#and now you have these broken-hearted kids who are dependent on you for safety and purpose

[callsignfangs]

Any basic Farah Headcannons you got?

Also, do you ship her with Alex? (Just curious, no prejudice on ur opinion OP)

Tysmm anon I love getting to rant abt my girl 😚😚

Honestly, I think faralex is pretty cute :] I don’t really go outta my way to ship it bc I feel like Farah deserves more attention just as a character outside of ships, but I def love seeing the cute art and fics of them!! (Daily alex keller is where i get like 99% of my faralex, alex and gazalex fix. We love daily ak in this blog. /lh)

Now for farah hcs 😇

• 100% overprotective of people she loves. She knows better than to actually physically fight someone, but, depending on how bad the situation was, she knows how to absolutely destroy someone socially and never get caught. Like, you pick on one of her brothers/sisters and suddenly the next day everyone thinks you cheated on your husband and egged someones house.

• Def does art. Not necessarily like stylised portraits or anything, just tends to carry around a pen and a scrap of paper on missions and doodle pretty sights or happy moments in her free time.

• Doesn’t actually braid her own hair. She tried to learn in the past, but it never really caught on for her. She usually gets one of her brothers or sisters to do it for her, otherwise just puts it into a quick bun when she needs to.

• Has an absolute bleeding heart for animals. Will totally go out of her way to give food to stray cats and dogs wherever she goes, and if she settles down, the local stray animal population 100% crowds at her door every morning for snacks.

• Probably tried to adopt wild animals as a kid. Gave her parents a heart attack when her little 5 yo self walked in with a baby brown bear staring silently at them.

• Has a lot of scars. Obviously a lot of them are from missions and work, but surprisingly most of them are from stupid childhood stuff. Like, you could leave her alone in a padded room for a whole five seconds and you come back to at least three broken objects, something inedible in her mouth and a massive scrape across both of her arms. She wasn’t a stupid kid, just way too curious for her own good with absolutely no survival instinct.

• The master of gifts. Like, for birthdays and holidays, everyone just eagerly awaits her gifts because she somehow nails exactly what they want, even if they don’t ask her or suggest anything.

• Unintentional queen of gossip. She encourages people to come to her with info because she trusts herself to compile it and store anything important, but 99% of the time she only has drama being told to her. Like, sure, she could tell you the exact details of enemy movements to the centimetre, but she could also tell you about why Fatima broke up with her third boyfriend and how it was definitely his fault.

• Loves customising her appearance in little ways. She’ll have new nail designs and cute little hair bobbles and stuff like that pretty much daily. Def wants to dye her hair or do intricate makeup, but it’s just not practical or safe with her work.

• Hates ladders when they’re stood up by themself. She’s completely fine when they’re leaning on a steady surface, but otherwise put her anywhere above the second step and she’s shaking like a dog on a cat tower.

• Loves sleeping w people platonically. Just enjoys the safety of not being alone and trusts herself to look after the other person while they’re so vulnerable.

• Always doing something with her hands, from fidgeting with her hair, clothes, ect to just constant gestures while talking. Probably knows how to sew, knit, crochet, crack her fingers loud enough to wake the whole base, the lot.

• Is the kinda person who almost never get sick to the point where their immune system is a myth to their friends/family - until they get absolutely knocked out by the most vicious virus you’ve seen (and then bounce back after a few weeks somehow completely fine, like nothing happened).

• Just outright refuses to sleep with a blanket. Will tolerate a quilt, but absolutely refuses blankets. She loves to cuddle up in one while hanging out in the day or just unwinding, but literally can’t sleep at all with one.

• Can’t sit normally for the life of her. Put her on a chair and after maybe five minutes, her legs are each laid over a different end of the chair and she’s hanging from it upside down. /j

• Loves lego sets, just never gets to have them. Imagine that joke of giving guys that lego star wars falcon or sumt ship set and they’ll be completely distracted with it, just turn it up tenfold and add a little more rage.

• Has nightmares over the stupidest stuff. Like, there’s all that trauma nightmare material for her brain to feast on yet she wakes up in a cold sweat over a dream of serial killing cornflakes.

• Can’t massage for shit but is like the base’s personal chiropractor. You complain about your back aching? Five minutes later you’ve been folded perfectly over a table, each one of the joints in your body cracking with a decibel count similar to that of a volcanic eruption and your bones suddenly fresh as the day you were born.

• Holds really good game night kinda things. On an especially long stakeout, she’ll whip out a couple hoarded snacks and a deck of cards and it’s like a family game night all over.

• Surprisingly sentimental. She tries to avoid having too many, if any, personal objects just because she knows she’ll probably have to leave them behind eventually, even if her situation is stable at that moment. She totally has a favourite gun with a name that she treats like her firstborn child, though.

• Has no idea how to comfort people but is somehow absolutely amazing at it. You could be bawling your eyes out, experiencing literally the worst day of your life, whole world crumbling around you, and she’d just sit there in a too-long silence with a hesitant hand on your shoulder, awkwardly mumbling ‘there, there’, and it would inexplicably be the most comforting sensation you’d ever experienced. She just gives off a warm, cosy kinda energy.

• Gleeks on command. Just for funsies.

• Refuses to use any kind of non-manual toothbrushes (electric, sonic, ect). She just hates the feel of them in her mouth.

• Rages pretty easily but refuses to show that in front of her brothers & sisters. Likes to be a kind of role model to them so avoids being overly violent or rude like the plague (generally isn’t either of those without good cause, but esp not with them).

• Overanalyses things for fun. Partly as a bit of a military habit, but she also enjoys deep diving into the things she loves and explores loads of different ideas/meanings to them, and is really passionate about them. It also gives her a kinda fulfilled, safe feeling that honestly my girl deserves more of 😭 /lh

I might add more to this later when my brain kicks back in again 😇

Sorry if this isn’t exactly all hc material, I’m not too great with them, I usually stick to little scenarios and general stuff like that lol. I still enjoyed dumping these little ideas, tysm anon 😚🫂

[homoose]

Teach Me Something I Don’t Know: Part VII

Summary: Spencer’s unresolved trauma catches up with him. Reader gets her heart broken.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: angst, I’m so sorry guys

Warnings/Includes: brief mention of violence and details of a case; brief mention of prison, past trauma; a lil self-loathing and self-sabotaging

Word count: 3.8k

a/n: I knew that this was where this story was going from the very beginning. The dialogue is one of the first parts I had written. It still hurts. Relevant to the story: I operate with the understanding that the Jeid arc does not exist, which also means that Spencer never went to therapy in season 15. Also, huge thanks to @reidscanehand​ for beta-ing and just generally being my hype person!!!!

Song Recs: Shrike by Hozier; Better As a Memory by Kenny Chesney (don’t come for me if Spencer made playlists this would ABSOLUTELY be on there)

Series Masterlist

———

Spencer made his way to Emily’s office, ignoring the team’s eyes on him— varying degrees of understanding, concern, and uncertainty plain on their faces. As he reached the threshold, he paused for a second before moving into her line of sight. When he moved into the doorway, she looked up and waved him in. He closed the door behind him.

She gestured to the chair in front of her desk. Spencer hesitated for only a split second, but it was long enough for her to notice. He lowered himself into the chair and met her eyes.

She folded her hands on top of the desk. “How are you feeling?”

He drummed his fingers across his kneecaps. “I’m fine.”

It was a lie, and they both knew it. She bit back a sigh and flipped open the folder in front of her. “I’m finished with the official report. I wanted to go over it with you before I submit it to the director.” She looked at him briefly before reading out the report. “On January 9th, our team pursued a lead at the residence of suspect Andrew Hurley. We divided into teams to cover the two entrances to the home, as well as the barn behind the house.”

Spencer fidgeted slightly in his chair and rubbed the tips of his fingers together. Emily continued, “During the raid, Supervisory Special Agent Spencer Reid became separated from the team and was ambushed and disarmed by the suspect in the barn.” She paused but didn’t look at him. “The team was unaware of the altercation for some time, during which Dr. Reid employed various approved restraint methods and was ultimately forced to utilize self-defense measures to preserve his own life. Consequently, Mr. Hurley sustained serious injuries.”

She did look at him then, a steady and unrelenting gaze that had him shrinking inside himself. “However, I have determined that Dr. Reid’s actions were justified in order to maintain his own safety.” She returned her eyes to the report. “Mr. Hurley was detained and treated for his injuries at Sebastian River Medical Center, and he is expected to make a full recovery. Based on the cognitive interviews and physical evidence, a grand jury hearing is scheduled for January 25th.” She brought her hands to rest on top of the report.

“I’ll sign off on it and deliver it to the director by the end of business today.” She let out the sigh she’d been holding back. “Reid.”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line, torn between shame and vindication. “Emily.”

“What happened in that barn was unacceptable. And I need you to recognize that.” Her eyes were back on him, a leader’s gaze boring into a weak link. “You went against a direct order. You put your life in danger unnecessarily, and in the process you endangered this entire team. Furthermore, you could have cost us the ability to close this case, to put Hurley away and bring justice to his victims.”

“It won’t happen again,” he assured her.

“No, it won’t.” Her tone told him that if it did, he’d have bigger problems than a meeting in her office. “My recommendation to the director is that you transition to your next mandatory leave cycle early.”

“I can handle—”

“It’s not a request. You’re on sabbatical starting tomorrow. That’s an order, and one you’d do well to follow.” She closed the file in front of her. “We’ll see you back in the bullpen on March 7th.”

“I don’t need more time off, Emily,” Spencer snapped.

He could see her grind her teeth together at his tone, but he couldn’t seem to care enough to feel contrite. She took a deep breath in through her nose, leveling him with a pointed look. “If Simmons hadn’t broken it up, you’d have killed Hurley on the floor of that barn.”

His mind snapped back to the lifeless eyes of Hurley’s victims— eight year old boys in shallow graves. Boys who died afraid, and in pain, and crying out for their mothers. His thoughts raced to the feel of Hurley’s throat under his arm, the crack of the zygomatic under his fist. Emily was right of course. If Matt hadn’t found them in the barn and dragged him up and off of Hurley’s nearly lifeless body, Spencer would have killed him without compunction.

“Reid.” The stern edge was gone from her voice. Spencer refocused his eyes on her face, now showcasing an underlying concern that made his stomach turn. “I’m not recommending another cycle of mandatory counseling at this time, although I reserve the right to require it moving forward. But… I’m asking you to take care of yourself. You’ve been through a lot in the last two years. More than a lot.”

“I said I’m fine,” he insisted, but there was less fire behind it this time.

“And I’m not saying you aren’t,” she countered. “But I am saying that the person in that barn… that wasn’t you. That was not the Reid that I know.” Emily tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “The Reid I know uses his intellect and empathy to see angles that the rest of us miss. He depends on the strength of his mind and his unwavering compassion to diffuse conflicts without violence. He invites his friends to foreign film showings and puppet theater.”

When he didn’t budge, she let out a long breath. “I want you to take the next fifty days to find that Reid and bring him back to us.”

...

Y/N dropped into her desk chair with a huff. They’d been back from winter break for two weeks, and she already needed another vacation. But tomorrow was Friday, and then they had a long weekend. She could make it through one more day.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, tired in the way that only kindergarten teachers fresh off a long break can be. She heard the click of Anita’s shoes coming before she even entered the room, and Y/N couldn’t stop the twitch of her lips.

“Dude. How is it only Thursday?” Anita flopped down into the plush Calm Corner chair.

“This has been the longest week of my life,” Y/N agreed. “My kids were off the chain.”

“There is so much drama in middle school right now,” Anita groaned. “I can’t keep up with all the tea, and you know how I love to stay up to date on the freshest brews.” She shot Y/N a look. “Speaking of, where’s the good doctor?”

“I think they’ve had a lot going on at work,” Y/N surmised. “I haven’t seen Mrs. Jareau in over a month.”

“Well, I’m getting antsy,” Anita complained. “Thought for sure you’d be going steady by now.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but feel a little impatient herself. If she’d known it would be this long before she’d see him again, she might have made a move when he’d volunteered. Then again, probably not. She sighed.

Her phone chimed with an email message, and she automatically swiped the screen open to read it.

Spencer Reid Re:

Are you free today? If you are, I’ll be at Soho.

...

Spencer sat at the table in the corner of the coffee shop. He sipped absentmindedly at his tea, almost gone cold. He hadn’t waited for a reply before leaving Quantico. He drove straight to the city, figuring he’d wait at Soho until he felt some semblance of calm returning to his body.

He didn’t know why he’d emailed Y/N, and he wasn’t sure he really wanted her to show up. Usually he’d talk to Penelope or maybe JJ. But he’d wanted to get as far from the BAU as possible, and he didn’t want to drag Penelope away from the colorful, safe corner of the world she’d created for herself. He didn’t want to fill it with all the tragedy she’d tried so hard to leave behind.

If Y/N did show, he was certain he could keep the conversation vague, focus on her and the classroom, ask her about her holidays. She wasn’t a profiler, didn’t know his tells well enough. She’d be none the wiser, and he’d have her warmth and presence to focus his energy on, if only for a few hours.

Every time the bell chimed, his eyes flew to the door, searching for her. He knew it was ridiculous. He’d only known her for one hundred and eleven days. Pragmatically, he knew she shouldn’t be the one he wanted to talk to. Realistically, he wasn’t planning to burden her with all of the mess of the past week, the past year, his entire life.

But in the six hundred and forty seven minutes he’d spent with her since September, he’d felt more like himself than he ever had. He was never afraid to be himself with her— the silly story voices, the ridiculous costume, the magic trick, the vulnerability about his mom. All of these pieces of himself were things he usually waited years to show people. It had taken her a matter of weeks to draw them out.

He couldn’t help but believe that if he wanted to, he could tell her everything. She’d know exactly what to say. She’d listen for as long as he could keep talking. She’d cover his shaking hands and wrap him up in the warmth of her spirit. She’d give of herself to guide him back to the person he used to be. She’d be more than willing to use her radiance to illuminate the dark so that he might have a little light again.

The bell sounded, and his eyes focused, and there she was. She was wrapped up in a puffed jacket, a bright blue scarf tied around her neck. Her nose was adorably red from the cold, and she rubbed her hands together as the door closed behind her. Her eyes found him immediately. A small smile turned up the corners of her mouth, and she gave him an enthusiastic wave. And he knew that he was right about all of it.

She approached the table, unwinding her scarf. “Hi!”

“Hi.”

Her eyes flickered over his face, and then settled on his mostly empty mug. “I’ll get you a refill, and then we’ll catch up?”

He nodded, and she headed to the counter. There had been a part of him that thought she wouldn’t come, but of course she did. For some reason, unbeknownst to him, she liked talking to him. Even among his closest friends, he was often made to feel self-conscious about his tendency to ramble, but Y/N had literally asked him to. She sought him out, asked him questions, listened intently, and remembered things he’d told her. She was kind and thoughtful and genuine. Of course she came when he called.

She returned with two mugs, carefully setting them down on the tiny table. She unzipped and removed her jacket, hanging it on the back of her chair and revealing a crew neck sweater covered in tiny astronauts and rocket ships. When she sat across from him, her hands wrapped around the mug and her eyes met his.

“Hi.”

He couldn’t stop his lips from twitching, despite the events of the day. “You said that already.”

She laughed, and he felt the weight begin to lift. “Yeah, well, I haven’t seen you in forever, so— I’m just making up for lost time.”

“Sixty one days.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s been sixty one days, eighty eight minutes, and approximately,” he looked at his watch, “fourteen seconds since we saw each other last.”

She laughed again, and his mouth completed its curve. She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I like that you’ve been counting.” She let her chin come to rest in her hand, eyes studying his face. “How are you?”

He wanted to lie, but she was looking at him so earnestly that he mumbled out, “I’m managing.”

She mirrored the way he’d looked at her across this same table nearly three months ago. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” That was a lie, too. But asking her to meet him was enough of a burden.

“Okay. Well, if you change your mind at any point, let me know.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Until then, I can just regale you with all the kindergarten stories you’ve missed while you were out saving lives.”

And regale him she did. For almost an hour, he listened to her tales of love (budding crushes were taking over recess time), loss (the class pet— a stuffed zebra— had accidentally taken a swim in the Atlantic on a vacation to Florida), and lessons learned…

“So, in case there was ever any doubt, we are now painfully aware that we shouldn’t attempt to flush our underwear.” Y/N let out an exasperated laugh.

She’d been talking to him for fifty three minutes, and his heart already felt one thousand times lighter. “I’m really glad I wasn’t there for that one.”

“I really wish that was the only poop story I had.” She shook her head. “There are a lot of things they don’t tell you in grad school. I think there’d be a global teacher shortage if they warned you about the amount of bodily fluid management involved in teaching kindergarten.”

She toyed with the edge of her empty mug. He watched the movement of her fingers.

“Do you—”

“Do you—”

She laughed and gestured for him to speak first.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

…

They ended up in Mitchell Park. The trees were bare and the grass was brown, but he was with her, and so it was beautiful.

They’d been walking in comfortable silence, when she asked, “Did you change your mind? About talking about it.”

Spencer put his hands into his pockets. “It’s, um— it’s kind of a lot.”

She shrugged. “I’ve got time.”

“I don’t mean— I mean, it would take some time to get through it all. But it’s also— it’s a lot.”

“We don’t have to.” He could feel her eyes on him. “Do you talk to— someone about it?”

“I talked with my unit chief today,” he answered.

“Okay. But— I mean, have you ever— talked to someone. Like, a professional.”

Spencer bristled slightly. Although he knew she wasn’t passing judgement, her question exposed the reality that she thought he could use it. “I’ve had some mandated counseling over the years.”

“Obviously it’s your choice whether you talk to someone or not,” she mused. “I just— I know that I’ve benefited a lot from seeing my therapist.”

Spencer was unsure of what to do with that information. Here she was, confessing that she went to therapy— sweet, lovely Y/N. In comparison, he wasn’t sure if even daily meetings with a counselor would be enough to tame the darkness that had grown and festered inside him over the years. That sometimes threatened to swallow him whole.

For a long while, there was only the crunch of the frozen ground beneath their feet. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but there was an uncertainty about them that felt uncharacteristically heavy. He was hyper aware of her presence, and so he felt her pace slowing down before she came to a complete stop. He walked a few more paces before it became clear that she wasn’t planning to catch up.

He turned and saw that she’d taken a seat on one of the park benches. He carefully made his way to the bench, sitting beside her quietly. She didn’t look at him, but instead studied her fingernails intently. She cracked her knuckles once, twice, and then turned her body slightly toward him on the bench.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped,” she hedged carefully. “I didn’t mean to tell you what to do, or like, imply that there’s anything wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with you at all. I just—”

“It’s fine,” Spencer assured her. The way she looked at him then— like he was something fragile, delicate— made his eyes burn. He kept his voice even. “I know what you meant.”

She smiled, eyes crinkling and filled with something that felt familiar and far away all at once. “Good. I can’t have you out here thinking you’re anything less than wonderful.”

He couldn’t stop looking at her, attempting to solve the impossible cypher behind her irises. As he failed to decode it, his inability to read her blinded him to what came next. He missed the dilation of her pupils, the way her tongue darted out to wet her lips, the increase of the beats in her carotid. So when she leaned in and pressed her mouth to his, he was momentarily paralyzed.

Her lips were so soft against his slightly chapped ones, pressing with a perfectly gentle pressure. She brought her hand up to cradle his cheek, the pads of her fingers just barely ghosting the curls falling around his ear. She sighed into his mouth and pressed a little closer. He took one peaceful moment to bask in the realization of a desire he’d had for almost four months.

And then she swiped the very tentative tip of her tongue against the seam of his mouth, and his hands involuntarily wound into her hair, dragging her closer. He opened his mouth against hers to swallow her sweet little gasp. His grip on her hair tightened, and she let out the tiniest mewl, and like a switch had flipped— suddenly his mind was full of the darkness she’d spent the evening chasing away.

Y/N beneath him in the dark. Maeve in a pool of blood. His hands around Cat’s neck. His mother’s slap against his cheek. Max walking away from him. His fingers pressing the plunger on a dirty syringe. The slam of the door behind his father. Y/N calling out his name. A knife at his throat under a canopy of bones. Innumerable sets of lifeless eyes staring up at him. His life being snuffed out on the dirt floor of a shed. The clanging of metal bars and fingers ghosting over old bruises. Y/N looking at him with warm, loving eyes. The violent crack of bone underneath his fists. Y/N’s face, lovely and perfect— and then twisted in pain.

He broke away from her, releasing his hold on her hair and pushing her back into the bench. He took a second to gather himself before he dared to look at her. Her hair was tousled from his rough grip; her eyes were half-lidded and focused on him; her lips were red and kiss-bruised and turned up in a small, sweet smile.

And all at once he knew he had to hurt her, and it had to be now. Because what Cat had said about him was true. He might have escaped his mother’s illness, but he hadn’t been able to outrun the violence— and unlike her, he didn’t have the excuse of being sick. He had hurt people, and he had enjoyed it. He would have killed Hurley, and he would have slept soundly. He was no better than the men his team hunted.

Every time he thought he’d moved past it, that wickedness lurking just under the surface would grab him by the throat, choking everything else out. Emily’s directive rang in his ears. Find that Reid and bring him back to us. He knew who she was talking about. The problem was, he wasn’t sure that person still existed.

He was going to hurt Y/N eventually. Better to do it now, before things got too far.

“You’re Michael’s teacher,” he said, as evenly as possible.

Her smile faltered, and she pressed her lips together. He could still feel the phantom press of them against his own, and he was sure he’d never forget it. She cleared her throat. “You’re right, you’re totally right. I, um— I won’t be in a few months, and maybe then—”

“You don’t even know me,” he interrupted.

Now there was confusion in her eyes. That much he could read. She huffed out a small laugh. “I— I don’t think that’s entirely true.”

He looked directly at her. “Why? Because you read my bio on a university website? Because we got tea a couple times?” His voice sounded harsh, patronizing, and he hated it.

Her confusion shifted into shock, and he ignored the tug on his heart. “Are you serious?” she questioned, genuinely searching for a sign that he was joking.

“Dead serious.” He shrugged, and it felt like his bones were breaking. “You don’t really know anything about me, Y/N. If you did, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

“Where— where is this coming from?” Her voice was small, close to breaking. He lined up the last nail on the lid of the coffin.

“Maybe I gave you the wrong impression. I’ve appreciated talking to you. Volunteering in your classroom was entertaining. But I don’t— I don’t see you that way.” It was a lie, and if he didn’t have such a practiced poker face, she might have seen through it. As it was, his poker face had helped get him banned from every casino in Vegas, so he watched her as he hammered the final nail. “You’re just Michael’s kindergarten teacher.”

“Oh.” The hurt flashed across her features— the furrow of her brow, the tightening of her mouth, the storm clouds in her eyes. “Well, I— I really read this wrong, huh?” She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Yeah.” He put his hands into his pockets to keep himself from reaching for her, the desire to comfort her a strange juxtaposition to the pain he was intentionally inflicting on her. “I guess so.”

She opened and closed her mouth twice before taking a deep breath and nearly whispering, “Okay. Well. I’m— I’m gonna go.”

She brushed some imaginary dust from her pants and then stood. She turned to him, and he waited for her to explode— to scream and curse at him. But it didn’t come. She didn’t look at him at all. “Um— yeah. I’m gonna go.”

He didn’t say anything, and he knew she’d take his silence as indifference. But he had to keep his mouth shut, because if he didn’t, he’d beg her to stay. He’d tell her every single random piece of information he had stored in his brain. He’d tell her that he loved her from the moment he watched her help a child pick a solution from a pencil box. He’d tell her that he only ever dreamt of two things these days— her or the lives he didn’t save. He’d tell her every single one of his deepest, darkest secrets. He’d tell her that sometimes he was so afraid of himself that he could barely breathe. And if he told her all of that, she’d walk away anyway.

So instead, he watched her turn and start back up the path, hugging her arms around herself and swiping her cheek against her scarf.

When she disappeared over the slope of the path, he scrubbed his hands over his own damp face and let himself break.

———

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Broken tags: @saspencereid @this-is-gublerween

[free-pancakes]

Do you have any headcanons about an au Levihan reunion scene where Zeke never blew himself up and Levi has to fight off the Yeagerists to get to Hange? 🥺🙏

wow anon... this... this was a lot. well, here ya go!

————

Levi struggled to catch his breath, and leaned on a nearby tree for support. He was inches away from killing Zeke, who by some stroke of luck, got away, and the pain of failing at his promise to Erwin once again fell heavily upon his shoulders. He was out of thunderspears, blades were all broken, and only his ODM gear was spared. He wasn’t sure what his next move was, but the only thing on his mind was his comrades’ safety. He had no idea where the 104th kids were, nor Hange. With this turn of events, he had no doubt they had ran into trouble, all he could do was hold onto hope that they were all still alive. But by some miracle, he received an answer to one of his questions right then and there.

Yelling sounded from right outside the forest foliage, and he stumbled towards the sound. He peered through the leaves to see a group of people in familiar green hoods, one standing over a limp body. The figure kicked at it, and its blood-stained hand fell lifeless to its side.

“Where is Zeke?” the man yelled, uncovering his head to unveil a mess of hair—Floch. The body didn’t answer. In anger, Floch pulled up the body by its collar, its hood falling over to reveal a mess of hair, a mix of deep red and...brown?

Levi couldn’t remember what happened next, all he felt was rage, a fire tickling every inch of his body, clouds of anger blinding his vision. All that was left of the scene was the Yaegerists unconscious and tied up on the sopping wet grass as the rain showered hate over their bodies.

Levi dashed into the forest, Hange propped up on his back. He constantly shifted his right shoulder upwards to keep her limp head from sliding over. He ran and ran until he felt they reached a safe distance. “Just a little farther,” he thought, when suddenly, he left the steady puffs of breath against his neck cease.

No.

In a panic he gently laid Hange onto the soft grass beneath them, observing the unnatural stillness of her chest. Once again he couldn’t remember what happened next, only the sense of fear and his hands desperately pumping chest compressions over the one person he cared about the most.

He only came to his senses once Hange coughed out and inhaled, and felt life coursing through her veins. He lifted Hange’s head and cradled it in his arms, and hugged her close, feeling her heart beat strongly against him. He felt her stir, and mumble incoherently, and naturally, he told her to shut up and save her energy.

“Attempting to leave this world without me, huh? Try again, four-eyes.”

Her eyes remained closed, but a weak smile appeared on her lips, and her hand lightly squeezed his arm—wordless gestures that Levi understood because he knew her that well. Hange was alive, barely holding on and toeing the line to the other side, but yes, alive. He held onto her as though his life depended on it, and let his tears fall over her, washing away the dirt and blood clinging onto her skin. All that mattered right now was that she was safe, and in his arms, this bittersweet reunion stretching for what felt like hours. He would never let go, and he would never let anyone hurt her again.

[spookybreadstick]

Hullo! I was hoping to request something. Idk if you know or heard of Kenny McCormick from South Park. If you don't then a little summary on him is that he's basically cursed with dying almost daily but coming back to life the next day. Nobody remembers him dying but Kenny does remember and also remembers the pain he felt when he died. I don't know if you have a character limit or not but if it's too much then you can choose what characters you'd like to do. How would Jeff, BEN, Liu/Sully, Masky, And Hoodie feel about the reader having the same kinda curse as Kenny?

I know absolutely nothing about South Park, so I’m just going off of what you described to me. I hope you like this and I’m sorry this took a minute. This was really fun to write, so thank you for the idea <3 

💖💞💖💞💖💞

🔪 Jeff with a s/o that dies and comes back to life each day 🔪

🔪 Jeff wouldn't believe you if you told him. 

🔪 Honestly, he'd be pretty upset that you'd “lie” to him like this and it would cause a fight. 

🔪 You'd eventually make up but he still wouldn't believe you. 

🔪 When people die, they're dead. That's it. End of story. 

🔪 Of course, there are some special cases. EJ didn't exactly die but he didn't not die. He was technically "reborn" as a demon. BEN and Sally both died, but they came back as ghosts. If you died but came back, you'd be a ghost-person, not a human-person. People don't just bounce back after they die, he of all people knows that. 

🔪 Your curse? Impossible in Jeff's mind.

🔪  It would take you a long time to convince Jeff that your curse is real. 

🔪 Once he does discover that you were telling the truth, he'll immediately be filled with regret. Why did he yell at you for “lying” to him? Why didn't he believe you?

🔪  He feels really bad about it, which is saying something because Jeff doesn't usually regret a lot of the things he does. 

🔪 He tries to make it up to you by protecting you the best he can. He will be by your side 24/7, ready to fight whatever comes your way trying to kill you.

🔪 If the curse persists anyway, he will go to Slender to ask for help breaking the curse. 

🔪 This is a big deal for Jeff, who hates to admit that he can't do something (in this case he can't protect you from the curse) and he hates to ask for help. 

🔪 He will do it for you though, because he loves you. 

🔪 You're one of the few people in this world that he actually cares about, and he doesn't want you to have to live with this curse anymore. 

��� BEN with a s/o that dies and comes back to life each day 🎮

🎮 BEN would think you're pranking him at first. 

🎮 You'd have to really convince him that it's not a joke, you're actually being serious. 

🎮 Once he realizes that you aren't kidding about this, he'll feel terrible about ignoring the seriousness of the situation. He might even cry. 

🎮 BEN remembers, although very faintly, how he felt when he died.

🎮  It breaks his heart to know that you're dying every single day and there's nothing he can do about it. 

🎮 Unlike Jeff, BEN doesn't believe that he can protect you from the curse.

🎮  His method of helping you is to hop on to the internet as soon as possible, so he can search for any information on your curse and what can be done to break it. He's going on a deep dive to the dark corners of the internet to get this info, and he'll spend hours researching if need be. 

🎮 BEN will then do whatever it takes to get whatever he needs to try out these methods of undoing the curse.

🎮 Depending on what he finds, he may actually be able to break the curse himself.

🎮 If he can't break the curse himself, he won't hesitate to ask Slender for help. 

🎮 BEN loves you and he doesn’t want you to have to live like this anymore (in all honestly, he’d rather have you join him in the after-life than continue to die and wake up as a living person each day). 

🧣 Liu/Sully with a s/o that dies and comes back to life each day 🧣

🧣 Liu would believe you right away, but Sully wouldn't. 

🧣 Sully is naturally skeptical about everything, while Liu is much more trusting, so this isn't really a surprise.

🧣 There are two different ways that you could go about explaining your curse, and it all depends on who is fronting at the moment. 

 If you explained your curse while Liu was fronting: 

🧣 You would get a very concerned Liu for a few moments, asking you every relevant question he can think of. 

🧣 Then Sully would front, and you'd have to put up with his passive aggressiveness. 

🧣 He doesn't believe you for a minute, and he'll make sure you know that with his attitude. 

🧣 Eventually you'd just have to give up and wait until Liu fronts again. 

🧣 Once he does, Liu wouldn't waste another minute before he goes running around the mansion looking for anyone who would have any more information on your curse. 

🧣 Liu doesn't know Slender and wouldn't feel comfortable asking him for help, but he'd do it for you if that was the last option.

 If you explained your curse while Sully is fronting: 

😈 Be prepared for him to yell. 

😈 He'll be angry because he thinks you're lying to him, and also making fun of their trauma in a way. 

😈 Liu was very close to death from the, uh, "incident" and Jeff even believed that Liu had come back from the dead when the two of them met again. So Sully thinks that you're making some sort of joke out of what Liu went through. 

😈 Yelling at you is his way of getting you to admit that you're “lying” about the whole thing. When you don't break down, he'll storm off for a while. Let him be. 

😈 Liu will front eventually, and he'll come running back to you. 

😈 You'll have to go over everything one more time, but then he'll be ready to help you however he can. 

😈 Sully, the next time he fronts, will apologize to you in his own way by being more affectionate than usual to try to make up for his earlier outburst (and to try to protect you as best he can. Liu doesn’t think he can protect you from this curse, but Sully does). 

🎭 Masky with a s/o that dies and comes back to life each day ��

🎭 Masky would be concerned for your mental health. 

🎭 He knows you wouldn't lie about something like this, nor would you joke about it with him (he certainly wouldn't find it funny) so this must mean that you're losing your marbles. 

🎭 He would make you go to EJ to be checked out. 

🎭 Once EJ gives you the clean bill of health, Masky would sit down with you and ask you to explain yourself. 

🎭 After you explain the situation, Masky will take you directly to Slender for help. I'm talking like as soon as the last words leave your mouth, he's dragging you by the hand towards Slender's office. 

🎭 There’s no hesitation on his part once he gets a clear picture of what’s going on.

🎭  He’s not going to just wait around for you to die again, he wants this to stop right now. 

🎭 You mean everything to him, and he can’t bear the thought of you dying each day while he is helpless. No, he needs to get Slender involved right away so that this curse can be broken. 

❓Hoodie with a s/o that dies and comes back to life each day ❓

❓ Hoodie would believe you right away. 

❓ He would know that this isn't something you'd joke about, and he'd take you seriously from the start. 

❓ He would first alert Masky to the situation. 

❓Better to have two people looking out for your safety than just one. 

❓ Next he would go to BEN to ask him what he knows about stuff like this, and he would apply any useful information that he'd get from BEN to your situation. 

❓ If that doesn't work, then he has no problem going to Slender for help with breaking the curse. 

❓ Since the two of you are in a relationship, in Hoodie’s mind that means his problems are also your problems and your problems are also his problems. 

❓ So this curse of yours? 

❓ You’re both in this together, and he’s not leaving your side.

~~~~

Note: If Slender can’t break your curse on his own, he would most likely be able to give you some kind of help, even if it’s just the name of a being who might be able to help you. Even if there’s nothing he can really do, all of the boys would do whatever they could to break this curse on their own. They’d never stop trying to save you from dying, they’d never stop looking for ways to break the curse, and they’d do whatever it takes to find somebody that could help you. 

~~~~~

[jasonndeans]

young gods - shane “dio” morrissey x reader

word count: 1,990

warnings: brief scene involving harassment and brief use of the f slur at the end.

chapter: 1/?

summary:  You weren't looking for anything when you met Dio, but you also couldn't take your eyes off of him. You were drawn to him, shrouded in black mystery and his softer side he kept well hidden under that duster. A part of you knew when you first saw him, he was destined to fly too close to the sun. At first, it wasn't really anything he said or anything he did. It was the feeling that came along with him. You'd never felt this way before, and the crazy thing is, you didn't know if you should. You knew his world moved too fast and burned too bright, but...how can the Devil be pulling you towards someone who looks so much like an angel when he smiles at you? Maybe he knew that when he met you, too.

Dio didn’t have much to bring with him on the day he took you up on your offer to live with you in your small New York City apartment; small, albeit big enough for two. He carried almost all of his earthly possessions with him in his pockets — the keys to his father’s ancient, barely running Honda, a pack of cigarettes, loose cash and change, and his trusty switch. The rest would have to be crammed into his car and hauled over, mostly consisting of clothes and shoes, thrifted or stolen. 

“I was wonderin’ when you’d rescue me from the Smack Shack,” he’d quipped, lips curling.

“The Smack Shack” is what he’d dubbed the worn-down, abandoned place he and his buddies — all of them pursuers of a list of drugs, some of them sellers like Dio — often crashed in when a softer, more secure sofa couldn’t be reserved for the night. Thus, The Smack Shack. You’d visited a handful of times despite the fact that it gave you the creeps. Dio had your trust, as did…some of his friends. The neighborhood just wasn’t the safest in Manhattan, needless to say, and there was no guessing what shady characters were looming about in these hollowed out homes. You’re just glad he’s out of there. And with you.

“Ohh, I rescued you, huh?” You’d teased back, your voice lilting in a sing-song tone. “I must be your knight in shining armor.”

He hummed in the back of his throat with a mock grimace, leaning forward to kiss you. “Don’t make me sick, birdie.” His lips were chapped and tasted of smoke, and as much as you detested the habit, it was something so purely Dio. A smirk played on his lips upon pulling back with decorated fingers idly tapping out a rhythm onto a tabletop of a squat little sandwich shop you worked at. “I seem to remember things differently.” Expectant, he cocked his head, casting a shadow of his star-shaped earring onto his neck -- one of many, many things that endeared you to the boy in black.

As if on cue, you turned sheepish with a duck of your head and a bashful smile cast downwards. He was referring to the day you two first met. Officially, that is. Along with the thrill of waitressing and constructing sandwiches, you worked behind a cash register at a record shop -- Empire Records. Music’s always been a constant comfort for you, in your ears when you needed a voice to scream your sorrows, your rampages or your little victories. You’d amassed quite the collection of records as you grew and your music taste with you for a player you’d fixed up and obtained from a seller when on the hunt for more important things like furniture and necessities to fill your then new apartment. You didn’t consider yourself to be one of those douchey vinyl connoisseurs, but you liked the place well enough. It was only a matter of time before you noticed the tall, dark, handsome boy who’d frequent the place without buying anything. He’d stick to the Industrial Rock or Post-Punk ailes and he definitely looked the type, decked head to toe in grungey black attire, adorned with silver jewelry and chains. Every so often the two of you would lock eyes, make slightly painful small talk about whatever was playing through the speakers. You even inquired once if he’d learned your shift schedule with how often he’d appear when you were working, and, leaning suavely on his elbows before you, he’d replied:

“Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t. That all depends...would you think I was a creep if I said yes?”

Perhaps a normal individual would confirm this, but you had to admit the guy was cute. Okay, he was hot with his dark eyes lined in black, brow piercing and air of confidence. So you smiled and shook your head. Dio smiled back.

You recall during one of your early morning shifts, Dio asked for your coffee order, motioning to the cup in your hands. You gave it to him and he advised against grabbing your morning coffee the next time it was scheduled on your calendar. With curiosity, you obliged and on that day and each day after, in he strolled with your cup in one hand, his in the other. So you carried on like that for a while, chatting over coffee, much to the dismay of your manager.

“Your boyfriend’s a distraction,” she’d remarked one day. “And a loiterer. I don’t care how dreamy he is, he can’t keep hanging around here if he’s not gonna buy anything.”

Admittedly, that caused your heart to sink a little. Yeah, you understood her frustration from a business perspective, but despite not even knowing this guy’s name, his gloomy presence brightened your otherwise dull work days.

When you transferred your manager’s message, Dio issued a breath of...disappointment?

“I don’t believe in money,” came his confession, almost hardly classifying as one what with how casually it was delivered. He chuckled at your raised brow. “Everyone’s a slave to these meaningless pieces of paper and metal, even you. ” A nail painted black pointed at you. “If I want something, nine times outta ten, I’ll find my own way to get it. Seems a little fucked up to work for the essentials for survival, don’t you think?”

For a moment, you sat with this new information. Yeah, it was a little fucked up to fork over hard-earned cash for things like basic needs, but how else was someone expected to live? Mulling it over, you sipped your coffee, once again brought by him. You shot Mr. No-Name-Kid a knowing look. “Am I drinking stolen coffee?” Your smirk couldn’t hide from him.

Dio only laughed.

One night as you closed up shop, you were disheartened at the absence of a certain trench coat clad “customer” in the store that day. You couldn’t place where this was coming from. After all, the two of you were only..what? Acquaintances at most? Names hadn’t even been exchanged, and yet you found yourself scanning the streets outside for any sight of him at the door; reminded of his face when bands like The Cure filled the shop.

Your sigh deflated you as you dug for your keys in your bag -- both to lock up and for your car. It was whatever. This guy had a life too and was under no obligation to visit you as you worked.  You turned the key to Empire Records, locking it shut and gave the doors a pull to be sure, Yup. All good. Nodding to yourself, you turned to locate your car in the lot next door. The night was brisk, pushing past the fabric of your cardigan as you walked an empty sidewalk. Under the glow of buzzing streetlights and neon business signs, you tugged it closer to you. The work day was dwindling, at least on this street, cars every so often rolling past. You’re about halfway to the car park when your ears catch a second pair of footsteps behind you. Your lips and spirits lift with the hope that they might belong to the heavy boots of Dio after all and you turn to greet him.

“Nice night, huh?”

This guy’s not Dio. His hoodie covers shaggy chestnut hair, hands in his front pocket as he trudges along. This dude reeks of weed and booze. You ignore him and continue on your path.

“Not a talker. Got it. Listen, honey, you don’t gotta clam up around me, I’m a swell guy. I’ll walk ya’ to your car, that’s where you’re goin’, right?”

Jaw clenched, you ball your cool hands into fists at your sides, keeping your car key poking out from between your fingers should this douche not get the hint. “I don’t need an escort, thanks.” Your reply is sharp, eyes remaining en route. Other than that, you try your damndest to ease calm through your body. Tempting as it is to dash to the safety of your vehicle, you’re not about to put any fear on display for him. You’re okay. Breathe. The lot’s less than a block away now.

Then a hand snakes its way around your waist.

“C’mon, baby, ‘m just tryn’a be a gentleman. Isn’t that what broads want?” His breath is rancid in your nose.

You jerk away, shooting daggers. “Offer declined, now leave me alone.” Now you pick up the pace with your destination in sight. You don’t make it far before you’re jerked back by fingers at your forearm that tug forcefully. The bastard opens his mouth to spew more drovel, but you don’t give him the chance to speak. Screwing up your face, you reel your arm back and jab him with your key in the ribs.

Pain sputters through his lips. No skin was broken (unfortunately), but he’s stumbled back a few paces and grabs where you’d struck him. “You bitch!” He spits, his glare glassy. “Fuck’s your problem?!”

You’re halted by a chilling mixture of fear and shock at your own actions, snapping out of it when the drunk stranger lunges forward. No time is wasted in absolutely fucking booking it now. He may be hammered, but you’re taking no chances. You pay no attention to the string of swears and slurs from behind you and finally reach your car. The vibrations in your hands make unlocking the door difficult, and glancing up you can see your pursuer drunkenly heading toward you.

“Fuck!” You cry. “Stupid fucking--!”

“If I were you I’d stop right there, you piece of shit.”

The familiar voice that hadn’t been there prior snaps your head up, scanning the darkness to catch Dio crossing the street looking more menacing than you’ve ever seen him. You could get in your car and peel out of there right now, but you’re frozen in place watching the scene unfold.

Your attacker finds his way to his feet again, looking dumbfounded at the character who’s walked onto the scene. “Who -- who the fuck’re you?!”

You catch a smirk on Dio’s lips under flickering streetlights. “That all depends on what your next move is, jagoff.” He looks pissed as all hell, though there’s a layer of calm to his words that stirs your stomach. Dio now stands in front of the other with his hands in leather pockets, like he’s provoking him. He’s always exuded this...intimidating aura, clad in all black and chains but you’ve never seen this side of him in action. Maybe now is a bad time to come to this realization, but you have to admit: it’s sexy.

“Oh that’s, ‘s cute,” Mumbles the brunette guy, snickering. “‘S this your boyfriend comin’ to the rescue? Looks like a fuckin’ faggot if I’ve ever seen--”

Dio’s boot to this guy’s crotch cuts him off in the middle of his “insult” and he crumples to the concrete with a groan; if that isn’t enough, Dio lands a second kick to his temple.

You can only stand there lamely with your jaw agape and watch him swagger over after he just knocked a dude in the nuts.

“Sorry I was late,” he says smoothly. “I was in a meeting. You alright?”

Stupidly, you blink at him in the low light. “I--um...I’m…” Real nice. You shake your head to jumpstart your brain. “Yeah, I-I’m okay. I’m good. Thanks. Really.” So he’d come to see you after all.

Dio nods, appearing grateful to hear you’re unharmed.

You two begin to speak at the same time and chuckle in unison. He falls silent, ushering you to continue. You look your rescuer in the face, unable to swallow a smile. You’d missed those eyes, seeming so warm in the cool of the night. “So, do I get to know the name of my savior?” You prod.

He laughs once, low in his throat. “Dio.”

[jess-rewatches-prodigalson]

Bad Manners (S2, E5)

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:35 - Martin totally thought John Watkins abducted and killed Ainsley. Mark my words. 

0:44 - Holy. Shit. Ainsley is FIVE years old (or younger) here right? A five year old with that much determination?!?! She literally stayed silent in that clock for probably hours......and no one was concerned about this kid when Martin was arrested because...?

1:09 - Anyone else impressed with Malcolm’s aim here? Just me?

1:20 - Gil and Malcolm talking about sleep and murder is so freaking sweet. <3 Honestly, they’re acting like friends instead of co-workers and it warms my cold dead heart. 

1:29 - Does Gil become a grumpy old man when he doesn’t get 8 hours sleep? I really want to know now. 

1:39 - OMG. Gil pointing at Ainsley here is hilarious. He’s totally acting like some weird mix of a stern pissed off high-school teacher, and a step-dad trying to discipline an unruly teen. hahaha AND MALCOLM’S FACE. Look how done Malcolm is. He looks so so tired, sad, and exasperated. 

1:44 - Wow. Girl power. Ainsley has those camera guys bending to her will. I honestly would’ve thought they would just read the situation and turn the camera off themselves. 

1:47 - “It’s not a game.” Yikes. I have thoughts about this:

Malcolm is right - it’s not a game. 

Malcolm is a bit of a hypocrite for saying that to Ainsley. Although, to his credit even when Malcolm is excited/inappropriately happy about murder it’s always pretty clear that he thinks murder is wrong, and that he has sympathy for the victims and their families. 

Ainsley does not have that same sympathy for the victims. That much is clear later in this episode. 

Pretty sure the writers are trying to turn Ainsley into a serial killer this season. 

2:13 - “You know I like to share these things with my friends.” .....does this mean Malcolm thinks Dani and JT are his friends now? Last I checked (Ep 1x05) Malcolm didn’t have friends. This absolutely melts my heart. <3 I’m honestly so happy that Malcolm considers someone other than Gil to be his friend.

2:18 - “We lost Dani to vice.” .....What is vice? AND WHAT IS THE REAL LIFE REASON THAT DANI WASN���T IN THIS EPISODE?!? 

2:19 - Edrisa has a medical degree right? She has to know how dangerous consuming that much caffeine is right? Plus aren’t energy drinks super dangerous if you drink a lot of them (or maybe that’s just what adults in my neighbourhood told kids)?

2:30 - Edrisa SHINES in this episode. She’s so funny and awkward and I just love her. 

2:36 - hahaha Gil has adopted the whole team. Look at him throwing the “Dad warning stare” at Edrisa. 

3:31 - Why does Edrisa start bouncing around looking upset when Malcolm says, “rejection is a powerful motivator”?!?! Has she recently been broken up with or something? Is this a reference to how she has a crush on Malcolm (who doesn’t reciprocate)? I WANT MORE INFORMATION.

3:47 - TWIZZLERS!!! <3 Damn I love how this tiny detail about Malcolm’s character keeps coming up. 

3:55 - Ainsley is on a rampage this episode. She’s so determined ...actually she’s acting a lot like Jessica (think girl in the box bracelet). However, unlike Jessica, Ainsley’s motives aren’t about justice or the safety of her loved ones.  Ainsley is chasing personal gain (career) with a side of (a subconscious?) need to be exposed to murder and her father’s twisted world. 

4:05 - This whole interaction between Ainsley and Malcolm is really interesting. Ainsley is knowingly manipulating Malcolm to get the answers she wants. We’ve seen her do it in 2x4 and 1x19. She knows her big brother would do anything for her. It makes sense, they’re five years apart and after the trauma they experienced as children Malcolm felt responsible to protect Ainsley. He never wants to disappoint Ainsley. Not a burden he should’ve had to deal with but I digress. PLUS Malcolm looks weary of Ainsley here. He knows what she’s doing. He’s scared that she’s turning to the dark side. But he still gives her the answers because if he doesn’t - that means something has changed. He thinks that would make Ainsley suspicious and then she might remember what happened to Endicott. He’s scared of and for Ainsley. 

4:32 - OKAY. I’ll say it. The thing that annoys me the most about this episode is that it suggests that Ainsley was a debutant when in 1x6 AINSLEY TELLS MARTIN SHE WAS NEVER A DEBUTANT. She went to etiquette school - I guess that doesn’t strictly mean she also did debutant balls but it sort of suggests it in the context of this episode? Did she actually graduate from the etiquette school (there was bullying, maybe she was expelled/dropped out similar to Malcolm and Remington?)?

4:59 - “No stabbies” OMG. How is this show not classified as a comedy?!? Istg I laugh harder watching this ‘drama’ then I do watching most of the shows that call themselves ‘comedies’.

5:35 - It’s honestly kind of amazing that Ainsley and Malcolm are as ‘sane’ as they are. They were raised by a stubborn predatory psychopath and a stubborn rich meddling socialite. They had no chance of normalcy. Look at the amount of pleasure Martin is currently getting by throwing his son under the bus with regards to Jessica. 

 5:45 - “No actually, I cleaned it up.”.....does this have a dual meaning? Did Martin do something to make Malcolm dispose of the body? We already know that Martin has tried some sort of conditioning on Malcolm (remember ‘C’mon boy!’ from 1x14? The stabbing?). What if Martin said some sort of trigger word to control Malcolm and coerced Malcolm into getting rid of the body? What if this isn’t the first time?

6:05 - Ainsley is a sociopath. I’m calling it again. I called it when I first watched Q&A (1x7) because the way she treated Malcolm was more than just selfish/careless. It was cruel and she didn’t feel any remorse for literally broadcasting her brother’s private health details on television. That is messed up. I honestly won’t be shocked if the writers make Ainsley a full blown serial killers (although I’m not sure I want that because I don’t know how Malcolm would remain the main character if the story goes in that direction?). 

6:12 - Poor Jessica. I honestly feel really bad for her. Sure, she’s a headstrong alcohol dependant crazy rich woman. She also has a good heart. She’s been dealt a pretty shitty hand when it comes to relationships (minus Gil but she ruined that because she’s a MORON) and now she’s terrified that her own children have become monsters and she blames herself. She definitely hasn’t been a perfect mother but I don’t think she’s to blame for Ainsley and Malcolm’s obsession with murder. If these kids had a different bio dad, they would probably just have a low-key drug problem or some other common rich kid baggage. 

6:15 - “You know that’s not how cancer works right?” LOL. hahahaha

6:33 - Martin kind of has a point. There’s no rehab for murder. That’s why he’s been in jail for 20 years and he still wants to kill people. In my opinion, given what we’ve seen of Ainsley’s personality: as soon as she fully remembers that night - she’s gone. She’ll go full serial killer and Jessica and Malcolm will lose her forever. 

6:40 - Jessica’s little jazz hand finger twinkle as she spins on her heel and leaves Martin kills me. It’s so extra. It’s so funny. And it’s sooo Jessica. 

6:47 - Damn. Martin is pissed. I’m worried. That’s murder-level rage. If he escapes ISTG Martin is going to try and kill Gil. For so many reasons 1) because he hates Gil, 2) it’ll hurt Jessica, and 3) killing Gil will eliminate his ‘Dad’ competition. 

6:54 - Edrisa on caffeine is AMAZING.

7:43 - I love Edrisa but her blatant, unreciprocated crush on Malcolm is honestly getting a little creepy. 

7:52 - Gil spent all last season drinking out of a Yankee’s mug. Doesn’t that mean he’s a baseball fan? Why doesn’t he know this pitcher guy?

7:56 - hahahaa “Where is JT?” Because obviously JT is the team sports fan. 

8:22 - Does Gil get nightmares about cases? He always seems really uncomfortable around the dead bodies. 

8:45 - “And suddenly I’m wide awake” SERIOUSLY - is anyone else laughing every 60 seconds when they watch this show? Is my sense of humour just super dark and messed up?

8:54 - YES. The liquorice is BACK.

9:00 - I love Malcolm talking to JT about his obsession with candy. I love how Malcolm doesn’t even hesitate before giving JT an honest answer. Malcolm is acting like JT’s annoying little brother and I am here for it. One thing I did notice though - Malcolm specifically mentions candy+dopamine but doesn’t mention his depression/anxiety. Processed sugar can be a short-term (unhealthy) way to boost your mood. It’s why some people eat their feelings. I really want more backstory about Malcolm with the lollipops and licorice though. 

9:19 - “But you didn’t do anything wrong.” Awwww Malcolm is so soft here. I love how much he genuinely cares about JT. <3 I love how JT is comfortable enough with Malcolm to give him an honest answer. <3 THEIR RELATIONSHIP HAS GONE THROUGH SUCH A GLOW UP. <3 

9:32 - “Like toy dolls?” hahaha the way Malcolm perked up here. All I could think was “SQUIRREL!” hahaha. 

9:41 - Malcolm is doing better than he has been the past few episodes? I mean he’s still suffering and he’s still in a terrible mental state. BUT he also seems happier? IDK maybe he’s just entered the more manic nervous energy stage of his emotions as opposed to the depressed and scared stage. 

9:49 - “Deep childhood trauma”. So we’re looking for a debutant killer with childhood trauma who is chasing perfection? Debutant = rich lady culture. Like Ainsley. AND Ainsley went to the same etiquette school as the first two victims. The writer’s wanted us to assume the killer was Ainsley for the first 15 mins of this episode right? I’m not the only one seeing it?

10:04 - “My sister went there too.” ....why is there something super attractive about the way that line was delivered?

10:08 - I’m so done with this absolute tom foolery. Why does the team keep splitting up into two teams - where one team is JUST MALCOLM. The one who is unarmed and technically a civilian?!? This makes no logical sense to me (except for plot).

10:25 - Was Martin just about to say, “Just like the old days”?!? Is Martin referring to Endicott? OR is Martin referring to something that Malcolm’s repressed from his childhood?

10:30 - “I always root for the bad guys.” .....finally some truth from Martin.

10:40 - Soooooo I guess Mr. David doesn’t know? I promise you Mr. David has suspicions though. How could he not?!?!

11:24 - “It was brutal for Ains.” Look at how sad Malcolm is! Ugh. This hurts so much. He clearly loves his sister so so much and what she’s done is slowly killing him. I honestly think that part of the reason Malcolm helped Ainsley dispose of the body is that Malcolm doesn’t want to loose his sister. His sister is one of the only good things he’s always been able to count on. If word gets around that she’s a killer - Malcolm’s fragile world gets shattered a little more and I don’t know if Malcolm can recover mentally from that. 

11:36 - “Teasing made her capable of...stuff.” C’MON. There’s no way Mr. David doesn’t know. 

11:45 - Sooo is Martin saying that he recognized that Ainsley was a sociopath when she was a small child? Or did she just respond to his (or John Watkins’) grooming much ‘better’ than Malcolm?

11:56 - “Because she’s her mother’s” Okay. So I see the point. I can see that Ainsley is driven and stubborn like Jessica. BUT it feels like Martin is suggesting that Jessica is capable of murder? Which - I honestly don’t think she is. If anything - Malcolm is more like Jessica than Ainsley is.

11:59 - There was a look in Martin’s eyes when he was comparing Ainsley to Jessica that really freaked me out. I can’t figure out why. It makes me wonder if Martin still somehow views Jessica as ‘his possession’ (he refers to her as his wife all the time but I always assumed that was just to get a rise out of people?). Martin’s dream from 2x4 certainly suggests that he still wants Jessica romantically. I honestly think he’s going to try to escape and rekindle the romance with Jess; and it’s going to go very poorly when Jessica rejects him. 

12:06 - Preach JT. Preach. This is creepy af. 

13:00 - Ugh. Of course this creep has a history of indecent exposure. Now I understand why Gil and JT were hostile with the dude right from the start. 

13:12 - Man. People will use the Bible to justify anything. No wonder people hate Christians ( I say this as a practicing Christian).

13:18 - JT is such a good dude. I’m so glad he’s a dad now. <3 He’s going to be such a good one. <3

13:26 - “One phone call and this place will be shut down.” OH SHIT. GIL THAT IS VICIOUS AND I RESPECT THE SHIT OUT OF IT.

13:35 - I soooo thought that dude was going to sprint out of that room. 

14:30 - THIS. YES. This is why I have a problem with Ainsley’s enthusiasm for murder vs. Malcolm’s. Ainsley’s enthusiasm is centred on her nee to ‘get the story’. She’s obsessed with forwarding her career and as a result she’s treating crime like a competitive sport. Malcolm’s obsession (while it can border on creepy and reckless) is always centred on his need to find the killer and stop the murders. Malcolm is seeking justice and his heart is in the right place. I can’t say the same for Ainsley.

14:31 - “We’re brother and sister, everything is a competitive sport”.....whoever wrote this doesn’t have a sibling they experienced trauma with as a kid (and as a result was raised by a single parent). Seriously, my dad was abusive he lived with us until I was 10 and my brother was 7. Then my parents got divorced and my mom was a single parent (he didn’t pay child support or see his kids after the divorce). Are my brother and I competitive? Sure sometimes. But the way we grew up forced us to become partners. Annoyed with Mom? Let’s rant about it together. Is he struggling in math? I’ll tutor him in exchange for a Reese cup. Am I struggling at daycare because I have massive social anxiety? He’ll include me in whatever he’s doing so I’m not sitting alone in a corner. My point: siblings who experience trauma together don’t have the typical sibling relationships that are widely televised in North America. There’s a lot less fighting and competition and a lot more teaming up and commiserating. 

14:39 - “It. It’s terrible.” - Notice how Ainsley didn’t actually say how it made her feel? She gave the standard “TV response” to a murder “a terrible/horrific/tragedy has occurred”. She doesn’t feel bad that these women are dead. She’s too consumed with getting a story to even stop and let herself feel anything. I’ve been saying it since last season - the way Ainsley shows no regard for other people and their feelings when she’s obsessed with her job is concerning. 

14:50 - “Remind me of the people who cut us off after Dad’s arrest.” ...Are you kidding me?!? The whole fandom has been speculating about this since early season one and they’re not going to elaborate on that line?!? I’m going to need some more information about this and it better be in the upcoming episode where Jessica’s younger sister appears. 

15:40 - She thinks of her students as family? Sooo what does she think of Ainsley? Wasn’t Ainsley bullied at this school? Did she do anything about it? 

16:00 - this is like a ‘weekend/evening school’ right? Kids aren’t living in this house like a boarding school/summer camp?

16:01 - “Mr. Whitly” UGH. This bitch preaches etiquette and she doesn’t even have the common courtesy to call Malcolm by the name with which he introduced himself? Nah. I don’t like her. 

16:13 - Ugh. Ainsley, seriously? Why don’t you help your brother solve the case. AND PREVENT MORE MURDERS. Why are you indirectly but purposely obstructing justice?

16:37 - “Of course.” Huh. Do you think Martin might try and manipulate Ainsley into killing Malcolm? Ainsley definitely capable of it. She doesn’t actually seem to care about Malcolm nearly as much as he cares about her. 

17:17 - WTF?!? That’s creepy af. How did no one in this show think this assistant was a suspect? She has a super creepy doll that she ‘forgot’ on the floor the middle of a hallway. AND THE DOLL WAS STANDING UP. Not sitting, not dropped carelessly, STANDING UP.

17:30 - Look at Malcolm’s face. He’s definitely going to be having nightmares about that doll. 

18:25 - OMG. This was amazing. JT just totally bulldozed his way into catching that dude. Very badass. Also kind of funny (maybe that’s just my messed up sense of humour again?).

18:44 - Ugh. This dude has a thing for dolls. I don’t want to kink shame but - no. no. There’s something really gross about that.  

18:48 - I’ve seen some people say that this doll looks like Ainsley and how that’s supposed to be some sort of foreshadowing/symbolism. I kind of see it? I mean the hair colour is similar and if you pause the screen at 18:48 the angle kind of looks like Ainsley? It would be an interesting metaphor though - Ainsley played with dolls as a little girl. John Watkins gave her angel statues. She is Watkins’ and Martin’s doll’ in the sense that she was the object that murders manipulated/groomed. 

18:53 - Then again, pause the screen here and there’s something about the facial structure that looks like Dani to me. 

19:00 - Jessica lets Ainsley work in the murder office?!? No. No she doesn’t. This is garbage. Jessica would’ve forbade it. Jessica would’ve bordered up this room immediately after Watkins.

19:57 - Poor Jessica. She’s clearly terrified that she’s losing Ainsley and terrified of Ainsley. BUT Jess, sweetie, running to Europe won’t fix this. 

20:16 - “She wanted the dolls to look like her students.” AND PEOPLE SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO HER?!? WTF?!? NO. NO. NO. NOT OKAY. 

20:31 - HAHA look at Gil’s face when Trevor tells him he can make the ‘perfect woman’. Gil’s like WTF - can I arrest you for thinking you can fabricate a ‘perfect woman’?!!?

21:06 - Malcolm is having so much fun playing with Trevor’s doll head. Look at how excited he is. It’s kind of adorable but his manic energy is showing which is concerning. 

21:10 - Why is Trevor giving his doll fancy 1940s(ish) names? 

21:31 - Props to LDP. I honestly believed Gil was annoyed with Malcolm for barging in on the interrogation the first time I watched this. 

21:42 - “They got a word for everything.” hahaha OMG. This is so reminiscent of a teenager explaining some new tech to their tech-illiterate parents. 

22:00 - I can’t tell if Gil feels sorry for this creep or if he just thinks the dude is really gross. Probably a mixture. 

23:00 - Oh we’re bringing up the chloroform again. At least Malcolm knows not listen to Martin about this nonsense. 

23:25 - “It doesn’t feel fun.” - THIS. This is why I honestly don’t think Malcolm will ever become a serial killer. His guilt complex is just too big.

23:56 - Are. You. Kidding. Me? This is next level. Ainsley is so out of line here. AND SHE SHOWS NO REMORSE. SHE DOESN’T THINK SHE’S DONE ANYTHING WRONG. THIS GIRL HAS GONE DARK SIDE (she was already halfway there).

24:17 - I’m getting papa!Gil vibes when Gil is talking to Ainsley and I want more scenes of them interacting. Seriously, did Gil have a relationship with Ainsley when she was a kid? I MUST KNOW.

24:45 - Ainsley has no conscience. I honestly don’t think Ainsley has a conscience. 

25:00 - “Who is that!?” Malcolm is totally acting like he’s Ainsley’s father-figure right now. I’m here for it. 

25:22 - SORE LOSERS?!? I’m sorry. What? If you weren’t concerned about Ainsley you damn well should be now. That is seriously messed up. People are dead. This is not a game. Do you know who else thought murder was a game? Martin Whitly.

25:31 - Okay. Ainsley has a point. Malcolm lecturing anyone about being reckless is pretty hypocritical. But at least Malcolm cares about her. 

25:54 - Heart. Shattered. Look at how terrified Jessica is. Look at how gentle and reassuring Gil is. UGh. WHY DID SHE BREAK UP WITH HIM??! I mean, I know why I just think she’s a moron for doing it. 

26:00 - Poor Gil. He’s so confused and so concerned. The whole Whitly family is acting crazier then usual and he doesn’t know why. 

26:11 - “Both you and Malcolm are at an 11 and I’ve never seen Ainsley like that.” FIND YOURSELF A MAN WHO CARES LIKE GIL AND NEVER LET HIM GO. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 Seriously. The love and concern he shows for this family warms my cold dead heart. 

26:16 - “Her father?!” Oh shit. Now Gil knows there’s something BIG happening. Jessica would never run to Martin unless she absolutely had to. 

26:19 - annnnd Gil’s also being a prideful man who’s feeling are hurt. “You went to him?” He’s right to be though - the woman he loves went to a serial killer for advice before going to the guy who practically co-parented with her. 

26:33 - “I’m here. Whatever you need. I’m here.” <3 <3 Gil is the definition of a good man. <3 I’m in love with it. 

26:48 - “You were right on time for me.” ....*snort* subtle Gil (and in front of JT!!)

27:08 - Edrisa is hysterical on caffeine. hahaha. This whole scene is perfect. 

27:20 - You know someone is acting manic when Malcolm Bright is concerned about their eccentric behaviour. 

27:34 - Annnnnd Tom Payne was a split second from breaking character here. I don’t blame him. hahaha

28:05 - EDRISA flipping and dropping that pencil. HAHAHAHAHAHA

29:10 - “Absolutely not.” hahaha this is funny but also really sweet. Malcolm knows that Edrisa hopped up on caffeine isn’t safe to have near an active killer. Who knows what’ll happen. I wish he’d care that much about his own well being. Looks like calling for backup last episode was a one time thing. 

30:37 - I’ll give the writers one thing - Miss Windsor makes a convincing murder suspect.

31:22 - GIL. STANDING. UP. FOR. JT. IS. EVERYTHING. Where is O’Malley’s back up? Oh yeah, they’re not brave enough to defend him.

32:00 - Huh. Bright texted for backup. This is growth. I’m proud of him. 

32:15 - YES. This JT arc was handled right. Sure JT could’ve complained. It would’ve been episodes upon episodes of bureaucratic nightmares and injustice. This show isn’t about racism. They showed enough to portray that the system is broken and they had JT act like a responsible adult. It’s not fair that JT had to go through this or that he’ll likely experience something similar to it again. But the fact that JT is acting like a bigger person is perfect. JT will protect his family. Always. That includes Malcolm. So JT avoids putting through a formal complaint because he knows that will take time away from doing his job, from protecting others, from hanging out with his wife and kid. JT’s taking the higher road, it might not be gratifying or fair but I respect the hell out of him for taking it. 

32:28 - Gil is so so proud of JT. Look at him. <3 <3 

33:40 - Look, Miss Windsor is a bit of a stuck up bitch but she has a good heart. Look at the way she immediately tells Malcolm where Ainsley is when she realizes what’s happening. 

34:14 - This confused me during the first watch - Ainsley obviously didn’t drink any tea - so why is she drugged? (obviously I know now). 

34:17 - Big brother Malcolm frantically looking for Ainsley is so so sweet. <3 

35:42 - The music, the dolls, and Miss Windsor’s speech here. There’s something about this part of the episode that is strangely reminiscent of 5x16 of Criminal Minds.

36:20 - ......does Miss Windsor have some sort of mental illness? She’s talking to herself and ranting erratically. Is this just emotional stress or something deeper?

37:00 - This is why Malcolm’s not a serial killer. Even now- looking at a killer - he’s trying to sympathize with her. He’s trying to understand why. He’s trying to calm her down, diffuse the threat, and get her mental help. 

39:00 - Oh yeah. Ainsley was definitely going to kill without remorse. Again. I’ve seen some theories that Ainsley only ever tries to kill to protect Malcolm. I disagree. I think Ainsley’s trying to protect herself. Ainsley is pissed off that this girl tried to drug her and kill her because she thinks Ainsley is wicked. Ainsley was pissed at Endicott for whatever he did to Ainsley before Malcolm got there. I think Ainsley felt threatened and scared so she reacted. I don’t think this has anything to do with protecting Malcolm.

39:41 - Malcolm isn’t a killer. Look. He smells gas but he takes the time to carry an unconscious murderer (who literally just tried to kill his sister) out of the building. 

40:00 - The drama. Holy hell. What a weird ending to this case.

40:48 - Who gave Ainsley a police jacket and let her keep it?

41:14 - She almost died and she’s still obsessing over ‘winning’. This is seriously unstable behaviour. Way more concerning than anything Malcolm’s done since 2x1. 

41:45 - “My father was a serial killer also.” Anyone else super irritated by that phrasing?!?  Just me?!? Something about the ‘also’ feels super wrong to me.

41:53 - Oh sweetie. I’d argue that you are more messed up than Malcolm. 

42:06 - Jessica went to see Martin twice in one episode. THIS IS BAD.

42:15 - “Maybe even more so than Malcolm if that’s possible.” Jessica knows her kids. I’m on her side here. 

42:20 - Martin is way too happy about Ainsley showing signs of serial killing. 

42:30 - Jessica? You married an act. That man never existed. He’s always been a serial killer. You just didn’t know it. He’s manipulative and you were a victim to it. 

42:50 - “A partner.” OH THIS IS NOT GOING TO END WELL. ESPECIALLY FOR THE GIL/JESSICA ARC.

Okay....so definitely the weakest episode of the season so far. AND the fact that we got no mention of Tally and/or the baby this episode is a crime. 

BUT I’M SO SO SO EXCITED FOR THE NEXT EPISODE. It’s going to be a televised fanfic and I can’t wait. 

[fuckingdeadbutroyal]

Jasonette July- Soulmate AU- Part 4

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

!Season 3 spoilers coming right ahead!

A tiny sigh escaped Maris lips as she felt her body filling up with energy. “He ate. I think I’ll be fine in a few”, she told her partner, who was currently swimming next to her. She hadn’t dared to detransform for a day now, knowing that doing so would mean her finally collapsing. The duo hasn’t been wasting time, though. Theyvwere trying to come up with a new plan. Ladybug told him all about her being the new Guardian of the Miraculous, about Chat Blanc and Bunnix. Pointed out how if Bunnix hasn’t turned up yet, that meant that they could handle the situation. Explained why she wouldn’t dare share her identity with him, even though she wanted to, because of how she couldn’t afford to risk him turning into Chat Blanc again. Ladybug told him about her soulmate. Now he finally understood how she had such incredible stamina and... had a hard time agreeing to the two of them staying as nothing more than friends.

Adrien did not disregard their friendship as something unimportant. Knowing that he was Ladybugs best friend and feeling that she was just as well his... best friend, his partner, the person he could rely on the most. It was amazing, unique and so very very important to him.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt, though. He loved her and she liked him, they both knew that. It just was never enough. Not for Adrien.Now was not the time to grieve his broken heart, though. He was used to suppressing his emotions due to Hawkmoths terror. He could keep it together for a little longer.

Now that all their cards were laid out on the table, they were ready to come up with a plan.

“Look. I can’t cast my cure while the akuma is still out there. Creation doesn’t work with destruction working actively against it.”, Ladybug told Chat who, though currently detransformed as Adrien, winced. The word “Destruction” has already intergrated itself as a trigger, setting off a bad reaction in the teenagers mind. Plagg did not like that in the slightest. “Kid, you’ve gotta get it together. Yes I am the god of D-Trigger, but I’m also the God of Chaos and let me tell ya, I can’t sense a hint of chaos on that dusty dirtbag out there.” Adrien smirked, a drained, sarcastical smile forming on his lips. “Are you trying to tell me I have another power you’ve just forgotten to mention?” 

The heroes knew they still weren’t off age and therefore didn’t have access to their full potential. That didn’t stop hope from lighting up in the backs of the duos hearts. They already couldn’t use the other Miraculous power, since all of the previous Miraculous holders were eliminated on day three, due to Hawkmoth already knowing their identities (thanks to what he had done on heroes day two years ago) and him finding the civilian heroes’ hiding places before Ladybug and Chat Noir could even locate their presence in Paris. Searching for new holders was clearly not a good idea. They couldn’t risk throwing someone inexperienced and terrified into a battle they didn’t know how to win yet.

But if Chat could use a new power? 

That would be the element of surprise they needed! Adriens 18th Birthday was just around the corner, there's a chance it could work!

"Nah, he's not in the right condition to try, too young and way too exhausted"

Bye bye little flame of hope.

"But if you were to get some ACTUAL sleep and eat some fucking food? You would totally make it."

"Wait what?", Marinettes eyes were the size of asteroids. They had a chance! She just had to get him to one of those bunkers so he could get some sleep and then..."Then we'll have to go without it. I'm not leaving you alone milady."

Oh, yeah, there was that tiny detail she had forgotten. The two of them were too protective of each other to leave their partner to their own devices and Ladybug entering any building was not an option.The girl let out a frustrated huff, "Cha-" "I understand what you mean, Ladybug.”, Adriens voice was solid and left no room for argument. Batman would have been proud. “But this is not up to debate. I'm not leaving you alone, not while you are in this state nor during any of our battles. It has never ended well in the past and it sure as hell won't end well now."

Plagg' and Maris' annoyed sighs were absolutly identical, which would've made Adrien laugh, if it weren't for their current situation. He knew he was right, though, and he knew she did as well.

Mentally, Marinette was feeling better. Less on edge, more focused. It was surprising to all of them. Of course she still was incredibly tired, even more fatigued than yesterday, which was understandable since she has not slept for about a week now and spent most of her time swinging around Paris, thinking her head off and crying her eyes out while trying to save as many civilians as possible. Nontheless, even though her body was about to shut down, her brain was working at a thousand miles per hour. She knew it was thanks to her soulmate, who was currently fueling the both of them by ingesting loads of energizing substances and getting closer.

Marinette was now certain her soulmate was a man. He was in Paris, in danger and aware of her dependance on him.

Who could he be? How did he get here? Why now? Why hasn’t he ever tried to find her before? 

She didn’t judge him, of couse. Did not expect him to put everything aside just to find her. Who if not Ladybug could understand what it meant to have duties holding you back, chaining you to the ones who claim to love you? (While they only do so because they need her, Marinette believed. Paris didn’t actually love her, no-one cared about her wellbeing unless it was important for their safety. No-one would jump into fire for Ladybug if they wouldn't trust her to sacrifice her sanity to resurrect them. No-one has ever jumped to rescue Marinette in her civilian identity, after all.)

Marinette was spiralling. Memories and repressed emotions suddenly jumping to the surface, reminding her of all the ways she had offered her very self to help anyone in need and receiving nothing in return. She had people who were nice to her, she had friends and family and people who loved her for who she was. Sadly, Mari only just now realised that love wasn't enough. It has never been enough. She would spend many nights awake, working on gifts and projects and helping her friends out or even just simply entertaining them over the phone. What for? Why?!

"Marinette is a saint", her parents would say, "She can do anything." Mari knew that wasn't true. She wasn't almighty. She couldn't even say "No".

That’s where the spiral came to an end. All those thoughts were standing at a cliffs edge, staring down into the abyss right beneath their feet. A tiny step forward, a minimal lean in and she would fall. Where would she go? What would she encounter? Was it okay to do this? Was it okay to change?

For once, Mari felt sure of herself. In a place she would've never thought she'd be, swimming under a god damn Ladybug themed boat in the middle of the Saine. Her mind was clear, certain. She opened her eyes and her mind jumped.

"Well fuck no I can't always do everything.", Mari heard Ladybugs voice, only partly recognizing it as her own.

The black cat duo next to her winced, having been discussing the topic of whether or not Adrien could leave Ladybug alone for a few hours. Not at all have they been expecting the sudden change in the star of their argument.

"Bug...?"

She looked at him, face straight but full of rage. Eyes sharp but full of thought. She didn't need to look around to figure out how to use her lucky charm, instead she had a horrible, unstable and unfinished plan she was absolutely going to follow.

"I have an idea."

------------------

Hawkmoth was nervous. The akuma was stronger than he had expected and definitely much harder to control. He hasn't yet decided whether or not it was a good idea to akumatize a homeless man, especially considering his educational history in architecture and geography.

It was like the Akuma was thinking, not just feeling like all his previous ones did. It could either mean victory or the literal end of the world. Gabriel was hoping for the first option, of course.

Another reason for his nervous state of mind, were the unexpected members of the justice league, who for whatever reason just now decided to enter the battlefield. He hasn't been expecting them anymore, once the first year of his reign had passed without a droplet of attention from Gotham and the rest of the world. If they've never cared before, why now? Did they suddenly have more free time or did they only just realise they were literal vigilantes and could therefore ignore any and all international borders?

Or was Hawkmoth finally on the right track, finally about to win so they sent the last of their forces to come and save his enemies? A grin split his masked face in a horrifying grimace. His secret weapon was still leashed, still waiting for his order. Agreste Senior had the upper hand, this was his time to shine, his time to win.

Finally.

----------

Much clearer air seeped into Jason's lungs. He even went as far as removing his mask, just so he could properly breathe in something that wasn't poisoned with a literal mist of dust and the stench of death. His heart, no, their hearts were beating faster. Jason stood right by the river. He felt the cold water numbing her legs and reaching for her throat. He felt her dizzy fatigue and her clenching stomach. He knew her thoughts were just as clear as his. It felt as though their minds were finally complete, as if their brains could finally grasp the whole situation. Their body's were so close, they could finally function the way they were meant to. Together, helping one another.

"Red Robin. I found her. The boats are meant for shelter, the akuma can't come out in the open and it’s afraid of water. The heroes must be somewhere underneath those fat kanus."

"Copy."

"I'm going in."

"Hood wai-"

Jason was already underwater, hearing but not listening to Tim's voice.

Red Hood was about to find his Red Lady and no one could stop him.

-------------

Marinette had just finished explaining her plan to Adrien, who was now transformed and ready to move, when she felt it. "He's here.", was all she could muster. Chat didn't have to think twice to guess what she had meant and subconsciously started to brace himself. He couldn't help but think that now really wasn't the time for her soulmate to interrupt. They were at war, which meant that her uninvited lover was putting himself and Ladybug at risk. Risking her safety meant risking Paris safety which meant that over all, Adrien felt like they were being royaly fucked by the Kwami of Timing.

The Duo felt the water underneath their feet moving. (The rivers flow has been stopped right at the beginning of the akuma battle. It was a safety precaution the mayor has ordered after a particularly unpleasant spread of akuma poison. Now, whenever the Akuma-alert went of, the city shut down, sealed shut and closed up. Not a single soul could enter and not a single twig could leave.

The heroes had formerly agreed to that being a great idea, now that they were short on everything, though... let's say they have learned that isolation wasn't always the best solution to their problems.)

Ladybug felt him before she heard him, a weird sense of Deja-vu overcoming her.

He came up behind her. Her spine felt like it was buzzing with electricity.

"Pixie?"

Jason didn't know why he called her that, but it sure as hell felt right.

Another shiver went down their spines. Marinettes reaction caused by her soulmates voice, while Jason's body just seemed to mimic hers even more intensely now.

She turned around.

Their eyes met.

Their scars felt like they've lit up in flames.

Two sleeping bodies were sinking towards the floor of the river Saine.

--------------------------------------

Hey ho, friendioh

I am so tired, my eyes are so done, je suis juste come Jasonette in my story.

You comments though? I LOVE YOU. Thank each and every one of you lovely message-leavers, my heart is now full of love and excitement and it’s your fault!

I can’t stress this enough, your feedback is shooing my depressay far far away.

Now back to the content. I am not finished yet, there’s more coming and the end is still uncertain, even to me. I have my plotline and my scenes, but this story has kind of started writing itself (which in my opinion is what makes writing so great). So I guess we’re all looking into a future just as uncertain as Dukes vision :)

My taglist has grown! Message me if you are interested in joining that cute group you are about to read the names of, I’ll be happy to add you ^^

Tag List \o/

@maribat-is-lifeblood @lokilex @amayakans @readingismyoxygen 

Thanks for reading ^^

[twinkluffy]

Hero society analysis (for the future)

Hi, after reading the chapter 300 of my hero academia manga I thought it was interesting to make a revision of what we know about how the hero society was built and its apparent downfall. So we are going to review 1) Vigilantes era, 2) quirk’s regulation and pro heroes, 3) the construction of the symbol of peace, 4) the destruction of the symbol of peace and 5) the future of hero society + me rambling about said future.

This is of course my reading of the events transpiring so far in the manga. I will try to keep spoilers at minimum, but there would be a few if you don’t read the manga.

1) Vigilantes era

With the manifestation of quirks, criminals with these newfound superpowers made use of it for evil-doing. Ordinary civilians with their own powers gathered to stop those criminals and bring order to society, that is how Vigilantes were born. All for one became a symbol of society unity in this period of time, making use of his own quirk he removed the quirk from those who didn’t want it and gave it to those who wanted to have superpowers. Obviously this wasn’t a selfless act on his part, he was gathering loyal followers for his goal and ruled Japan from the shadows.

At some point, one for all opposed to what all for one was doing, he saw through those “selfless action”, fought and passed his quirk to the second torchbearer.

The police force moved to prioritize leadership and to maintain the status quo, and decided to no use quirks as weapons.

2) Quirk’s regulation and pro heroes

The pro hero system started on Rhode Island in America under the "Rhode Island New State Statute". 189 Vigilantes were affected by this statute, with only 7 being accepted as official Heroes. Quirk usage has been restricted by the law, that is why groups as the meta liberation army were formed, they believed that the free use of their superhuman abilities should be a basic human right and not only a privilege for heroes.

Depending on their performance, pro heroes have the potential to receive government pay, along with fame and glory. This govt. pay, fame and glory is important, a lot of heroes aren’t into the heroic world because they think it is the best for the world, but mostly because it pays good.

3) The construction of the symbol of peace

At some point, quirkless Toshinori Yagi met the 7th OFA torchbearer: Nana Shimura, when the world was still in chaos with criminals rampaging through the streets and citizens had no one to believe.

Toshi wanted to create a new age of harmony, where this chaotic age of crime was left behind and everyone can have a future to laugh and live together. Toshinori wanted to be that pillar, this symbol of peace for everyone, for the civilians, for other heroes and even for the criminals, for them to see what is waiting if they make a wrong move.

Nana chose Toshinori as his successor, making him the 8th torchbearer of one for all. His body was already strong so he could use this power at it 100% and his training was to learn how to fight properly. Nana died in his fight against afo to make sure that Toshinori and Gran torino escaped safely. This caused a big impact on Toshinori, who thought about Nana as his own mother. Torino recommended him to travel to the united states and continue with his training there, while at the same time being safe of the threat that afo was for him as the eight torchbearer.

From here on onwards I don't think it is necessary to make a list of the heroic things Yagi did to be recognized as the symbol of peace, but we need to talk about what he almost unconsciously constructed as the symbol of peace in the civilians and his fellow heroes eyes. A hero that is always with a smile on his face, charismatic, devoted to the point that he didn’t have any personal time, selfless, indestructible, unwavering, always the winner no matter who he fought, no matter what happened all might’s would always be there to protect everyone. He took all the burden of Japan's safety on his shoulders, reducing the criminal activity to around the 5%.

(I don’t want to sound like Izuku Midoriya is ghost-writing this post, but damn if i don’t tear up thinking about Toshinori carrying that weight on his shoulders alone for so many years)

And this is the central problem of what is going on now in the bnhaverse, the archetype of the symbol of peace that all might create, those are such big shoes to fill and at this point no one can. He became an unreachable pillar, even other heroes acknowledge the pressure of being the #1 that they let all might carry alone, this pressure that he didn’t waver to carry even when he was badly injured.

Toshi in his effort to make a better world unconsciously make everyone dependable of him or what he constructed as the symbol of peace. His fight against AFO marks the beginning of the end of the hero society as we know, the slow collapse of the unreacheable pillar of the symbol of peace.

4) The destruction of the symbol of peace

This “destruction” of the symbol of peace isn’t something new, small blow after small blow villains has been working towards this one goal. As readers we could be expectators of this fall, villain after villain, of small actions becoming bolder. Small fries, solo workers and leagues, villains have been gathering, seeing the cracks on the pillar of Japan's best hero and trying their shot.

But after AFO imprisonment and all might’s career end, they have become even bolder. The hero society is weaker than ever, because All might was the biggest threat to the villains

The symbol of peace that all might carefully constructed can’t be imitated. Endeavor and the rest of the heroes couldn’t even start to fill the spot of All might legacy.

I’m not saying that heroes aren’t doing their best to prevent the fall of the status quo of society till this moment, i’m saying that civilians and even the press don’t let the heroes do their work. There is so much fear in the population and the villains know this, every villainous act helps them and makes the civilians lose their faith in the heroes.

We see this shortly after Endeavor takes the spot of the #1 and fight against that high gamma nomu:

a)The collective trauma of what happened to all might. The fight was recorded by the press, everyone saw the horrible face of the world's biggest criminal and the hero everyone loved ending his career to ensure their safety. Even when this was about Endeavor risking his life to save everyone, as the #1 should, they only can think about All might.

b) This second panel is the same as the previous one, we can see again the lost faith in the symbol of peace. Endeavor is risking his life to protect the city, probably in a way different from what all might approach to fighting villains was, but this also says a lot about this fourth point: there isn’t a sense of safety in the population. They saw their symbol of peace fall, why would be this former #2 any different?, this man who never could take the #1 spot from all might at his best.

And the last blow to the title of the symbol of peace took was Dabi exposing everything Endeavor did to his family in his desire to be the #1. Dude, the timing of all this was beautifully executed, it exposed and proved the reasons of the failing hero system that the league of villains preach about. This speech made everyone think about the dichotomy of “heroes and villains”, after this there isn’t just black and white, good and bad, there are grey areas mingling, there are heroes that in their personal life act as villains and the population is starting to see the flaws in the system.

5)The future of hero society (spoilers of chapter 300)

This fight against the league and MLA marks the end of hero society as we know it, first because it make clear to civilians that heroes aren’t invincible and that their safety isn’t guaranteed anymore and second it make other heroes that were safe behind the shadow of the symbol of peace, know that dark times are approaching and they jobs are riskier than ever.

We have to remember that being a hero is a job option for anyone with a quirk useful enough to combat, not everyone is doing this job because they have a hero heart. In this moment, with shit hitting the fan in the hero society, the good pay, fame and glory isn’t worth to being killed. Hence a lot of pro heros quitting the job, and also a lot of heroes died in the fight against the league; that’s causing a big impact in the structure of japan’s hero society.

The police can’t fight against quirks as well as heroes can (they don’t use quirks as weapons) and they are already busy trying to arrest the people who escaped from the different prisons, civilians are buying (hero) support items to protect themselves because a lot of hero agencies have closed.

Endeavor, who is supposed to be the #1 hero, is broken to the core after having a physical proof in the form of dabi of what his ambition caused. We have seen other characters showing a kind of support to Endeavor, seeing a change in him, but this isn’t going to be enough to gain the civilians approval.

On another topic, I think Vigilantes are going to appear again, of course they never disappeared, but in this moment the public image of them wouldn’t be that bad in civilians eyes. Of course the hero association is going to be against it.

The UA kids have gone through lots of things in their short time being students and having their provisional hero license, but we have also seen their hearts, every one of them being ready to put their life on the line if that is what it takes to save lives. This last fight was the hardest they had to face, they suffered the loss of a dear teacher (Kayama), watched their friends hurting/destroying their bodies fighting and having a first line seat to see the collapse of this hero society that they were so eager to partake in.

This can a) boost them to train harder to be a good hero or b) make them retire early and discard their dream. I personally think that of what we have seen of them, the first is the most logical option, but also they are kids and their parents make the legal decisions for them and after seeing how heroes are handling things, they couldn’t entrust their kids to UA anymore.

Talking about kids, the craziest one of the bunch, Izuku, said something in chapters prior that amazed me and made me love him even more. He said that Shigaraki's face looked like he needed to be saved. We don’t know if afo used someone else before in the way he is using shigaraki to gain power and become a “demon lord”, but if that was the case, you think that any of the previous torchbearers even thought about saving their destined rival?. This is what makes Izuku so different that even the first one for all user, all for one little brother, acknowledges his worth.

So at this point the question we can make ourselves is, what is gonna happen now? Personally and this absolutely my reading of the possible turns of events: i think the hero system is going to be re-constructed, which isn’t going to be easy, but those UA kids would make sure of it somehow. There isn’t going to be a next symbol of peace.

I know you guys are thinking that the next symbol of peace should be izuku, because he is the only one who can fight against shigaraki, has the same vision of heroics that all might and in chapter one we learn that he is narrating the history of how he became a great hero / the greatest hero(i know there are a lot of different translation to this), but looking at what i have writing so long, putting the pressure of japan’s safety in the shoulders of only one person is what dragged the hero society to this point and izuku is smart enough to know that too.

Sorry for this long ramble tho and any typos, when i get excited it's gets harder to translate the words to english my mind hahaha

PS: I feel like we are going to have a time skip after Izuku wakes up.

[anniesocsandgeneralstore]

Your Power Over Me: Two - motivation

Summary: There are more reasons besides loving New Orleans for Frank Shaver to want Power out of his city. 

Pairing: Frank Shaver x OFC (Michelle Shaver) 

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: gun fire, violence, blood mention, hospital mention, gunshot wound, general angst

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

The weird calls never stopped coming in. For two weeks Frank was working later and later. Sometimes not coming home until the early hours of the morning, absolutely exhausted. Claudia cried for her dad the first few nights, going until she wore herself out and fell asleep with tears drying on her face. But after a while she finally understood. Her dad was out there catching bad guys — making New Orleans safer — just for her.

It wasn’t until the last few nights that Michelle cried for her husband. Silently, into the darkness of their shared bedroom, as she tried to wait up for him to come home. She was sure it was the pregnancy hormones that were making this harder. This wouldn’t be the first or last time that Frank would have to work ridiculous hours in order to get to the bottom of something. Michelle prided herself on being the strong detective wife that she was. Never crying, always positive, always supportive. But some nights were harder than others.

Some days too.

And that morning was one of the harder ones. Frank left the day before around nine to start his shift and hadn’t been home since. He texted to let her know that he was okay — just following some leads on this new pill on the streets of New Orleans. Claudia didn’t have daycare that day. They could only afford for her to go about three times a week.

Home alone, taking on the world, the Shaver women.

Michelle had set up Claudia in the living room with a paper craft and her favorite tv show while she tried to throw together some lunch for the two of them. She really needed to go shopping. Hopefully Claudia wouldn’t be too put off by the idea of bologna and cheese sandwiches and cucumber. Again. For the third time that week. Eh, she was three. She would eat the same thing every day if she had the choice. Michelle just wasn’t giving her any.

“Hey, baby,” Michelle called to her daughter from the kitchen, “You want juice or water with lunch?”

“Hmmmm juice!” her tiny voice called back.

“Juice what?”

“Juice…pea!”

“Please — all right.”

Michelle gave a thumbs up as she grabbed a juice box from the fridge. It was the last one. She put the juicebox on the bright purple divided plate and brought it out to the living room. Claudia had already set aside her craft and sat patiently at the coffee table, little princess chair pulled up to the side as she watched her show. Michelle set down the plate in front of her and stabbed the straw into the juice box.

“Remember, don’t squeeze.” Michelle handed the box back to Claudia then brushed her fingers over her dark hair. She hoped the next one got her bright copper locks.

“Tank you, Mommy,” Claudia said as she set the juice box by her plate. “I love you.”

Michelle smiled down at her. She really was a great kid. She threw her fits and was struggling with her speech — but every kid was different. She would admit, being a mother was hard. Having a little person who didn’t ask to be born be fully dependent on her was scary at times. Some days Michelle felt like she was failing Claudia in some way. Other days she felt more like a caregiver than a mother, being drained and worn down by the end of a day spent with her daughter. But Claudia would never know that. Never.

“I love you too, baby.”

There was a noise coming from outside. Like someone was hitting something with a hammer repeatedly. Under that was a squeaky car engine and shouting. With a furrowed brow, Michelle moved to the window to see what was going on. They lived on a pretty quiet street. She parted the curtain in time to see a blue van with the side door slid open barreling down the street. Two men were hanging out of the door — each of them with a gun pointed at what looked like a person running faster than the van.

The men in the van were firing right at the houses as they drove past, trying to hit the one running outside.

“Claudia!” Michelle yelled as she quickly turned from the window.

In a moment, she scooped Claudia up into her arms, just before the first bullet broke through the front of the house.

Glass breaking. Wood splintering. Bullets whizzing through the air. Claudia screaming into her shoulder. White hot, burning pain in her upper thigh as she ducked behind the kitchen counter for safety. Just in time for all of it to stop.

Michelle lowered herself down onto the floor. Claudia was still screeching and crying as she clung tightly to her mother’s shirt. Michelle adjusted Claudia in her arms and could already see the red pooling onto the floor beneath her left leg. The pain was gone — but it was getting hard to breathe. Had that really just happened? Her entire leg now felt numb. Her fingers shook violently as she pulled her phone from her pocket. It was a struggle to dial the correct number.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Gun — there was a driveby — I’ve been shot.” Michelle looked down at her leg again. Her jeans were soaked in red, it was getting on Claudia’s bare feet.

“What is your address?”

“1492 Clermont Dr, New Orleans.”

“Okay, paramedics are on their way. Is there anyone else with you?”

“Yes — my — my daughter, Claudia. She’s okay — I think.”

There was a pause from the dispatcher. Then she asked tentatively, “Michelle?”

“Yeah.” She leaned her head back on the lower cabinets as she tried to gain control of her breathing. “Frank Shaver’s wife.”

“Oh, God.” There was a clammer, the dispatcher speaking to someone else in the room. “We’re trying to get a hold of Frank now. Where have you been shot? I can give you some instructions on how to slow the bleeding.”

Michelle looked down at her leg again. Claudia had quieted down but refused to let go of her. There was a sizable amount of blood pooled beneath her. A water glass lay broken on the floor beside her. A bologna sandwich was spread all over the ground at her feet. Her head felt lighter than it should.

“In — Upper thigh.”

“Okay. I need you to get a towel or a t-shirt and wrap it tight around your leg. Can you do that?”

“I — I don’t think I can get up.” Michelle set the phone down on the ground and switched it to speaker-phone. Then she pulled Claudia’s head up to look at her. “Hey, Cloudy, I need you to do something for Mommy, okay?”

“No!” she cried, clinging to Michelle’s shirt tighter.

“Hey, hey.” Michelle forced her to look at her again. “I know you’re scared, baby. I’m — I’m scared too. Do you think you can be brave for both of us, though? Just for a few seconds?”

It took her a moment, but Claudia finally sniffed back the snot in her nose and nodded.

“That’s my girl.” Michelle smiled. “I need you to go to Mommy and Daddy’s room and grab one of the t-shirts off the floor, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Claudia nodded again and let go of her mother’s shirt. She put her feet down in the small pool of blood that had formed. Then she ran off down the hallway.

“Is your daughter getting the towel or shirt?” the dispatcher asked.

“Yeah. What should I — ?”

“You’re gonna take the shirt and wrap it around your leg where you think your wound is. Make sure to tie it tight to the point that it hurts. That should slow the bleeding down enough until the paramedics get there.” There was a pause. “Michelle, how far along are you?”

“Almost twenty-one weeks.” She could feel the sweat that had gathered on her brow, the way her eyes couldn’t seem to focus on anything. “We find out if it’s a boy or a girl soon.”

“Which are you hoping for?”

Michelle swallowed thickly. “Frank wants another girl — but I think it’s a boy.”

Claudia came running back into the kitchen with one of her dad’s t-shirts in her little hands. It was one of his old band t-shirts from the 90s that he loved. Michelle quickly took it from her and stretched it into a thin strip.

“Do you have something?” the dispatcher asked.

“Yeah. T-shirt.”

Michelle lifted her leg to get the t-shirt under it and felt a stabbing pain go down her leg and up her spine. She cried out at the feeling but quickly slung the t-shirt under her thigh before lowering it back down to the floor.

“Michelle? Can you hear me Michelle?”

“Yeah — I’m here. Hurts to — Hurts to move.”

She knotted the t-shirt at the top of her leg and pulled as tight as she could. The blood that had soaked into her pants squelched out as she pulled. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut tight as she let go of the t-shirt. Her breaths came out in ragged pants as her entire leg was consumed in burning pain. When she opened her eyes, the world was rimmed with black spots that she knew weren’t a good sign. Her insides heaved. Her head swam.

“I think I’m gonna…” Michelle trailed off as she reached for Claudia.

“Hey, stay with me Michelle. Keep talking. Michelle, the paramedics are almost there. Stay with me…”

The dispatcher kept talking, but the longer Michelle listened, the further the sound of her voice got. The kitchen titled, blurred. The last thing she saw before a blackness overtook her was Claudia crying.

_______________________________________________________________________

Frank pulled up to the house with a screeching of tires. He killed the engine as fast as he could. Crime scene tape had already been put up across his front yard. Neighbors were gathered to see what was going on. He practically jumped out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him.

He should have been there. He should have been there. He should have been there.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” Frank called ahead as he ran through the small crowd of people towards the house.

Michelle. There she was. Being wheeled out of the house on a stretcher. Oh, God, she looked so pale. She wasn’t awake. Frank’s heart stopped inside his chest. Came to a screeching halt as he ducked under the police tape and jogged over to his wife. This couldn’t have been happening. They lived in an okay neighborhood. Their neighbors were kind and weren’t involved in anything. He had checked and double checked before they even thought about moving into that house. That house that was now littered with bullet holes, the two windows in the front broken and the large potted plant Michelle had on the porch shattered.

Frank had seen some disgusting things during his time in the police force. Gunshot wounds, severed limbs, OD victims, grossly decomposed bodies. But nothing compared to seeing Michelle lying on that stretcher. Her jeans were soaked red. She had a t-shirt tied tightly around her left thigh. Her hands, limp at her sides, were coated in blood. Her skin was ghostly white. Frank felt like he was on his first case again. Sick to his stomach, far away yet right there at the same time. There was a ringing in his ears.

Claudia crying for him broke through all that though.

Frank watched Michelle get wheeled by and looked up to see his little girl in the arms of one of the paramedics. Squirming and reaching for him.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“Claudia!” He sprinted across the sidewalk and pulled her from the paramedic’s arms. She immediately buried her head into his shoulder and squeezed him tight. He looked to the paramedic. “Is she hurt?”

“No, your daughter is fine.” The paramedic gestured for them to go over to the ambulance. “Your wife has a gunshot wound to the thigh — we think the bullet hit her femoral artery. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

“She gonna be okay?” Frank asked.

The paramedic looked back at him when they reached the ambulance. He was used to seeing that kind of face at a crime scene. That look that spelled bad news but a hopefulness if only for the family’s benefit.

“We just need to get to the hospital as fast as possible.”

Frank nodded before climbing into the back of the ambulance, Claudia still cradled in his arms. He kept his eyes trained on Michelle as he sat down. Her hair was down and brighter than usual in comparison to the dullness of her skin. She was wearing one of those headbands she had made herself out of one of Claudia’s old, ruined onesies. He should have been home. This never would have happened if he had just let the wild goose chase go. If he had just listened to his partner Landry. But there was something about this pill…It had to be connected to all the strange calls they were getting. The people who could do ubelievable things. It all had to be connected somehow. Somehow.

“Alright, let’s check on baby, shall we?” The paramedic sitting across from Frank grabbed a portable fetal doppler from one of the compartments.

Without even thinking, he reached out and took hold of Michelle’s hand. They were always so warm — motherly in the heat they produced. But now they were cold and slightly clammy. The dried blood on her fingers was coming off at his touch but he wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t let go.

He tried to ignore the thought as it invaded his mind. But he couldn’t help it. Fear, like a hand of ice, gripped his heart. Black tendrils of some frozen deep sea monster curled around his spine, his neck, cutting off the air in his lungs.

What if I lose her?

“Okay, heartbeat is a little slow. You’ve gotta real fighter coming, Frank.” He smiled at Claudia. “Just like big sister, I bet.”

That’s right — he knew this paramedic. He always seemed to be the one to show up to his crime scenes. They exchanged witty banter and discussed the Saints. His name was Brandon. Frank looked up at him now, unsure what expression was on his face. Did he look as scared as he felt? As lost? As pleading for them to do something to make his wife not look like that? Brandon smiled reassuringly.

“She’s gonna be okay, Frank.”

_______________________________________________________________________

He only asked her to senior prom after his best friend, Clayton, practically begged him to do it. She was friends with his date and girlfriend Melissa, so it made perfect sense for them to go together. Frank, who went solely by Frankie back then, had begrudgingly gone along with it. He didn’t even know her. Sure he had seen her around, they went to a small school, it was hard not to recognize someone in the hallways.

She was cute, he supposed. Bright red hair with a yellow tinge. Catcher for the softball team. Pretty quiet in the few classes they had together over the years. He’d never talked to her before. Then again, that didn’t mean she was anything special. He didn’t talk to any girls that weren’t dating his friends. Frankie was terribly awkward and shy around girls. Constantly fumbling over his words and running his fingers through his hair he would never admit he showed a picture of Leo Dicaprio in Titanic to get.

Frankie was shocked by the smile that overcame her face when he asked her. Stuttering and trying to sound as disinterested as possible cause he thought it was cool. She only nodded in agreement then ran off down the hall with Melissa. He stared after them with furrowed brows. Girls were so weird.

Then the night of prom finally came. Frankie and Clayton came to pick up the girls at Melissa’s house in Clayton’s dad’s brand new Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG. That was such a cool car and Clayton was terrified to get even a single scratch on it. Frankie rented a tuxedo for the evening, with a bowtie that he hated and his mom tried but failed to sit straight. He held the corsage he had picked up in the plastic box at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for the girls to come down from getting ready.

Melissa came down first. Frankie could hear Clayton sigh dreamily at the sight of her. Which made his face bunch up in disgust. She was wearing a green and yellow floral print dress with a matching shawl. Her hair was up with little wispy pieces framing her face. Frankie watched as the longtime couple met with anxious smiles and mumbled you look greats.

Michelle came down the stairs next. And Frankie had never seen someone so beautiful in all his life. She had left her hair down, seemingly untouched by any pins or curling irons. He liked it that way. Her dress was pink, floor length, with spaghetti straps holding it on her shoulders. When she got closer, he could see the little beads on the bodice of the dress and the way she had simply done in her makeup. In comparison, it made Melissa look like she was wearing a lot. It unnerved and awed him at the same time, her natural beauty and shy smile.

“Hi Frankie,” she said when she got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Hi — Hi Michelle.” He nearly dropped the box with her corsage in it. “You look — You look perfect.”

That wasn’t really the word he meant to say. But he stuck with it anyway. She did look perfect. Why hadn’t he talked to her before again?

She seemed to glance at Melissa and Clayton, too preoccupied with each other to notice anything else that was going on. Then she looked down at the plastic container in Frankie’s hands. “Is that for me?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” He popped open the container and pulled out the corsage. “Melissa said you like flowers a lot — so I uh — got something different.”

Was her face always that red?

The band of the corsage was made from a couple of those stretchy bead bracelets all stuck together and the flowers were fresh. He wasn’t sure what he was doing when he stepped into Donna’s Flower Shop that afternoon. The kind woman behind the counter had smiled at his discomfort and asked him about the girl he was taking to prom. Donna knew Michelle. She apparently came in all the time and took a few of Donna’s bouquet creating classes. Donna whipped something together in a matter of minutes.

White and pink magnolia blooms, these blue thistle looking things, and little pink flower buds. Frankie had never cared about flowers much, but he thought it looked pretty enough. He was already wearing his boutonniere, his mom having asked to pin it on his lapel herself.

“Do you like it?” he asked as he handed the corsage to her.

She smiled up at him and he could have sworn his heart beat faster in his chest. “I love it. Magnolias are my favorite, you know.”

The four of them took the customary pictures on the stairs and outside in front of Melissa’s house. Frankie made sure to give Melissa’s mom his own mother’s phone number so pictures could be shared once they were printed. Then they were off to the dance in the Mercedes-Benz.

Melissa and Clayton sat in the front while Michelle and Frankie sat in the back. It was about a twenty minute drive to the hotel the prom was being held at. The theme was enchanted forest.

“So, you’re on the wrestling team, right?” Michelle asked after a few minutes of sitting in silence.

Frankie cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uh, yeah.”

“Is — Is it fun?” she asked with a skeptical face.

“No.” He laughed. “I’m glad the season is finally over.”

“Not gonna do it in college?”

He shook his head. “Nah. No.”

“Can’t blame you.” She shrugged. “The weigh-ins, the scrambling to gain or lose weight…Doesn’t sound very fun.”

“What about you — you gonna play softball in college?”

Michelle flushed and began to fidget with the band of her corsage. “Uh, no — I’m not going…I have an apprenticeship at Donna’s Flower Shop lined up.”

“Oh. That sounds cool.”

“Wish my parents thought so.” She turned her gaze towards the window almost in shame.

Frankie, on gut reaction, reached out and touched her leg reassuringly. But instantly retracted his hand once he felt the fabric of her satin dress. She didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, they’ll come around to the idea eventually.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” she sighed, “They don’t think my life is gonna go anywhere — just because I don’t wanna go to college. That I’m squandering my potential.”

“Well, I don’t think that.”

She looked away from the window and smiled at him. A small, genuine smile that brought a grin to his face. Michelle seemed cool and easy to talk to. Why hadn’t he talked to her before?

When they got to the dance, half of the school was already out on the dance floor. The lights were dimmed, high heels and suit jackets abandoned at tables. The photo station was set up in the corner of the hotel ballroom. Sprinkled with fairy lights and fake foliage to make it look like the enchanted forest that the night was supposed to be themed around. Melissa gave out a squeal of delight at the photo station that made Frankie jump, then she dragged Clayton in that direction so they could go take their photo. Michelle and Frankie trailed behind them, unsure of where else to go.

Melissa and Clayton took at least ten pictures together. Each one of them posed together holding each other close and smiling at one another. Frankie could feel his face get hot as he watched them. He glanced over at Michelle then behind him to the people forming a line. Would he have to hold her waist like that? Part of him wanted to, the other part of him didn’t know if she wanted him to and wasn’t willing to ask.

The photographer ushered them up to the station while Melissa and Clayton flipped through the automatic print outs.

“You guys want digital or polaroids?” he asked.

“Uh — “ Michelle looked at Frankie and he shrugged. “Polaroid is fine, I guess.”

“Hey, easier for me.” The photographer picked up the polaroid camera and pointed it at them. “Alright, sir, if I could have you stand behind your lovely date there — there you go and then put your hands on her waist. That’s it. And, ma’am, just put your hands on top of his. Great.”

Frankie felt hot everywhere. He was certain that the camera would be able to pick up how red his cheeks are. But Michelle, she felt relaxed in his hold. Leaning back into him with an air of casualness that made his breath hitch. Like she was meant to be there. He smiled, closed lipped, for the pictures. His hands strayed around her waist and hips as they walked off the enchanted forest set. Michelle smiled over her shoulder at him in a knowing way and he coughed as he fully let go of her.

The photographer handed them two polaroids that weren’t yet fully developed. Michelle shook her’s as they walked over to where Melissa and Clayton were waiting for them. In the photo, Michelle had her head tilted to one side, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. A piece of her fire-like hair was caught on his shoulder. He swallowed thickly as he stowed the polaroid in his suit jacket pocket.

For the majority of the night, they stood around and bobbed their heads to the music. A few other friends joined their circle, but it stayed relatively small in comparison to the pile of people closer to the DJ. A few slow songs came and went. Melissa and Clayton danced to every single one. Holding each other and pressing their foreheads together — kissing at the end of each song. Michelle and Frankie would give each other a knowing look, Michelle at one point wiggled her eyebrows which made Frankie burst out laughing. They talked and laughed throughout the night.

And Frankie had to ask himself, yet again: Why had he never talked to her before?

She was radiant, warm. Kind and humorous in a quiet way that often went unnoticed by people who weren’t looking for it. She was quiet in a way that complimented him well and she listened when he spoke. Something he couldn’t even find at home.

“Alright, this party is almost over,” the DJ announced which made the majority of the room break out into a chorus of boos, “So let’s play one last song for all those little lovebirds out there.”

The opening beats to “All My Life” by K-Ci & JoJo filled the ballroom. Frankie glanced over at Michelle. They had somehow split apart in their friend circle for the first time that night. He was on one side of the group with some of his friends from the wrestling team, while she seemed to be hovering on the outside of a group of girls he recognized from a few of his classes.

He took a deep breath. If he was going to be a police officer one day, he needed to have the courage to ask a girl to dance. She whipped her head around when he tapped her on her bare shoulder. Red hair smacked him in the face. He ignored it though.

“Do you, uh — You wanna dance with me?” Frankie jabbed his thumb over at the dance floor.

Michelle smiled and even in the dim light he could see her cheeks redden. “Sure, Frankie.”

“Cool.” He smiled and took her hand.

Their arms were stiff at first. Holding each other out at length and not daring to look one another in the eye. Okay, so maybe he didn’t have the courage to ask a girl to dance for a reason. But somehow, in a way that he couldn’t explain, it felt right. It felt good to be awkwardly dancing to “All My Life” at the senior prom with Michelle Richards.

Frankie felt her take a deep breath and her hands soften on his shoulders.

“Can I admit something?” she asked, eyebrows pinched together in concern, “And — it’s okay if you feel uncomfortable and wanna…Like, never talk to me again or something.”

“Uh — Okay, I’m scared now,” he chuckled nervously.

“So, I’ve had a crush on you for like, a year.” She rolled her eyes and stared down at his crooked bowtie. “And I…May have convinced Melissa to convince Clayton to convince you to…Ask me to prom.”

Frankie didn’t know what to say for a second. He didn’t think anybody would ever have a crush on him. He was awkward, gangly, a bit of a hothead, his ears stuck out funny (though his mom told him it was an endearing feature). But Michelle Richards, softball catcher and future florist, liked him.

“I wish you would’ve told me sooner.” He smiled and pulled her closer. “I’m glad you did that.”

_______________________________________________________________________

There was a beeping in her ears that annoyed her into being awake. Her face scrunched as she listened to it for a moment, her eyes still closed. God, that really was an aggravating sound. Did the fire alarm need it’s batteries changed or something? She could ask Frank to pick some up on the way home. Wait — was she just asleep? Was Claudia still sleeping from her nap? If she wasn’t, what kind of mess had she made? Michelle sighed as she opened her eyes just a crack, enough to see a blurred white tile ceiling.

That wasn’t her ceiling. But she didn’t pay much attention to that. She needed to check on Claudia. She moved to sit up and a dizziness, but not just in her head, in her whole body, took over. It kind of reminded her of the first time she and Frank smoked weed.

There were hands on her shoulders, easing her back down.

“Hey, baby — lay back down, alright? Try not to move too much.”

She pulled her eyes open more. Frank was standing over her. He had dark circles under red rimmed eyes.

“Mm — Frankie?” Michelle complied with laying back down, if only to make that weird feeling go away.

“I’m gonna go get the nurse, okay?” He let go of her shoulders and left the room.

Michelle was left to stare up at the ceiling, pondering. She was definitely in a hospital. Had she had the baby? She didn’t even know what the gender was yet. That was unfair. She didn’t even remember the last, and arguably usually the longest, weeks of her pregnancy.

Then it all hit her at once. The van. The running man. The shooting. Broken glass. Pain in her leg. Blood on the kitchen floor. Claudia crying.

Michelle sat up, her head swimming, and looked around the room. She couldn’t see Claudia. Only an empty bag of McDonald’s and an NOPD duffle bag. She continued to look around the room lazily, brain only half processing what was going on, until Frank came back into the room.

“Where’s Claudia?” she asked.

“My mom came and picked her up a few hours ago,” he said, moving to stand by her side.

She stared down at her lap for a moment. “I — I got shot.”

Frank’s head dropped and he seemed to take in a deep, pained breath. When he looked back up at her, there were tears in his eyes. He reached down and took her hand. “Yeah, babe, you did.”

“Is the — “ Michelle reached down and cradled her belly in one hand. “Is the baby okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He sniffed. “Yeah — the baby’s fine.”

“Alright, Mrs. Shaver.” A young blonde nurse came into the room with a clipboard. “I’m Haley, I’m your on-call nurse. Now that you’re awake I’m just gonna do a check that everything is okay.”

She grabbed the clipboard from the end of Michelle’s bed and stacked it on top of the other one. Frank helped Michelle lay back down as he moved the bed to a sitting up position.

“Do you feel any pain?” Haley asked.

“No.” Michelle shook her head. “I feel weird…Like I’m a little high.”

“That’s the painkillers. The feeling will wear off in a little while. We’ll make sure your next dose isn’t as strong.” Haley scribbled on the clipboard. “Do you need any water or food?”

“Um, water would be nice.”

“Okay. I think that’s all I need. Your surgery went well. We removed the bullet and repaired your femoral artery. If all looks good tomorrow you should be released the following day.” Haley replaced the clipboard at the end of her bed and smiled. “I’ll be right back with that water.”

Michelle watched her leave with an absentminded stare. Two days in the hospital? What were they supposed to do with Claudia during that time? Who would take her to daycare? Would Frank have to take off work? She sighed heavily as she adjusted the blankets over her legs.

“No, no — I know that face.” Frank pulled a chair up beside her bed and sat down. “The fidgeting. Don’t worry about all that, babe.”

“But who’s gonna take care of Claudia?”

He gripped her hand earnestly. “I will.”

“But we can’t afford for you not to go work, babe.” Burning tears hit the backs of her eyes and in seconds they were dripping down her cheeks. “Especially with the new baby coming and now I’m here and you were so close to finding the source of that pill — “

“I actually wasn’t,” Frank mumbled, head tilted down, “That lead I had was a dead end. Landry said it…But I wouldn’t listen. I should’ve been home.”

“You being there wouldn’t have changed what happened.”

He looked up into her face then. A kind of intensity in his eyes that she rarely got to see. “I could’ve protected you. Made sure you were safe.”

“But I am safe.” She squeezed his hand and gave a soft smile of reassurance. “I’m safe now — with you.”

Frank sighed and dropped his head again. Pressing the backs of her fingers into his forehead. “I was so scared, Meesh.”

Michelle didn’t know what to say. She had been scared too. Was still scared even now. But Frank had never been one to get scared. Even during horror films he sat through them straight faced while she shoved her face into a pillow to hide from the monsters. When he came home from grewling shifts that she would hear about on the news he didn’t show an ounce of fear. Even though the reporters were talking about gunfire and chases, busts of massive drug rings where he could have easily been killed. Frank was a steady rock that reassured her that everything was always going to work out. That no matter what happened, they were going to be okay.

But to see her steady rock shaken in this way made her realize that maybe it had always been the other way around instead. That she was the thing that kept him standing in spite of his fear.

_______________________________________________________________________

Michelle fell back asleep after a while. Frank sighed long and hard as he watched her, listened to the heartbeat monitor reassure him that she was alright. He rubbed his hands over his face. God, he was so tired. He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. His entire body felt heavy and worn down to the bone.

Just as his eyes began to slip shut of their own accord, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. With a soft groan he pulled it out and saw that it was Landry calling. He took the call out in the hallway so as not to disturb Michelle.

“Hey, Landry, what’s up?” he asked as he slipped out of the room and moved down the hall to the vending machine.

Might as well get a snack while he was up.

“Hey, man, how’s Michelle doin?”

“She’s alright. Surgery went well. Resting now.” He surveyed the snacks available and decided he didn’t really want anything.

“Alright, cool, cool. Just let us know if you guys need anything.” There was a brief pause on the other end. “We found the van — crashed into an abandoned warehouse.”

Frank took a deep breath. “Any survivors?”

“Not that we can tell. Driver of the van died on impact and there was one other guy inside. Then — man, this is the crazy part — there’s one guy outside the van. Coroner says he died from severe blunt force trauma. Based on evidence collected at the scene this dude — this dude he ran through three walls, man. Brick walls.”

“He ran through them?”

“Yeah. Coroner also found some crazy shit in the guy’s system he’s never seen before.”

“Were there any of those pills on sight?” He leaned against the wall with a furrowed brow.

“Yeah — yeah. A few in the van. They don’t look like anything we’ve ever seen before, Frank. Something crazy’s going on. Want me to put this on hold till you get back?”

Frank could feel his jaw set. His fist clench at his side. If his years as a detective taught him anything, it was that these pills were the reason his house got shot up. The reason his wife was laying in the hospital with a bullet wound. He needed to get to the bottom of this to keep his family and New Orleans safe.

“Yeah. I’ll be back in a few days,” Frank said, “Let me know if you find anything else.”

And with that, he hung up.

[stxvercgersslut]

Promises 2/2

Pairing: Daughter! Reader x Fad! Ransom

Description: Ransom tried his hardest to protect you, making it his priority to ensure that you wouldn’t get hurt again. But he couldn’t always be there to protect you. Something he found out the hard way.

Warnings: Language, not proof read, mentions of bullying, mentions of blood, aggressive behaviour, threats.

He didn’t like the idea of you going back to that hell of a school one bit. Not one little bit! It was practically a suicide mission due to those asshole girls who still hadn’t felt the repructions of their actions just yet. How the hell could he let you go back to that school? Exactly he couldn’t. However, suing the school hadn’t gone to plan. Of course he hadn’t expected your bully to be the principals daughter! So once again that little bitty got away without a single disapilanry. But he wouldn’t give up, Ransom always got what he wanted and this wasn’t going to change that. She didn’t get to go around attacking someone that he loved with all of his heart, his own flesh and blood! And just get away with it!

Yet you had insisted that getting a proper education outdated your safety. Oh the night you’d explained that truely baffled the playboy. He’d shouted, screamed, begged, pleaded and even sobbed for the first time in his entire life. The man even tried to bribe you with money and a car. Begging wasn’t his style, but knowing that your life was at risk id you went back to that hell hole was enough to make him stoop to the lowest of the low. Well not just any car, he’d promised that once you were old enough to finally drive a car that he’d let you learn how to drive in his Beamer. That in itself was a humongous deal for Ransom, especially since his Beamer was his beloved car. That should have worked! It had in the past. He couldn’t even count on two hands how many promises he had made to you in the past in order to get you to do soemthing that he wanted you to do. Yet none of his bribes had worked. You had still disobeyed his wishes and gone to school the very next day like he’d told you not to.

So when he had received the phone call from your school at around 11:30 am informing him that there had been an incident involving you and that disgusting excuse a bully, he couldn’t help but automatically expect the worst possible outcome. After all, what else could happened. Yet what he was wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

“Y/n what the hell happened?” Ransom questioned as he raced towards you, crashing through the front doors of the private school as he did, staring you right in the eyes once he had knelt down to your height. “She wouldn’t stop...I told her to stop hurting me but....but she wouldn’t” you sobbed out, Ransoms Eyes narrowed in concern at the sight of you crying in front of him. Never had he ever seen you cry so much in his 16 years of being a parent.

“What did she do?” He could have sworn that venom had began seeping from his mouth as he anxiously swayed your reply. All the whilst gently brushing the pad of his thumb across your swollen and blood knuckles, evidence of the investable. Had you finally stood up for yourself? Hope began to make itself evident in hide eyes, still awaiting your reply that could determine his reaction.

You struggled, truely struggled for the second time in your life to even explain to your father what had happened. Too afraid that her laugh at your or even call you pathetic once he learned what truely went on. But you had to tell him. You just had to.

He was patient with you, staying knelt one front of you despite the tinge of uncomfortable pain that was sneaking it’s way up his legs. But a rear formed in the males eye, threatening to spill at the sound of your pain filled voice breaking as you began to explain the horrors of what had really happened. “S...she cornered me.....in the hallway......and began......punching me again.....” that explained the fresh bruises forming on you face. The ones that made Ransom cringe. “She.......she kept on laughing......as she hurt me....almost as if she was enjoying causing me pain.....and I couldn’t take it anymore.....” That more then ever began to fill Ransom with a sense of dread mixed with hope that you had finally stuck up for yourself. Yet he was overwhelmingly terrified for you to finish explaining the rest of what had happened “she looked to smug that I just......I......I don’t know what came over me.....but I punched her back......in the face actually.......probably not my best move”

Ransom sighed in relief as he listened to your words, a slight smile on his face as he lent up, slowly placing a kiss to your forehead before placing his hand over your bruised cheek. Honestly he couldn’t have been prouder of you for finally defending yourself. Yes you only punched your attacker but that was enough to satisfy Ransom that you truely were his kid. Even if it took you this long to fight back he was still proud. “Look at me baby” he whispered, trying to get your attention by just rubbing the pad of his thumb against your beaten cheek.

But you didn’t dare look up at him. Too scared that he’d laugh at you. So he just continued “hey? Y/n? Come on look at me. I’m not mad. In fact this is just more proof that you truely are my flesh and blood. I’m proud of you Y/n you did good.” He praised, which of course confused you. Why was he happy you punched someone? Wouldn’t any normal parent be angry that their child had relatilated to something that could have been minor if she hadn’t attacked back? Then again Ransom wasn’t any normal parent. I’m fact he was far from it. Which was why you loved him.

“You’re not mad at me?” You questioned, lifting your head ever so slightly so that your teary eyes were staring back into Ransoms. That tinge in his heart couldn’t be more prominent if it tried. Seeing you so broken was enough to cause the tears in his eyes to finally fall. That’s right, the usually tough as nails playboy was crying because of how proud he was of you. . “Of course I’m not mad baby, you did good fighting back. I know I should be teaching you to be kind to everyone but that bitch deserved what she got” he spoke, just staring at you for a few minutes before pulling you into his arms and just holding you. In that moment he would have done whatever it took to keep you safe. Once again vowing to to do whatever it was that he could do to protect you.

“Can we go home?....I don’t wanna be here anymore. Just wanna go home” you informed, as you slowly looked up to you dad, making a mental note of the softer side to him since you actually quite enjoyed the hugs he would give you. “Yeah....come on let’s go, I’ll buy you McDonald’s on the way home. You deserve it after sticking up for yourself.” The male offered as he placed one more gentle kiss to her forehead, running his fingers carefully through the soft curls of your hair with a smile on his. After one more second of basking in the glory of hold you, his beloved daughter, in his arms he finally pulled away. Grasping your hand in his and pulling you up out of the chair in one quick swoop. “Jesus you’re heavy” he joked happily beginning to walk away.

However, just before he could even think about leaving the hell hall you called school, the sound of your Principal’s began to echo through the halls. “Mr Drysdale may I please have a word with you in private?” Oh this couldn’t be good.

“Depends what this word will entail” Ransom fired back, a smug look on his face as he held you close to him, not daring to let go.

“Mr Drysdale this is a rather serious ma-“

“Yeah yeah whatever, I’m coming. Keep it quick, I promised my daughter a McDonald’s” Ransom spoke, cutting him off half way since he really didn’t have time for the principals bullshit, especially when he would much rather be comforting you like he’d promised. Soon the playboy let go of you, whispering ‘wait here’ into your ear before following the other male into his office.

“So…” Ransom began, raking it upon himself to get comfortable on the large sofa like chair which was pushed against the back wall of the insanely boring office “to what do I owe the pleasure?” he mocked, clearly not wanting to be ther at all just from the glare in his eyes.

“Mr Dr—“

“First of all stop addressing me like that! If you’re going to talk to me then at least call me Hugh. You’re not the help you’re the one in charge of this shithole that my daughter has been terrified of for months now! And second of all like I said, keep this quick. It’s best for both of us if we don’t speak for long” He growled rapidly growing more irriateted by the second. This was the side to Ransom that everyone saw, no was safe from the rage. No one…apart from you. He’d never raise his voice at you, not unless he needed to.

“Mr Drys—“

“Hugh!”

“Hugh” the male began, taking time to let out a frustrated sigh and rubbing at his face slowly before continuing “I’m not keen on your tone!”

Once again Ransom just couldn’t help himself, the sheer anger in his expression was hard to miss by a mile away, even people on the other side of the campus would be able to notice the painful rage seeping through. Oh this auta be fun.“Well deal with it, because as far as I’m concerned I’m not keen on you as a person. So get talking before I walk out of here. In case you’ve forgotten my traumatised daughter is waiting for me outside!” He hissed angrily.

“I beg your pardon? Your daughter is hardly innocent in this. Y/n fractured my daughters nose!” The principal snarled, finding it hard to stay professional now due to the fact that This particular meeting involved his own daughters safety. This man wasn’t concerned for anyone else apart from that asshole that had being abusing you for months on end. And it was really starting to anger Ransom. But for now he kept his cool, or at least attempted to. “I’m sorry Mr Drysdale! But I have no other choice but to expel your daughter, she is clearly a risk to other people’s safety. According to my daughter Y/n had has been bullying her for months. She’s petrified. Do you really think I can tolirate that at my school?” Oh that was all that had needed to be said for Ransom to go spiriting over the edge of rage and into total utter destruction mode. If it weren’t for the fact that you were outside ‘patiently’ waiting for him he would have killed the man in front of him long ago. But he couldn’t...he just couldn’t risk leaving you. So this was the next best thing. However, the words that spilled from his lips had come to a shock to himself too.

“That’s Hugh to you and you called me down here for that? Look, imma level with you. it’s a shitty world out there and what my daughter did I can assure you it wasn’t bullying, maybe your daughter needs to buck up and get used to her feelings being hurt because I can assure you she’ll get it much worse if she doesn’t!” he threatened, his eyes widening with range and his fists clasping shut as he attempted to hold himself back. Admittedly Ransom has never been so angry, yet what he had just been told had caused him to enter that state of dangerously calm. Trust me, you never wanna see that side to him. “Oh and for your information, that little sweetheart daughter of yours is the one bullying my daughter, maybe you don’t know your daughter as well as you thought you did! Now if you don’t mind, not that I care, i will be going back to y/n now.” And with that Ransom stood up, exiting the room before the other could even bother to speak again.

“Right y/n! Let’s go to McDonald’s, but whatever you want. You know what buy the whole damn restaurant if you see fit, it’s not like I couldn’t afford it. Go nuts. My treat” he exhaled, strolling over to you and kissing you head again before literally scooping you up into his arms and walking out of the school. Your dad truly was the best.

Tag list: @cevans-fics @jtargaryen18 @et-lesailes @chuckbass-love

A/n: So like many of you wanted, I have decided to create a second part to Promises since there are so many more things that I wanted to cover that I just didn’t think a oneshot would do justice. Originally I had planned to only make it a oneshot but since you guys seem to like this so much I decided I might as well give it another chapter. Although this definitely is only going to be a mini series and could just be seen as a 2 or 3 parter. Depending on how I feel after this chapter comes out. I would also just like to point out that once I go back to college I will be spending less time on tumblr so my fics May become less frequent. But I promise you I don’t plan on leaving this platform anytime soon. It’s only a 2 parter for now but maybe if this takes off just like the first one did I will make it longer. But for now I’m just sticking with 2 parts.

[letarasstuff]

I like it

A/N: Ok ok, this is like my first Poe Fic (and Star Wars tho) ever, so please don’t be mean to me :c Also, English isn’t my first language

Summary: After having your whole family slaughtered by the First Order, Poe takes you in. Suddenly the base gets attacked by them, when he is not there. How will he react?

Warnings: Language, mentions of death, anxiety, panic attack and bad grammar

father figure!Poe Dameron x Teen!Reader

On your homeplanet there weren't many options to make money. You are either good with mechanics and motors or you look good enough, that the greasy men like you. As one can say, you were lucky.

Your parents owned a workshop. This isn't anything unusual, given the fact there is one at every corner in the bigger cities. But yours was the best. You don't wanna sound cocky, it's just the truth.

So your mother and father taught you the inside of every thing, that has a motor. Before you were even able to form a proper sentence, you could repair any ship on the planet. Still you had a nice childhood, playing with the kids in the neighborhood, going to school and learning new stuff. You are happy to say, that your parents did a damn good job at giving you the best memories a kid can ever have.

But anything good comes to an end, so does this. You were 14 years old, when the First Order came down to your homeplanet. Even though your leaders weren't that nice people, they still refused to be in an alliance with them. Initially they wanted to stay neutral in the war, but as soon as they declined the offer, they tried to get into contact with the Resistance.

Unfortunately, they were too late. When they got their pilots on your ground, nearly everything was burnt down. They swarmed out to look after survivors. Even though they did their best, they couldn't find anyone, who has a beating heart. The sight was heartbreaking. This once living planet was now the aftermath of the First Order's wrath.

The pilots gave up eventually. Nobody agreed to it, but they didn't have many options. The last one to leave the planet was a man, who is known as the golden boy of the Resistance. Poe Dameron. Especially to him it was unacceptable to leave this planet with bare hands. 

So he started a last desperate attempt and looked into one of the most destroyed buildings. He shoved a bit of rubble to the side, when he saw a leg. Hope began to rise inside of him. Quickly he put another rather big piece of rubbish to the side to expose a face. It was a young kid, their eyes are closed.

Poe rushed to their side and checked the wrist for a pulse. The sigh he let out, when he felt a light one, has to be the loudest the galaxy ever witnessed. Happy to be the messenger of good news, the pilot told his squadron about his found. All of them cheered, it was kind of a miracle for them.

Now they have to act fast. Poe picked the kid up and rushed them to his own ship. He knew, that a team of nurses would take too long to get to the both of them. So he put them on a seat and secured them with the belt. He was quick to make his way back to base. He told the ground team about the only survivor and let them prepare a team of doctors and nurses to help the kid.

Luckily the kid made it. Just a few broken ribs, a concussion and a few bruises were what they got as a punishment for their leader's decision.

You are a lucky kid.

You spent a few days unconscious in the medical wing, before you woke up to a steady beeping. To be honest, this noise really got on your nerves. So you opened your eyes to be met by blinding lights. After shutting and re-opening them you got used to it. Then you had the time to take your surroundings in. There were a some machines, that monitor your vitals. Seemed like you were still alive. But why were you here?

Out of all sudden it hit you. The First Order attacked your homeplanet. Your parents, who tried to bring you into safety. Then another missile hit the building and everything goes black. What happened to them? What about all your friends, neighbors? Where were you?

Your breath began to quicken. The beeping got faster. This added to your panic and made you more and more frantic. Your throat tightened as did your chest. Everything seemed to break over you and you don't know what to do.

Then you feel another presence. The person put their hands on your shoulders and spoke in a calm and warm voice:"Hey, hey. Breath, ok? Just take a long breath in, hold it and let it out slowly. Try to feel the way it enters your body and leaves it again. We can get through it, but you have to work with me here, buddy."

You do as the someone told you and mimicked their breathing as they showed you the exercise. Your breathing steadied again as did the beeping. Finally you were able to face them. The person, who talked you through your mini panic attack, has dark brown locks and brown eyes. There were also the shadow of a beard on his jaw.

"Better?", he asked you and gave you a glass of water. After savouring every last drop of it, you answered:"Yes, thank you..?" "Poe, Poe Dameron. The Resistance's best pilot." Well, this is an introduction only he can do.

"Then hello Mr Dameron. I'm (Y/N), the best mechanic my age you can find in the whole galaxy." Actually, you were never the person to be cocky around strangers, but with this Poe guy it felt right at an instance.

"Hello (Y/N), just call me Poe and if you want to address me by my last name, do it right. It's Commander Dameron." "Thank you for this information. Where are my parents though? Why are you here, not them? Also no offence, but it seems pretty weird to wait for  a random teenager to wake up."

The first answer were a sigh. He explained the whole situation to you, even though he didn't want to be the one to bring the bad news. Your only reaction was crying. You felt so many things at once and this was your only way to let it out.

While holding your crying form, Poe promised himself to take care of you from now on. He partly did it, because he felt like it was his fault, that your family was dead. If he was there earlier, he could have saved them. But the other part was you. Even though he only knew you for a few minutes, he felt a connection. Now it's upon him to protect you.

And he does keep his promise until the very day. The both of you share a room, you and BB-8 get super good along, he helps you to make yourself a name as the best mechanic the Resistance has to offer. Hell, he even teaches you how to fly an X-Wing. To say he is impressed by the skill you already have is an understatement. But neither he nor Leia allow you to tag along missions until you old enough. This also counts for training and wearing a blaster.

One time you ask Poe which age this should be. He answers with:”It’s the same age you are allowed to kiss somebody.” It is this moment, when you realize, that you will never be old enough.

It is another rather calm day on the base, which is quite suspicious. The First Order hasn't pulled any stunts recently. Still everybody has something to do, except for the majority of pilots. There aren't many missions for them now, That's why Poe sits next to you, while you repair an astromech. "And then I saved the whole galaxy", ends the older man yet another of his heroic stories. "Again", you add with an eye roll. He nudges your shoulder with his own and exclaimes: "Well, somebody has to do it!" Laughing you tighten another screw and knock gently on the astromech's head.

"Now you are all done, buddy. But be more careful next time while playing with the others tag, ok?", you speak softly to BB-031. Happily she nods and drives off to her pilot. You turn back to Poe. "When do you have to leave?" "Not in another two hours, that means we can grab lunch together. It's just an abandoned outpost with new activities. I don't even think that this has something to do with the First Order", he reassures you. 

You sigh. "I know, but still. So many things can go wrong and I don't wanna be alone again." The both of you walk towards the mess hall. The brown haired man throws an arm around your shoulder. "We are soldiers, as sad as it may sound, it's the truth. We have to keep in our mind that death is always right beside our side. But as long as you are on this base, you will never be alone. Leia is going to take care of you. Always."

You look up to him and smile, a warm and fuzzy feeling bubbling inside of you. The last time you felt like this was with your parents at home.

Before he boards his X-Wing, Poe gives you a last hug and says:"Be good for Leia, ok buddy?" "This sounds like I am four!" "Well, when I think about it, you are like a four year old!", he jokes. With a pout you punch his arm. "Good luck out there and come back in one piece or else I hunt your dead ass down!"

When the Black Squadron left the hangar, you turn back to your own work and get totally engrossed into it. It's just you, your tools and the project infront of you.

That is until a blaring alarm sounds over the speakers. Confused you look up, only to see everyone in the hangar running around like chickens in panic. People throw stuff into bags, others finish their work up hastily and the remaining just run out. And you don't have a kriffing clue what's happening.

You try to stop one of the other mechanics. But to no avail. Nobody wants to explain the situation to you. But then you see the reason for all the commotion:

Outside at the sky are countless TIE-Fighters and it won't take long until the first one reaches the ground. 

You begin to scramble and run, but get pushed into a cart with tools on it. With a loud yelp you land on it and get pocked and cut by wrenches and such. Again, nobody pays attention at you. The own safety is the only present thing at the moment. 

When you hear the TIE touches the ground, you get up as quickly as possible. Even though your legs hurt from the fall, you run like your life depends on it. And it does.

The hangar is deserted. No pilots, no mechanics, no one is there. Expect for you. You can hear the stormtrooper enter the building, while you dash for the gateaway. Their steps are getting closer and closer. It doesn't take long for the enemies to spot you. Sooner as you want, you have to dodge shots from behind. But this isn't your only problem.

As a kind of safety guard the gateaway closes. You run faster than you ever did before. A quick look behind you tells you, that there is a stormtrooper too close for your liking. So you reach into your utility belt and throw the first thing you can grasp at him. Turns out it's one of your favorite wrenches, but it's not the time to mourn the loss. Saving your own life is way more important right now.

When you are close enough at the gate, you throw yourself on the floor and slide under it before is closes completely. But there is no time to catch your breath. You make your way through what feels like the whole base to get to the safety ships.

When you finally reach them, there's only one left. Leia stands at the entrance, looking for someone. As soon as her eyes set on your form, she seems relieved. The General grabs you by your arm and drag you inside the ship. Once you left the base, she pulls you into a hug while scolding you: "Never ever scare me like this again, (Y/N)!"

The Black Squadron is already on the new base. The news of the attack were spread fast to them, so they were quick to react. After your ship's landing the hatch opens. You emerge out of it into a crowd of nervous, scared and clamouring people. But there is one voice shouting, that stands out.

"Where is my kid? Where are they? Has anyone seen my kid? (Y/N)?!" 

It's Poe, who is looking for you. You try to make the direction out from where he shouts. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, you see his dark locks. You push your way over to him and so does he, when he catches a glimpse of you. As soon as he is able to he pulls you in for a hug.

Poe strokes through your hair and makes it a mess, but you can't care less. "I was so scared, that I lost you, kiddo." "I'm fine. I'm fine", you assures him. "I don't care, let us get you to the medical wing, kid." "Ok, Dad."

"Did you just call me Dad?"

"Yes, I did."

"Well, I like that. Love you, kid."

"Love you, too, Dad."

[stonecoldjerseyfox]

Jersey on my mind (part 37)

“Although I’ve been away so many lonely nights, you know I’m back today…”

While John Martyn sang out the first line, Mila exhaled at the two first, soft chords on the scrapy cassette tape; C, G, and inhaled at the two following; A and F.

“We’re home, malysh.” Mila said faintly, like a loud whisper, as she turned on the usually busy, well trafficked Broad Street onto Rumson, after miraculously making the 1000 mile drive from Missouri back to New Jersey all safe and sound.

Outside the car window the darkness laid thick. Was it a Thursday or a Wednesday? The last few days she had had a harder time remembering the days. They kind of floated together more and more and remembering dates felt unprofitable. It was night, that much she knew at least. 

It had been raining just hours prior to their arrival and the puddles resembled deep dark oceans in the thick darkness, only enlightened by the car lights. Much had changed since they left Jersey a couple of months earlier. Broad Street resembled a graveyard, quiet and spookily empty. Broad was never entirely quiet or empty, just more or less trafficked and more or less scattered with people, depending on the time of the day. It was a main road, with a homey feeling to it. A mix of businesses and homes in neat rows. The houses were well maintained, the lawns cut and the constant aromatic atmosphere, thick as a blanket, consisting of a variety of different sorts of food and exhaust fumes almost stunned the mind; rocking the residents in a warm feeling of security in the Red Banks and Little Silver area. But the safe, homely blanket had disappeared and Broad lied all empty and ghostly. 

“-You know without you honey, all I do is worth nothing. And girlie, don't cry for me-” John Martyn sang on. 

“We’re home.” Mila repeated faintly, while steering the car between the debris, having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that this was Little Silver. That they actually had made it back. It felt surreal. 

A tipped over shopping cart rested in the middle of the wet road, filled with what looked like stacks of magazines, or what once was. Now they lay scattered around the street and sidewalk, crinkled up like papier mache from the rain, having dried up in the breeze into nodular shapes. The drugstore window was shattered, raided, as was the grocery store. Everything felt like being in a movie set for Dawn of the Dead. Mila swallowed as she scanned the otherwise very familiar, cozy area for movements, from both living and dead creatures. They had been lucky ever since they left Missouri, hadn’t crossed paths with anyone. If they’d seen people, they’d kept out of sight, watching them from afar. 

Juri gestured at her in the rear view mirror, letting her know that he too had a hard time recognizing the neighborhood.

“I know, malysh.” Mila replied as John Martyn continued to sing: 

“Although there might be other people in my life. Honey, on my mind, you will always find there's only you-” 

As she slowly cruised further down Rumson Place, Mila felt how the tight belt of anxiety eased around her chest a little. It wasn’t all so different. The trees looked the same, the street lights were dark but otherwise it felt as usual; the street she’d learned to love, to feel safe at, to call home. That sense of safety and calm disappeared. Chaos had reached the quiet, lush Jersey suburb as well. This part of Little Silver also lied dead quiet, ghostly and abandoned; cars were left in the street with their doors open, empty driveways and boards over the windows at some of the houses. The usually well cut lawns were left uncut and the bushes looked ravaged and bewildered. Juri twisted and turned in his car seat to look out of the window, looking mildly shocked. Mila couldn’t get her mind around it either. It felt bad, wrong. Where was everybody? Hiding inside their houses? Or had they fled the field? And in that case, where had they gone? 

“Don’t worry.” Mila said automatically, but felt how wrong the words tasted on her tongue. All she could feel was worry, as soon as she saw the Galka house. They were finally home and it didn’t feel at all like she’d imagined it. “We’re here.”

When she parked on the driveway to the two storey house she’d called home for the past years, Mila shut off the car, killing the sound of “Back to stay” mid sentence. She threw herself out of the passenger seat, grabbed Juri from the backseat and ran onto the porch. She pulled the handle on the door, decorated with a wreath of oak leafs, acorns and a ribbon. Locked.

“What the-” Mila started banging on the wood, but there was no answer. ”Joe?” she cried, hesitated to do so because of the risk of attracting attention. ”El?”

Still no answer. No lights going on inside or any sign of life. With Juri locked on her hip she ran to the kitchen door, only to find it locked as well. 

”Billy? Adam?” She called out. 

Juri tugged at her jacket, signing questioningly ‘where are they?’

“I don’t know, Malysh.”

Mila ran back to the car and managed to get the keys out of her old, trustworthy handbag with shivering fingers. Still with Juri on her hip, she ran back up on the front door porch, fiddled with the keychain before finding the right key and unlocked the door. 

“Hello?”

She received no answer. Ellie Galka didn’t come out of the kitchen and greeted her with a hug and Joe didn’t wave at her from the living room couch. No Adam or Billy who ran down the stairs to smolder her with bearhugs. Mila and Juri seemed to be the only ones there. The blinds were pulled down and the shutters closed. She put Juri down on the floor and walked through all the rooms on the ground level, only to find them empty. Then she ran upstairs, checked Billy’s and Adam’s room, only to find them dark and empty as well. Panic arose up her throat as Mila ended up in the master bedroom. There she haltered with a pounding heart. The drawer was extracted, the wardrobe was wide open and the framed picture on El’s nightstand, picturing ‘her three kids’ was gone. Mila couldn’t take it anymore, her legs folded under her, and she collapsed on the floor, kneeling in front of the bed. They had left. She was alone, again. Plan B had failed and she didn’t have a plan C. She sat there crying uncontrollably, until Juri found her. Tightly he squeezed her neck, pressed himself against her, allowed her to cry into his hair. 

“It’s gonna be alright, Juri-” Mila sobbed between her crying breaths, understanding that she had to pull herself together. “I promise.” 

It had to be alright, but how? 

Still crying she stood up on shaky legs, lifted Juri from the floor and put him down in the big bed where they made themselves comfortable up against the pile of soft pillows. While Mila brushed her tears away with the back of her hand, Juri started fiddling with his walkman, pressed “play” and cranked up the volume. Through the leaking foam headphones the raspy sound of strings were heard, followed by a male chuckle that sent chills down Mila’s spine. Then the voice, oh god that voice, started to sing “Highwayman” in a wailing, southern-way, causing her whole body to ache. Jim made that tape just for fun; no biggie, just a messy recording of him fooling around with his guitar singing some of his favorite country songs, “I won’t back down”, “When I went down to Georgia”, “Highwayman”, “Your man” … - Right there and then it was more precious to them than anything else in the world. Mila closed her eyes and pressed Juri against her body as she could, clear as day, see Jim in front of her. Clear as if he was there in the room with them. The luscious brown hair, thick beard, the funny face he made when he sang in that southern, country way she liked so much. Juri squeezed her hand tightly and Mila opened her eyes, feeling them tearing up. 

“I miss him too, baby.” She stuttered while caressing the blond hair. “So, so much.” 

A tear ran down her cheek, then another one. Outside the window it was pitch black; Mila wondered if it had ever been that dark in Little Silver before? They lied there, curled up on the bed in the master bedroom under complete silence, only broken by the faint sound of the wind, while Jim sang them to sleep. 

Mila woke up the next morning by the room bathing in morning sunlight, making the sheer yellow curtains resemble sunbeams. Juri lied curled up next to her, snoring loudly underneath the covers. Mila remembered their whereabouts, how they got there and that they were alone in the house. Once again her stomach shrinked, but she couldn’t give up at this point. There surely was a logical explanation to why the Galka’s had left, they must’ve gone to some collecting site, somewhere safe. What if they came back? Why hadn’t they left a note? Would they come back? It was possible. They had to wait and see, defend the house from potential scavengers. 

Mila got up from the bed and ran downstairs into the kitchen, where she peered out the window through the wooden shutters. After making sure the coast was clear, she turned the locks and opened the door, snuck out, and began to unload the car in a hurry. Back inside she locked the door again, made sure no one had seen her and turned to watch the cellar door. 

Mila knew Joe kept weapons down there, in the weapon cabinet, decorated with stickers from different fishing competitions and the local football and baseball teams. It was a big cabinet that Ellie, under no circumstances, wanted to have upstairs in the house. Now Mila needed to get inside that cabinet. Joe couldn’t possibly have brought all of his guns with him when they left. 

Mila went into the living room and further into the office, where Joe kept the family’s small safe, containing important papers and documents, jewelry and the key to the gun cabinet, hidden inside a copy of “The Heart of a Woman” by Maya Angelou, taped to the inside of the binder. No wonder Joe was the family’s undefeated master of hide and seek. Inside the safe Mila found the key and went back to the kitchen. She found her copy of the key to the basement on her keychain and unlocked the door, turned the light switch and went downstairs. The basement smelled like gasoline, old, dried paint, very basement-y. A year after she moved into the Galka house, Joe renovated the laundry room next to the kitchen, moving the washer and dryer from the basement to the upper floor. Before that, during Mila’s first year with them, the smell of freshly dried sheets used to hit her in the face as soon as she opened the basement door. Well, no more. At the end of the stairs she looked around. Shelves with motor oil, red plastic gas can, an old football, Joe’s rubber boots and fishing rods... everything looked normal. At the right she saw the weapon cabinet. Big, green and frankly, ugly. Once she had managed to unlock the lock, she pushed the heavy door open. To Mila’s relief she saw that Joe hadn’t been able to bring everything from the cabinet. To her surprise, Mila also saw a weapon case she recognized. It didn’t belong to Joe or anyone of the Galka’s, but-

"I’ll be damn-” She took out the fabric case and looked at it. It felt like several years since she last saw it, then in a completely different place, on the other side of the earth. Papa’s rifle, from Russia. How was that possible? She hadn’t seen it for years. A patch was pinned to the shoulder strap. She looked at it. “Confiscated at customs, cleared by Joseph Galka at New Jersey Police Department for safe handling.” Mila read out loud. “Accompanying Sergey Volk-” she paused mid sentence. 

So it really was his rifle, she thought, without becoming the least bit wiser. He must’ve brought it with him in his luggage when they left Russia, that was the only logical explanation. What’d he planned to do with it? Mila didn’t want to think about it. He was obviously capable of doing anything, she knew that now, and as a highly regarded city official he could bring whatever the hell he wanted in his luggage without consequences it seemed like. Or at least he thought so. Mila hugged the cloth case, it felt like an old jute sack between her hands. She had used the weapon in her youth; shot cans with it in the countryside during the summers and a pigeon or two. Well, papa didn’t need it, not anymore. Mila set it aside, considering it as hers from now on and went through the other black plastic cases. Some were empty, but she found two handguns as well as ammunition and a big knife Joe used for gutting fish with. It could definitely be used for other things as well, like killing those walking dead creatures, formerly known as people. Mila returned upstairs with her findings and put it down on the kitchen table. She could hear Ellie’s distressed voice inside her head:

“No- oh, not on the table! Christ sake!”

Well, El wasn’t here now to see the mess she’d caused. Mila’s eyes swept over the table. She was armed, so now then? She began to go through the cupboards in the kitchen. They needed food, that was priority number one now that she was armed. Luckily Ellie Galka was Little Silver’s unofficial champion of grocery shopping. El always took the biggest shopping cart in the grocery store, the shopping lists were meticulously designed to make shopping smooth and she always made sure that everything that could be needed was at home in the cupboards. If one of her ‘kids’ wanted banana bread, or just mentioned it in passing, they could be sure to find a steaming fresh banana bread under a soft baking sheet an hour later without El having to go shopping before.  Everything, from bananas to flour, was always at home no matter what it seemed. Mila didn’t find any brown bananas hiding behind the flour or baking soda in the cupboards, but there were a lot of cans and dry goods stacked away. She and Juri didn’t have to starve just yet. 

From that day they settled into the Galka house in Little Silver on their own. They slept in Mila’s old bedroom, that the Galka’s had kept for when Mila, Juri and Jim came to visit, armed with both Adam’s trustworthy baseball bat and all of the weapons she had found in the house. 

Days turned into weeks. They had everything they needed, and if they needed something else or ran out of food, they slipped out of the house, out on the streets of Little Silver and Red Banks, to collect supplies. Sometimes Mila dared to leave Juri at the house and go scavenging alone, making him swear to hide if someone broke into the house. Luckily that never happened, but Mila encountered the dead creatures every time she went out the door. There were plenty of them. Neighbors suddenly turned up as walking corpses behind trash cans, cars and roamed around downtown like delusioned pigeons. It took awhile for her to not feel bad about killing them, and to understand their weaknesses and weak spots. Aim for the head and put them out of their misery quickly, was her conclusion after a while. At first it was horrible, made her think of Jim, but after a few killings she felt mentally numb. One thing was sure, she could not get her head around papa’s perverse tendencies to kill out of sheer desire. 

She tried her best to keep a routine, for Juri’s sake. Making sure his reality and routine was kept intact and nice was everything she could think off. Making sure he had everything he needed, felt safe and happy. She woke up at eight in the morning, exercised, woke Juri and they ate breakfast together. Then she dressed him, they played or went out exploring. If she went out on her own, scavenging and exploring, she did so by bicycle. She went to the library and collected books to read, to Blockbuster to get movies and the grocery stores for food. In the nights they curled up on the couch and watched movies in the living room, thanks to Joe’s ‘mega disaster generator’, operating on gasoline. 

“What if there’s a tornado, El?” Joe said when he returned home, with the big piece in the trunk one day, to Ellie’s horror, about a year prior to the apocalypse. “Think about that for a minute. This bad boy might save lives, I tell you.”

Joe, just like Mila, loved disaster movies, but unlike Mila, Joe was extremely influenced by what he saw and could, without blinking, begin to prepare for a presumed doomsday, well… half-heartedly. The generator was a much welcomed addition to the situation whatever Ellie had thought about it that day, Mila thought to herself as she put ‘Terminator 2’ on VHS into the player to watch one night, when Juri was asleep. She used to stay up late, watch another movie and get batshit drunk. Joe had a bar cabinet that was only opened when they had guests over. He rarely drank otherwise, so Mila did him a favor and made sure the booze didn’t go to waste. Her drinking soon spiraled into a ‘around the clock jagg’; she was never sober, just more or less drunk, to the point when she started to hallucinate. After a while, she began to think that Jim was with them in the house. At first it was comforting having him around, but that quickly turned. It was painful, to the point where she thought she was going crazy for real. 

“We gotta get out of here, Juri.” Mila monotonously expressed one day, mid a Clint Eastwood movie and halfway through the last bottle of Buffalo Trace from Joe Galka’s bar cabinet. “We can’t stay here.” She looked at the bottle in her hand. Fuck, she hated Buffalo Trace; had she lost all sense of taste and class? “Not like this.”

Juri, lying on his belly on the carpet surrounded by colorful drawings and chubby kids crayons, looked up at her and nodded. He was fine either way it seemed. A month, maybe two, even three or four, Mila wasn’t really sure, had passed without any sight of the Galka’s, or anyone for that matter. The streets were desolated. There wasn’t anyone around that was alive anymore. Down the street Mila had, to her horror, seen Mr and Mrs Paulson pressing up against their barricaded windows, looking like melting wax dolls with blood running down their mouths. No sight of their two kids. Mila could just guess what had happened to them. Considering their absence from the window and their parents blood stained faces, she had her suspicions. 

No, they couldn’t stay any longer, Mila thought as she lay on the couch. She was starting to get mad from being locked up inside the house. They needed to go back out on the road, leave their comfortable but isolated hideout. For what she didn’t really know. A sign? Or a miracle? She didn’t believe in signs or miracles, didn’t believe in any God either for that matter. But they couldn’t stay here hiding for all eternity. It was much better to get out of there. Maybe they would find the Galka’s while on the road. The possibility was minimal, but Mila really wanted to believe that there was a slight chance, despite it being one in a million.

One early morning, Mila shut off the generator. She packed their belongings, locked all of the doors and painted a red cross at both the front door and the kitchen door, to imply that the house was unsafe to enter, hoping it would leave it untouched. She drove the car out of the garage, having loaded it the night before. She had hid a filled gas can up the beams of the roof of the garage, if she ever needed to come back there for some reason, she at least knew she had extra gas. After backing out of the driveway, she just stood there on the street, looking at the house. Would she ever come back again?

“Look at it Juri.” Mila sighted and hugged the wheel tighter. “Look closely. Remember it. I don’t know when we’ll be able to return.”

As she said it out loud, she could have swore she saw Jim looking out at her from the upstairs window, peeking out behind the curtain. She swallowed hard. I’m hallucinating, he’s not real, she repeated inside her head, but couldn’t take her eyes from the window. She just had to accept it and continue to live, survive, for Juri’s sake.

[the-scooby-gang]

The school body of Coolsville High valorised their lives. That’s why any thought they had on the Heathers was said outside the school grounds. Far away from The Red Heathers ears and listeners . Not that helps any. They somehow still know of your slight agains them, there being one or not.

One of the topics whispered between the walls of the malt shop was a highly debated one: The Red Heathers didn't deserve a friend like Norville Heather Rogers 

Fiercely loyal and surprisingly friendly, seen who his best friends were, Norville “Like, call me Shaggy” Rogers didn't have any of the characteristics of someone everyone assumed would mingle with Fred and Daphne. In fact, when he had first arrived on the school, freshly transferred from some place in California, with a historic of anxiety and panic attacks, many pitied him.

“Poor Kid” they said “The Heathers will ate him alive” 

“How long do you think it will take for him to cry?”

 “I give him a week” 

“You are being optimistic. By lunch time, one of the traps will traumatise him beyond words. I give two days before he asks for a new transference”

But it never came to be. 

No one is quite sure what Fred Jones saw in the new kid, but the attack on the easy target never came. Instead, both Daphne and Fred sat down with him at lunch. Made conversation, asked to show him around. Becoming... friends.

For many weeks, everyone held their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the lanky kid to appear glued to the flagpole, without his pants, in tears. 

But the days passed and no nefarious deeds were committed against one Shaggy Rogers.

Many were confused. 

Why? 

The Heathers never made, what Daphne use to call, ‘Bad investments’ in regards of who they hang around with. What, exactly, tall, lanky Shaggy Rogers could offer to them, outside having the middle name Heather?

Some theorised it was because his family was loaded, they sell engagement rings after all.

Some said that they wanted to capitalise on the fact that, anxiety aside, he was the lead in the track team and was one one the best gymnast of Coolsville (with was a terrifying notion: someone with such physical prowess under Daphne and Fred’s command would have no problem climbing walls and roofs and planting god knows what kind of trap in there. Out of sight, out of reach)

Some thought it was because of the Giant Great Dane that followed the boy around. A service dog, Scooby Doo was as fiercely loyal as Shaggy himself and when, rarely, he wasn't with his owner, you could see the dog casually trotting side by side with the King or the Queen. 

Having a dog the size of a small pony just added to their image of “Don't fuck with us.”

But the truth appeared one month later. 

Already stablished as “A Heather”, Shaggy had developed a new found confidence. With his posture straight and a new fondness for yellow. 

(”Like, Daph, you and Freddie have, like, your color. And since green is already taken I was thinking, I don't know, yellow?? What do you think?” 

“That’s a marvellous idea, Shaggy! You know what? We should go shopping after class, so I can help you” 

“Thanks, Daph”

“Don't sweat over it, sweetie. That’s is what friends are for”)

Shaggy Rogers and Scooby were just walking down the hallway. Radiating friendliness as per usual. Until they weren't.

No one remember their names. The only thing everyone remembers about them was that they were both new transfer students. A tall blond cheerleader wannabe and a small jock.

They were new, poor things. They didn't know about the status quo. They didn't know to bend the knee to the King and Queen. For any new arrivals, the way  how the school worked was shoved down their throats by the ever looming presence of the Heathers power, but during Shaggy “initiation” as one of them they had been quiet. Non-threatening. Normal teens even. 

With had put the school in a state of unease.

But the fools, unimaginably tremendous fools, didn't see it. The warning on the faces of their fellow students that something was not right. They were new, and as such didn't know the rule they were about to break.

They insulted Daphne.

A comment on her blazer. The way she made her hair. How all the red mixed with her hair makes her look like a giant tomato. How that shade of lipstick made she look like a slut....

The Red Heathers had not yet arrived, but the students on the hearing radium on the conversation freeze. They may not be here, but they will know.

They always know.

The foolish idiots keep on laughing, not noticing that the entire hallway is now deadly quiet. Picturing their coffins most likely. No one notices Shaggy smile disappear or see the boy approach the laughing duo.

Shaggy’s first against the locker, barely missing the jock, wreaked that spell.

“You will watch that dirty. whore. mouth of yours when talking about my friend, or I will personally sew it shut”

He had barely whispered, but on the silence corridor it sound like a shout. They did a double take. Some gave a triple take just to be sure. The Shaggy they have come to know barely swore, much less threaten someone. 

But this was not Shaggy. The man in yellow is now unrecognisable from Shaggy and his cheerful eyes. 

His eyes were now cold and piercing. He stood tall, smirking gleefully when noticing that his 6,7f frame loomed over his targets. Even the energy around him seemed to change. Friendliness stepped aside to be replaced by Fear.

This was also a common topic in the relative safety of the malt shop: How reality seemed slightly distorted depending how Shaggy was felling that day. Some kids went as far as say that maybe that's was why Fred and Daphne became his friends. His reality bending powers must have made it so, they say, thats why when he is being friendly, we feel joyful in his presence, they say.  That when he is mad, you are bombarded by fear.

The cheerleader was paralysed. She was plastered against her locker, trying to look as small and as unthreatening  as possible. Her jock friend, however, in a moment of panic maybe, tried to punch his way out of the situation. Just for Shaggy to dodge the first like it was nothing. In a fraction of a second he grabbed the wrist of his smaller target and twisted his arm behind his back, shoving him face first against the locker.

“When I talk to you, I want a verbal answer. Or are you too stupid to figure that out?” Shaggy now demanded, his voice level, but not less frigid. “Now, where was I... Oh, yes. You and Misses failed abortion face here were laughing about my friend, wasn't it?” he asked, turning his face to look at the cowering girl, who was doing her damnedest to fuse herself with the metal, but still keeping her friend pined against the lockers like a misbehaving portrait.

“You,” Shaggy said, glaring at the girl so intensely they expected her to die by its force alone “Daphne warned me about people like you.” He turned his face back to the jock with a look of disgust before effortlessly throwing him over her lake a sad sack of potatoes “She told me about the slander. About the jokes behind her and Fred’s back. How pathetic little sacks like you two have your life mission to make them miserable”  with each word Rogers was getting more frigid, if that's was even possible, while everyone else looked in disbelieve when the pieces of the plan laid right in front of them, finally clear.

“You. absolute. pieces. of. jealous. shit can't see someone that seems slightly better than you that you want to drag them all over the mud isn't it?” he was shaking right now. Scoob, that had been by his side the entire ordeal, got closer to his owner. A silent support. “Just because they are rich, you think their life is a barrel of rainbows, that they don't suffer at all. That you can say your mean words all you want that Perfect and Rich Daphne and Fred will be unaffected”

His voice was breaking, he was clearly on the verge of tears. But if you looked at his face alone, you would think it was made of stone.  Scooby at that point, cleaver boy that he was, accessed the situation and started to growl at the two dumbfound pair on the ground, clearly deducing that they were the cause of his friends distress. Both pressed themselves harder against the wall, now with a pissed Great Dane looming over them

“So guess what? They may be more forgiving than any of you disgusting toads deserve, but while I'm still fucking breathing no one, AND I MEAN NO ONE IS GOING TO SPEAK ANY SORT OF BULLSHIT ABOUT MY FRIENDS! IS. THAT. CLEAR?”

“What is happening here?”

The sea of spectators of the passionate declaration of loyalty parted to show Daphne, her hands on her hips, with  Fred right behind.

Her face, however, didn't have her normal mythic bitchness, but a look of, what appeared to be, concern. 

That was when Coolsville High remembered a crucial fact about the Heathers, one they should have not so easily forgot: They were liars. Really.Good. LIARS.

Shaggy’s posture immediately relaxed and he went in long strides in her direction, engulfing her in a hug.

“I’m sorry I doubted you.” he was now crying on her shoulder, his sobs heart breaking “I'm so sorry. I... I thought that they count possibly be so... so cruel to you guys without... without motive” He looked up from his place in Daphne shoulder to look at Fred, them let go of her and went in his direction, now taking him in his embrace. While Fred soothed Shaggy with one hand in his hair, pressing his crying friends face to his red ascot, blocking his view from his surroundings, Daphne put her hand on his back and started slow circular motions.

What, in any other circumstance, would have being quite a  sweet moment between friends was broken by the fact that, the moment Shaggy’s face was out of sight, Daphne and Fred’s concerned looks melted away to looks of devilish delight, and the student body now felt a new dread in their souls.

“Don’t worry, Shag.” Fred’s voice was way too soft for the look on his face “We are used to it. It hurts... yes, yes it does, but me and Daph are strong. We can deal with it”

“But you shouldn't have to” Shaggy removed his tear stained face, once again hardened to stone, from Fred’s neck “Sorry for the ascot” he looked miserably to the tear spots on the fabric. Fred’s face once again melted away in a new expressions never seen in his face: A soft smile the recked of compassion.

“It is just an ascot, Shaggy”

That was the confirmation that it was all a very elaborate lie. It was not just an ascot. It was a symbol. The unofficial crown of the King of Coolsville High, together with Daphne’s Red Scrunchie.

Shaggy remove himself from the embrace with Fred and side glanced at the forgotten targets, silently trying to scape since the focus was no longer on them. Shaggy squinted his eyes. That won't do.

Shaggy gave a sharp whistle. Scooby, who had calmed down when the Heathers arrived, decide to lie down, close his eyes and relax a little from his exertion but keep his ears ready for any commotion, was up again in a second. Looking at his owner once again distressed face, Scooby was confused. Didn’t the Red ones arrived already? Looking in question to their faces, once again, in seconds, Daphne and Fred’s faces melted away to new expressions. This ones there were fairly used to.  After all they saw it every day in their victims faces: despair. 

His humans were in despair. Looking around for the reason, he saw the two threats from before moving away. With a growl of anger, Scooby advanced after them.

It was fascinating, seeing the large dog run, jump and pin down two grow teenagers with relative ease. It was terrifying seeing said teenagers being dragged by their ankles in on only, painful looking, bite. They were throwed like rag-dolls at the Heathers feet, all three of them now truly looking like a complete set. The yellow just seemed to fit in in middle of the red.

“Like, you think I'm done with you? No. You idiots are my example. SO THIS IS FOR EVERYONE TO KNOW. DON’T. FUCKING. MESS. WITH. MY FRIENDS” He glared at the crowd, like he suspected that all of them were guilty of the crime of bulling “poor Fred and Daphne”. Knowing Daphne, that was probably what she told him. With that remark, he grabbed the duo by their bloody ankles, making them both let out a whimper that was immediately silenced by one glare. And he dragged them like they weighted nothing thru the corridor, with the crowd opening up once again, going without stop to  the back doors.

The Red Heathers simply smiled like Cheshire cats, and, arm in arm, followed their loyal yellow friend.

They were never seen again, that duo. Some think that they were killed. Buried in unmarked graves just outside of town. Others think that the so much theorised cryptid abilities must have scared them into a new country.

Never the less, the message was clear. Even if Shaggy had gone back to exude joy by his presence alone, with Scooby being a cute pup right beside him. There was always going to be there, just under the surface, that fear. The knowledge that Shaggy was fiercely protective to the point of ruthlessness. That the joy in his eyes could so easily turn into ice.

So Coolsville High learned to fear once again.

Now they feared Daphne’s crocodile tears. Fred’s well crafted defeated looks.

For Daphne and Fred had seen in Shaggy what others didn't. In he’s first day, many have seen an easy target. Someone easy to break.

The King and Queen, however, had seen a Knight and his Dog. Stronger than what first appearances told. Honour bound and loyal. And so, so easy to train. 

[pufflyhallows]

Wounds

Pairing: Remus Lupin x reader

Summary: You and Remus were together for eight years. When James and Lily died and Sirius was sent to Azkaban, things got really difficult and he eventually left you. Now you meet again at Hogwarts after you helped Sirius escape and clear everything up. The past is discussed.

a/n: This is the morning after Remus’ transformation and chasing after Harry and Hermione in Prisoner of Azkaban. Reader and Remus were reunited in the Shrieking Shack, but that was focused on Peter so I didn’t think it was relevant to this piece in particular as they didn’t have time to talk there.

Warnings: mentions of death, language, angst.

Word count: 2,960

********

“So this is your office.”

“Was. Was my office.”

Remus was emptying the old drawers of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher’s office. The news about his condition would soon be spread, so the logical thing to do was leave before it did. He wasn’t happy about it, of course – it was yet another job he was losing for the same damn reason. He reckoned that was something that would follow him his entire life, though. At this point, he was merely used to it.

“It was your office,” you repeated, nodding slowly. “I’m sorry you have to leave. I know the kids loved having you as their teacher.”

“You do?” he looked up from the suitcase he was filling with books.

“I had a little chat with Hermione. ‘The best DADA teacher we’ve had so far’, if I remember correctly.”

“Not a very hard title to win. They’ve only had two teachers before me – one had You-Know-Who on the back of his head, and the other was a narcissistic self-proclaimed hero.”

“You’ll never learn how to take a compliment, will you?”

Remus looked down at his suitcase again, a small sheepish smile on his lips.

You had been resting your shoulder on the door frame, arms crossed and eyes everywhere. The office looked smaller than it did in your head. You started to walk around, carefully observing anything interesting you found, arms still crossed on your chest.

“I remember last time I was here,” you broke the silence. “Many years ago when I was just a stupid teenager.”

“You were never stupid,” Remus interrupted.

“Oh, I was. Very much. And I was here because I was in trouble. Professor Jones had caught me cheating on his test. I don’t know if you’ll remember.”

“I remember,” Remus nodded. “You and Sirius got caught, and James felt guilty he hadn’t, so he turned himself in.”

“Yeah! Wow, that was so long ago,” you thought about it for a few seconds before continuing. “Anyway, I was standing here, Sirius and James by my side, and we were all staring at Professor Jones, who was standing right there where you are, behind the desk. He made us sit down and write some famous quote about integrity over and over again.”

“And I dare say neither of you learned the lesson.”

“Depends on what lesson you’re talking about. We cheated on the following test, but didn’t get caught – that lesson we learned.”

Remus snorted a discrete laugh through his nose, eyes on the books he was packing. “I suppose that’s good.”

“Yeah, it is. I mean… it was.”

Remus looked up at you. The history behind your words flooded his mind just as much as it flooded yours, and both of you missed the times when all you had to worry about was detention.

And when you had each other’s embrace to run to. Yeah, that too.

“We had fun, didn’t we, Remus?”

“We did,” he nodded. “But these last years wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t fucked up everything.”

“Stop. I didn’t come here to have this conversation.”

“But we need to have this conversation, Y/N. I need to have this conversation.”

“You asked me for forgiveness right before transforming last night, do you remember? You apologized. And I said I forgive you. We don’t need to talk about this.”

“We do,” Remus walked around the desk and approached you, stopping just a meter away. “There are things I need to say, things that I need you to hear. A simple ‘I’m sorry’ is not enough.”

You looked at each other for a few seconds. Hesitation and uncertainty in your eyes, hope and urgency in Remus’.

“Please,” he muttered.

You chewed on your bottom lip, thinking you weren’t ready for this yet. Yes, you forgave him – you had forgiven him years ago, even before he apologized. But it still hurt. Ten years passed since Remus left you, but the pain was still all too real. It was not left in the past, as you wished.

At the time, you tried to hate him. You tried to despise him, but you failed – you loved him way too much for that. You felt betrayed and abandoned, and you resented him for a while, yes. But hate? You never could, no matter how many times you had made yourself think of him as a coward, a traitor, a selfish asshole. You knew it wasn’t true. Your heart was broken and you wanted to hate him for breaking it, but… you failed.

And now, you knew you were not ready to have this conversation yet. You didn’t resent him anymore and you had forgiven him already, but it still hurt. The past hurt. And you weren’t ready to touch those wounds yet.

“Please, Y/N.”

“Remus, I-”

“I just need you to listen. You don’t have to say or do anything. Just listen.”

You looked into Remus’ pleading eyes and felt like you had no strength to fight any emotions anymore. You would be lying if you said you didn’t want to listen to what he had to say – because you did, very much – but you knew that you just weren’t ready yet.

“I don’t think I can.”

“But… why?”

“I don’t know, Remus,” you sighed, defeated. “I think it’ll break me. I don’t want to relive the past. At least, not right now.”

Remus looked down at his feet, a gesture that instantly reminded you of the shy boy he once was, and you had to close your eyes so you wouldn’t start crying right then and there. He nodded and stepped back, swallowing hard as he carried on with his packing.

“I forgive you. That’s not up to discussion,” you stated, your voice weaker than you intended. “I want you to know that.”

He nodded again, not looking up.

“And I will listen to what you have to say. Just not today.”

“Okay,” he mumbled.

“I’m happy to be here and I want it to stay like that. I’m happy to see you, I’m happy that Sirius is free, I’m happy I got to see Harry all grown… God! Lily’s eyes.”

“But looks just like James,” Remus whispered, a shy smile on the corner of his lips as he still looked down at his suitcase and not at you.

“Yeah. The hair… It’s insane.”

Silence suddenly reigned in the room, making you feel small. Remus had finished emptying the drawers and was now trying to close his super full suitcase. The only sounds in the office came from the Grindylow’s tank in the corner.

You slowly approached the desk, noticing the countless pieces of parchment spread on it. Some were assignments Remus’ students would never get back directly from him, and you knew that would make them sad. However, you noticed a familiar piece of parchment on the table.

“Is that…?” you pointed at it and Remus stopped to look.

“Yes. I intend to give it back to Harry.”

“Awesome,” you reached out, fascinated. “May I…?”

“Of course.”

It was hard to hide the excitement you were feeling at that moment. After all, it was the first time in over a decade that you were able to see and touch the Marauder’s Map.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” you whispered as you pressed the tip of your wand against it.

Thin ink lines began to spread like a spider’s web. They joined each other, they criss-crossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment; then words began to blossom across the top, great, curly green words, that proclaimed: Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present THE MARAUDER’S MAP.

Your heart sank. You felt the tears stinging your eyes, but you merely blinked them away. So many memories came at once into your mind, it was hard to keep track of them.

You could read your own name in the Defence Against the Dark Arts office, but not Remus’. That didn’t surprise you. You knew only a Marauder could read another Marauder’s name on the map.

“I hadn’t realized how much I missed this,” you whispered as you traced your name with the tip of your fingers.

“Yeah… me neither.”

“Is this how you found out I was here?”

“No. I recognized you outside my classroom’s window weeks ago. You really fascinated the Ravenclaw first-years. They all thought you had been sent by Rowena Ravenclaw herself.”

You laughed as you recollected the mesmerized look on the students’ faces. “I should’ve remembered the fact that eagles don’t nod when children wave at them.”

“You sure made them happy. And hard to concentrate back on the lesson too.”

“Sorry about that. I was… excited to see you teaching. And now I know that was stupid. I could’ve blown everything up and Sirius wouldn’t have been able to get in and-”

“You think I’d have done something?”

“Well, I don’t know. Sirius escaped prison and suddenly I was here… You could’ve thought I was trying to get Harry and reported me. I have always been associated with Sirius since the beginning, you remember. After he escaped, people thought I had something to do with it.”

Remus looked at you, frowning slightly.

“Which is true,” you clarified. “I had something to do with it. Everything to do with it. But people didn’t know that for sure, so it was a little unfair that they were accusing me.”

Remus raised an eyebrow.

“Okay. It wasn’t unfair, given my history of nagging the Ministry about his arrest,” you sighed. “Public protests that costed me jobs, peace, safety and… relationships.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about that.”

“I do, Remus. That’s the thing. I do. I’m just… I don’t know.”

You took a deep breath and put the map down on the desk. Maybe it was time to talk about it.

“I don’t know how to feel about this whole thing right now. Like I said, I’m happy I’m here, but… things didn’t turn out exactly how we planned. Peter escaped and Sirius had to run away on a hippogriff so he wouldn’t be kissed. Now we don’t know when we’ll see him again, do we? And I’m happy to see you, I really am, specially because now you know I was telling the truth and everything else was just media bullshit, but that’s… that’s also exactly why I’m still hurting. You didn’t believe me. You chose to walk away and leave me alone on this. I had to fight this fight by myself, because I couldn’t just leave Sirius there and go live my life like you did. I forgive you and I think I understand now, but I’m still fucking hurting.”

After letting all that out, you felt a tiny bit better. Everything was on the table now for him to see, and you didn’t know what to expect, to be honest. Your voice had broken on the last sentence, but you hoped he hadn’t noticed.

Remus blinked a few times and swallowed hard. He looked at you like he was carefully choosing the words he was about to speak.

“That’s… that’s what you think I did? I ‘left Sirius there and went live my life’?”

You didn’t say anything as now you realized that wasn’t fair. You knew very well that life for him was never easy and he couldn’t just ‘go live it’.

“It killed me, Y/N. A part of me died with James, Lily and Peter, another part of me died when I found out it had been Sirius, and another part of me died when you, the only person left, the only one I had, my everything, started going around defending the murderer. This was the scenario I had, you have to remember that. I was already completely alone before even leaving you. Sirius was all you talked about for the next two years. We didn’t have any conversations that weren’t about him or Peter or the Ministry. And I listened to you. Even though your only reasoning for defending Sirius was that ‘he would never do this’, I listened to you. Despite having all the evidences point to him, I listened to you say he was innocent. I thought you were grieving. I thought you were in denial. I thought it would go away after a while, but it didn’t. You were convinced he was innocent. It was killing me, but I didn’t want to lose you. I stayed.”

Remus took a deep breath and only then you realized you had been holding yours.

“But then…” he continued. “But then you started actually going to the Ministry. You demanded to be heard, you made noise, you protested. You caught the media’s attention by doing so, and soon enough all the Daily Prophet talked about was ‘the lunatic in love with the murderer’. They’re really good, the journalists. They did their research and they got to me. That’s when things really started going south. We had eyes on us every day. Our house was being watched. People left notes, threats, nasty things. You were too busy with the Ministry to notice, but I did. I was the one who got the mail and read them all. I was there in the background of your fight for justice. You lost your job, but you said I didn’t have to worry because you were already applying for new ones. You never got a reply. I was supporting us and it was becoming really difficult. People on the street called me enabler, a fool, irresponsible, and worse things. Soon my boss didn’t want me associated with them, so I lost my job too, when it was already so hard for me to get one. In the meanwhile, when we were at home together, you spent all your time doing research on Magical Law Enforcement and such. You were obsessed. We didn’t talk. But when we did, it was about him. It was then that I started to believe what they said. I started to believe you weren’t grieving, you were just in love with him. My insecurities from school came back and I created in my head an image of you two together. And I believed it. That’s when I left.”

Silence.

You didn’t even try to hold back the tears. They were running down your cheeks freely.

Remus had watery eyes, but not a single tear fell down.

“And now I know you were right. I am so, so fucking sorry, Y/N.”

“I am sorry too.”

You broke down. All the emotions you felt the day he left you were back. Every wound was reopened and started to bleed again.

You covered your face in an attempt to muffle your sobs, your whimpers, and just hide from him. You felt vulnerable, exposed, small.

Hesitantly, Remus walked around the desk and stood by your side. He slowly put his hand on your shoulder and whispered:

“It’s over. It’s all over now.”

You shook your head. “It’s not. It’ll never be over. James and Lily will never come back.”

As your crying got more intense, Remus’ grip on your shoulder tightened, until he decided that wasn’t enough and pulled you into a hug. His arms around you felt good, really good. You instantly felt safe, like you hadn’t in a very long time.

“Shh,” he rubbed your back in a soothing motion, a very familiar gesture that took you back in time to when you were just an angsty teenager with an equally angsty boyfriend.

“I missed you, Remus. I missed you so fucking much.”

“Oh, Y/N. I missed you too.”

The two of you stayed like that for a while, until you managed to compose yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you said again.

“There’s nothing you need to apologize for.”

“This was my fault too, Remus. I didn’t take into account the fact that you were grieving too. You had lost your friends too. I neglected you. I got so involved with trying to prove Sirius’ innocence that I left you to mourn alone. Like I said earlier, I think I understand now why you left. This doesn’t make me hurt any less, but I do understand you better. You put up with your grieving girlfriend defending the murderer of your best friends for two years. That was your point of view.”

“But you were right and I should’ve believed you. I should’ve fought with you. It’ll take a while before I can forgive myself for that.”

“Okay,” you let go of him so you could look into his watery eyes. “But I forgive you.”

“You have always been too nice for your own good.”

You chuckled, stepping back and wiping the remaining tears away. “You’re one to talk.”

“Professor Lupin?”

A small voice came from the doorway, after a quick knock on the open door.

Harry.

“I can come back later.”

“No, Harry. It’s okay,” you motioned for him to come in. “I was just leaving, actually.”

“You were?” Remus muttered to you, not loud enough for Harry to hear.

“Yes. You have very important business to take care of and I’ll leave you to it,” you mumbled back with a small smile.

You turned back to Harry and met the eyes of your late best friend. Swallowing hard, you smiled at him as well. “It was so nice meeting you, Harry. I hope I see you again soon.”

“It was nice to get to know you too, Y/N. Thanks for… for telling me about my mum.”

“Anytime,” you walked up to him and slightly ruffled his hair. “Well, I should get going now. See you around, Remus.”

“See you, Y/N.”

********

[class1aneedstherapy]

Alright hear me out,

We don’t really know how this arc will end, we don’t know what the hella vague “end of all heroes” is. And we have no idea what will happen when Shigaraki wakes up. But since I’m a fool^tm with too many ideas I need to share an a theory for an upcoming arc that many of us have theorized about for a while. 

A revolt against the Hero Public Safety Commission

Now theres a couple that might be coming after this arc, such as a jailbreak one, or even a more fluff centric arc, but I really think that a revolt is in the making directly after this arc. 

Heres a short summary of the build up to this arc that I think has been in the making. The Hero Commission was never set up as a positive force in the manga, their first appearance being an unknown organization that works closely with the police. The next being Mera and the provisional licensing course, which almost made them seem incompetent. 

But the next time we see them they are actually painted as a direct antagonist, not one as prevalent as Gentle in that arc, but they opposed the culture festival and therefore our kids happiness.

It’s strange huh? That this government agency who has had little to no interaction with the heroes before this point and was assumed to be benevolent (because government agencies are always benevolent) be portrayed so at odds with what Nezu is doing with UA.

And then we meet Hawks. And Hawks changed the game. During the pro-hero arc we see some of his interactions with his handlers and pieces start falling into place that maybe the Hero Commission is untrustworthy. The way Hawks worded “Despite knowing I can’t possibly refuse,” all the way back in chapter 192 really stuck with some fans, including myself. The very limited information we got of Hawks’ backstory and his presumed training by the commission from a young age was concerning to say the least. And the more we learn about his story as the manga continues just paints a darker picture. 

The next mark on their record happens to be fairly recent, but just as important for where I think the story will go from here. The reveal of Kurogiri’s real identity came as a shock to many of us and the way that both Mic and Aizawa responded was extremely heart-wrenching. We learned that Detective Tsukauchi and Gran Torino are working under the commission to discover the details behind the Nomu. BNHA isn’t the best when it comes to addressing trauma in its characters but Gran Torino explicitly apologized for “reopening an old wound” for the two. And a government agency leveraging the emotional bond that you formed with a loved one to get information out of their corpse is more than a little traumatic. Not to mention their next plan was to bring in Shirikumo’s family, which Aizawa then states would be awful for them to learn. 

Immediately after this incident we get really the first time someone implies that the Hero Commission might have ulterior motives, from Aizawa when discussing what happened with Mic. Then again in 242, Aizawa comes off far more blatant in his distrust of them. 

It’s very telling that Aizawa is often the one to point out concerning information about the Commission.

I feel like Hawks’ upbringing, the storyline going on with Shirikumo, Aizawa and Mic and Eri’s powers reawakening will all be tied together in an arc the exposes the corruption and iffy practices in the Hero Commission. The repeated parallels between children that are being used for other’s gain is very important in this instance.

While I hate to propose that Eri might once again be used for her quirk by the commission, it does seem like something that they, and Horikoshi might write, and heres how I see it playing out.

After a victory by the villains in the War Arc the Commission gets desperate, they know the best way to uncover secrets about Shigaraki is to speak with Kurogiri, or Shirikumo again and they attempt to get Eri to help them do that. Aizawa understand that this is terrible and tries to get them to back off but is convinced, (probably through not too subtle threats at his job and hero license) to let them.

Now Aizawa in Vigilantes always skirted the line between heroism and vigilante activity, by associating with them and even some criminals. Dredging up this past in the main series could give focus to a much loved charcter and show how truly broken the system can be at times. Depending on if Hawks gets out of this arc alive but injured this could make another reason that the Commission would take interest in Eri or even a student like Shinsou. They need another pawn to replace Hawks.

I’d like to hope that this is a successful arc and maybe the end of all heroes means a different kind of licensing and ranking system but maybe that’s too optimistic. The addressing of the trauma that the students are sure to have gone through after the War needs to happen though. And if not I’ll write it my fucking self.

[tinydooms]

Prompt - Evy has a nightmare, Rick hears her and comes to check on her. She asks him to stay. They talk about Hamunaptra and recall the first time they met. He holds her as she drifts off to sleep and he falls asleep too

Okay, so this prompt is months old, and I hope this Anon still checks out my page from time to time, because I’ve finally written this story! Many thanks to @sweetfayetanner and @sheahoneygoth for the beta. :-)

Not If It’s You

Cairo, November 1922

Evie lay across the altar, her left wrist still manacled, watching as the undead priests held Rick down. He struggled against them; he was strong, but they were stronger. Another approached, holding a stele in its bony hands and laughing. Evie screamed and thrashed; her legs were stuck, only one free from its chains. She couldn’t pivot and kick at the mummies, couldn’t save him. 

“No!” she screeched. “Rick!”

Rick struggled, reaching for his sword, but the mummy had closed in. It hefted the stele and let it fall. The enormous slab of stone landed hard on Rick’s torso; there was an awful crunch and Rick’s breath rushed out of him along with a stream of blood and gore, his eyes springing open in pain and horror.

Evie screamed and screamed, struggling against her bonds, thrashing. But Rick lay still on the stone floor, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, blue eyes sightless, dead. Evie wailed--No, it didn’t happen like this!--Rick was dead, he was dead, he was--

“Evie, wake up! Come on honey, it’ a bad dream, wake up--”

Evie leaped awake, sitting up with a cry in her own bed at home in the Zamalek house. Someone had switched on her bedside lamp, though she didn’t register it at first. Cold sweat soaked her pajamas and her heart felt as though it was about to leap out of her chest. Gasping, Evie rubbed her hands over her face, the image of Rick’s dead eyes and bloodied mouth still too close for comfort. 

A warm hand touched her shoulder; Rick’s hand, gently squeezing. 

“Easy, honey,” he said. “It was a nightmare. Are you awake?”

“Oh, god,” Evie said, and almost fell off the bed in her hurry to wrap her arms about him. 

Rick, kneeling beside the bed, caught her and pulled her into his lap, settling down on the mattress. Evie clung to him, her face in his neck, shivering. Rick was warm and solid and alive in her arms, his arms snug around her, one big hand stroking her hair as he rocked her. 

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “Whatever you dreamed, it’s not real. You’re safe. It’s okay.”

Evie nodded. She felt vaguely silly, clinging to him like a child, not a grown-up woman of twenty-five, but she didn’t let him go. Instead, she breathed in his new-familiar scent and tried to relax.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered at last, raising her face from his neck. ���I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Rick replied. “I was coming back from the bathroom and heard you crying. Do you...do you want to talk about it?” 

Evie rubbed her hands over her face. “I feel a little sheepish. I dreamed of...of Hamunaptra.” 

Rick nodded, waiting, and after a moment EVie pressed on. 

“I dreamed that you were fighting the priests, his priests; they knocked you down and held you and--” she hesitated and Rick squeezed her hand. “And they killed you. They dropped a stele on you and you died, and I could do nothing to save you.”

An odd look passed over Rick’s face. He bit his lip and nodded. “That’s not unusual, dreaming that you can’t save your companions--”

“Not just my companions,” Evie said. “You. They killed you and I couldn’t bear it--I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you. 

In the dim lamplight, Rick blushed, color washing over his face. Evie was so surprised that for a moment she forgot her own sorrow and reached to touch his cheek. 

“Is that so unusual to you?”

Rick flashed her a tiny sideways smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to being…”

“Cared for?” Evie supplied when he hesitated. 

“Loved,” Rick replied.  

Evie sat back and looked at him. In the handful of weeks since their return from Hamunaptra, Rick had become indispensable to her, a quiet, steady presence both in her home and at her library. Kind, dependable, funny, she loved him more than she would ever have imagined she could love anyone. It had never occurred to her that maybe this was all new to him, as well. Rick, watching her, felt his stomach clench. 

“Have you never been loved before?” Evie said at last, and at least her own nightmare seemed to be forgotten. 

“I--no. Not like this.”

Who on earth would have loved him these last few years, when his hands were filthy with war and his life in shambles? Evie’s face was a study; she looked bewildered. Rick rubbed the back of his neck again, embarrassed. 

“I was...in a bad place after my last battle. A real bad place. I’d had a bad couple of years even before the War, and then they made me join the Legion and sent me to Gallipoli, and I just kind of stopped being a person, if that makes sense. It was easier to be a soldier, to live one moment at a time. And afterwards, I just fell apart; I could barely live one day to the next and I didn’t--there isn’t room for any kind of relationship when you’re in that kind of place. I didn’t want to burden anyone.” 

Admittedly, Rick had had the occasional willing partner before he had broken down completely, but he had known better than to lean on any of them. He had been alone for so long, he had stopped even hoping that it would change. But here was Evelyn; she had dreamed about him, had been so disturbed by his imagined death that she had screamed herself awake. Evelyn, who smiled whenever she saw him, and kissed him, and was his friend as well as the girl of his dreams. And he was so afraid of losing her, of scaring her off. 

“You’re not a burden,” Evie said, shaking her head. “People need to lean on each other; it’s in our nature. And I know it’s stupid to dream about Hamunaprta, especially since it was a mistake of my own making. It’s not a real horror, like what you and Jonathan went through in the War.”

Rick stared at her. “Evie, it’s not a competition. Hamunaptra was a fight for our lives, and it wasn’t any less scary than the War.”

Evie thought of Jonathan, haunting the corridors of their English house at night, afraid to sleep because of the nightmares, of waking Rick up the other night and seeing the tears wetting his lashes. She looked at Rick’s hand wrapped around her own and back at his face.  

“Will you stay with me?” Evie asked. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Yes, if you want,” Rick said, trying to ignore the way his heart was racing. Sleep, they were going to sleep, not...just stop right there, O’Connell. 

Rick stood and shook out the blankets as Evie punched the pillows into shape. Watching him, Evie was once again struck by the oddity of him, this big strong man who was so soft and gentle with her. Rick had told her a little about his life before the War, how he had been raised by a single mother and then unceremoniously dumped in an orphanage when she died. And now there was the admission that he had fallen apart after the War. He had had a hard life so far--how was it that he was so loving?

“May I ask you a question?” Evie asked as Rick slipped into bed beside her. 

“Of course.”

Evie curled into his side, twining herself around him with one arm around his chest and her foot on his. “Where did you learn to take care of people?”

She felt Rick smile into her hair. “My mom. And then later at the orphanage. I was this big tall kid and the smaller kids looked to me to protect them from bullies.” He shifted, settling into the bed, and began to stroke Evie’s hair. “I knew how I wanted to be treated. I was so homesick, you know? I was just a kid myself. I wanted my mom and it seemed the best way to deal with it all was to look out for the others, to try to help them feel a little better.”

“And who looked after you?”

For a long moment, Rick was silent. “Nobody looked after me.”

There it was again, that sense of loneliness that she often got from him when he talked about his past. Evie squeezed him, trying to put a lot of unsaid things into her embrace. 

“There’s a Greek play,” she said. “I can’t remember who wrote it at the moment, but there’s a pair of lovers and one of them is going through a rotten time, and he says to the other that he can’t imagine why they would love him enough to stick with him. He says, ‘it’s rotten work’, and the other replies, “Not to me. Not if it’s you.’ Do you understand?”

Rick nodded and rested his forehead against hers. For a long moment they leaned against each other, and it should have been weird, breathing in each others’ faces like that, but instead it was only wonderful. Rick kissed her cheek. He wanted to stay here with her, like this, forever. 

They sank back towards sleep together, snugged together under the blankets, and this was medicine to both of them. This was safety; this was home. They would support each other for the rest of their lives.