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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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What movie or tv show scared you the most?

OH HEEHEEHEEEEEE MY TIME HAS COME

I think this was probably the sign I was meant to be a horror fan, because I'm gonna talk about two movies here and neither one is a standard horror film. Now, I avoided horror films like the plague, but I now realize that's because of my aversion to jumpscares and gore, which have very little to do with actual scary stuff. I feared actual horror imagery as a small child, but basically once I read Coraline it all just turned around because that book gave me nightmares but I actually WANTED those nightmares and kept going back to the book. So what are the movies I just COULD NOT contend with?

First up, I have found that a lot of people have said this one, but really and truly, fuck Chicken Run.

I was...maybe ten when I watched it. Signed up for a goofy claymation adventure. What did I get? First of all, a whole lot of bleak color palette that warned me that this was not going to be a happy story. We are then shown the stakes right away: our entire main cast lives in a dystopian prison and if they do not find a way to escape, they will die. One DOES die. This is where a lot of people say they noped out right away, but actually, the execution of the dinner chicken in the first scene was tame for me compared to what would come next.

The pie machine. It's assembled, it's talked about, and eventually our two leads fall into it in a way that is designed to be fatal. Look, there are a ton of horror tropes in this scene alone. I haven't seen it SINCE THE ONE AIRING and I can still vividly tell you a lot of this. And if I walked into a horror film and asked for this, I'd come out super satisfied, but I was not expecting horror from this. First of all, I remember vividly the shot where you're looking from Ginger's POV falling down the shaft and the divider comes up to shunt her into the "meat" line. It's incredibly claustrophobic and you just get this almost jumpscare reminder that the character through whose eyes you see is regarded as nothing more than meat to be consumed. There is then an array of blades designed for close calls, and dough that essentially glues the lead characters down to a conveyor belt so they have to helplessly watch the death machines that are coming. Sticky stuff that roots you to one spot; that's another thing that just REALLY unnerves me and I love it if I'm reading CreepyPasta but I was not reading CreepyPasta; I was watching a children's film. The leads escape certain death by jamming the gravy system, causing the machine to overload on pressure, and here I feel like I should've been relieved that they escaped but instead I was the most unsettled of all when the pressure meter started climbing. I don't know if this film *gave* me a phobia of industrial accidents or if it just awakened what was already in my OCD little brain, but suffice to say that after this movie, I was hyper-aware of my own fear of things like hissing steam, rising pressure meters, and being in a room where large metal things were clanking. (I'm since over it; I've been exposed to it in enough things.)

Now, I was no quitter. I should have just noped out. But I didn't. I continued to traumatize myself. The next part of the film until the climax I don't remember so well - it wasn't as traumatizing - EXCEPT for the part where Ginger finds and rebuilds Rocky's circus poster. And now, as an adult, I can see how that was kinda supposed to be funny, like, "The goddamn chicken padded his résumé and the way they found this out was a circus poster." But little me was invested in these chickens, I wanted them to be happy, and what I saw was basically their death notice being signed with that scrap of paper with a cannon on it. I FELT that in my bones.

STILL NOT HAVING THE GOOD SENSE TO JUST EJECT THE TAPE ALREADY, I proceeded to the climax, in which what happens to Tweedy might be one of the most fucking awful things I've seen ever? Pinned upside-down in a superheated, confined space with rising liquid from below as the pressure meter starts climbing again. And her husband arrives just in time to see her like this but not in time to actually stop the explosion. Thank God it didn't actually kill her because even though I was already traumatized, that would've absolutely made it worse.

Thing is, ever since this movie scared the absolute shit out of me - and was probably the cause of the weird stomachaches I had for A WEEK after - I've kinda had this thing about reclaiming the scary parts and stomping on them while laughing maniacally. I feel like every time I've done a crossover project, there's been a temptation to write in an arc where the mains go up against THE PIE MACHINE and fucking win. And also there's whump with tons of comfort in my version to mitigate it all. I haven't done any such thing for TBTC...YET. But I know what I must do. I know who must destroy the machine and the Tweedys along with it. Buckle your seatbelts.

My final word before I move on is that as I ascend into adulthood, I think that for the most part, a rewatch of this film wouldn't traumatize me so badly. It'd still be gross and creepy in a way I think shouldn't be sent to children without warning, but I could deal with the imagery, maybe enjoy using it as whump fuel even more, maybe my horror side would really get into the peril this time. But the one thing I've realized is that this premise is fucked EVEN MORE if you're a grown-up, because as a child, you're sympathizing with the chickens. You want them to get free of this death camp environment. But as an adult, you start to realize that all Tweedy wanted to do was be a chicken farmer who sold pie, and her supposedly nonsentient animals ganged up on her in a display of unheard-of intellect among farm stock. This would then lead to her undergoing at least one near-death fate. Think about being a farmer in our world and the animals you keep GANG UP ON YOU LIKE PEOPLE because you're killing them for food. No thank you, no THANK you.

But surely this was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. Surely, after this...after so many other people agreed with me; "Fuck Chicken Run"...no animation studio would ever pull shit like this again.

I had hoped that was the case until Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

This is one I don't actually see lambasted as often. Maybe because the Chicken Run trauma crew grew thicker skins before this movie. I only sort of did. Maybe because no one ever actually invested in this film, having already predicted how much it would be garbage from the dumb humor in the trailers. Oh, but not me. I was a fool. Also my family picked it for a movie night so my fate was sealed anyway.

The original book is actually pretty frightening on its own. Food falls from the sky in such great numbers that it starts to destroy the world. Okay, that's terrifying. But kind of in the alluring way. I would keep coming back to the one page about the giant pancake on the school because the way it was drawn unsettled me so, with something huge and immovable blocking off the way to a building that usually has hundreds of innocent children inside. The film built on this and made it a thousand times worse.

Let's start with the goddamn Spray-On Shoe. Our main character is a mad scientist (but the good kind, apparently) whose list of bumbling failed experiments dates back to when he was a child and invented a spray you could put on your feet to coat them in shoes. He then gets laughed at because he didn't engineer a way to get the shoes off, and runs home in humiliation. Guys, the teasing/bullying factor is...not the most worrying thing about this story. There's a throwaway line about how Flint wears THE SAME SHOES into adulthood because to that day they simply cannot be removed. This seems like an incredibly urgent medical problem? Having your feet encased in the same rubber for years? The same rubber as when you're a kid? I just found myself thinking "What if my shoes never came off one day" and that terrifies me, okay? It's stupid and it's silly and it scares me. Even more than that, though, is the canonization of a polymer in this universe that can be sprayed on sticky and will literally never break no matter what you do to it, because that goes back to the pie machine dough principle. Being glued to a surface permanently is inherently terrifying and we'll go over this later because this is not the last fuckin time the glue shoes get brought up.

Flint invents a food-spewing machine. It ends up in the sky. He rides his popularity as it rains larger and larger food down upon the town and also the world. Most of this film up until the climax is unsettling but not AWFUL. Where it starts to go to shit is when Flint realizes his machine is too dangerous and shuts it off, only for the town's local greedy politician to switch it back on into an apocalyptic mode. So can we start with "Local town finds out its elected official is willing to sabotage their well-being in order to capitalize on the fame of a disaster-causing object?". Like, the whole film would've been solved so much sooner if there hadn't been a saboteur in the works - not a fun campy villain, mind you, but a saboteur who exists to drive the plot to the scary place. But I guess we need that narrative tension to justify having a film in the first place, so fine, I'll ride it out.

The main crew saddles up to fly out to the machine, which is now encased in a FLESH LABYRINTH of food, and...I'm just gonna rapid-fire the shit that happens at this part:

-The food turns sentient in order to defend itself. The cute animal sidekick brutally dismembers an army of gummy bears that is fully sentient and rips them apart to devour them.

-We enter the flesh labyrinth and it's exactly as much a horror RPG setting as you think it is.

-Now sentient cooked chickens besiege the party. The comic relief character is consumed by one, only to kill it from the inside and decide to WEAR ITS SKIN in what is seen as his defining character arc's conclusion. Wearing the skin of a dead monster allows him to forge his new identity.

-One of our party has to go back because of a tight passage lined with her deadly allergen, causing her to undergo anaphylaxis after an accidental mild nick. In the flesh labyrinth.

-The entire horrific journey is instantly INVALIDATED when it turns out that instead of the kill code for the machine, all Flint has is a file of a cat video. Which he finds out as the town is about to be obliterated off the face of the earth.

-So he solves it by jamming the works with the spray-on shoe and DID I NOT JUST GO OVER HOW HORRIFIC INDUSTRIAL EXPLOSIONS ARE IN KIDS' MOVIES? DID I NOT? ARE WE REALLY DOING THIS AGAIN? Anyway it's canonical proof that NOTHING can break the shoe glue and I should be happy for the town and happy that there's no more flesh labyrinth of living meat but instead I'm just terrified because of the door we have opened. We have imparted the existence of an indestructible sticky polymer upon the world.

-It's later seen used in a credits sequence to repair damaged houses. Which, first of all, given its flexible nature, is fuckin stupid. It won't serve as an actual wall. Second, that got me thinking about construction accidents involving the fuckin shoe glue. If that stuff gets dripped on a person's face -

-So then cue me sitting awake in bed later thinking wide-eyed about Cloudy with a Chance of Fucking Meatballs and realizing that this compound that is essentially a chemical weapon in the making is now in the hands of the mayor who deliberately caused an apocalyptic event over the town because he wanted the food rain. And THAT'S not going to lead to pretty circumstances.

I think you'll see that a lot of my fears with these two movies is "THINK OF THE IMPLICATIONS!" and I think that just shows how my mind works and why I'm drawn to fanfic so much. I'm all about diving into a universe, exploring its corners, analyzing it to death.

And with the industrial horror stuff, I kinda wanna bring it around to two other films that actually really subverted my expectations and made it fun. 102 Dalmatians was a fave of mine through middle school, but I remember when the climax took us to a big ol' factory and I got plumb nervous. After the usual blades and ovens of horror, the fact that it concludes with Cruella basically wearing a cake and a lengthy montage of the dogs kicking toppings onto her is just one of the most wholesome imageries. She survived the thing and now you get to watch her be decorated Lisa Frank style by her victims who are more interested in humiliation than murder, and I love that.

But maybe more prevalent is that I'm well aware that if certain filmography or plot points had been handled in different ways, The Boxtrolls might've actually frightened the ever-loving fuck out of me what with all the industrial stuff and medical horror, but I just...felt like that film was holding my hand the whole way through going "It's okay." The industrial stuff was framed in a way that was just campy enough and yet also taken seriously. Putting a really charismatic villain - ACTUAL VILLAIN, NOT CHICKEN FARMER OR CORRUPT POLITICIAN SABOTEUR - at the wheel was just such a mitigating factor that it gelled the whole thing together and I ended up LOVING what was done with giant machines and garbage crushers and explosions. And as for the medical body horror, I really appreciate how it was so baked in that Snatcher did that to himself - that everyone, EVERYONE warned him "Do not do this, you will probably die, I'm serious, bad fucking idea" up to the point of Eggs trying to plead him during an anaphylaxis attack, one last time, DO NOT continue down this path, we can find a way to heal you psychologically and get you some self-fulfillment. And Snatcher fully chooses hubris over the many, many opportunities offered him to be able to step down onto a safer path and that removes the fear and pulls it more into a tragedy for the villain. Not at all the same thing as "Sam the reporter is trying to save the world and doing her best until a fixture of the landscape accidentally sends her into anaphylaxis."

(Oh, and by the way, can I just - when I do see CWACOM brought up these days, it's always in the context of "This is the one movie where the guy tells the girl it's okay to look nerdy!". Well, no, not the way I remember it. The way I remember it, Sam basically tells Flint "I used to have really tacky style but have since changed it up of my own volition" and Flint is just like "NOOOOO YOU NEED TO WEAR GLASSES AND A SCRUNCHIE. I WANT A HOT NERD GIRL." This could've been pulled off right with some more introspection into female beauty standards, even in a tongue-in-cheek way, but right now it really looks like Sam just wanted to make herself more glam for a new image and Flint bullied her into regressing her style. Which I've also realized meant he bullied her into dressing more like she did as a teenager and normally I think that kind of shit is just "You're overthinking it" but since it's CWACOM and I spelled it out on paper like that, I'm just now realizing how that can be seen as pretty...icky.)

The one saving grace of CWACOM is that I was older by that time, and so it didn't affect me as hard as Chicken Run. But I still hold it dearly to my heart as one of the MOST DISTURBING movies I know, and by "dearly" I mean "fuck this movie, really and truly." I want to extend my thanks to 102D and Boxtrolls for giving me industrial-horror-based climaxes that were actually really comfortable, and again, probably what drove both of these was the fact that we had a campy diva villain in the lead for the potential scary stuff to surround and radiate off. Not a fuckin...ordinary chicken farmer who is just trying to make bank but is somehow passed as a Nazi allegory for trying to live her life as a farmer? I dunno, maybe if I rewatched that film I'd see she has a thirst for human blood too, and if I could fix fic Chicken Run my first order of business would be to give her a thirst for human blood instead of/in addition to chickens.

Anyway. Fuck both these films, EXCEPT for the fact that traumatizing scenarios can always be recast as whump material, and the next time I wanna do some crossover aftercare from a physically and psychologically damaging mission, I have a pie machine and a flesh labyrinth to exploit. REALLY HEAVY ON THAT AFTERCARE COMFORT THOUGH!

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when-a-humble-bard · 4 years

Text

the driftwood and the rift (p.2)

Read part 1 here!

Read on AO3 here!

Warnings: blood/injury; strong suggestions of past torture; feelings of guilt; everyone feels guilty for different reasons; they are bad at feelings but they are both trying

A/N: part 2 is here! This chapter was like pulling teeth to get them to talk to each other but we kinda got there. Heh. Hope you enjoy!

Tags: @thuriweaver

…

They take the last room at the tavern that’s available. Geralt accepts the key from the innkeeper—who stares at the mess of the two of them, beaten and bloody, with wide eyes—and half-helps, half-carries the bard up the stairs to the last room on the left. Geralt pauses only long enough to ask the barmaid to send up a basin of hot water.

He drops Jaskier onto the singular bed in the corner. He hates the silence. It had been grating in the months since their parting at the mountain top, but now that Jaskier is here… Geralt hates it. Almost as much as he hates the way Jaskier won’t meet his eyes.

Geralt busies himself with getting a low fire going in the hearth and pulling out strips of linen and vials of oil. He can feel Jaskier watching him, his bright blue eyes following his every movement. His initial panic seems to have abated, as much as Geralt can tell from his scent and the beating of the bard’s heart, but there’s something that lingers around him that Geralt can’t quite place. Something that reminds Geralt of burnt grass and smoke.

The Witcher turns to face the bard, opening his mouth to say something when he’s interrupted by a knock at the door. Geralt quietly thanks the young woman that hands the wash basin to him with a hesitant smile. When he turns back, Jaskier is standing. He’s got one hand braced against the headboard.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says softly. The bard’s eyes flicker up. “Sit down.”

Jaskier shakes his head. Some of his hair—it’s longer than Geralt remembers—falls across his eyes in the process. “Your shoulder,” he says. “It needs to be cleaned and we both know your scars heal more evenly if someone else sews them up.”

Geralt sighs. “I don’t care how evenly—”

“For fuck’s sake, Geralt, just… let…” Jaskier blows out a breath. “Let me do this. Please.”

Geralt knows first-hand just how insistent the bard can be. There was a certain fire that always lit up in those blue eyes of his when he got this way, and Geralt can’t help but feel an odd note of relief at seeing it back. The look always managed to exasperate the Witcher—honestly, Jaskier chose the most trivial things to put his foot down over—but it’s an improvement over the distant, haunted look that had shadowed his expression since the forest. Perhaps that’s why he relents.

Geralt’s lips press into a thin line before he sets the basin on the floor and sits on the edge of the bed. Jaskier is quiet again as Geralt shrugs off his armor and sheds the shirt underneath. The silence twists Geralt’s stomach. He is desperate to fill it.

“You were in Blavikin.”

It’s not a question, exactly. The hooded figure had told him as such, after all. The gentle splash of water as Jaskier dips one of the strips of linen into the basin fills the beat of silence that meets the end of the statement.

The bard’s gaze flickers up briefly to meet the Witcher’s golden one. “Yes. After we, ah, last parted, I found myself passing through Blavikin and the people of Blavikin found themselves in need of a bard.”

Geralt watches closely as Jaskier swallows before gingerly pressing the linen to the stab wound, far more gently than necessary, beginning to clean the blood that had dried against Geralt’s skin. The admittance from Jaskier leaves Geralt with more questions than answers. He wants to ask why—of all places Jaskier could have headed—the bard decided to go there. But Geralt doesn’t ask, swallowing the question down.

He thinks he knows the answer, anyway. Despite the bard’s ballads and songs sweeping through the Continent, plenty of contempt directed towards him lingered around. He had no doubt that Blavikin would harbor the worst of it. Butcher of Blavikin wasn’t a name so easily wiped from memories, even if White Wolf had started to worm its way into people’s vocabularies with increasing frequency.

Geralt had not returned to the town since Renfri. He did not plan to ever go back. Geralt looks up as Jaskier continues to clean at the wound in his shoulder. He wonders if perhaps Jaskier knew that. If that’s exactly why the bard decided to go there.

It’s another question that Geralt can’t bring himself to ask.

“I don’t think I’ll go back,” Jaskier says suddenly, studiously avoiding Geralt’s watchful stare. “Can’t say Blavikin really does it for me much anymore.”

“Hmm.” Geralt wants to ask why, but Jaskier presses on.

“Although, I’ll have to go back to retrieve my lute. If it’s even still there. I suppose that’s unlikely, given that it’s been a month, but you never truly know. Perhaps Adelaide rescued it. She’s just as likely to sell it, and that would be quite the travesty. Filavandrel would never forgive me. Although, to be fair, I haven’t performed quite as much as I used to, so perhaps there’s a certain level of irony to be found.”

As he rambles—for which Geralt is oddly grateful to hear, even if Jaskier’s voice is thin and shaky—he finishes cleaning the wound. It’s stopped bleeding, Geralt realizes, and Jaskier turns away from the Witcher and begins preparing what looks like a poultice. Geralt’s gaze still doesn’t waver from the bard. Jaskier’s hands are shaking. He drops one of the vials and it shatters against the dark wood floors.

“Fuck.”

Geralt stands up slowly. “Jaskier.”

“I’ll replace it in the morning, Geralt.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Jaskier is standing frozen by the table next to the bed, dropping his hands beside the poultice and dragging a breath into his lungs as if it takes a certain amount of focus. It’s the first deep breath Geralt has heard the bard take tonight, but he doesn’t miss the hitch nor the slight grimace of pain that passes through Jaskier’s face. Geralt swallows.

“Sit,” he says, and this time, Jaskier doesn’t argue with him.

The bard sinks down onto the side of the bed where Geralt had been sitting a moment ago, his gaze distant as he stares absently across the room. Jaskier blinks, breaking him out of whatever momentary trance he’d been in, and drags his gaze back to Geralt. It settles squarely on the wound in his shoulder. That scent of burnt grass and smoke that lingers around the bard gets stronger.

Geralt sighs, glancing around the room before he finds the spare change of clothes he’d brought in from Roach. He slips the shirt over his head, gritting his teeth as the move tears a bit at the stab wound. He just wants Jaskier to stop staring at it. Especially since the bard looks like he’s about to keel over at any moment.

Geralt busies himself with picking up the shards of glass he can find while he waits for Jaskier to shed his doublet and the shirt underneath. Except by the time Geralt has finished cleaning up the glass as best he can manage, Jaskier hasn’t moved.

Geralt sighs. “Jaskier.” Jaskier blinks up at him expectantly. Geralt arcs an eyebrow, then motions to the bard. “Your shirt.”

“What about it?” From the quick aversion of his gaze, Geralt has the feeling that Jaskier is stalling more than expressing a genuine lack of understanding. Geralt doesn’t respond, crossing his arms over his chest and staring the bard down.

Jaskier lasts all of about ten seconds before he releases a breath and Geralt sees his cheeks flush slightly. “I… may need some help,” he says quietly.

Geralt softens and crosses back to him, sitting beside the bard and helping him ease his blue doublet off his shoulders. The stench of copper grows stronger, and Geralt can see stains of red bleeding onto the off-white shirt he wears beneath. Geralt folds the doublet and sets it aside as he hears Jaskier suck in a deep breath before tugging the hem of his shirt out of his pants and continuing the momentum up and over his head.

Geralt doesn’t miss the tight clench to Jaskier’s jaw at the movement before the bard balls the shirt in his hands. Geralt glances at the bard’s back and freezes.

It’s… a mess. Mottled bruising—some fresh, some old—offers a sickeningly colorful backdrop of greens, yellows, and blues to the slashes that carve through his skin. Some span most of the bard’s back, others are smaller. A few are red, barely scabbed over, while others are most of the way to scarring.

He lasted nearly three weeks before he screamed for you.

Geralt closes his eyes against the roll in his stomach. “Fuck, Jaskier.”

“It’s like I always told you,” Jaskier says, and the attempt at levity probably wouldn’t have worked even if Jaskier’s voice didn’t tremble just a little, “ladies love some scars. Though I’m afraid the stories behind mine are, ah… well. Safe to say I probably won’t be composing songs about them.”

Geralt swallows thickly. He doesn’t know where to start, his golden gaze flickering over the far-too-many injuries that splay across the bard’s back, over his shoulders, wrapping around his ribs. Geralt leans forward slightly to inspect the bard’s chest, and Jaskier turns his head away like he’s ashamed. His chest looks to be in just as bad of shape, and the fact that the bruises continue down around the bard’s hips and disappear beneath the waistline of his pants doesn’t escape the Witcher’s notice either.

“What did they want?” Geralt asks in a careful voice, tearing his gaze away from the colorful and painful display of Jaskier’s chest to the bard’s face.

Jaskier’s light blue gaze flickers to Geralt before looking back to the fire in the hearth. “Nothing.”

“Jaskier.”

“Geralt.” Jaskier finally meets his eyes in a brief flair of defiance. Something wavers in Jaskier’s expression before he tears his gaze away. It grows distant as the bard’s voice grows softer. “They didn’t want anything I was willing to give. So what does it matter, really, what they wanted?”

It matters because Geralt didn’t really need Jaskier to tell him what they wanted from him. The hooded figure in the forest had been pretty damn clear. He was resolute in withholding information about you. Loyal to the end, it would seem. Plenty of people wanted the Witcher dead—plenty of people want Witchers in general dead. None, as far as Geralt knew, had gone to such lengths to glean any information about him in particular as to do this. He knew his lifestyle was dangerous, and put those who chose to join him in harm’s way, but… that was because he hunted monsters. Not… not this. Fuck.

Nobody deserved this, but Jaskier least of all. Jaskier, who had done nothing but care for him and be the singular most steadfast person present in Geralt’s life. Loyal to the end, it would seem. Geralt’s stomach gives another uncomfortable roll, his throat growing tight.

Geralt’s own thoughts trail off as he sees the pained hitch in Jaskier’s breath as he sighs just a touch too deeply.

The Witcher busies himself with kneeling in front of the bard, dipping the unused strips of linen in the wash basin that is now slightly tinged with the red of Geralt’s own blood.

“You should have told them,” Geralt says without looking at him. “Whatever they wanted to know, you should have…” He trails off.

Jaskier releases a breath that sounds almost like a laugh, laced tight with pain and something else that Geralt can’t place. “You really think so little of me? After all these years?”

Geralt’s brow furrows as he wrings out one of the strips. Jaskier looks back at the Witcher, seems to recognize the confusion, and shakes his head a little. “For fuck’s sake, Geralt. You think a little pain is all it would take for me to sell out on you?”

“This,” Geralt says between clenched teeth, nodding to Jaskier’s battered form, “is more than just a little, Jaskier.”

And gods fucking damn it, because it’s his fault. They didn’t want Jaskier, they wanted Geralt, and had thought that going after the bard would be the fastest way to get to him. It was well known across the Continent that Jaskier was the bard who sung the praises of the White Wolf, tagged along with him on so many adventures. An easy target. But the bard was nothing if not steadfast and loyal—to a fault, it would seem to Geralt—and his will had never been as easily broken as his body. If Geralt had just… been there, then Jaskier wouldn’t be fighting back a pained wince with each inhale of breath he dragged into his lungs.

Geralt sighs. He lifts the damp cloth towards the gash on Jaskier’s shoulder. One of the fresher ones, by the look of it. That, or the fight in the woods had torn an old wound back open. Geralt’s hand hesitates before making contact, looking to Jaskier for permission.

Jaskier doesn’t look at him, but he offers a subtle nod and swallows. He shuts his eyes, holding his breath as Geralt gingerly dabs at the fresh blood there. Jaskier releases the breath slowly a moment later. Geralt pretends not to notice just how badly it shakes.

There’s a long stretch where neither of them says anything. Geralt pays close attention to Jaskier, giving him a moment to brace each time he begins to tend to a new wound. The Witcher tries not to let his mind wander too far from his job, careful to not touch Jaskier anywhere he doesn’t absolutely have to. The bard’s fallen silent again, and there are brief moments where Geralt can feel his quiet gaze on him. Any time he goes to return it, Jaskier’s blue eyes flicker back to the fire, crackling in the silence around them.

“You don’t have to do that, you know,” Jaskier says when Geralt hesitates for the fourth time.

“Hmm.”

“Any of it,” Jaskier adds. “I did pick up a few things from our travels together, you know. I… I can do this myself.”

Geralt lets his hand drop from Jaskier’s ribs, his gold gaze searching. Jaskier won’t meet his eyes. “Do you want to?” he asks, because as much as Geralt wants to feel like cleaning Jaskier’s wounds would at least begin the recompense he owes the bard, Jaskier’s comfort and sense of security take priority.

“I can.”

Geralt frowns. “That’s not what I asked.”

Jaskier is silent again. As much as the Witcher knew the bard could read him, he’d learned how to read the bard over the years in kind. Something was pressing on Jaskier’s mind. He could tell from the unusual silence. The distant gaze. The way that his hands wringed in his shirt—usually, he’d be plucking absently on the strings of his lute, but with the instrument’s absence, Geralt figures that the bard’s hands would remain restless when he was turning something over in his mind.

Still, Jaskier doesn’t give voice to whatever thoughts are evidently flickering through his mind. And as much as Geralt wants to ask him, he can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t want to press. He’d been pressed for information enough over the past month.

The Witcher has cleaned most of the fresh and re-opened wounds on Jaskier’s ribs when the bard finally breaks the silence.

“Geralt.”

“Hmm?”

“In the forest.” Jaskier looks at Geralt kneeling in front of him. There’s a flood of that burnt grass and smoke scent and only now that Geralt is fully looking at him—his eyes wide and pained—can Geralt pair the scent with the emotion. Guilt. “Did you know it would work?”

“What would work?”

“Throwing the knife.”

Geralt’s hands still for a moment. “Mages are conduits of chaos,” he says quietly, recalling what Yennefer had told him once. “Destroy the conduit, you break their hold on whomever they’ve enchanted. Usually.”

“Usually,” Jaskier repeats. “So you didn’t know.”

“Hmm.”

“You could have killed me. You should have.” The statement makes Geralt’s eyes flash up to the bard’s again. “Why didn’t you?”

Geralt shakes his head, hating the way the smoke scent starts to radiate off Jaskier so fully that it nearly drowns out the smell of honeysuckle entirely. “You were under a spell.”

“I was a threat.”

“No.” Geralt’s eyes flash. “You were a victim. There’s a difference.”

“I wanted to hurt you.” Jaskier looks squarely at Geralt now, his blue eyes bright with pain. “I did. When that spell was winning, I wanted to hurt you, Geralt, and gods on high it terrified me. I mean—fuck.” Jaskier drops the shirt in his hands as his voice breaks and buries his fingertips in his hair.

“Jaskier,” Geralt tries, ducking a little in an attempt to get the bard to look at him again. Jaskier’s eyes are screwed shut. Geralt purses his lips. “I’ve sustained injuries far more serious than the meager ones you inflicted in the forest. And regardless, that wasn’t reflective of your desires. It was the bloodlust of the spell.”

“But I felt it, Geralt. I…” Jaskier shakes his head. He scrubs a hand across his watering eyes. He offers a thin, shaky, self-deprecating smile. “Add it to the pile of shit I shovel, huh?”

It’s Geralt’s turn to avert his gaze. Jaskier doesn’t mean it as a jab, but it rips open old well-deserved pain in Geralt’s chest. He’d regretted his words on the mountain less than an hour after he’d spoken them. But he hadn’t known how to take the words back in a way that would mean anything. He’d still said them. And Geralt had long ago gotten in the habit of not saying much of anything when he didn’t know what to say. So instead, he’d taken his time going back down the mountain, turning over the thousand ways to make it up to the bard should they ever cross paths again.

Here they are, months later, and Geralt still doesn’t know where to begin.

“I wasn’t fair,” Geralt says, knowing and hating that all he can think to say is a distant echo of what Jaskier had said himself on that mountaintop months ago. “After the dragon. You were right.”

Jaskier’s eyes open, blinking in evident surprise as he glances up at the Witcher. Geralt can feel the gaze on him, searching and confused, but he can’t quite bring himself to meet it. He busies his hands and his attention, instead, by returning to the gash under Jaskier’s collarbone that still looks red and painful.

“I get myself into shit,” Geralt continues quietly, “and the fact that you happen to be there more often than not does not mean you’re the one who…” The Witcher huffs a frustrated breath, fumbling for some semblance of words that won’t fall short of what he means. He dabs gently with the damp linen cloth against the wound and Jaskier’s breath stutters for just a moment.

He tries again. “You’re a loyal friend, Jaskier.”

And fuck if that doesn’t fall short in a million other ways. The extent of Jaskier’s unyielding, relentless loyalty was painted all over the bard’s body as a painful reminder. Loyal felt like such a massive understatement, and friend didn’t fit well in Geralt’s mouth as a descriptor of Jaskier either. It never had.

But Geralt doesn’t know how to bridge the rift between the words he says and the meaning behind them. The words that leave his lips feel like grasping at driftwood while drowning.

“Fuck,” Geralt mutters under his breath.

Jaskier’s hand stills Geralt’s over his wound before pulling his hand away and enveloping it in his own. “Geralt?”

The Witcher stops and swallows. “Forgive me. Please.”

And in truth, Geralt doesn’t know what exactly he’s referring to. If it’s the long overdue plea for what he’d said on the mountain or for the pained wince that Jaskier kept trying to mask or for all the other ways that the Witcher continued to fail Jaskier. There are far too many things, too many ways, that Geralt had fallen short. Too many things he needs Jaskier to forgive him for.

“I’ll do better,” Geralt murmurs, and Jaskier leans forward until their foreheads are touching. Geralt takes a breath, enveloped in the scent of cedar and honeysuckle and rose. The copper scent is mostly gone now, and the Witcher counts it as a small mercy on the aching in his chest.

“My dear Witcher,” Jaskier breathes in the space between them, “Of course.”

The ease with which Jaskier says the words is a grace that Geralt does not deserve. He releases a breath as the knot in his chest loosens before swallowing thickly. He feels Jaskier squeeze his hand softly. Geralt pulls back despite the sudden desire to press into the bard’s aura of warmth and wildflowers.

Jaskier is still battered and bruised and in pain. I’ll do better. That begins with easing whatever pain of Jaskier’s he can in the moment.

The Witcher clears his throat slightly as if it will ease the tightness of it. Jaskier seems reluctant to release his hold of Geralt’s hand, but he does after a moment. Geralt goes back to cleaning the gash beneath his collarbone. It’s the last of his wounds that necessitate cleaning before he’ll offer a salve that should help with the inflammation. Hopefully, with some pain eased, Jaskier can get a decent night’s sleep. Gods know how long it had been since the bard had been able to do that.

Geralt stands to do just that, turning towards the bag he’d hauled in.

“Where do you plan to go, come morning light?” Jaskier asks suddenly.

Geralt turns back around to look at the bard. “With you,” he says, his brows furrowed. Hadn’t that been obvious?

The Witcher sees the faintest hint of a smile tug at the corner of the bard’s mouth and the lingering knot in Geralt’s chest loosens just a touch more. “To the coast?”

“Hmm.” That did sound… nice, actually. Getting away for a while. It had been a long time since Geralt had been to the coast. He turns back to the bag and rifles through the contents, searching for that salve.

“I’ll need to get my lute first.”

“We can stop on the way.”

“Been too long since I last played,” Jaskier is saying, his voice getting softer and heavier. “Though if we’re going to the coast, I’ll have ample time to work on some sea shanties. Been ages since I’ve sung a sea shanty. Do you know any, Geralt?”

“No.”

“Hm. Shame. I’ll have to teach some to you.”

Geralt huffs a breath. Jaskier would be hard pressed to get Geralt to sing much of anything, but there also wasn’t much that Geralt would refuse Jaskier right now. He turns back to the bard, his brow arched, and finds the bard slumped over in the bed. Fast asleep. The corner of the Witcher’s mouth tugs up into an almost-smile.

He sets the salve that he’d dug out of the bag on the table with a quiet click, easing an arm under Jaskier’s knees and one under his neck. He lifts the bard easily—he’s far lighter than he ought to be—and repositions him more fully onto the bed. He couldn’t have the bard aggravating his injuries further. Jaskier stirs slightly, and Geralt holds his breath before the bard sighs softly and seems to drift back to sleep.

Geralt sets his bedroll on the floor. In the morning, they’d set off for the coast. For now, Geralt drifts off to sleep to the crackling fire in the hearth, the bard’s steady heartbeat, and the faint scent of wildflowers in the air around him.

#geraskier #witcher #geraskier fanfiction #geraskier fanfic #witcher fanfic #cursing #torture #blood #injury #geralt is trying

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years

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Survey #283

“if teardrops could be bottled, there’d be swimming pools filled by models”

How much would you tip a waiter or waitress for good service? I honestly don’t even know the proper etiquette of tipping because I almost never ever have been in a sit-down restaurant where I’ve paid because of the whole “I don’t have an income” thing. If for whatever reason I did, I would have asked the person with me how. I do (maybe…) believe however that there should be a baseline for how much you tip, even if your experience is somewhat unpleasant. You don’t know what that person is going through that day. If it’s just pure awful, then I might not tip at all, but I think I’d honestly feel way too guilty. Who is your favorite character from the television sitcom Friends? I don’t watch it. Whose name might you have tattooed on your body? None. Well, I guess if I had hypothetical kids, I might, especially as a tribute if they died. What is something that you always need to leave plugged in? I always at least have my laptop charger plugged into the wall, but not always into my computer as to not totally kill the battery. I just need it a lot because I’m only always on it. Who might you send a selfie to? I don’t send them to anyone, really, save for specific occasions. I just take selfies once in a blue moon to change my Facebook picture, honestly. I feel weird just sending people pictures of me because I feel like I’m screaming, “HEY LOOK AND COMPLIMENT ME!!!!!!!!!”, so it makes me uncomfortable. I only did semi-recently because my friend did my makeup for a Halloween shoot and for once in my goddamn life I felt really pretty so sent it to Sara. Name an item in or on your bed every night. My phone is on the right upper corner of my bed so I can check it when I wake up; I always wake up throughout the night and wanna know what time it is. Out of your work shift, how much time do you spend doing “actual work”? Well one, define “actual work,” but odds are almost zero because I don’t have shit to do. How long do your New Years resolutions typically last? I don’t make ‘em. Who would you call first after getting engaged to tell them the news? Most likely Mom. What’s the song that reminds you of the person you like?Okay so deadass I listened to NSP’s “Wish You Were Here” cover recently and kinda cried lol. Are you good at holding back your tears? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Have you ever sacrificed something important to you for someone you love? My goddamn sanity. How many jobs do you have? None. Do you have any memories you want to erase? There’s one occasion with Jason I wish I could forget so, so badly. Do you believe in the phrase “If it’s meant to be, it will be”? No. I don’t believe in pre-determined destinies and such, and thus I don’t see anything as “meant” and “not meant” to be. Do you believe in destiny? Wow, good timing lmao. Do you believe that things will get better? I like to think so. Have you ever drunk dialed someone? No. Have you ever worn a tiara? Haha, I think on my 18th birthday maybe, my friend Summer came with us to dinner and brought me a birthday tiara. If someone offered to take you out for your birthday, where would you decide to go? I almost always go to Olive Garden for dinner. But, after trying the Cheesecake Factory for the first time… *eyes emoji* If you plan to have kids, what will you tell them about Santa Clause? I’m not having kids, but hypothetically, I’d let them believe it. It’s so magical as a kid and brings so much excitement. I’d tell them the truth when it feels appropriate, and if I know they’re not the type to go telling other kids for no reason “HEY MY MOM SAID SANTA’S NOT REAL SO UR DUMB.” I’d be damned if they ruined it for other children. If you have ever been employed, have you ever been attracted to your boss? What about a co-worker? Not that I remember. Do [would] you avoid kissing your [possibly hypothetical] significant other when you or they are ill? Look man I made out with my ex while he was recovering from bronchitis before we knew it wasn’t contagious so OOPS yeah because I am 110% the “if you’re sick, I’m sick” dumbass all the while going FULL Mom Mode taking care of the person. What was the last thing you bought, other than food? With my own money, that is a daaaamn good question. I only really use it/am given it for food. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? No. Who was the last person you Facebook messaged? Do you know what that person is doing at this moment? My mom. She’s in the living room watching TV, probably. Think back to the last time you cried, or felt like crying. Who or what helped you to feel better? My mom. Do you own any accessories with your name or initial on them? No, they don’t appeal to me. Is there someone of the opposite sex that knows everything, or almost everything, about you? I would say Jason, but we haven’t seen or spoken to each other for almost four years, and I’m a much different person by now, and I’m sure he is, too. Do you remember the last time you cried because you missed someone? A few weeks back I had a breakdown over Jason again. My PTSD was and still is being pretty rough lately. Are your eyes the same color as your sibling(s)? Just my brother. Anything in your room that you’re hiding from your parents, or someone else? No. What’s your most noticeable flaw? Thinking about it, probably my extreme aversion to conflict. I will BOLT from confrontation. And what’s your best feature? I’m extremely empathetic. Have you ever hallucinated? Yeah; I would see shadows move when I was coming off a certain med. Do you have fangirl-ish tendencies? ………………. Have you ever replied “OK” when someone confessed they liked you? Wow, no. Either admit reciprocated feelings or gently turn them down. The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, or The Beatles? OHHHHHHHH BUDDY. Led Zeppelin, I think… but maybe the Stones. Idk. What would you do for immortality and infinite youth? Nothing. Would you rather have a pool or a hot tub? A pool. Is your handwriting legible? Yes. Well, some people find it slightly difficult because it’s kinda fancy. Have you ever held a baby chick? Yes! Do you think ‘everything bagels’ are disgusting? I’m not a fan. Do you live with anyone that you try to avoid at all costs? No. What did you last get upset about? How incredibly fuckin weak my body is. When is the last time you personally made someone else cry? I don’t know. How many more people do you think you’ll kiss before you die? Hopefully only one. I do NOT want to deal with anymore heartbreak, nor do I want to waste anymore time with someone I’m not going to spend the rest of my life with. Are you more spiritual or religious? Spiritual. Ever been to a rave? Nooooo, most definitely not my scene. Are you afraid to name the person you talk the most shit about? No. Song playing right now? I’m listening to “PRESIDENT X” by 3TEETH rn. Have you ever laughed at someone because they had a funny name? No, that’s incredibly rude. Speaking of names, why do celebrities always call their kids stupid ones? They’re not all “stupid”…? There are some beautiful names I’ve heard. It’s none of my business why others’ children are named what they are. Do you get car sick easily? I don’t. Do you think you’re a good conversationalist? Why is that? NO. I’m just awkward and don’t know what to talk about or what to say back to people a lot. Awhile back though my friend Ian told me I was actually a really nice one and it meant a LOT to me. Hearing someone say that reassured me a little bit. Have you ever been on a float in a parade? What were you doing on it? No. Have you ever been in a helicopter? No. Have you ever had chicken pox? No. Who is your favorite animated character? Oh boy that’s hard man, idk. Maybe Ninetales, at least aesthetically. Idk about as characters themselves. Is it easy to make you gag? Yeah. Who’s your favorite Disney character? Probably Scar. Would you rather have a pet crocodile or a pet octopus? I deadass kinda want a caiman lol. It’s something I doubt I’ll actually do, though. Do you like Ritz crackers? Yeah. Do you have any designer clothing? If so what brand? No. Were you afraid of the dark when you were little? Not very, no. What are your opinions on war in general? It’s fucking awful and could be avoided if people weren’t so goddamn hasty, selfish, and uncompromising, among many other adjectives. Do you like pretzels? Yessss, especially soft ones. Have you ever wanted to be a writer? Yeah, tons of times in my life on-and-off. Did you even vote? This is the very first year I actually did. I felt really bad for not acting, only complaining about my government, and “silence speaks” was heavy on my head. Did some research to educate myself, and I felt amazing afterwards. What is your favorite flavor of gum? Usually watermelon. Are you wearing any bandaids? If so, where and why? No. Do you currently have any bruises on you? No. Do you/did you like or dislike school? I always hated it. Are you currently wearing any lotion? No. Do you ever make recipes found online? What was the last one? I don’t cook, so… but there sure are some that look good. If you smoke weed, what do you usually do after you get high? If you don’t, what would you do if everyone around you were smoking? I never have, so I wouldn’t know. Haha, for the second half, sit there awkwardly… been there once. What’s the last thing you ordered online? The next Wings of Fire book. Starting Sunny’s story now. Tell me about your favorite dress. I had this spring dress in high school that was white with purple skulls on it in a floral design… It was really cute and just has a special memory tied to it. Have you ever slept in a waterbed? If so, what was it like? Yeah, that used to be considered “fun” as a kid. They’re not awful, but not that comfortable either, and if I remember well, it’s easy to get sweaty because of the material. How many floors does your house have? Just one. Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Yes. Do you enjoy sappy love songs? Hell yeah I do. Do you ever buy the same shirt in different colors? Simple tank tops, yeah. Ever made out on a rooftop? Damn dude no I’d be paranoid of falling off lmao. One place you will never eat at? Arby’s. If someone went through your pictures, would they find a "bad" one? Nope.

#survey #quiz #questions #questionnaire

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werewolfdays · 5 years

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Pack Gathering

here’s some actual plot for once! Quarantine gave me enough time to finish this beast of a snippet. This is kinda long, but I hope y’all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it! -

The Kincade manor had to be the richest house I have ever seen in person. It was probably big enough to be considered a castle. Jayde was right about one thing, it was a ridiculous flaunt of wealth. With its white marble steps and columns, dazzlingly intricate windows that reflected the sunlight, and granite wolf statues guarding the grand entrance, it was impossible to dispute that the owners didn’t think of themselves as royalty.

Not only that, but nearly every single person in that mansion right now is a werewolf. Very prestigious and powerful werewolves. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel safe, Jayde promised she would be by my side no matter what, it’s the fact that I was starting to feel unprepared for this. I was only human after all, I honestly didn’t know what to expect from everyone in there. I tried to focus on the other prominent emotions I was feeling to distract me. Like my excitement for entering a completely different world. The Lodge was filled with werewolves that I’ve grown accustomed to, but this place already felt different and I haven’t even stepped inside yet.

Jayde’s hand fit into mine before we set foot on the steps, “You’re nervous.” she stated quietly, moving closer to me.

Jayde’s version of dressing up was throwing on a black blazer over a white shirt that had an artistic graphic of some kind, tucked into sleek black jeans with Chelsea boots to match. It was very simple and didn’t really come off like she put in much effort, but she admittedly still looked extremely attractive. Especially with the sleeves of her blazer rolled up to her elbows and her stylishly unkempt blonde hair brushed over to one side.

I was relieved by her proximity and leaned into her, “A little.”

“I should warn you,” she began, taking me off to the side of the stairs while people passed us to enter the party, “These wolves, they’re very old fashioned. Alphas, mates, all that crap is really important to them. And the most important of all is being a purebred, so don’t be surprised if they act weird around you.”

Her words didn’t really help my unease and I glanced up at the manor again, even more unsure of myself, “Is me being here going to cause problems?”

Jayde took a second before she answered me, like she was struggling with a response. Then she nodded, “Yes. But don’t take any of it to heart.”

“Don’t take the fact that my human existence is offensive to them to heart?”

A brief smile tugged at the corner of her mouth like she just realized how that sentence sounded, “I won’t let any snide comments slide.” her brows furrowed with another thought, “Are you… comfortable with me calling you my mate?”

“Your mate?” I asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Jayde replied, looking down bashfully. She started to fiddle with the necklace she gave me, slowly readjusting the chain, “Werewolves usually mate for life and when we find the right person, that’s what we call them. Or more accurately, claim them. My parents didn’t really care for most of the old world traditions, but they did claim each other as mates. It’s sacred. If I tell the people here that you’re my mate and I’m yours, then there’s a chance that would get them to back off a bit.”

The explanation didn’t surprise me at all. It actually kind of appealed to me, but I sensed some aversion from the emphasis on claim. “You don’t like the idea?”

Jayde gave a half shrug and once the clasp was at the back of my neck, she ran the tips of her fingers along my skin for a moment longer than necessary when she pulled her hands away. I missed her touch as soon as it was gone.

“No, I do. Or the main gist, I should say.” She finally met my gaze, her demeanor exuding some embarrassment, “It’s just that wolves can be so territorial. You know, like, possessive. That’s the part I don’t like, you thinking that I’m trying to take possession of you, because I do have that instinct. And the people in there will definitely see it like that. Especially since you’re human.”

“I don’t care what the people in there think of us.” My hands went to her waist to reassure both her and me, “I know what your intentions are. I know you’re not trying to own me or anything, so I don’t mind you calling me your mate. And not just here either.”

There was something comforting about Jayde calling me her mate and me calling her mine. I was content with girlfriend, but mate felt like a bigger, better word. Like it carried more weight and meaning. Using it every now and then definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing.

She smiled at me, her shoulders slackening with relief, making me think that she felt the same about it. Her index finger came up to tap under my chin while she leaned in to kiss me. We didn’t let it become more than a long peck considering we were in a public place. Jayde wasn’t too fond of people watching us, and I can imagine these werewolves taking any interest in our intimacy would annoy her even more.

“You ready?” she asked once she pulled away.

“I’m ready.”

Jayde looked me up and down fondly, “You look gorgeous by the way.”

Skye helped me pick out the dress. It was elegant, yet simple overall. Skye thought that the navy blue color went well with my hair and skin tone, which I couldn’t argue. The sleeveless lace bodice didn’t constrict me or make me overheated from nerves. The flowy skirt reached my knees, giving me enough movement to feel comfortable, and the flats I was wearing wouldn’t kill my feet too badly. I didn’t wear dresses very often, but I always enjoyed it when I wore one like this.

I blushed at Jayde’s praise and accepted the arm she held out to me as we ascended the steps.

The inside was just as grand as the outside. Perfectly spotless tiled floors that I could see our reflections in led to a grand staircase that curled around the whole foyer. People were mingling about with fancy glasses of various alcoholic beverages, dressed like they were trying their hardest to promote their status to each other. As soon as Jayde and I entered the foyer, gazes landed upon us, followed by quiet murmurs. Curious and even scornful gazes, I noticed. My flushed expression turned to slight embarrassment from all the attention and I instinctually moved closer to Jayde, clinging to her arm and trying to hide my nerves. No doubt they could all sense it anyway.

“Let’s go get something to drink.” Jayde suggested, leading me away from the prying eyes in this particular room. As we walked by a couple looking me up and down very carefully, she growled at them, making me smile to myself.

This was going to be an interesting day. “It’s gonna be a lot of that, I’m guessing.”

She groaned in agreement, “If Skye hadn’t asked me to go to this damn thing for her, I wouldn’t have come within a hundred miles.”

I remembered all the stories Jayde told me about coming here with her family when she was a kid. I gathered that if her father hadn’t been such close friends with one of the alphas, they wouldn’t have even come here at all. It sounded like every visit was painful for both families on account of their opposing views. I was dreading the inevitable moment I meet the alpha female, Miranda. She sounded like a very strict and uptight woman, which made me fear that she was the one who was going to have the biggest issue with me.

The open bar was in the next room, filled with even more werewolves of high status. Strange looks continued to come our way, which I ignored as best as I could. “They can all tell that I’m human right away, can’t they?”

She nodded, “Most of them, yeah.”

“Am I the only human here?”

“I haven’t caught any other scent besides yours.” she answered, quickly asking the bartender for a whiskey and a glass of champagne. “Your scent is pretty distracting though.” she added with a small side-grin.

I accepted the glass of bubbling liquid that was being handed to me, offering my thanks to the bartender before I replied to her, “I hope not too distracting.”

Jayde took a generous swig of her whiskey, “Not distracting enough, actually.”

We stood quietly for a few minutes while Jayde surveyed the crowd, her shoulders slightly tense like she was preparing for an attack. I tried to commit some profiles to memory too, in case I recognized anyone from the descriptions that Jayde had given me earlier, but every time I looked at someone for more than a second or two, their gaze found mine like they somehow knew I was watching them. Can werewolves sense people watching them? The idea was a little unnerving considering how many times I’ve stared at Jayde before we got together. Did she know I was staring at her all those times? And she didn’t think I was a psycho?

“Jayde,” a man called as he approached, pulling me out of my embarrassing thoughts. He must’ve been about thirty years old or so. Kind looking face, clean shaven with his light brown hair combed perfectly.

“Jonas.” Jayde greeted back with a nod.

“You got roped into this, huh?” Jonas asked with a hint of humor.

“Just when I thought the torture was over.” she said somewhat sarcastically.

Jonas smiled, then noticed my presence beside Jayde and eyed me curiously, though I noted it wasn’t judgemental. It might’ve even been concern. “Who’s this?”

“This is Nadya.” Jayde put an arm around my waist, “My mate.” I watched his eyebrows shoot up in surprise while she addressed me next, “Nadya, this is Jonas. He’s Miranda’s first born son with her first mate, Arthur.”

I recalled Jayde telling me that the previous Kincade alpha male, Arthur, had been killed by hunters when Jonas was very young. “It’s nice to meet you.” I said, reaching out to shake with him.

Jonas’s grip was firm, but gentle when he took my hand. I realized from his expression that he was offering respect, which wasn’t something I thought I would receive so easily here. “It’s lovely to meet you too, Nadya.”

“I’m…” I started nervously after letting go of his hand. I probably should’ve left it, but I felt like I couldn’t, “I’m sorry about your father.”

His expression softened, “It’s alright, it happened a long time ago. Truth be told, I barely remember him.”

“He seemed like a good man, from what I’ve heard.” I said sincerely, “I’m sure he would be proud of you.”

Jonas studied me quietly for a moment while he swirled the drink in his hand absentmindedly. He didn’t look me up and down like a lot of people were, he just kept his gaze right on mine until the corners of his mouth tugged up in a smile. Then he nodded and said, “Thank you.”

I smiled and nodded back, but was slightly unsure if that offended him or not. “Of course.”

The moment passed with Jonas standing up straighter and taking in a breath, “Well, I won’t hold you up any longer, I have a couple toddlers to track down. You know, make sure they don’t get into my mother’s closet upstairs. You two enjoy the party.”

“See you around, Jonas.” Jayde said, shaking his hand like an old friend before he went to walk away.

He got a couple steps, then halted and turned back to us, “Oh, Jayde?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s good to see you.” He had an almost familial fondness in his eyes, “Alive and well.”

Knowing that he must have been referring to the fact that he hasn’t seen her since before she was captured, Jayde’s eyes sparkled with gratitude and she smiled, giving him a meaningful nod, “Thanks.”

Once he disappeared in the crowd, I asked Jayde, “Was that okay? What I said.”

“You have a way with words, Nadya.” she answered, lovingly caressing my arm, “I don’t think anyone besides his wife has told him that his dad would be proud.”

“Really?”

She nodded, “Miranda didn’t take it too well when he told her he didn’t have any ambition to be the next alpha. She thought that was disgracing Arthur’s memory.”

I suppose that kind of made sense for people like this, in a twisted way, but that still wasn’t fair to Jonas. “Well, he seems to be doing pretty well for himself.”

“He has the family he’s always wanted. A mate. A couple of kids. Miranda might not think that's ambitious, but I do. Jonas sought a more modest life, and when you’re a werewolf, that can be more difficult than just staying in a large pack.”

This subject sounded familiar. “Your dad did that, right?”

She hummed in confirmation, “The Thatchers were another major purebred pack. My dad loved his family, but he also wanted something of his own. When he met my mom, he just wanted it even more. It’s never easy to break away from a big pack to form your own. There’s a lot of bravery in that.”

“You and Skye are the only Thatchers left?”

“Us and you.” Jayde told me with a smile, “And Toby. Even though he’s a Cortez, I call him both. You know, we might run into his siblings today.”

The fact that Jayde basically called me a Thatcher caused an incredibly light flutter in my stomach, “It’ll be interesting to meet them.”

“Celina has a bit of a stick up her ass, but she’s good people.”

As I was about to reply, there was a loud and booming voice shouting, “Thatcher!”

When Jayde saw another man approaching us, she swore under her breath, “Fucking Christ, here we go.” and downed the rest of her whiskey, turning around and motioning for a refill from the bartender. “It’s Garret.”

Apart from Miranda, Garret was one of the Kincades I was hoping I wouldn’t meet. He sounded like the worst type of frat boy and all the times that Miranda tried to push Jayde and Garret into a relationship, basically grooming them to eventually become mates since they were small children, made me extremely uncomfortable.

Now that I could see him in person, with his arrogant smirk surrounded by patchy stubble and overly gelled dark brown hair that was slicked back and cropped close at the sides, I wanted to be in any other room besides this one. There was a pendant around his neck that suspiciously looked like a bullet. Specifically a silver bullet. I wasn’t sure if it actually was one, or just for show, but it didn’t exactly match his tailored suit. The fact that he wore it so blatantly made me think it was a trophy of some kind.

Garret carried himself like he owned the place, but it almost came off like he was trying too hard. Once he sauntered over to us, he gave Jayde a long once over and it was difficult to keep my expression neutral. “Wow, you really did make it out, huh? I mean, shit, look at you.” he motioned at her dramatically with his hands, taking a special interest in her most visible scars, and let out a chuckle, “Maybe a little worse for wear, but I guess it’s kinda badass.”

“Okay, you said hello, you can go now.” Jayde said dryly, letting all of the amber liquid in her glass fall down her throat while glowering at him.

“Still playing hard to get after all this time?” Garret asked with a cocked eyebrow.

She wasn’t amused, “I was never playing your game, Garret, I just genuinely can’t stand you.”

“Oh, come on,” He groaned dramatically, “You’re being rude to the next great alpha? Under his own roof?”

“I’m actually being pretty civilized.” Jayde remarked, motioning for yet another refill of whiskey, which was starting to worry me a little, “You’ll know when I’m being rude.”

Garret looked like he wanted to say another snappy joke, but then he focused on me. The look of surprised interest on his face made me realize he literally just noticed my presence. His pale blue eyes slowly looked me up and down, glittering like a kid in a candy store, and I felt Jayde stiffen beside me. “What’s up with the human?” he asked her nonchalantly without taking his eyes off me.

“This is Nadya.” Jayde answered through clenched teeth, barely holding back a snarl.

“What’s she doing here?” he finally looked to Jayde for an explanation, “What, we just gonna have fun with her later?”

While I wasn’t entirely sure I knew exactly what his assumption entailed, my mind did go to a few possibilities. Like how it was a full moon and the participants of this party were invited for a hunt during the night. The way Garret had been looking at me started to make sense now. It made my skin crawl.

A brief sparkle of yellow shimmered across Jayde’s dark blue irises, I only noticed it because I was standing so close. She tensed up further, scowling darkly, an opened her mouth to say something, but I spoke up first because I had had enough of Garret’s comments making both of us uncomfortable, “Jayde and I are mates.”

He locked eyes with me again like he was shocked I had the ability to speak, “What would you know about that?” he snapped.

“She understands it a lot more than you do.” Jayde said calmly, not taking her dangerous glare off of him.

Garret addressed her with a scoff, “So, being tortured for years gave you a sense of humor?”

“No,” Jayde shook her head patronizingly, “Just gave me some perspective.”

“Pretty twisted sense of perspective, if you ask me.” he grumbled.

“We didn’t ask.” I pointed out. He shot a look at me again, this time looking furious that I had the audacity to speak to him like that. Maybe I should have held my tongue or used a little more caution with a werewolf like Garret, but something about him made me especially impatient and unwilling to just let his behavior go unchecked. Not to mention I hated the way he was talking to Jayde. “Why does it matter to you anyway?”

“Because my big brother cannot stand it when he can’t get what he wants.” Replied a girl that suddenly appeared next to our disagreement with a glass of wine in her hand and a giant grin, “Isn’t that right, Garret?”

The beautiful young woman was around my age and had the Kincade family resemblance for sure, though she also had a smirk that was familiar in a different sense. It was the same mischievous smirk that Skye wore on a daily basis. It wasn’t hard to recognize this girl as one of the twins that taught Skye everything she knows about being a troublemaker.

“Amara,” Garret glowered at his sister, using a clear warning tone, “Go away.”

“Do you have to be such a sore loser?” Amara replied and shrugged, “I mean, Hell, after all this time Jayde still won’t fall for your shitty flirting attempts. Learn to give up, you’re just embarrassing yourself.”

Garret’s face took on a reddish hue, either enraged, embarrassed, or both. The siblings stared each other down in a tense silence to the point that I was worried about it ending violently, but then Garret drew in a long breath before releasing it slowly. Without another word to any of us, he trudged off. He threw me a quick glare as he brushed by me and I noticed that he had reached up to grab his pendant, the silver bullet now lost in his clenched fist. I frowned. If that really was a silver bullet, that must be burning his hand.

Jayde must have noticed it too, “What’s the deal with the stupid necklace?”

“Oh,” Amara snickered, “He killed a hunter a while back and took the loaded silver bullet out of the guy’s gun. Now he goes around showing it to people and saying, ‘This was the bullet that was gonna kill me, but I showed that hunter bastard how a real man fights!’” She scoffed and shook her head, “I swear he becomes even more of a douche after each day.”

I shook my head, mumbling, “You don’t say…” into my glass of champagne, not at all surprised.

“Some things never change.” Jayde remarked.

Amara fully looked at the both of us, “You do. Strolling in here as one of the last surviving members of your family’s pack with a human girl on your arm. Kinda wish I could’ve thought of something like that to drive my mother crazy.”

“Nadya really is my mate.” While there wasn’t any full-blown animosity in Jayde’s voice, she was still being assertive, “I didn’t bring her here as a joke. Sometimes werewolves realize they don’t have to stick to archaic pack beliefs. It is the twenty-first century, after all.”

“Wow,” The Kincade wolf stated slowly, her perfectly manicured eyebrows arched in surprise at Jayde’s intensity, “Is it hard to hear me up there on your high horse with your little human?”

“It is a bit windy, yeah.” she replied sarcastically.

The energy between the two was different than with Garret. It wasn’t like they were overly fond of each other, but I could tell there was still some respect, as well as amusement with the other’s presence. The banter was also interesting. Almost sibling rivalry-like. Then I realized that it was exactly that because these two had a long history of growing up together.

Amara chuckled at Jayde’s retort and looked to me, “Well, if she really is that important, then I guess I should introduce myself.”

I accepted her extended hand, “I’m Nadya.”

“I gathered.” she replied with that smirk, “I’m Amara.”

“I gathered.” I said, mirroring her tone cheekily and releasing her hand.

“Oh, she’s got a little bit of sass,” Amara grinned at Jayde, “I like her.”

Jayde gave me a soft and proud smile, reaching out to briefly brush the back of her finger against my jaw. The small touch was both comforting and energizing. “So do I.”

“Well, this has been fun, but my main source of entertainment went that way.” Amara pointed in the direction that Garret went, “Mitchell and I are shadowing him all day and whoever makes him flip his shit in front of everyone first wins.” she leaned in as she passed us to wink at me and say, “Don’t let these wolves scare you.”

I grinned back at her and nodded, “They’re more bark than bite.”

Amara let out a hearty laugh, walking backwards and pointing at me, “You’re funny.” Then she disappeared into the crowd to go annoy her older brother with her twin.

When I looked back to Jayde, I saw that she was watching me very intently and I wasn’t sure why. “What?”

“Come on,” She said, setting her glass of whiskey aside and plucking my nearly empty flute of champagne out of my hand to place it down as well. Before I could ask why, she grabbed my hand and began leading me through the main bustle of the party.

I uttered a quiet, “Excuse me.” whenever we closely passed guests and offered a few sorry’s as well to those that I couldn’t avoid while Jayde pulled me along. We eventually broke through the crowd and made our way down some nearly empty hallways. This place was so big that even if I lived here, I was sure I would get lost on a daily basis, so I was impressed with how Jayde seemed to know exactly where to go.

We took a couple more turns, until there was no one else in sight, and I finally asked, “Where are we go-”

Jayde suddenly stopped, her hands going to my waist, and I was cut off by her mouth crashing into mine as she pushed me back against a wall. It left my head buzzing with disorientation for a second, but I quickly recovered, reaching up to grab her shoulders and eagerly return her kiss. Her hands squeezed my hips, drawing me completely against her until there wasn’t even an inch between us. Within the span of a few fluttering heartbeats, I was totally overtaken by the sensation of her lips moving against mine, the taste of whiskey on her tongue, the sudden flooding of warmth that went throughout my limbs.

She pulled away, allowing me to catch my breath in flustered pants. “Sorry,” She murmured, resting her forehead against mine, “I just really had to do that.”

“I’m not complaining.” I said, laying my forearms on her shoulders to play with her hair, “What was it for?”

“I was about two seconds away from knocking Garret’s teeth out,” Jayde explained and leaned back to smile at me, “Then you talked back to him like that, wiping his stupid fucking smirk off his face, and I swear I fell in love with you all over again.”

Having had no idea that my actions had that effect on Jayde, and feeling rather proud of myself because of it, I pulled her in again. This was exactly the kind of break I needed after the few interactions we’ve gone through already and I sure did need something to get me through the rest of the inevitably uncomfortable meetings. Jayde indulged herself too, deepening the kiss for a few breathtaking moments before letting her lips trail down my neck. Her teeth teased the sensitive skin along my pulse and one of my hands gripped her upper arm in encouragement while the other tangled in her hair. A harder nip caused my nerves to spark and crackle like lightning, making me suck in a sharp breath.

An excited gasp escaped her lips, tickling my skin, and then her mouth was on mine once more. I could feel we were both getting lost in this, perhaps too much, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop her. Not when she felt this good. Not when I knew I wouldn’t get this again until we left this place.

Then there was a noise close to us, a door being slammed shut, and Jayde broke away from me with a startle. She looked over her shoulder, as did I, and we saw a woman had come out of the bathroom that we failed to notice we were right across from. The strange werewolf simply stared at us and we stared back, me sheepishly wiping at my mouth with a blush since Jayde and I had gotten a little intense just moments earlier. After a few awkward moments, the woman shook her head in bewilderment like she was trying to shake herself out of a hallucination and continued on her way.

As soon as she was gone, Jayde made eye contact with me and we immediately burst into laughter. Her head fell against my shoulder and I buried my face in her neck to muffle my giggles. It felt like we were teenagers getting caught making out in the hall during class. After a few moments or so, we regained some composure and Jayde took my hand again to lead me somewhere else.

“There’s a room I used to go to as a kid when I wanted to get away from these people. No one besides my dad ever found me there.” she said with a grin.

A thrill went through my body as I laced our fingers together and followed her. I couldn’t deny the excitement I felt sneaking around with her like this, and the implications of going someplace more private intrigued me too. Then I remembered the senses that werewolves have. Everyone would pretty much be able to tell immediately if we went further. It was already uncomfortable enough being stared at for being human, but if the people here also sensed that Jayde and I sneaked away for a quickie, I can imagine that would only increase the level of awkwardness.

I realized that couldn’t have been Jayde’s goal because there’s no way she would want the wolves glaring at us more than usual. But taking us someplace where we could have a proper break from the party and indulge in some passionate kisses appealed to me just as much as the former idea.

As we continued on, I brought Jayde’s hand up to brush my lips against the back of her hand, giving her a sweet smile. The heated expression that came across her face when her eyes met mine made me think that she didn’t really care what the other werewolves ended up sensing. Well, if she didn’t have a problem with it, then neither did I.

We reached a closed door and Jayde quickly pushed it open. I was so focused on her, and distracted by the anticipation of contact, that I didn’t notice someone else was already in the room until Jayde stopped in her tracks. She let go of my hand and held out her arm to prevent me from taking another step and I was puzzled by the sudden seriousness in her expression. That is until my line of sight followed what she was so intently staring at.

There was a young woman, nicely dressed in a black dress with gold trim, sitting on one of the lounge chairs. Her dark curly hair, that was intricately braided on one side, rested on her squared shoulders, tensed up in a specific position to keep her spine straight.

I could tell from here that she wasn’t a Kincade wolf. At least not part of the main family, but there was something about the air around her that made me think she was more important than a subset of the pack. The young werewolf’s eyes were closed and I realized she must be in a meditation of some sort. Then her eyes snapped open, immediately finding Jayde, and I saw the telltale glow of her wolf surfacing.

While Jayde’s wolf eyes were a deep golden, this girl’s were a pale yellow. She silently regarded Jayde’s presence, then mine and that’s when I heard a soft growl beside me. When I glanced at Jayde, I saw that her eyes had shifted too, her growl a light warning to the other wolf as she was unsure of her intentions. As far as I could tell, the girl wasn’t being aggressive. Still, Jayde remained alert, her arm still held out over me protectively.

Finally, the girl’s eyes shifted to a more human looking gray, and I felt Jayde relax a little. Then the girl spoke.

“You don’t see many of your kind these days.”

I could only think that she recognized Jayde as one of the very few remaining Thatchers.

“We don’t give up too easily.” Jayde replied.

“I can tell.” Her voice was calm, almost soothing, but there was a hint of strain buried underneath.

“Elaine, right?” Jayde asked, lowering her arm and taking a couple steps further into the room, “Reinhart?”

“That would be me.” Elaine confirmed flatly.

So this was a werewolf from another old purebred pack. I started inching my way forward too out of curiosity since Jayde had a lot of respect for the Reinhart pack, but then Jayde’s arm went up again to halt me. She didn’t want me near Elaine for some reason, which confused me. The other werewolf seemed very relaxed in our presence.

“I’ve heard things about you.” Jayde said.

Elaine shrugged, leaning back in her seat nonchalantly, “Probably all true, albeit a bit exaggerated.” her eyes briefly drifted over to me again before settling back on Jayde, “I’ve heard things about you too, but nothing about a human girl.”

“I can be full of surprises.” Jayde’s arm still hadn’t lowered and I was getting impatient with it. It seemed like a rude gesture, even if she was only trying to protect me. But she ignored my touch when I set my hand on her arm to urge her to lower it. “I’m sure you’re full of them too.”

Elaine gave a slightly bitter smirk that nearly looked like a snarl, “Not the random maulings of humans type of surprises anymore, I assure you.”

That made me hesitate. Jayde being so unyielding made sense now. Elaine isolating herself and seemingly practicing meditation suddenly made sense too. She must have been using it to help with control. Though I knew enough about werewolves to know that a purebred struggling with control like this wasn’t a common thing. Even Garret didn’t show signs of it. That only made me more curious about Elaine.

“That’s why you’re here then?” Jayde started sarcastically, “Tucked away in a back room because you have control now? It’s a full moon tonight, how are you feeling?”

“Jay,” I scolded softly, unsure why she was being so rude.

“I know it’s hard for you to understand, but being this was never easy for me.” Elaine said slowly like she was explaining something complicated to a child, “I never wanted to hurt anyone. I exiled myself from my pack for years because of it. I sure as shit wouldn’t be back here if I thought I couldn’t handle it. Though, I will admit that I believed it would just be wolves.” Yet again, Elaine met my expression. It was hard to read her, but I could tell my presence was making her uneasy.

“I’m sorry we interrupted your meditation.” I told her sincerely, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Then I spoke to Jayde. “We should probably leave.”

The smile Elaine gave me was small and brief, but actually genuine. “You’re fine. Besides, it looks like we interrupted each other.” when she looked back and forth between us knowingly, I realized with a hot flush to my cheeks that we had been a bit obvious with our intentions in coming here. Thankfully, she shifted the topic before I became too embarrassed, “What’s your name?”

“Nadya,” My first instinct was to go up and offer my hand, but I wasn’t sure she would be entirely comfortable with that, “I’m part of Jayde’s pack.”

“That makes sense, considering,” she eyed Jayde and noted how her body language was still defensive. While she had finally relaxed her arm, Jayde was still positioned half in front of me. I knew I wasn’t in any danger, so I stepped out from behind her to stand beside her and offer Elaine some trust. Jayde looked over at me like she wanted to argue, but Elaine spoke up, “I promise she’s safe around me.”

Jayde didn’t take her eyes off me while watching my expression very closely. As soon as I nodded, silently agreeing with Elaine, she backed down, trusting my judgement. “I hope so.”

“I wouldn’t have let this conversation go on this long if I wasn’t sure.”

“Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“I do usually keep my word, if that makes you feel any better.”

Jayde nodded, “It will once I see the evidence for myself. I hope you don’t take any offense.”

Elaine seemed to soften towards Jayde in understanding, “I get it. It’s hard enough for a normal werewolf to trust others. If I had gone through what you have, I wouldn’t trust anyone.”

“It’s gotten me this far.” Jayde said with a shrug.

“Trust has too.” Elaine nodded at me, “You have a human at your side. And here of all places. That’s a shocking amount of trust.”

Jayde blinked at Elaine with a subtle tilt of her head like that hadn’t ever occurred to her. I smiled to myself, remembering how we met. How Jayde was forced to trust me as I was forced to trust her when neither of us knew each other at all. We both had to depend on the other to save lives. It worked, and here we are now. Together like family and in love. It was pretty funny to me.

“Good point.” Jayde answered.

“We can leave you, if you’d prefer more alone time.” I offered, knowing how overwhelming a crowd like this could be. It must be especially overwhelming for Elaine. “I could go get you something to drink or snack on.”

Her smile towards me became warmer, but she politely shook her head, “No, that’s alright. I should be rejoining the party anyway. My parents will be wondering where I am. This was supposed to be a test to show them how much I improved, and I snuck away instead.”

“Don’t feel too bad, we did the same.” I reassured her as she stood up, “But less innocently…”

That made Elaine laugh. She moved closer to us, but gave me a wide berth, probably to keep Jayde, who had tensed ever so slightly again, comfortable, “I’m a bit envious of you guys, if I’m honest. It must be kinda fun to sneak away like that.”

“It is,” Jayde confirmed, “until you get an earful from someone responsible later.”

She gave us a lopsided grin over her shoulder on her way out of the lounge room, “That’s the worst, isn’t it?”

Elaine almost ran into someone in the doorway, sidestepping at the last second. The new arrival offered her his apologies, bowing his head. The overly formal greeting made me think he was a lower level wolf because he addressed Jayde in the same fashion. He folded his hands behind his back and bowed in a way that was more submissive than respectful, keeping his eyes on the floor when he spoke.

“Miranda would like to speak with you.”

Speaking of getting an earful, I thought.

“Oh, I’m being summoned now?” Jayde asked.

“You are in your alpha’s home.” the young werewolf stated carefully, “You should show some respect when she calls for you.”

Jayde rolled her eyes and motioned for me to follow her. “My alpha…” she grumbled under her breath like that was the most ridiculous joke ever told.

“She’s waiting for you in her office.”

“I know where.” She replied without looking back.

Elaine offered us a quiet, “Good luck.” though the look on her face made it obvious that she was beyond glad she wasn’t us right now.

Jayde’s demeanor completely changed. I’ve seen her like this before. She was gearing up for a fight. Whether it was physical or otherwise remained to be seen, but she wasn’t expecting a warm welcome from the Kincade alpha female. I could tell that Jayde was preparing for every possibility and I was worried that it was all because of me. I never should have come here. It’s caused too much trouble already.

The office was apparently on the other side of the mansion, which made that lounge room Jayde took me to more appealing. I guess that’s why she would escape there as a kid. It was as far away from Miranda as possible without leaving the house. We had to go through the main bustle of the party again and I couldn’t help but feel like Jayde was heading towards the chopping block. Was all of this really that big of a deal? I guess so, if the way people were looking at us told me anything. I frowned deeply, linking arms with Jayde protectively. She had to know that the opinions of these werewolves didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. We still had a proper home to go to.

A middle aged man was waiting for us on the outside of what must have been the door to Miranda’s office. He smiled at Jayde as we approached, though there was pity in his eyes. I was surprised at how much this man looked like an older version of Garret. This had to be his father. The Kincade alpha male and Jayde’s father’s closest friend back in the day.

“Hey, kiddo.” Logan said sheepishly, “Wanted a proper hello with you before you head on in.”

“‘Cause it isn’t going to be pretty?” Jayde asked.

“She was really banking on you being…” He started, but drifted off and shook his head, “Well, she’ll tell you. It’s really good to see you. I can’t tell you how relieved I felt when I heard you had made it out alive. Tristan would be glad that his legacy continues on with you and Skye.”

Jayde fixed him with a level stare. “Is that what this is about? His legacy? Or hers?”

To my surprise, Logan couldn’t hold her gaze. I would’ve thought an alpha of a large pack like this would be more confident, but I was getting the impression that Logan was mostly an alpha in name only. It seemed like he was bowing to his wife’s will quite easily, no matter how he felt about it. Then he looked at me, the only emotion I could gauge from his expression was indifference.

“You should probably stay out here.” He said, “Miranda only wanted to speak with Jayde.”

Jayde turned to me, “Do you want to?” she asked sincerely, giving me an out if I wanted it.

I wasn’t overly fond of facing off with an alpha like Miranda, but I didn’t want to just abandon Jayde to that. “I want to stay with you.”

She smiled at me, in both relief and pride. I had no doubt that she could have handled this without me, but that didn’t mean she had to. “She’s coming with me.” she told Logan firmly.

He didn’t argue, but sighed and nodded us on, “Okay, go on in. And be careful with your words, please.”

Jayde didn’t reply to him, only stepped forward and opened the door.

Miranda’s office was highly decorated in both modern and historical items. Medieval weapons hung on the walls above bookshelves that were full of very old and worn looking books as well as clean and crisp ones, all perfectly organized. I had to resist the urge to go over and browse the spines. There were deep red velvet curtains on the windows that could drown out all the sunlight if they were pulled closed, but thankfully they were open and allowed the sun to illuminate the entire room. I would’ve felt trapped if they weren’t. The desk had all of the most modern necessary technology equipment, though the desk itself looked very old and grand with intricate carvings. I also noted a large crest hanging on the wall above the leather office chair. It was a wolf sat on his haunches on the face of a shield with a crown around its neck and a dagger in its mouth.

The Kincade alpha female, Miranda herself, stood with her arms crossed in front of the desk. She bore a resemblance to her daughter, though with lines along her forehead and around her eyes and mouth to show how she had held this stern expression for who knows how many decades. Streaks of gray ran through her long dark hair that had been stylized perfectly for this event. Or maybe she put in that amount of effort into her appearance no matter the occasion. Her light blue eyes showed no warmth or sympathy, only a demand for order and respect.

She hadn’t been waiting alone in this room. Garret stood close to her with a large grin on his face like he had won a prize. It didn’t surprise me that he had gone crying to his mother after our encounter with him.

The office was silent for a long time as Jayde and Miranda faced off with each other. Logan had entered the room too and closed the door behind him, though he kept a distance back and started wringing his hands nervously. Miranda paid him no attention, just kept her eyes on Jayde.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Miranda finally asked, breaking the unbearable silence.

“Excuse me?” Jayde asked with a scoff.

“Jayde, I have always been patient with you,” the alpha said, ironically with little patience, “because I respected your parents and I greatly admire your bloodline, which is even more precious now, but you have truly crossed a line.”

“Could you be more specific?”

Miranda raised her eyebrows, “Do I need to be? When you have her by your side?”

I looked down in shame. This really was because of me…

Jayde grinded her teeth in frustration, “You invited me here and I came because I owe you thanks for taking Skye in when my family was lost. That’s a debt I can never repay, but that doesn’t mean you get to judge me for anything.”

“I don’t get to judge you?” Miranda scoffed incredulously, “I don’t get to judge you for parading a human around my home and claiming that she is your mate to my son's face!? You have a duty to your lineage! We are being hunted to extinction and you want to play around like a child with a human girl?”

As much as I wanted to chime in and defend Jayde, I also knew that speaking or talking back in any way would not help this situation. I was the problem. All I could do was watch on in silent suspense.

“Your father would have wanted something better than this for his legacy.” Miranda added bitterly.

Jayde advanced on Miranda aggressively. Both Logan and Garret tensed, taking a step towards their alpha in case she needed aid, but Miranda didn’t so much as flinch.

“Don’t ever talk about my father!” Jayde said furiously, “You don’t know a goddamn thing about what he wanted for me! You do not speak for my dead family!”

While I have seen Jayde mad before, this felt different. The Kincade struck just the wrong cord and the twitch of Jayde’s muscles told me that she was using all of her willpower to not attack the rival werewolf in front of her. Miranda’s eyes began to glow an inhuman pale green, and I knew that Jayde’s eyes were golden without seeing her face.

“Someone should, since you are clearly incapable of doing so.” Those terrifyingly cold eyes landed on me and I don’t think anyone has ever given me such a hateful look without even speaking to me at all. Then she focused back on Jayde, “You disgrace your kind.”

“Nadya is my mate.” Jayde continued with a fierce growl, “She is my part of my pack. You will treat her with respect.”

The fact that she was fearlessly defending me in front of an intimidating alpha made me stand a little taller. If she could be this brave, then so can I.

Miranda looked angry as ever, but she somehow kept her terrifying calm, “Why should I? You’ve never afforded me even the most basic level of respect before. As your alpha, I should have received as much from the very first moment you walked through my doors.”

“You are not my alpha!” The younger werewolf stated with her fury rising again, “You never were and you never will be. I don't have an alpha.”

That last sentence made the room go very still. Miranda regarded Jayde with a new expression, like she had witnessed her setting the whole house on fire.

A few incredibly tense moments passed with Miranda staring Jayde down with a glare almost as scary as the ones I’ve seen on Jayde. “Are you declaring yourself?”

I didn’t know what that meant, but the entire room held its breath. That question was clearly a huge deal. Even I went as rigid as the others, waiting on a knife’s edge it seemed.

“Yes.” Jayde answered, her growl so low that I almost didn’t catch it. She directed her glare at Garret next, actually making him shuffle back. Then looked back at Logan, who avoided her eyes again. Her amber irises settled back on Miranda once more, but the woman didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so Jayde shook her head and turned her back on her.

Jayde caught my hand when she came to me and started pulling me out of the room. Once we left, we saw three young werewolves scrambling away from the door, clearly having been eavesdropping. One of them was Amara, and the guy to her right had an uncanny resemblance to her, which must have made him her twin, Mitchell. The third was a slightly younger boy that I guessed was the last Kincade child, Declan. Miranda’s children had been listening intently to the drama and looked both overly entertained and shocked about what they heard.

“Enjoy the show?” Jayde asked as she continued our path away.

“It was better than I could’ve hoped for,” Amara answered with her brothers snickering, “Alpha.”

We left them behind and after what I witnessed started to really sink in, I whispered quietly, “So, what exactly just happened?”

“I uh…” Jayde sounded distracted and when I looked at her, I saw her furious golden-eyed expression had been replaced by bewilderness. Her own actions hadn’t hit her either until now, “I think I just declared myself an alpha in front of Miranda Kincade at her own gathering.”

“That’s a big deal, right?”

“I would say so, yeah.”

The rest of the party that we passed through didn’t seem all that interesting anymore. It went by in a blur as we retraced our steps out of the building. Even the looks and murmurs didn’t really register. We were both quiet until we got back in the car and started driving away from the manor house, putting its great columns and statues in the rear-view mirror.

“I didn’t mean to cause all that trouble.” I told her after I spent some time staring at the trees we were passing by and spacing out.

Jayde glanced over at me, shaking her head, “No, Nadya, that wasn’t because of you. That was a long time coming.”

“Maybe, but I definitely didn’t help the situation.”

“That would have happened whether you were there or not.”

I went quiet again, watching the road in front of us for a minute. She was probably right, but I still felt bad.

“Look, I’m not an alpha,” Jayde explained patiently, “I had to say that because I knew it would be the only way to stop Miranda’s bullshit. She doesn’t care about my bloodline, she wants to claim it. I’m pretty sure she didn’t feel all that bad when my family's pack was wiped out because she had Skye; what she thought was the last of a respectable bloodline to strengthen hers. Then I came back and she invited me here so Garret could shoot his shot. It wouldn’t have gone her way even if I wasn’t with you. So don’t put any blame on yourself at all, this mess was because of her.”

Her explanation helped me make some sense of Miranda’s behavior. It also lifted some of the guilty weight on my shoulders. I still kept quiet for a bit, trying to process everything she said and everything that happened. Then I looked over at Jayde and smiled, “You sure acted like an alpha.”

She chuckled, “It is in my blood, I guess. You’d be surprised by how easy it was for me.”

“I think you’d be a good one.”

Jayde sat up a little straighter at my words and gripped the steering wheel a little more firmly, “You know what?”

My brows furrowed in curiosity, “What?”

“We’re dressed nice,” she pointed out, “and there’s still some hours left in the day. Let’s go somewhere and have some fun.”

My smile was broad, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” her smile was just as big and absolutely gorgeous.

There was a bar we ended up going to that had delicious food and a live band playing. The dance floor had hardwood floors that reflected the beautiful string lights hanging from wooden beams, giving the whole place a cozy barn vibe. Everyone was laughing and dancing with each other even though they were mostly strangers. These people were just happy to be having fun with good music and drinks. I dragged Jayde out to dance with me and she didn’t even complain once, only let herself enjoy the fact that she was here with me, far away from the Kincades and their backwards ideals.

The band took on a more slow tune, their instruments and voices becoming soothing and reverberating through the bar. I fell into a slow dance with Jayde, one of her hands on my waist while the other held my hand as she made us sway to the beat. I watched her silently, appreciating all of her features, even the scars, loving every inch that my eyes traced. When I focused on her lips, I saw the edge of her mouth curl up and looked up to see that she was studying me the same way.

“I’m proud of you, you know. For what you did.” I told her, softly adding, “Your dad would have been proud too.” I didn’t care what Miranda said, I knew in my heart that I was right.

Jayde lightly bumped her forehead against mine and I closed my eyes, listening to her hum along with the song. “Thank you.” she whispered before leaning in to gently press her lips to mine.

That filled me with such an indescribable feeling. Amazing in every sense of the word. I kissed her back, letting that warm feeling carry me up into the stars. Making the entire bar disappear except for her and us, holding on to each other and moving to the music.

#original characters #original writing #original story #ocs #werewolves #My writing #yall want some fucken uhhhh werewolfery up in here?#i gotchu #plot? on my gay ocs side blog? its more likely than you think #pls enjoy i am tired now #my ocs #Jayde #Nadya #a billion other character intros that I'm too lazy to tag #Nadya pov

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nosecrinklewrites · 6 years

Text

ok so i don’t wanna jinx it, but also, i feel so unproductive and i just wanna show what i’m working on bc i really like it

initially was inspired by the heatwave that is currently trying to murder me, but turned into something selfindulgent and not very heatwave-esque at all

Hux had begged his father to postpone the move. Hux had never, in his 18 years of life, begged his father for anything.

Moving right when everyone else started school was bad enough, moving to another country and missing the first two weeks of school, was a different circle of Hell entirely.

Hux was sitting in an uncomfortable chair, outside his new principal's office, staring at the secretary across the room. He was told he had been assigned a student to show him around. Like Hux wasn't capable of reading a map. Or a schedule.

His fine leather shoes couldn't quite find purchase on the linoleum, and the collar of his polo was getting damp with sweat.

The secretary – Miss Kanata – moved the fan on her desk, pointing it toward Hux.

”I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Hux, Ben is sweet as can be, but he's never punctual, I'm afraid,” she said.

Hux nodded. ”It's quite alright.”

They had to wait an additional ten minutes, before Ben decided to grace them with his pressence. The boy was a flurry of apologies and darkness. Hux had apparently been nodding off, as he had to blink profusely to get his eyes to clear up.

As the world came into focus, Hux began to make sense of the darkness. Hux was so used to the strict dress code at his former school, that it took him a moment to get past the waist long hair on the guy. The hair looked thick and dark, almost black. Most of his face was obscured until he pushed a lock of it behind a surprisingly big ear.

”It's alright, Ben,” Miss Kanata said sweetly. She handed Ben Hux's schedule and politely told him to get them on their way.

Ben turned to Hux, looking terribly upset. He seemed to freeze at the sight. ”Are you wearing slacks?”

Hux pointedly looked at the guy from head to toe. Twice. He was dressed in a black t-shirt and cut off black denim shorts, heavy looking leather boots on his feet.

Ben blushed. ”I just meant– We don't have a dress code. You can wear whatever you want.”

”What makes you think that's not what I'm doing?”

He frowned. ”You like wearing slacks?”

Hux rolled his eyes and got to his feet, picking his backpack up off the floor.

”Oh!” Ben exclaimed. ”I'm Ben,” he said and stuck out his hand. His very big hand.

”Hux,” Hux replied and shook his hand. He held on a little longer than necessary. Having his hand dwarfed by someone else's wasn't something he'd experienced before.

Ben frowned, ”I thought Hux was your last name? It says Armitage right here.” Ben flapped the schedule in his other hand.

Hux cringed sligthly at Ben's pronounciation. ”Hux will do, thank you.”

Miss Kanata cleared her throat pointedly. ”Boys. Get to class, you're already late.”

Ben pulled his hand back quickly and motioned for Hux to follow him. ”I'm sorry. My car wouldn't start, so I had to beg my dad to let me take one of his. He hates when I drive his cars,” Ben muttered. Hux wasn't entirely sure it was meant for his ears or not.

–

Being forced to introduce oneself to a classroom full of strangers, appeared to be a universal thing. Hux kept it as short and precise as possible. He wasn't averse to public speaking, he simply found the task rather pointless. No one in this room cared about what some stranger did over the summer.

He bit his tongue when the teacher pronounced his name wrong.

The teacher assigned him the seat next to Ben. Ben smiled softly, as if to apoligize for the whole thing.

The classroom was as unremarkable as the rest of the school. The whole town was awfully dull in Hux's opinion. Nothing stood out, nothing caught his eye.

Well.

Maybe Ben did. A bit.

Ben wasn't unique in any way. Hux had already seen a handful of people who looked a lot like him, since he arrived that morning. He looked like the type of guy who listened to loud music and was always going on about the next concert he was going to. Or complaining about his garage band.

As a matter of fact, there was another one in this very classroom. Hux had seen him when he introduced himself. Dressed in all black and sitting in the backrow. There were chains and studs on his clothing. His hair was dyed black, obvious from where his natural color was showing around his hairline.

His hair wasn't as long as Ben's; wasn't as nice as Ben's.

Ben's hair looked very soft. There was a knot behind his ear, like he hadn't had quite enough time to brush it out before he left. Hux wasn't out right staring, but he was looking. At Ben.

The sun was harsh through the classroom windows. The glass was dirty, the outside was dusty, the inside was greasy, but the sun came through just fine.

Ben was sitting between Hux and the window. His hands were bathed in the light, where they were curled around the edges of his textbook. Ben's skin was tan. He probably fared better in the sun than Hux's poor skin. There were a few pale lines around Ben's wrists from hair ties. When he moved his hands, the pale lines on his skin would line up with the elastic circling his wrist. Further up his forearms and around his knuckles were more lines. Scar tissue that didn't darken in the sun. The kind of scars you get when you work with your hands. Hux could still feel the phantom touch of Ben's calluses from when they shook hands.

Hux was still recovering from jet lag and kept catching himself staring off into space. Ben had to rouse him when the bell rang.

”Do we have the same schedule?” Hux asked, while rubbing his face, trying to stay awake and present.

”Today we do,” Ben said. He pulled Hux's schedule out of his pocket and unfolded it. ”We have a few together tomorrow, but you have some advanced classes I don't,” he guided Hux out into the hall and toward their next class. ”I can show you where to go anyway? If you want? I'm sure my teachers will be alright with me being late, when I'm doing something important.”

Hux looked up and down the crowded hallway. Every hallway he'd been in so far had all looked the same. ”I'd like that,” he said when he couldn't spot the door to the classroom they’d just left.

At the bewildered expression on Hux's face, Ben said, ”I can give you a tour later? We have lunch soon.”

”Oh god,” Hux groaned. ”American food is awful. Remind me to bring my own lunch.”

Ben laughed. ”I'll try to remember that.”

–

At lunch, Ben directed him outside. It was too hot to sit and eat inside the building.

The food was just as terrible as Hux had expected. They were carrying twin trays of what was labeled as ”cheeseburgers”.

Hux was not convinced.

Ben led him to a picnic table located under a big birch tree. Hux sat on the bench, like a normal person. Ben sat on the table, feet on the bench where Hux was sitting.

”So,” Ben said and took a bite of his food, ”you hate it yet?”

”I hate a lot of things, you have to be more specific.”

Ben laughed and covered his mouth, to keep from spraying food all over Hux. After swallowing and clearing his throat, Ben elaborated. ”I meant the school.”

Hux shrugged. ”It's alright, I suppose. Bit smaller than my previous school, I reckon.”

Ben nodded. ”If it wasn't for the army base, I think they would've closed it down and moved us all into the school at the other end of town. We've got a lot of army brats coming through.”

Hux couldn't help but let his eyes wander over Ben's body. With Ben sitting down, the denim on his thighs got pulled up, exposing more of his skin. His legs were covered in a surprisingly thin layer of hair. It looked soft.

Ben's scars weren't isolated to his arms. Curling around his knees and shins, was more scar tissue. None of them looked particularly deep. Hux imagined he would have had something similar, if his father hadn't kept him inside all the time. Hux had the remnants of scarring on his elbows, from being shoved on his ass on the playground, back in grade school.

They ate in silence for a while, both looking at the students around them. When Hux finished his meal, he tapped his knuckles against Ben's boot. ”Looks hot.”

Ben looked at Hux, then at his boots. ”They are, sometimes. I work in my dad's garage a lot, so it kinda feels weird not wearing them. I'm clumsy, so it's a matter of safety, mostly.”

”Your garage at home?”

”Yeah. I mean, dad owns the auto shop in town, but he's the owner, y'know? He doesn't actually have to do shit, so he works at home most of the time. He's always restoring cars. And helping me with mine. I have a truck. It's a piece of shit, and my dad refuses to tell me what's wrong with it. Wants me to figure it out on my own.”

”That doesn't sound very nice,” Hux frowned.

Ben made a non committal sound. ”It keeps me busy. I like that. Just wish I was smart enough to figure out what's wrong with it, y'know?”

#kylux #soft kylux #modern setting #wip

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blueboxesandtrafficcones · 7 years

Text

Scarf

Day 29 of 31! Almost there! @doctorroseprompts

12xRose, post regeneration smut - Rose finds 4′s scarf in the wardrobe room.

NSFW

@timepetalsprompts for: 11′s bowtie, technically wearing another regeneration’s outfit, 4′s scarf; mentions of vintage fashion

Ficmas Masterlist 2017, Day 29

AO3

Having dropped Clara off at home, the Doctor walked back into the TARDIS with a sigh. Between regenerating and diving right into trouble with the clockwork droids, he was exhausted.

Undoing the bowtie and wondering how he could have ever thought the look deserved the light of day, the Doctor made his way towards his bedroom, stripping as he went. By the time he pushed open the door, he was down to his pants.

He took one step inside only to stop and stare.

“Was wondering where you’d gotten to. Clara wanted to say goodbye,” he told Rose, stalking towards where she lay draped across their bed.

“I was putting the Victorian clothes away, felt us land. Thought you might want a minute alone,” she offered, eyes trailing appreciatively over his bare skin.

“Well, it’s just us now,” he said, and she shivered in delight at the Scottish accent.

“Good.” She sat up on her knees, hands playing with the tie of her robe.

“So, what do you think?” He did a slow spin, praying she’d still want him; he was more than aware that it was quite the departure from the bodies she’d known previously.

“Well, on first viewing, I think I like it,” she teased, crooking her finger at him to draw him closer. “I’ll need to take it for a spin though, do some tests.”

“Well, as long as you’re thorough,” he joked, stepping into her arms. Despite his claims to Clara not ten minutes before, he found his new aversion to hugging did not extend to his wife.

“So, do you know what your new look is going to be?” Rose asked, voice muffled on his shoulder.

“Don’t know – new set of regenerations. Could be anything. There’s plenty of awful outfits in my history.”

“You mean like… this scarf?” Rose asked innocently, drawing back and undoing the dressing gown, letting it fall off her shoulders to reveal she wore his fourth body’s monstrous scarf – and nothing else.

“Yeah.” His mouth suddenly dry, he perused the bare expanse of skin, drinking her in as if for the first time; which in reality it was, for these eyes. “Hang on.” His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “Are you making fun of my scarf?”

“Maybe I am,” she simpered. “Are you going to punish me for it?”

“I think I might,” he said, his offense not entirely faked.

“Sure you’re up to it?”

“I think you’ll find I am,” he told her, grabbing her hand and bringing it to the front of his pants where she could feel him stirring to life.

“I’m very sorry if I offended your scarf,” she said in that same syrupy sweet tone. “How would you like me to make it up to you?”

He looked at her for long moments, taking in how she knelt before him naked but for the scarf strategically hiding the good bits. It was certainly giving him ideas.

“Lie back, near the headboard,” he instructed, crawling onto the mattress as she obeyed. “Excellent. Hold on to it?”

When her hands were firmly wrapped around the slats, he unwound the scarf from her neck before using it to secure her hands.

“Really? You wanna tie me up?” Amusement bled into her tone as she tested the restraints.

“Well, you are being punished,” He considered. “Maybe I should turn you over, give you a few spanks?”

The rush of pheromones flooding the air said she was more than agreeable.

“If you want,” she tried to regulate her tone despite knowing he knew how aroused she was. She took slow, deep breaths that made her chest heave, and he watched the movement like a hawk.

“Maybe later,” he decided, settling cross-legged next to her hips, perpendicular to reach most of her body. “What to do with you now, though,” he wondered, running his fingers through the fringe on one end of the scarf. Like a bolt of lightning inspiration struck, and he grinned wickedly.

“Decided then?” Rose could feel herself getting wetter, which eased her mind. She’d long since promised him she’d love each body he’d have; it was a relief to know that while she did love it because it was him, she also desired it. And she had to admit – he was kinda foxy.

“Aye,” he rumbled, eyes twinkling.

“Shouldn’t I have you tied up? After all, you’re the one with the new body; I can’t wait to explore it.”

“Once I’m done with you,” he promised, before bringing the scarf’s fringe down to tickle the ends across her stomach.

“Ah!” Rose gasped, muscles contracting at the sensation.

The Doctor smirked at her reaction, committing to his plan with relish. He lightly brushed it along her belly, thighs, and arms for countless minutes, until Rose was panting and wriggling beneath him, the smell of her heavy in the air.

“Doctor, please!” She begged, angling her hips towards him.

“Please what, love?” He leaned down to trail kisses everywhere but where she wanted him.

“More; doesn’t matter what. Just, please.”

He hummed as though debating it, before he brought his other hand down to trace around a nipple without touching it. “Like this?”

“Bastard,” she panted, making him laugh.

“Better?” He lightly tugged and squeezed the nipple, making it fully erect before doing the same to the other, all the while teasing her with the scarf.

After a millennia together he could tell when she was becoming overly-frustrated and took pity on her, abandoning the scarf to move that hand down between her thighs to rub at her. He strained against his pants when he felt how wet she was; two fingers slid against her before easing inside.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Rose began to chant, riding his hand. The Doctor knew it wouldn’t take her long and played her expertly until she broke, crying out his true name.

“Oh, fuck,” she panted harshly as he worked her down until she was relaxed against the pillows. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he absently licked his fingers clean before pausing to register the flavor against his new taste buds.

He quickly freed her from the scarf, bundling it up and tossing it away before lying beside her.

“How’d you even find that anyway? Or know what it was?” he asked curiously.

Rolling her head towards his voice, she slowly opened her eyes to look at him, pleased when she didn’t flinch at his new face.

“TARDIS had it sitting out. Plus, Sarah Jane’d described it for me once,” she replied, reaching out a hand to lazily stroke his forearm.

“She shouldn’t have done that,” he complained, turning on his side to face her, propping his head on his hand.

“The TARDIS or Sarah?”

The Doctor considered for only a moment before deciding, “Both.”

Rose snorted a laugh, before they fell into companionable silence.

“How are you doing?” He asked eventually.

“All right. I’m going to make you pay though, you can bet on it.”

“No, I meant – with this.” He gestured to his face, and her teasing look fell to a more neutral expression.

“I’m doing okay,” she said truthfully. “You had me worried there; that’s the worst post-regeneration sickness I’ve seen you have.”

“Right, but, what about the body itself? The face?”

She rolled onto her side to face him, one hand moving to trace his features. “It’s different. Not good or bad, just different. I liked your face, and the one before that, and the one before that. But I like this one too.” She shrugged. “You’re the Doctor; the casing doesn’t matter.”

“But it does,” he argued softly. “You’re the one who’s got to look at this face much more than I do.”

“I like it,” Rose admitted, blushing. “I like the older look – more distinguished. You don’t look like you’re trying to hide anymore.”

“I don’t have to hide with you.”

“No, you don’t.” She agreed softly, before turning mischievous. “So don’t you think it’s time you lost the pants? You’re starting to make me think it’s not impressive,” she teased, reaching down to snap the elastic against his waist.

“I am impressive!” He protested. “And I thought you’d never ask.” It took some wiggling around, but he managed to pull the boxers down his hips with her help.

Finally, though, he was bare before her, and she moved to sit on his thighs as she inspected him.

“Well?” He demanded when she’d been silent for too long, a neutral expression on her face.

“Yeah, this’ll do I think,” Rose finally muttered, reaching out to trace him with a fingertip, watching as he twitched at the touch.

“Yeah?”

“I mean I need to run a fully battery of tests, but it certainly passes with flying colors so far,” she made a fist, giving a few experimental pumps that made him throw his head back and moan.

“Good,” he panted, quickly getting lost in the pleasure.

Experimenting with speed and the tightness of her fist, Rose evaluated his reactions, trying to find the right combination for this body. Leaning down, she cautiously licked the head of him, relieved that it still tasted basically the same. The touch of her tongue drew a ragged moan from him, encouraging her to ease him fully into her mouth.

As soon as her lips closed around him, he began to mutter. It took a few moments for her to understand, but she blinked in surprise at the steady stream of rough, inventive curses tumbling out of his mouth. Sitting up, she stared at him until he opened his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he grumped, frowning at her.

“You’ve gone extremely native,” she informed him, lips twitching in amusement.

“Oh.” He stared back. “Problem?”

“No, just funny.” Rose shrugged, idly stroking him.

“Any particular reason you’ve not started again?” He asked after a minute, looking pointedly from her mouth to his cock.

“You’re lucky I love you,” she muttered as she leaned over him again. “And your stupid scarf.”

He really was, and he knew it.

#bbatcfic #timepetalscollective #doctorroseprompts #ficandchips #31 Days of Ficmas #12xrose #12th doctor #rose tyler #oohlala #scarf #31 Days of Ficmas 2017

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kdfrqqg · 8 years

Text

Happy Birthday Sammy!

Summary: Dean surprises Sam for his birthday.

Sam X Reader Fluff 1.8K word count

Sam looks at his phone, it is Dean, Sam answers because he should have something for this case. “Hey baby brother, Happy Birthday!” Dean exclaimed. “Thanks Dean!” Sam replied “So Sammy, I got you a little something.” Dean said trying to be cool. Sam just sighed and scratched the back of his head. “What dida get me?” “Oh you’ll see… it’ll be there within the hour.” “Dean, I swear if you got me a hooker…”

“Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, little bro, I would never do that. I know you like to get your women on your own.” Dean said defensively. “It just better not be a hooker, Dean, It just better not be hooker!” Sam repeated “Just have a little fun on your birthday. Bye.” Dean calmly said and hung up the phone.

Twenty minutes later there was a knock on the motel door. ‘Shit!’ Sam thought. Dean really did get me a fucking hooker. Ok be nice, she is just doing her job. Tell her that you just aren’t interested. Yeah, Yeah that is I what I’ll do, Sam thinks to himself. There is another knock. “Coming!” Sam yelled to the person on the other side of the door. Sam opens the door thinking that there is going to be a scantily clad sexy woman. “Oh Shit!” Sam yells and slams the door on the poor girl’s face. What the fuck did Dean do? The woman had a purple clown wig, full white clown makeup with a red nose, and fucking big shoes. What the fuck did he do? Sam fell to the floor and pleaded with the girl through the door. “Please just go away! I really hate clowns!” He slid away from the door and tried to looked at her through the small side window by the door. “Sam, your partner told me you would be scared of me.” She confessed. “My real name is (Y/N). I have brown hair and I am really kinda cute under all this makeup and fluff.” She said as she waved her hands over her face and then at the clown costume she had on. “Your name is (Y/N).” Sam stammered. He opened the door and she walked into the motel. “(Y/N), I know you are only doing what Dean paid you to do. I just can’t believe that he got me a fucking clown hooker!” Raising his voice in disbelief. “Hey, wait a minute now!” she commanded. “I am not a hooker!” “Your not?” he snapped as he ran his fingers through his hair. (Y/N) sat on the edge of the bed. “No, no! Your partner saw me at the hospital. He mentioned it was your birthday today and you were scared of clowns but that someone nice like me,” She pointed to herself, “might help you get over your fear.” She calmly and rationally said. “He said that?” Sam was still in disbelief. “It is kind of a reverse aversion therapy. You know associating a good experience with something that you are frightened by.” She explained. “Why would he think I would want this for my birthday?” He asked out loud, now pacing around the front of the hotel room, he was not expecting an answer. “He said something about having this fear since you were a kid. Also he said you were one of the bravest men he knew but this fear was irrational.” She reported. “Well, did he tell you that he is afraid of flying?” Sam ranted on. “No, he did not. One would assume that he will have to deal that fear himself.” Sam huffed loudly, he wasn’t mad at her; if anything she was the nicest clown he had ever met. He was furious at Dean. “I think I might kill him with my 9MM.” Sam proclaimed. “You seem really nice, but why are helping him?” “Well… I am a child psychiatrist. I dress up a few times a month, walk around the hospital, give out balloons and try to bring smiles to people’s faces.” She offered. “So… what I’m an experiment?” Sam huffed. “Do you want to be?” She inquired. She was in full on shrink mode he thought. “Not really, but Dean is right. This fear is completely stupid. I just really hate clowns.” Sam finally sat down in a chair by (Y/N). “The fear of clowns or Coulrophobia, is one the top 100 fears.” Her voice was soothing. “It isn’t a stupid fear, if it is your fear. “ She reached for Sam’s hand, he flinched and pulled back. “What can I do to make you more comfortable?” Sam pointed to his head. “My wig?” Sam nodded. (Y/N) took off the wig and the cap that was keeping her hair tucked in. “Is that better?” She asked as her long brown hair cascaded down. Sam nodded again. “Ok so you are not really a patient, so I have to inform you that normal rules will not apply today. So no doctor patient confidentiality, are you ok with that?” Sam agreed with the terms. “Why don’t you tell me when you first knew that you were afraid of clowns?” “Well… um… I used to get dropped off at these kid zones when I kid. My dad and brother would leave me there for hours on my own. The clowns there knew me and knew I terrified of them and they would just chase me around. They never touched me but I don’t like them because I can’t see their true self. If I were to see you on the street, wouldn’t know it was you. “ “Ok, that is good, Sam.” She interjected. “So how are you feeling now?” He admitted. “Still a little freaked out.” His knee was shaking and he was sweating a little around his temple. “I have a thought. I don’t have 12 months to work with you through this fear like I do with my normal patients. Lets’ do something a little different,” she handed Sam her keys, “go out the silver sedan, in the back seat there are two bags, grab them and bring them in.” She instructed. Sam followed her instructions. “Alright now! Follow me to the bathroom.” Sam watched as she took off her clown makeup. “You are cute!” he teased, becoming more comfortable, as he looked up at her while he sat on the closed lid of the toilet. (Y/N) just smiled and continued to transform from clown to a beautiful young woman. He was mesmerized; she removed her bright pink and purple polka dotted dress revealing her white petty coat underneath. She asked Sam with assistance to help unbutton the petty coat. He looked away as she dropped it to the floor. “How do you feel now? Now I am just a girl.” She asked, showing off her body proving that she was a girl and not a clown. She stood there in front of Sam with no makeup on and in just a white cotton bra with matching panties. Sam couldn’t tell with all the clown clothes on but her arms and legs were thin. She had nice curves around her hip area, you could classifier as fit but not overly muscular. “I feel a little uncomfortable because you are wearing almost nothing but do I feel a lot better.” He answered. She smiled at Sam and then pulled some clothes from one of the bags and quickly put a white t-shirt and pair of jeans on. “Now your turn!” she informed Sam with a giggle. He sighed a few times, and started to rub his hands. She could tell he was getting nervous all over again. Finally he said “Ok, ok, I am ready.” As he chuckled. She grabbed a bag with clown makeup and moved back to the main room of the motel room. She sat him in a chair in front of a mirror. She informed him to not close his eyes. The whole point was to watch as she transformed him into a clown. She started to draw white upside-down U around his eyes, then continued to fill in the rest of his face with white makeup. She worked as though he was a kid getting face painted for the first time. She asked him what color he wanted on his eyes to be. He pointed to the blue. She filled in his eye and lip color and out lined them with black, so they stood out. She told him she wanted him to be a happy clown not a sad clown as she made a smiley face and pouty face to him. Sam thought he looked crazy but loved that (Y/N) was really taking her time with him. “We have to take a photo and send it to Dean.” He pointed out. “Oh Sammy, we are not done yet.” She grabbed the purple wig she was wearing earlier and plopped it on Sam’s head. After tucking in a few strands of hair she exclaimed, “Perfect! Now you are ready for your close up.” The two chuckled. Sam made a faces for the camera. “Now both of us!” He was really getting into dress up. He took your waist and pulled you onto his lap as the two of you laughed. You and Sam took a couple of selfies. Sam sent a few off to Dean real quick. The both of you looked really happy. You were about to move off of his lap when he kissed you with his lips still covered in red makeup. It was a chaste kiss, you could tell he was testing the waters but still pleasant. “Please, tell that there isn’t a Mr. Clown?” he asked. Your lips were now covered in his red makeup and his lips were all smudged. You smiled, and answered, “There is no Mr. Clown.” You glanced in the mirror at how ridiculous you both looked and just laughed. “For someone who couldn’t wait to get rid of me, you are sure holding on tight.” You teased him. “Well earlier, I didn’t know how great some clowns could be.” He playfully responded. He picked you up with his strong arms, and you flailed your feet in the air. The both of you giggled, as he threw you onto the bed and began to kiss you softly. You tried to run your fingers through his hair forgetting about the wig. You looked up at him and said, “This isn’t going to work for me, Sam.” “What do you mean?” he asked. “I -I don’t really have clown kink. The makeup tastes like wax and the hair is really distracting.” You declared. He looked surprised that you said that. “You thought I would be into this, didn’t you?” “Well, maybe.” He mumbled as he moved off top of you. You suggested, “Why don’t we get cleaned up, find your partner and go get drunk?” Sam looked a little pitiful when you suggested that they stop. Assuring him you said, “Don’t worry big boy, I’ll make sure you get a good birthday present.”

I love all the likes and reblogs but I really do want your feedback. Please leave me a comment; let me know what worked or what didn’t. If you hated it let me know what I could do different. It may determine how I write my next fic.

“Give it to me! You know you want to!” Writer winks at reader.

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amorremanet · 8 years

Note

You reblogged an OC meme! Thank god, tell us about Josie!

oc profiles meme!

…oh my god, i was so excited to click post and babble about josie at people that i initially forgot to come back and fill in the placeholder with something about how excited i was to talk about josie (—it’s like 4:15 AM where i am, which is probably part of the problem but i digress)

Full Name: Josiah Daniel Quinn — but, please, they explicitly prefer to be called, “Josie,” so unless you’re one of their bosses over at S.T.R.O.M.A*, whom they’re in no position to argue with, call them Josie. If not that, then use their surname. But if you can avoid it, just please do not call them by their full given first name, okay?

Shiny mutant superhero codename: Lyaeus — derived from an aspect of Dionysus who is traditionally invoked as a reliever of pain and a deliverer from anxiety and emotional turmoil and so on, which is one of their preferred uses of their psychic abilities and one of Josie’s larger goals in life (for them, it’s a mix of, “If something bad is going to happen, and you can do something to stop it and choose not to, that’s on you” and, “The world is a mess and largely sucks, but that’s no reason not to do what we can to take care of each other”).

Their codename is doubly special to them because although they were raised loosely Catholic and have a Mormon extended family who mostly doesn’t acknowledge their existence (and hasn’t for their entire life, since their Mom left the Mormon church to marry Josie’s Dad, oops), Josie is a hellenic pagan whose primary relationship is with Dionysus.

They thought for a long time and did a lot of reflection about whether or not it was too presumptuous of them to use one of his aspects as a codename, but eventually, they went with it because they see their codename and its meaning as someone who they’re continually striving to be and a set of values that they’re always trying to bring to bear in the world, and they feel like Dionysus is probably okay with that.

Gender and Sexuality: DMAB Genderfluid. // Bisexual.

This isn’t actually specifically about their gender or sexuality, but I couldn’t think of where else to put it: Josie grew up around all things Rocky Horror. Like, their parents were highly involved in the local community theatre, which did a semi-regular RHPS shadow-cast, and Josie’s parents brought their kid with them often enough that Josie grew up with their blood family and their, “Rocky family.”

Josie would rather deal with their Rocky family than their blood family a lot of the time, because their Rocky family was more immediately there for them during a lot of rough stuff while they were growing up, and their Rocky family handled it better at the various times when they came out, and their Rocky family didn’t say shit like, “Wait, I thought you were gay, why are you going back in the closet” when they came out as bi or ask invasive questions when they came out as genderfluid and was more supportive in general of Josie’s evolving sense of their own identity, and so on.

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs.

Josie does also answer to He/Him/His pronouns, but that isn’t a choice on their part, so much as it’s an issue of, “Well, I can be out at work and open the door to potential harassment and people who will invalidate my gender identity and likely flat-out refuse to respect my pronouns, which will create more difficulty for myself in a job that’s already difficult because it’s stressful to begin with and I hate working here — or I can suck it up and just be grateful that my friends and parents are all good about this”

Like, one of the things that Seb does when he and Josie first meet that makes Josie go, “I’m still not totally thrilled at being assigned to help out the newbie (especially since I know I’m only getting this assignment because: 1. our bosses are playing a game of, ‘lmao just toss the LGBTQ ones together’ because the newbie’s gay and pretty much everyone here thinks that I am too; and 2. Deputy Director Gray is still cranky with me over that MSNBC round-table that I did last week where Yael kept pushing me to voice my own opinions and not the Bureau’s official line) — but maybe it won’t actually be completely awful and maybe he’s going to be okay as a new partner”?

…is noticing that Josie wears two woven yarn bracelets on one wrist — one of them in the lavender/white/chartreuse colors of the genderqueer flag, and the other in the pink/white/purple/black/blue of the genderfluid flag — and first waiting for them to be alone in Josie’s office, then going, “Oh, so are you genderfluid? What are your pronouns?” and then listening and respecting it when Josie explained that they’d rather Seb just kept using he/him/his at work

Species: Human (mutant with aforementioned mutant psychic powers)

Race/Ethnicity: White, and the only real part of Josie’s ethnic background that’s ever been important in their life was that their late paternal grandmother was very proud of being Irish.

Like, her parents had come to Ellis Island from Ireland — though she was too young to have any actual memories of the passage herself — and she wasn’t so insistent about it that she objected to her son marrying a Mormon girl instead of a Good Irish Catholic Girl, but still, the Irish thing was a big deal for her.

Josie, personally, doesn’t get it beyond, “I’m white and I have a particular aversion to St. Patrick’s Day because first of all, some of my extended family members can turn into a bunch of rowdy, off-putting little shits on St. Patrick’s Day, and I always had to suffer through that because we always had a party for it, first because Grandma wanted one, and then in honor of her memory.

“And secondly, because as soon as anyone hears that I’m partially Irish and/or a Dionysian, it is just assumed that I want to go get wasted on St. Patrick’s Day, which I don’t, but I still end up going out into environments that are absolute Hell for someone who has both telepathy and hyper-empathy, because the spaces are crowded, emotions are running high, and there is basically nowhere to escape to where you can get some peace and quiet and a break from the sensory and emotional overload of being at a rowdy bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

“And I endure all of this with people whom I may not even like that much just so they’ll have a designated driver, because I would feel bad personally if I didn’t go to make sure they all got home okay, and just because they don’t understand my god or might want to get something else out of him than I do, doesn’t mean that I should brush them off and risk them getting hurt while they’re completely shit-faced.

“Which doesn’t make this any less exhausting and awful, but it’s better than taking the chance that they might get hurt, y’know?”

Birthplace and Birthdate: Saratoga Springs, NY. // 22nd February, 1980 — they’re a Pisces (Libra rising, Gemini moon).

Guilty Pleasures: High-quality dark chocolate, high-quality makeup even if they can’t wear most of it as often as they’d like^, the original Vampire Chronicles novels (and though they will sometimes claim that only the original six ones, “count,” Josie owns everything that Anne Rice has published, even the ridiculous Jesus books), binge-watching reruns of Project Runway…

And they don’t feel particularly guilty about it, but one of the simple things that makes Josie happy is playfully teasing their emergency contacts/best friends over how their parents named them after Beatles songs

Jude, naturally, was “Hey Jude” and Rocky got named after, “Rocky Raccoon” because, at the last minute, his and Jude’s parents decided to veto naming him Desmond because he’s a character in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” but his name is not in the title, which was apparently a deal-breaker because of reasons

Rocky also sometimes gets playful ribbing about all things Rocky Horror, because he and Josie are ridiculous nerds, and RHPS isn’t their exclusive thing because Josie will share it with anyone who gives them half a chance to do so…… but it is still a thing that is special to Josie and Rocky, so here they are

If you ask them, Josie will tell you that they don’t believe in associating pleasure with guilt, and in their defense, they do believe in encouraging people not to feel guilty for enjoying the things that make them happy or that help them survive, because as long as those things aren’t hurting anyone — yes, that includes you, person Josie is talking to — then you have a right to be happy and a right to take care of yourself

The reality is that Josie says this to people so often because it’s something that they often struggle with themself, and even though they’re better, in some ways, than they have been in the past, there are still a lot of places where they need work

Also, Josie wouldn’t call some of the more poppy music that they like, “guilty pleasures” — especially because, if you ask them, there is no reason to feel guilty about listening to, for example, Beyoncé or Nicki Minaj

—but it is still the case that, if they were going to have a mini-reunion with some of the old goth crew friends from high school whom they don’t keep in touch with that often, Josie probably wouldn’t mention Nicki or Beyoncé, unless it was by accident or until they were sure that the old gang wasn’t going to do the judgmental goth kids thing they used to do of going, “ugh, all pop music is soulless empty bullshit for posers” and so on

Also also, there is almost no chance of them ever admitting this to most people, but…… Josie kinda loves the goth kids from South Park. Like, Josie really kinda loves them.

There’s basically no chance of them ever admitting it to most people because for one thing, it’s embarrassing to them, due to the whole South Park of everything.

For another, they’d feel the need to give someone a lengthy, tedious disclaimer about how they don’t actually watch South Park or enjoy it very much, they just know about the goth kids because one of their best friends went, “Oh my god, Josie, you have to watch this, the new Goth kid characters are so you” way back when, after the first episode with them in it aired and said friend (Rocky) was still taping new eps on VHS to watch after he got home from night classes

And…… well. Josie still wouldn’t give South Park much credit for anything else, but they do really love the goth kids, and they agree with Rocky’s, “omg it you” moment because the South Park goth kids are often eerily similar to shit that they said and did as a weird little goth kid back in high school

At one point, Rocky actually made Josie little plush dolls of the goth kids that he’d designed himself, and they are a big reason why you’re not allowed in Josie’s room until they trust you.

Other reasons include:

Josie doesn’t want most people to touch their makeup or put any of it out of order, and they keep most of it in their bedroom, on their dresser, in front of the vanity mirror that they found someone just throwing out shortly after they moved to Baltimore, even though it’s a perfectly good mirror so wtf;

some of Josie’s favorite and most personally meaningful religious and spiritual paraphernalia is in their bedroom (they keep their actual shrine to Dionysus and their, “worship workspace” in a different room at their place, but some of the more personally significant things are in their room most of the time, and they’d rather you didn’t have a chance to touch them);

Josie just tends to be an incredibly private person who places a lot of value on their personal space and having spaces that are set aside as Theirs. They were like this even before their psychic abilities kicked in and made them value even more their personal space, and ability to have a place that is set apart as Theirs Exclusively where they can go to get some distance from all the mental, emotional, and sensory overload that comes from feeling almost everyone’s feelings and hearing many of their thoughts**, to some extent or another, almost all the time;

and the few albums of old photos and framed old photos, some of which are just garden variety embarrassing like, “yes, my hair is naturally blond, here is photographic evidence from before my parents let me start dyeing it, and oh yeah, that was probably backstage after the community theatre production of Oliver! that I did in eighth grade — oh yeah, definitely that one, there’s my Artful Dodger costume and my glaringly blond hair”

but others of which are, for lack of a better term, fairly emotionally complicated for Josie. There are several different reasons why any of these photos might be kinda complicated — ranging from, “they feature Josie’s one particularly heinous ex-boyfriend who used his wealthy family’s connections to get Josie blacklisted from working in fashion after they graduated from Pratt’s School of Design” to, “they’re from the year in high school that Josie wound up having to do over because they had to spend a few months getting inpatient treatment for their eating disorder”

^: even before getting recruited to S.T.R.O.M.A., Josie got really good at finding a balance between the, “I don’t want to look pretty, I want to look otherworldly and possibly like a vampire fairy from Wonderland” style of makeup that they want to wear, and a “more professional” style that is less likely to make their clients feel uncomfortable or get them harassed — but god, do they wish that they didn’t have to strike said balance.

It wouldn’t actually make their fondness for high-quality and often expensive makeup feel like any less of a guilty pleasure, for several reasons — on one hand, their awareness of how makeup is always politically Complicated, at best; on the other, if they got to wear their makeup exactly how they want it every day, they would end up spending more money on makeup, and it would make them feel guilty because they’d feel like it’s very irresponsible and probably going to screw them over down the line because they bought makeup instead of saving the money or putting it toward something else; and on the tentacle, a whole laundry list of other reasons

—but they would still feel more comfortable with themself and more at ease with everything because they’d be presenting exactly as they want, instead of censoring their own personal gender expressions (which they’re more okay with doing when it comes to their clients because that’s a case of compromising part of their well-being in the name of [probably] helping people who need them and pay them for that help, whereas toning it down at S.T.R.O.M.A. is tedious and Josie would seriously rather not)

(They have more than once said that the degree to which they have to tone things down for S.T.R.O.M.A. makes them feel like Ned “I’m not a Satanic sex god anymore, used to be a super gothed out androgynous rock star, but is now a straitlaced and nerdy substitute teacher” Schneebly from School of Rock.

This is not a good feeling, in Josie Land. They don’t like it and they live for the weekend because, barring any major incidents that get them called in to S.T.R.O.M.A., they get to wear what the fuck they want, forego pants in favor of their favorite skirts, do their gender how the fuck they want, and wear makeup that makes them look like a vampire fairy from Wonderland)

Phobias: Josie’s biggest fear, in the immediate sense, is losing control of their psychic abilities and ending up hurting people and/or destroying themself somehow.

Underlying that, they have a bigger and more further-reaching fear of being out of control of themself and their own actions, in general.

They’re simultaneously afraid of crowds (largely because they can get really overwhelming for Josie, really fast), and afraid of isolation, which ends up making them a lot like the sort of cat who goes all like, “cuddle me cuddle me cuddle me please please please i need love and affection… no wait, fuck you, this is stifling me and i need to get out of here… wait shit i’m lonely someone please love me… no, not you, you fucking suck… why am i so lonely, why won’t anyone pay attention to me… and so and so forth ad nauseam”

That said, when I was doing Pottermore quizzes for my kids because that is the sort of thing I find both fun and useful, Josie’s picked, “Isolation” for the, “Which is your greatest fear” question on the wand quiz

They picked, “An eye at the keyhole of the dark, windowless room in which you are locked” for the, “Which nightmare would frighten you most” question on the Sorting Hat quiz

Other miscellaneous fears and squicks: Worms, eels, and anything like that (but snakes are okay, snakes are great).

The possibility of never finding love (which they know is kind of ridiculous, because they do have a lot of love in their life… but Josie does want to be with someone romantically, and all their miscellaneous issues with their blood family aside, it’s weird and kind of disheartening for them that most of their cousins have gotten married or settled down with someone, so yeah, Josie knows that this fear is based on a lot of ideas that they generally don’t like and don’t want to live by, but still.

They’re 35, their closest friends both have longstanding romantic relationships, they’re one of the few cousins left who doesn’t have a plus-one to bring to the next family wedding, and they want a romantic relationship, so being perpetually reminded that they’re not in one kicks them in the larger fear that there is something about them that is just fundamentally unlovable, so they might end up being forever alone).

What They Would Be Famous For: Realistically? Probably how they’re going to start a new superhero team with Lucy, Pete, and Sebastian — later accumulating others — and how they’re all going to kinda stumble into trying to foil some other mutants who also happen to be neo-fascist supervillains. But had Josie’s one ex, Danny, not effectively gotten them blacklisted from working in fashion, Josie might well have made a pretty big name for themself there.

They used to joke about being famous for going on Project Runway and winning, but… this started after they’d already gotten onto the path that led them to therapeutic practice, and seen that they had the potential to do a lot of good in the world by continuing on that path, so the chances of them actually doing the Project Runway thing were almost nothing

What They Would Get Arrested For: While they haven’t technically been arrested before, Josie could have been arrested for illegally overstepping the bounds of what their particular level of metahuman license allowed them to do, and if they get arrested in the future, it is almost definitely going to be for something like protesting or some trumped up nonsense charges that actually boil down to, “getting on the wrong side of neo-fascist supervillains who have wealth and connections and political power.”

OCs You Ship Them With:

Romantically: Pete is my favorite here, but: 1. I’m also going to make them work for it, because they would be good for each other, but it wouldn’t just happen super-easily for several reasons, both about the two of them individually and about how they get on together;

and 2. I’d also dig shipping Josie with Seb, Stephen, Vince, Sylvia, Izzy, Raphael, and Cynthia — though tbh, I like non-romantic Seb/Josie better than romantic Seb/Josie

Platonically: As mentioned, Jude, Rocky, and Sebastian. Aside from them, Margot, Lucy, and Sara Grace (who are all ruled out as romantic options by the three of them being lesbians), and Josie being genderfluid, yes, but not identifying with womanhood enough for them to consider romantically pursuing someone who identifies as a lesbian. Todd (who I kind of feel bad for, because he’s sort of the loser in love so far, but otoh, that’s partially his own damn fault and he has a lot of growing to do before I’m letting him have a romantic relationship that actually lasts). Yael and Elizabeth. Really, everyone on the romantic list is a good platonic relationship, too.

“this is not a ship that i condone but i find their relationship interesting, and exploring Not Good relationships is Important to me”: Julian, who actually hasn’t met Josie yet, and won’t for a while, and their relationship will be…… tricky, in a lot of ways, many of which have something to do with how Julian is a huge tool who has a charming tendency to take his own self-loathing and insecurity out on everyone else while acting campy and making sarcastic quips as though this makes his behaviors totally okay.

Pretty much everything about Julian makes him someone who would make Josie say, “the Lord is testing me”

(only for someone — probably Lucy — to go, “But you’re not Christian” and get told either, “I was raised as one, maybe Jesus’s Dad is still grumpy that I found someone who’s better for me. Anyway, you know what I meant, right?”

or, “Fine. The Almighty Thundering Zeus, lord of the heavens and king of Olympus and He Who Was Cheating On His Wife With Everyone Ever Before It Was Cool, is testing me. There. Does that version make you happy?”)

But, yeah. Julian would make Josie go, “someone is testing me” because so much of who and what he is makes Josie want to help him, but so much of what he does makes Josie want to punch him

(an impulse that Josie largely won’t be acting on because, unfortunately for them:

1. they did not get any super-strength kinds of mutations and in an RPG, Strength would be one of their lowest stats;

and 2. first, they need to learn how to throw a punch without hurting themself more than the other person.

Punching neo-fascists isn’t their strong suit. They can let Seb and Lucy do the actual punching.

And Pete, even though Pete really shouldn’t because Pete also doesn’t know how to throw a punch without hurting himself more than the other person, so Josie is more likely to try and stop him from punching a neo-fascist supervillain in the face.

Not that Josie will always succeed in that, but… well. They and their teammates are all only human.)

Anyway, uh. Josie/Julian isn’t a ship that I’d personally want to see as the endgame of anything, ever, but I find their dynamic and the potential interactions between them interesting, and they’re something I’m looking forward to playing around with more, when it’s their time

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Conrad will kinda want to, because he finds Josie’s sense of ethics to be, “tedious and outdated,” but ultimately, he wouldn’t go through with it because Josie’s creativity would intrigue him too much.

Senator Huntington would also want Josie to die, but he wouldn’t do any of the actual murdering because he doesn’t do his own dirty work.

All things considered, Edward and Desmond are probably going to end up with the job, “Go kill the weird effete one who looks like some kind of vampire fairy from Wonderland” because everyone else is busy, and they will fail at it, because that’s kind of what they do.

They are Those Two Bad Guys, and they kind of suck at almost everything that they try to do.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Fantasy, vampire trash, psychological thrillers, magical girl everything, and horror (pretty much all kinds of horror, though Josie’s most fond of monster horror, anything with revenge-y themes, and religious or cosmic horror. They will probably tell you, “The weirder and more pointlessly, aesthetically symbolic, the better”).

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Josie would tell you that it’s how much romanticized abuse there is in paranormal romance, and to be fair, they do hate that…… but they still read it or watch it and get invested in these fictional relationships, even without necessarily coming up with a counter-reading of the text’s opinion, beyond, “this relationship is abusive even if the author doesn’t get that”

Which, to be fair, doesn’t mean that they don’t hate the prevalence of romanticized intimate partner abuse, just that it’s an, “I hate this thing” where they still engage with it, and not just because there aren’t always a lot of options without it

(Horror flicks that demonize and stigmatize mental illness are a thing where Josie doesn’t like the thing, but suffers through them because there aren’t a lot of other options otherwise)

But one trope that will make them, “nope” out…… uh.

Josie is really sensitive about The Uncanny Valley, and while they may not fully, “nope” out of things over it, they need to take more time than most people to prep themselves for seeing it and recover after seeing it

Also, not a trope, but Shia LaBeouf will make Josie “nope” out of anything. They have no rational reason for disliking Shia LeBouf, so much as he Just Irrationally Bugs Them, but they will “nope” out of things if he’s involved

Talents and/or Powers: Okay, so, a lot of Josie’s actual superpowers are discussed elsewhere, especially in the footnotes, so let’s talk about their other, non-mutant superpowers. They can sew. Even without having been actively designing anything for a while, they can still pull out a good design and they are capable of following a pattern pretty well. They know their limits fairly well, and better than pretty much everyone in the main team (this doesn’t mean that they always). And it’s almost 4 AM, so this answer is getting cut short by, “I am tired and I want to sleep” (and the next two answers will suck for the same reason)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Josie is creative and curious and once you get them to warm up, calm down, and stop worrying so much about anything, they’re a complete dork who, among other things, gives people, “C’thulhu kisses” (done by sticking your hands in front of your mouth and wiggling your fingers like tentacles, and maybe making a silly noise and saying, “C’thulhu kisses!” like you’re Sailor Moon shouting her transformation phrase). They have a pretty good sense of humor about themself, outside of their precious few no go areas. Josie is compassionate and they do genuinely want the best for most people, even people they don’t personally like very much. They try to be patient with people, even when they really don’t want to be, and even if they don’t always know what the best option is, they still try to actually do things and choose the best option for creating positive change.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Their cycle of indecisiveness that leads to recklessness that leads to self-punishing thoughts and behaviors that leads to more indecisiveness, and rinse lather repeat. Their tendency to be really judgmental, even while acknowledging that being judgmental is something that, in their experience, causes more harm than good, and that they want to avoid more often. The way that they can lapse into talking like a high school goth kid who’s up-talking the superiority of goth subculture and doesn’t realize that they sound like an elitist, conformist prick, just like the people they’re complaining about allegedly do.

How They Change: Well, for one thing, Josie has some things to learn about how they relate to people and manage their relationships — which doesn’t necessarily make them special because this is just kind of a Thing for most of my main characters in one way or another. Josie’s specific issue wrt relating to other people has to do with their reluctance to trust people and open up and try to build any new relationships, which has often led to them practicing a sort of interpersonal-level isolationism that has hurt them and other people.

They also have something to learn about managing the façade(s) that they present to the world, much like how Seb has to learn something about his habit of acting like everything is okay while he’s suffering and thinking anyone believes him anymore because he doesn’t want to deal with his problems

and like how Pete has to learn about how…… yeah, okay, he is genuinely angry about a lot of things — some of them fair and really more, “righteous indignation” than anything else, and some of them less fair — but a lot of how he acts that anger out in the world is not actually as truthful as Pete feels like it is, but more a way of keeping people at arm’s length, testing them and testing his relationships with them, and trying to push them away before they can get the chance to hurt him

In Josie’s case, their façade(s) are a bit different because most of them came into being less because of an emotional choice on Josie’s part — e.g., Seb doesn’t want to deal with his problems because they’re painful and terrifying and they feel like they’re too big to handle — and more out of pragmatic decisions

……but then Josie came to rely on them in contexts other than the ones in which they were originally created, and balancing that many different versions of yourself is stressful as fuck-all, especially for someone who already has to do a lot of work to keep reminding themself of where their personal boundaries are, and Josie hides in their different façades every bit as much as every other character who has one, and largely only gets away with that because most people in their life don’t know them well enough to notice this, and their façades do still have pragmatic value, so most people who do notice don’t say shit about shit

Then, there’s Josie’s relationship to time, which

I’m going to explain this really badly now, because it’s 3:33 and I’m tired, but basically, I see Seb, Josie, and Lucy as complementing each other in how they relate to and orient themselves in time, and the negative side-effects that they create for themselves because of these behaviors

On one hand, Seb is way too prone to being stuck in the past. He clings to it too much — but also has a selective relationship with it, where people he cares about get forgiven too easily and Seb tries to deny that he still feels upset about anything (even when basically everyone around him knows that he does feel upset and is just trying not to deal with it), while Seb forgives himself for nothing and defines himself so much by all of his past mistakes

—and he goes past the point of, “honoring and respecting history, such as by not ignoring times when he did fuck up (of which there are many)” to, “actively impeding his own progress in life because, for example, he keeps trying the same shit over and over and over again, even though it literally never works, because it’s what he did before.” Plus, some of his ideas about the past are distorted by various factors, or missing entirely (most often due to intoxicated blackouts and/or head trauma that would have had more disastrous effects on him if not for his mutant healing factor), or otherwise unreliable, so that’s a problem.

On the other hand, Lucy is future-oriented and totally jazzed up about trying new things and meeting new challenges head on and doing things!! also STUFF!!!!! there is an entire world full of THINGS AND STUFF AND BY GOD, LUCY IS GOING TO DO ALL OF IT OR AT LEAST AS MUCH OF IT AS SHE POSSIBLY CAN AND THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER SO HELP HER GOD OR JESUS OR SATAN OR WHOEVER EXCELSIOR YAH YAH YAH!!!!

……which is great and all, but she charges headlong into shit without an actual plan (seriously, most of her plans follow the good old, “step one: do this thing / step two: ………… / step three: PROFIT!” formula), and she’s a case of someone who is averse to learning from history at all because she doesn’t want to be shackled to it, but having no sense of history can be just as bad as being overly chained to it like Sebastian, and… well. You can try to outrun the past like she does, but it doesn’t tend to work out very well, and it’s not going to work for Lucy either

On the tentacle, we have Josie, who ostensibly has a balance between the past and the future orientations that we see in Seb and Lucy, because Josie’s primary focus tends to lie on the present, and at most, the very near future or very recent past

—but that’s not actually a balance like Josie wants to believe, because (among other things), it makes it very easy for Josie to ignore past lessons that are older than maybe the past two or three months; and it means that while Josie can see all kinds of potential consequences, their ability to predict what they could be gets a lot less reliable as you go further into the future; and it means that Josie has trouble actually putting together a longer-term plan, which is part of their problem with wanting to create positive change in the world but not knowing how

Josie also has a tougher road (imltho) to go on about finding a new and better balance here, because their focus on the present is something they learned in recovery, as part of learning about mindfulness, and it does help them sometimes — but on that personal level, Josie’s presentist focus can also hurt them because, even when they notice certain behaviors in themself that could get Bad For Them, they can also overlook some of these budding patterns because they’re not Obviously Bad Enough to feel like a major concern, or they look different from other past manifestations of Josie’s behavior patterns so Josie doesn’t think they need to worry about these behaviors, and so on

I’m mean to my characters and I’m going to make them work to be happy, but they will all be happy, eventually

Uh. Barring most of the villains, because letting the neo-fascist assholes win in the end would be a complete downer that would probably end up undermining a lot of the whole, “just because the world is a crapsack hellhole doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way or that we should give up on it” idea

Why You Love Them: Okay, so, this needs a bit of a story.

See, Josie is a retooled character from an old RP that I was in way, way back. I loved them a lot, and they weren’t entirely wrong for the game — they had a good run in their first incarnation — but they also weren’t entirely right for it, and they kind of floundered a bit because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them.

A large part of this was due to how Josie was a senior at their school and, because of the year they did over, they were itching to get out and go to college, and the closest they got to an actual arc was how they didn’t want to leave behind their ex-boyfriend turned best friend (who was in the class below them), but did want to go to college already and get to the rest of their life

and how they had some trouble with accepting said best friend’s new boyfriend when Josie really wanted to be compassionate, because New Boyfriend was mentally ill and dealing with some trauma and Josie sympathized and wanted him to be well because why the Hell would you wish for someone to be *UN*well jfc — but also had trouble with that because New Boyfriend was sometimes aware of how some of his actions affected other people, but sometimes not, but sometimes he was and did the stupid things anyway, and even in working on his problems, he made the mistake that a lot of people do where they focus on getting well as defined by and in order to please the people around them, rather than doing it for themselves

—all of which Josie was sympathetic to in a big way, having been in some similar places before themself…… but they had a hard time always being as compassionate as they wanted to be because New Boyfriend’s actions had been hurting Best Friend, and even knowing that this wasn’t entirely something that New Boyfriend could be entirely blamed for (for several reasons), Josie still had a hard time trying to overlook the, “this lovable weirdo is my friend, my best friend, and even though we aren’t together anymore, I love him, and you hurt him, so yeah, I’m kinda mad at you for that” thing

And this all goes back to why I love Josie because one thing that they’ve kept in a big way, in getting retooled and updated and worked into my dumb little stories about neurodivergent and/or mentally ill LGBTQ mutant superheroes (and Pete, who is not actually a mutant but is neurodivergent, gay, an abuse survivor, and a superhero and I will fight anyone who says otherwise)

(I mean, ffs. Batman doesn’t have any mutant superpowers, and Iron Man wouldn’t have any actual superpowers without his ridiculous power-armor and, depending on the continuities, his arc reactors. So, no, I don’t think that Pete needs to have literal superpowers to count as a superhero — but that’s beside the point and to be fair, I will admit to being biased because I love Pete more than George RR Martin loves Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister)

Anyway. As I was saying.

One thing that Josie has kept in a big way is that ongoing fight with themself over two equally powerful impulses or reactions to things or desires — like their, “I want affections and I want to be around people…… okay no this is overwhelming and I don’t actually like these people fuck this I want to be alone…… oh but being alone sucks and now I’m lonely, I want to be where the people are, let’s go to the movies…… oh my god why did we go see the new Star Wars while it’s still a relatively recent release, I barely remember anything about the actual movie, I was too overwhelmed by the feelings of everyone else in that completely packed theatre… and so on” relationship with other people and being around them or not

Or like their big struggle in the first book of wanting to help people and create positive change in the world, but not being able to do too terribly much on their own for a lot of reasons (some of which are about Josie personally, and some of which are about the whole Lone Superhero thing be a lot of hot fucking nonsense that is fundamentally unsustainable), but not having an official team to belong to because although they work for S.T.R.O.M.A., they don’t like S.T.R.O.M.A., and while they are part of the extended Wardens family, they’re not a fully-fledged Warden and so much of the Wardens’ everything is based around Yael and Elizabeth’s school, so being one and not being up in Poughkeepsie would be weird and mean you end up missing out on a lot and, in Josie’s case, end up feeling like an outsider even when you’re surrounded by people who, for the most part, love you and accept you exactly as you are, but also not entirely doing everything they can to find a team because, in fairness, it can be really difficult to do that even if you don’t work for the U.S. government……

Basically, I love Josie because I love making my characters deal with internal conflict, and while all of them have a lot of it, I’m really fond of Josie’s particular brand of, “self-reflective, doing things but not things that add up to bigger things in the ways that Josie wants, trying to remedy that but it’s hard, not sure what to do or if going after these new possibilities and new ideas will make things worse, getting fed up with themself and needing to try something, but but but five million different elements all converging on each other but but but” internal conflict

And I’m really fond of it in Josie’s case because Josie is savvy enough to know that they can’t fall into the same, “do fuck-all nothing about anything until the last possible minute” trap, but their frustration is less about, “I can’t do anything” and more about, “but what do the things that I do actually mean, who am I helping, am I actually helping them or not, how can I do things that create more significant positive changes or is there a way to do that at all”

And, well. There is, Josie, but it requires you to trust some new people, bond with some new people, build relationships with them and work on maintaining said relationships, find strength in numbers, and learn more about loving and letting people love you back because one of your biggest problems in your previous relationships has been that you don’t open up — not, “you open up slowly” but, “you don’t open up with most people, period, despite knowing that this is not a sustainable way of doing things” — so yeah I’d say you need to learn about that, and learn to stop being such a lone wolf because do you know what generally happens to lone wolves? Either they find a pack somehow, or they die (without making any kind of positive changes in the world around them, relative to the size and interests of, y’know, wolves).

……Because I’m a lonely and bitter and it makes my half-dead little heart happy to make my characters find more strength together than they do apart and learn to love and be loved in return without it coming off as one-sided, like it can do in a lot of takes on that trope that are aimed at children, because…… uh, last I checked, the whole point of a relationship is that it is not exclusively about one person’s needs or desires???

Also, Josie is a compassionate but grumpy grown up goth kid who is trying to be a good person, and doing a better job than a lot of other characters, but definitely has a problem with their judgmental tendencies and how they sometimes externalize them and get super-judgmental of others, because on some level, their mind is like, “fuck, can i get a break from always punishing myself over here, jfc” and I don’t know, it’s almost 4AM and I have lost track of how long I’ve been writing this

Josie’s a nerd and a cat who can’t make up their mind about whether they want to be outside chasing butterflies or inside sitting on your keyboard so that you have to pay attention to them and not your computer and idk, I love them, the end

(except for the footnotes oops)

*: Special Taskforce for the Regulation and Oversight of Metahuman Affairs — or in plain-speak, the FBI’s wing of people who get involved in all of the shiny, extralegal superpowered mutant hijinks.

They have a pretty good working relationship with their counterparts at the Department of Health and Human Services (who actually end up handling most mutant affairs, because this world treats the question of super-powered mutant licensing as more equivalent to getting a driver’s license, and frankly, most mutants in the U.S. just want to go about their lives in peace — like, go to college, get a job, go on dates, come home and watch the Daily Show, and not be bothered about or make trouble for anyone else with the weird superpowers that most of them did not want or ask for — so there’s rarely any actual reason for the FBI to go stick their noses into anything, and there are plenty of cases where they get called in, only to find that they aren’t actually needed after all), but… yeah.

S.T.R.O.M.A. is a faction of people who exist. Josie works for them, for all they would really rather not. Unfortunately for Josie, particularly powerful metahumans tend to wind up on a lot of S.T.R.O.M.A. watch-lists, and they are more likely to do so when they have powers that the people at the FBI consider particularly useful or desirable — for example, telepathy and hyper-empathy, in Josie’s case. For the most part, these watch-lists don’t actually amount to anything because they don’t end up being relevant to most of the cases that S.T.R.O.M.A. has to deal with.

—but then you can have situations like Josie’s, where they were one of many mutants who got in a brief spot of trouble over genuine confusion surrounding a new bill that had just gone through Congress and revised some of the definitions of and privileges associated with/afforded to people at the different levels of metahuman licenses. (Since this is still America and we’re still talking about the FBI, there are also plenty of even worse potential outcomes for people who end up on their miscellaneous mutant watchlists — which is one of the big points that gets brought up by people who either want to reform or do away with the whole metahuman licensing thing — but in fairness to most people, they don’t know the full specifics.)

Anyway, Josie got in trouble because they are an actual therapist and, although they prefer not to use their powers with clients and extensively brief anyone who asks about trying that approach (about the potential benefits vs. potential risks, all the drawbacks, all the potential unintended consequences, etc.) while offering them plenty of chances to change their mind and go, “okay, let’s not do this,” they do still let their clients know that they’re a telepath/empath and that they can use their powers in a therapeutic context but it’s not the best thing to try as a first approach

Which is all great, except that Josie had been assured that they wouldn’t need to get a different kind of license to continue doing this, after that bill passed… except that they did. And this probably would’ve continued with no actual interference from anybody because Josie is hyper-responsible about using their powers with clients, about keeping up on all of the latest research and debates about therapeutic uses for psychic abilities and the ethical issues surrounding this, and so on…… except that one of their clients was a teenager who needed parental consent to go through with this, and one of their parents worked for S.T.R.O.M.A.

Relevant piece of context: Josie was absolutely not the only mutant who’d had some confusion over the revised licensing scheme. Josie wasn’t even the only mutant in the greater Baltimore area who had similar confusion on this issue.

But Josie was one of the only ones who was already on S.T.R.O.M.A.’s radar when they got in trouble, partly by virtue of being a “telempath,” partly by virtue of having trained with Dr. Elizabeth Woodham (who is: one of the most powerful telepaths in the entire world; a respected professor, activist, and philanthropist; one of the first mutants in the States to register for one of the early, “superhero licenses” [not their official name, but that’s the gist of what they are]; and with her wife, Dr. Yael Lehrer, one of the co-founders of the Wardens and co-headmistresses of one of the most respected schools for mutants in North America), and partly by virtue of having a lot of (mostly untapped) potential power.

And, see, one of S.T.R.O.M.A.’s problems is that it is perpetually under-staffed, in all areas but especially in terms of mutants who work for them, and moreover, mutants who will actually do fieldwork (like, Pete’s cousin Emerson is a mutant and he does work for S.T.R.O.M.A., but he’s lower on the powers scale than most of their employees who do active fieldwork, and he has no desire to do fieldwork when he could do lab-work instead). There are a lot of reasons for this problem of staffing, but one of the more noticeable end-results is that S.T.R.O.M.A. can be somewhat unethical in some of their recruitment bids. Like, yes, sometimes, you just get a visit from Some Guy Who Is Totally Not Nick Fury, who offers you a chance to be a part of something bigger than yourself and to use your abilities to help people

Other times, you get treated to a few hours of what S.T.R.O.M.A. sees and treats as the interview portion of applying for a Very Important Position somewhere, except that they don’t tell you that this is what they’re doing and they use “interview” (read: interrogation) techniques that people in law enforcement usually save for wrangling confessions out of suspects.

It will not look like it, but they are actually trying to figure out some specific things about you, including but not limited to: how you handle high-stress and high-pressure situations (like, for example, being accused of using your powers for any extralegal vigilantism, and maybe knowing things about [the biggest mutant-related news of the day] that they don’t; being threatened with a trip to one of the U.S. prisons designed to hold mutants; etc.); various details about your backstory and who you are as a person and what your biggest Deals are (i.e., getting you to help them run a damn background check on yourself); and how in control of your powers you are (since they trust the DHHS evaluations, but prefer to supplement them with firsthand evidence).

Then, once they’ve figured out what they want to know, you might very well be offered something to the tune of, “Alright, this is your first offense, and based on your dossier and this interview, we think that you could be an asset to S.T.R.O.M.A., if you wanted. If you like the sound of working for us, at least as an analyst or consultant if not a fully-fledged special agent, then we can make all of this legal trouble just go away. If you don’t like the sound of that, then……… well… *deliberately trails off to let you draw your own conclusions while still staying within the letter of the law, because hey, they didn’t actually tell you that you’d for sure end up getting prosecuted and going to prison*”

So…… yeah. S.T.R.O.M.A. and Ethics are not always on speaking terms.

Add this recruitment story to Josie’s frustrations with how metahuman employees at S.T.R.O.M.A. tend to get treated — e.g., they, themself, are often trotted out to go liaise with different media outlets as a public face of Mutants Who Work Here, Look We’re Trying Our Best So You Should All Just Totally Cooperate With Us, but they’re discouraged from voicing any of their own opinions and advised to just stick to these Bureau-approved talking points — and at having to be closeted and fairly masc-presenting at work because S.T.R.O.M.A. thinks they’re a cis man, and…… yeah, uh.

“Josie would really, really rather not work here” is an understatement af… but they continue working here anyway because: 1. as a consultant, they can still usually balance things enough to keep working as a therapist;

and 2. Josie wants so badly to help people, and for all S.T.R.O.M.A. is highly unethical (sometimes) and part of the goddamn FBI, most of the people who work there also want to help people and use their work to create positive changes in the world — and it’s not an unfair observation that, on their own, there really isn’t much that Josie can do (because the idea of the solo superhero who works alone… isn’t sustainable, like??

Aside from the political and ideological issues with that whole aspect of superhero mythology, it’s not actually feasible for one person, working on their own, to create any positive change. It would be massively unhealthy for them, there’s only so much they can do as one person, there are no actual safeguards in place if they ever get corrupted, and as multiple deconstructions of the genre have shown, it’s really easy for a classic lone vigilante model superhero to slide into a mindset like Rorschach’s — which is full of hypocrisy, double standards, misogyny and homophobia and ableism, and total moral absolutism that simultaneously allows no room for compassion and keeps Rorschach from being able to appreciate the big picture outside of his little myopic Objectivst bubble — or Frank Miller!Batman, who is often only a step or two off from actual fascism, but we probably won’t call it that because he’s wearing the Batman suit).

At this point, Josie has even had it all but confirmed that the agents who came to recruit them definitely “avoided certain truths to manipulate them” on purpose, so they’re reasonably certain that they could probably leave S.T.R.O.M.A without having their previous step out of bounds dredged up and handed to a D.A. who’d be pressured to prosecute them for it…… but they want to help people, and S.T.R.O.M.A. is one of the only options that they can currently see where they get to help anyone.

So, here they are. Working in a position that they’re not a fan of, looking at the motivational posters of gothed out kittens that one of their best friends drew for them, and trying to take, “hang in there!” kitty’s advice and tough it out at S.T.R.O.M.A. for the sake of doing some good in the world.

**: This mostly happens if Josie doesn’t have the energy enough or keep focus enough to keep their mental walls up — which they are usually very diligent about because on one hand, hearing other people’s thoughts kind of sucks actually (Josie would definitely agree with the sentiment that, a lot of the time, being a telepath is like having a youtube comments section screaming at you in your head)

—and on the other, um, hello, telepathy can, in the wrong hands, become a walking violation of civil liberties. Like, if you ask Josie, telepathy has a lot in common with wiretapping, though they consider it potentially even more dangerous than that, because it’s harder to prove that telepathy has been involved in something, since:

1. yes, the traces of telepathy can show up on a CAT scan or an MRI of the brain, but you’d need a neurologist who is well-trained, very attentive, and up to date on as much of the current research into telepathy as possible — or hey, a team of neurologists might not be a bad idea, if you can get them all, because one neurologist might miss something

—but otoh, the traces of telepathy can sometimes also be mistaken as signs of something else, especially if someone is neurodivergent and/or mentally ill, has suffered any serious and/or recent head injuries, has a history of substance abuse, is sleep-deprived at the time of the tests, may actually have something else going on in their brain in addition to the traces of telepathy

Seriously, just about anything that affects the brain can make it harder to tell whether or not someone’s been hit with telepathy

Plus: telepathic abilities are sort of mid-level common among mutants, and some mutants use them without even realizing it because their powers haven’t manifested in ways that are for sure Outside Three Standard Deviations From The Non-Mutant Human Mean, so some minor telepathic scarring is common, even in people who haven’t been hit by something as awful as, say, memory modification, or having someone go in and pick around in their brain like they’re flipping through an issue of Us Weekly

—and without a keen, well-trained eye, it can be really hard to tell those types of telepathic scarring apart

2. some of the traces of telepathy are more subjective, and while they might show up on a brain scan, the best evidence of them will come from the people who’ve been hit with the telepathic whatever

—but that’s going to be a problem because, in a lot of cases, they won’t have any memory of it, or they’ll have a false memory of it, and there’s no guarantee that further telepathic probing will be able to help here, and it could just make things worse. Plus, there’s no guarantee that the people who’ve been hit will actually be aware that what they’re experiencing is related to telepathy.

This is especially true with experienced, exceptionally powerful, and/or highly meticulous telepaths, because some of them can dick around in people’s heads and leave barely any trace that they were there

Like, for an example of what a more subjective trace might look like: Conrad is a telepath, and unlike Josie, he doesn’t really care about ethics or the rights of most other people. About ten years before the story actually starts, he took an interest in his new brother-in-law’s youngest brother (Sebastian), because he could sense something in Seb — he didn’t know what it was, exactly, but it was definitely a something — that made him go, “huh, maybe this emotionally troubled nearly twenty-year-old boy is also a mutant”

(I mean, he’s not wrong. And the something that he got a sense of back then is the part of Seb that he’s eventually going to call, “La Bête,” because if he’s going to go for the superhero thing and need a codename, then, “Gévaudan” makes sense to him because his family is insistently French [despite not having lived in France since about 1781, apart from one ancestral namesake of Seb’s who stayed in Paris for their Revolution (and Severin Sebastien Moncrieff was a confirmed bachelor, so he left behind a partner but no heirs), well before La Bête du Gévaudan was a Thing, and despite not being from the region of France where that happened] and hey, he can apparently turn into a giant wolf-man, now

—and if he’s calling himself, “Gévaudan,” then, “La Bête” is just thematically consistent. But that’s beside the point.)

Anyway: Conrad wasn’t new to his powers ten years ago, but he was much more reckless with them — especially when he believed that he was absolutely right and would stop at nothing to prove it — and he had less finesse in using them.

So, he left behind plenty of traces when he decided to use his little sister’s wedding reception as a chance to go telepathically play around with Seb, trying to either figure out if his new brother-in-law’s little brother actually was a mutant, or maybe triggering his powers into fully manifesting (plus plying him with alcohol and adding rohypnol to the mix based on the notion that either it wouldn’t affect Seb because he’s a mutant, or if not that, then it’d trigger his abilities into manifesting).

The underlying logic of the rohypnol idea was actually not wrong, because toxin filtering is one of the more common mutant abilities you find in the States (and it happens to be one that Seb has), and some mutants have had their powers manifest in response to poisoning, drugging, exposure to carbon monoxide or other toxic fumes, and even being given antibiotics or certain medications

The idea was still morally wrong and ethically skeevy, but the mutant-related logic actually did work. Where Conrad went wrong on that count was that he overly simplified the situation, only looked for two potential reactions, and didn’t know what to make of how Seb was affected by the rohypnol but not nearly as badly as he should’ve been, so he went, “Was he affected or not?? I don’t know????”

[Here is where I cut a whole big tangent explaining that whole story, but it got way, way off the point, so.]

Anyway, the gist of the story is that Conrad is the only person who consciously remembers everything that happened, since most of the people who cared about it were not present for the encounter itself, and Conrad screwed around with Seb’s memories, both telepathically and not.

Like, Seb has more memories of it than he would if he weren’t a mutant, considering that he got dosed with rohypnol, but he also has false memories about some of what happened, and Conrad repressed Seb’s memories of certain events (like how many times he tried to break away from Conrad, or turn down the offer of another drink, because he’d promised his big brother that he wouldn’t get drunk and make a scene at Max’s wedding or the reception, and it was important to him to honor that promise)

Fortunately for Conrad, Seb is not one of the mutants who has an increased resistance to psychic attacks — largely because, contrary to what Conrad thought until about two years before the story starts, someone’s ability to resist to psychic attacks has nothing to do with whether or not they’re a mutant (aside from some special cases where someone has a resistance to any psychic attacks that falls outside three standard deviations of the non-mutant human mean)

—so, despite the feelings he sometimes gets that something about those memories might be wrong, Seb totally believes that they’re real and he doesn’t notice any of the incongruities unless someone points them out, which almost no one has any reason to do because there isn’t usually a reason for Seb to talk at length about the details of this particular incident that happened almost ten years ago

(there would be, if he ever brought it up in therapy or at AA and/or NA, or dwelled on it when he did, but that has yet to actually happen)

Unfortunately for Conrad, he did a sloppy job of this, and while it would be hard for a neurologist to tell the physical signs of his telepathic probing apart from the other brain damage that Seb’s accrued, the hardest thing for most other telepaths would be trying to find the right memories. The crap-shoot nature of telepathically digging through someone else’s mind is one of the many reasons why Josie doesn’t like using their powers as a first approach in therapy, because you can never guarantee with any reliable certainty that you’ll get at the parts of someone’s mind that you want

—but if someone did get to Seb’s memories of this incident, it would be really obvious to them that they’ve been modified. Like, images might be blurred around the edges, it might glitch like a video or audio track that’s skipping, the voices might get distorted, the colors might look wonky, and so on. Prodding a bit more would also be able to undo Conrad’s memory-blocks without doing too much damage to Seb’s brain (not so much on an emotional and psychological level, but the damage there would be more like the painful truth that hurts now but leads to something better)

Anyway, it’s much harder to get proof of this nature when you’re dealing with more skillful, more attentive, more powerful, etc. telepaths, because they aren’t as messy as Conrad was with Seb

and 3. Wiretapping operations usually involve more people, which doesn’t make them ethical or necessarily justified, but it does mean that they’re easier to find evidence of because there are more folks who can spill the beans and point you to it. Telepathy only needs two people to happen, and one may not even be aware of what’s going on, depending on how sensitive they are and whether or not they’re dealing with an ethical telepath

For example: while not metahuman levels of resistant to psychic attacks, Pete is exceptionally sensitive to them and he’s naturally better at resisting them than some people, so if someone wanted to paw through his mind, he has a better chance of recognizing that he’s being telepathically invaded and getting them out

Sebastian, on the other hand, is Bad at recognizing and resisting psychic probing. Unethical telepaths have an easier time of getting through him because at his best, if he isn’t told in advance, then he feels ill at ease, inexplicably anxious (not that it means much, because he tends to attribute that to his shitty mental health), kind of nauseated, and maybe like he’s being spied on. At worst, he doesn’t even notice.

So, basically, Josie considers it a moral and ethical responsibility on their part to do everything they can to not inadvertently spy on people, because there is already so much about telepathy that can go really bad and poses a lot of ethical problems — but they are only human, and there are a lot of ways for someone’s mental walls to come down or reasons why they would.

Letting their empathic walls down usually makes it easier for Josie to focus on keeping up the telepathic walls, since the empathic ones are a lot harder for them to keep up, but it’s only a temporary thing because if Josie takes those walls down, they open themself up to a looooooot of potential overwhelm from outside influence, and there’s always the option to find a balance between the empathic walls and telepathic ones, but sometimes, it’s easier said than done.

Josie is usually too hard on themself for it when any slip-ups on their part happen, even knowing that every other telepath and every other empath has moments like this and even if they got too overwhelmed to actually remember anything and/or heard nothing.

It’s such a big deal to them because the potential for psychic abilities to violate other people — and especially the potential to manipulate people and compromise or outright remove their agency — is something that Josie never wanted. They went into counseling as a profession, after their original plan of going into fashion went up in smoke, but part of it, for them, has always been about trying to help people get their lives back, or manage them better, and so on. Granted, they knew about their telepathic and empathic abilities before they officially went into therapeutic practice, but that, for Josie, was part of how they developed their approach to being a therapist.

Furthermore, on a more personal and less professional note, Josie never wanted mutant superpowers to begin with. After having their telepathy and empathy first manifest in full, they might’ve done plenty of things that they normally wouldn’t even consider, if they thought it could take their powers away.

Partly, that was because their powers manifested toward the end of a really bad mental health downswing that ended in Josie going back to an inpatient treatment center for their eating disorder. Any of these elements on their own would’ve been bad enough, but having them all come down on them at once was Hell for Josie, and worse, trying to get well while you are in an inpatient center and can feel everyone else’s feelings, hear a lot of their thoughts, and are currently having trouble sorting out which parts are your own feelings, which parts are coming from your eating disorder, and which parts are coming from everyone else (not least because you don’t have any proof that you are feeling things or hearing thoughts that are coming from other people).

Josie eventually got help for that part because one of the therapists at the center was a metahuman and had gone to the Woodham and Lehrer School before deciding that she didn’t particularly want to be a superhero in the traditional sense. She reached out to her old teachers, and Josie got help for that while doing more intensive outpatient treatment until they got better at tuning out other people’s thoughts and feelings.

But there’s a lingering problem here that goes back to the feelings that underlie Josie’s ED. When they are at their absolute worst, Josie can be an absolute control freak, and they tend to turn it inward more than outward because they realize that taking it out on other people isn’t fair and they don’t feel good about it. Additionally, feeling other people’s feelings as intensely as they do gives Josie an additional incentive not to take their issues with control out on other people (and did even before their powers fully manifested, because they’ve always been pretty sensitive). On some level, Josie realizes that they can’t control things like how people react to them, whether or not bad things happen to good people, and so on, but that doesn’t always help because it can lead to them feeling even more of a need to crack down on controlling themself.

Having psychic powers becomes problematic for them in two big ways, here:

1. It’s unfortunately very easy for Josie to slip into overly self-punishing thought patterns if they feel like they aren’t as in control of their abilities as they, “should” be — which happens very easily because Josie’s standards for themself aren’t always realistic, and they usually aren’t the best judge of whether or not they’re being fair to themself.

It’s even more noticeable, for them, when they try to do more complex and demanding things with their powers.

This was one of the big reasons why they’ve stayed on good terms with their friends and mentors at the Lehrer and Woodham School, and among Yael and Elizabeth’s Wardens, but consistently rejected any invites to become a Warden (and then regretted that when S.T.R.O.M.A. got them instead, since Josie would much rather be one of the Wardens than working for the FBI).

Basically, Josie trusted Elizabeth’s guidance, and they really, really wanted to trust Elizabeth’s faith in them to handle their full power responsibly…… but it was hard to believe that when they already didn’t feel like they controlled their powers as much as they, “should” have been doing, and Elizabeth wanted to push them further.

For Josie, it felt like the choice came down to, “be a superhero and do more cool superhero things, at the expense of my own well-being, which means I eventually won’t be able to help anyone and could hurt more people than I help”

or, “quietly go back to training for an entirely different career than I expected, keep in touch with Elizabeth and work on honing my abilities, and maybe not get to help people in as big a way as members of the Wardens get to do, but at least, as a therapist, I will still have the ability to help people and will probably be less likely to screw that up by virtue of losing my control over my powers”

(To her credit, Elizabeth was disheartened by this, because she believes in all of her students and wants them to believe in themselves, and really wanted Josie on her team — but she’s learned that the superhero life isn’t for everybody, and that it’s not her job, as a teacher and mentor, to tell people what they should do; it’s her job to show them new approaches, teach them how to learn, help them find what paths and methods work best for them, etc.

So, disheartening as it was, she’s been nothing but supportive about Josie’s choice not to be a Warden, and compassionate about how much Josie doesn’t like working for the FBI — and without trying to turn it into some kind of, “this could be super-beneficial for us, if Josie wanted to give us any advance warning about S.T.R.O.M.A. business that might negatively affect us here” thing like Yael)

(To her credit, Yael really does believe that she’s helping when she says things like that, because she is so fundamentally a doer, rather than a thinker, feeler, planner, or anything else. She is absolutely capable of all of those things, but she has an approach to life and problems that goes, “Okay, this is a Thing and it’s a setback, but what can we do about it, how can we use this to build something even better”

—so her idea of how to help one of her and Elizabeth’s students and comrades with an unexpected and unwanted “recruitment” to S.T.R.O.M.A.… is going, “But look, see, we can still potentially make something good out of this, and just because a government agency snatched you up doesn’t mean that you have to forget your own values or let them control you, this can be a good thing if you take advantage of the right pieces and opportunities”

—for a moment of MBTI nerdery: Yael is an ENTJ (***) vs. Josie’s INFJ (***), so while she has Extroverted Thinking (Te) for a dominant cognitive function and primarily approaches the world based on how to get results, Josie’s dominant function is Introverted iNtuition (Ni), and while they have an orientation toward the future that appreciates where Yael is coming from with her drive to get results, Josie’s primary approach to the world looks less at objective things and objective results, more at patterns and theories and trying to find the, “higher purpose” or, “deeper reason” behind how stuff happens

Which, oddly enough, is part of why Josie and Yael get on so well. They can butt heads with each other, sometimes, but at the end of the day, they complement each other really well because both of them have vision and the drive to act on it, but Yael is better at actually getting shit done, and Josie is better at checking things through the processes of making them happen, finding potential problems that Yael may not have seen coming and trying to work addressing them into the fabric of her plans.

Their Feeling functions also complement each other really well: Josie is a high Feeler, with Extroverted Feeling (Fe) as their auxiliary function, which keeps them more attuned to the state of the group and all the people in it, while Yael has a very good relationship with her inferior Fi (Introverted Feeling), which enables her to better evaluate how their actions and plans are helping or hurting their causes, where their ideals fit into everything, and so on.

So, basically, Yael is better at making sure that they all remember who they are and what they stand for, both individually and as parts of the whole, while Josie is better at attending to people’s emotional needs and keeping the whole intact by caring for the individual members of it.

And because they both respect and admire each other, neither of them devalues the other’s contributions to anything — and it doesn’t matter to Yael that Josie has a badge and would have an easier time getting a gun if they weren’t really uneasy about guns; Josie’s a mutant, they’ve been one of her students, and they care about helping other mutants, so officially being part of S.T.R.O.M.A. doesn’t mean that they aren’t part of Yael’s (larger, mutant) family

—which all means a lot to Josie because, in a lot of ways, they still haven’t entirely outgrown their early experiences of being one of the weird art freaks at school (which, even for someone who wound up being part of a subculture/clique that’s all about going, “fuck you, I’m gonna do my thing and you can love it or shove it,” gave Josie some trouble because, goth of not, they’re sensitive), and they have a huge tendency to be overly harsh with themself and don’t always love themself very much, so this whole unconditional acceptance thing is a Big Deal to them

But I digress.

2. Having psychic powers also gets Problematic for Josie because, in their mind, they’ve spent so much of their life fighting their eating disorder and their overall mental health to keep control of their life, and it’s difficult, periodically degrading, often horrific, and something that they wouldn’t wish on anybody, period…… so having the power to take away someone’s ability to control their own mind? Having the power to violate someone’s agency, potentially with more or less complete impunity? That’s horrifying, and Josie doesn’t want it

One of the easiest ways to make Josie go off the handle at you is to dismiss how hard it is for them to maintain any sense of composure. Like, okay, they can handle people teasing them about some of their self-care habits because humor is how a lot of people come to be comfortable with and accept things they don’t understand at first, and how a lot of people show that they’re comfortable with you and like you.

But if you act like Josie doesn’t have to work, impossibly hard and daily, on their own well-being, because if they don’t, then they could lose control of psychic abilities and this would be Really Fucking Terrible for everyone? ……Uh.

Just don’t do that. It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, it’s mean and please, just don’t do it.

An even easier way to make Josie snap at you is to play what they call, “the Aslan card” — which means telling them that the proof that they can handle the responsibility of psychic powers, is their own fear that maybe they can’t, their awareness of and attentiveness to the ethical and moral problems attached to them having psychic powers, the fact that they’d rather not have psychic powers in the first place because it can — and often does — feel like these powers and their attendant responsibilities are too big and too potentially Terrible Forever, For Everyone

Which Josie calls, “the Aslan card” because, uh. The first time they heard it was from Elizabeth (whose heart was in the right place in saying this, but she didn’t think about how it might end up sounding to Josie), and the first thing Josie was reminded of was Aslan telling Prince Caspian that he’s ready to become the King because he doesn’t think he’s ready

It’s just…… Josie understands where this idea is coming from, and they appreciate the underlying sentiment

But, to them, it always sounds more like, “why are you upset about how hard this is for you, at least it’s happening to you and not someone who doesn’t give a fuck about ethics or how they treat other people, quit whinging and cheer the fuck up”

Which…… yes, Josie knows that this isn’t what most people mean, but it’s still pretty upsetting for them to hear because of how much it reminds them of things that they’ve told themself so many times, when they’ve been at their worst, in terms of their mental health and emotional well-being — especially the things like, “My eating disorder isn’t bad because it’s only hurting me, not anyone else, and it’s only hurting me because I’m weak”

—and yeah, okay, Josie appreciates that you’re trying to help, but they already have enough work to do on keeping themself from slipping back into the comfort of those thought patterns, so if it’s all the same, can you maybe find a different way of trying to comfort them or praise them or whatever? Please?

Thank you, they’d like that

#derekslaura #memes for ts #oc questions #josie quinn: empath disaster #that story with the mutants that i should find a working title for fml #mine: writing #sebastian moncrieff: mutant disaster #pete arden: dramatic disaster #josie x seb #josie x pete #lucy murphy: hemokinetic disaster #josie & lucy #yael lehrer: probably done with your shit #josie & yael #telepathy #okay i'm probably going to miss some cw tags and i'm sorry for that #if anybody needs anything that i miss tagged plz let me know and i'll get it after i sleep <3 #eating disorders cw// mental health issues cw// manipulation ref// consent issues cw//#('consent issues' meaning 'yeah that conrad guy i mention periodically? he's a tool who uses telepathy to #manipulate people as well as using it to sexually assault and rape people with more or less total impunity so far'#but the discussion of it is fairly inexplicit & mostly used as an illustration of #why josie is so hyper-vigilant abt the ethical issues & responsibilities attached to having telepathy in their set of mutant superpowers)#misgendering ref// biphobia ref// homophobia ref// (these are also mostly inexplicit but still present)#longish post//

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