his throat, ducking his head a little as if embarrassed and wondered what they were whispering to put that look on his face. Stiles had to know, but Derek gave no clues of course.

“So there’s a sale on at the furniture place just on the edge of town. I was thinking, you know, if you wanted to stay for a while longer, we could pick up a decent sofa bed? Give you a bit more space to sleep? Because honestly, there’s barely enough room on that thing for me to sleep on and you’re just a tad broader in the shoulders.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Derek assured him as they walked and Stiles knew a little prickle of disappointment. Because of course Derek wouldn’t be staying forever.

“Yeah,” he offered, running a hand through his hair, eyes on the sidewalk. “You’re probably so ready for a bit more space. I mean my apartment is a bit small for a werewolf–”

“It’s not too small,” Derek cut across him, sounding as confused as he looked when Stiles glanced at his face. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Stiles. I only meant that I’m fine where I am. My family spent half our time sleeping out on the porch in the summer, or camping out in the living room in front of the fire. I don’t need a fancy bed or a bigger apartment. I asked you if I could stay because it felt right.” He looked as if that was a bit more than he wanted to say and quickly looked back to the path ahead, waiting at the crosswalk in silence.

Derek was pretty poor at self-care, always had been, worse than Stiles’s dad, really, but outside of the life or death situations that came with Beacon Hills, he’d never gone along with anything he didn’t want to do. If he wasn’t happy where he was, he’d tell Stiles so, or leave.

It wasn’t until they’d crossed the road and started round the corner that Stiles spoke again, mind grasping at the tangent he was spinning onto. “You’ve never really mentioned your family much, except for the essential stuff,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

“It’s easier to talk about the little things,” he shrugged, “I guess I’ve gotten used to talking about some things. When I spent time with Cora, she’d like to hear about them all the time. Everything I could remember. She was younger, didn’t really remember some of it. Not the good things.”

Stiles nodded, wondering how much of the good stuff he would’ve remembered about his mom if his dad hadn’t been there to refresh those memories.

“Is that like…your new anchor now or something?” When Derek looked confused, he continued, “just…your anchor was anger, wasn’t it? Only you’re not angry anymore, you seem…well you seem pretty amazing, if you ask me.”

He hated how fast his heart beat. The way Derek’s eyes flicked to him as if he’d heard. He probably had. Probably knew it wasn’t because Stiles had lied either.

“Not really. It hasn’t been anger for a long time. I can’t really pinpoint when, it’s not something that happens suddenly. It’s a gradual thing.”

Like grieving, like healing, like fighting beside someone everyday and missing them and only realising after they barrelled back into your life that you were falling in love.

It took Stiles a beat to realise his mind was drifting and Derek was still talking.

“…suppose I found myself in a situation, where someone was talking to me, maybe something I didn’t like, and I’d think…what would Stiles do?” Derek looked at him then, pausing on the sidewalk outside Stiles’s building and staring into his eyes with that wistful look.

Stiles’s stomach swooped and his head spun, even as Derek continued to talk.

“Of course, you’d always say something stupid or random–”

“Dude, you know me so well,” Stiles interjected, a little breathlessly, but Derek continued.

“–but whatever it was I felt…more focussed.”

The chilly evening air whipped around them, picking up a little now and Stiles exhaled shakily, breath coming out in the lightest of mists between them.

Unbidden, the memory of being in the back of that van, with Derek and Liam came to him. Derek, trying to teach Liam to control his shift, both of them trying to tell him about anchors, about his focus. Back then, Derek had given him a look that Stiles had assumed was surprise at Stiles’s keen observations about werewolves and their anchors. Now he thought it had been a betrayal of a much more personal secret.

He tried to think back further, tried to think about their random text message thread over the last year, where Stiles had annoyed Derek as much as ever but Derek had always replied back. He thought about Scott and Allison, about Malia and him, the friendship their once-relationship had blossomed into. He thought about Jackson and Lydia and then he just stared at Derek as his scrambled thoughts fizzed out into quiet realisation. Like water rising up the bank where he’d camped with his assumptions of the world, until the flame he’d resigned himself to nurture there was swallowed up by the tide.

For just a moment, he felt like he was treading water again, only this time Derek was kickingback alongside him.

“You…you never said,” Stiles managed at last.

Derek stepped closer, the traffic going by, the glow of the streetlights and those of the business signs and windows all around blurred and inconsequential. It all wrapped around them in a flurry of sound and movement that fell away, as if they stood in the eye of the rush hour traffic’s storm, serene and untouched by the world as it passed on by. Stiles could feel the warmth radiating off of Derek and thought longingly of the solitude of the apartment above.

His tiny apartment that he loved but had also been a bit self-concious of. But now he supposed he knew why Derek loved it so much.

“It wasn’t…I didn’t…” Derek set his jaw, looking annoyed with himself. “I didn’t want you to expect anything from it. You were seventeen and I was…I was messed up, Stiles.”

Stiles glared. “I’m messed up. We’re all messed up, Derek, anyone who the Argents or the Nemeton or that goddamn town touched is messed up. What did you think I would like…jump you or demand a promise ring or something?!”

Exhaling impatiently, Derek shook his head. “I’d been on the run my whole life, Stiles and by the time I realised what was letting me keep my control, it’d all caught up with me at once.”

At that moment, Stiles thought of that Dire Straits song his dad loved, and that line, ‘When you gonna realise it was just that the time was wrong’ and he thought about what had happened. Probably happened anyway, if he could trust Peter’s story about Derek’s first love, and then his knowledge of what had happened not long after with Kate Argent. He thought about what that would mean for Derek, and how even a diminutive age gap with someone not quite of age would matter more to him than a lot of people. He thought about how angry and scared Derek had been when they’d seen him in the woods that day, when they’d been looking for Scott’s inhaler, and the man who stood before him now. He thought about the journey Derek had taken himself on after Mexico to get here.

Suddenly, the door to the apartment building opened and one of Stiles’s neighbours smiled apologetically as she stepped out onto the street between them and headed off down the sidewalk. The moment broken, Stiles shuddered as the chill crept down his neck and Derek tilted his head slightly, assessing him for an extended moment, before urging him inside.

They ate carbonara in front of the TV with Derek’s choice of a British series called Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which Stiles felt a bit lost with, mostly because he wasn’t paying attention. He kept finding himself humming Romeo and Juliet without meaning to. This was so domestic. He couldn’t help but notice just how domestic it was and at the same time revel in it. Revel in the comfort of it and the tiny hope that maybe, if Derek had told him all this now, then that might mean this time he intended to stay.

Derek washed the dishes and Stiles dried, before excusing himself to the shower, if only for some space to process everything. Washing off the office was always cathartic too though, even if you did love your job. He dragged his hand across the surface of the steamy mirror as he roughly towelled his hair dry.

He couldn’t begrudge Derek his need for space or to process shit by himself after everything he’d been through after Mexico. He’d not exactly vanished off the face of the earth, except for the weeks he was on the run and understandably too busy for their usual text message sparring. There were so many things he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to tell Derek and he wasn’t sure where to begin.

But amongst all that, among the repeated verses of Romeo and Juliet that just would not get out of his head now, he couldn’t help but keep coming back to the same question. If Derek had told him now, was that because it was okay for Stiles to expect something? Or…maybe not expect but…to want? Did Derek want?

Everything was still a blur when he opened the bathroom door, steam furling out around him – around Derek, who was standing right outside the door, in the narrow walkway between Stiles’s bed and the bathroom wall. There was nowhere to hide. Stiles was wearing his sweats and t-shirt and Derek was barefoot right next to his bed and the narrow space brought them so close Stiles could feel his heat. He was so perilously close and there were so many things he wanted to say.

He had plenty of time to say them.

Later.

Suddenly, there was nothing more important than showing this imperfect, verbally challenged man exactly how he felt. He stepped forward, effectively closing the minute space between them, exhaling in an unsteady breath as his eyes traced the shape of Derek’s mouth. His hands slid up Derek’s neck. As he cupped his jaw, as he traced his thumbs across the soft bristles on Derek’s cheekbones, Derek’s eyes slid closed as if the pleasure in it was almost unbearable.

It was like Derek shuddered without the movement of it and his hands, broad and so warm and gentle, slid up Stiles’s back, chasing the damp chill from his shower and leaving prickling bursts of heat in his wake. Derek tipped his head to press his forehead to Stiles’s, breathing deeply as he held Stiles close.

Stiles’s hands cupped the back of Derek’s neck, fingers threading through his short hair and Derek made a low sound like a groan deep in his chest.

“When I watched you get into that car, I felt like I lost something I never even really had,” Stiles murmured into the scant inch between their mouths. Derek’s hands slid warm up over the goosebumps on his back. He dragged his nose down the side of Stiles’s, across his cheek and jaw and chin, all without opening his eyes.

Even with his heart screaming in negation, Stiles drew back, just enough to turn them, so Derek’s back was to the bathroom and Stiles was standing in the gap beside the bed, using the shift in positions and minute space between them to say what he needed to. Derek’s eyes looked glossy and dark, considering Stiles with confusion, hands gripping his waist as he watched Stiles tried to find his words.

“I know why you had to go, then. But I really want you to stay now.”

Derek’s smile grew slowly, tentatively, but it dazzled him with its authenticity. He was still smiling when he started to lean in. Stiles wrapped his arms around his shoulders, the two of them pulling each other in close in tandem until their mouths slid together.

It was so sweet he felt himself sink into Derek at the same time that Derek pushed back. His bed had storage drawers underneath for his clothes so it was pretty high, high enough to scoot back onto and have Derek stand between his legs and just plaster the heat of his body against Stiles’s – all without their mouths separating. The slow press and caress of lips was like a question, like a request, like the shy affection of two people who had done this dance without even realising exactly what it meant until now and god, he didn’t expect Derek to be so soft.

They tilted their heads to press deeper and Derek dipped to nudge his jaw with his nose, graze the corner of his mouth with his lips until Stiles’s skin tingled pleasantly from his beard. It was like werewolf scenting and human kissing mixed up in a way that was purely just Derek until Stiles panted against his lips. He parted his lips slightly, shifting back and cupping Derek’s neck to take him with him until they were sprawled on the bed. The soft, warm shadowy place illuminated only by the glow from the lamp in the living area beyond the bookshelves.

The warmth they created between them lit Stiles up from the inside out. Derek rolled him on his double bed, tussling with him in his sheets. Stiles couldn’t help but think they must smell of them and that was maybe what was driving Derek crazy most of all. He tugged his shirt off between kisses, Derek catching his mouth the moment it passed over his head, pinning Stiles’s arms so they were still all caught up in the sleeves. He was ridiculous and perfect and making Stiles laugh at the awkwardness that felt so right. Derek’s answering chuckle against his lips and tongue was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

“I’ve never heard you go this long without talking,” Derek mused as Stiles lifted his head to nip at his jaw, to scrape his lips across soft, scratchy hair and relishing in the slight burn.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Stiles mock-chided, struggling, flailing out of his t-shirt at last and smoothing his hands up Derek’s back, all tight smooth muscle. “Just your shirt?”

“Mmm.” It was nonsensical but Stiles only had a moment to wonder what it meant before Derek kissed him with bruising force and drew back. He tugged his shirt off and dropping it somewhere near the end of the bed.

There wasn’t a moment of worship or godlike awe. Stiles didn’t doubt Derek had had his fair share of experiences like that. Stiles was too desperate for him to gape and gawk. He caught Derek’s shoulders and tugged him back down to him the moment his shirt was off, holding him close, bare skin sliding together hotly. Stiles’s hands gripped at his impossible shoulders and the small of his back in little spasms, wanting him everywhere, dipping between their bodies to stroke over his chest and stomach until Derek’s abs shuddered against his fingers. He groaned against Stiles’s mouth, bracing himself over Stiles’s head with his forearms, letting him touch everywhere and hold him close.

Stiles grinned against him, before nuzzling back into his cheek and wrapping his arms around him again completely.

He squeezed, pushing a little to roll them again until they were on their sides. Derek’s hands slid down his back so slowly, holding him, one hand sliding into his hair to cup his head so, so gently. Stiles nuzzled him again, just under his jaw and Derek pressed his nose into Stiles’s hair. They were both mostly hard and that was fine for now. This was what they both needed.

At some point as they lay tangled together, Stiles started to drift. He found himself half-over Derek, still wrapped in his arms in a messy sprawl but with the blankets over him now, warm and close and breathing only Derek in.

“You smell amazing,” Stiles mumbled, half-asleep. Derek’s chest jumped slightly under his hand with mostly silent laughter. He felt him press into his hairline sleepily, not as chaste as a kiss to his forehead, somehow more intimate in a way that sent little tendrils down Stiles’s spine.

“You feel amazing.”

Stiles muttered something about them not even being started yet but it was mostly smothered by his mouth smooshed against Derek’s shoulder and he definitely heard Derek say something about Stiles drooling. Stiles thought he fell asleep before he’d even finished laughing.

He was in that blissful place that wasn’t quite sleeping, just drifting pleasantly in relaxed consciousness. The calm tranquillity of someone just awoken, slowly drifting down to reality like a feather on a soft, warm breeze. There was something tickly nuzzling into the hollow of his neck. He groaned, stretching his limbs under the heavy blanket of heat, his arms coming up instinctively to wrap around broad shoulders and stroke clumsily until he cupped the back of Derek’s neck.

Derek was half-kissing, half burrowing into his neck and shoulder. He was only half awake himself, it seemed, and urging them both out of slumber in what Stiles thought was actually just the most fantastic way imaginable. Actually, he wasn’t sure even his imagination could come up with something this good. He felt his neck throb, as if Derek had been at it for a while and he squirmed. He tugged gently on Derek’s hair until Derek nosed across his adam’s apple and down to the opposite side of his neck to worry him there, just beneath where his collar would sit – if he ever put a shirt on again.

After a blissful eternity just lying warm and content under soft caresses, under Derek’s weight, held off him just enough by Derek’s arms either side of his head, he started to roll his hips into Derek’s soft, diminutive motions like a question again.

Derek lifted his head then, eyes glazed and dark and beautiful, hair sleep-mussed. Stiles was struck with how beautiful and soft he looked, asking for his silent consent. In answer, Stiles tilted his head and slanted their mouths together and rocked up against him until they were pressed together where they were both hard. They moved like that for a while, unhurried and lazy and perfect.

It was early morning and Stiles thought distractedly that he was going to be Derek’s workout that morning. He chuckled into Derek’s mouth and gripped Derek’s ass to pull their hips tighter together. It was firm and perfect and Derek went with it, with a little almost-growl, rutting into him even as Stiles clumsily tugged their sweats down, only just enough to bring their cocks together. He panted, tearing his mouth away from Derek’s to look down and watch them grinding together, both straining and hard and sticky.

Derek pushed up on one arm, the other coming down to hold them both together. The flat of his thumb danced under Stiles’s head as he stroked and Stiles shuddered, stomach quivering. He gripped Derek’s wrist, but not to stop him. He pressed his head back hard into the pillows as he fucked up into his hand.

He blinked bleary-eyed up at Derek, who was watching him through lust-blown eyes, half-lidded with thick lashes. Stiles grunted as he wrapped his arms around his shoulders again, holding onto him, rolling up into him even as Derek pushed back. They were just carried off fast and hard, as sudden and swift as Stiles’s heart beat and Stiles came in thick stripes between them. Hungry and shocked, he reached down to stroke them both as well, clumsy and urgent until Derek’s heat splashed over his own release before he’d even recovered himself.

He was shaking, he was pretty sure, still rocking as if he couldn’t help himself, even though he was sensitive. Derek kissed him everywhere like he was the most precious thing he’d ever seen – sweaty and mussed up and completely gone, drunk on Derek.

Derek had nice arms, Stiles thought dazedly, not for the first or last time. Those oh so nice arms scooped him up and held him close, sheets still tangled around them. Together, they fall into that soft, dreamy place that Stiles just realised only lazy morning sex could bring.

“Did you love me before I was your anchor?” he asked sleepily against Derek’s mouth sometime later. Derek liked to touch his nose to Stiles’s a lot, to drag it over his cheek and the corner of his lips so they lay at the same level mostly, on Stiles’s favourite pillow he’d brought from home that he couldn’t sleep without.

Derek opened his eyes then, hand warm on Stiles’s hip and he looked freer than Stiles had ever seen him.

“I think there was always something, an understanding or–”

“A spark?” Stiles mused.

Derek rolled his eyes but his lips were quirked in a little smile as well. “If you like. I can’t pinpoint when it changed exactly, it just…I started to change. And when I was stuck in that desert, I dreamed about you – I only dreamed about you, Stiles, and that’s when I knew.”

Stiles studied him closely in the muted light. “That I was your anchor?”

“Yes,” Derek said softly, so openly. “And I was messed up then, we both were and the timing wasn’t right, and you were seventeen and part of me felt like I’d never really stopped being sixteen but I knew that somewhere along the way, you’d become the most important thing to me.”

Stiles stroked his face. Derek was getting laugh lines around his eyes, and they were the most perfect thing he’d ever seen.

“I think I fell in love with you when you were hiding out in my room all that time from the sheriff’s department, even if I didn’t really understand what it meant.”

He still wasn’t sure he understood it entirely now, but they had plenty of time to figure it out.

He leaned in this time, bringing their mouths together just a split-second before his phone buzzed. No, Derek’s phone buzzed in the living room. They ignored it at first, then it started vibrating frantically, signalling a phone call in silent mode and Derek huffed in annoyance before hopping out of bed. He pulled up his sweats as he went, but not before Stiles got a glorious glimpse of that perfect ass. He couldn’t wait to see more of it.

As Derek answered, he stumbled into the bathroom and ran a washcloth under warm water, sponging himself down and wringing it out to take out to Derek, but as he turned, he found Derek in the doorway, phone still to his ear, a worried look on his face. Or a worried scowl at any rate.

“What sort of trouble?” Derek said to the person on the phone.

Stiles didn’t have super-hearing, but the apartment was quiet and Derek’s phone was loud enough that he heard a woman’s voice on the phone. Cora?

“You’re telling me that their whole pack was destroyed?” His tone was difficult to read and Stiles wasn’t sure if Derek was summarising Cora’s words for Stiles’s benefit, or just simply floundering in disbelief. Because Derek had just been on the run for months because hunters, the ones they’d helped the FBI catch, had annihilated an entire pack and somehow pinned the blame on Derek, who had stopped by to check it out at exactly the wrong time.

The second hit on a werewolf pack in less than six months was a bit of coincidence and usually hunters were a bit more circumspect about their attacks, even the crazy ones.

Genocide on a wider scale was harder to ignore.

Stiles glanced at his own phone through the doorway, sitting currently silent on his side table. His work may not be aware of it yet, or maybe they were, but interns weren’t privy to this sort of dangerous information – the kind of information that could start a wider scale of panic. There were people like Rafael all over the FBI and CIA, trying to keep the secrets of the supernatural world secret. They were either doing a really good job of it or the officials were being pretty secretive themselves.

Stiles wouldn’t have time to find out which it was. He just knew. Stepping closer, he pressed his ear close and Derek held the phone away from his ear slightly so they could both listen.

“They weren’t even careful about it Derek,” Cora’s voice said, sounding fast and afraid. “The pack I’m staying with are in contact with this one in Brazil everyday because they’re the alpha’s in-laws and communication completely stopped. When they sent some people to check it out, they were just…everyone is gone. It was a blood bath. A scale of attack no one could’ve defended against. We’re working on other packs, telling them to go underground, get into hiding so I can’t – I wouldn’t ask you, but you know there are kids in this pack I’m staying with, Derek, in some of these other packs we’re trying to get to safety and something huge is going on here and I need to know someone I trust is looking into it.”

Stiles swallowed thickly, hands shaking and Derek held his gaze, as still as stone. In the short time Stiles had known Cora, he’d never heard her this shaken and desperate. This was bad. They both seemed agreed on that.

“I’ll check it out. Send me the location,” Derek said.

“Just for reconnaissance,” Cora insisted, voice shaken but determined now. “You promise me, Derek. This isn’t a battle you can win alone. You stay out of sight, find information and get out.” When Derek didn’t reply she persisted more firmly, “you promise me.”

It was not a question.

Derek sighed and though his expression was tinged with worry, his eyes were soft and affectionate. Stiles had heard him talk about his time with Cora and the pack she was staying with fondly, so he thought they’d gone some ways to mend the fractures in their relationship. He couldn’t wait to find out more – once they got out of whatever mess was headed their way, because there was no question they were heading straight for it.

“I promise, Cora. I can be careful.”

Stiles swore he heard something like “yeah, now you can” muttered down the phone from Cora and he smirked in spite of himself.

“Don’t go alone. Are you still in contact with Chris Argent or Braedan? Or can Isaac meet you?”

“Isaac’s still in France, he’s…” Derek looked thoughtful. “He’s happy there, Cora. He’s got a whole life.”

“Argent or Braeden then,” Cora said impatiently, more like a mother than a sister. “You can’t go alone.”

Derek straightened a little then, staring directly into Stiles’s eyes without any reservations and with meaning so much more significant than his simple words suggested. “Don’t worry, I’ve got back up.”

They had to get a flight to Brazil. Luckily there was space on the next flight out with only one stop over and Stiles was thrumming with nerves the whole time.

On the last leg, Derek laid a hand over his on the arm rest to still his twitching fingers when it looked like the woman in the window seat next to them was about to kill Stiles.

He wondered if it were possible that Derek could anchor him as well as the other way around, because after that he did actually manage to get some sleep. He didn’t know then just how much he would need it.

The next seventy-odd hours of Stiles’s life were non-stop. He wasn’t even sure he could process it correctly for days, weeks, months after, but somehow, while they were checking the wide area the murdered pack had claimed as territory, he and Derek had gotten split up. The ‘hunting party’ that’d attacked the pack had disbanded but some were still in the nearby town and some, Derek had apparently found at the scene of the crime. All of course, while Stiles got into trouble with the former.

Stiles wasn’t even sure how but by the time Derek had met him back at their hotel, Stiles had already had most of the hunters he’d encountered taken in by local law enforcement as suspects and Derek…Derek had parked up out front in what Stiles was pretty sure was a stolen car.

“Oh my god!” Stiles declared more than gasped as he scrambled into the passenger seat. “Are you insane! There are Brazilian police all over this town now and you park up in a stolen car!”

Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s not reported as stolen, they didn’t live long enough to make the call.”

Stiles scowled, scanning the street anxiously but the police that’d made the arrests were gone with their charges now and those that’d been left to clear the scene still seemed to be inside.

“Dude, where have you been?! You were meant to be back hours ago!”

Pulling back out into the street with all the calmness of a man out on a morning stroll, Derek made the turn at the junction toward the airport. “I was a bit caught up. I text you as soon as I could.” Before Stiles could do much more than process that the fact that he himself had also not really had time to check his phone, Derek added wryly, “Looks like you’ve been pretty busy too.” His eyes followed the three police vans they passed, currently transporting their suspects to the local jail.

They might not stay there, Stiles’s dad had been brief and distracted when he’d put Stiles in contact with someone trustworthy in Brazil. He was probably working on a big case himself as he was very hasty to get Stiles off the phone, so Stiles still wasn’t sure exactly how much Detective Silvos, who’d helped Stiles get these guys nailed down, knew about the supernatural. He hadn’t really blinked at Stiles’s vague and suspicious story though. Not when Stiles’s dad had spoken to him on the phone.

He also hadn’t asked Stiles to give him his address or contact details or to stay in town while the investigation continued, which was standard even in another country, of that he was sure.

He had the nagging suspicion somehow his dad was involved in this, which was impossible, surely? How could he be involved in a hit on werewolves in Brazil and Mexico that were somehow linked?

And why weren’t Lydia or Scott answering their damn phones?!

He stared at Derek then and the sight he made. “Is that your blood? Dude,” he hurriedly stripped off his outer shirt for Derek to put on when they reached the airport. They did not need that kind of attention.

Derek set his teeth. “Get your phone out and book us on the next flight out of Brazil.”

Stiles studied him carefully for a moment before digging in his pocket for his phone. “Sacramento flights are–”

“Not Sacramento,” Derek cut across him, focussed solely on the road ahead, as if he dared not let his mind drift back to whatever he’d left behind.

Watching his face in profile carefully, Stiles waited for Derek to explain or clarify what he meant exactly. But the haunted look in Derek’s eyes as the street lights flashed by made the uneasiness at the back of his mind settle heavily in the pit of his stomach. “Derek?”

“Book the fastest route to Beacon County airport,” he said at last, casting Stiles a little sideways glance.

Of course whatever crap was going on here was leading them back to Beacon Hills, the place they’d both tried so hard to escape. Stiles was so getting his dad a job somewhere in Sacramento because his life expectancy was definitely going to go up with that move. He shot his dad a text to check in as he pulled up the flights options.

It was night when they landed in Beacon County Airport after a long two stop flight and the taxi they took from there dropped them off at the Stiles’s house. An uncomfortable sense of foreboding filled him when they found that his dad wasn’t there. Even as Stiles felt his panic sky-rocketing, even as he dialled his dad’s cell and the line rang and rang, Derek stood poised on the threshold of the front door, listening to the cool, quiet night.

Stiles watched him, knowing, just knowing somehow that he was picking up on something Stiles couldn’t have a hope of sensing.

“They’re in trouble – we’ve got to go,” Derek said quickly. Stiles snatched the Jeep’s keys off the rack in the hall. He hoped that the fact that Scott had left the Jeep here meant his dad was with him, or at least protected somehow.

“Your driving will get us pulled over in five seconds, we want to avoid attention not get shot off the road by the anti-werewolf militia,” Stiles said as he shut the front door behind them and darted for the Jeep. Because his brain had been working overtime on both flights and he was starting to put it all together now.

He thought as he pulled his seatbelt on and Derek wrenched open the passenger door with distaste, that Derek was about to argue, but then he stiffened as if he’d heard something, eyes going wide and he jumped in.

“Drive,” he barked, before he’d even closed his door.

Stiles floored it, going five over the speed limit the whole way despite the way Derek was braced forward in his seat and scowling at the rate of movement.

“Look, if they see us speeding down the street it’s going to draw even more attention than a werewolf running down it,” Stiles snapped, heart pounding, mind racing as he thought of his dad, of Scott and Lydia and everyone else.

Scott hadn’t had time for specifics it seemed, hadn’t even had time to finish the phone call properly or reply to Stiles’s messages. Stiles wondered if his phone had been caught in the crossfire again, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Derek rolled down the passenger window roughly using the lever and glared at Stiles as if daring him to make a dog comment as he inhaled the sharp night air.

“Turn right,” he barked and the Jeep protested loudly as Stiles jerked the steering hard.

“Put your seatbelt on,” Stiles snapped and Derek turned his head to level him with a withering look. Stiles wasn’t deterred. “It still hurts if you fly through the windshield doesn’t it? Now don’t lean too far out of the window or a streetlamp will take your head clean off, fido.”

He had the brief, glancing thought that it was good their bickering banter hadn’t changed. That, and that they made a pretty good team. He only hoped their success of the last few days, weeks really, was going to hold true for whatever they were getting themselves into now. It was Beacon Hills, after all.

Derek helped him follow Scott’s trail toward an industrial site and as Stiles pressed harder on the gas, even he heard the sounds of gunfire. His stomach dropped and he and Derek locked gazes briefly. He saw his own worry etched into Derek’s expression and swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

“Blood?” he breathed, not wanting to know.

“Not Scott’s. Not the pack’s, I don’t think but…” he frowned then and stiffened in his seat, grabbing for the door handle. “Keep going. Put your foot down.” With that, he leapt out of the door, landing easily on his feet.

Stiles swore, glancing repetitively in the wing mirror only to see Derek quickly keep speed alongside the passenger window, pushing the door shut hard.

A stream of gunfire pinged down from one of the rooftops to their left.

“Snipers!” Stiles shouted and Derek snarled, leaping onto the nearest structure and scaling the concrete, up and out of sight.

Ahead of him, Stiles could see the conflict now, a force of guns flashing in the dark, aiming for a barely covered alcove with wide open arches and he knew, just knew this was them. The militia that were trying to kill everyone he cared about. Maybe they even had? One man side-stepped out of the shadow of the building they were targeting, position prime for fire and Stiles knew without thinking the guy was preparing a kill-shot.

He floored the gas and slammed into him, sending the guy skidding forward with a crunch. Panting hard, Stiles turned out the still open window and saw Scott staring at him from his crouched position behind a pillar.

“You didn’t think you were doing this without me, did ya?” Stiles called out, a little breathless but with a wave of relief filling him at seeing Scott alive.

“Without us?” Derek added as he came up alongside the Jeep once more, evidently having disposed of the snipers that had sidetracked him. Movement just ahead, of more gunmen rounding the corner caught his eye though and his eyes flashed, fangs extending as he leapt forward.

If Stiles hadn’t been head over heels for him before, he sure would’ve been then. Because Derek wasn’t the same erratic, scared little kid in a man’s body. He was focussed, more dangerous and stronger now because of it. He may not have been an alpha but he was unstoppable. Maybe the others felt it too or perhaps their arrival had simply rallied their morale because he saw Malia move, saw Peter and for probably the first time, Stiles appreciated that they were wolves – a pack of wolves acting as one, all of them. He stood struck still as stone at the sight of them working together like a single force and didn’t really come back to himself until what was left of their enemy tore away with a screech of tyres.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about any of this, not a word not a single word,” he rounded on Lydia as the others moved toward…toward Deucalion, broken and limp on the floor.

“We had reasons, really good reasons,” Lydia muttered sheepishly, and as they moved, as Scott and the others focussed on Deucalion, she levelled him with a shrewd glare. “Why didn’t you tell me about Derek?” She challenged under her breath and Stiles wasn’t even sure how she’d known from just a glance, or if it’d only been a hunch that he’d confirmed with the full-facial flush he had absolutely no control over.

“Well that’s a…fairly recent development. Like…sort of shiny new…”

“Please, there’s nothing new about that,” Lydia scoffed under her breath.

He felt Derek tense as he came up behind them, Peter close by, Malia too and he wondered how much they had heard or if they’d been focussed on Deucalion’s last words.

“It’s already started, hasn’t it?” Malia asked.

Stiles frowned. How much had they missed here? “What’s started?”

“It’s an all out war,” Scott breathed, lifting his gaze from Deucalion to each of them in turn, as if confirming each and every member of his pack were unharmed after such a close call. An instinctive motion, Stiles thought, after years of running with wolves.

Stiles’s head was still spinning as Scott embraced Derek, relieved and glad to see him and so well, Stiles thought. Scott was the alpha but Derek represented a force of strength for Scott, a big brother figure and support that Scott didn’t have from anyone else. As they spoke, as Derek explained what had brought them there, Stiles suddenly found himself among all the conflicting feelings that had gripped him since they’d started heading back toward Beacon Hills.

Because their connection, this thing he and Derek had found together, their little den back in Sacramento felt so fresh, new and delicate like a bubble and whatever Beacon Hills touched, it fucked up. But standing there, watching Derek, watching Derek watch him with those soft eyes, he realised every inch of Derek was calm and collected. He was focussed because Stiles was there, anchoring him and whatever else happened, they were going to be okay.

“We found a pack slaughtered in Brazil, there were two words written on the wall, Beacon Hills.”

“You came back for Beacon Hills?” Scott asked, bemused.

“No,” Derek replied simply. “I came back for you.”

“We came back for you,” Stiles corrected.

Malia gave him a wry look. “Yeah, are ‘we’ going to explain that anytime soon?” Stiles honestly forgot how much she loved to tease him. He’d missed her, he’d missed all of them really and he felt a little giddy at the thought of sharing this happiness he’d found, this inner strength he’d cultivated, the person he’d become.

Derek moved to his side then, a subtle but distinctive movement. His eyes searching his, a smile touching the corners of his mouth as Stiles’s gaze dropped to it. It was like Derek felt invincible with Stiles beside him, and that knowledge was heady. The backs of Derek’s fingers brushed his where they hung limp at his side with such subtle, shy tenderness and yet Stiles’s stomach fluttered and he gave a nervous little laugh.

“Sure, we’ve got…stuff and you guys have stuff – a lot of stuff, actually. Huge stuff. But can we go somewhere with heat and light because I haven’t slept properly in like literal days and I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

Derek’s soft little burst of laughter, almost too quiet to hear, was a beautiful sound, a moment of calming clarity, like the last gulp of fresh air before diving into deep water. They had a war to win.

When the smoke cleared, when they had defeated the militia that had tried to wipe out anyone with supernatural blood, they stood together in the darkness.

Stiles watched Scott bring a freshly turned, freshly afraid werewolf into their protection, if not their fold. Watched the beginnings of their future unfold before them and for once he didn’t feel afraid. He glanced to Derek, who gave him that little quirk of a smile, saw his own future, as well as his pack and he couldn’t wait for the rest of his life to begin.

The Jeep couldn’t make the drive to Sacramento, so he left her back in Scott’s loving hands to drive the newbie back to the loft. Derek’s old apartment had been renovated by the pack into ‘pack ground zero’ and now housed quite a few of their newest recruits slash recues. Scott had only looked a little bit annoyed, mostly indulgent, when Stiles had called it ‘Scotty’s School for Gifted Youngsters’.

He climbed into the passenger seat of Derek’s Camaro, a new model, not the old classic that apparently Derek had left with Cora. Derek looked so good and Stiles wondered how much begging it’d take to get Derek to stop for a milkshake on the way home. He was guessing not much, Derek was pretty good at taking care of him. He’d even looked ready to take on their friends when they’d effectively outed themselves to everyone in Deaton’s clinic before the final showdown. It had been unnecessary though, as nobody seemed very surprised, except Scott, who bless his heart was oblivious about most things.

“Your dad gave me ‘the speech’ when you were loading the car earlier,” Derek mused as he pulled out onto the quiet main road. “It wasn’t exactly the ‘shotgun’ speech…”

Stiles cringed. “It wasn’t the safe sex speech either was it?”

Derek smirked. “It was more along the lines of, I’m glad it’s you and good luck you’re gonna need it.”

Stiles made a sound that was a mixture of outrage and amusement. “Oh my god, traitor! You guys are gonna gang up on me at Sunday dinners aren’t you?”

Derek’s quiet laughter caressed his ears as Beacon Hills fell away in a blur of twinkling lights into the darkness behind them. He reached out, stretching fingers across Derek’s denim-clad thigh and relaxed back into the seat, staring out at the road ahead where the headlights greeted the tarmac.

Derek’s fingers came down to cover his as he drove.

“Do you think another militia will pop up like that again?” Stiles asked after the lights of Beacon Hills had long since vanished behind them.

“I think it’s always possible. Hunters are still out there. People like Monroe are still out there,” Derek said thoughtfully. “But rumour is spreading, about the Beacon Hills pack, about the safety they provide, their strength. It makes anyone think twice about making an attack like that again, but it also means newly turned werewolves and people like them have somewhere to go instead of getting into trouble, instead of causing mayhem with powers they can’t control.”

Stiles nodded, “it actually helps to have so many people in the town in on the secret too, I guess. They’re like an extension of the pack.” Plus his dad had been elected sheriff again and he had never been more respected by the community. While that kept him rooted in Beacon Hills too for the foreseeable future, Stiles didn’t worry as much as he had before. The bitterness that had once tainted his connection to that town had dissipated somewhat, his bond with his hometown, with the pack stronger than before.

It was funny how it’d taken him and Derek finding each other, really finding each other to enable them to reconnect with the pack and the town the way they were meant to. They would always belong to Beacon Hills and the pack there, it would always be theirs, but what they had with each other was home. Home was wherever Stiles curled up next to Derek at night and the rest of the world was a better place outside because of that.

Stiles couldn’t even put his finger on why, exactly. He thought though, perhaps, that they’d both been two very capable but misguided kids. Two strangers that, for their own reasons, had been forced to learn to take care of themselves. And while they’d both managed fine, they hadn’t necessarily been good at it. They’d been drawn to each other from the start, had always known how to push each other’s buttons but also known that they were both missing something.

Now they were whole. Cracked, a little chipped here and there and definitely dented, but for all those flaws, they were together and complete.

They’d looked out for each other as allies in war, but now they looked after each other as partners, as equals. As the other’s most important thing, the anchor that held them tight, steady and sure no matter how rough the seas around them grew.

“You’re totally gonna rip my throat out if I open this bag of Doritos in your new shiny baby aren’t you?” Stiles mused as he tugged the aforementioned bag out from his backpack that sat between his legs in the footwell.

“With my teeth,” Derek agreed automatically, completely deadpan. But his hand squeezed Stiles’s gently where they were still connected.

Stiles grinned.

There was also the fact that no one quite enjoyed Stiles’s own special brand of crazy like Derek did. That sort of unconditional love was something more powerful than anything, supernatural or otherwise. It was hard not to feel invincible knowing that. And when Derek looked at him sometimes, even then when it was just a quick peek between keeping his eyes on the road, like he couldn’t help himself, he could see Derek felt the exact same way.

“So at the end of the month, my boss is holding this sort of…I guess the term would be a dinner,” he began as he gently wriggled his hand free from Derek’s to open the dreaded Doritos. “It’s like this unofficial thing he does, to sort of congratulate us all for our hard work. Like a work’s Christmas party except it’s way too early for Christmas. But anyway, we’re allowed to bring significant others.”

When Derek glanced at him again, Stiles waggled his eyebrows and stuffed some Doritos in his mouth. “How significant do you wanna be, Derek?”

Derek flushed but turned back to the road. Honestly he rocked the angry-embarrassed thing, Stiles was so gone for him.

“Is he going to recognise me?” Derek replied eventually, but as he did so, Stiles leaned over to poke a Dorito into his mouth, forcing him to partake in the desecration of the Camaro’s spotless interior and lingering new car smell.

“Only one way to find out hubby-wolf.”

“Oh my god, Stiles, no pet names.”

“I’m also thinking we can probably fit a queen bed in the apartment,” Stiles continued as if he hadn’t spoken. We should stop at Ikea tomorrow. Just something with a little more room for you to, you know, have at me with all your wolfie desires. The full moons are gonna rock.”

Derek made a noise that was torn between dismay and adoration and annoyance all at once and Stiles grinned, stuffing his mouth full again before poking another chip between Derek’s lips. He prodded it until it was almost fully in Derek’s mouth, but when Derek resignedly sucked it in fully, he nipped at the end of Stiles’s fingertip, looking both irritated and pleased with himself.

Stiles beamed and dusted his fingers off before starting to mess with the radio.

Derek had to know what he was in for, after all.

#happyjuicyfruit #stereksanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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imdoingthismspaintadventure · 4 years ago

Text

Worm Interlude 2 -- In which two sisters clean up a street

There were very few things, in Victoria Dallon’s estimation, that were cooler than flying. The invisible forcefield that extended a few millimeters over her skin and clothes just made it better. The field kept the worst of the chill from touching her, but still let her feel the wind on her skin and in her hair. Bugs didn’t splat against her face like they did against car windshields, even when she was pushing eighty miles an hour.

Time for an interlude, it seems we will be getting these between arcs! From the point of view of different characters, to flesh out the world and the story. I always love when stories do that, put us in a point of view different from the main character. If done right, it adds so much richness to the setting.

It seems our interlude protagonist has the power of flight, plus some sort of force field that actively shields her against friction and particles. We learn this in the same paragraph where we also see how much she enjoys using her flight, so we both get characterization and powers at the same time. Nice!

Spotting her target, she whooped and plunged for the ground, gaining speed where anyone else would be slowing down. She hit the asphalt hard enough to crack it and send fragments of it into the air, touching ground with her knee and foot, one arm extended. She stayed in that kneeling position for just heartbeats, letting her platinum curls and the cape that was draped over one of her shoulders flutter in the wake of air that had followed her descent. She met the eyes of her quarry with a steely glare.

Superhero landing!

I would certainly be intimidated if she landed in front of me like that! She gives me lots of superhero vibes in terms of her overall alignment.

She’d practiced that landing for weeks to get it right.

Pfft. Okay she’s also a bit of a dork, and very human.

The man was a twenty something Caucasian with a shaved head, a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans and work boots. He took one look at her and bolted.

You, sir, look like an underling of someone, and the way he nope’d out of there also gave me mook vibes.

Victoria grinned as he disappeared down the far end of the alley. She rose from her kneeling position, dusted herself off and ran her fingers through her hair to tidy it. Then she raised herself a foot off the ground and flew after him at an easy forty five miles an hour.

Classic superman-like superspeed / flight / superendurance is such a nice power to have. I bet you feel like a god.

It didn’t take a minute to catch him, even with the head start she had given him. She flew just past him, grazing him. An instant later, she came to a dead stop, facing him. Again, the wind made for a dramatic flourish as it stirred her hair, her cape and the skirt of her costume.

She’s really theatric with all this, and I kinda love it. I feel like this guy is thoroughly outmatched.

“The woman you attacked was named Andrea Young,” she spoke.

The man looked over his shoulder, as if gauging his escape routes.

Grunt attacked a civilian and they sent the superhero cavalry to make him super regret it?

“Don’t even think about it, fugly,” she told him, “You know I’d catch you, and trust me, I’m already pissed off enough without you wasting my time.”

“I didn’t do anything,” the man snarled.

“Andrea Young!” Victoria raised her voice. As she shouted, she exercised her power. The man quailed as though she’d slapped him. “A black college student was beaten so badly she needed medical attention! Her teeth were knocked out! You’re trying to tell me that you, a skinhead with swollen knuckles, someone who was in the crowd watching paramedics arrive with an expression bordering on glee, you didn’t do anything!?”

Oh so he’s neonazi filth. Ugh.

I was already kinda unsympathetic to him from the start, but now he can choke.

Fuck his shit up, Victoria.

“I didn’t do nothing worth caring about,” he sneered. His bravado was tempered by a second look over his shoulder, as though he’d very much like to be elsewhere right that moment.

Fuck this guy. He’s also cowering like a little bitch and trying to look all brave in front of no one, like an idiot.

She flew forward, her fists catching him by the collar. For just a moment, she contemplated slamming him up against a wall. It would have been fitting and satisfying to shove him hard enough against the brick to crack it, then drop him into the dumpster that sat at the wall’s base.

Taunting a girl who can absolutely ruin his fucking life, maybe not his best idea.

He almost got literally dumpstered.

Instead, she pulled up a little, bringing the two of them to a stop. They were now just high enough above the ground that he’d feel uncomfortable with the height. The dumpster, mostly empty, was directly below him, but she doubted he was paying attention to anything but her.

Ah, threatening him with falling from great heights! The batman strat! Or one of them anyway.

“I think it’s a safe bet to say you’re a member of Empire Eighty-Eight,” she told him, meeting his eyes with a hard stare, “or at least, you’ve got some friends who are. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to either tell me everything the triple-E’s have been up to, or I’m going to break your arms and legs and then you’re going to tell me everything.”

Empire Eighty-Eight huh? Since the last time I heard the name, I’ve been informed about the 1488 dogwhistle, which I had never heard in spain. So yeah this guy is definitely part of some neonazi group, and is all around human garbage.

The group seems pretty big if it has a lot of unpowered mooks, kind of reminds me of Lung and his boys. I bet them and these guys wouldn’t really get along.

As she spoke, she ratcheted up her power. She knew it was working when he started squirming just to avoid her gaze.

“Fuck you, you can’t touch me. There’s laws against that shit,” he blustered, staring fixedly over one shoulder.

She turned up her power another notch. Her body thrummed with current – waves of energy that anyone in her presence would experience as an emotional charge of awe and admiration. For those with a reason to be afraid of her, it would be a feeling of raw intimidation instead.

Oh so she not only has superman-like powers! She also has an intimidation factor! That is fascinating. It makes her enemies afraid and everyone else feel awe at her presence. ...That sounds a little creepy if it influences normal people but I see how it can give a massive advantage against villains and criminals, in conjunction with her other powers!

“Last chance,” she warned him.

Unfortunately, fear affected everyone differently. For this particular asshole, it just made him dig in his heels and become obstinate. She could see it in his body language before he opened his mouth – this was the sort of guy who reacted to anything that spooked or unsettled him with an almost mindless refusal to bend.

“Lick my hairy, sweaty balls,” he snarled, before punctuating it with a spat, “Cunt.”

It makes sense that someone like him would get defiant in a moment like this. Still probably not the best judgement. Fear (even this artificial one) is usually there for a reason.

She threw him. Since she could bench press a cement mixer, though it was hard to balance something so large and unwieldy, even a casual toss on her part could get some good distance. He flew a good twenty five or thirty yards down the back road before hitting the asphalt, and rolled for another ten.

He was utterly for still for long enough that Victoria had begun to worry that he’d somehow snapped his neck or broken his spine as he’d rolled. She was relieved when he groaned and began to pull himself to his feet.

Damn, with a power like hers she really has to be careful to not accidentally kill someone. If she can throw a grown healthy adult like that, sending him flying across the street, she could just as easily end anyone who doesn’t have super-endurance.

I wonder if that is actually a problem in this world? Accidental manslaughter via a missuse of super-strength.

“Ready to talk?” she asked him, her voice carrying down the alley. She didn’t move forward from where she hovered in the air, but she did let herself drop closer to the ground.

Pressing one hand against his leg to support himself as he straightened up, he raised his other hand and flipped her the bird, then turned and began to limp down the alley.

....what is this guy even doing? She just yeeted your ass to the other side of the street! Since when is pissing dangerous superheroines a good idea??

What was this asshole thinking? That she would just let him go? That, what, she would just bend to his witless lack of self preservation? That she was helpless to do any real harm to him? To top it off, he was going to insult her and try to walk away?

....he IS probably counting on you being a “good guy”, yeah.

But by the way her internal thoughts are going, he may have made a liiitle mistake with all this.

“Screw you too,” she hissed through her teeth. Then she kicked the dumpster below her hard enough to send it flying down the little road. It rotated lazily through the air as it arced towards the retreating figure, the trajectory and rotation barely changing as it knocked him flat. It skidded to a halt three to five yards beyond him, the metal sides of the dumpster squealing and sparking as it scraped against the asphalt.

...did she just throw an entire dumpster on top of him? Like, as a projectile weapon?? Is this poor asshole still alive???

This time, he didn’t get up.

“Fuck,” she swore, “Fuckity fuck fuck.” She flew to him and checked for a pulse. She sighed, and then headed to the nearest street. She found the street address, grabbed her cell from her belt and dialed.

Oh fuck she might have gone and done it. Used excessive force and super-murdered a suspect. What even happens in cases like this, then?

She seemed to be panicking but then calmed down when she checked for a pulse, so he’s probably still alive, even if knocked out.

It seems to have spooked her enough to make a phone call though.

“Hey sis? Yeah, I found him. That’s, uh, sort of the problem. Yeah. Look, I’m sorr- ok, can we talk about this later? Yeah. I’m at Spayder and Rock, there’s this little road that runs behind the buildings. Downtownish, yeah. Yeah? Thanks.”

Victoria returned to the unconscious skinhead, checked his pulse, and listened intently for changes in his breathing. It took a very long five minutes for her sister to arrive.

“Again, Victoria?” the voice disturbed her from her contemplations.

She called her sister for help! Does her sister have superpowers too? Maybe some sort of healing or stasis power, so they can avoid him dying, if he’s in a really critical state?

Again, huh? Oof, is excessive force a thing with you Victoria? She might not be as “purely heroic” as I thought. Seeing a lot of gray here as well. Trigger-happy or reckless heroes can be VERY dangerous in certain settings.

“Use my codename, please,” Victoria told the girl. Her sister was as different from her as night was from day. Where Victoria was beautiful, tall, gorgeous, blonde, Amy was mousy. Victoria’s costume showed off her figure, with a white one-piece dress that came to mid-thigh (with shorts underneath) an over-the shoulder cape, high boots and a golden tiara with spikes radiating from it, vaguely reminiscent of the sun’s rays or the statue of liberty. Amy’s costume, by contrast, was only a shade away from being a burka. Amy wore a robe with a large hood and a scarf that covered the lower half of her face. The robe was alabaster white and had a medic’s red cross on the chest and the back.

Oh I like both of their designs a lot! And the contrast between them!

Victoria is a white and gold goddess with statue of liberty and/or divine motifs, which matches up with both her demeanor so far, and the power itself, especially the fear/adoration part.

Amy, on the other hand, reminds me of a final fantasy white mage, so the possibility of her being a healer is even higher (she even wears a red cross!). Also, just by visual design alone, she may be more introverted in comparison to the extroverted nature of her sister. She is like a star radiating light, while Amy is hiding herself with her clothes.

“Our identities are public,” Amy retorted, pushing the hood back and scarf down to reveal brown frizzy hair and a face with freckles spaced evenly across it.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Victoria replied.

“You want to talk about principles, Glory Girl?” Amy asked, in the most sarcastic tone she could manage, “This is the sixth – sixth! – time you’ve nearly killed someone. That I know about!”

“I’m strong enough to lift a SUV over my head,” Victoria muttered, “It’s hard to hold back all the time.”

Ooh interesting! Ok so a couple of things:

1) Amy looks cute, with her frizzy hair and freckles, in comparison to her sister’s more traditionally “beautiful” look.

2)Their identities are public??. Sooo....is that a thing particular to them, or to a group they belong to?? Cause I don’t remember very well, but I think Armsmaster kept his identity secret, didn’t he??

It’s very interesting that there are superheroes with public identities! I suppose that turns them into celebrities, even in their private lives, but isn’t that dangerous? Aren’t there villains who would attack their homes or families?

3)It seems Glory Girl is indeed a bit sketchy with the way she uses her super-strength, having six close calls with killing someone just because of an excess of force. I wonder if she can learn to regulate just how hard she needs to hit, because that seems dangerous!

“I’m sure Carol would buy that line,” Amy said, making it clear in her tone she wasn’t, “But I know you better than anyone. If you’re having trouble holding back, the problem isn’t here -” she poked Victoria in the bicep. “It’s here-” she jabbed her sister in the forehead, hard. Victoria didn’t even blink.

“Look, can you just fix him?” Victoria pleaded.

“I’m thinking I shouldn’t,” Amy said, quietly.

“What?”

“There’s consequences, Vicky. If I help you now, what’s going to stop you from doing it again? I can call the paramedics. I know some good people from the hospital. They could probably fix him up alright.”

Seems Amy is fed up with her sister dodging responsabilities for her recklessness, and wants her to learn the consequences of her behaviour and hopefully excercise more caution. This also confirms that Amy is indeed some kind of healer. Also is Carol their mother or caretaker??

Hey, hey, hey,” Victoria said, “That’s not funny. He goes to the hospital, people ask questions.”

“Yeah, I’m well aware,” Amy said, her voice hushed.

“This isn’t, like, me getting grounded. I’d get pulled into court on charges of aggravated assault and battery. That doesn’t just fuck with me. It fucks with our family, all of New Wave. Everything we’ve struggled to build.”

On the other hand, facing the consequences could mean that their whole family takes the blame.

New Wave...it seems Amy and Victoria have a whole family of superheroes, like The Incredibles! Is New Wave’s gimmick that the identities are public? The fact that excessive force threatens the founding purpose of the group leads me to think that revealing their identities is an attempt to gain the trust of the general public.

Amy frowned and looked at the fallen man..

“I know you’re not keen on the superhero thing, but you’d really go that far? You’d do that to us? To me?”

Amy pointed a finger at her sister, “That’s not me. It’s not my fault we’re at this point. It’s you. You’re crossing the line, going too far. Which is exactly what people who criticize New Wave are scared of. We’re not government sponsored. We’re not protected or organized or regulated in the same way. Everyone knows who we are under our masks. That means we have to be accountable. The responsible thing for me to do, as a member of this team, is to let the paramedics take him, and let the law do as it sees fit.”

So, New Wave is not government sponsored, like the protectorate is!

On one hand, we have the Protectorate, which is a state-funded professional justice league, with secret identities and constumed antics and such.

On the other, we have New Wave, which is a freelance family of heroes with their identities public and emphasizing accountability and probably a more modern, refreshing approach to superheroing (which kinda goes with the new wave name)

I really like the world building we’ve got going on here. It doesn’t seem to be going that well if Victoria here nearly killed a crook due to an excessive use of force though. At least it seems Amy is more level-headed and wants her sis to also be more careful.

Victoria abruptly pulled Amy into a hug. Amy resisted for a moment, then let her arms go limp at her sides.

“This isn’t just a team, Ames,” Victoria told her, “We’re a family. We’re your family.”

Heh, what Victoria is pulling here is the exact sort of emotional manipulation that a spoiled family member pulls when trying to get away with something scot-free. They’ve got a sister dinamic, that’s for sure!

The man lying just a matter of feet away stirred, then groaned, long and loud.

“My adoptive family,” Amy mumbled into Victoria’s shoulder, “And stop trying to use your frigging power to make me all squee over how amazing you are. Doesn’t work. I’ve been exposed so long I’m immune.”

Oh wow, seems like Victoria was trying literal emotional manipulation by way of her powers, but Amy has been exposed for so long she’s inmmune. So.... one can build an inmmunity to that aspect of her power?

Also it’s a bit disturbing to think of Victoria using her emotional powers to make her family subtly like her more.

And Amy is adopted! She did look very different from Victoria, based on that description we got earlier.

“It hurts,” the man moaned.

“I’m not using my power, dumbass,” Victoria told Amy, letting her go, “I’m hugging my sister. My awesome, caring and merciful sister.”

The man whined, louder, “I can’t move. I feel cold.”

Amy frowned at Victoria, “I’ll heal him. But this is the last time.”

Victoria beamed, “Thank you.”

The bastard deserves it, but it’s kind of funny how nonchalant they are being with his continued pain in the background.

Seems Amy has finally caved-in to her demands and will heal this badly wounded piece of shit. (Victoria totally acts like a spoiled brat who broke a toy during all this, which is a bit terrifying with a power combination like hers)

Amy leaned over the man and touched her hand to his cheek, “Slingshot break to his ribs, fractured clavicle, broken mandible, broken scapula, fractured sternum, bruised lung, broken ulna, broken radius -“

“I get the point,” Victoria said.

“Do you?” Amy asked. Then she sighed, “I wasn’t even halfway down the list. This is going to take a little while. Sit?”

Victoria crossed her legs and assumed a sitting position, floating a half foot above the ground. Amy just knelt where she was and rested her hand on the man’s cheek. The tension went out of his body and he relaxed.

Holy shit, Victoria really pummeled him badly! I guess that’s what happens when a superwoman toys like that with a normal human.

Also Amy can analyze and diagnose what a person has wrong in their body with just a touch? And can remove all pain, also with a single touch? On top of some form of healing?

That is ...incredible. She could revolutionize the world of healthcare and be an incredible professional doctor! Just the analysis part of it alone! It’s just ...so good.

“How’s the woman? Andrea?”

“Better than ever, physically,” Amy replied, “I grew her new teeth, fixed everything from the bruising to the scrapes, and even gave her a head to toe tune-up. Physically, she’ll feel on top of the world, like she had been to a spa and had the best nutritionist, best fitness expert and the best doctor all looking after her for a straight month.”

This power is astonishingly good.

She (and other powers like hers) would save so many lives, just by doing normal medical work.

Can she only heal injuries like these, or can she also do things like grow half a person’s body back, or even make someone younger? The posibilities with her are endless!

“Good,” Victoria said.

“Mentally? Emotionally? It’s up to her to deal with the aftermath of a beating. I can’t affect the brain.”

“Well-” Victoria started to speak.

“Yeah, yeah. Not can’t. Won’t. It’s complicated and I don’t trust myself not to screw something up when I’m tampering with someone’s head. That’s it, that’s all.”

Well it seems she couldn’t cure dementia or parkinson’s disease or any of these blights on humankind. But she’s still amazing!

It’s very interesting to see that it’s not just bam, you’re healed, with her power. She has to actually perform the healing herself. So her power would be ...what? Body scan and manipulation? Organic manipulation? Using the inherent healing sistems of the body as a tool?

Victoria started to say something, then shut her mouth. Even if they weren’t related by blood, they were sisters. Only sisters could have these sorts of recurring arguments. They had gone through a dozen different variations on this argument before. As far as she was concerned, Amy was doing herself a disservice by not practicing using her powers on the brain. It was only a matter of time before her sister found herself in a situation where she needed to do some emergency brain surgery and found herself incapable. Amy, for her part, refused to even discuss it.

Victoria has a more reckless demeanor than her sister. It’s true that Amy being able to cure brain diseases would be incredible, but how would she practice? Would there need to be people used as basically experiments until she gets the hang of it? It seems it would require some not very good means.

Also, Amy does use her powers to do medical stuff it seems! That’s good. I wonder how much certain powers have benefitted humankind in this series.

She didn’t want to raise a sensitive issue when Amy was in the process of doing her a major favor. To change the subject, Victoria asked, “Is it cool if I question him?”

“Might as well,” Amy sighed.

Victoria tapped the man a few times on the forehead to get his attention. He could barely move his head, but his eyes lolled in her direction.

“Ready to answer my questions, or do me and my sister just walk away and leave you like this?”

“I… sue you, he gasped out, then managed an added, “Whore.”

“Try it. I’d just love to see a skinhead with a few broken bones go up against a superheroine whose mom just happens to be one of the best lawyers in Brockton Bay. You know her, right?”

“Brandish,” he said.

Hmm I feel like there is an ethical conversation to be had here. Both in ransoming the healing and in flaunting that they could get away with it because their mom is a lawyer.

Would the Protectorate be ok with doing something like this? Would the citizenship be ok with something like this?

Again, it could be argued that he’s a neonazi scumbag, but what about in more general cases? Or is getting information out of him instrumental in protecting the people and saving lives, and does that justify one’s actions?

Interesting questions to be had, all in all.

“That’s her name in costume. Normally she’s Carol Dallon. She’d kick your ass in court, believe me,” Victoria said. She believed it. What the thug didn’t understand was that even if he lost the case, the media circus that would be stirred up would do more damage than anything else. But she didn’t need to inform him of that. She asked him, “So do I get my sister to leave you as you are, or are you willing to trade some information for relief from months of incredible pain and a lifetime of arthritis and stiffness in your bones?”

So Carol is indeed their mother, and also the superheroine Brandish! ...I don’t have any idea what her powers are based on that name alone.

“And erectile dysfunction,” Amy said, just loud enough for the thug to hear her, “You fractured your ninth vertebra. That’s going to affect all nerve function in extremities below your waist. If I leave you like you are, your toes will always feel a little numb, and you’ll have a hell of a time getting it up, if you know what I mean.”

The skinhead’s eyes widened a fraction, “You’re fucking with me.”

“I have an honorary medical license,” Amy told him, her expression solemn, “I’m not allowed to fuck with you about stuff like that. Hippocratic oath.”

“Isn’t that ‘do no harm’?” the thug asked. Then he groaned, long, loud and with the slightest rattle in his breath, as she removed her hand from his body.

Okay I’m kinda enjoying the way they are messing with him, ethical questions aside. Amy going straight for the erectile dysfunction! And a version of the “If I was an undercover cop, I would be obligated to tell you” kind of gambit.

Would the removing the anesthetic hand to make him comply be considered torture? Hm.

“That’s just the first part of it, like how freedom of speech and the right to bear arms is just the first part of a very long constitution. It doesn’t look like he’s cooperating, Glory Girl. Should we go?”

“Fuck!” the man shouted, then winced, tenderly touching his side with one hand, “I’ll tell you. Please, just… do what you were doing. Touch me and make the pain go away, put me back together. Fix me?”

Amy touched him. He relaxed, and then he started talking.

Looks like they got him to talk! Not so cocky in the end, against these two.

“Empire Eighty-Eight is extending into the Docks on Kaiser’s orders. Lung’s in custody, and whatever happens, the ABB is weaker than it was. That means there’s territory for grabs, and the Empire sure ain’t making progress downtown.”

Seems like Taylor accidentaly created a power vacuum! Due to Lung no longer being there, the ABB is left much weaker and other gangs are rising up to the occasion.

Kaiser huh? That’s the leader of these neonazis? Named after german emperors, so it really fits.

“Why not?” Victoria asked him.

“This guy, Coil. Don’t know what his powers are, but he’s got a private army. Ex-military, all of ’em. At least fifty, Kaiser said, and every one of ’em has top notch gear. Their armor’s better than kevlar. You shoot ’em, they’re back up in a few seconds. ‘Least when you shoot a pig, you can be pretty sure you broke a few ribs. But that’s not the fucked up thing. These guys? They’ve got these lasers hooked up to the machine guns they carry around. If they don’t think bullets are doing it, or if they’re after people who are behind cover, they fire off these purple laser beams that can cut through steel. Tear through any cover you’re standing behind and burn through you too.”

More competition! In the same way that the ABB seems to have an asian theme, and the Empire are neo-nazis, these guys seem to be some sort of paramilitary militia armed to the teeth with high-tech gear, including ...laser weapons?? So these guys are less about superpowers and more about collective strength, tactics and formations? They sound awesome.

Coil makes me think about tesla coils, so maybe some electricity power to go along with the high-tech motif and weird technology?

“Yeah. I know about him. His methods get expensive,” Victoria said, “Top of the line soldiers, top of the line gear.”

The thug nodded weakly, “But even with money to burn, he’s fighting us over Downtown territories. Constant tug of war, neither of us making much headway. Been going on for months. So Kaiser thinks we should take the Docks now that the ABB are on the outs, gain some ground somewhere easier. Don’t know any more than that, as far as his plans.”

Seems this Coil group and the Empire are about equal in power, with the ABB being now weaker but maybe stronger than both of them previously?

“Who else is up to something? Faultline?”

“The bitch with the freaks in her crew? She’s a mercenary, different goals. But maybe. If she wanted to branch out, now would be the time to do it. With her rep, she’d even do alright.”

“Then who? There’s a power vacuum in the docks. Kaiser’s declared he wants to seize it, but I’m willing to bet he’s warned you about others making a play.”

Another new player! She’s a mercenary, with a bunch of ...freaks? Are these like mutants, where the powers change their appearance and they are discriminated against? Seems like an interesting group. Faultline.... maybe some earth or earthquake-related power?

The skinhead laughed, then winced, “Are you dense, girl? Everyone’s going to make a play. It’s not just the major gangs and teams that are looking for a slice of the pie, there. It’s everyone. The Docks are ripe for the taking. The location’s worth as much money as you’d get downtown. It’s the go to place if you want to buy black market. Sex, drugs, violence. And the locals are already used to paying protection money. It’s just a matter of changing who they pay to. The Docks are rich territory, and we’re talking the potential for a full scale fucking war over it.”

He looked up at the blond superheroine and laughed. Her lips set into a firm line.

Dear god Taylor what have you done? Now we have a full-scale gang war that could spread to the whole district thanks to your actions that day. You certainly caused a big splash!

It kinda reminds me of Doflamingo’s speech in One Piece, where there is a power vacuum that is going to make everyone fight in the near future, only that is much much more high scale than this. Still, what a way to change things.

He continued, “You want to know my guess? Empire Eighty Eight is going to take the biggest slice of the Docks, because we’re strong enough to. Coil’s going to stick his thumb in just to spite us, ABB is going to hold on to some. But you’re also going to have a bunch of the little guys trying to take something for themselves. Über and Leet, Circus, the Undersiders, Squealer, Trainwreck, Stain, others you’ve never heard of? They’re going to stake out their ground, and one of two things is going to happen. Either there’s war, in which case civilians get hurt and things get bad for you, or there’s alliances between the various teams and solo villains and shit gets even worse for you.”

Woaah a loot of even more new names! This is worldbuilding, the chapter!

Uber and Leet ...I think they vaguely mentioned them once..? But they apparently were small-fries

Circus is maybe a carnaval or clown-themed villain? Those are always ...fun. I expect a lot of circus gimmicks as their powerset.

The Undersiders are that group of totally innocent teens of which Taylor might or might not be a part of now, and might or might not be planning to eventually betray.

Squealer sounds ...weird. Maybe something animal-based?

Trainwreck maybe summons trains to crash against you. That seems too silly though. (Yukari-approved! )

Stain is obviously from Mha and I don’t know how he jumped to here. On a more serious note, I have no idea what he could be about.

All of these (including our undersiders) seem to be small timers, at least compared to the big three of the ABB, the Empire and the supersoldiers. And also Faultline, which even though she was a mercenary was considered high enough to be counted outside of the smaller ones.

We’re getting to know our underworld landscape here!

He broke into laughter yet again.

“Come on, Panacea,” Victoria said as she stood up, touched ground with her boots and brushed her skirt straight, “We’ve gotten enough.”

“You sure? I’m not done yet,” Amy told her.

“You fixed the bruises and scrapes, broken bones?” Everything that could get her in trouble, in other words.

“Yeah, but I didn’t fix everything,” Amy replied.

“Good enough,” Victoria decided.

“Hey!” the skinhead shouted, “The deal was you’d fix me if I talked! Did you fix my cock?” He tried to struggle to get to his feet, but his legs buckled under him, “Hey! I can’t fuckin’ walk! I’ll fucking sue you!”

Victoria’s expression changed in an instant, and her power flooded out, blindsiding the thug. For an instant, his eyes were like those of a panicked horse, all whites, rolling around, unfocused. She grabbed him by the shirt collar, lifted him up and growled into his ear, her voice just above a whisper, “Try it. My sister just healed you… most of you, with a touch. Did you ever wonder what else she could do? Ever think, maybe, she could break you just as easily? Or change the color of your skin, you racist fuck? I’ll tell you this, I’m not half as scary as my little sister is.”

Seems the skinhead was still being a pest faking not being cured and Victoria had enough. Damn she can be scary, and that’s aside from the ability to literally make him feel fear. I think part of the scary factor to her is that she could very easily break you and she doesn’t really have that much impulse control. Imagine facing down someone like that and thanks to her power having that fear you feel towards her amplified until she is the worst thing in your world.

And that all pales in comparison to her sister. Oh god I hadn’t considered that application of her power! She has organic manipulation, not healing. Healing is just what she chooses to use her power for! She could unmake you with just her continued touch, or give you any sort of illness or deformity. She has one of the greatest and scariest powers so far.

She let him go. He collapsed in a heap on the ground.

As the two sisters walked away, Victoria pulled her cell phone out of a pouch on her belt with her free hand. Turning to Amy, she said, “Thank you.”

“Play safe, Victoria. I can’t bring people back from the dead, and once you’ve gone that far…”

“I’ll be good. I’ll be better,” Victoria promised as she dialed with one hand. She put the phone to her ear, “Hello? Emergency services? Requesting special line. New Wave, Glory Girl. Incapacitated criminal for you to pick up, no powers. No, no rush, I can hold.”

Seems this situation concluded with a minor big problem averted. Glory Girl really should be grateful for the free healer she has to get her out of her excessive use of force! They are cleaning nazis from the streets so they aren’t bad or anything, they are the good guys, just a bit too dangerous sometimes!

Looking over her shoulder, Victoria noted the thug, still floundering and half-crawling, “He’s not going to get up?”

“He’ll be numb from the waist down for another three hours. His left arm will be iffy for about that long, too, so he’s not going to move unless he can drag himself somewhere with just one limb. He’ll also have numb toes for a good month or so, too,” Amy smiled.

“You didn’t actually…”

“No. Nothing was broken, and I didn’t screw up anything, beyond a temporary numbness. But he doesn’t know that. Fear and doubt will complete the effect, and the suggestion becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.”

“Amy!” Victoria laughed, hugging her sister with one arm, “Weren’t you just saying you weren’t going to mess with people’s heads?”

Heh, I really like Amy. And Victoria too, to a degree. She’s a lil bit spoiled, but I imagine getting such awesome powers at a young age warps your perception of things.

We set up a lot of things this chapter, and it seems our protagonist may have destabilized all of the city with her first night in costume! She’s certainly off to a good start!

#Worm #worm parahumans #parahumans liveblog #liveblog #arc 2 #worm interlude 2 #wildbow #parahumans

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laureviewer · 4 years ago

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Persona 5 Royal: A Review

It’s finally time to review one of my all-time favourite games.

I first played Persona 5 around 3 years ago, and I’ve really grown since then in a few ways. A few thoughts before I begin: a) since my first playthrough, JRPGs have cemented themselves as one of my favourite types of games; b) I don’t hate all turn-based RPGs except Pokémon anymore!; c) after my first playthrough I went to Japan, and as Persona 5 is set in Tokyo, playing Royal was a lot of fun as I knew a lot of the locations, which meant I could dive into the setting deeper than the first time; and d) my 250 hours of playtime in total across both playthroughs can most likely be attributed to the incredible writing and masterful character development.

Warning: HEAVY story spoilers

I’m not trying to sell you a game. I want to give you an in-depth analysis of the story, characters, gameplay and all other aspects of this brilliant game, spoilers and all. I want a discussion. So, dive in and see what I really thought, no holds barred.

The Silence is Deafening

‘…’ – a direct quote from our protagonist, there. Our silent hero, codename Joker, is a victim of circumstance. Wrongfully accused of assault by a mysterious man who is angered that a kid prevented him from forcing a woman into his car et al., he must move away from his hometown to wait out his probation period and live a normal student life. Why must he live above a failing café under the guardianship of the cranky owner? Not to mention: why is he banished to Tokyo of all places, somewhere very likely much more exciting than wherever his hometown is?

Either way, Joker isn’t going to tell you. He’s quiet and lets the other many, many other characters do the talking for him—a usual trope of JRPGs, but it is still an issue as he is also put on a pedestal as an incredibly special, talented, empathetic and all-round great guy. He’s the only one capable of saving the world, as he has abilities no-one else has, for some reason.

But this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be. Sure, it doesn’t really make sense why you have such a huge following when you don’t have much of a personality, but that’s the beauty of the silent protagonist. You, the player, are the protagonist. The fact that you can even put your own name in as his name is telling. You make the decisions, you make the friends, and you carve out your own destiny from the choices you make. It’s always these kinds of games that, when I talk to my friends, I say ‘I messed up with Sojiro’ or ‘I went to the arcade today’—and it is me. Because even though I’m not a woefully silent Japanese male teenager with glasses, for the time I’m playing Persona 5, I am.

So, you are the protagonist. You learn that there are mental shutdowns all over Tokyo, making people go crazy and kill lots of people, such as a conductor crashing his train, or simply killing people on the spot. It’s weird, but what can you do? You’re just a student with his own problems: not only do many of the students avoid you because you are a delinquent, but the volleyball coach, Kamoshida, seems to be harassing students, from the ones on his team who seem terrified of him, to girls that are being hit on. When a strange app appears on your phone, you accidentally find yourself in the metaverse, along with Ryuji, who also has a good reason to get revenge on Kamoshida.

I Am Thou, Thou Art I

What teenager doesn’t have a rebellious self hidden deep within their subconscious? Well, these teens can utilise that hidden self past its usual constraints to overcome the crappy adults that suppress them and make detrimental decisions for them. Once Joker and Ryuji, and later many other young adults, realise this potential and recognise that these adults need to be stopped, they are awakened to their Personas. A Persona is a manifestation of a persona user’s personality, which the individual can use to face hardship and overcome injustice, even if just in the Metaverse, the collective unconscious world.

But, really, there’s no ‘just’ about it. Here in this world, which take the form of Palaces, the Phantom Thieves (you and your friends) can defeat the ruler of the Palace (the adult with a distorted desire) to convince them to change their heart. In this way, the ‘real’ them in the real world will atone for their actions and justice can be served. So, really, your actions are vital to solving crimes, dealing justice and, eventually, saving the world.

These Personas are like Pokémon for adults. You are special, as you can catch and wield multiple Personas, allowing you to have a whole array of powers, but your friends have one that they train and evolve throughout the course of the story. Catching them is a skill: you have to learn their weakness, and use a skill that takes advantage of it to ‘down’ the Persona. This gives you a chance to either: perform an ‘all out’ attack which sees all your allies fight them at once for increased damage; ask them for money or an item; or negotiate with them to convince them to become a part of you (and thus catch them for use later). This gets harder when there are multiple different Personas to battle at once, all with different weaknesses and strengths that means you must time your combat precisely to ‘down’ them at the same time.

Personas are one of the best parts of the game, as you can see.

Not happy with a persona’s moves, or you want to create stronger ones? Go to the Velvet Room, where Igor and the Twin Wardens Justine and Caroline will fuse two or more Personas together to create new ones.

This is where the Pokémon element is better and worse. You can get completely new and stronger Personas immediately, which is cool, but if you are particularly drawn to one it doesn’t make sense to keep using them as they will level up far quicker if you fuse them than if you keep them. I struggled with this at first, as Arsene is your first ‘official’ Persona, and I couldn’t quite believe you are only meant to have him for the first few hours. It’s like Ash giving up Pikachu after defeating Brock!

Also, have you seen how you have to fuse them? It’s so dark and unnecessarily vivid! You have to guillotine, electric chair or hang them in order to create these new Personas, which is so different to Persona 4 where the Personas are cards, making it less gruesome to get rid of your companions. It definitely made me feel bad for fusing them, but that didn’t stop me!

Essentially, the Persona franchise wouldn’t be the same without all the incredible Personas you fight and capture along the way. It really encapsulates what the games are like: stylized and deeply considered, exuding character and imagination throughout.

Take Over, It’s Time to Put You Down

Using these Personas are a lot of fun, too. The moves are elemental as well as physical, they can inflict ailments such as ‘sleep’ and ‘fear’, and evolve as you and your Personas level up. Personas all have strengths and weaknesses, and by fusing them, you can create Personas with stronger moves and resistances that, as you get towards the end of the game, means that you can fuse some incredibly powerful Personas that can fight any and all enemies, if you’re smart with the moves you inherit.

This all sounds very similar to Pokémon, right? Well, there are other more showy, fantastically fun elements that integrate beautifully with the stunning graphics to make every battle (which have the potential to become very repetitive) exciting and challenging. When a character manages to ‘down’ an enemy by using a move that is strong against it, they can either do another attack or choose to Baton Pass to an ally, chaining super-effective attacks to down multiple enemies in one round, which is useful if there are a lot of different enemies with different affinities and weaknesses. Then, once all enemies are downed, all allies can come together for an All Out Attack for an extra boost of damage.

As much as this is useful for the player, if the enemy downs one of your allies, they can also do a secondary attack, which means that they have the potential to wipe out your team very quickly. Plus, some moves are one hit kills, which may have low accuracy but is still extremely frustrating sometimes, particularly in regular 5 where I found the combat more challenging. The worst boss fight was Haru’s dad, where I actually had to change difficulty for the only time throughout the game—who decided it was a good idea to revive the robot shadows if you didn’t kill them in three moves?!

The Showtime moves, new for Royal, bring a fresh new element to the game. As you progress through the story, your allies start forming bonds, which will then be reflected in combat. At seemingly random times, they can join up with fantastic new animations (such as Yusuke cooking Ryuji some yummy food at a bar, who get interrupted by a shadow coming in the door, and they both take it out) and inflict massive damage. I was sad that Joker doesn’t get one, until the Royal section where baes Akechi and Sumire both team up with you respectively for new Showtimes. It made me wonder whether Joker just wasn’t as close to the rest of the team as he becomes to Akechi and Sumire, which actually also made me glad that I focused on both of them heavily in my playthrough!

Every song that plays throughout the game, including combat, is a banger, so even though my husband got annoyed hearing it coming out of my TV for 120 hours, this soundtrack will remain one of my favourites to date. Overall, the combat is great, and thankfully not too repetitive after so many hours of gameplay.

Adulting is Hard

The story of Persona 5 is deeply gripping, and keeps you invested and interested the whole way through. It didn’t absolutely destroy me like other JRPGs have done (see: Final Fantasy XV), but fun, emotive and has huge repercussions if you don’t succeed in your mission, including people dying and the world ending. No pressure, then.

Your actions, then, are crucial to making the world a better place: and the villains that you encounter are integral to succeeding. In true revolution fashion, it’s the kids that need to stand up to the adults to rid them of their distorted desires—but it’s not all random. The adults are truly abhorrent (the first one, Kamoshida, sexually assaults female students and physically abuses members of his volleyball team) and they continue a running thread from first to last—that is, the ones who you think aren’t connected at all seem to be connected to the final villain by the end. It’s very clever, and kept me gripped the whole way through—something that’s needed with 80+ hours of gameplay.

The writing is absolutely fantastic. All characters have their own distinct mannerisms, personalities and stories, which you get to explore with the Confidant mechanic (see below). The voice acting is great, and as I progressed through the Confidants, I really started to feel like they were becoming my friends, and that every time I turned on my PS4 I was hanging out with my pals again. It’s the way games should make you feel—like you actually care about what will happen to them.

This does make the game quite stressful (in a good way), as what you do has actual repercussions. It’s a bit frustrating sometimes that some of your dialogue doesn’t affect the game at large, as well as your romance choices. None of the characters acknowledge you have a girlfriend, and if you date Ann, for example, she won’t act any differently than if you decide to not even become her friend. While that’s disappointing, other dialogue choices can completely affect your game so that you always have to be very careful with your decisions. Will you get the ‘bad’ ending, where you fail to stop the final villain; the ‘good bad’ ending, where you accept his distorted view of the world; or the ‘true’ canon ending, where you revert the world to normal? A lot of choices throughout this lengthy game affect what ultimately happens, so you do feel like you’re affecting the story a lot more than, say, Pokémon. In fact, in Royal, you can even miss out on a whole section of the game…

Ascending to Royalty

As long as you max your Confidant links with Akechi (the renegade teen detective), Kasumi (the new gymnast freshman at your school) and Maruki (the school counsellor), you get to experience the 30+ hours that Royal adds to Persona 5. And—major spoilers here—once you’ve defeated the God of Control and exposed Akechi for the unhinged betrayer that he is, you should go to juvenile detention and your ability to use Personas should be gone for good, as Momentos has been destroyed.

However, in Royal, Maruki has figured out how to use cognitive psience—and you’re the reason why. His sessions with you has helped with his research, and so now he can make the world a better place by granting everyone’s desires in the collective unconsciousness.

As you can see by his actions, he’s not your typical antagonist. His heart is completely in the right place: he wants to make everyone happy by granting their desires for them, such as bringing back Futaba’s dead mother and helping Ryuji recover so he can get back on the track team. I resonated with that, and actually wondered whether it would be worse for certain characters, particularly Futaba and Haru who get to spend time with their respective dead parents, to reject the “blissful ignorance” reality that Maruki had created for them in favour of the truth.

By this point, I had grown rather fond of the deranged but entertaining firework that Akechi has revealed himself to be, and once I learned that Akechi would die (as he did in regular 5) if Maruki’s reality were to be revoked, I almost chose to accept it. But Akechi being adamant that he was going to stop Maruki no matter what as he didn’t want to live under anyone else’s rule helped make that choice for me. It was difficult, though. Akechi’s is a motive that is simultaneously selfish and noble: selfish as he doesn’t want anyone else to control him, even if that means other people are happy, but noble because he values the truth above all else. Plus, the fact that he was one of the main villains throughout the story up until this point made me question whether we should continue to trust him, even though he had decided to help us, even if it were primarily for his own gain. I think my fondness for him (perhaps because he is a fully-fledged Confidant in this game, unlike regular 5) and the wildcard elements he brought to the game made me feel a certain brand of loyalty towards him, and so I chose to honour his “dying wish”. And, of course, this path led to the ‘true’ ending!

This indecision is shown most clearly in Maruki’s palace, where you have to deduce what decisions in certain situations Maruki would think is the ‘right’ one. It really helps you understand where he’s coming from. For example, his question ‘if your friend is being attacked, and you don’t have much time before they get seriously hurt, would you a) run to get help but you might not make it back in time, or b) join the fight to help but you might get hurt yourself?’ Neither answer is necessarily wrong, but b) is correct as Maruki simply wants you to look out for yourself over others. The crux of his viewpoint is that you should endeavour to make yourself happy or safe, even if that means others may not be. It’s a very interesting conundrum, and one I enjoyed debating philosophically whilst playing.

The concept of right and wrong and mental health was also tackled in this game through Kasumi/Sumire. Ultimately, even though Maruki wanted to help her by allowing Sumire to pretend to be her dead sister, as she blames herself for her death, he ultimately did her more harm than good. With the support of Joker and the others Sumire was able to overcome her delusions and grow into a strong, confident young woman. This cemented for me how backwards Maruki was and that reality is the most important thing, even if it’s not always what we want, because that’s life. In this way, I feel that Royal added something to 5. Even though going into someone’s mind palace was about mental health, I never really considered it until Royal dealt with an innocent traumatised girl and a misguided man attempting to heal her. I applaud Atlas for tackling something so difficult pretty well.

Confident in my Confidants

It’s a good thing the player can really get into the story, because it’s heavily dependent on personal decisions and making friends.

In order to get stronger within the Metaverse, Igor, the man inside the Velvet Room, tells Joker that he needs to strengthen the relationship with his friends first. This is absolutely true—not just with your teammates, but with other individuals who live in Tokyo too, in the form of the Confidant mechanic. For example, while your teammates all get skills such as curing afflictions and taking fatal hits for Joker, others give just as much if not more valuable perks, such as Kawakami giving you more free time or Mishima allowing all teammates to gain experience even if they don’t contribute to the battle once you max them out.

The way you level them up is through socialising. This passes time, but is also incredibly interesting, as each Confidant has a gripping story (except Ohya!). You can’t downgrade a Confidant, but picking the right dialogue choices can make leveling them up much quicker in a game where time is everything. It’s also necessary to level up your stats, such as knowledge, kindness and charm, to allow you to progress with some Confidants and be empathetic or charming enough to deal with the situations thrown at you. I loved the dual play style of dungeon battles and social simulation—in a lengthy game, it broke up gameplay and kept it fresh.

As this was my second playthrough, I already knew that maxing certain Confidants would yield the best results, such as Kawakami and Yoshida who eventually allows you to negotiate with and catch shadows of a higher level than you. But in Royal, the new additions of Counselor, Faith & Justice—Maruki, Kasumi & Akechi—freshened things up. Technically, Justice isn’t new, but you can now hang out with him instead of his progress being facilitated purely by story.

Time to rate my friends from worst to best!

21: Ichiko Ohya Devil Arcana

I found this alcoholic journalist very annoying. Her story isn’t that interesting, she isn’t very nice, and the skills that she gives you to allow you to sneak around Palaces easier aren’t worth it either. I only maxed out her story near the end as I had time, but honestly, she shouldn’t be a priority.

20: Iwai Munehisa Hanged Man Arcana

Didn’t think anything of him until Royal, where I had more time to learn about his time in the Yakusa and his son. Useful for guns (which aren’t even an integral part of combat, really), but other than that I barely used his shop—plus you have to have high Guts in order to progress. Definitely better Confidants out there.

19: Tae Takemi Death Arcana

The fact that this doctor is a sexy goth is probably the best thing about her. You can level her up quite early on, so she is quite exciting at the beginning as she’s one of the only adults you can turn into a Confidant at that point, but after a while she stopped being interesting to me. In my Royal playthrough I found I didn’t need many healing items—SP was far more important!—and in the end I didn’t max her out. A fun outfit, but can leave her.

18: Shinya Oda Tower Arcana

Definitely annoying (but what little brother isn’t?) but there’s a sad reason for that—his mum is emotionally abusive, even if she doesn’t mean to be. In the end I wanted to max him out to save him from that life, but I never quite got that far. At least I managed to change his mum’s heart before I finished the game.

He’s also quite useful in buffing gun attacks and bonuses for downing and negotiating, so definitely useful for combat. I just ended up feeling bad for him, but he was also a bit of a shit, being a bully to his classmates; his big bro Joker helped with that!

17: Hifumi Togo Star Arcana

I never got to know her in my first playthrough, and I didn’t realise how useful she is for battles. She eventually allows you to swap players in combat, hastens escapes, improves money hauls, and allows back-up members to do follow up attacks. I’d definitely give her a shot for just those bonuses, even if you don’t want to romance her—but she is sweet, if very detached from the rest of the story.

16: Chihaya Mifune Fortune Arcana

I maxed her out pretty quickly so I could get the fortune readings; affinity was especially useful, as you can level up Confidants a tiny bit quicker, for a price. And, after she takes 100,000 from you near the beginning (!) and eventually gives it back, she’s lovely. Nothing special, and definitely not one to romance, but nice.

15: Twin Wardens Justine & Caroline Strength Arcana

Their Confidant path was slightly different: you have to show them Personas with specific moves, and they will level up. This was very interesting, and also put a natural brake on their relationship, as some Personas can’t be made until you are a certain level. They are also very useful as you eventually unlock group Persona fusions and can fuse Personas of a higher level than you, for a price. Always fun to get the ridiculous Personas a bit earlier on! Also, their story was super interesting, due to the mystery that surrounds their identities…

Also also, Royal gives a new element to your relationship with them. You can now take them out of the Velvet Room to show them ‘human things’, like aquariums and cinemas. I didn’t utilise this much as you only get skill cards, and no actual level progress, but I wish I had more time, as the dialogue in these sequences is hilarious as they try to understand why humans would do certain things. The fact that I’ve ranked them so low is telling—there are so many fun and useful Confidants that mean they rank this low.

14: Yuuki Mishima Moon Arcana

I actually think you’re a bit mean to him—he’s definitely your friend, but every time you are asked to clarify this the dialogue choices make you seem like a dickhead when you say he’s only ‘sort of’ your friend! He’s helped you so much, stop being such a dick, player. Plus he helps increase EXP, as well as allows EXP to be given to back-up members so it’s definitely a good thing to max him earlier. Plus, he’s sweet, and gives you Momentos requests. Justice for Mishima!

13: Takuto Maruki Councillor Arcana

Lovely. What a gent. Shame he turned out to be distorted by deciding to change people’s realities by interpreting their vague wants instead of actually asking people if they’d WANT their realities changed or not. Sounds a bit like Thanos to me, but with a better reason to be evil.

The bonuses of Maruki though are: he’s interesting; he’s lovely; and his bonuses are mainly SP based, which is always hard to recover in Persona, especially in the early stages of the games. He raises your SP, gives you a chance to instantly recover ailments, gives you a chance to become focused and therefore raises your attack, and gives you a chance to recover your SP when low. Very useful, and you can’t play the Royal storyline without maxing him out before November 18th anyway.

12: Haru Okumura Empress Arcana

Again, I wasn’t too much of a fan of Haru on my first playthrough (perhaps because she’s quite a late addition to the team), but this time round, I had more time to get to know her. I really wanted to save her from her awful fiancé, and hoped I’d be able to say ‘don’t marry him, marry me!’ if I chose to romance her, but alas. I was also quite surprised with how business-orientated she is, which was a surprise. However, she was just too prim and proper for me, and even after her story showed her to be evolving into a confident woman, she didn’t evolve quite enough for me to be interested.

She’s useful, though, as all the Confidants are who are your team members, so leveling her up is a must, for help in combat and to evolve her Persona.

11: Morgana Magician Arcana

Morgana was the most useful as the support hero—I always wanted him in my party, particularly in hard battles, just to keep me and my allies alive. Plus, who doesn’t love a talking cat? Though, at one point, he does get moody and very annoying. While Morgana as a character was never that exciting past being the initial reason they can become Phantom Thieves and the mystery surrounding where he comes from, Royal switched that up by turning him into a dreamboat with piercing blue eyes when Maruki made his dream of being a human come true. They kept saying throughout this sequence how beautiful he was, which was amusing. A nice twist on the original game.

10: Toranosuke Yoshida Sun Arcana

I learnt to level this fallen-from-grace politician up quickly from my first playthrough as, once you max him out, you can negotiate easier with shadows of your own level, and negotiate with higher level shadows and add them to the compendium—absolutely necessary. Also, he’s basically a massive socialist leftie, so he rocks.

9: Yusuke Kitagawa Emperor Arcana

I didn’t like him much in my first playthrough, but now I appreciate him far more—he’s flamboyant, artistic and, best of all, happy to be in his own mind and be himself, no matter what people think of him. He’s a bit stuck up sometimes, but all in all he’s an outsider who fits in better than he really should. And he provides funny dialogue, particularly when interacting with Futaba. I also love his Showtime moves with Ryuji and Ann.

8: Ann Takamaki Lovers Arcana

I’m quite surprised she’s this low down for me, but even though she’s the first girl you befriend and she’s hopelessly beautiful to everyone who meets her, she doesn’t quite push past the ‘ditzy girl’ trope. The story does try to make her more nuanced, and to an extent it works—she’s also fun, thoughtful and empathetic—but there’s just too many misogynistic and ditsy jokes that even only a few years later don’t land anymore. Saying that, she literally uses her sexuality to break free of the misogyny that surrounds her body and the sexual abuse and prejudice she experiences, at the most from the volleyball teacher, and at the least from everyone around her. It’s a steep hill to climb, but she’s doing it.

I drew the picture below!

7: Sadayo Kawakami Temperance Arcana

Kawakami’s your teacher—what could possibly go wrong? Well, she’s also a sexy maid who comes over to clean up, though she won’t go any further as you’re her high school student. Yet. It’s a bit dodgy, especially as she acts like your mum, but even so, the forbidden fruit angle is fun. Her story is also compelling. Not only is she an interesting Confidant, but one of the most useful ones for the amount of extra time she gives you when you level her up. Why on both my playthroughs did I not level her up immediately?

6: Sojiro Sakura Hierophant Arcana

He’s your guardian who takes you in when you have to move from your hometown after your alleged assault to live out your probation. He starts out cranky, but has an absolute heart of gold. He ended up being one of my favourite Confidants—plus, he’s one of the most useful, as he is one of the only ways to get SP in the early game by making coffee and curry. You need to understand the pride I got from making coffee that met his expectations!

5: Futaba Sakura Hermit Arcana

Sojiro’s adopted daughter is so much fun that I romanced her in the first game. While some may think she’s more like a little sister, she’s just a bit more immature because of her hermit lifestyle and Arcana. She’s funny, loves games, and has great references; she is one of the only instances of a game that has a young girl who doesn’t sound like 40-year-olds trying to sound like teenagers. She has a heartbreaking story, but her personality keeps it light. She says it how it is, no matter what anyone else thinks. She’s great.

4: Kasumi/Sumire Yoshizawa Faith Arcana

I chose to romance the gymnast honour student in Royal, because how can you not romance the new girl? Though I wasn’t sure at first, as I found her quite twee at the beginning. However, she became a lot more nuance when she became Sumire, which is to be expected. Plus, she is really well integrated into the story and really makes you feel she cares about you. She has an amazing costume when she is Codename: Violet, and gives you some truly useful abilities, such as ambushing from a distance and avoiding being surrounded by shadows. She’s a great addition to an already great game.

3: Makoto Niijima Priestess Confidant

She’s bestgirl in terms of smarts, badassery, and simple relatability. She is Student Council President, an honour student, and has been manipulated by evil adults for their own distorted desires. Her parents have died, which instils her with deep guilt for being a burden on her sister. She’s also the only one whose Confidant story doesn’t actively revolve around herself: she changes, but it’s through helping her friend who may be a victim of trafficking rather than her own self-interests. She’s sharp, poised and even more badass when she awakens to her Persona, Johanna—it’s a freaking motorcycle!

2: Ryuji Sakamoto Chariot Confidant

Your best buddy. I’m always drawn towards these ones, who are treated a bit dumb but are loyal to the end. He’s also hilarious, like when he complains the Phantom Thieves are in the shadows and not getting any credit, and I chose the option ‘I like the shade’, he says ‘what are you, moss?!’ I really do wish I could romance him, because I can see a lovely storyline where he’s unsure at first but the fact that they’re soulmates transcends gender.

1: Goro Akechi Justice Confidant

I’m almost hesitant to admit I find him the most fascinating and fun. Not only is he dangerous, exciting and unhinged, he's at the centre of an incredible twist. He’s one of the most interesting characters, and you never know what he’s going to do next. I would definitely date him if Japanese games let gay relationships happen; he has all the best attributes for a crazy romantic relationship. Not IRL, but in a game, why not?

I love that he didn’t die and teams up with you in Royal, and that . He’s also the first character that Joker gets a Showtime move with, which made it quite special. When it is revealed just how evil and crazy he is, his whole character changes, including his Persona, his Phantom Thieves outfit, and his demeanor—it’s scary how excited he is by killing, but at the same time, he is absolutely certain of his viewpoints and won’t compromise for anyone. Many of these points would be a reason why he shouldn’t be my number one, but I can’t help it.

Honourable Mentions: Igor (Fool Arcana), Sae Niijima (Judgement Arcana) & Jose

Igor is the ruler of the Velvet Room, and the person who facilitates your rehabilitation in changing peoples’ hearts. However, ‘person’ isn’t quite right for Igor: he’s the God of Control, born from the desires of the collective masses who want to be controlled and be told what to do rather than make difficult decisions. It was a cool twist to realise that the God of Control had been impersonating the real Igor; I don’t know if Igor was lovely in the previous games, but he certainly is once you restore him at the end of 5. Despite him being interesting, I never felt like I had a connection with him, as you level up his Arcana automatically throughout the story, and he never tried to have a personal relationship with Joker.

Sae has her own palace and Arcana, but she’s not quite the same as the others. Like Igor, you level up automatically throughout the game when you confess to her the whole Phantom Thieves story, and while she does have a Palace, she doesn’t through any huge transformation other than realising that learning the truth is better than trying to win at any cost. She’s cool, and her outfit in her Palace is sexy, but you can’t romance her and can’t change much of what you say to her. I wish in Royal she could have been a fully fledged Confidant instead.

Jose counts even less. A new addition to Royal, he helps you change the cognition of Momentos by collecting stamps as you go further down, and he gives you items in exchange for flowers, so he definitely makes Momentos better. However, his addition is nothing world-shaking, and he only shows up randomly, which makes him quite annoying. I could have done without him, but at least he made Momentos more interesting than in the base game, which, compared to Palaces, was quite boring.

All in all, my main issue with the Confidant system as that you still can’t date boys. We’ve been saying for years ‘that’s just the Japanese way’, but considering the crazy hentai they bring out (still with only very little amounts of yaoi/gay hentai) it may be time to stop excusing them for not being with the times. Catherine: Full Body aimed to dispel that somewhat—perhaps Persona should too.

A Momentous Game

Overall, this is one of my favourite games of all time. The gameplay keeps me entertained for 100+ hours (though, to be fair, I do love long games) and the characters and writing makes me emotionally connect with the story they are telling. I’d suggest playing for at least 8 hours, as it’s a slow burn, but once that hurdle is jumped the real obsession begins.

Time to go and play Persona 4 Golden, as I’m not quite ready for the fun to be over yet.

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popcornbutterflymedia · 3 years ago

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it’s a little before seven in the evening as i am attempting to begin writing this post on the day a former president has died. in other words, i am winging it and praying it comes out half decent. i have been winging all my the posts for this show, but writing this post about this particular episode at the tail end of the last week is interesting, to say the least.

upon first viewing on iwanttfc, i had already tweeted “consider this the soul of the show.” at this point we’re not even halfway to the entire series. that declaration carries such weight, but this episode did prove to be the soul of the series. this is also the first episode i’ve had a visceral reaction to, beyond the understandable kilig. i was lightheaded, stumped, and on the verge of tears after the first episode viewing, that’s probably why this is taking awhile to put out.

this also feels like an episodic answer to a lot of questions.

max has entered the lion’s den, lost, but with her defenses up. deib was less than prepared to fight back, considering the circumstances, but he was quick to gather his wits about him, pinning max where he is at an advantage. even now, as i am writing it, i feel it - it’s a notch above giddiness, it’s an awareness, it’s pushing the envelope in a way that’s right for their age, but still surprising, and refreshing. it’s the naughtiness of the sly smiles, the role reversal, and the trading of banter, all of them collectively are building blocks to max and deib’s dynamic.

the banter graduates to actual conversation, that, for people who are considered arch rivals, is surprisingly decent, and seemingly cordial. both max and deib give as good as they get, much like a tennis rally where either one refuses to be on the losing end. this amuses to no end, and ups the kilig factor in such an intelligent and substantial way. this is how you know, this part of the series is their story. more on this later.

outside of the boy’s room, the banter becomes a challenge, a daring as represented by a pool table, and the number of games that such table hosts. these pool games between benison’s star player and mindoro’s top billiard player, and pool center fixture, these games are metaphors, with the stakes higher each game, for their rivalry, and their curiosity about each other. more so his curiosity about this slip of a girl who he finds difficult to win against. i daresay, at some point he gave up trying to win, and just gave in seeing her in a different light. deib’s eyes give him away, and as for donny’s eyes, finally doing the work, this is it, and it’s a sight to see, a growth to enjoy.

it’s a given that belle makes donny’s job easier for him. four episodes in, and i am still in awe at belle’s ability to transform. it’s still surprising, how she willingly gets lost in character. i am watching max, but she doesn’t make me forget that i am watching belle. it’s a weird thing i have watching actors in character - i am aware i am watching both the character and the actor wholly and simultaneously, and belle is one of the few who makes me do that with ease.

deib’s mother announces her presence, interrupts the pool tournament shaping up between taguro and sensui.

in front of his mother, deib the star bear, the alpha disappears. he signals for max to leave, and just when she was about to, max is invited to join them for dinner. it is insisted that she join her for dinner. he warns his friend: 'don't say anything that will get us into trouble' prompting said friend, max to wonder, what could she ever say that will put them both in trouble?

at the dinner table, the silence weighs heavy between mother and son. a silence foreign to the lone guest, a silence she attempts to diffuse, by talking about anything other than subjects, as touchy as family, and the like. then again, between this mother and son, the line between touchy and permissible topics of conversation are blurred and fragile.

food! food is a free for all, food is a benign subject. the food's delicious, is it her own recipe? max is genuinely curious ma'am. the woman across the table laughs off such a formal honorific. call her auntie, she says. 'tita' is more like it. 'tita' it is, max decides. not stopping there, max asks if she'd gone to one of deib's games to see his lay ups and three pointers. she regaled him with embellished stories of his reputation, of being an all around star student and an instant friend. this, much to the mother's relief - her son is apparently surrounded by good people. max was able to do all this, when all deib asked of her was to not get both of them, into trouble. just like that, the girl single handedly broke the tension and dispelled the air of formality, in a way no one else has. if that isn't enough of a surprise for deib, max held the door open for him, and granteded him access to his own mother's heart, and let hope spring in his own.

after dinner, we find max and deib in his room, steeped in the assigned work. it's an easy silence between them, proof that from that dinner encounter, something new and beautiful and unnamed grew between them. he pays her his due, and thanks her for not damaging his reputation more in front of his own mother. so he knows how to say thank you, after all, she's surprised...in jest. he allows it. and so insues an exchange of histories, and fears and lessons. she reads him so perfectly, he's supposed to be scared, or condemn her, or banish her from this earth, or whatever it is the deib lhor enrile does to those who get a bit too close for comfort. he, instead allows it, giving her unprecedented access to his friends, his brother, his heart. and his heartbreaks. he dares to get closer himself, in the most physical sense so the curiosity planted at the pool table grew exponentially. that is until she breaks the spell. there is resistance in letting him in, which he knows to hold against her. he wins, and she relents. we learn of a ghost of a past love, a young love. a better player than deib is.

just a note though: for a past love who ghosted her, max boasts of rj being the better basketball player still. this could be true, based on who I am guessing rj is, but consider this: could she be clinging onto the untarnished memory she has of this first love, disregarding the pain she was caused, because straying away from that memory will allow her the space to fall, and that's what she promised herself she would never do? if that's the case, max is just as complex as deib is, maybe even more so.

after knowing her story, he did promise to go up against this ghost of a lover, in a one on one game of basketball and win it for her. someone is making her promises now. that's unsettling.

meanwhile, the barb is winding down as alpha two plus lorde strolls in. they keep it open for the boys who are in for a later night shot of caffeine, sweets, a shot at love perhaps?

art and sweets and flirtatious, funny quips are choice ammunition in this game of love, or something like it. naih's confidence is legendary. she gets away with her boldness because of criza's charm. joao, you know, that boy always makes it work.

tob and michiko are easy, because rhys and kaori make it easy. i understand the visual. I get the chemistry. I swear I get the hype. I have been waiting for this. you all know that. they've only cemented their place in the industry as new partnership, and there are hardly any words for it, a chemistry this strong. theirs is an unspoken connection and sincerity that cannot be taught. they are all that.

it is clear, though, that this is deib and max's story. see, I have been hyping myself up for thst tochiko moment, probably from the time when we still had very little news in the junket about donny and belle. and they did deliver, they did not disappoint. max and deib's chemistry surprisingly captured my heart from the get go, though, especially in this episode (as they should, this is, again, their story anyway). if I was a teenager, I would be fawning over tochiko's eye to eye silent conversation and up to now, I still do to some extent. I'm just older now. give me substantial kilig more than anything any day. give me kilig in context. kilig that opens up the heart. kilig with emotional intimacy.

max and deib in the fourth episode is kilig (just as tob and michiko are), but I can't stress enough, just how much and why. from the entire conversation from the banter to the interaction with the mom to the entire encounter in the room, they aren't trying to make us kilig. it isn't exactly sweet, but you'll reach a point where just the mere act of people wanting to have a conversation with you is life changing, when someone cares enough not to put you in more trouble than you expect, matters so much more. it shows you your worth. and that to me is the sweetest most loving thing ever. that is, even before both of them acknowledge that love between them.

a breakthrough has been reached. walls have been shattered.

the day of their school presentation, the event is met with an air of uncertainty, not for the two's lack of skill, but because two people from separate ends of the social spectrum are to work together, which up to that point is unprecedented.

the presentation started out shaky even for max and deib themselves, but once they got drafted, they had the audience, most of them, at least in the palm of their hands.

'we are all bullies, yet we are also victims. the cycle never ends...because we are all trying to survive this cruel world, trying to succeed, trying to grow. trying to discover who we really are. trying to accept who we really are. trying to be accepted for who we really are...'

this was followed by definitive apologies from both deib, for bullying, and max, for judging, and not necessarily helping to make things better. this prompted the entire community to mingle, and make their own apologies.

a few things about this whole moment:

there is such power in calling things as they are, calling things by their name. 'bully' and 'victim' are such weighted words and there is such a relief in taking responsibility for your disgressions and through that responsibility allowing your victim to embraced their pain guiltlessly.

there is also such power and humility, that while one did not do anything explicit, to stop the cycle, they did not do anything to make things better, easier. there is humility in realising that even as a victim your own pain, might have caused more pain to others.

apologies matter. the word 'sorry' matters. and it matters across the board. while metaphorical apologies are in some ways acceptable, and poetic, sometimes, the simpler, the better. a sincere 'sorry' should suffice. no one is ever too old to apologize.

now, even the sincerest words have parameters that are dictated by how many listen, and how many don't. and that's what we cannot control. there is power in recognizing who you are in the community, and that, especially when you are in a place of influence, you have the power to create change. the power to stop the cycle. there is peace in knowing we've done all that we could to make things better, just like deib had his own moment of reckoning.

as for max, the moment she stepped into that school, she was meant to be a trailblazer, and even at this point, she had been nothing but an agent of change.

I am curious now, how she is changed by the newness of her surroundings and the possibility of a budding love?

everything is well and dandy for everyone else, max and deib even had that little moment by the tables, again with the simple but powerful chemistry. everyone is changing (this is a shoutout to melizza again. every time the camera pans to her, especially when max was speaking at the auditorium, you could sense an internal transformation. she knows the assignment well, huh? )...everyone else, but aimee. I feel sorry for her. it makes me want to know more of her story. what makes her cling to being mean? why the volatility? more than anger, there's curiosity. I feel sorry for her. there's more to be told. breakthroughs open the narrative up for more, newer stories.

this was a fast one to write, but I held off until these last few moments, because it's incredibly triggering and just as healing. more than the kilig I understand and we all enjoy, the real message is the importance of communication, telling people how you really feel. don't let them assume and don't assume they know. it's also important to call things as they are, even if it's ugly, even as it hurts. some days, there is no replacement for a 'sorry,' a genuine apology.

be gentle. be kind. listen. everyone, after all, is a story.

#tv #tv: he's into her

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thesvenqueen · 4 years ago

Text

Jurassic Park

Rating: M Pairing: Kristanna Also on AO3

Note(s): oops...neglected this for a minute, by bad. hopefully can get back to updating this too.

Previous Chapters ( One Two Three Four Five Six )

{Chapter 7}

Anna sighed as she placed a new shirt over her head, already feeling much better than moments before.

The storm had hit as Anna and the doctor were half way back to base. Needless to say, they had been absolutely soaked by the time they had returned. Wanting to change & burn sometime as she waited for Kristoff’s arrival, she decided to run up to their room, shower & change.

It was strange though, Anna realized as she brushed out her slightly damp hair, Kristoff was still not back. Surely it wouldn’t take this long to return.

Then again, Anna had been able to go well above the slow pace the tour cars were going. Not to mention, she wasn’t obligated to come to a stop at an exhibit if a dinosaur was to approach. So, it was possible that the tour was just going longer than expected due to something actually appearing.

A sudden roll of thunder made her jump, and she turned to face the window.

The storm was pounding upon them now, the rain heavy and thick. She could make out a few trees in the dark of the night and see the tops bending over slightly at the force of the wind.

The sight made Anna uneasy. If the storm was this bad, there was a chance that could have held up the tour as well. Automated cars or not, they could still manage to get stuck in the mud.

Not to mention the storm could easily mess with the mechanics that made the cars drive on their own.

Anna shook her head, shaking away the thoughts.

No, no they were fine. They had to be. They were all probably downstairs in the lab or the control room waiting out the storm and waiting for her to have dinner.

She could see it now, Olaf and Lex going on and on about a mile a minute over the dinosaurs they had saw on the tour. Sven lounging back in one of the chairs, either lost in thought or watching the kids talk with a smirk on his face.

Kristoff, more likely than not, was probably asking Dr. Hammond as many questions as he could about what he saw.

Still though, Anna couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that sat in the pit of her stomach.

She’d expect Kristoff to come up to find her if he knew that she was back and in their room. After their moment earlier this afternoon, Anna was surprised he hadn’t taken advantage of more alone time.

Especially when he owed her a full detailed description of everything they saw, if they saw anything that is. Plus, if it was near dinner time, they surely would’ve sent someone up to grab her, wouldn’t they?

The uneasy feeling quickly grew to concern as another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.

Something wasn’t right, she could feel it now.

Wasting not another moment more, Anna threw the towel into the bathroom and bolted out the door.

~.~

“Lost contact? What do you mean you lost contact?!” Anna yelled, confused and worried.

“That’s just it.” One of the techs mumbled, a lit cigarette held between his lips, “We lost contact with the cars a couple minutes ago. We haven’t been able to gain it back since.”

“How can that be?”

“We thought it was the storm,” the tech said, Anna catching the name Ray along his coat, “However, looking into it seems one of our other guys decided to cut power to certain areas of the park.”

“What? Why?!”

“Not sure,” Ray said, turning to his computer, “But we haven’t been able to turn the power back on to those areas. Seems our guy was a good hacker, he was able to create a bug that keeps us from doing anything to the areas he turned off. Only he can do it, I can’t. No one can.”

“So...so you’re saying they’re stuck out there?”

“Yes.”

“With no communication, no way to reach us?”

“Yes,” Dr. Hammond said, looking to her solemnly, “I’m afraid they’re out on their own for the time being.”

“Ok, so they just sit tight till we can get them. No worries then right?”

Dr. Hammond & Ray shared a look, one that made Anna’s heart sink. “The cars were stuck in a particular exhibit that the electrical fence are...strongly needed. Unfortunately, that exhibit also got hit with the bug.”

Anna’s eyes widened, “Which exhibit?” Dr. Hammond looked away from her, looking towards the floor to avoid her gaze. “Which exhibit Doctor?”

“The T-Rex.”

The air seemed to rush out of Anna’s lungs all at once. Feeling light headed, she found the closest chair and slammed into it.

No.

No, there was no way. She refused to believe it would end like this.

They were fine, they had to be fine, he had to be fine.

“How long ago did the power go out?”

“About 20 minutes or so.”

“And how long would it take you to break into the bug?”

“Too long.” Ray said, sighing deeply, the tip of his cigarette lighting as he took a deep breath, “By the time I managed it, there is no way of knowing if the dino is still there or not.”

Anna looked away then, placing her head in her hands.

She wanted to scream, wanted to break down and cry at the idea of everyone, her Kristoff could be gone.

There was no way, absolutely no chance in hell he would give up like that. He was stubborn as anyone, a fighter till the end no matter what it was.

But even he couldn’t go against a dinosaur, especially a T-Rex. His favorite Anna remembered bitterly.

What a cruel twist of fate for him to be taken by the creature that he had loved his entire life, had admired and studied more than any other beast they’d uncovered.

It was even crueler for an image to appear in her head, of a shocked and scared Kristoff sitting in the car as the creature emerged from the forest.

Anna grimaced at what could have come once the dinosaur had spotted them.

He’s not gone. Anna thought, We don’t know if they’re gone. They could be fine, they could be just fine. Everyone just waiting in the car for someone to come take them back to base.

What if they weren’t?

Dr. Hammond had mentioned the power was out in that exhibit, the fences completely useless. Anna bit her lip at the memory of the goat being placed near the fence as bate, to lore the T-Rex out for them to see during their tour. It had cried and struggled against the chain that had held it in place.

No doubt that the goat would’ve lured the T-Rex to the fence at some point.

Maybe the beast had appeared after they had passed the exhibit. Maybe it had found the goat long before they had started the trek back to base. It was possible, they’d burned a lot of time at the Triceratops. There was a good chance that the T-Rex was nowhere near the fenceline, wondering about somewhere else in the enclosure with a full belly. Leaving Kristoff, Sven and the kids to sit by in the rain safely, bored and waiting for someone to show up.

Anna clung to the idea desperately, trying to not even think about the idea of them being gone. Of him being gone.

“Dr. Hammond.” Anna looked up, recognizing the man from the raptor exhibit. Robert, if she remembered correctly, stood in the doorway. “You asked for me sir?”

Dr. Hammond coughed, turning to him, “Yes, I need you to go to the T-Rex exhibit if you can with the gas jeep.”Anna looked to Dr. Hammond confused. Not even a moment ago, it had seemed the man believed the group was lost. Apparently, he still had a bit of hope left just like Anna.“I need you to go bring our guests back, their vehicles seem to have broken down.”

“Can do.”

“I’m going with you.”

Everyone looked to Anna then, who now stood tall, a feeling of determination swelling within her.

Robert grinned at her, “Got plenty of room, may be a bit tight fit on the way back but we can make due.”

“Very well.” Dr. Hammond said, a small smile on his face and Anna could see the slight spark of hope in his eyes.

~.~

Anna braced herself for what she may see when they came upon the T-Rex area. She didn’t know what to expect, what could be waiting for them when they rounded the corner.

Would it be perfectly peaceful, the jeeps sitting in waiting, everyone inside just annoyed at how long it took for them to arrive?

Or, would it all be in complete and total disarray? The cars crushed or torn apart, the T-Rex potentially still there or even worse…

She couldn’t bear to think that, not now.

The idea they were fine, all completely fine & alive was the hope she would cling on to.

The little sliver completely disappeared, however, when they came to the exhibit.

“Oh my god.”

It was as they feared, the T-Rex had in fact escaped.

There was a massive break in the fence, cables broken apart and concrete slabs seemingly crushed from where the massive beast had broken through.

A nearby building, assumed to be a bathroom of sorts, was completely obliterated. Wood and broken cement were all over, as though an explosion had occurred within the building itself.

That’s not what made Anna’s heart begin to race, what made her eyes wide in worry and fear.

There was only one jeep, it’s doors now wide open and she could tell before they pulled up beside it that there was no one inside.

The other car was completely gone.

“No.” Anna whispered, scrambling to get out of the jeep as soon as it came to a halt, “No no no, Kristoff?!” Anna cried, moving quickly to turn on her flashlight.

The rain had stopped, a brief break in the storm but the wind howled around them. The thunder still rolled above her as Anna ran quickly to the abandoned car.

The doors left open as though someone was in a hurry to get out. Bits of what seemed to be plastic covering & some brochures were scattered along the back seat. Anna tried to fight back the tears as she looked over the inside of the car again and again. Hoping, pleading that Kristoff would appear at some point.

But he didn’t.

The light of her flashlight caused something to flash, and Anna looked towards the source. There, sitting in the cupholder, were a pair of sunglasses.

Kristoff’s sunglasses.

With shaky hands, Anna reached out and grabbed them. Biting her lip, she tried desperately to not think about the fact that this may be the only thing she managed to find of her husband.

What would be left of him.

The realization suddenly hit her. If this was the jeep Kristoff was in, then that meant the one that was missing was the kid’s.

Shit.

“Dr. Arendelle!”

Anna looked over to see Robert moving towards the wreckage of the bathroom. She stuffed Kristoff’s sunglasses into her pocket as she ran to catch up to him.

There is a roar off into the distance, bringing Anna to a sudden halt at the sound. Looking towards the surrounding trees, she shines her flashlight towards the echoing roar. “I...I think it’s ahead of us.”

“It could be anywhere.” Robert said, looking towards the trees with her, “With the fences out, it can go in and out of any paddock it likes.”

He was right. The beast could be anywhere, not to mention if the doctor was right from that morning, it could do so very, very quickly.

Suddenly, a loud moan came from the wreckage of the building. Anna looked back, shining her light across the broken bits of wood and brick to try to find the source of the sound.

Taking careful steps, Anna looked over the destroyed bathroom slowly, making sure not to miss anything. There is another moan, and Anna turned quickly to the source.

The light catches an injured, bloody arm. Moving her light, she sees a familiar face.

“Sven?!” Anna cried, scrambling over to him. “Sven, can you hear me?”

Together, Anna and Robert are able to remove the bits of wreckage from on top of Sven. As Anna moves the last piece, Robert stands to shine his light down upon the scene, giving them a better view of Sven’s body.

There are a few scratches here and there but Sven seems to be completely intact. That is, till the light hits Sven’s left leg.

Anna gulps at the site. His ankle is bent at a strange angle, completely turned opposite of his leg. There is a large rip along the side, revealing a deep cut going from his mid-calf to his thigh. His pants are completely caked in mud and blood.

A belt is wrapped tightly around the top of his thigh, no doubt a last stitch effort to stop the bleeding while he can.

“Shit, he may have passed out from blood loss.” Robert murmured, kneeling back beside Sven, “Oi, Sven, can you hear me?”

There is another groan, Sven’s brows furrowing, and then, “Remind me to thank John for such a great weekend.”

Anna can’t help but to smack her forehead, “Damn it Sven, now is not the time for jokes.”

Another roar made Anna jump, the sound much closer than the one from before. She looked to Robert, who kept his eyes on the trees.

“Can we chance moving him?” Anna asked.

“Please, chance it.” Sven groaned, his eyes barely open now.

They move quickly, each putting one of Sven’s arms over their shoulders and moving him to the back of the jeep.

“What happened?” Anna asked, not able to hide the desperation in her voice.

“The T-Rex.” Sven said, groaning slightly as he moves to make himself comfortable. “It broke through the fence, guess the power was out?” Anna nodded, “Figures. Anyways, it broke through and the kids caught his attention.”

“Where are the kids? Where’s Kris?”

“I’m getting there.” Sven said, but Anna sighed with impatience. “The T-Rex started attacking their car, so Kristoff found a flare and got it distracted.”

Anna stopped then, hands frozen in place on the side of the jeep.

“But me being an idiot, I lit a flare and got it’s attention which is how I ended up over there.” Sven leaned his head back, running his hand down his face, “It followed me to the bathroom and tried to snag me but missed, completely destroyed the building. I was conscious long enough after to tie off my leg but, I couldn’t see anything else from beneath the rubble.”

“So...the kids? Kristoff?”

Sven looked to her, sadness in his eyes, “I’m sorry Anna, I really don’t know I--” He sighed, looking down to his lap, “I heard the lawyer scream...I’m guessing you haven’t found him?” Anna shook her head. “Figures. He hid in the bathroom before, when the T-Rex first broke through. Completely abandoned the kids and took off...it must have found him. Serves him right...As for Krisotff and the kids I...I really have no idea. I’m sorry, I really am. I can only assume that--”

Anna shook her head, fighting back the tears that were threatening to spill over. “They have to be here.” Anna said, picking her flashlight back up and walking towards where the other car would’ve been.

“Dr. Arendelle, I must insist. We have to get going.”

“No!” Anna yelled, “I’m not leaving without them.”

“Dr. Arendelle,” Robert called once more, “I’ve seen plenty of animal attacks before.” Anna scanned the road, managing to spy a few tire tracks mixed with strange marks. As though something large had been dragged nearby. “People just disappear.” The marks seemed to go towards the fence line, along with what Anna soon realized were the T-Rex footprints. “No blood, no trace. That's the way it happens.”

Continuing to ignore Robert, she moved towards the crumbled remains of the cement fence, stepping over the fallen cable lines as she came to the edge.

Looking out, she realized that the track and fence were up on a hill as she was facing the top of a very large tree. Shining her flashlight, she directed it slowly down the tree, noticing a few branches broken along the way.

Curious, she continued going down till she spotted it.

There, lying at the bottom of the hill and upside down, was the other car.

“I found it!” Anna screamed, “I found the other car!”

Not bothering to wait, Anna scrambled down to the bottom of the hill.

“Kris!” Anna cried, tears in her eyes as she came up to the beaten up jeep, “Kris, can you hear me?!”

There was no answer.

Anna immediately got on her hands and knees, looking inside the jeep. “Kristoff? Olaf? Lex?”

Nothing.

The vehicle was empty. Mud and glass from the shattered windows were the only things inside.

“Did you find them?”

Anna turned to Robert as he came up behind her, trying to fight back a sob, “No. No they’re not here.”

Robert sighed, his brows furrowed.

Another roar echoed through the trees from above, closer than the last.

It was coming, it was heading straight back towards them.

“We have to go.” Robert said.

Anna wanted to fight back, wanted to refuse to leave until she found them but she knew she couldn’t. The T-Rex was drawing ever closer, would be upon them in only a few minutes and they didn’t have any more time to keep searching. She looked down to the ground in defeat.

They were gone. Her worst fear, the one she had dreaded since the moment she was told they hadn’t returned to base, was coming true.

This was it, she had to accept it now.

Anna began to look back up to Robert, but something caught her eye. Tilting her head, she raised her flashlight, pointing the light at the mud just beside Robert.

“Wait,” Anna said, standing slowly, trying to get a better view. “Is that..?”

As she came over, Robert looked down, shining his light where hers currently shown. Looking down at the mud, she could see clear as day a set of shoe prints.

“Footprints.” Robert said, surprised. He moved his flashlight slightly, “Three sets by the look of it.”

Anna let her tears spill over then, huffing a laugh in utter relief. “They’re not here.” She said, following the trail with her flashlight as the footprints led away from the crash site & into the forest.

They were alive, they were ok.

For now at least, there was hope.

#kristanna #kristoff #anna #sven #jurassic park au #jessica writes #yeet

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star-trekkin-across-theuniverse · 5 years ago

Text

Red Light, pt 1

Hockey AU - Featuring Star Trek AOS, first person OFC.

XXX

There was something about the smell of freshly cleaned ice that instantly transported me back to my childhood, and every time I came in to work, that reminder of happier times made the stress of this job worth it. It wasn’t that I disliked my job - in fact, I loved it. But it was stressful managing publicity and media for a hockey team.

The San Fransisco Enterprise has been the best team in the United Federation of Hockey for the past four years. After the retirement of General Manager Christopher Pike, however, the team had been struggling. There were new players, and the team just wasn’t gelling under team captain Jim Kirk. The starting line-up was a hot mess. Kirk was at centre, and a new trade, Spock, had traded in at season start with a personal record for goals from his team on New Vulcan. Spock was a precision player, head always in the game, brain always four passes ahead. Kirk, on the other hand, was a cowboy. He played tight in the corners, and was a hard hitter, but his strategy was better summed up as flying by the seat of his pants. The men had nearly come to blows in practice, and barely tolerated one another on the ice. That conflict made for an uneasy team all around.

Team morale was worsened when ‘Doc’ Puri, the journeyman goaltender who seemed to be able to stop anything, blew out his knee on a road trip. It was a career-ending injury, despite the advances to medicine that had come in the three-hundred plus years since the game had been invented. The new GM had to find another goalie, and quick.

Which is what had been the biggest thing on my plate for the past week. Geoff M’Benga, the second string goalie, was in his first year in the pros. He was competent, but lacked the confidence to truly take the reins as the lead goalie. Talks had been heated, but finally, a trade was made with the Proxima Bees. The Enterprise’s draft pick for star goalie Leonard McCoy. McCoy was considered the best in the league, although his year had been off to a rough start. The man could stop almost anything, but the Proxima defense lines were weak and when they allow fifty plus shots on goal per night, there’s only so much one goaltender can do. McCoy was happy to be traded; the Enterprise had a solid defensive corp led by Montgomery Scott and Pavel Chekov, and the rumour was his marriage had just fallen apart and he was longing to get away from the drama.

I cleared my head of my musings, and filled my coffee cup at the pot in the corner of the office. The rich aroma of the coffee, countered with the cool tang of cleaned ice focused my thoughts on the day’s tasks. The press conference to announce the acquisition of McCoy was scheduled for 10. I needed a tight media release and some smiling players to welcome the new goalie. I pressed the button on my communicator to connect with the changeroom.

“Kirk, Spock, please come to the administrative offices when you’re done showering,” I announced. The loudspeaker in the changeroom would be amplifying my voice over the din created by the showers, and I knew I could expect the men to arrive shortly. I logged into my PADD and pulled up McCoy’s current stats to begin the media release.

“I’m afraid Kirk is outside signing autographs and flirting,” Spock announced as he walked into the office. “I let him know you wanted to see us, and he said he would be up shortly.”

“How are you settling in, Spock?” I asked. The team was ten games into the season, and I’d been hoping to see a more cohesive group by now.

“I’m starting to understand Kirk’s playing style,” he admitted. “It’s not to my liking, but his recklessness does have some advantages.”

“You guys need a team-building retreat,” I laughed. “Strand you on an island so you have to cooperate to survive.”

Spock looked horrified at the suggestion. “Every practice is an opportunity to build our team,” he protested.

“Yeah, but part of what makes a team work is when you like each other. You have to be able to see your strengths and weaknesses and figure out how they complement each other. That’s easier to do when you are not only teammates, but friends,” I offered. He shrugged.

“I’m not sure that Kirk and I are destined to be friends,” he replied, without a hint of malice. “I fear we are too different.”

“More alike than you realize,” I countered. “But I have faith it’ll come.”

“We will see. As interesting as your perspective is, I hardly think you called us in here for a pep-talk,” he changed the subject quickly. The doors behind me opened and Kirk strolled in. Spock must have seen his approach.

“Leonard McCoy should land at nine this morning, and we have a press conference scheduled for ten. Marcus wants a couple of players at the scrum to welcome him. As top scorer and team captain, I felt you two were the obvious choices.” I directed my comments to both men. Kirk smiled his lazy, handsome smile and sat on the edge of my desk.

“Is that the only reason you picked me?” He asked. I raised my eyebrow in question and then realized he was trying to flirt. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“I’m not one of your puck bunnies, Jim,” I reminded him. “I’m immune to the charms of hockey players.”

“I keep telling you that if you just give me one chance, I can change your mind,” he teased. I laughed in response.

“And I keep telling you, I am a professional, and cannot compromise my integrity by carrying on with someone at work.”

“That’s kindest way I’ve ever heard someone say that I’m not their type,” he winked.

“I appreciate that you recognize it as that,” I laughed.

“I appreciate that you allow me to continue to flirt with you,” he shrugged. “Keeps my skills up.”

“As if you need practice, Jim Kirk!” I shook my head again, but couldn’t help but smile. Of all the hockey players I’d ever interacted with, Jim Kirk was the safest. He loved to flirt, he loved to play the romance card, but he always respected the women he flirted with, and never went too far, never made anyone uncomfortable. “Now, scoot, both of you. I have work to do.”

XXX

I checked over everything that was needed for the press conference. Media release was ready, the new jersey for McCoy had just come up from having his name and number sewn on, scrum room was clean, chairs out, mics working. I placed the script for the GM on the prompter, and made sure it was running at his speed, and then double checked it. Marcus was not the kind of leader to make friends, and he ran a tight ship. He made me uncomfortable, and as a result, I actively sought to minimize our interactions. Being called on the floor because I’d screwed up something simple was not on the agenda.

I was waiting at the zamboni bay doors for the arrival of the new goalie, to bring him to the press conference. The shuttle arrived from the airport just moments after I’d stepped outside. Leonard McCoy stepped out, ballcap pulled low on his brow. He swung his equipment bag over one shoulder and grabbed his stick bag with his free hand. He scowled at me as he approached. I reached for the stick bag and he pulled back.

“I can manage my equipment just fine, sweetheart. Just tell me where it goes,” he growled. I cocked my head to one side and gave him a hard look.

“My name is Samantha Nelsen, not sweetheart. You are welcome to call me Sam, or Ms. Nelsen,” I corrected sharply.

“Where do I stow my equipment, Sunshine?” he snapped.

“I was under the impression this move was a happy one,” I countered, my tone equally sharp and I gestured to a dolly sitting just inside the doors. “Perhaps you can put on your big boy pants before the press conference? You have five minutes.”

He dropped his bags with a heavy sigh and turned to face me. He looked exhausted. His jaw was covered in a three day growth of stubble, and there were bags under his eyes that appeared to be packing their own bags. Aside from that, he was as undeniably gorgeous as all his headshots had made him out to be.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I’m running on empty,” he apologized, pulling his ballcap off and rubbing a hand across his forehead. “Lawyer met me at the airport this morning to give me all the paperwork on my divorce. She took everything, the house, the car. She may as well have taken the goddamn team and the whole damn planet. All I’ve got left is my bones.”

“And a shiny new contract with the Enterprise,” I reminded him. “So let’s go counter some bad press with some good, shall we?” I offered a smile, hoping he realized I was effectively erasing his bad first impression. I headed toward the elevator, my heels clicking smartly on the hard cement.

“So you’re the media gal?” He asked, catching up with a quick skip. I pursed my lips and nodded.

“I prefer Manager of Broadcasting, Communications and Public Relations, media gal is kind of old fashioned,” I corrected with a wink, wondering exactly how many times I was going to have to straighten up this man’s language and bring it into the 23rd century.

“Of course, ma’am,” he nodded and bit his lip. I wasn’t sure if he was trying not to smile, or trying to bite back a smart comment. I suspected it might be both. I stepped on the elevator and held the door for him. As the doors closed, I turned and looked him over.

“We need to stop in the office and grab you an Enterprise hat. Get rid of that ratty old Bees one. You glad to be back on Earth, at least?” I asked. He pulled his hat off again, and scrubbed his hand through his short, messy hair. I led him from the elevator to the office and pulled a hat out a closet full of swag.

“I’ll let you know after I’ve had some actual sleep.” He pulled the hat on and checked his reflection in the mirror by my desk, slapping his cheeks a little to wake himself up. “This old face has a few more miles in it, anyhow.”

“Yeah, doesn’t look like you’ve stopped many pucks with it,” I teased, tipping my head toward the doors leading to the media room. He smirked.

“Why, Ms. Nelsen, I’d hazard you just told me you find me handsome,” he teased, meeting my eyes. With his temperament improved, and warmth in his eyes, it was undeniable, the man was stupidly hot.

“Focus on the press conference, pretty boy,” I laughed, opening the door for him. He walked in to the press conference, and I headed to the back of the room to manage the media.

#star trek fanfic with OC #star trek hockey AU

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flopsider · 4 years ago

Text

What Makes a Paper Mario Game Great?

*This post was turned into a script for a Game Domain video which I’ll post here once it’s out!

The Paper Mario game series has undergone massive changes with its last few installments. Most fans can agree that the first 3 (or, if you’re strictly fond of the formula from Paper Mario 64 and The Thousand Year Door, the first 2) games achieved something brilliant. They cemented Mario’s role in the RPG world, providing players with unforgettable experiences that left many with powerful nostalgia and an urge to revisit the titles as they grew older. However, with the newer titles, the gaming community’s feelings on the franchise have been shaken. Once Nintendo began to develop Paper Mario as an Action-Adventure series, many fans were left feeling like the company stopped listening to its fans and were taking the series in an unwelcome new direction. For some fans, however, particularly younger players who are just now discovering the Paper Mario games through the newer titles, these new changes and formulas offer some very enjoyable experiences. Undoubtedly, nostalgia plays a huge role in how we view video games, but there is more at play here than just sentiment. The question I’d like to pose, then, is “What Makes a Paper Mario Game Great?”

Let’s take a look at the individual games and see which areas they thrive in, and what holds them back. Keep in mind that every opinion listed here is just that: an opinion. I’ve tried to be objective in my analyses here, but like all people, I have biases and nostalgia which affect my opinions of video games, so don’t take what I say as the undisputed truth. This is simply my attempt to answer the question posed as best as I can, so if you disagree, let me know peacefully and respectfully in the comments!

Paper Mario 64

I feel like this game is the perfect entry to the series. It has a charming art style that I feel still holds up, offers fantastic gameplay and controls and a solid battle system, and has memorable characters. The main things that hold it back are the more basic storyline and villain, and the less unique character types compared to the next 2 games. However, both of these things can be forgiven since it was the first entry to the series. The chapters are all joys to explore, the leveling system is satisfying and allows for customization, and the badges are a great way to personalize Mario based on your playstyle. Paper Mario 64 laid the groundwork for the games that would follow, and most of the aspects of its formula would evolve throughout the next two entries.

Paper Mario: TTYD

There’s not much I can say about this that hasn’t been said before, but in summary, this game took everything that made Paper Mario 64 great and evolved it into something phenomenal. It built upon the battle system, offering what is widely considered to be the best battling in any Paper Mario game. The audience feature made battles livelier and more exciting, offering further incentive to pursue optional enemy encounters. It gave players new attacks and new ways to orchestrate them, with less repetitive actions than in the first game. It offered a much deeper, darker story with compelling antagonists, partners and NPCs unique to this game which made the world feel alive, and side quests that allowed you to progress through the game and level up your character in a less linear way. The world was crafted beautifully, with areas that stand out in many players’ memories and are far less formulaic than the typical Mario worlds. There were tons of secrets and areas to explore, as well as the first iteration of the Pit of 100 Trials, a side quest arguably more challenging than the game’s final boss. It’s no wonder this is likely the most acclaimed Paper Mario title to date.

Super Paper Mario

First and foremost, I have tons of nostalgia for SPM. It’s maybe my favorite video game of all time, or at least in the top 3. It’s the first Paper Mario game I ever played (I was 7 or 8 years old and have since replayed it many times), and when I played it I had never heard of Paper Mario. There’s a chance that if I instead played 64 and/or TTYD first, I’d be more partial to those games because of nostalgia. However, I truly believe that, nostalgia aside, SPM provides the best overall game experience. I also think that if SPM had come first, and the creators then shifted into a more straightforward RPG style over time, it would be less polarizing.

The move away from turn based combat and into the more classic Mario platforming/real time combat was bold, but not universally appreciated. I totally get why some people feel it was a bad change. If you were in love with the camera perspective, movement, and combat mechanics of the first two, this may be less fulfilling. However, if you are a huge fan of platformers, then it’s certainly a welcome new angle. And if you’re like me and you grew up enamored with classic 2-D Mario platforming action, but also fell in love with the style, RPG elements, and stories of the first two Paper Mario games, then you’ll likely find the perfect mix of the two in SPM. Plus, I feel like turn based combat was never the basis of the Paper Mario franchise, or at least was not the core concept that made the games great. Some people disagree with that, but I personally believe that all the before listed criteria make up the greatness that is the Paper Mario series, and I think Super Paper Mario lives up to them. Despite its many differences, Super Paper Mario felt like a true successor to TTYD. The graphics were quite similar aside from the camera angles, the dialogue and storytelling were stylistically similar but done even better this time around, and several elements were revisited such as the Pit of 100 Trials. I loved the turn-based combat in 64 and TTYD, but I also adored the platforming and real time combat of SPM. Overall, I just feel SPM has the most to offer and provides the most unique, thrilling, and memorable experience. The New 2-D / 3-D switch feature quite literally adds a whole new dimension to the game. I think this is super interesting and fun to use, and it allows for more interesting level and puzzle design. It offered a nice balance since much of the game is played 2-D style whereas the first two entries were set in a 3-D space. Without the 3-D option it’d still be a great game, but might end up feeling a little basic by comparison. The Pixls, in my opinion, are a fantastic reimagining of the partner system. Since the game ditched turn-based combat in favor of platforming combat, the Pixls affect your movement, attack, and defense abilities in real time and can be swapped quickly. This makes platforming, fighting, and movement in general more fun and varied. In my opinion, they’re a fresh take on partners, and even though I love the old partner system, I see this as a welcome new take on it. Flipside and Flopside serve as effective and memorable hub worlds where you can touch base after exploring other dimensions. They have tons of explorable areas, puzzles, characters, and secrets, all of which contribute to the world development. The NPC’s helped add depth and contribute to the lore, with the Flipside and Flopside bartenders being the best examples. The ability to play as 4 different characters, each with different special abilities and movement characteristics was a huge step forward and made the level design much more interesting. In several areas, you have to utilize all available characters to access certain areas, some secret and some required. The best example of this in my opinion is in Castle Bleck, where in order to effectively maneuver around the platforming challenges and access secret areas you have to take advantage of Mario’s ability to flip into 3-D, Peach’s parasol gliding, and Luigi’s super jump, while Bowser is your key to easily clearing rooms of tough enemies. Maybe the least controversial thing I could say about this game is that it has a phenomenal story, the best of any Paper Mario game to date in my opinion. It’s darker than any other Mario game I’ve played, and despite its cartoony appearance, the stakes were higher than ever. It had incredibly memorable characters, small bits of backstory at the end of each chapter which slowly reveal the connection between the antagonist and Mario’s partner Tippi, excellent dialogue and humor, and a darker plot than any Mario game I’ve played. This is balanced by the game’s colorful visuals and soundtrack which make it a joy to play. The game had an inspired world design with bold style choices. For example, in the space levels of Chapter 4, the game temporarily becomes a Defender type horizontal space shoot ‘em up. It was a perfect blend of the RPG style from the first two games and the side scrolling platforming of older Super Mario games. The music is a fantastic mix of retro and modern, a concept mirrored in the graphics and gameplay. All in all, Super Paper Mario is a perfect blend of old and new.

Okay, clearly, I have a lot of love for this game. But I want to be as objective as possible here, so let’s look at some of its shortcomings. The XP system was more basic than the first two games. It being present was a huge plus, but when you level up, it upgrades a predetermined stat (HP or attack) as opposed to you having stat customization. Along these same lines, the lack of badges meant less customization and attack options. Level design wise, some areas felt somewhat empty in 3-D. I didn’t really feel like this as a kid, but as an adult I feel like they could’ve done more with the 3-D perspective in certain areas. In some places, they totally nailed it though.

That brings us to the more recent, more divisive action-adventure titles. To preface, I have the least experience with these games, and the majority of my familiarity with them is from reading articles and watching videos which analyze them and compare them to the older games. So I’ll try not to be too critical, as I’d like to play them all the way through before completely solidifying my opinion on them. That being said, you can learn a lot about a game by watching gameplay footage and reading analyses of them, so I’ll do what I can to go over their pros and cons.

For all three of the newest titles, it’s worth noting that I didn’t include the world being made of Paper in the list of what makes these games great. I don’t hate the jokes, comments, or visual references to paper and crafts in these games. In fact, sometimes I think they’re quite clever and add to the feel of the game. However, in the first 3 “classic” Paper Mario games, it wasn’t a major point of plot or world development, but rather something casually referenced in some well-timed jokes. In fact, the first game wasn’t even meant to be a paper based world. It had many titles in development, and the one directly preceding Paper Mario was Mario Story. The name Paper Mario, more than anything, is a reference to the art style being reminiscent of a pop-up book, and is not the basis of the gameplay or world creation. At least until the more recent games, that is. Sticker Star, Color Splash, and Origami King all base many core gameplay mechanics, the visuals, much of the humor, and even some of the world development on everything being made of paper. This is a cute idea, and the graphics in the newer games are undeniably vibrant and beautiful, but it ends up holding the newer games back only because they focus more on paper gimmicks than they do the story, unique character design, and gameplay. To be fair, I haven’t played the newer games completely, and from what I’ve seen, Origami King looks like a phenomenal stand-alone game and a much stronger Paper Mario entry than SS or CS. I just think Arlo summed it up perfectly when he said, “We didn’t love Paper Mario because it was paper, we loved it because it was Mario’s story.” That being said, let’s look at each game and see what they have going for them.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

This is easily the most universally criticized Paper Mario title. Every so often you’ll find someone who will defend it, but for the most part, the fans of the series see this as the point where the games took a turn for the worse. Instead of just adding to the overwhelming pile of hatred for the game, I’m going to try and discuss some specific things that hold it back while giving it credit where credit is deserved. Sticker Star is not irredeemable. It has some of the charm the series is known for, some solid dialogue and humor, and appealing visuals. Unfortunately, there’s not too much more I can give it credit for, at least in the context of the other games in the series. So much of what made the first 3 games great were lost here. One of the most obvious steps backward is the near-total lack of original characters. Instead of a world packed with new NPCs and enemies with distinct personalities, the game almost exclusively utilizes classic Super Mario characters. You’ll see plenty of toads, goombas, and koopas here, and not anything in the realm of demonic shadow queens, members of ancient tribes, or mysterious cape and monocle wearing antagonists threatening the existence of all worlds. The villain here is Bowser, which is not just disappointing because it’s formulaic, but it almost feels like it separates the franchise even further from its roots because of Super Paper Mario’s inclusion of Bowser as a protagonist. The battle system also fails to reward you for entering into enemy encounters, and feels much more basic than the previous games. Overall, my main criticism of this game is that it took several steps backwards and not enough steps forward to justify them.

Paper Mario: Color Splash

This game improved upon the action-adventure formula of Sticker Star in almost every way. In that way, it can be seen as a parallel to TTYD, which improved upon its predecessor’s formula. The difference is, TTYD’s predecessor established a formula that was already phenomenal, whereas the groundwork Sticker Star laid for Color Splash was far weaker. Most of the criticisms I have for Sticker Star could be echoed about this game, just less harshly. Speaking more positively, this game had gorgeous visuals (second only to The Origami King), excellent dialogue and humor, and some creative levels, such as the section where you operate the cannons aboard a sailing battleship.

Paper Mario: The Origami King

Overall, The Origami King looks to be the strongest Paper Mario entry in years. It seems to have developed the action-adventure formula of its two immediate predecessors, while including a handful of RPG elements. The battle system is both new and familiar - it’s turn based, but the ring system adds a puzzle element that, to some players, makes battles much more enjoyable and to some distracts from the battling itself. Utilizing the rings, it seems like there are far more creative ways to reach your opponents, but far fewer creative ways to actually attack them. Once again, the world and characters are more formulaic, relying heavily on classic Super Mario locations and characters. However, this game offers more uniqueness than the previous two, starting with the non-Bowser antagonist. The fact that King Olly has a previous close relationship with Mario’s main partner Olivia is reminiscent of Count Bleck and Tippi from Super Paper Mario. This provides the foundation for a better story than Sticker Star or Color Splash. In addition, the visuals are undeniably beautiful. It has the best graphics of any Paper Mario game, and some areas are truly striking, particularly the desert oasis area. The huge con of this game is that is triples down on Nintendo’s shifting of the Paper Mario series away from its RPG roots and toward a more formulaic action-adventure approach. The major positive is that it seems to be a solid game in its own right, one which makes much better use of the new formula than Sticker Star or Color Splash did. It’s got loads of charm and some solid gameplay, but if you’re looking for an experience comparable to the first 2 or 3 Paper Mario games, you’ll likely be left wanting something different from it.

So let’s return to the original question. Based on what we discussed about each title, what makes a Paper Mario game great? I’ve done my best to narrow down what I consider to be the 10 most important criteria that, when met sufficiently, provide the best possible Paper Mario experience. These are:

A compelling story with unique characters

Partners to assist in combat and movement

Clever dialogue

Visually appealing art style

Exploration

Puzzles and Secrets

Cohesive world design with unique areas

An XP system which rewards combat

World development and lore

And finally, a willingness to go darker than other Mario games

There are plenty of other criteria I could add to the list, but these are the main ones which stood out to me as I analyzed each game for their strengths and weaknesses.

Answering the question of what makes a Paper Mario game great is not a simple task, nor is it an objective one. As I said before, my nostalgia for Super Paper Mario is a huge part of why I discuss it so positively. I truly believe it’s worthy of the praise, and I stand by the opinions I’ve stated for the other games as well, but my thoughts on each game in this series are my own, and many of you will and should have different thoughts on them. So share them in the comments, and keep it respectful!

#paper mario #nintendo #video games #mario #super paper mario #paper mario ttyd #paper mario 64

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