#and then got his ass summarily dumped

[dontyoulistentome]

I can't believe Jayce was the one who created the Machine Herald

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

In the Weeds

Ransom + ‘reader likes to garden and neighbor likes to watch’ as requested by @siren-kitten-his​

Finally got this done and it’s just smut, y’all, dark and dirty smut.

Warnings: noncon, sabotage, Ransom being his asshole self. As usual, your consumption is your responsibility. If you read these warnings and proceed, that’s your decision and any asks on the matter will be summarily defeated. If you can read 2000 words, you can read a warning.

Anyways, enjoy this little drabbling and have a great day, boo bears.

For weeks you’d been coming to the large house hidden away behind the winding driveway, trees carefully lined its borders. Weeks and you had yet to met its owner. On your first day, instructions had been left in a letter beside a bottle of water. The list was typed out and terse. A roster of duties.

Every Sunday you drove up the carefully laid mosaic drive and lugged your bag with you, returning to your beat-up truck only to fetch the electric trimmers. Weeds, pruning, hedges, flowers… It was your typical work, the only difference was your still anonymous and unseen employer.

The same water bottle sat on the front step, the same list. You didn’t need to read it at this point. You began your work, your jeans soon filthy with soil and grass stains as you made your way around the exterior of the house. Then there were the bushes along the perimeter. That always took much longer.

You opted for a break before you went about the last half of the list. You sat on the step and drank from the glass bottle. You replaced the attached cork and stood, stretching as the sun reached its peak above you.

“The sunflowers are starting to droop,” The voice scared you and you spun in surprise to face the man who stood on the other side of the screen door. You hadn’t even heard it open. “My mother chose them, you see? I find them tacky. They stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Oh,” You blinked. He watched you dully as you set down the glass bottle. “I could… re-home them. As long as I can dig out the roots.”

“Burn ‘em for all I care,” He scoffed. His blue eyes looked you up and down. “You’re a lot more diligent than the last gardener.”

“Thank… you,” You said awkwardly. 

He leaned his elbow against the door frame as he peered through the screen. His dark blond hair was combed back neatly, his broad shoulders stretched the cotton henley. He looked like any trust funder you’d met. “I should get back to work.”

“Mmhmm,” He nodded and disappeared.

You turned slowly and grabbed your bag of tools. You wanted to look back but didn’t as you crossed to the hedges along the walkway. You knelt and began your careful pruning. You inched down the bushes, snip, snip, snip. The sun beat down as you reached the end and stood.

“She stole,” You winced as you were once more frightened by the man. “Can’t help but wonder why considering how much I’m paying to have leaves cut.”

“I’m sorry she did that,” You squinted as the sun seared your eyes. “Um…”

“Ransom Drysdale,” He introduced himself. “I have your card. I know your name.”

“Well, I was just about to do the back. I just need to… um, get there.” You bent and tucked your shears into your bag and lifted it.

“Looks good, so far,” He said as he followed you from the other side of the hedge. “I can get you some more water.”

“I’m almost done,” You assured him. “But thank you.”

“Alright,” He stopped and you carried on. 

You felt him watched you as you disappeared around the back of the house. As you set up, you fought to focus on the work. The rose bushes were always the most obstinate. You took out your pruners and set to detaching the dying buds and stray branches.

As you moved from the white petals to the reds, you sensed something. You glanced over. The man, Ransom, was sat in one of the lawn chairs on the patio outside the tall glass doors. He was far but not so far away that you couldn’t tell he watched you. Well, if his last gardener had sticky fingers, how could you blame him?

You finished up and looked around one last time. You buckled up your large bag and slid the folded paper out of the side pocket, running down the list just to make sure. As you stood, bag slung over your shoulder, you found that your employer had gone as swiftly as he’d appeared.

You hauled it back around the house. The water bottle was gone. You went to your truck and dumped your bag in the bed. You climbed in the front and turned the engine. It kicked up but as you shifted into reverse, then puttered and died. You tried again. Odd. You’d just had it in for an oil change and they said it was in good shape.

You got out and walked around the pick-up. You checked out every inch then opened the hood. You didn’t really know what you were looking for. A shadow came up behind you and two large hands settled on the truck’s nose, a pair of thick arms blocking you in.

“Problem?” Ransom’s warm breath tickled your scalp. You went rigid, unsure of what to do. You didn’t know what to do.

 “No.” You said. “Probably just overheated.”

You pushed against his arm but he didn’t move. You grabbed the other which proved just as immovable. You turned around in the tight space between him and the truck.

“What are you doing?”

“Just having a look,” He said coolly. “You think it’s the battery?”

“I don’t know.” You tried to sidestep him again but he still wouldn’t move. “Let me go.”

“You know, at first, I watched you because I was bored. Then it became almost a hobby. Something to look forward to.” He leaned in and you could smell his cologne. “Then I thought about you. After. And you just kept popping up in my head.”

“I don’t know you.” You said firmly. “Get away from me so I can call a tow.”

“It’ll take them at least an hour to get out here.” He said. “What are you supposed to do while you wait?”

“Stop.” You grabbed his arm and pushed. He chuckled at your pathetic attempt to move him. “What do you want?”

“I’m sure you can guess.” 

He reached up and grabbed the lip of the hood. His other hand went to your throat as he backed up just a little and drew you with him. He closed the hood with a bang and you flinched. You grasped his wrist and twisted. He barely seemed to notice as his fingers tightened. 

He leaned in and his chiseled features turned malicious. He grabbed your shoulder and spun you to face the truck. He pushed you against the hood and you caught yourself on the hot metal. He crushed you with his body and his hot breath glossed over your head.

“I lied.” He nuzzled your head. “The last gardener quit. He hated the commute.”

“Get off.” You tried to elbow him and he grabbed the back of your head. He slammed it down onto the truck and held you there. “Ow, stop!”

“And on top of finding a new gardener, the bitch I called a girlfriend decided she needed to follow her dreams or whatever shallow shit those spoiled princesses believe these days.” He growled and pushed his crotch into your ass. “And then you show up. Sweet little flower girl. Hard worker… and for what? A beat up Ford and dirt under your nails.”

“Let me go!”

“You know I pay well to have the flowers watered, how much do you think I’d pay for… personal services?”

“You’re disgusting.” You hissed.

“Well,” He laughed. “I guess I don’t have to pay.”

He pulled on the back of your jeans as you wriggled against the hood, the metal seared your cheek. His arm snaked around you as he picked your fly open and pushed his hand down the front of your panties. You gasped as he kicked your feet apart and force his fingers between your legs.

“You like to get dirty, flower girl?” He muttered in your ear. “Hmm.” He rubbed his fingers along your folds. “I think that’s my answer.”

You closed your eyes. You were wet. Sweat, mostly, from the day in the sun, but more. Adrenaline, fear… He shoved a finger inside you and you squeaked. Your feet slipped on the stone work below.

“Please… stop,” You begged and he pushed another finger in.

“Weird how you don’t sound like you mean it,” He drew his fingers in and out as he pressed the heel of his hand to your clit. “How it feels…” He paused as you trembled. “Like you want it.”

“Ransom, Ransom…” You said his name. “Please. This isn’t--”

He filled you to his knuckles and you whimpered.

“Shhh,” He breathed. “This is a respectable neighbourhood… not that anyone can hear you.”

He slid his fingers out of you and left a slick trail along your pelvis as he pulled back. He ripped down your jeans from behind. His hand moved to your neck and he squeezed painfully. He wrenched your panties down and pinched your bare ass. You whined and kicked helplessly.

You pushed on the hood, trying to force him off. You only ended up with your ass pressed against him.

“Oh, I like that,” He stepped back and slapped your ass. “You really think you can win.”

“Please--”

He slapped you again. You swallowed your protests and he shifted behind you. The smooth whisper of a zipper followed and had you tensed against the truck. Your sweaty hands slipped over the metal.

He prodded you with his tip as he stepped closer. He bent his knees against your legs. He guided his dick along your cunt, poking around until he found your entrance. You inhaled sharply as he inched inside. Your walls clenched around him as he sank into. You were taken off your feet as he rammed into you entirely. You cried out and slapped the hood.

“Ow, stop, stop.” You exclaimed.

His hand left your neck as he grabbed your hips instead. He slammed you into the truck as he thrust into you harshly. You lifted your head as your back arched. Your toes fought to find traction on the ground as you whimpered and reached to try to pull yourself away from him. He easily rocked you back into him as he rutted into you.

Your nerves buzzed as he fucked you harder, the hem of his shirt brushed against your ass each time. You panted as the heat gathered along your spine and stormed through your core. You were so close and the thought repulsed you. Your disgust quickly flitted away as his grunts permeated the air around you.

Your eyes rolled back and you dropped your head back to the hood. You smothered your moans in your arm but your body betrayed you with a violent spasm. You came and he barely seemed to notice as he sped up. 

He bent over you and pushed your legs together. Your walls grew even snugger around him and he groaned. He swore as he twitched and pulled out of you suddenly. He tugged on your jeans as he climaxed in a series of primal snarls. He released you and his shoes scraped against the stonework. He sighed over the metallic zip and you found your feet below you.

You turned, slowly. You looked down at your jeans, rolled below your thighs. Your panties were shiny with his cum as you stared at them dumbly. Your legs shook as your stomach turned.

“Pull those up, flower girl,” Ransom sneered. “It’s not professional to walk around with your ass out.”

You lifted your head and blindly grasped the waist of your jeans. You pulled them up and the wet fabric pressed against your cunt. You buttoned your fly as you watched him reach into his pocket. He pulled out a metal part and winked.

“Pretty sure I can just screw this back into place.” He smirked. “Next Sunday, same time.” He passed you lifted the hood. “I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

[greyhavensking]

Future Looks Good - Part 1

“Capsicle, you’ve got incoming𑁋”

“How long?” Steve grunts, smashing the edge of his shield into the faceplate of a Chitauri who thought it was a bright idea to come at him from the side while he was seemingly distracted. Unfortunately for him… it… its buddy is already down for the count and Steve’s reflexes are sharper than ever with the adrenaline rushing through his veins.

“Five minutes, give or take. You still got civilians in your quadrant?”

“Affirmative. Police haven’t cleared this area yet and the barricade is a mile east of us.”

“Widow and Barton are close to your position, they could swing around and𑁋”

“Yeah, Stark, hold onto that thought for a second,” Steve interrupts. Stark splutters his indignation down the line but Steve ignores him, tugging off his helmet as he squints at what’s happening down the street. Sweat trickles down from his hairline into his eyes and he irritably swipes it away, a little convinced that the gesture will also serve to wipe away what he’s seeing. But no, that’s definitely a man 𑁋 at least judging by the breadth of his shoulders and general body shape 𑁋 single-handedly facing off against a trio of enraged aliens.

There’s a cluster of men and women, all of them sporting lab coats and clutching handfuls of files or expensive-looking equipment, huddled amongst the ruins of a storefront, their attention caught and held by the man decked out in black tactical gear slipping past the guard of a Chitauri and planting a knife in its side, armor be damned. And he’s got a — a metal arm. Sure, why not. It’s not the most mind-boggling thing he’s seen today. And anyway, it could be body armor, something not unlike Tony’s suit, but — no, Steve doesn’t think that’s the case. The arm moves too fluidly, far too reminiscent of a flesh and blood arm for the metal to simply be a casing.

Steve did a cursory search into modern-day prosthetics while studiously ignoring the hundred-page briefing SHIELD had saddled him with when he was dumped in that remote cabin, because contrary to Stark’s barbed comments Steve wasn’t half-bad at adjusting to modern amenities. Point being, he knew enough to confidently say that a prosthetic like that wasn’t anywhere on the market; no, it would have had to come either straight out of Stark’s labs or it was SHIELD’s. Which means he has an ally out here aside from his rather unconventional teammates. That’s something.

Finally refocusing on Stark’s continued tirade over the comms, Steve runs a hand through his sweat-damp hair and adjusts his grip on the Shield. “Won’t be needing that assistance after all,” he says, which gets Stark to shut up for all of two seconds before he’s back to demanding who died and made Steve leader, and —  Steve isn’t going to touch that with a ten-foot pole, so he waits a beat before addressing the rest of the team. “Barton, Widow, you guys keep doing what you’re doing. I’ve got a friendly here. Looks like SHIELD’s out here with us on damage control, I’ll get one of their agents to help me move civilians.” Steve’s been standing still too long, and he jumps into action once he catches sight of another Chitauri hefting its gun higher to aim.

“SHIELD has agents on the ground?”

“Apparently,” Steve replies, a little breathless, as he swerves to just barely avoid the incoming blast.

Natasha hums thoughtfully, or at least Steve thinks it sounds thoughtful. He can’t really get a read on Natasha and it would normally bother him (will bother him once has the downtime to decompress and process everything, if that’s even possible) but right now it’s hardly more than a faint buzzing at the peripheral of his thoughts.

“Good to know,” is all she says after a few moments of contemplative radio silence. Steve takes the cue to consciously tune out the ongoing chatter of his teammates and lifts a hand to signal the man, calling out a greeting as he does.

The man abruptly stops, and Steve would find that strange if not for the rush of panic that settles in at the realization that the man has stopped mid-swing with a Chitauri barreling down on him, his wide-eyed gaze turned away from the danger and lingering on Steve. But he needn’t be worried because the Chitauri’s momentum carries it straight into the man’s raised fist, and the impact drives the metal into its chest cavity with a sickening crunch that’s audibly even all the way over where Steve is standing. He blinks, shocked, but the man only withdraws his hand and lets the alien crumple, lifeless, to the ground. The man shakes out his fist but otherwise the whole of his attention seems to be fixed exclusively on Steve. Seeing as how distractions result in casualties, Steve tries to remedy the situation by jogging closer, side-stepping downed Chitauri and throwing a reassuring gesture towards the terrified civilians.

“Hey,” Steve says, a genuine smile curving his lips. He offers the man a quick, sloppy salute. “Thanks for pitching in with the civilians. And the, uh, other situation,” he adds, nudging the alien corpse beside him with the toe of his boot. “I appreciate the assist.”

The man stares at him, saying nothing. Steve blinks again, his smile faltering; was it something he said? Is he being too polite? He’s noticed people are a lot more blunt nowadays, but politeness can’t really have gone out of fashion, can it? Or, worse, is this like his introduction to Coulson? Steve couldn’t deal with being moderately famous during the war (he’s still surprised Peggy forgave him for acting like such an inconsiderate ass), and he is way out of his depth now that he’s become a living legend — propped up with decades of patriotic propaganda and existing as a mouthpiece for agendas he never would have tolerated had he had any agency to deny them. He’s just — Steve. But that’s not who people think of when presented with Captain America.

Maybe the man can’t talk with the mask he’s wearing? It’s not the most plausible explanation given everything he’s seen in this modern age, but it’s much more appealing then the thought that this man is starstruck by Steve Rogers.

Steve’s just about to suggest they get back to work to cut this awkward moment short when the man takes a jerky step forward, as if pulled along by strings, and tilts his head at Steve.

“What’s your name?” His voice is rougher than Steve was expecting, like he smokes a coupla packs a day; Steve knew plenty of people back in… back Before who sounded like they gargled glass on the daily, so he’s fairly familiar with the cadence of it, but somehow it doesn’t suit the man in front of him. Could be the mask is distorting his voice, though Steve can hear his breathing just fine through it...

Nonetheless, Steve stands a little straighter at the question, wishing he’d thought to put his helmet back on; his current uniform is eight shades of ridiculous, but it’s infinitely easier to put up a front and act the part of Captain America when he’s hidden behind the red, white and blue. This man isn’t a fan, then, which is something of a relief, but it casts some doubt on his identity as a SHIELD agent. Then again, SHIELD likes keeping secrets; it wouldn’t surprise Steve if they cherry-picked who had clearance to learn of his return from the dead.

“Captain America,” he says firmly, extending his hand, which the man summarily ignores as he takes another step closer, then another, until only a few scant inches separate them. Steve fights the urge to shuffle backwards, or throw himself back into the fray as an escape; he’s no coward, and he’s never backed down from a fight in his life. He’s not gonna start now, whatever this man tries.

But the man doesn’t look like he’s gearing up for a fight. His eyes are wide, his stance uncertain. He watches Steve with the intensity of a predator stalking prey, though he doesn’t make any movements for the multitude of weapons Steve can see on his person. He’s just… looking. For some reason.

“No,” he says after a moment, and Steve can hear him swallow thickly before he tries again: “No, that’s… Your name, what’s your name?”

“...Steve. Steve Rogers.” Steve pauses, casting a look over the man’s shoulder at the group of civilians. They’re whispering among themselves, too low for even his enhanced hearing to pick up over the general chaos around them, and they keep sneaking glances at the two of them. It dawns on him that he’s wasting time on pleasantries and that he has a job to do here, namely minimizing the already too-high death toll. He turns his eyes back to the man and offers a grin, hoping it’ll be better received than before. “We’ve got a lot of civilians waiting for us, pal; you mind helping me get them underground? Subway tunnels are probably the safest place for them to be right now.”

There’s only a brief pause this time before the man is nodding, tugging a knife free from a holter on his thigh, flipping it expertly and closing the fingers of his metal hand around the handle. The thrill Steve feels at the sight is… unexpected, to say the least, though he’s always had an admiration for competent people. Peggy made such an impression on him at Camp Lehigh finds it shocking that he didn’t propose to her on the spot. So this is… different, but not bad, he supposes. Not the time for it, though, so he shelves the thought (and the tingly feeling he gets) for the time being, shooting off another salute before he turns around and starts searching for civvies hidden in the rubble.

Steve dials into the task so thoroughly that he doesn’t realize the man — agent, probably — has joined him until they’re nearly on top of one another. Steve spares a glance to where the group of scientists (or lab techs, or whatever) had been only to see they’re out of sight, hopefully below ground. He’s in the middle of hauling a slab of concrete off the legs of an unconscious woman and the addition of the man’s metal arm (which Steve openly ogles because it’s practically a work of art, though he quickly flushes with shame and averts his gaze when it hits him that people don’t appreciate being gawked at too much) makes quick work of the task. Carefully scooping the woman into his arms, Steve doesn’t have to dig deep to turn a grateful smile on the man, who’s back to staring at him (maybe he shouldn’t be so ashamed of his own looking) with an unreadable expression… though that could be attributed to Steve not being able to see the lower half of the man’s face.

“Didn’t catch your name before,” he says as he hands the woman off to a doctor who’d volunteered to watch over the critical patients who couldn’t make the trek down into the subways; Steve’s made them as safe as they can be, sheltered in the blown-out remains of a shop with a handful of armed veterans Steve couldn’t convince to join the masses in the subway tunnels.

He’s not expecting a quick answer (isn’t really expecting much an answer at all, what with SHIELD agents always keeping things close to the vest, and he’s pretty much a stranger no matter how much of his history people know), so he’s taken aback when the man blurts out, “Bucky” with barely a breath of hesitation. And Bucky looks equally as gobsmacked to have given that response, pale and washed out, his eyes practically bugging from his head. Confused, and a tad worried, Steve claps a hand on his shoulder and quirks a friendly smile his way.

“Nice to meet you, Bucky,” he says, utterly sincere despite the less-than-ideal circumstances of their introduction. He’s made friends in worse conditions (the war hadn’t exactly been a fucking picnic, though there had been less extraterrestrials — as far as Steve knew, anyway) and if nothing else his mother raised him right. She’d have given him quite the baleful glare if he were anything resembling rude to a man who’d done nothing but help him since they met, and Steve never could last long against a look like that from Sarah Rogers. Still, his next words catch in his throat as Steve levels another curious look at Bucky. He squints, feeling like he’s picking at the edges of a memory he can’t quite bring into focus. “We haven’t… This is our first time meeting… right, Bucky?”

Whatever answer Bucky might have given is lost to an explosion that erupts from across the street. He and Steve are thrown from the blast, and Steve hits the ground hard, the breath driven from his lungs. Sharp pain pierces his side — cracked rib — blooms from the back of his skull — mild concussion — copper pools across his tongue — bit through his cheek — and there must be a myriad of soon-to-be-bruises mapped over his skin from the starbursts of agony he feels from every limb. There’s gravel biting into his cheek, scraped over the ground, dust in his lungs and caking his face, his lips. 

Shit. 

Steve can feel his various cuts and scrapes bleeding sluggishly through the tears in his uniform; they’re shallow, already healing, but the sensation of skin and muscle fibers knitting themselves back together is almost worse than the sting and ache of the wounds. Everything is manageable, though, so, after rolling onto all fours, Steve shoves himself upright, lifting his head to blearily scan his surroundings (and again he’s cursing his decision to abandon his goddamn helmet). He picks out the shivering, dust-covered forms of the doctor and his guards, as well as the less-defined shapes of her patients in the background. Another building’s been reduced to a charred husk, with the accompanying debris dispersed haphazardly throughout the street.

Beyond the ringing in his ears he hears the hum of a foreign engine and a glance at the sky confirms his suspicions: a Chitauri aboard one of their gliders flies overhead, no doubt the source of the blast. Muttering curses under his breath, Steve lunges for his shield (only knocked a few feet from him, thank God) and takes a second to calculate angles and trajectories before he flings it skyward; a satisfying thwack resonates through the static silence right before the Chitauri topples from its perch with all the inherent grace of a ragdoll in flight. It smacks onto the asphalt a heartbeat later as its glider continues unerringly into the side of a skyscraper, bursting in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.

The shield ricochets off a street sign and Steve leaps up to catch it on its way back to him. He’s glad to have the reassuring weight of it on his arm again and he grips the straps with bruising strength for a count of five, pacing out his breaths accordingly. Right. Can’t let that happen again. It’s bad enough he risked civilian lives with his inattentiveness, what would he do if Bucky—

Shit. Bucky.

Steve’s eyes flicker between the too-still bodies on the street, the people he hadn’t been in time to save, his heart in his throat. (Don’t be Bucky, don’t be Bucky, don’t be Bucky) Nothing like black tactical gear stands out to him, no glare of sunlight catching on a metal arm. That’s… good, isn’t it? No news is good news, or something. Platitudes like that don’t do much in the way of subduing the crackle of panic that crawls over Steve’s skin, though; he needs to see Bucky’s face for that, see that he’s alright and relatively unharmed. Steve coughs out what feels like a pound of dust before he’s able to get his voice to cooperate, and he’s just managed to call out the first syllable of Bucky’s name when he’s bodily tackled back into the rubble. 

The impact doesn’t jar him nearly as badly as the explosion and he’s quick to throw his weight around, flipping them over so that he can pin his attacker; only they keep on rolling until Steve’s flat on his back again and then there are hands — human hands, he realizes with a jolt — patting restlessly at his face, his hair, over his uniform-clad torso. Once the shock wears off it becomes abundantly clear that Steve isn’t in danger; it’s just Bucky, crouched over him and… searching him for injuries? That’s new; Steve hasn’t had this thorough a pat-down since that time he had half a Hydra base come down on him. Not bad, though, not bad at all. A bubble of warmth expands in his chest at the thought of Bucky worrying about him, Captain America. There were days back in the war when even Peggy thought him indestructible, so this blatant concern for his well being is… nice. Good. Definitely something he could get used to, even if it’s coming from what basically amounts to a perfect stranger. Hell, that might make it even better.

“Buck,” he manages past the sandpaper lodged in his throat, “Buck m’alright, I swear.”

He doesn’t mind the weight of Bucky straddling his thighs, which — really not the time for that particular train of thought. Mindless of his protesting muscles, Steve brings his hands up to wrap around Bucky’s forearms, stilling his frantic ministrations for the moment. Bucky growls out something incomprehensible (it might even be Russian; Steve only learned enough in the war to make passing conversation but he remembers the rough-hewn sound of the language well enough) and presses against Steve’s hold, though not with enough force to break his grip. He’s as dusty and battered as Steve, save for the metal arm, which doesn’t appear to have so much as a dent in it. His hair’s a mess, flaked with bits of concrete and asphalt and what might be dried blood, although Steve wouldn’t bet on it being his. Steve has the unprecedented urge to spend an hour washing every last knot and bit of debris from that hair, and then the follow-up urge to wrap Bucky in the softest blanket he can find followed by his own body. He blinks and while the urge dies down it doesn’t disappear altogether; rather it sits in his chest, nestled under his rib cage, ready to be plucked out and acted upon at a moment’s notice.

Ain’t that a helluva thing to discover about himself at a time like this.

“Buck,” he says again, softer, tightening his grip just enough to make sure he has Bucky’s ears. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

As if to negate Steve’s assurances, Bucky’s hands drop to his sides, deft fingers sliding against a long slash that curves up along his ribs. Steve can’t help but smile, eyes crinkling at the corners, teeth flashing briefly.

“They’ll heal quick,” he promises. “But thanks for the concern, pal. Now, what about you?”

Bucky cocks his head in a clear gesture of confusion, and that… that’s not right.

“That explosion hit you, too, Bucky,” Steve reminds him, a touch firmer as he shifts his hands to grip at Bucky’s hips, angling him back so that Steve can sit upright without dislodging him. “Were you hurt anywhere? Your head okay?” Bucky doesn’t protest as Steve cups the back of his head, feeling for gashes or bumps and finding precisely none. He doesn’t protest, but he also doesn’t look like he quite understands why Steve’s bothering. Brows furrowing, Steve returns the favor from Bucky and checks him over, top to bottom, for any breaks or serious wounds. He’s relieved that his search comes up empty, but unease is steadily unfurling in his gut because Bucky is docile and compliant, following his instructions without a word. It’s not like Steve is thinking of hurting him, for God’s sake, but… there’s no reaction, no curse or murmur even when Steve knows he’s pressed into a bruise. Bucky doesn’t make a sound except to let out a questioning note when Steve finally takes his hands away.

Steve hesitates a moment, then pushes through his reservations and reaches around to unclip the fastenings of Bucky’s mask. It falls with a muted clunk into Steve’s lap.

One might think Steve would be prepared for almost anything at this point, having lived through the hell of World War II and survived crashing a plane into the ice only to wake up decades later to square off against sadistic creatures from outer space. One would be insanely wrong in that assumption, because Steve is rendered speechless at the sight of Bucky unmasked. Bucky is beautiful, easily the most attractive man Steve’s ever seen in person. And he’s used to appreciating beauty no matter what form it takes; he’d been fascinated when drawing both women’s supple curves and men’s sharp angles alike. Blue-gray eyes, high cheekbones, chiseled jawline, full pink lips in a perfect cupid’s bow — Bucky looks like he belongs in a painting, no less than one of the masters’. And he’s… familiar, strangely, but to Steve’s addled mind it’s far more important that Bucky is gorgeous on a level Steve can barely comprehend and this is not the time for this, goddammit.

“Bucky, seriously, you’ve gotta tell me if you’re hurt anywhere.”

“I… The Asset is functional. Minimal impairment.”

Steve’s eyes go wide. The what is what? “Buck, that’s not what I—”

He doesn’t get much farther than that, as in the next second Bucky is shoving him by the shoulders until his back hits the ground again, and then Bucky’s whirling around, a gun Steve hadn’t even noticed in his hand and pointed at Natasha. She’s got her own gun aimed at Bucky’s forehead, her expression shuttered, mouth pin-straight and eyes cold and distant.

“Natasha, what the hell?” Steve hisses, digging his elbows into the road to leverage his upper half up, fixing his patented Captain America is disappointed in you glare on her, though to disappointing results. She merely cocks a bow, tilting her head in a way that says she’s heard him but doesn’t care to acknowledge his presence at this juncture. A muscle ticks in Steve’s jaw, jumping with every grind of his teeth against each other.

Natasha barks something in Russian and Bucky responds with a snarl, the plates of his metal arm recalibrating as if in echo of his agitation. Natasha’s eyes narrow to dangerous slits. Bucky growls something else, lower in pitch and longer than his first answer. Whatever he says has Natasha pursing her lips; the most Steve can glean from it is the word captain, which — it doesn’t take a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist to know that’s about him.

Natasha stares for another long moment, unyielding, before she slowly lowers the barrel of her gun; Bucky reluctantly does the same at Steve’s quiet urging. With the threat of imminent death apparently having passed, Steve maneuvers himself out from behind Bucky and takes up a position in front of him, arms folded tight across his chest, shoulders squared. Natasha, unimpressed, holsters her gun and folds her own arms, her stance loose but wary.

“I’ll need you to explain how you managed to get the Winter Soldier to follow you around like a lost puppy.”

“The Winter…” Steve shakes his head, baffled. “You mean Bucky? He’s with SHIELD, isn’t he? Why would I—”

“He’s not with SHIELD, Captain. He’s a ghost story, credited with over a dozen assassinations in the last fifty years, several of which have been key American political figures. SHIELD’s been chasing him for years but the only lead they’ve had on him is that he has a metal arm. Like what your friend is sporting,” she adds, jerking her chin at Bucky. Steve doesn’t turn to look at him, not willing to give Natasha the impression that what she’s just told him has him rattled. And it — of course it does (the Winter Soldier, what the fuck), but he’s not going to let Natasha shoot Bucky because he’s confused.

“I didn’t do anything,” Steve eventually admits, his shoulders sagging minutely. Behind him he hears Bucky shift his weight, and then there’s a soft, momentary touch between his shoulder blades; Steve feels the warmth of each of Bucky’s flesh and blood fingertips through the fabric of his suit and somehow he can breathe a little easier. He doesn’t dwell on it, though; there’ll be time for all his tangled feelings later. “Nothing to get Bucky to trust me, I mean,” he adds to Natasha’s bland look of expectation. “He showed up out of nowhere, guarding a group of what looked like scientists. I thought he was with SHIELD and roped him into helping me round up the civilians in this area. I just… told him my name, who I was. That’s all.”

Bucky presses closer, his chest bumping into Steve’s back, and murmurs quietly, something in Russian for Steve’s ears only. Or, it would be if not for the comms device in his ear; across from him, Natasha’s hand twitches, not for her gun but just — twitches. Steve might have thought he’d imagined it if not for the glare he gets from Natasha a moment later.

“You’re gonna have to teach me Russian,” Steve says on impulse, his traitor tongue making a move without his say so. He’s not even sure who it’s directed towards, Natasha or Bucky, but Bucky huffs what might be a quiet laugh at his back and Natasha’s blank expression loses a hint of its ice, so Steve decides it doesn’t matter.

“Fury’s either going to be ecstatic about this development,” Natasha says pleasantly, “or you’re going back on ice, Captain.”

Steve trusts his instincts, he always has. He hand-picked the Howling Commandos based on those instincts, agreed to Erskine's experiment based on those instincts. He got into every back-alley brawl, every bar fight, every stand-off with every bully in Brooklyn based on those instincts. And he hasn’t regretted a single one of those decisions. His instincts say Bucky’s a good man despite whatever hell makes up his past; and he can’t forget the hot spike of fear he felt in his gut when Bucky seemed oblivious to his own pain. That isn’t… normal, it isn’t a skill one develops because they want to. There’s more to Bucky’s story than Natasha’s letting on, or maybe more than she knows, Steve’s sure of that. He wants the time to unravel that story and like hell Fury’s gonna get in the way of that. Steve may have agreed to join the Avengers, but he did it because it was the right thing to do — he doesn’t owe Fury anything, and even if he did he’s pretty sure any and all debts would’ve been squared away when he took a nosedive into the Arctic for his country.

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve says with a wry smile. “I’m backing Bucky either way.”

From there the matter of Bucky’s identity is dropped in favor of re-engaging the current enemy and preventing what civilian casualties they can. Steve’s opinion of Stark changes drastically when he’s willing to lay down his life for the sake of saving the city and Natasha’s opinion of Bucky at least shifts into favorable territory when he mows down an entire squadron of Chitauri by himself (and, to a lesser degree, when he saves Steve’s life by dragging his ass out of the way of a runaway glider).

Steve can’t say for sure what’s going to happen next. Fury’s finally caught wind of what Steve’s been up to on the battlefield and from what Natasha tells him, it’s inevitable that Fury’ll want a sit down with the Winter Soldier. He doesn’t know what’s going to become of the Avengers, if they’ll split apart from here and go their separate ways, or if this is the beginning of something good.

When the dust settles there are a few things that Steve knows for certain, though. One, they did it: they closed the portal and stopped the invasion in its tracks. Two, Thor’s promised to ensure that Loki is brought to justice in their home realm of Asgard. And three, whatever ghost stories Natasha spins about Bucky, he’s a good man and he’s earned Steve’s friendship.

Oh, and apparently? Bucky’s living with him now. He really doesn’t know how that one happened (he suspects he lost some time due to Bucky’s frankly obscenely long lashes), but he’s not complaining. They’ll figure things out from here and Steve’s willing to do anything he can to help Bucky.

All in all, he has to admit that he might be starting to like the future.

[empireofsamoa]

Mean Man. (7/27/2018)

((Here’s my entry for the summer writing challenge. I’ve been meaning to do something for him referencing his reaction to all that happened with Mania and everything leading to Summerslam so here you go. @championofchampions ))

Early afternoon with the sun high was a perfect time to have a nice father-daughter walk through the neighborhood and that’s exactly what Roman had in mind before he had to venture off to “make the donuts” as the saying would go. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for him to try and make time to spend as much time as he could with Joelle whenever he had the time. She was his first born, his only daughter and he knew more than anything that a father’s relationship with his daughter was one of the most important things in a young girl’s life. So why not make the best of it while she had summer break?

But when she tugged at his hand to get his attention as they walked, he looked down and saw some minor trepidation in his daughter’s eyes. It caused him to stop his gait and drop to a knee in front of her with an arched brow, inquisitively looking at her.

“Dad, you’re not gonna let that mean man do that to you again, are you?”

Roman knew exactly what his little girl was referring to and it instantly floored him. Broke his heart having to hear her vocalize a fear that he was definitely having in the back of his mind ever since Monday night at the end of Raw. Because for many, getting a much sought after shot at the seldomly seen WWE Universal Championship was a reward for all their hard work but for him, it meant more. It meant having to confront a monster that had been his proverbial white whale for the past three years who seemingly had every advantage at his side.

Mean man -- it was Joelle’s not-so affectionate way of referring to Lesnar over the years, stemming from watching her dad get beat up and thrown around by the modern day viking that had a death clutch over the Universal Championship. Suffice it to say, the young girl didn’t like her dad’s choice rival at all. In fact, there was a point where she threatened to beat him up, though it was taken more as a humorous aside from a precocious child than an actual threat to be adhered to. Nevertheless, the “mean man”, as it were, wasn’t a favorite to anyone on Roman’s side.

Suffice it to say, the last four and a half months of Roman’s life, professionally, have been a colossal fight to get out of the hole he was thrown into with WrestleMania being the darkest hour. There was no other way in saying: WrestleMania 34 sucked for him. It was possibly the worst night of his career, and possibly one of the worst nights of his life as a man. He was beaten, bloodied, battered and embarrassed in front of over 75,000 people in the Superdome -- a building where, four years earlier, he and his brothers in arms, Seth and Dean, reigned as kings after their summarily dispatched Kane and the New Age Outlaws. But this wasn’t 2014 and The Shield wasn’t kicking at full cylinders anymore.

There’s nothing more humbling than getting your ass kicked in front of that many people and a worldwide audience at home. A sort of come to Jesus meeting with the final boss that’s typically seen on television and film. Let’s just put it out there: It fucking sucks. And for Roman, it was compounded by the fact that his family was on hand to watch from the front row. His father, mother, cousins, Galina and their children all watched first hand the vile display Lesnar put on and it wasn’t pretty, drowned out by the unfavored populous that filled the stadium.

Every suplex, every punch, every elbow -- everything Lesnar did, they saw as he tried to strip away Roman’s manhood and pride piece by piece. And to his credit, he fought on. Showed the fight that was instilled in him from a young age, not wanting to go down without showing his detractors that he wasn’t an easy putaway. However, that was all before Lesnar dropped his gloves and went to work.

It wasn’t foreign for Lesnar to bare hand strike his opponents while they were down -- if your presence pissed him off long enough, he’d make sure to do it. But the efficient viciousness in it was what took everyone by surprise. One, maybe two, elbow strikes later and Roman’s head looked like the elevator scene from The Shining, his blood flowing everywhere in a ghastly sight. To his credit, Roman quietly told a few that he doesn’t remember what happened after he got clocked with the elbows. That large gap of time between him getting split open and him coming to after the bell rang either being him actually not remembering or his psyche doing its best to shove that out of the way. Still, he had to take that just like he had to be the company’s meat shield for just about everything.

Sure, when he unsteadily walked to salute his family with blood still coming out of his skull, they told him they were proud and he had nothing to be ashamed of. But to him, a man of his word and a man who saw to be an example to his children that you could overcome anything, he didn’t feel that way. It took him a while to reconcile the fact that he didn’t let down the fans or the locker room in defeat despite the fact that he spent the better part of that month putting the entire team on his back. Taking that long walk of shame up the ramp to close the night didn’t help him in not feeling like the biggest failure known to man. Because this was the “that” Joelle was referring to.

Being thrown around, dumped on his head, bloodied, embarrassed -- in a word, victimized. Joelle didn’t want that for her dad. She didn’t want him to get put through the meat grinder again, and knowing that Roman -- her own real life superhero -- was going to be potentially be put through that again struck fear in her tiny heart. And Roman knew this. He saw it in her eyes as his hand held her head still while the other clutched at her hand. Most importantly, he didn’t want to let her down. Not again.

“No. Not gonna let him do that again.” He quietly yet as confidently as he could responded to her, leaning forward to give her a kiss on the forehead as reassurance.

Truth be told, he didn’t know what the next few weeks in the lead up to Summerslam was going to bring him or if it was going to be more of the same as it was with the road to WrestleMania. He wasn’t sure if Lesnar was going to show up and if he did, was he going to try and brutalize him once more just to show that Roman wasn’t on his level. He wasn’t sure what way management was going to make him go through hoops and feed him lines of bullshit in order to stop him from trying to pick a fight with Lesnar on sight or go rogue and say things he shouldn’t be saying that would surely get him indefinitely suspended...again.

But the one thing he was sure about was the fact that what happened at WrestleMania? He wasn’t going to allow that to happen again. Not this time, not ever again.

[skia-oura]

Orange Lilies, 4/?

A/N: seVEN MONTHS LATER WE’RE still gearing up. It’s okay. I’m thinking maybe a chapter or two until big thing one happens. But who knows!! Things can change.  This chapter, we meet an Acacia reincarnation!!

 Prologue // Previous // Next

Ao3 ff.net

Chapter Three: Tommy Hangar is a Boss

           Dipper, when he takes Lata to Australia, fully intends on keeping them close to hand. Safe activities only! No petting dangerous animals. No jumping from rock outcropping to rock outcropping. No toddling close to that creek over there with the increasingly loud bunyip. Dipper looked up from the oddly-energized rock he was holding as Lata approached the child-eating creature.

           “Lata!” He yelled, standing and brushing his human hands off on his knees. “Lata, no, no, come back, that’s not safe!”

           Lata turned around, put their hands on their hips. “Why? He doesn’t look so bad!”

           Dipper observed at the monstrous, oddly-jointed creature. It looked like it was made of cobbled-together animal parts. He could smell it, just a little, and the moistness of the scent had him thinking of the Everglades in summer. Its single, bulging eye was fixed hungrily on Lata, or rather on Henry’s antlers.

If it weren’t for that last, unsettling bit (the bunyip had no right), he might be inclined to agree with his charge. He stepped forward and held a hand out to Lata. “No. Come.”

           “We haven’t even seen any kangaroos,” Lata whined. They stomped their foot. The bunyip inched forward on its odd forearms, half-out of the creek. It bellowed. “You promised me kangaroos!”

           Dipper glared at the bunyip. It didn’t pay him any attention. He bristled; yes, Henry’s antlers were fascinating, but they were his and were from him and also he held far more power than a pair of measly antlers, so the slight was unforgiveable. “Yes, I did, and yes, we’ll find them. Lata, step away from the nightmarish child-eating monster.”

           The bunyip bellowed again, louder and longer, and Lata looked back at it. They paused, brought up one hand to rub at the base of one of their antlers. Good, Dipper thought. Somebody here was finally rightfully worried about the situation. He supposed it couldn’t be helped; the bunyip seemed too stupid to figure out that there was a bigger fish on this dry land.

           But Lata didn’t move. The bunyip wriggled a foot closer. Dipper readied himself to bare his teeth in a nasty snarl.

           “Fuckin’ hell! You cunt, what’re you pissfarting around here with that ankle biter?”

           Dipper turned around. He blinked at the newcomer, and then grinned, the issue of the bunyip momentarily set aside at the wonder in front of him. “Hello!”

           The woman in front of him, in typical park-ranger tans, stared at him like he’d grown three more heads and was still only in possession of about five collective brain cells. Her hair was dark, pulled back into a short ponytail, and there was a bit of stubble on her chin. Dipper was glad it wasn’t red, or curly, but he also wished Acacia’s reincarnation looked just a little more like her.

           Acacia’s reincarnation looked over his shoulder, cursed, and pushed him out of the way. Dipper stepped back, dry grass splintering under his shoes, and watched her unholster a long-distance stunning baton.

           “Kiddiwink,” she said, holding a hand out to Lata, “come stand behind me, sweetheart.”

           Lata looked back at the bunyip, which had crept closer in the time Dipper was lost staring at his old niece. His new nibling—old brother, or whatever, keeping things straight was so hard—made a noise in the back of their throat, and finally tried to shuffle away from the bunyip. The monster’s eyelid drew back even more, its pupil dilated, and then it was rushing forward faster than anything with four joints in its back legs and none in its front should be allowed to.

           Lata’s shrill shriek rose above the bunyip’s warbling roar. Dipper felt a quick flash of fear, and then a stronger thrum of anger for being afraid of such an insignificant creature. But even as he made to drop his human guise he remembered Acacia, before him, and how demons with children were never good combinations to human beings. He hesitated.

           In that moment of hesitation, Acacia whipped the stun baton forward. Runes flared up along its side in solid oranges, and then Dipper felt the energy flung at the charging bunyip. It collided with the creature, invisible except for the clear effects it had on the monster. The bunyip screeched, like stone on stone, and scrambled back towards the safety of the water. It didn’t retreat further though, its eye glaring at them from above the surface.

           Lata clutched at Acacia’s pants, shaking, in tears.

           “Piss off, fuckstain,” Acacia pulled a charmed stone out of her pocket and threw it at the bunyip. The moment the stone plinked into the water, the bunyip let out a hiss like radio static and disappeared under the surface. Dipper watched it swim away. Pride and dissatisfaction warred in him before they were summarily cast aside in favor of bemusement when Acacia stuck one finger right between his eyes.

           “You!” she barked. “What the pissfuck were you thinking, you rabid-dog footracer?”

            “I…” Dipper stared cross-eyed at the finger in front of him. The image didn’t double, and neither did the aura, bright orange with fury. Instead, he could see the individual ridges in the skin, the regressing cuticle and a small nick  at the edge of Acacia’s fingernail. “They wanted to see the kangaroos. So. I brought them. To see the kangaroos. Where are they, anyways? Don’t you have kangaroos here?”

           “You dimwit, have you been living belly-down, head-to-arse in a cave?” Acacia jabbed the finger between his eyes. Dipper had to try very, very hard to not cross his eyes further, because he had been informed that it was Very Creepy and Not Human and he would like Lata to remain in his custody until they saw some kangaroos and blipped out, thank you very much.

           “No,” Lata said. Then, after a pause, they asked, “What’s an arse? Is it an animal? A really small one?”

           “No,” Dipper said. “It means your butt.”

           “Oooh.” Lata shifted their weight and looked up at Acacia. They reached out and held their hand over Acacia’s butt. “Arse.”

           Acacia picked Lata up. Maybe it was to dissuade any more butt-talk. “Now that that’s out of the way, what the fuck are you doing here with a minor and without an arse-minder?”

           “Again, we wanted to see kangaroos?” Dipper eyed Acacia’s grip on Lata and wondered how easy it would be to get his nibling-brother-friend back from his other nibling. “They were supposed to be here?”

           “No they fucken’re not,” Acacia said. She shifted Lata in her arms. “Because there’s been a cupgriffin-coupling load of nasties popping up here! They took out a quarter of our herd sizes before we got all the nonviolents out. It’s not like it’s news fresh in the fuckin pot!”

           “We don’t live here.”

Acacia lifted one eyebrow. “And what about TV?”

Dipper had not been paying attention to the news. When did he need to? If anybody thought it’d be important, they’d tell him. And maybe he would listen. Possibly even remember. “I don’t get TV,” he said.

           “We do!” Lata said. Dipper squinted his eyes at them in a signal to shut up, but they didn’t. “I watch Magical Mumblemuffin every Friday, and Plastisaurus’s Featherfriends on Tuesdays. And then there’s Sailor Sun: Daylight Knight-maidens on Saturdays, and sometimes Daddy lets me watch his police show with him. My favorite’s the Wardress. She kicks butt.” Lata paused, and tilted her head. “She kicks arse?”

           Acacia opened her mouth to ask a question, but a rustle in the tall grass several feet away stopped her. She moved her suspicious gaze from Dipper to the grass, and Dipper took the moment to widen his eyes meaningfully at Lata, seeing as squinting hadn’t worked. Lata looked back at him, completely unaware of the brainwaves he was trying to send them. Dipper wished that Lata had telepathic abilities, like that reincarnation a few lives before he had to eat his brother’s soul. He didn’t remember much of then, coming off the razor edge of ferality, but he did remember many mental conversations. Maybe tinged with panic. Or something. Probably. He hadn’t been in a super great place, then. At least Bentley hadn’t been—well, if Dipper was honest with himself (which he didn’t really want to be), that Henry’s situation had only been marginally better than Bentley’s, not worse. The Mizar Misunderstanding kind of tipped the scales there. Fucking Twin Souls.

           “Let’s have this convo in a better fuckin pit than this infested portapotty dump.” Acacia shifted Lata to her back. “I don’t usually flap like a thimble-warbler fairy when the sun gets shaded, but I’m real fucken interested in why a dude who can’t be trusted to wipe his own ass got this anklebiter and don’t even live in the same house.”

           Dipper almost groaned out loud. The only thing stopping him was the thought of having to explain to Lata’s parents why they had gone to Australia. Or why somebody had reported Alcor the Dreambender snatching a kid out of their arms and vanishing. “I’m their uncle,” he said.

           “Really,” Acacia drawled. Lurid shades of blue and Nk’leka swirled through her aura. Dipper wanted to label them amusement, but he really wasn’t sure.

As they cut through a slightly overgrown patch of vegetation, Acacia absentmindedly kicked a particularly nasty looking two-headed mole-like creature out of the way. It tumbled into the underbrush, spraying acid potent enough to melt through wood and leaf. Dipper hummed in interest, but didn’t root out the others he could feel just meters away to see if they all did the funny acid thing.

           “Yeah!” Lata said, their chubby arms locked neatly around Acacia’s neck. Acacia, like a boss, didn’t blink an eye at nearly getting her windpipes crushed. Dipper rubbed at his throat subconsciously as Acacia stepped around him. “He’s my uncle! He’s fun. Can you really touch your arse with your head, Uncle Dipper?”

           Yes. “No,” he said, because he was a Good and Responsible Human Being with a Spine that wasn’t made of rubber. “Humans can’t do that.”

           “Contortionists can,” Acacia said, and fuck Dipper had forgotten about them, goddammit he was blowing his human cover, he just knew it. Dipper eyed Acacia’s back and wondered how fast he’d need to be to get the jump on her. Anything that could withstand toddler windpipe grip was a foe to be wary of. Not that he wanted Acacia to be his foe.

           “Oh, right,” he said, with an awkward laugh. “But. I can’t do that.” Definitely could. “Most humans can’t?”

            “You’d be surprised,” Acacia muttered. They stepped down from the short hillside to the path carved into the side of it. Dipper followed, careful to make sure his footsteps were just heavy enough to leave prints in the dusty earth.

           “I want to be a contortionist,” Lata said. “I want to touch my arse with my head.”

           Acacia patted Lata’s shin. Dipper hurried up to walk side by side with them both. “Sweetheart, you go for it. I hope that’s the only way you pull that star down to you.”

           “What’s your name, anyways?” Dipper asked, because Bentley was no more like Mabel than Lata was like Henry. And, well, maybe changing the subject would be better. He tilted his head towards Acacia.

           “Tommy Hangar,” She said without missing a beat. “Yours?”

           “Tyrone Pines,” Dipper said.

           Acacia—Tommy—narrowed her eyes at him, and didn’t flinch when Lata started tugging on her ear. Her aura, which had been lightening to pale pinks and lime-fruit green even with the amusement???blues, started to deepen into bright orange again. “I thought your name was Uncle Dipper.”

           “Well, yes,” he drawled. “Haven’t you heard of ni—I mean, it’s my nickname. I’m—an astrologist,” he said, only knowing about astrology in that dim, suppressed way he knew everything.

           “Stars, huh,” Tommy said. Her aura cleared up and began dancing with those amusement colors. Dipper knew they were amusement because he caught just a hint of a grin on her face. “I guess it explains why a fuckwit like you don’t know anything about shit going on down here. Your head is in the clouds, like Filara’s.”

           “Above,” Dipper said, unable to stop himself. “Stars are above the clouds, not in them.”

           Tommy snorted and looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. She went down the short set of rough stairs at the same time. Dipper could swear that was a no-go in the Parenting Book. A parenting book. Something.

“Stars in clouds would look so cool!” Lata said, pausing in their attempt to elongate Tommy’s earlobes. “Why aren’t there stars in clouds? And who’s Filara?”

           Dipper was distracted by trying to go down the set of steps in a manner that was Very Human, and didn’t answer right away. Instead, Tommy beat him to it.

           “Because stars are very far away, and if they weren’t, they would be too hot and too big to be in the clouds. Filara’s my wife. And she would agree with you, even if she knows the science is impossible.”

“What about you?” Lata asked.

“Me?” Tommy laughed. A light breeze caught Lata’s hair and blew it into Tommy’s face. “Cute idea, but I’m glad they’re so fuckin far away. One sun is hot efuckingnough.”

           Dipper was only barely able to stop himself from tripping, caught up in the feeling of heat against his front, his side, slowly baking alive and unable to move from the hospital bed because his spine was broken and they hadn’t fixed it yet, had to work around the other breaks over the years from wrangling with nasty supernaturals. He was sixty-three, except. Except. Except he wasn’t him, he was her, she was Tommy and she ached and ached because Filara was expecting her home, they were supposed to go out and—

           “Dipshit, you okay back there?”

           He nearly flinched. Suddenly, he just wanted to be gone. He didn’t want to reconnect with somebody who didn’t know him, who would hate him, who he knew would go up in literal flames. He knew, he knew, he knew.

           Dipper opened his eyes, and met Lata’s gaze. Lips pressed, like their mother’s. Eyes wide, unsure. In the breeze, the leaves on their tiny, underdeveloped antlers bobbed. Up, down, up, down. Dipper remembered so many leaves on so many antlers. He could only place a few to their respective Henry’s faces.

           Dipper closed his eyes. Took a breath, let it out and pushed fire and pain as far down as he could. “I’m fine. Just a muscle spasm.”

           He smiled, not too wide and not too sharp, and did not meet Acacia’s eyes the rest of the way to the Kangaroos. As soon as he had politely refused her offer for homemade lunch and information for ‘dipsitting numbskulls with kids like you,’ and as soon as Lata had their eyeful of Kangaroos, he blipped them fifteen hours back. Then he waited until Lata’s parents got home, and vanished.

           Dipper didn’t think he was going back to Australia any time soon.

           Dipper didn’t think he was going back anywhere any time soon.

_

           Bentley thumbed the clock display on his desk and watched it pop up. He was not young enough to fold his arms on his desk and put his head down, but he really, really wanted to. Three more mind-numbing hours of reviewing theory and re-structuring the plan the Thinktank department wanted him to implement was not exactly how Bentley wanted to spend his time.

           “Is…is it right now?”

           He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the poor intern the idiots up at Thinktank had playing courier. Ever since Mahnji left the department, Thinktank had been sending him worse and worse schematics, as evidenced by the fact this was the sixth time the intern had visited him that week. It was Tuesday.

           “No,” he said. He told himself not to take it out on the intern. Poor Sally didn’t deserve his ire; zhe had been perfectly polite and apologetic the entire time. “No, it isn’t, but I couldn’t tell you exactly where or why without looking it up myself.”

           “I’m so sorry,” zhe said, fidgeting with the bottom of zhir jacket with six-fingered hands. “I can take it back?”

           “No, it’s all right,” Bentley said. He ignored the fact that there were two half-finished in-depth projects currently waiting on his work pad. “I’ll fix it up and send it back. When do you get off work?”

           “Um,” Sally said. “I’m supposed to get off at six.”

           “Then if you could come around five, I should have it done by then,” he said. He hated the words even as they left his mouth, but figured that staying an extra hour wouldn’t hurt with how busy Torako had been lately, with how absent Dipper had been. “I’m out the door after that, though, so their input can wait until tomorrow.” Tomorrow, after he’d spent the night drawing up rough schematics that actually worked, instead of the scattered-fishbone scratchmarks they dared call a working proof.

           “Okay,” Sally said. Zhe rubbed zhir long thumbs over zhir knuckles. “I’ll…go now?”

           “Of course,” Bentley said. “Thank you for bringing these to me, and for your patience.”

           Sally let out a weak laugh and waved. Zhir four feet made hardly a sound on the floor as zhe left. Bentley waited until the door had shut before he slowly got to his feet and touched the tips of his fingers to the window. With a slow, downwards swipe, the window opacity lowered until he could just see the city outside.

           Having his own office was nice. It meant that when he really needed to, he could curl up under the desk and breathe a little. Being good at his job—being one of the best thinkers in the industry, actually—had won him his own space, but it also meant that the stress and responsibility was much higher. Bentley wasn’t even thirty yet, but he kept finding white hairs growing in at the sides of his head. Bentley reached up a hand and touched his own hair, watched what he could see of his reflection in the window.

           His father’s face stared back at him.

There were subtle differences, of course—Bentley had a rounder face, his nose was wider, his eyes bigger and his ears had detached lobes—but Bentley really knew it was him because of the hair: two-toned, shaggy and starting to grow over his eyes. It wasn’t short, not like Philip’s. Bentley didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.

Bentley closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the glass. Sigil formulas danced behind his eyelids, shifting and changing shape. What Thinktank wanted was something that could work in tandem with concealment wards. Easier said than done; sigils didn’t really like playing with other magics. Sigilists had to beat around the bush in order to bend the sigils to a purpose like working with wards. When Ben remembered the schematics Thinktank had sent him, he had to admit—if only to himself—that they had made a good attempt at it. It was fairly creative, actually. But all the same, Bentley knew deep in his gut that their current schematics were likelier to tear vicious, angry holes in the wards than support foreign magic.

Knowing it would fail was one thing. Figuring out the fix was another entirely.

His phone chimed on the desk. It wasn’t Torako’s muted guitar riff unfortunately, but it also wasn’t his coworker dove-croon tone, which made it twice as safe a distraction to look at. Bentley opened his eyes and went to check the handheld.

Meung-soo’s name stared up at him. Bentley smiled a little to himself as he swiped to access the message.

Bentley, it said. He sat down, sigil schematics out of mind for the moment. As you know, I enjoyed lunch with you this past Saturday, and I was hoping you might be available for dinner tonight. Perhaps with your partners, if they have the time? I was told there was an excellent Italian place near my hotel. Maybe around 6?

Bentley hummed, and turned his chair in a circle. He wanted to, but wasn’t about to leave Torako high and dry for dinner unless she was alright without company that night. There wasn’t much by the way of leftovers in the fridge, after all, and it had gotten a bit lonely without Dipper in the apartment—he wasn’t about to subject Torako to that, not after he’d volunteered to make dinner.

So, instead of replying to his Aunt—he was at work, he could say he didn’t see the message immediately—he tapped the right corner of the phone twice to call Torako. She picked up on the second-to-last ring.

“Ben? What’s wrong?”

“Hey Tora, Meung-soo texted with an offer to go to dinner around 6, if you’re free then?”

Torako let out a deep breath. The static dissolved in the space between the speaker and his ear so that all he heard was its fuzzy echoes, softened and quiet. “Stars, Ben, I’d love that, but I don’t think I’ll get out of here any time soon.”

Ben frowned. He pushed the pads to the side of his desk and leaned on the clearest surface. “Tora? You sound really tired.”

“Haha,” she said. Her tone became lighter, and if Ben hadn’t known her for almost half his life, he wouldn’t have become suspicious. “Yeah, it’s pretty tense around here. Really busy. I’ll be okay though! You should go and spend time with your aunt.”

“Tora, it’s okay, I can spend time with her later. What do you want for dinner? I’ll go out and pick stuff up if I need to.”

“Ben.” There was a thump on Tora’s end. “Ben. Darling. Friendo. Buddy. What did we talk about last week?”

Bentley honestly couldn’t remember. “I don’t know?”

“Family. You reconnecting with them. And you were so happy after your lunch with her, so I don’t see why you should skip out on dinner. She’s only here for what, a few more days?”

“End of the week,” Bentley said. “She leaves Saturday.”

“Exactly,” Torako said. “A few more days. Go have dinner! If you’re really worried, you can bring me back a serving of whatever you have. Where are you going, anyways?”

“Italian, near her hotel,” Bentley said. “I think it’s a place on West side?”

“Oooh, that place! Yeah, bring me back whatever, whenever. If you’re not back by the time I am—which, hah, unlikely—I’ll just stuff my face with vegetables or something. Maybe some crackers.” There was a suspicious pause. “Or something.”

“…you have Moffios in the house, don’t you.”

“Something!” Torako said. “Not Moffios!”

Bentley sighed. “Well, I suppose that if you went out and got them, like the adult you are, I can’t stop you from eating them. Even if I want to. You sure you don’t want me to come back and cook?”

“No! And well, maybe Moffios will be involved,” Torako said. Bentley knew it. If he were younger and had less control over his pettier characteristics, he would absolutely find and destroy them. With prejudice. “But, point is: I will feed myself if you come home later. If you come home earlier, you will bring me food. Okay?”

“You’re sure?” Bentley traced a note between the forcefields of his desk. “Positive?”

“Yes, Ben. Go. Talk with your aunt. Eat good food. Bring me good food. I will eat it eventually, if not tonight. Besides, won’t you be lonely waiting around for me? Dip’s not been back in a couple days.”

“I mean. I guess I would be.” Bentley made a mental note to summon Dip back if he was gone beyond Friday. He could be in trouble, or sad, or something; even powerful forces of the supernatural like Dipper weren’t without their weaknesses. “But like. Moffios. Do I really want to leave you with just those in the house to eat.”

“Only maybe Moffios!” Torako said. “Not definitely Moffios! And even if, hypothetically, there were Moffios, I am an Adult and will eat Something Healthy with my Delicious Breakfast Cereals.”

“You can’t call Moffios cereal,” Bentley said. “They tarnish the good name of cereal if you do.”

“You tarnish the good name of cereal,” Torako muttered. Then, louder, she said, “Okay, so you go out to dinner, I’ll suffer here at my intern job which is going to pay me overtime if it’s the last thing I accomplish, and we’ll meet up tonight even if it’s me crawling into bed and shoving my elbow in your face.”

Bentley was intimately familiar with Torako’s elbows. It’s part of why he liked being little spoon. “Okay, if you’re alright with that, then I’m good. Good luck at work.”

“You too. And have fun with your Aunt! I’m really happy you’re getting to know her, and that she’s not awful.”

Bentley laughed. “What, that’s as high as you’ll go for her? She’s not nice? Good? Decent?”

“I haven’t even met her!” Torako whined. “It’s called reserving judgment. Now, I really have to go, so—”

“Alright, love you lots. Don’t stick around too long.”

“Love you too, dork. Later!” Torako hung up. Bentley closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and tried to hold onto the echoes of her voice for as long as he could.

But, eventually, he couldn’t ignore the text or his work any longer. So he sent a reply to his Aunt—Unfortunately neither of my partners can come, but I can meet you at six, if that’s alright with you!—and pulled the most recent datapad toward him. He imported the document into his note-taking software, and began to tear Thinktank’s proposition apart.

_

           “—and really, when you put sigils with other forms of magic,” Bentley found himself saying over dinner, “you avoid nature sigils as much as possible. Especially elemental ones, like fire, or water. That’s a pretty basic and steadfast rule! There are a few exceptions, but Thinktank should know better than to try to anchor their protection formulas with ‘earth,’ because all that’s going to happen is chaos and a lawsuit. Or our building going down when my team tests the sigils.”

           Meung-soo chuckled, and propped her chin on her palm. A single silver hoop slid down from her wrist with the motion until it rest halfway down the soft swell of her forearm. It had some kind of ward embossed into the metal, but Bentley hadn’t yet asked what its purpose was. Maybe it was to subtly alter the appearance of her arms and disguise liver spots. Perhaps it was to detect foods she was allergic to and warn her in advance. Maybe she had a poor constitution and the bracelet supported her compromised immune system. He hadn’t noticed wards on the bracelets she wore last time, but he wasn’t paying attention either. Wards weren’t really his thing, though he was learning.

           There was so much he didn’t know about his aunt. There was so much, he was realizing, that he was excited to learn about her.

           “Earth seems pretty stable to me, though,” she said. “Shielding wards often invoke earth-related words. Why can’t sigils?”

“Because natural sigils are too raw,” Bentley said. “They’re not refined enough. That kind of power, paired with sigils’ tendency to attack other magics they’re put with, is a bad combination. Sigils are like—um, this isn’t perfect, but they’re like white cells.”

Meung-soo’s eyebrows rose. “So other magics are sicknesses? Viruses?”

“Agh, no,” Bentley said. He pushed his plate of half-eaten lasagna out of the way. “Maybe it would be better to say that sigils see themselves as white cells, in that everything else is there to get in their way or get on top.”

“Are sigils sentient?”

Bentley opened his mouth to answer no, then closed it and leaned back in his chair. He looked up at their slowly spinning table-light, warm-toned but somewhat dim. “I mean, there’s not been a lot of research. And people don’t go into sigils as much because they’re hard, and frustrating to work with in an age where combining magics is preferable to sticking to one, and they’re inconvenient because of needing sentient energy. But because of the SE, maybe some of the intent lingers in the sigils? Maybe they become a little sentient? I don’t know, it’s not really my area.”

Meung-soo nodded and took a bite of her shrimp fettuccini. Bentley saw her tapping her fork and waits for her to finish.

“So sigils might have some level of sentience, but nobody knows. And they don’t play will with other magics. So how does your phone work?”

Bentley blinked. “My phone?”

“You said it was warded,” Meung-soo said. “But I saw sigils on the outside rim, so that must mean they’re working together?”

“Ah, no, sorry,” Bentley said. “I meant warded as in protected. It’s all sigilwork. More complicated than the stuff I had at school, but it’s been a decade and this is for heavier duty work.” Bentley shifted the phone just a bit further away from his plate. Sigil-warded it may be, but it was not impervious to food or water.

“Oh, I see,” Meung-soo said. She smiled. “There’s some overlap with other magics, then, even if sigils hates them?”

Bentley frowned, trying to figure out where she’d come to that conclusion. “I mean, there’s overlap between all magics, but why do you say that?”

“The use of warded, even if just as a word,” Meung-soo said, holding up a hand and beginning to pull down fingers in count. “Then you said that the sigil for fire is the same as the alchemical symbol, which is a different branch of magic. And some of the sigils I was able to see on your phone looked a lot like words, like wards use.”

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s really observant of you,” Bentley said. He relaxed into a bit of a slouch and smiled back. “You’re really smart. Dad said my mom was really smart too; is it just a family thing?”

Meung-soo’s smile dimmed a little, turned a tiny bit bitter and soft with sorrow. There was a burst of laughter from the group two tables down, harsh in the sudden silence between Bentley and his aunt. A server passed behind Meung-soo, their elbow clipping the back of her chair, but she didn’t move even when the server apologized quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Bentley hurried to say. “You don’t have to answer that. We can change the subject.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m sure that…that you’d like to know more about Soo-jan. Susan.” Meung-soo pushed some of her noodles around. “Yes, she was smart. So smart. More smart with her body, smart in doing, than she was book-smart, but she was a bit of that, too.”

           Bentley remained silent. He watched Meung-soo’s eyes, which suddenly looked so tired, watched the way her left hand trembled. He wanted to tell her it was okay not to continue, but it wouldn’t come out. The air around them was suddenly so heavy.

           “I was the book-smart one, but she was the one who practiced until she remembered like it was second nature. When I was ten, she could outclimb me and beat me in karuta matches because she remembered the best spots to put her weight, and she remembered the words to the poems better than I did. When we were older, she always took the lead on vacations and dragged me along to see new things. You’re not her, but…you remind me of her, sometimes. You remind me of Philip, too, but Soo-jan was far more adventurous.”

           If there wasn’t that quiet tension in the air, Bentley would have laughed self-depreciatingly. “Adventurous?”

           Meung-soo finally looked him in the eye. Her mouth quirked up in a smile. “You went to school and then to work in another country with only one other friend. You decided to enter a field that wasn’t very viable at the time, and are at the top of your field. Didn’t your work send you abroad several times already? It said so on the website.”

           “Uh,” Bentley said, because that really wasn’t so special. Honestly. And then he registered what she heard, and asked, “Website? You looked me up?”

           Meung-soo flushed. “I. Um. I was. Yes.”

           “You…stalked me online?” Bentley had a hard time wrapping his head around this. He was barely present on social media. He had forgotten that the company had a website. He hadn’t even known they featured articles about their employees, though the fact rubbed him as somewhat familiar.

           She went darker and started to fiddle with the napkin. “I. Yes. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I just wanted to know—”

           “No, no, it’s fine!” Bentley said, holding up his hands. “You’re fine, I just wasn’t expecting it. I’m not really online much?”

           Meung-soo laughed, a little awkwardly. “I suppose that’s true, yes. I’m not really either. Again, Soo-jan was more adventurous. Outgoing.”

           Bentley had never been outgoing in his life. Well, maybe when he was a very young child, but aside from that, outgoing had been firmly in Torako’s playing field. He wondered if Meung-soo seeing her sister in him was just wishful thinking.

           His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Meung-soo softened from stiff embarrassment. “I’m not trying to say you are Soo-jan. Or your father—I remember him being rather vivacious. You’re just familiar, sometimes. It’s okay to be your own person, though.”

           “Okay.” Bentley dropped his hands into his lap, then set them up above the table surface as manners demanded. “I. Um. I don’t think much can top Mom’s job, anyways.”

           Meung-soo laughs, all signs of embarrassment gone. “Oh, Soo-jan’s job. Our parents were so mad at her! Ma wanted her to go into something safer, Mama wanted her to marry and stay at home, and Anjan said that anything was fine except for that. Even being a self-employed cult-hunter was better than going to Dip in California, of all places!”

           Bentley supposed he understood the aversion. Out west, the storms were unpredictable—both natural and magical. The oceans were still dangerous, even two millennia after Alcor tore the coast into pieces, cutting a new plate into the Earth’s crust. It was just starting to breach the surface of the ocean in volcanic islands. Magically, supernaturally-charged islands, that nobody even wanted to touch yet.

           “She did do a lot of exploring in what time she had, though,” Bentley said. “And Dad said she stopped when she found out she was pregnant with me.”

           “At four months,” Meung-soo said. “She barely showed, even after that. That made our parents mad at her too.”

           Bentley knew his maternal grandparents hadn’t liked him while they were alive, but this made it seem like they didn’t like his mother either. He frowned, and took the last bite of his pasta to stop himself from asking if they ended up hating his mother.

           “But I remember her sending pictures of you when you were born,” Meung-soo said. She had an absent smile on her face, and was looking out the window beside them. It was showing the Italian Alps, in real time. “I can’t have children, and never wanted to, but in that moment I almost wished I could.” She looked at him, and that smile was back on her face, both soft with memory and sharp with bitterness. There was another burst of laughter from the table two groups down. “You were absolutely precious.”

           Bentley had finished chewing his food. It was all gone, even the complimentary bread in the basket between himself and his aunt, so he didn’t have anything to occupy his mouth when he said, “Why didn’t you ever visit, or send messages?”

           Meung-soo blinked. The bittersweet expression washed off her face, like dirt on the streets and houses after a magical torrent of rain. “What?”

           “Nevermind,” Bentley said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask that.”

           Meung-soo stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time. She frowned, and looked away. “No, it’s. I. I didn’t. I’m sorry, it’s complicated.”

           Bentley watched her, and waited for the rest of the answer. She took a long, long time to give it, and in that time Bentley found himself wishing that the laughing table would shut up.

           “After your mother died,” Meung-soo said, “your father and I got in a big fight. We…didn’t see eye to eye on where Soo-jan’s memorial should be. Didn’t see eye-to-eye on where you should be raised. Didn’t see eye-to-eye on his job. And they were stupid, petty fights all wrapped up into one, and I was wrong about many things, but it stopped us from reconciling. We said awful things to one another.”

           Bentley opened his mouth and asked another awful question. “Did you want him to die?”

           Meung-soo looked up at him, eyes wide and startled. “No!” She said. “No, I never did. I was shocked when I heard he died. Why would you think…”

           Bentley shrugged. “My father wasn’t well known, or highly-regarded. I had one person come to the funeral that hated him, and wouldn’t even pretend at being sorry.” He swallowed the grief and anger down, and didn’t look at Meung-soo. “They brought me orange lilies at my father’s funeral, and made me accept them.”

           Meung-soo didn’t speak for a while. Bentley was finding it harder and harder to keep the tears at bay, staring at the sauce on his plate, the oil glinting in the light overhead.

           “I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I didn’t know that. I’m so, so sorry.”

           They were both quiet again, Philip’s death, Soo-jan’s death hanging over them. Bentley closed his eyes and wished he could call Torako, or summon Dipper, and have them come at once to hold him.

           Meung-soo broke the silence. “Hey. Do you—sometimes, when I think of Soo-jan and it hurts too much, I eat something chocolate and remember how much it made her smile. Dessert sound good?”

           Bentley took a deep breath and looked up at Meung-soo. She looked just as tired as he felt. He wondered, then, if he would be that way about his father two decades in the future. He hoped he wasn’t. He hoped he was, too. He didn’t know what he hoped.

           “Sure,” he managed. “Dad liked berries.”

           They ordered dessert.

_

           Torako should have expected it. She’d been up early and out of work late. The day had been all about running around town, contacting apartment managers in person to ask them to keep an eye out for tenants who hadn’t left their apartments. It had been a lot of deskwork, looking through odd cases from the hospitals with the other two interns in hopes that the summoned demon has finally claimed a victim. There should have been a victim. Alû worked fast, there should have been something, and there was this low undercurrent of ‘currently freaking the hell out’ at the station that had everybody tense and easy to offend. Mellie, who Tora got along with fairly well usually, burst into tears when Torako snapped about working faster, even though Torako knew Mellie found numbers easier to read than letters and that Mellie was going as fast as she could. Torako still felt like a jerk, even though she’d immediately apologized and taken Mellie to the break room to calm down.

           But nothing had happened. Nothing was happening. And Torako felt the pressure of being a demonologist, especially that of being a demonologist intern; everybody expected her to magically find the symptoms that connected the patient to the crime. It just wasn’t happening yet. Which meant everybody kept staring at her more and more expectantly, and Torako was going absolutely insane. She should have taken off to have dinner with Bentley and Meung-soo, just to unwind a bit. Instead, though, she’d stayed at the office, taking every call about every new admitted patient with coma-like or paralysis-like symptoms that ultimately ended in nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not even the delicious spaghetti dinner Bentley brought back had helped with the frustration and exhaustion.

           So when Torako half woke up in the middle of the night, and she heard Momma Mai in the doorway asking her where she put the butter, where the butter was put, because Momma Mai needed to make pancakes with the butter so Torako, just tell her where the butter is—Torako thought Oh fuck, not this again, and tried to move.

           As expected, she couldn’t. Her hands were dead weight on the blankets, her arm lead over her side, her eyes stuck shut under a force. Opening them felt like she was playing at Atlas lifting the world, except she’s not Atlas—thank fuck, because she’s not keen on getting her stomach pecked out. Or whatever the legend says.

           Torako breathed, and focused on breathing harsher, and harsher, until she was letting out little whines. She was scared, a little, but she’s been having sleep paralysis since she went demon-hunting slash cult-bashing that one year between undergrad and grad. So honestly, it’s more frustrating now that she knew what was happening. There was a twinge of unease at the empty space at her back where Dipper usually was, though. He wasn’t behind her to laugh, then offer to eat the paralysis even though it apparently tastes awful. Like feet bathed in vinegar and then mixed with the cloves the dentist stuffs in your mouth when you get dry socket.  

           Bentley stirred in front of her. Thank the world, Torako thought. Then he woke up, turned around, and must have seen her still and almost hyperventilating because she felt the bed shake with the force of him sitting up. “Torako?!”

           She didn’t know why he was so panicked. She wished she could see his face. He touched it, held her cheeks in his hands, but she couldn’t move. Not a finger, not even her mouth—just her breath, faster and harsher in the pursuit of waking up.

           “Fuck, Torako, did—fuck, what was the name of that demon? Oh my god, I’m calling Dipper, it can’t have you it can’t have you!”

           Torako was confused for approximately two and three-quarters of a second. Then she remembered her case, and how she’d warned Bentley that comas and paralysis might not be just comas and paralysis, and she panics.

           In a burst of sheer will, she wrenched her eyes open and let out a shuddering, uncontrollable sob that’s less emotion and more physical response.

           Bentley stared at her, wide-eyed and with tears just starting to form. For a long moment, she stared into the whites of his eyes in the dark, and then Bentley clapped twice to turn the nightlight on. He pulled her up into his arms and started to cry into her neck.

           Wordlessly, she folded her arms around him and rubbed up and down his back. He blubbered things about how scared he was, how she was never allowed to scare him like that again, how he would hunt down that demon himself even though he’d never been too active about the whole Cult-Smashing-Mizar schtick before. She hummed and nodded and focused on being alive and present for Bentley.

           Maybe it should have been the other way around. Maybe he should have been the one comforting her. But he had, so many times in the past, and she knew from her end that she would be okay—he didn’t. He didn’t. And if Torako had woken up to Bentley, whining in bed and not moving a single muscle, her heart would have been in her throat within miliseconds.

           “Do you want to call Dipper?” She asked at length, when Bentley had calmed down a little and was breathing steadier. Bentley pressed his face further into her neck.

           “I don’t think so,” he murmured, fingers looser in the folds of her sleep shirt. It’s that old Sugar Daddy one, from college. Torako wonders if she should make them all new ones. Maybe some cool sunglasses to go with them. “He—he might be busy. I wanted to call him on Friday, if he hadn’t been back home by then.”

           “Fair enough,” Torako whispered. “But if it happens again, could you? It’s so much easier when he eats them.”

           Bentley didn’t ask what she’d give him, or what he’d give Dipper on her behalf. Dipper loves Moffios almost as much as Torako does. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

           They held each other for another five, ten minutes, before exhaustion pulled them under again. Torako fought the oncoming fits of paralysis, brought about by overexhaustion, until she wasn’t thinking or fighting anymore.

           Neither of them were awake when Alcor the Dreambender blipped into the room, summoned by Bentley’s spike of fear. He looked at them for a long time, and then plucked a thin, rapidly growing sprout of paralysis from the space just above Torako’s ear. He ate it.

           His impassive features twisted into a open-mouthed look of revulsion. “God that’s gross,” he whispered out loud. “Gross gross gross gross gross. Ew. No. Blech. Where’s my candy.”

           He pet at his tongue. Underneath him, Bentley and Torako slept, tense, exhausted, and worried. Alcor looked at them one last time, looked at the space behind Torako’s back, and wanted. Then he thought about Acacia burning, about elderly Bentley holding elderly Torako’s hand in the face of a magical hurricane and being swept away by the torrential floods, about young Bentley wasting away in a bright white space, about middle-aged Torako with her throat slit in the center of a circle she had almost broken up, about their graves in a thousand different forms in a hundred different places, and he couldn’t.

           Dipper closed his eyes, and blipped away.

[seenashwrite]

Nope.

Status: Complete Word Count: 432 Category: One-shot*, Humor, Satire, Reader Insert Spoof, Pseudo-script format, Snark Rating: Teen & Up Character(s): Dean, Sam, Nash Pairing(s): Hahahahaha… Nope. Warnings: Mild-to-moderate Coarse Language. Possible chance of you doing a spit-take, drink with caution Author’s Note(s): * it turned into a mini-series, though you can stop here; see also The Nope Saga Master Post Overall Summary: The whole “reader insert” or “imagine” thing would not work with yours truly. Because if Nash were to be dropped into TV land and get paired with the Winchesters? Buckle up.

Dean: Nash! What the hell are you doing? 

Nash: [wrinkles nose] I scuffed my gun up...

[sound of Sam getting punched]

Dean: [blinks] Are you *serious* right now?! [hits something with something]

Nash: [sighs] You think this’ll buff out?

Dean: [myriad facial expressions] Does it still shoot? 

Nash: I mean... yeah.

[sound of Sam grunting as being thrown against wall]

Dean: So who gives a crap what it looks like?

Nash: [notices thing barreling at Dean from behind, casually drops it with a double tap, sighs again]  Ugh. Now it’s empty.

Dean: [looks over shoulder at downed creature, stunned, then back, frowning] 

Nash:  [digs through clutch]

Dean: Wha... I don’t... Where did that even come from?

Nash: What do you mean? 

Dean: Was that even with you in the car?

Nash: [pulls out several loose rounds, tosses on counter, pulls out lipstick]

Dean: [watches, many more facial expressions follow] Are you high?!

Nash: [uses shiny gun surface to re-apply lips, gives Dean some side-eye] You’re going to get wrinkles wadding your face up all the time like that.

[sound of Sam whinging about something nearby]

Dean: [gruffly] Look, I don’t know how you got involved in all this---

Nash: Bad writing?

Dean: ---but you’re gonna have to GET WITH IT, or---

Nash: [narrowed eyes] Or WHAT?

Dean: Or we’re gonna dump your ass---

[Sam barely enters room, opens mouth to speak, is summarily tackled]

Nash: You’re gonna dump my ass, is THAT how you TALK to PEOPLE who are JUST TRYING to----

Dean: WHAT?!? Screw up EVERYTHING ----

Nash: Stop YELLING at me---

Dean: ---and BRINGING a PURSE on a HUNT---

[Sam, having managed to inexplicably get his shirt off, swings into room via convenient exposed pipe ex machina that in no way should be able to support his weight]

Nash: Hey SHITBIRD, where ELSE would I KEEP my GUN?! 

Dean: ---and LIPSTICK?! Who the hell PRIMPS during ----

Nash: ---and won’t even SAY THANK you----

Sam: So how’s everything---

Dean and Nash: [to Sam] FINE!!!

Dean: ---because YOU’RE gonna GET US KILLED---

Nash: [jaw drops] Oh! OHHHHHH! Well, well, well lemme tell you what - YOU aren’t even that pretty up close! 

Dean: [moves in closer, taking-care-of-business expression on face, bites lip for no reason whatsoever]

Nash: [muttering] Oh goddammit, he is that pretty up close...

Dean: [hovers over Nash] This is how it’s gonna go: from here on out, missy, you don’t make a move unless I say---

Nash: [in Dean’s face] YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Sam: Hey, so do you need me to hold your purse? 

~ Fin ~

See Nash Write : Master  /  See Nash Write : Mobile

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[Image source: No idea, been on my hard drive a million years, Google search is of no help, I assume it was an LV advertisement]