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neonovember · 10 months ago

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Deceit

Mafia!au x Steve Rogers

CHAPTERS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

summary: your escape to Brooklyn was harboured by secrets and a harrowed past, left abused and betrayed, you accepted your destiny of being swallowed by the crowd. Until the King of New York showed up in front of you and wanted a piece of you for himself.

divider by @firefly-graphics !

Taglist 🏷️ (send an ask to be part of my taglist for this series!)

@tinkerbelle67 @patzammit @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory@nomadstucky @nessie2183 @shamelessfangirl-3 @namelesssav @marvel-phoenix @euphoric-goddess @roseeatta @abschaffer2 @louderfortheback @stupendouslovegardener @wandamaximoff-simp @thedonswife13 @hpsimpspot @samsgirl93 @cynic-spirit

Bucky is quiet the ride over, dark steel greys surveying the road eagerly, like he was waiting for someone, or something to give him a reason to jump out and spill blood.

The wheel wains in his grip, and his dark hair falls over in waves, pushed back behind his ears and smelling of pine nut and mint. There's a hint of a smile on his face, he knows you're watching him.

You avert your gaze quickly, looking towards the mountain trees on either side of the asphalt road ahead.

The relief you had thought would fill you as Bucky pulls into the potholed road of your apartment is blank, and your chest fills vacant without the heat of it. Your mind is restless, and the entire ride over had given you ample time to think over everything that had happened earlier.

You had folded and unfolded every piece of information Bucky had told you about Steve and all it had done was make you feel like you were intruding, like you were given privy to something you had no right knowing. Like peeking through the cracks under closed doors as a child listening in on their parents.

Where your street had once been busy with loitering huddles of gaunt faced men, a quiet murmur settles over the ground floor of your apartment complex, all the way up to the hallway to your place.

And as you pass by a few stragglers who blanch when Bucky shifts his hard gaze towards them, stuttering over their own feet and rushing back to their alleyways, you have an inclination that it was all Steves doing.

His reach was absolute.

You didn’t know what to feel, you’ve known displacement for too long.

Separating from your betrothed, separated from the life you had been half folded into, separating from the very syllabus of your name.

The spaces between the letters get further and further as the years go by. Until you can hardly remember if your namesake is really yours, just a frightening sound that came out of your husband's mouth.

This is different though. Until now, your instinct has always been right. And yet, when you think of Steve? When you try to find footing in your gut it comes up wobbly and unsure.

Was he something more than he let on? Did he only uncover pieces of himself for his own benefit?

Bucky had told you he had lost his own wife, and young too. Forced to be exposed to the brutality of the world before he could even get a chance to indulge in youthful recklessness.

You feel a sense of empathy for him, but also, also surprise. It isn’t the murder, or your own husbands doing that causes a slight slip of your heart. The truth is much more foolish instead.

There was a time Steve was ready to forsake this entire life, live forever looking over his shoulder, turn back on tradition that was as deep as marrow, all for love.

You could laugh if you had remembered what that felt like. The thought outright unnerves you. Steve? The gluttonous leader who held sanctions of New York with an iron fist?

It drives a pit in your stomach when you think too hard about what it means.

There’s a fiery jealousy that swarms you, you had never understood the wielding power that love carried all your life. It was a feeling, just like any other was it not?

Yet it had men like Steve falling to his knees!

And all that swarms your mind is how it’s so unfair, that you’ve never experienced such a thing. That you may never will. Forced to succumb to the life that was only half yours, down a path so far the ground had changed beneath you.

What did it feel like to give in? To show all your misgivings with unabashed apprehension? To let yourself, all of it, to another person?

Anything close to a love like that had come from the faded memories of your father, his warmth and deep gritted protectiveness over you. And that had been stripped from you quicker that you were able to forsake it.

You suppose that wasn't meant to be dealt in your cards, which you had come to understand were drawn years ago. You lie to yourself, but during some nights the aching desire to feel something, to taste the deep gripping love that had caused even Steve to lose focus explodes deep in your gut.

Your longing for connection was something you hid well, and god didn’t you get awfully good at hiding these years? Fit yourself in nooks and crannies that were too small, smoothed out your jagged edges to click into the puzzle pieces.

And yet, the empathy you had silently shared, the intimate conversation you had had with Steve in your mind is stamped out with swiftness as Bucky walks you to your door.

That was then, now Steve had made it perfectly clear where he stood. The cool indifference and hardening this life caused had stolen any shine or hope that Steve may have held those years ago. Everything he did now was calculated, for the betterment of broadening his kingdom.

He might as well have died along with her.

Bucky leans against the hallway, eyes surveying the decrepit halls lit by overexerted linoleum lights. You hesitate a moment, before popping your keys into your door, twisting it this way and that to get it to open.

You flinched as the door opened wide, almost like you were expecting someone to be standing right behind it, waiting for your arrival before pouncing. You’re a child, waiting for the ghoul in the closet to jump out.

Yet all that is there is the same peeling walls of your small entryway and some shoes and a coat strewn to the side in your haste to get to the diner early those days before.

You’d much prefer the monster.

Days, it had only been days, so why did it feel like a lifetime since you stepped foot into your home?

You don’t know what you were expecting, for your apartment to change when you had been kept away from it unceremoniously? For someone to have cleaned out the dishes lying in the sink, and ruffle the pillows lying on your old sofa?

You had craved mundanity for so long, craved consistently at a time where you didn’t know which face of your husband you would meet those days.

When the monster living underneath your husband's skin would jump out.

But now, you crave something more. It simmers right under your skin, deep within your chest and its shadowy fingers flutter over every inch of you.

Your apprehension is evident by the way Bucky shifts his way towards you stuttering frame.

“Hey, I wouldn't be so keen on coming home to this place either. Those carpets don’t look that inviting" Bucky replies, there is a sight lilt in his voice as he drags his eyes across your depressing furnishing.

You cut your eyes towards him, narrowing your lids.

“Not everyone lives in an exorbitant palace you know” You gruffly reply, shuffling into your door in a way that was more spite than eagerness.

Bucky breaks out in a grin that takes up half his face, his hand stuffed into his suit pockets as he rocks on the balls of his feet.

“Talking like a woman who hasn’t done just that half her life” Bucky replies, cocking his head to the side.

Oh right, your husband's estate that took up half of the city. One that was never, and would never be in your name.

You drop your handbag onto one of the hooks attached to the hallway, turning towards Bucky with a sigh.

“That’s different” You reply evenly

“Oh yeah? How so?” Bucky murmurs, eyes shining with a smile

“I was never welcomed in that home- house. God it would never be a home no matter how many architects and designers dressed it up. You think I escaped ‘cause it was my safe haven?” You cock your head to the side and Bucky’s face evens out. The smile adorning his features morphs back into his face as a look passes through his eyes.

“You don’t have to worry about that with Steve-”

“Oh yeah? Because he is the most upfront person to talk to. Right. This place, as depressing as it looks, is solely mine. It’s the only thing I have on this goddamn earth that hasn't been mauled and changed with my husband's fingers. Or the life he leads. You might not understand it, how important that is but-”

“I do. Trust me” Bucky replies, cutting you with and he offers you a nod that was more understanding than half the world's he promised to you.

Can I? You wonder thoughtfully. Was this just a part of some elaborate plan that Rumlow had clued you on? You were everywhere all at once, topsy turvy and turned inside out. This was the life you had to live now.

“Good” You say instead, wringing your fingers as Bucky’s phone begins to buzz from his pants pocket.

You wait for him to reach for it immediately, but he doesn't, just remains quiet as he taps his foot against the hardwood floor. There seemed to be a look of understanding that passed between you when he had racked his fist against the wall adjacent to your door.

The blues of his eyes twinkled under the sun peeking through the hallway window, and you didn’t realize it then but it was trust that shined in his eyes. Like the words he had shared with you warranted the same secrecy he held with the other men he worked with.

You had paid in flesh and blood for your silence, what more was another pound?

The ring runs through, and the silence soon returns between you both.

“I’m not going to the mouth off to half of Brooklyn that their most influential business man likes painting” You reply with a murmur, eyes darting left and right as if neighbors were listening in. Enough of them had watched you walk to your apartment door, eyes strained on Bucky and his shoes that shine too bright. Faces that had never even said hello had craned their necks as you passed, of course. Whispers of inquisition under their breath.

“I know you won’t” Bucky replies instantly. “Just- let him explain the rest of it, yeah? ‘S only fair you hear it from him”

“Fair?” You raise your eyebrows, “You’re talking about fairness now? Bullshit. If you were guided by some moral compass I wouldn't have been forced into this, you wouldn't even be in this life” You snark unconsciously.

Where does this all come from? You hadn't even raised an eyebrow at your husband, and now you were bad mouthing a man with a gun poking through his waistband. You look down, staring at the unusual stain in the hallway carpet you never quite knew what was. The anxiety and timidness you were used to coming back tenfold.

Bucky doesn't retaliate, just looks towards you with a feather-like smirk.

“I was wrong about you, y’know?” Bucky whispers, leaning in as if he were divulging in a secret he couldn't let be spoken in the open air.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re everything like Steve.” Bucky replies thoughtfully, a far away look taking over his dark features.

He’s miles away, reminiscing about parts of Steve that had been left in the dark. He looks younger than, when you notice the way his eyebrows scrunch and his locks fall flat over his face.

But it's enveloped back into Bucky in a second, a sad smile replacing his grin.

“If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call”

Giving you one last nod, he turns back towards the hallway entrance and it takes you a few moments before you realise.

“But I don't have your number!” You call out, leaning out your door

His brown locks shift as he turns back to you

“You sure about that?” A raise of his eyebrows at the ping of your phone, waving you with two fingers.

You don't have to pull it out to know it's him. And you can't help but let out a chuckle before turning back and shutting the door firmly.

You find yourself accompanying your time scrubbing down the floorboard and yellowed walls of your home, filling your hours since Bucky had left with meager tasks. It helps you think, concentrating on little chores around the house so you don't have to think about the thoughts that rattled loudly in your mind.

It’s still well into the morning, and as the sun filters through your drapes you lean back on your heels nodding accomplished at the glint of the shining floors. The walls were an impassive yellow, never yielding no matter what cleaning products you threw at them, but beyond the old entryway carpet the apartment was lined with pristine hardwood floors that shined with a little elbow grease.

Not that shitty huh Bucky?

Wiping the sweat that had grown increasingly uncomfortable above your brow, you make way to your small enclosed kitchenette, swiping a cup from the drying rack before you watch the water fill to its glass edge. You gulp half of it down, before your much needed break is interrupted by the faint buzzing of your phone emitted from somewhere in the living room.

You forage for it quickly, searching till you find it wedged between the cracks of your couch. You pause for a moment, considering whether it might be Bucky, or Steve calling but as you see the vibrating screen of your manager's face you slide the receiver across the screen.

You brace yourself for the inevitable screech of her voice, you haven't been to work in days, an irregular for you considering the mountain of bills that left your bank account squandered each month. You needed this job, and now Steve hand upended your life, you fear it’ll slip through your fingers.

Manager calls, you pick up, she’s very quiet and apprehensive and is all sweet in a a way you remember she never had been before. She’s almost scared to talk to you, asking about a shift you could cover and you say yea without thinking. You need a distraction. Even if Steve had made it clear you no longer needed to worry about work.

“Hello?” You reply, eyebrows furrowing at the beat of silence that fills the space usually used up by ** loud un yielding demands.

“Y/N? Hey, how are you doing” Replies carefully, as if choosing her words.

“What?” You blurt out

You can’t help the confusion that puzzles your voice, who was this person? In the months you had spent working at that dead end job not once has she ever asked how you were. Not when you had spent half your break with your head in your toilet the first few months you had escaped. A cat on edge, nerves frazzled by even the slightest heavy stamp of a dress shoe.

What had changed?

You don’t have to kid yourself, you know the answer deep down. Him, it always goddamn is.

“Sorry, uhm I’m been doing good” You reply “I apologise for kind of just disappearing on you and the Diner”

“Oh that? That’s totally fine, once your friends cleared that up” 8 gulped, the sharp exhale of breath filling the receiver at the mention of this friend of yours.

“Friend?” You reply

“Don’t worry about it, I’m glad your doing alright. Uh-, so uhm ’s sister dropped her kids off at 4am last night at hers, she cant her shift. And * got SAT prep. Can you fill in if possible it’s totally okay if you can’t, I needed to stay back a few anyway-”

“Sure”

You needed the distraction, you felt stifled in the walls of your apartment. It wasn’t meant to be a prison, and yet the only time you felt truly free now was when you slammed the door behind you.

“-oh, Oh thank you! Thank you so much. If you could come in at 12, it’s just the afternoon shift. And if you need to leave for whatever reason it’s totally fine you don’t even have to tell me-“

“Mare?

“Yes?”

“Relax. I miss the diner and it’s crappy linoleum lights anyways”

Mare snorts into the receiver “The teams missing you too”

After passing a few more instructions on the wave of Russian tourists coming through Brooklyn this time of year you let your phone clatter onto the coffee table.

Sure, your manager could be a pain in the ass but being passive aggressive didn’t warrant a mob leader holding you at gunpoint.

You wonder what Steve had said to her to cause her to be this shaken up, she was the most stubborn woman you’ve ever met. It couldn’t have been easy to have her yield, at least not without some sort of real threat.

Especially in New York.

You rifle through your bag before grabbing your work uniform. The musty smell of old oil and grease makes you throw it haphazardly into the laundry basket before reaching for a clean shirt.

You try to look presentable, washing your face with the bathroom tap that never not juts out cold water. You avoid your reflection when you pay your face dry, which is interestingly enough, hard to do since it’s well..your face.

Drawing the wisps of coils that spring free you pull your hair back into a bun. You don’t bother with makeup, it never quite sat right on your face when you did it. Reaching for your bag and throwing your phone and the rest of your miscellaneous, you hurry down the steps of your apartment complex.

Popping in your earphones as you step into the train carriage, you memorise the dock and pull of the train ride till you feel your stop. Your music swims through your veins, and you breathe it in before opening your eyes to the tram doors opening.

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penvisions · 1 year ago

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garnish {chapter 1}

Pairing: Chef! Joel Miller x Bartender! Reader

Summary: Summer is a time of fun and carefree days for those who are fortunate enough to not work within the food industry. You however have found yourself back in that world and so long were the days you could spend doing nothing. Along with the shift back to a world you once left behind is the figure of Joel Miller, who is as magnetizing as he is irritating that is now a part of your daily life.

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: smut piv smut, unprotected piv, dirty talk, joel miller's filthy mouth, kinda enemies to lovers?, degrading language, restaurant lingo, triggers associated with the food industry

A/N: this...this is a scary thing for me to share. this is so closely drawn from my life and the things i've experienced in my twenties (as far as the restaurant stuff goes, i was never fortunate enough to catch the eyes of someone as alluring as our dear joel). i'm fully aware that i don't need another WIP but this has been comsuming me lately and i wanted to share despite the trepidation. c'est la vie, no?

ao3 link || series masterlsit || main masterlist

“Fuck.” You moaned, the sound filling the cool air of the walk in, back arching as you tried to push back against the man who had sheathed the entirety of his hard length into you with one smooth, drawn out move so attuned to your body. His grip on your hips was bruising, the feeling of him gripping tight to your shoulder even more so, but he didn’t move.

He seemed frozen, head bowed down and forehead connected with the back of your head, hands gripping tight, chest heaving with each deep breath and brushing hot against your back. Murmured words falling from his plush lips too quiet for you to catch, but you were sure if he could safely do so, he would be praising you in that filthy way he was prone to do. His large thighs were pressed to the backs of your own and the feel of his chef pants was rough on the naked skin of your thighs where he had pushed up the skirt of the dress you had worn for your shift.

“Please, Joel, I need you to move.” You circled your hips, grinding back on the entire length of him and you could feel yourself clench. A guttural moan sounded from his lips, puffing out in a misty breath.

“What did I tell you about bein’ a good girl f��me?” The hard line of him twitched deep inside you and your knees wobbled. The hand on your waist curled around your middle to help keep you upright, lest they give out on you completely. He pulled out nearly all the way only to slam back in, it took everything in you not to scream from the pleasure as white sparked across your vision. Your teeth digging into the hands that were grasping desperately onto the edge of the metal storage shelf you were pressed up against. Trying to hide the sound in an effort to keep the secret that had become your personal life just that, something shared in moments of spiking passion and deep kisses between you and the man who enraptured you beyond anything you had experienced before.

Thoughts swirled and your mind took you back to the events that transpired to allow this type of pleasure to be something that you owned, that you took, that was given to you by the man whose hands were holding you so tightly and pounding into you so deliciously.

“I think a play on mint would be a good idea, for the paired cocktail. I could whip up a batch of simple syrup infused with it or order a case of crème de menthe. But I’ll mess around with it and get back with y’all in a few days before the order needs to be placed.” You jotted down what glasses you were thinking of, a choice between a martini glass, a coup, and a tall rocks class. You pushed your reading glasses back up your nose, the frames having slipped down the bridge as you scribbled half ideas down in your small notebook. “Chef, will the mash be sweet potato or more like the topping for the Shepard’s pie we did last fall? And the balsamic, will it be a glaze over the brussels or will they be cooked with it?”

Joel Miller’s eyes seemed to snap to you, he had offered his new rotation of dishes for the fall menu and promptly spaced out. He never seemed to pay attention to anything else in the higher up meetings for the restaurant you worked at. You had been here for a year now. Having been hired as a general bartender and then bumped up to manager around two months in. You had to do an order on the fly for the bar when it was revealed that the manager had made a faux one and pocketed the money for themselves. To say they had been fired would be an understatement. They were no longer allowed to work for any part of the company.

You don’t think you had ever met his eyes before and you were beginning to think that was a blessing in disguise. His eyes were such a warm, chocolate brown that lit up into an amber wonderland that you could find yourself getting lost in when they caught the light. It took you a moment to realize that he was answering your questions. This was the first instance of a menu change that you had the chance to ask questions. His gaze wandered over what he could see of you as you sat across the table from him, further down by the barback you had chosen to help out with keeping the tickets flowing well and running drinks when the servers were busy.

“Was thinkin’ of sweet potatoes, to compliment the lamb. It won’t be a traditional mint jelly, more of a yogurt based mint sauce topped before leaving the line.” He glanced down at the menu he had provided for the meeting. It was simple and to the point. Underneath one of the new dishes, the special due to the cost of sourcing the lamb was simple descriptors. Special: Lamb. Mash. Brussels. Mint. Balsamic.

“Sounds yummy, and the balsamic, chef?”

“Haven’t decided yet.” He grunted out, not sure what to think of you asking after the dish. Sure, he knew you needed to know the components properly for each dish of the special in order to pair it properly with a house made drink. But you were so…something he wasn’t used to seeing. You had a good balance of professional and personable, both on the clock and off. He noticed some of his cooks offering you tastes of stuff they were working on during prep hours and returned dishes that came back to the kitchen. The other servers often mentioned you helping them with rowdy or difficult tables, were more than willing to help them if they didn’t know questions asked after the drinks offered and wine selection.

More often than not, people from both the front of house and back of house would sit at the bar with you after their shifts. Idle chit chat and horror stories of the night told between laughs and knowing looks. Bonding in ways that could only happen as a result of working in such a space, of being able to handle working in such a space.

He shook his head, the thoughts of you disappearing with the movement and he shoved off from the table to slink back into the kitchen. He stopped at the threshold of the dining room, your gentle voice in his ears and he stifled a shiver at the thought of your lips close enough to whisper into them. What kind of things would you be brave enough to say in hushed tones just for him? Would you whisper filthy desires into his ears and cause heat to spark down his spine, or would you beg him for the things he wanted to say to you, the things he saw flash before his closed eyes when he would see how effortlessly you knocked out a line of tickets, or helped to expo his line during the times in which spacing out tables was only a wish.

“Gotcha. Thank you, chef.”

Despite his better judgement he turned to look back at you over his shoulder, just in time to see you smile softly at him before turning your focus back to the meeting. He almost hadn’t, unsure of where the sudden salacious nature of his thoughts had sprung up from. And his heartrate picked up as he crossed into his kitchen space.

The manager of the restaurant was pacing back and forth in front of the host stand, phone held tightly to her ear as she listened to the voice bleeding from the other line. It was summer, the season of call outs and no call no shows. As predictable as the looks of glee on servers and cooks faces alike as checks hit their accounts on a weekly basis, the tip out rate through the roof with the influx of tourists and lively people of the city. The manager prided herself in being able to provide a good base pay for everyone, ignoring the cheap cop out of matching the other establishments of the area and the country in general.

None of that $2.13/hour nonsense, she had smiled genuinely at you in your interview, the softness of her excitement allowing you to seriously consider the industry you had left a few years previously in favor of going back to school, of taking the monumental step of becoming a teachers assistant at your alma mater. But grad school was around the corner, something you needed in order to pursue your dreams.

But even that wasn’t a good enough allure to keep the younger members of society committed to their shifts, especially after a particularly busy week. The restaurant world wasn’t for everyone, and it was quick to humble people in ways that still took you off guard even after having been entrenched in it for a good chunk of your twenties.

With a long sigh, a worn-out thin smile, and the harsh placement of the phone back into the charging station atop the host stand, that’s how you found yourself in the kitchen you only drifted through previously.

“You know anythin’ about preppin’ food?” The calculating look aimed down at you as Joel stood beside you in front of a prep station was sharp, his arms crossed over his broad chest. The sleeves of his chef’s coat folded up to expose the thickness of his forearms.

“Of course, we prep the-“

“Not fruit. Food. Actual food.”

The fact that he cut you off mid reply made your jaw clench and you had to hold your tongue back from spewing a bad comment. You had never been treated like that at this job, in the entire year that you’ve been here. Everyone had always been polite and friendly and professional. Things you were in return, the kitchen even going so far as to offer you the rare dead plate or extras from staff meal you were always unable to snag any of due to your schedule. People would stay and hang out at the bar after their shifts ended, often bringing you treats on their off days to share as you frequently brought stuff for the front of house to have snacks and rounds of their favorite drinks to stay hydrated during busy hours. This often extended to the back of house as well, if you had the time and means to.

The divide seen so cleanly in other restaurants was something that you tried to eradicate here, not play into the ‘this versus them’ ideology that plagues too many establishments and allowed for more errors and unhappy customers.

That’s not to say there was the odd throwaway comment in the heat of dinner rush or particularly challenging event, but those were brushed under the table as they were harmless. But this, this animosity for someone willing to help out when it was desperately needed, was uncalled for and sparking annoyance in your chest.

You hadn’t really interacted with Joel directly. Just in passing and hardly for longer than a professional acknowledgment during staff meetings when a new dish would be rolling out and you needed to make a cocktail or wine pairing for it. To be honest, you hadn’t spoken to him out of the childish daydream of not wanting the image of the handsome man to be shattered in your mind’s eye. Guess you were right to worry about something being wrong with him to warrant him to spend what seemed like his entire life in the damn kitchen. He had a superiority complex, it seemed.

But for him to be rude and cut you off after already making it clear he didn’t want you in his kitchen?

Game, fucking, on.

“Oh, no,” You adjusted the fit of the black gloves around your right wrist before you carefully picked up the chef knife and tapped the tip of it on the cutting board. Joel’s eyes were heavy and judgmental as you did so, he probably disliked the way you had needed to get the feel of the knife before using it. But he stayed silent, the furrow of his brows and the turndown of his plush lips deepening as you quickly and efficiently broke down the chicken. Once you were done, you placed the knife along the edge of the cutting board beside the line made up of a pair of breasts, thighs, legs, wings, and the severed spine of the chicken. “I don’t think I’m any good with actual food, chef.”

The controlled expression you were holding didn’t break, even when one of Joel’s eyebrows seemed to rise without conscious thought as his sharp eyes danced from the cutting board atop the prep station to you standing at attention in front of it. The tick in his jaw was garnering your attention, an obvious show to what the man was really feeling at your little display. Despite his less than kind attitude toward you, you couldn’t help the flash of heat that flared up in your middle at the thought of sucking kisses into the cut of his jaw, right where it was showing is ire. The surrounding kitchen staff were all peering over toward your new station with wide eyes, unbelieving that you were deliberately feigning innocence in a cheeky manner toward the head chef.

He may be an asshole, he may be loud, he may be particular, and he may have high standards: but no one argued with him because of his skill set and how effortlessly he displayed it day in and day out.

“Now, I believe we prep a total of 56 for the night shift. After dissembling them, they get placed into a salt brine to allow the skin to brown and crisp easier when braised or pan roasted. With an extra 4 just in case of dishes going to the wrong table or mix ups with servers not paying attention to the available par, is that correct, chef?”

Your lips turned up in a small grin and you knocked your gaze up to catch the man’s eyes. There was a fire behind them, one you were sure he was about to unleash on you in front of the entire staff. He was known for his outbursts when really upset, whether it be from someone not listening to clear instructions or a count gone wrong and messing up the rotation of dishes that could be offered that shift. Instead, he gave you a curt nod and told you to complete the prep by time the doors were to open and walked briskly away.

You spent the rest of the evening prepping the necessary things for the dinner service. You could’ve just done what had been asked of you, but you peeked at the long list of things that needed to be done by the person who had bailed on their shift, on the job and decided that the bar would be okay on a weekday night without you.

You prepped the chickens for the evening and the chickens for tomorrow’s service so the kitchen wouldn’t be behind like it had nearly been today. You had diced in perfect cubes the pickled beets for the panzanella salad and the components for the egg salad to be combined. Portioned out the ingredients for the brine and brought them to a soft boil atop a hot plate for a new batch of pickles and prepared the cucumbers with a mandolin. Sliced and portioned out the bologna and pancetta used for sandwiches, and even sliced the other components like the provolone cheese, cucumbers, and tomatoes used on them as well.

You neatly organized and legibly dated everything before breaking down the station at the end of the night. Even taking everything out of the banes and running them through dish and drying them before placing them back in their respective locations underneath the hood. Going as far as to deep clean the cooler shelves down below, wiping them down and sanitizing the entire station before putting everything back according to FIFO etiquette and wrapping it all up for the night.

The next day, your schedule was updated with two hours of prep before your typical shifts for the bar.

next chapter

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noxxytocin · 4 months ago

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Pairing: Ominis Gaunt x Sebastian Sallow Rating: E

When?

The question swirled in Ominis's mind like the steam rising from the sizzling soup he stirred on the stovetop.

Could it have been during his first year? Aboard the train?

He could still hear that blimey, boisterous boy bursting into his compartment like a rogue bludger, gasping for air as if he’d just been sat on by a troll. A fellow first-year, judging by the high-pitched squeak of his voice that made Ominis feel oddly self-conscious about his own. The boy reeked of fresh earth, with a hint of mint—undoubtedly the remnants of some pilfered sweet from the trolley, no doubt lifted with all the subtlety of a country lad who’s more accustomed to mucking about in fields.

“Bloody hell,” the schoolboy wheezed, gripping Ominis’s shoulders tightly. “You have to help me! Please!”

“Take your hands off—” Ominis started, but his protest was drowned out by a group of older students who stormed into his compartment like a herd of beasts. The peaceful start to his day had gone pear-shaped, leaving him feeling like a fish out of water—and not just any fish, but a particularly bewildered one, flopping around and wondering WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME WAS GOING ON HERE.

"You'll pay for that, you little wanker!" one of the older boys roared. Ominis noted the subtle flick of a wand being raised.

“A friendly reminder," Ominis initiated in his carefully measured tone, "we're not on Hogwarts grounds just yet, so I’d strongly advise against waving that about like a complete fool."

"Who are you to order me around." the first boy sneered, only to be silenced by a swift jab to his ribs from one of his flying monkeys.

"Blimey, mate, he’s one of the Gaunts," the second boy blubbered. They all froze, visibly shaken, as Ominis turned to face them.

With an imperious smirk, he unleashed a string of foul-mouthed Parseltongue whispers. The group stumbled over one another in their hasty retreat.

"What was that?" the shaken boy asked in astonishment.

“Ominis Gaunt,” he countered, not the least inclined to entertain further inquiries.

"I'm Sebastian Sallow," the boy introduced, his eyes wide and shimmering with curiosity as if he’d stumbled upon a rare treasure. Ominis noted the beholden tone in Sebastian's voice. This one was easy to please. A simpleton.

“Pleasure,” Ominis sighed, his patience waning. “Now, if you don’t mind?”

“Oh, right... sorry,” Sebastian stammered, retracting his hands. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

“Provided you do not cause any further disturbances.”

“Promise... hey, thanks for this,” Relief washed over Sebastied as he shared his gratitude.

“No need.”

However, Ominis's curtness did little to prevent the boy from probing him the entire way to the castle afterward.

Was it that moment? The sudden intrusion of this boy into his life?

Ominis had savored the peace within that train cabin. He was well accustomed to being alone, confined in corners, hidden away. He always had been. Yet, this Sebastian Sallow burst in like a gust of wind, tugging Ominis outside into the open.

He could have easily told Sebastian to find another compartment, but he didn’t. Instead, he let the boy chatter away endlessly. Somehow, this bloody git had managed to crack open the door Ominis had sealed tight. But how had he gotten the key...?

Hmm...perhaps it was another time...

...

Read the rest here!

#sebinis #ominis gaunt #sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy #sebastian x ominis #ominis x sebastian

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nerdieforpedro · 8 months ago

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Doing Nothing vs. Nothing You Can Do

Chapter Two of Therapy for Well-Adjusted People

My entire masterlist and blog are for readers 18+ MDNI. I do not consent to my work being used in AI, recommended on TikTok, borrowed or plagiarized.

Word Count: 1975

Summary: Imani makes an emergency appointment for an incident at work with Dr. Julep. Marcus receives some concerning news and talks to Dr. Mint about it.

Warnings: Mention of death, Death in a workplace, PTSD, anxiety, depression

Notes: I recently had a death at work of one of my coworkers so I’m working it out in my writing. 👀 Given when I’m posting this, it was in April of this year. I still wonder at times if I’m sane but I also think that the definition of sanity can be subjective at times. Point is, Nerdie is self-indulgent as always. She’s all up in her own writing. 👏🏽

Main Masterlist/ Marcus Pike Masterlist/ AO3 Link

Imani Coleman arrived at her last minute appointment with Dr. Julep. It was urgent that it needed to be today. She honestly wanted one yesterday but the office was closed by the time she got off work. It was insane that she’d finished her shift. All of them finished their shifts like that didn’t just happen.

There was an emergency number she could call but she didn’t feel it was necessary but she still needed to see her therapist, just to get the feelings out. To have someone listen. Had she not been so frazzled by the event this week, she would have noticed that a tall, handsome man in plaid held the door open for her. She smiled, but it was polite, she didn’t pay any attention to the man other than the red flannel. That stuck out to her but as she sat down in the waiting area, the idea floated away.

At first she’d spread out, ‘claiming her space’ as her friends and even her therapist told her to do, but she checked her phone. All the people messaging one another about the incident today, how it affected them, remembering how many people came together afterward. Imani closed herself back off and held her belongings closer to herself. However silly, she felt safer that way, for a few moments, it felt like she was being watched. Looking up at the front desk, Vernon was focused on his computer screen. No one else had come in. Imani chased that thought away. Unless some patient or family member was watching her to try and critique what she was doing, no one was looking at her that intensely.

Thankfully, Dr. Julep emerged from her office, greeting Imani and having her follow her to her office. She nodded and walked silently, out of character for her as she usually had a joke or two on the way and even after getting settled on the couch. The doctor sat at her tall stuffed white chair which made her black button down shirt and pencil skirt with red heels stand out all the more. Dr. Julep had scarlet hair with purple rimmed glasses that she put on for reading and when she took notes during sessions. She was a few inches taller than Dr. Mint, making her 6’3” without heels, long, well-defined, muscular legs were crossed and on display. Their cinnamon tone is bright from the natural sunlight from the windows. Some might say she has transitioned, others would claim that she was a man diving head first into their feminine side. What could not be disputed, was track record as a therapist with people and communities who didn’t feel served by many mental health and therapists at large. It’s why Imani came here for this practice. It was the only one that took her seriously.

Dr. Julep is watching Imani carefully. She’s set her belongings down, but hasn’t sat. Instead, the nurse is pacing, pressing her hands together in alternating fists. She doesn’t think she’d become violent or anything, but something is eating at her. The voicemail wasn’t clear and just stated that it was imperative that she talk to her.

“Imani. Dear, if you don’t want to sit yet, that’s okay, but please talk to me.” Still fiddling with her fingers, she gazes in her direction and takes a shallow breath. “I can’t help unless you tell me why you needed to see me today. It’s very clear it is something.”

“I couldn’t scream. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shake things and just sit in a corner and cry, but that’s not professional. Doesn’t help the patients.” Imani finally stops, but just stands. She doesn’t sit yet. She’s looking down, rubbing her palms together in a circle. “I mean, it’s a hospital. The patients are our priority, but it’s also a job. So serious but also not so serious. I went with the others to pay my respects. I…I…had just spoken to him that morning. I said good morning. He was sitting and I was getting some ice or drink or something. He was sitting there in the refreshment room. I thought maybe he just needed a break like we all do, you know?”

Dr. Julep can tell that this isn’t like her at all but lets her continue. It’s a jumbled mess, but from what she can gather, it involves possibly a patient or this man she’s talking about. “Okay. We do all need a break. Was he on a short break?”

Imani nods, it’s then that the tears start flowing. “He never made it from his break. One of the staff members came to get me to check his blood sugar. She was able to and it was okay, so was his blood pressure. We told him, his manager told him and other people told him to go down to the emergency room (ED). He just kept saying that he needed to rest. I just kept working. They’ve been on us about having the vitals and stroke assessments timely and I can see that damn woman tapping her watch with her finger telling us our assessments are late. Plus my stroke patients both have NG (nasogastric) tubes and the one, a ninety-two year old man is in bilateral wrist restaurants which requires documentation every two hours. And that’s just two of my patients, I had three more. But it’s still no excuse…none at all.” Finally she plopped down on the couch, her vision bleary from her tears.

The good doctor stands and takes a box of tissue off her desk and sits next to Imani on the couch, she gives her the box and she blows her nose. “It’s no excuse for what Imani? What do you feel you didn’t do? It sounds like there was plenty to do just with those two patients.”

“There were people going back and forth, trying to get him to go. I saw a friend of mine bring a wheelchair to him, but then everyone said he fell and hit his head. They presume after trying to stand up. They worked together to lift him on the stretcher and get him down to the ED. They said he was scared and they were trying to comfort him by telling him he’d be okay. But I remember how sick he was when he was a patient at our hospital before. I took care of him for a few days. I thought he was better. Another friend went down to check on him but they called a code blue on him…when she said they were still working on him. I knew then…The longer a code goes, the less chance you have of getting the back. He died. He came to work that morning, was working and was dead. I paid my respects to him with the others…at least he looked peaceful I guess. But then we all…just continued working. They had a 30 minute grief thing but then we all finished our shifts. I cried just like I’m crying now, but it’s especially when things like this happen where I wonder if I've been fundamentally desensitized.”

“My dear, is it alright if I hug you? Feel free to say no.” Dr. Julep opened her arms and Imani hugged her. They sat in silence for a few minutes as she sobbed. The appointment ended with no words spoken other than Imani thanking her for taking her call and making an appointment for her today. The nurse left once she had another appointment set up for later in the week.

Marcus found himself at the offices of Dr. Mint and Dr. Julep a second time that week. He hadn’t planned on it, but he’d gotten a call from his supervisor, stating that those two hot dogs were trying to press charges against him. Marcus showed restraint in not calling Patrick Jane and Teresa ‘hot dogs’ over Zoom call, but he was assured by his supervisor that they didn’t have a leg to stand on because in addition to Pike telling Jane not to interfere in the pursuit, so did the squad leader and field leader as well. They had already written their statements along with the other agents who were there and those who’d been in the office. Marcus spoke with Dr. Mint about the fact that the Janes had the audacity to even try to bring charges against him. For an accident, one that would have been prevented if he had listened to any of the three people that told Patrick to stay put.

After his session with Dr. Mint Marcus had his leather jacket draped over his left arm as he was making a follow up appointment with Vernon who was chatting him up about a Wizards game he was going to see later. “They usually lose, but I’ve got floor seats with my husband. He loves them for reasons I don’t understand, but he’s cute when he’s excited like that.” It was then that Dr. Julep walked Imani out to the waiting area. The statuesque therapist was wearing a tan dress with black ankle boots. She patted the nurse on her shoulder and went back to her office.

Marcus recognized the woman who’d been wearing a blue dress when he first saw her. He smiled and stepped back to allow her to be at the front desk and make her follow up appointment too. Today she was wearing a pale yellow cold shoulder top with ¾ sleeves, black capri leggings that displayed her caramel calves. She had on simple black flip flops with white nails, likely from a mani-pedi. She had on pink lip gloss and was chatting with Vernon about the Wizards game too. Marcus waited and hoped it wasn’t weird, well too weird. The elderly gentleman grinned and nodded his head in Marcus’ direction, whispering to Imani, “You have an admirer dear.”

Imani didn’t turn around yet, Pike can hear them, they both suck at whispering. It’s endearing though. “Do I? If he’s here, it could be a huge red flag or a green flag.”

“Green flag dear. He’s got a leather jacket and one of those…henley’s I think.” Marcus laughs and Imani looks back, turning to face this tall, broad and handsome copper toned man who was indeed wearing a red hanley, holding a black leather jacket, wearing dark wash jeans with black nikes.

“Hello…” Imani cleared her throat and swallowed some saliva that had gathered. She placed a hand over her chest and then placed back on the desk, leaning on it to appear more relaxed than she was. This was her admirer? Here’s to hoping Vernon’s right and he is in fact a green flag.

“Good afternoon. I’m Marcus. A walking green flag apparently.” Pike took two steps forward, but kept a foot away from her so as to not invade her space. “You two are very funny and yes I am an admirer.” Imani chuckled and extended her hand, he took it and shook it while they gazed at each other.

“How long have you been an admirer of mine, Marcus?”

“Long enough to where Vernon’s kept track of it but not so long that you should feel weird about it Ms. Imani.” They let go of each other’s hands and didn’t know what to do with them. Imani fiddled with her purse and Marcus went to his pockets.

“Hmm.” She used her index finger and thumb to grasp her chin. “Maybe we should get lunch, I’m a little hungry. Are you? And please call me Imani.”

Flashing a bright smile at her suggestion, he nodded. “I think I could go for some food. Where do you want to eat?” Imani waved goodbye to Vernon as Marcus opened the door for her and they left the office in search of lunch.

Peeps who have secret admirers (green flags) ✅: @megamindsecretlair @jessthebaker @avastrasposts @jeewrites @josephquinnswhore

@survivingandenduring @readingiskeepingmegoing @bishtrouille @morallyinept @angelofsmalldeath-codeine

@soft-persephone @soft-girl-musings @rosecentaur1916 @westside-rot @rulexofxnines

@inept-the-magnificent

Chapter One. Chapter Three

#pedro pascal characters #fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #marcus pike #Marcus pike x ofc #Marcus pike x black ofc #therapy for well-adjusted people #a nerdie series

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wrenreid · 2 years ago

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Just Acting

nsfw | all chapters in master list

Chapter Twenty-Four

Matthew pulls you onto his lap after you approach him while he's sitting on the couch. You've just gotten back from dinner. You decided on a sushi date with ice cream afterwards. You didn't want your "going away dinner" to seem like what it was, a last date for while. A goodbye. He could barely keep his lips off yours on the way up to your apartment.

You position your legs on either side of his thighs. He looks up at you, and you grab his face in your hands, connecting your lips with his. The kiss his slow and sweet. Matthew pulls you closer to him by your waist. The feeling of his mouth on yours, tongue grazing yours overrides your senses. Right now, you're not Y/n who's leaving tomorrow. You are his. Entirely his.

His tongue roams your mouth, and you let him dominate the kiss. Your lips work against each other's like that's their whole purpose. After Matthew pulls a short distance away to take a breath, you smash your mouth against his again. He tastes of mint and sugar, the ice cream.

Your teeth tug at his bottom lip while your hands fiddle with the buttons on his brightly colored button up. You get them undone, leaning back so you can take his shirt off. After throwing it on the floor a few feet away, your hands go to his bare chest, fingers tracing circles on his skin. He shudders at the touch, a devilish smile painted on his face. You lean into him again, kissing his up jaw line until you reach his lips again. A small groan noises from him at the feeling of your mouth on his jaw. You smile, clearly proud of yourself.

"Hey d-" he starts, but you cut him off.

"Hi handsome," you say smiling, kissing his lips quickly.

He laughs, not minding that you didn't let him finish his sentence. Matthew's hands trail up to your neck as he kisses you at a medium pace. His finger traces down your cheek, to your jaw line, to your neck again. He squeezes your throat, not hard enough to hurt, but just the right amount of pressure to release a moan from your lips. He smiles at the sound. His hand moves to the back of your neck, tangling your hair in his hand. You look into his gorgeous honey eyes with anticipation. Matthew pulls your hair back slowly, giving him space to kiss your neck. His lips, teeth, and tongue mark seemingly every inch of your neck. More low moans escape your throat.

You feel the warmth between your legs getting more eager as his erection presses against your thigh. You start to grind against it, moving your hips into his and back in a rhythm. He closes his eyes for a moment with a groan.

"God, you are beautiful." He cups your face.

You smile softly. "Ditto, lover boy."

He laughs softly and kisses your forehead. You continue to grind against him as he pulls your shirt over your head. His eyes widen as he sees your boobs confined by lacy black bra. You love that you still have that effect on him.

You smile and kiss his neck, leaving hickeys of your own. You bite his shoulder and his body reacts by being even more turned on, which you feel against your thigh. You smile and slide off of his lap after pecking his lips.

You sit on your knees in front of him before undoing the button of his jeans and sliding the zipper down. He lifts his hips up for you so you can slide them off. Your face inches closer to the middle of his boxers.

"You don't have to," he says, looking down at you.

"Shh," you say, dragging your finger from him belly button down to the band of his briefs. "I want to."

He nods and the look of anticipation and eagerness on his face makes you smirk. You slide his boxers off, his length coming free. You stroke him for a bit, then add in your other hand. After you feel him becoming even harder, you lean forward, connecting your tongue to his tip. You swirl it around a few times, loving the sounds coming from Matthew's mouth. You take him in deeper, moving your head back and forth slowly. His hands go to your hair again, tugging gently. You feel the warm liquid start to come from him and begin to bob your head deeper and faster. You take all of him in.

Matthew groans loudly, cursing under his breath. "God," his head throws back. You continue your work. "Y/n, you can stop... I'm gonna..." He can't even finish his words because of the sounds and breaths stopping his thoughts.

You continue until you feel him finish. You pull back and swallow, sitting back and looking up at him like a puppy.

He leans forward after regaining his composure. "You are so incredible.

You smile contently and return to your spot on his lap after take your jeans off. Your lips find each other's again immediately. You push against his core again, feeling it graze in between your legs, just a thin piece of cloth keeping them from touching. A soft moan comes from your mouth from the sensation of it.

"Keep grinding," he says raspily.

You do as you were told and his fingers find your center. He rubs your area, feeling the dampness of your underwear. Before you can prepare yourself, his middle fingers are circling your bare clit. A high pitched, breathy moan leaves your tongue. His pace quickens and you can already feel you getting closer. How does he do that? Matthew kisses your collar bone and your chest while his hand works on you. You lean forward, head resting in the crook of his head while his fingers slip inside you.

As you come undone onto his fingers, you bite his shoulder again, not too hard, but harder than intended. You're utterly high as he slowly rubs your swollen center. You sigh loudly as he stops and sticks two fingers in your mouth. You suck your own juices from his hand and close your eyes.

"You feel good, baby?"

"Amazing," you sigh loudly again.

He smiles. "Good." He kisses your forehead. "We can stop if you're tired."

You shake your head. "No. No I don't want to stop."

"Okay," he smiles again. "As you wish, darling."

He gives you a moment to rest before kissing your mouth roughly. He sets you on the couch and stands up to go to your room for a condom.

"I want to feel you."

"And I want to make sure I don't get a call while you're away saying you're pregnant." He laughs softly.

You smile. "Yes sir." You say it in more of a sarcastic tone, but you definitely didn't mind using that term.

He furrows his eyebrows and chuckles. He sits back down on the couch, putting on condom.

"I want top," you say. "L the first time."

He smiles, remembering. "I'll get to see your tits bounce, so fine by me."

"Matthew! Naughty."

"My fingers were just inside you, we're well past not being naughty."

You press your lips together, blushing.

You climb back on top of him and he takes your bra off as you play with his hair. You position yourself just right and slide onto him. You adjust to his length while slowly grinding. His hands play with your breasts as you speed up the pace.

Eventually, you're bouncing on him, and his hips buck up to meet yours. You're both definitely being loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but you don't even mind. You feel yourself coming closer, eyes stinging and watering. All at once, your vision goes blurry, and you're even higher than before. If you thought the last orgasm was strong, this is like it took steroids. The two of you are done at the same time, hot breaths and whimpers blending together.

____

"Are you alright, darling?"

"Sore," you say with a laugh.

"Sorry," he looks down at you with soft eyes while continuing to stroke your hair.

"Sorry? Nuh uh, that was the best I've ever felt."

He smiles and says, "Hot goodbye sex."

"Ah don't say that word."

"Sex? Y/n, you're an adult."

"Shut up. I mean 'goodbye'. No goodbyes until tomorrow."

He nods, a sad look on his face. "Right."

As the two of you begin to fall asleep, you look up at him. "Hey, Matthew..."

"Mhm?" he says groggily.

"I love you too."

A smile creeps onto his lips as he opens his eyes. "I love you."

tags: @pauline5525mgg @theintimatewriter @lilibet261 @greysviolets @jazzymariexoxoc @one-sweet-gubler @thatsonezesty13 @necromaniackat @awhoreforspencerreid @sebs-oxygen @scarredelirium @bts-sugaplum @awesomeness1679 @preciousbabypeter @yazzyu @cynbx @r3idsp3ncer @1010lizz @tiredbut-here @skulzombiw @lena-1895 @eevee0722 @danis-stuff-is-here @kylakins88 @daydreamingqueen1 @regulus-black-223048 @virginmusicloverr36 @inlovewithcharmers @f-me-reid @matthew-gray-gubler-lover @lovejules888 @marimorena06 @v-i-o-l-e-t <3

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nightfang22 · 6 months ago

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Patrick's Princess Chapter Three

A/N:Thank you so so much to everyone who's been enjoying this little series of mine!I will admit it's a bit self indulgent.I wanted to write something for the more uncommon age regressors I've met.I am well aware that not everyone age regresses and not everyone understands it so I understand if this fic is not for you.That is absolutely fine!While there will be sexual content in this series at some point in time it will absolutely NOT be during a regressed period for the reader character as I'm not comfortable with that kind of thing at all.Also in reference to the specific autistic behaviors I've written for this reader,they are based upon my own personal autistic experiences so it's good to keep in mind that while not all autistic people experience these traits,I do and there are plenty of others who do.They are completely valid and if you don't like this sort of thing just scroll away!Thank you for reading this note and I hope you continue to enjoy the series even though it's been on a serious hiatus for a good long while!Enjoy!

Warnings:Patrick is a warning on his own,fire,autistic meltdowns,slight atypical stockholm syndrome

Pairing:Patrick Hockstetter x autistic!little!Reader

Word Count:1.1k

I could smell the soft scent of mint and Jolt Cola on his breath as it fanned across my cheek. His hand brushed through my (h/l)(h/c) hair as the other pulled me closer to him by my waist. "All mine~", he whispered into my hair as he inhaled my scent. I felt this funny bubbly feeling in the pit of my stomach and I felt shocks go through my spine when he shifted me in his lap. We lay up against a tree as the sun set. We had spent the entire day at that little tree in the woods and I had never felt so safe in my life. Even though my brother was most certainly going to be pissed that I ditched and I was probably going to be grounded for the rest of eternity, at that moment I didn't particularly care. I had come back out of my littlespace a good while ago but I could find myself able to leave his arms. I was curled up, straddling Patrick's lap as he held me there pulling me closer every so often as though we could get any more humanly close. I could feel the rough denim of his jeans on my thighs and the soft cotton of his t-shirt in my fingertips as I clutch it for dear life. Patrick had previously taken off his flannel and wrapped it around me, muttering something about my outfit 'drawing too much attention'. I was too deeply engrossed in this bubbly feeling to understand or analyze so I just let him. I liked the feeling of the heavy flannel fabric on my shoulders and the musky smell of his cologne too much to oppose. I simply curled closer into him, resting my head between his shoulder and his jawline. I mindlessly kissed his neck as I ran a hand through his hair. It was a tad greasy but otherwise very soft and smelled of dandruff shampoo. I mindlessly lay kisses across his neck and jawline from where my head rested on his shoulder. I felt his fingertips dig into my skin a little then as he entangled his hand in my hair and gave it a small tug. Not too rough, just enough to grab my attention and make me look at him. His eyes were an electrifying pale blue. Like someone tried to paint the color but had no true concept of what it was really supposed to look like so it just came out to a very silvery periwinkle. "What do you think you're doin', doll?" His words finally drew my line of sight away from his eyes and to his lips instead. They were curved in this beautifully mischievous grin. Almost like a predatory raptor looking at its next meal. The next tug that came on my hair was much more harsh, forcing my line of sight back to his eyes. This time, however, I seemed to have sobered from this intoxicating feeling and come back to earth. Wherever I was before, I'm not quite sure now. I looked around at my surroundings and glanced at my watch. I jumped up out of Patrick's lap and made a beeline for my bike. It's almost 7! (B/n) is going to kill me! I searched my pockets and my bag over and over again, hoping I hadn't lost my keys. I spin around on my heels when I hear keys jingling behind me only to see Patrick shaking them in his hand with his other in his back pocket. "Thought you were gonna get away that easy, princess? You should know better," he paused coming right up in my ear, "than to run away from Daddy." There was this gravel to his voice on the last word. Almost animal like.

I bit down on my bottom lip,feeling anxiety control my gut now.I was in a new place with absolute no idea where I was or how to get home from here. I know I really should've been panicking much more than I was,screaming for help,something.Anything.But I just couldn't find it in myself to want to leave.In my mind I knew that there would be consequences to all of this later.But that's just when they'd come.Later.And right now,all I wanted was to be right where I was.Somewhere in the middle of an unfamiliar forest with Patrick.I liked the way he made me feel and I loved the way he talked to me.Like I was the best thing he'd ever seen but also like I didn't have a brain at the same time.I wasn't even really sure how that was possible but he pulled it off so well that I couldn't find it in myself to care really.I looked up at him with a shy look on my face,my cheeks tinged a soft pink.I nodded,my voice barely above a whisper.

"Yes,Sir.I'm sorry."

The smirk on his face was downright sinful as his eyes roved up and down my frame,drinking me in with his eyes.He placed his finger under my chin and tilted my head up to look up at him.I had never really realized just how much taller he was than me until now.And fuck was he tall.I kept my eyes focused on the spot between his.I couldn't bear making complete eye contact with him right now.Not with as overwhelmed as I was.The smirk on his face slowly turned into a cheshire grin.Malicious and intriguing at the same time.

"You're good at taking orders.I like that."

An odd feeling swelled in my chest.Pride,maybe?Whatever it was,I liked it.A lot.I felt a small smile grace my features as I nodded. "Only for the right people." My voice was a ghost of a whisper.His hand traveled quickly from my chin to my throat,squeezing it.Almost like a warning. "Only for me,got it?" My eyes were wide.They felt like they were going to pop out of my skull but I couldn't find it in myself to disagree with him.There was something about him that just made me want to listen,to obey.I nodded but he squeezed harder. "Yes what?" I took a shallow breath as I looked up at him. "Yes,Sir." MY voice was shaky and strangled with his hand around my neck but I was strangely okay with it. He released my throat and I took a gasping breath in,finding that I missed the pressure of his hands.My skin felt itchy and crawly without it.In that moment I had decided,against my better judgement maybe but I would do anything to keep Patrick's hands on me.

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greenninjagal-blog · 2 years ago

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Deja Vu pt 11

Alright! Let’s do this!

If you’re new around here you can find the first chapter [here] or if you just want a refresher you can find the previous chapter [here!]

Summary: Like most plans Remus and Janus’s have, this one starts off really great!

Word Count: 13351

Read on Ao3 || Hero Worship Series || My General Writing Masterlist

“I fucking hate you,” Virgil snarls under his breath, as Remus (lightly) shoves him in the direction he needs to walk. He’d given up kicking and screaming about seven blocks and ten subway stops ago, after Remus had (not lightly) acquainted a concerned citizen who had stopped them with his fist, but Remus thinks he might have still been (very not lightly) biting out of sheer spite , if it weren’t for the cute little face mask Remus shoved on his face before manhandling the reporter out of his own apartment.

“You and Janus can rot in fucking hell together, assholes!”

“I love when you talk dirty to me, honey,” Remus says to him, grinning with all his teeth on display, sharp and pointed and freshly brushed with Virgil’s own shitty Aquafresh toothpaste that tasted like every type of bad mint flavor put together as a brilliant new torture method. “Now keep quiet and be more scared.”

“I should have just fucking killed you, you motherfucking, insane— ”

Remus pinches him sharply in the side as a warning and his clever and completely accurate description yelps off into some even more creative swears.

Honestly, Remus would have loved to hear the rest of Virgil’s thoughts about him. It had been interesting to watch Virgil lose every ounce of his respect for Remus as Janus had started laying out the details of his plan; Interesting in the same way Remus thinks that watching someone perform an autopsy on his still-living body might be interesting, in the way that being buried alive in wet cement might be interesting, in the way that naming each piranha that takes a bite out of his limbs migh13t be interesting.

As far as plans that Janus had, this was shaping up to be one of Remus’s favorites already. The details were tedious and extensive, much more than Janus’s plans usually were, although with the way that Janus kept glancing at Remus throughout it Remus could understand why he was going so overboard with their timeline and plannings. The usual safety net they operated with (aka Remus’s fucked up power) was showing to have some decently large holes in it and those weren’t just put there with Roman’s shitty Probability scam.

Virgil’s face had gone from pale to deathly pale to walking corpse pale in the matter of minutes.

Apparently not only watching Remus nod along to Fun Ideas, but also listening to Remus contribute to what is Absolutely the Best Idea They Have Ever Had was where Virgil had drawn his line in the sand and refused to cross it. But that was okay.

Virgil’s role did not exactly include him needing to be cooperative with it. Which Janus had planned for. Because he was amazing and Remus was in love.

And while part of Remus (the same part that still loved Roman for no reason, the same part that urged him to call his mother no matter how much it would hurt, the same part that was very clearly sadistic and wanted him dead in the slowest most painful ways) was rejoicing at things going back to normal, the vast majority of his psyche that wasn’t already busy swooning over how normal Janus had looked waking up in the bed next to Remus, was mourning the loss of that good happy ending for him, Janus, and Virgil that had almost seemed possible for a whole, entire second.

Remus kinda hates himself for thinking it could have been a thing, for scanning through Janus’s face to wonder if he also felt like they had taken all the wrong turns and missed the exit to that future where Virgil stays with them, chooses them, believes that together they have something that’s worth all the scary parts for.

“Remus— Remus wait— please you don’t have to do this— ” Virgil starts again, barely more than a murmur over the crowd that is around the target building. He digs his heels into the ground, but Remus just drags him along, elbowing their way through the thickets of people that apparently have nowhere else better to be and nothing better to do than gawk. The cameras are flashing, reporters from all the local news stations and a few national ones talking over each other, poster wavers protesting and applauding just about everything that can be protested and applauded, and despite it all, no one stops Remus or Virgil.

No one even looks at them twice.

“Listen to me, dickhead! There’s still time to turn back and tell Janus he can— ”

Remus’s skin feels like it might be radioactive, like he’s glowing, burning, bristling and boiling all at once and there’s not a single person who knows it. The last time he was in a crowd, it nearly killed him without anyone ever knowing what sort of things he could do, what sort of liar Roman could be, what sort of tragedy had bleed from their veins onto a car hood at 3AM.

The noise vibrates through his soul, into his bones, into his blood and it prickles the back of his neck in the way that a baby bird might get right before it’s sucked into the jet engine turbine of an economy class passenger plane.

He grips Virgil’s shoulder tightly, like a tether, pushing him along so that if Remus gets swallowed, Virgil will be right there with him. For better or worse or Death.

“Oh my god!” Someone right next to them says, her camera inches from Remus’s face, sparkly nails glittering in the rare sun, right as he gets near the front of the line— because there’s a fucking line, jeez— elbowing at least six people who didn’t have the brains to not be outside right now. “You’re that guy! Oh my god, you’re— !”

Last time he was in a crowd, they didn’t know who Remus was. This time the crowd is going to learn how to mind their fucking manners.

“Hey Roman!” Remus yells, dragging Virgil right in front of himself. “KNOCK KNOCK, MOTHER FUCKER!”

He gets maybe a second to see Roman’s face, the way his eyes jerk up on instinct at the sound of his name, the way that his mask hides most of his expression but not enough because he sees Remus and his mouth open in a rounded ��o’ shape and his hand shifts to his rapier handle and, and, and.

And then Remus is shoving his boot into Virgil’s back and kicking his hostage directly in Roman, and sending them both through the propped open doors of the grand, sparkling Public Library that the FBE had commandeered.

“This party looks boring,” Remus says loud and clear and maybe a little too excited for the flashing cameras and the screaming fans and the fight as he stands at the top of the flight of old granite stairs. “Don’t worry, I brought some toys to spice it up!”

The news reporters surge like a tidal wave, the citizens stir up in the whirlpool of noise and signs. The police were already on site, keeping the nice little barrier between the building and the crowd so that brave souls could walk up to greet their grand hero, but the police saw Remus go toe-to-toe with Roman and everyone remembers that it ended with Remus holding a gun to Roman’s begging face.

The fear that wafts off them tastes like tear gas and his own burnt flesh.

Behind him, further in the building was already a commotion as Virgil hit the ground limbs tangled in Roman’s, scrambling away the best he can when his arms are tied behind his back with a truly insulting amount of duct tape—Janus had found it in one of the drawers in Virgil’s kitchen while Remus had held him down with a great deal more delight than he should have had. The tumble probably left him with spotted bruises, maybe a sprained wrist, but it doesn’t matter much because the farther back he tosses himself with reckless abandon leaves him crashing into Zeal as well.

Patton Hart. The name sounds made up, bizarre and foreign in the way that Remus can’t explain so matter how long he spends staring at the high school picture online. He looks like someone, and also like no one; a combination of every friend that had chosen Roman over Remus and somehow that makes Remus feel absolutely nothing at all.

Patton melds out of the bookshelves and crowd like some concerned civilian and not someone who would commit war crimes if he was told not to think too much about it. Virgil lands almost completely in Patton’s arms, throwing all his weight into him, because he figured out about twelve hours ago that Remus is far more insane than the heathen who wears socks with sandals and shoots down innocent people during a riot.

Roman barely manages to roll back to his feet before Remus is strolling towards him grinning in a way that makes the handful of privately hired guards that were “helping” provide security to such a high profile location train their guns on him. They’re stationed strategically around the building, in more places than Janus had predicted: four along the back wall flagging the large stained glass windows, three at the check-in counters with the “doctors” two on either side of the main doors and another two on the mezzanine level above. It’s enough to make people think twice about causing trouble. There were probably more in the conference rooms where the actual testing was going on but those weren’t Remus’s concern.

They would have...other problems soon if they weren’t already facing them now.

Just like Janus said, none of these hired guards would dare start the fight themselves; not without Roman acting first, not without certainty that Remus would go down without a problem.

And considering how the last fight almost ended (back before Remus had even a theory of what Roman’s power was), if Remus had been in their boots he’d be scared too. He’d be terrified of what a monster a Sibyl could be, what types of things they could know about him, what types of futures they’d woven out of existence. The fear would clot in his arteries until he was unable to so much as twitch his finger to pull the trigger.

“HELP! SOMEONE, HELP!” Virgil screams, hints of his sonic power turning the air to static around them. “HE’S GOT A BOMB!”

Oh, yeah. And there’s that too.

((Remus is twenty one. He’s seen people shriek over thousands of dollars worth of casino coins spilling across a playing table, seen people scream over a flambeed corpse exploding out of a jewelry shop without warning, seen people screech over a body falling from a balcony onto a car windshield at 3AM, seen people panic in a riot started on a stage by a careless superhero; and still somehow the pitch of the yelling and chaos nearly catches him off guard, reaching a crescendo that even violins in a classical symphony in a stolen car in a future that Remus didn’t choose failed to top.))

Roman stutters in his steps, unsure and doubtful and Remus shimmies his hands into the air, clearly showing off the one empty hand and the other very much full hand, spreading his jacket open so that everyone can see the vest he put together late last night, between pressing kisses into Janus’s mouth just because he could.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he says loudly and proudly and completely unhinged in every way that everyone who ever knew him had expected him to turn out. His hands aren’t shaking but he thinks they should be absolutely quivering with the urge to ruin the surprise before anyone’s properly had time to be scared, before Roman’s had a chance to dig his own grave, before Remus has been able regret not kissing Janus one more time.

There’s a guard to his left, finger on the trigger, mouth in a firm line think, think, thinking.

Remus beams. “You aren’t going to like what happens if you take that shot. Even in your best dreams, Princey boy can only maybe save a few of you and even then the building is firewood. That’s the problem with old places like this.”

He can’t see their eyes from under their visors— these faceless, emotionless people who could be anyone and anything from Remus’s own mother to Kyle from that casino who never found out that Remus’s bites when he kisses— but the stiff lines of their mouths make it clear they at least aren’t as trigger happy as the police were during the riot. The emblem on their shoulders is strange and threatening and very much not a good sign according to Janus: the white lotus flower looks very out of place on the deep navy blue padding and creates an interesting dichotomy to their violent, deadly weapons. Remus stares them down with his best smile.

“But hey, I mean a 60:40 split ain’t bad!” he says. “There’s what, twenty people in here? That means about 12 people get out and the rest of us get to have an explosive end to all our days! A real bang! But of all the ways to go, I can tell you being blown up is pretty lame. Personal experience talking here: it’s over far too quickly for anyone to properly scream about it!”

“REMUS!”

There was a time when Remus was six-seven-eight years old and the sound of Roman yelling his name meant that it was going to be a good day. There was a time when Remus was nine-ten-eleven and believed Roman called his name from love, that it was them against the world, that when Remus had nothing he would still have the brother he refused to let leave him behind. There was a time when Remus was seventeen years old and Remus would have given anything for Roman to say his name the way he used to and all he got was “I don’t need you!”

This is none of those times and Remus feels the ache of the years apart like a physical pressure in the air. Roman is there— Remus’s neck cracks when he turns his head to look at his twin— looking just the same as he was a few days ago: like a cartoon character pulled into the real world with only one obnoxiously white outfit that makes him memorable and wounds that don’t stick past a few audience laughs. Topped with a red mask, red boots, red sash— red like the blood in both their veins that doesn’t have a single difference because they both have superpowers and Remus never should have been treated differently and Why is it so hard to just believe me for once?

There’s no hints of the wounds that Remus left on him: no bandages on his forehead from the gash that had bled over his eyes, no bruising from Remus’s shoe going into his cheek, no scratch marks or scuffs on his clothes to suggest that they had ever been in a fight. Almost as if Roman would tell him that the fight a million cameras caught and streamed nationwide had never happened at all and Remus was just sick.

“And if it isn’t the man of the hour!” Remus calls with enough bite that the room seems to chill. “Hiya, Ro! Can I just say, congratulations on day three of trending on Twitter! The number two spot isn’t bad; although you aren’t used to being number two, are you? I know I’m not used to being number one!”

“Are you insane?!” Roman snaps out. His hair is gelled today, although his quick tumble knocked a bit of it out of place, so he looks like Baby’s First Prom Night With A Girl Who Asked Him Out As A Joke That He Still Thinks Is Genuine. The white of his outfit is offensive on all levels, the red accents just enough of a shade off from blood red that Remus wants to fix it for him by actually making him bleed! The golden tip of his rapier is out and ready for a fight but even with the long range, Remus is hilariously out of reach.

Maybe if Remus had come in with a gun, with a sword, with a knife or a smoke grenade it would have been a good fight, a good chance to bash his head in again and figure out if he would feel bad about Roman dying after all.

But that’s the beauty of how Janus’s mind works isn’t it? He almost laughs.

“Didn’t we already cover this conversation, Roman?” He asks, grandly. “Come on, it's like you don’t know me at all!”

He sweeps his hands in the air, watching the way that Roman’s eyes track the remote in his hand with a focus and intensity that borders on panic. The ridiculous mask on his face might be enough to keep the public in the dark about his inner thoughts, but Remus could read Roman like a picture book: creased lips hiding the way he’s nearly biting his tongue to remind himself to keep a calm face, wrinkle between his eyes that point to him running through all the different way that he might be able to save the day heroically, a twitch of his hands that imply he’s still not very good at following directions.

At the very least Patton is keeping an eye on the crowd (twenty, Remus thinks, all with various powers or weapons and all nervous and unsure about how this is about to go and who are about to be tested in ways they have never been prepared for) that they have trapped in the building, keeping them calm with low toned orders of back up! and we’ll handle this! We’re professionals! Virgil seems all too happy to have someone else handle things: even with his hands still bound he has no problem melding back with the other hostages, still struggling at the duct tape, out of sight and out of mind. Roman doesn’t even flick his eyes over to check on any of them, as if he could magically make Remus forget anyone other than him exists through sheer force of a stare.

It feels ridiculously familiar, in the painful, stabbing way that everything that reminds him of their childhood feels painful. If he blinks at the wrong second, Remus will wake up and find himself on the school playground again after he told the wrong kid to stop running before he ends up slamming his head on the asphalt and that kid decided to take offense with Remus’s face for it.

Remus doesn’t remember the name of that kid anymore, or their hair color, the sound of their voice or the feel of their tiny stupid fist or what shards of his skull Remus had gotten to see. He remembers that Roman hadn’t been there when all the other kids had started backing up and watching with excitement that someone was finally, finally going to shut Remus up and none of the teachers stepped in until the fifth fist had landed.

He wonders if somewhere out there that kid without a name is maybe realizing that Remus wasn’t lying about seeing him die. He wonders if that kid would feel sorry about punching him until the teachers had to pry him off Remus. He wonders if Roman really did feel sorry about not stopping it like how he had said he felt when he was helping Remus press ice packs to his body afterwards.

He wonders if Roman remembers that day at all.

“Remus,” Roman says. “Give me the switch. Please.”

“So polite,” Remus croons.

“Remus, you don’t need to blow yourself up— ”

Remus laughs. “Oh this?” Remus says waving to his vest. “Nah, this was just for laughs. I had some Christmas lights around…You know! Reusing! I care a lot about the environment. My whole outfit is completely thrifted except for the parts that are not! But no, the real bombs are up there.”

It doesn’t take anyone more than a few seconds to see them once Remus has nudged their attention upwards: the handful of flashing blinking red lights littered across the grand opulent ceiling, at the junctions that would bring down the whole flaming ceiling on them all, clinically tested by Remus. Someone screams and its fucking music to Remus’s ears. The air buzzes with panic that just barely avoids setting off the charges with electrostatic-physics-pseudo-magic. Remus meets Virgil’s gaze head on, and nearly laughs at how Virgil leans back into Patton’s very capable, altar boy arms and desperately tries not to throw himself into an unfortunate panic attack that might get them all killed when his sonic waves interfere with the delicately placed devices.

“How…?” Roman says, flustered, red faced, and rightfully horrified.

“I know a guy, you might have met him, he goes by the name Basilisk. Tell me if this rings any bells but he can turn into literally any fucking animal, excuse my French. Public Library schematics are easily found online— bet you didn’t think that through when you chose this place to set up shop, right? And really who didn’t spend their formative teen years trying to build things that blow up? The only actual hard part of all this was tying the bombs to my sexy squirrel boyfriend so he could sneak in through the skylight.” Remus says, eyeing the nails on his free hand, tsk-ing at the chipped nail polish he hadn’t had time to fix while preparing everything for this moment.

Roman doesn’t really flinch, but the tip of his rapier inches upwards at the mention of Janus’s self-picked name, and his teeth grit together just barely short of a sneer that offends every part of Remus on a spiritual level.

“I was here last night— ”

“Yeah, you were dealing with the molotov cocktail that was thrown through the window over there at…. nine thirty-seven give or take a few seconds,” Remus jerks a thumb over to the window that had been shattered and boarded up by the time that anyone had actually woken up for the day. “Really, this is a public library, Bro. What will the public think when they hear you didn’t even have the firemen come check the building out last night? And that instead of closing it down for today, like it should have been after an event like that, you went ahead and gave me twenty three shiny little hostages! And then we wouldn’t be having this conversation and I wouldn’t be trying to find a reason not to…let go of this button.”

Behind him, Patton, or Zeal, or Whoever He Was, whispers something to Virgil and steadily lets go of him, only glancing back once to make sure that Virgil won’t drop to his knees and brain himself on the polished wooden floors. It's a close call from the light buzzing in the air that makes Remus think of TV static.

“Prince,” Zeal says warningly in a way that was probably meant to be a mumble but the staunch silence of the library crafted it into a local announcement. “There are people in the back conference rooms having their evaluations done.”

“Oh yeah!” Remus agrees, “Two individuals and a mother with her seven year old daughter. I can even speed up the process for you: Linda Maddock makes really great chocolates, her daughter is super sweet and I hope that the first person stupid enough to break her heart gets eaten by a panther considering her daughter can speak to animals. But honestly they freak me out, you know? I mean, a parent who cares about their child? I wouldn’t know what to do if that were me.”

Something flashes through Zeal’s face, short and fast and Remus thinks it might have been something like pity. Remus’s body aches from a riot that he almost didn’t survive, his eyes burn from tear gas that had been avoidable, his tongue itches with all the things he wants to tell Patton Hart to do with his pity.

“That information is confidential,” Roman says in a hard voice. “How did you know— ?”

“I know a lot of things! In case it wasn’t clear before, I can see the fucking future,” Remus says. Roman shifts a foot forward, and Remus holds up the mechanism again in case his ridiculously short minded brain forgot what exactly Remus was holding over all their heads. Literally. “Though, you’ve got everyone so fucking sure they really are still back there. Where did you get your magical power scientists from, Roman? Where are their licenses? I’ve seen drug dealers with better certifications than these guys and that’s after I hacked the FBE records to find out who would be hosting these registration interviews.”

Remus chances a glance toward Virgil, who seems to freeze like a twenty year old Remus in an eighteen wheeler's headlights. One of the other civilians must have crept over as a silent bequest of Zeal because they were working at trying to quietly undo the duct tape now.

“I hope you get shot,” Virgil hisses, although from the lack of reactions from everyone around him Remus guesses that it was a display of Virgil’s frankly impressive sound control. A special secret message for Remus and Remus alone.

Remus winks at him and turns back to Roman. “How do you know they didn’t shuffle each of those people off into a big white van out back? How do you know those people who trusted you aren’t screaming your name right now? How do you know any of them are coming back through those doors, Roman?”

Someone is crying. Remus would feel bad, if only he hadn’t grown up being told his tears were pointless and changed nothing and didn’t make anyone feel better. His fingers ache, pinpricks of pain that feel exactly like needles being methodically slid into each of his digits.

For a moment, he thinks about just opening his hand, letting go of the remote, and watching Roman’s face go from defensive to horrified to scared-out-of-his-mind. Something to pay back for the years and years and years of terror he inflicted on Remus. An end, The End and Remus wouldn’t ever have to worry about figuring out his own emotions about a brainwashed, dumbass brother.

“Nothing is going to happen,” Roman says, very heroically. “Nothing like that is— is that what you think I’m doing here?! Kidnapping people?! You rigged the building with bombs because you think I’m kidnapping people?!”

He sounds like Remus suggested he play an extra in a Broadway musical instead of the lead. He sounds like he doesn’t think Remus is actually dangerous. He sounds like he did right before he told Remus that nothing bad was going to happen at that party four years ago.

He sounds like he still thinks Remus doesn’t have a power. So sure, so certain, so indigent.

“What is it about his face that makes you people trust that?” Remus asks. “Do you even hear him? Roman, do I need to spell it out? Big Shadow Government. Preppy Dancing Monkey. A list with the names and addresses of everyone who has an ability and what it is.”

“For getting resources to those that might need it!” Roman says.

“Oh yeah, definitely not so certain people might go missing in the middle of the night. Do you also fall for Nigerian Prince phone call schemes, too? What’s your social security number?”

“What do you want, Remus,” Roman says, dangerously, less like a question and more like demanding permission to punch him in the face. Less like the actor Remus had spent seventeen years building up and more like the person who had thrown it all back in his face. Less like this façade he’d convinced everyone else is real, and more like who Remus knew he was underneath.

“Prince,” Zeal, Patton, whoever, says softly, warningly, nervously. It almost sounds like “please don’t do something stupid” and “when do I start getting paid for being your babysitter Roman?” and “why do you always get to be the center of attention when I’m just as morally unethical?”

“Stay back,” Roman tells him, with all the authority of a man who doesn’t believe a black hole would be able to kill him and Remus definitely wants to see what he would do.

“What I want,” Remus bites out, “is for you to be dead in a ditch, so disfigured that no one recognizes you and no one will remember you. But seeing as you’ve been on international TV parading around bullshit and dumbassery, I’m settling for you being dead and everyone hating you as much as I do.”

As if waiting for the right moment, the civilian helping Virgil finally manages to break through the duct tape and free him. Remus tenses his shoulders, bending his knees just so that if Virgil takes a flying lunge at him Remus can maybe dodge before his head is slammed through the polished wooden floor for all this.

But in the end Virgil just glowers at him like they hadn’t just spent three days together, practically roommates except that Remus has never paid rent before in his life and is not about to start. He looks pale and sweaty but otherwise content to slip further and further away from Remus, from the stage he’d built, from the spotlight that Remus is certain will burn them all one day (maybe even today). It really was a shame finding out that he had opinions on Self Preservation and feared Death like it was something he could avoid forever if he never did anything slightly upsetting; Remus would have loved to see what other things that voice of his could do.

But then the civilian who was helping Virgil stands up again and Remus thinks that maybe it would have been better if Virgil had knocked him into his next life.

"Oh," Remus says, because he can’t forget a death even if he tries; it doesn’t matter who it is, when it is, where it is, Remus remembers, remembers, remembers when no one else will.

Sharp angels, pale skin, jet black hair tousled by the short sudden panic of the crowd when Remus had made his entrance but Remus only remembers all of that highlighted by humid rain and street lights of a road that he had never walked before. The man’s eyes are bright and blue and narrowed in suspicion through thick lenses with a finger print on them and Remus memorized the sound of construction workers, the feel of a weightless free fall, and the taste of a name he's never spoken.

Maybe it’s destiny, if Remus believed in something as benevolent as that. He squeezes the deadman's switch so hard he almost thinks he crushes it.

"Ain’t this interesting!” He says. “A dead man walking! Future corpse! How’s your life going, Logan?”

The other people shy away from Remus's sudden target, but Logan merely tips his head to the side without an ounce of fear towards the situation he’s currently in. There's less than ten feet between them, the ceiling rigged with all sorts of flashing lights that he and Janus spent a decent amount of time orchestrating; there's no reason he shouldn't be afraid, there’s no reason that he should know that he dies somewhere else some time else, there’s no reason that Remus should like that.

Unafraid people do unexpected things. Unafraid people think they know everything. Unafraid people tell Remus he can’t see the future and then ruin his life a million times over because they don’t know what it’s like to feel blood between their fingers and realize that every death is preventable if Remus kills himself enough for it and somehow that makes his life worth less than theirs.

"Is there something you need from me?" Logan asks neutrally. "Or rather any of us here. I believe that if you have drama to work out with... whatever The Prince is to you, then you have no need to keep any of the rest of us from our daily lives. This whole thing is already ridiculous without you wasting our time."

And Remus does believe it’s ridiculous and that he’s wasting their time. That’s the whole point of this; dragging each second out as far as he can take it and milking their attention for as much exposure time as he can. He wants this attention, he wants to be seen, he wants Roman to see him and there’s something about Logan’s gaze that doesn’t sit right with Remus so he--

--blinks.

"In fact," Logan continues, quite confident for someone who might not survive to see the sun again. "This entire thing will be resolved if you put down the weapon and try talking for once."

Remus, who had talked before, who had screamed, who had begged and cried and argued before, sings, "Oh, I sincerely doubt that."

Logan's eyes dart to the side glancing at the other hostages just for a second and the boy he's with, the young man with a Starbucks cup who's name Remus never learned shakes his head subtly. Logan clicks his tongue in something akin to disappointment or distaste, and sets his gaze back on Remus.

"I will try again then," Logan says, standing straighter, shoulders squared and spine far stronger than Roman’s had ever been. "Based on your previous actions and reactions, you don't have any actual motivation or urge to hurt anyone other than The Prince, and perhaps Zeal, although I doubt that as well. So you will step away from us and you will avoid hurting civilians in your endeavors to continue... this charade you have set up here. In fact, you will cease your performance because you do not believe it has any purpose in helping your ultimate cause of The Prince’s death."

Remus blinks, almost about to laugh, almost about to ask what Logan thinks this is going to accomplish, almost about to go back to Roman and Zeal and The Plan when his grip loosens and the remote falls into the empty air so much like a body tumbling down a manhole that Remus can do nothing but stare at it and wonder what the fuck just happened.

Logan smiles at him, smugly, condescendingly, pompously, and that’s the last thing Remus sees before Roman is hurtling into him like a freight train.--

--blinks.

“In fact—”

“Stop,” Remus, who had talked before, who had screamed, who had begged and cried and argued before, blurts out like his ribs didn’t nearly snap from the force of a blow that never happened. “What the fuck was that?”

Logan's eyes dart to the side glancing at the other hostages just for a second and the boy he's with, the young man with a Starbucks cup who's name Remus never learned looks just as bewildered as everyone else.

“I see,” Logan says slowly, a smile creeping across his face like a scythe glinting in the moonlight. “So it did work. Fascinating. This entire thing will be resolved if you put down the weapon and try talking for once.”

“No,” Remus says.

Logan’s eyes narrow. He takes a step forward like he doesn’t even notice Patton or Roman telling him to stop. His back straightens, and he towers and the people behind him inhale sharply and stare at him as if he’s lost his mind. “You’re angry. You’re angry and you don’t think anything will change no matter what you do. It won’t, not like this. Not even you believe this will actually change anything about how The Prince sees you. So you will step away from us and you will avoid hurting civilians in your endeavors to continue.”

“Logan,” the kid warns.

“In fact, you will cease your performance because you do not believe it has any purpose in helping your ultimate cause of The Prince’s death," Logan continues so certain, so convinced, so unchangeable.

Remus’s grip loosens and the remote falls into the empty air so much like a body tumbling down a manhole that Remus can do nothing but lunge for it again and brace for Roman diving into him like a wrecking ball.--

--shifts his weight to the side, favoring the ribs that aren’t broken, the leg that isn’t sprained, the arm that doesn’t feel dislocated. “You changed the script that time,” Remus says more to himself than to Logan. “Why did you change the script?”

“In fact— Pardon?” Logan says cut off from what he was saying.

“Your power,” Remus says, ignoring Roman’s claims for his attention. “Phrase activated? You changed the script but not all of it. Why didn’t you change all of it?”

Logan seems to realize something, his chin shifting slightly, and his voice raising. He straightens his back and steps forward and the people behind him shift behind him like Logan’s flimsy little body will protect them from a bomb. “You don’t think you can win this without your power. No one in this room thinks you can win this without your power. Zeal and The Prince will attack right now because they are heroes and they can beat you.”

Remus’s mouth opens, but before he can make a sound, Roman is slamming into him, toppling them both to the ground and the remote skids out from Remus’s hand. --

--jerks reflectively from the impact that doesn’t happen.

”In fact— ”

“What’s your power?” Remus interrupts. “Voice activated? No, bitch, eyes on me. What is your stupid ass power?”

There are a billion seconds between them, a gazillion decisions to be made and Remus’s throat feels as dry as a polar desert. Each breath pricks at his skin, yanking at the invisible seams holding him together in a future that Remus isn’t going to live through and Logan steps forward like he feels it too.

Logan’s too sharp, too keen, too knowing eyes dart back to Remus quick and lethal and evaluating. “...I don’t think I should tell you that.”

“Remus!” Roman says from miles and eons and dimensions away. “Your issue is with me!”

“Not anymore,” Remus says and nearly laughs because he knew there were going to be problems in this plan, he knew there were going to be mistakes and consequences and Remus wasn’t going to be able to rely on anyone to help but staring at Logan feels like staring at an exploding sun that’s collateral damage is so vast there’s no one left to acknowledge it.

Remus swore he wouldn’t die, Remus swore he wouldn’t use this power stupidly but Logan’s eyes are narrowing. When Logan’s mouth opens it feels like he’s talking to every version of Remus that has ever died, every version of Remus that wanted to live, every version of Remus that stood in a gas station bathroom clutching the grimy sink and staring at himself in a mirror with a giddy grin left over from being run over that first time.

“How many times are you going to go through this, Remus?”--

--grins with all his teeth.

”In fact— ” Logan continues and then he doesn’t because Remus is lunging the distance between them without warning. He slams his fist into Logan’s face, knuckles scraping against Logan’s perfect teeth, shoving all those perfect words back into his mouth. He hears the wind go out of the room, the sudden stillness of shock, and the buzz of panic and click of seventeen triggers being pulled.

“Did I say you could talk?” Remus snarls, and that’s the last thing he says before his inner organs all explode at the same time from a dozen dimestore guard’s guns.

He does not hear Roman scream his name. But then again… he’s not hearing anything anymore.--

--immediately knows that Logan has fucked up Janus’s plan to high hell.

"I'm wasting your time? What do you have to do so urgently, Logan?” Remus asks like his ribs didn’t nearly snap from the force of a blow that never happened, his lungs aren’t punctured with bullet wounds that tore through his body like paper, like his nose isn’t suddenly stuffed up with more blood than the rest of his corpse. “Die?”

“Remus!” Roman snarls. “Your issue is with me! Leave everyone else out of it!”

Logan frowns, eyes narrowed and lips pinched into a mostly straight line that reminds Remus of the polished lid of a coffin right before it’s lowered into the ground. The bees in his guts swarm up to his ribs, flitting between his lungs until he has to focus to breathe regularly and not scream.

“Do you know you die from falling down an open manhole?” Remus asks, ignoring Roman entirely. “Completely avoidable! If only you or your brother were paying slightly more attention!”

Said brother (younger, stupider, better) freezes at the comment, eyes hidden behind those aviator glasses that reflect Remus’s own silhouette right back at him. His iced coffee is clutched in his hand, still half full, with ice cubes clinking together silently compared to the rumbling tension in the room.

Roman’s signature is not on it. Remus isn’t sure why that makes him want to fucking laugh.

“You die, nerd,” he says. “No do overs. No take backs. No— ”

“I didn’t,” Logan cuts in.

“You will.”

“You are misunderstanding,” Logan says loudly, taking a step forward in the way that makes several other people whimper and scoot back behind him like a shield they could trust to protect them and Remus clenches the deadman’s switch in his hand tighter.

“Logan,” his brother hisses. “You can’t talk away a bomb!”

But Logan doesn’t even look back. He’s nearly Remus’s height, with the edges of his black trench coat sweeping around his calves when his slightly scuffed formal shoes, and Remus doesn’t exactly feel like a frog on a dissection table but it’s a near and very interesting thing and he thinks that Janus would either fall hopelessly in love with Logan or put his claws through Logan’s lungs with no in-between.

“I did not die,” Logan says, slowly and pointedly like the teachers who thought that because Remus claimed to see the future that meant he was stupid because he didn’t see their pop quizzes coming enough to study for them. “Although I’m unsure how your power works, when we ran into each other previously you granted me the vision of my death. Yesterday, the event played nearly the same as what I had seen: I had taken off my glasses to clean them from the rain and the second before I had fallen, I caught myself. I was able to circumnavigate the manhole.”

There’s a beat where Remus is certain that the entire world freezes: the space of air that rings between the tick and the tock, the breath before a scream, the white nothingness that comes after Zeal hits him with his power.

There’s part of a scoff deep in his chest that trembles like an earthquake that only Remus can feel.

“It was like Deja Vu,” Logan says, simply, clinically.

--”I didn’t say anything about rain. I didn’t say anything about you taking off your glasses. I didn’t say anything— ”--

--”Did you feel your death? Did your brother? Did he cry? What’s his name?”--

--”How did you see that? What did you do that hundreds of other people have never been able to do? Why did you get to live?!”--

--”What the hell makes you so FUCKING special?”--

--”THIS IS MY POWER! WHY DON’T I GET TO CONTROL WHO SEES THE FUTURE?!”--

There’s pressure in the back of Remus’s throat and it tastes like rainwater when he swallows. He instinctively drags his free hand under his nose, barely acknowledging the lack of real blood before he acknowledges the fury bubbling in his soul.

Logan stands in front of him, unbothered by his own death, untouched by the fear that people liked to look at Remus with, unchanged by the fact that he knows Remus has a power and what kind of bullshit is that?! Why of all the people, of all the times, of all the futures, why is it Logan who believes him? Why is it Logan who could see it?

((Remus is twenty one, but for a blink he feels like he’s thirteen again cornered in the boys locker room after gym with the other boys pressing him to tell them if one of the girls will say yes if they ask her out, and how does he know, is he sure, where’s your proof, Remus? Come on there’s gotta be something, I think you’re holding out on us, maybe this is jog your memory— ))

Remus’s laughter sounds like getting hit by a bullet train. “Deja Vu! Ha! Good one! Okay, nerd! You seem decently smart. Riddle me this: why did you choose to spend the rest of your life? At the FBE? You dragged your brother all the way out here, too?”

Logan’s expression flickers further towards annoyance. “All persons with extraordinary abilities are required by law— ”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Remus says. “If all the other kids were jumping off the bridge would you jump too? Here’s a hint: water from a 25 foot drop can still feel like concrete if you do it right enough.”

“Don’t you mean ‘wrong enough’?” Zeal asks, looking queasy.

“Do I look like the type of person who means ‘wrong enough’, bitch?” Remus says. “Oh come on, Pattie! You saw me in that crowd! I was less than a foot from you and I died three times in ways that were directly your fucking fault.”

“Remus!” Roman cries again, stepping forward even as his precious sidekick pales further.

“I believe we have entertained this far long enough,” Logan cuts in. He takes another step forward, gently pressing his glasses back up his nose, and Remus wants to know if he smells like rainwater and concrete. His voice is an orchestra that catches everyone’s attention, including Roman’s, and for someone who is not a hero parading around on TV and taking autographs, Logan looks perfectly in his element. “This entire thing will be resolved if you put down the weapon and try talking for once.”

“You’re right!” Remus says, twitching his nose as he feels the pressure of a nosebleed already starting to form. The right side of his body aches from the collision course Roman seems to be itching to throw them into, but he forces his muscles to tense and not give it away to anyone. “I am wasting your time. I’m wasting everyone’s time, aren’t I, Logan? Let’s stop with the pleasantries! You want me to talk so much, then I’ll talk! Congratulations, everyone! Welcome to the trial!” Remus announces, as loudly as he can. His voice dances off the aching antique building making him impossible to mishear, much less ignore.

“You’ve been selected for jury duty and you don’t get to opt out. And Logan, you just got promoted to the fucking chairman! So take a step back and shut the fuck up.”

Zeal takes an audible breath, drawing Remus’s attention like a snap. “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here! Remus, if you have a power, we can get it documented right here! It will be official for everyone to see. All you have to do is hand over the remote and let us deactivate the bombs and get these people out of here. I promise.”

He offers out a hand gently to Remus as if he were a wild animal that just needed the healing power of God to fix whatever was wrong with him. Remus thinks about biting into his hand, chomping down until Zeal is screaming, until the bones shatter, until Remus is tasting blood that isn’t his own.

“Hard pass,” Remus says. “I can print out a certificate of Fucked Up-ness at Staples.”

“Where is, uhm, Basilisk?” Zeal says, undeterred, and Remus remembers that expression from when a taser latched into his spine and killed him, from when he was looking at a wind maker and stole their power, from when he looked at Janus and raised his hand and Janus dropped like a brick. “He— or they— seemed to be more… uhm…”

Remus’s jaw pinches. “I don’t have him GPS tagged. Why? Do you think he’s a better conversationalist than me? I think I’m offended, Altar Boy. Almost enough to just....”

He twitches his wrist and both Roman and Zeal jerk forward with twin looks of panic on their faces. That’s only aborted when Remus yanks the remote back and raises an eyebrow at both of them.

Logan purses his lips and checks his watch as if he has an appointment he’s going to be late for.

“Just kidding,” Remus says, cheerily. “If we did that, then no one would have time to hate you as much as I do!”

Roman’s eyes flicker green, little lights that remind Remus of all the Christmases where Roman got everything on his wishlist and Remus got a new pair of shoes. The sight of it makes Remus’s teeth hurt, makes his stomach roll, makes the acrimony in his chest grow like a tumor that hasn’t figured out if it's going to kill Remus yet.

Roman puffs his chest. “If this is about me then let everyone else leave!”

“But it’s not!” Remus smiles. “It’s not about you, Roman. Despite how every other thing in our lives has turned out, not everything is about you, specifically!”

Roman grits his teeth, "Really?" He waves his arms around. "Because it feels a lot like it’s all about me right now! It’s time to end this Remus! Give me the remote, and we can get you help. See a specialist— "

"Been there! Done that!" Remus says. "Or did you forget how many meds my specialists would put me on no matter how many times I told them it wasn’t like that? Did you forget how Mom would grab my hair, yank my head back, and force pill after pill after pill into my mouth before school? How she'd stick her fingers in my mouth to make sure I didn't hide them under my tongue, because she didn’t trust me? How she called the school to assign a teacher to watch me when we got to the building to make sure I didn't head straight to the restrooms to throw it all back up? Because surely that was the only reason I wasn’t getting better."

There’s a silence in the room that Remus wasn’t expecting. A stiffness that swallows the entire Library that makes the books and the shelves and the aching, ancient walls seem like they’re suddenly listening to Remus too.

"What?" Zeal whispers.

"Is he telling the truth?" Logan asks Roman, and probably for the first time looks like he isn’t trying to storm back out the doors.

"That’s like...that's gotta be illegal," Virgil adds. "So illegal. Oh my god, I'm gonna throw up."

((“Do you really think that you can keep your brother talking about himself for that long? Surely even he runs out of things he likes about himself,” Janus had asked a million years ago and a few hours ago and five seconds ago, while holding the fourth rough draft of their plan in his hands. And Remus had nearly snorted that last of Virgil’s tin roof sundae ice cream out his nose.

“I’m not going to be talking about him,” Remus, who was confident, who was in love, who knew Roman more than he knew himself, who was twenty one and stupid and so tired of hurting, says. “I’m going to be talking about me.”))

“Where were you, Roman?” Remus asks just to push, push, pushhhhh. “How could my life have been a living nightmare for every single day and you didn't notice at all? I was begging for someone to save me!”

The crowd shifts and mumbles and Remus can feel their apprehension rising like a hot air balloon in the middle of the library. Roman can probably feel it too.

“You didn’t— I wasn’t— ” Roman stutters like he’s looking for someone to break into the conversation and call out the line he forgot was in the script.

Remus just stares at him, a smile plastered to his face like a mask when everything underneath it felt he was being boiled alive. Brainwashed or not, someone else holding the strings or not, eleven minutes between them or not, this tastes like relief.

"Oh yeah?" Roman snarls, and just like that the hero persona finally evaporates, folding and twisting and warping Roman into someone completely different and very familiar and I’m sorry they like me more than you! Maybe if you weren’t such a freak you would have been invited too!

"Where were you, Remus? You want to pretend to be the victim here? Want to act like you've never done anything wrong? Where were you when I was drowning under Mom’s expectations of a perfect son? Where were you when every single mistake I made was turned into a world ending event by her? Where were you when my power lashed out and got Dad killed?!"

"Getting run over on I-90 probably," Remus says. "Guess it depends on when he died. I could have been dropping toasters in the bathtub in a hotel in South Dakota or screwing up parkour in Chicago, too."

"Is everything a joke to you?"

"Do I look like I’m laughing?" Remus laughs. "Why should I be sad about the death of the man who couldn't look me in the eyes for our ninth birthday?"

Because Remus had been nine years old and only eleven minutes younger and Roman had gotten to choose the cake flavor for them because Remus had seen Dad trip off the ladder when pulling their presents out from the hiding place in the attic and hadn't been able to stop crying all day. Because Remus had been nine years old and only eleven minutes younger and he’d heard Dad read Roman a bedtime story in his bedroom and then listened to the steps pass right by Remus’s room. Because he’d been nine years old and after that first diagnosis from his psychiatrist, after the first round of pills that hadn’t worked, after that first time that they hadn’t listened to him, their dad had disappeared out of Remus’s life.

As quiet as a ghost.

((Remus didn’t know he was dead, dead, dead and in the ground. Gone and never coming back. Burned to ashes and scattered into the wind. Six feet under in a cemetery that Remus will never visit. Some part of him (the part that remembers bedtime stories read in silly voices, forehead kisses and hair ruffles, and hugs so big that Remus could disappear into them and forget about seeing blood on bumpers of silver sedans) howls.))

“Really, Roman,” Remus says, when Roman looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that information anymore than Remus knows what to do with it. His voice doesn’t shake, his throat doesn’t burn, and his hand doesn’t let go of the remote just to reach forward and strangle Roman to death, but Virgil is staring at him and Remus knows he’s not completely fooling everyone. “If you want to throw the victim card back and forth we can, but you aren’t going to win. You don’t get it. Whatever happened, whatever bad thing occurred you always fucking had someone who cared about you. You had Mom. You had teachers. Doctors. Friends. Other students. Do you know what I had?”

((A snowglobe. An eighteen wheeler. A toaster. A noose, scissors, keys, a freefall—))

“An incorrect diagnosis,” Remus says. “That wrecked my entire life.”

“It’s not incorrect!” Roman snaps. “You—!"

“Even if it wasn’t! Even if I couldn’t see the future, do you still think any of the way you treated me for my entire fucking life was fair? That it was fine? That it was good and role model worthy and you deserve to be looked up to?!” Remus yells, his voice echoing in the cavernous hall, maybe shaking, maybe cracking. “Do you?!”

Roman takes a step back and Remus takes a step forward.

"I was eight years old, Roman!" Remus yells, "I saw my brother die! I was scared and I was asking for help in the only way I knew how to!"

"You were making it up for attention! Just like you’ve always done! Just like you're doing here! Now!" Roman says hotly, eyes burning, burning, burning. "You haven’t changed a bit, Remus!"

“He’s going to get everyone blown up,” Virgil strangles out.

Patton seems to be of the same opinion from how he calls out Romans name, barely more than a begging whimper of a catholic school child desperately trying to convince someone to avoid hell by just… not being gay.

Roman doesn’t spare him a look, and Remus soaks up the attention like a sponge. If Remus was capable of being embarrassed he thinks he might be embarrassed at how delightfully his lungs fill up when Roman is glaring at him like nothing else in the world matters.

But hey, if Roman wants to dig a grave, who is Remus to stop him this time? Or all the times before this? All the times that never happened?

Who is Remus to shy away from all the things that Roman had grown into long before seventeen year old Remus had left him behind?

“Did it ever occur to you that I hadn’t been?” Remus asks, because if he has enough air to breathe he has enough air to twist his own words into a noose to hang himself. “Did you ever wonder if maybe you weren’t so special, Roman? Did you ever think I was worth the air I breathe?”

Roman doesn’t answer. Roman doesn’t answer and it feels like an answer all by itself. Remus’s freefall is ending in a collision, his thundering heart is exploding in his chest, his soul is finally finding that rest in the suddenly overwhelming static silence around them.

“I thought the world of you,” Remus says and he means it. “Some hero you turned out to be.”

He twists his wrist, shaking the remote between them.

“Okay, this is ridiculous!” Logan finally snaps out and Remus knows enough about wearing out people’s patience to know he reached the end of Logan’s. “Why are we even entertaining any of this?!”

Logan shoves a pointed finger at Roman and Remus. “You! And you! Both need therapy! Not to be jumping around like… like sophomoric imbeciles content to utterly disrupt the rest of our lives because of your puerile communication skills! Remus, I am sorry that your childhood was terrible, but it is not my job to facilitate or placate your uncouth attempts to find closure for the undoubtedly distressing attacks made against you by ignoramuses in your life. This entire farce is the exact reason why he is so confident in his ridiculously shallow minded insistence that you have no empathy, and you are smart enough to know that, which leads me to the conclusion that you are just wasting my personal time while you stall for Basilisk to finish whatever activity he’s been executing in the back area of this Library! And one! More! Thing!”

Remus’s mouth opens, a hundred billion futures rolling off his tongue, tripping on his molars, jumbling around in his throat all in the blink of an eye, in the pause of a breath, in the space between heart beats and still Remus isn’t fast enough to stop Logan from talking.

“—the bombs aren’t even real!” Logan yells furiously. “They are just flickering Christmas lights wrapped around probably empty boxes held together with duct tape!”

The entire globe seems to stop, and Remus can feel the jolt under his feet. Every noise seems to funnel directly out of existence before it can manifest. Remus’s lips ache from his grin, but there’s not a single part of him that is smiling.

“Why would you do that, Logan,” Remus says. “You ruined the surprise.”

“What?” Roman echoes. “They’re fake?”

“I never said they were real,” Remus says, with a shrug, shifting his weight back. “I never even said I had a bomb! Everyone really is just willing to believe the worst things about me. Honestly I think I’m offended! Seriously! What have I ever done to make all these very wonderful hostages believe I’m capable of building a bomb, much less a dozen of them? And then get them into this building without anyone noticing at all? Shame on you! And Jannie, I’m running out of topics to go through so if at any moment you'd like to finish up before Igetmybrainssplattered—"

Remus lunges to the side, just in time to avoid Roman’s lunge with his rapier, and then the deafening boom of gunfire hits the air he would have been if he were slightly slower. The glass doors crack and shatter and the screams start up again bouncing off the walls like thousands of firecracker filled pinballs.

“Hey PitPat!” Remus says, “Catch!”

Patton’s eyes widen and he panics for a whole second, with the wispy white light flicking out like the world’s most disappointing trick candles. Remus doesn’t give him time to figure out the rest, flicking the remote in his hand into the air, to give sweet, sweet relief to his cramped wrist.

Patton lunges forward rolling on the ground and Remus doesn’t wait to see if he actually caught it in his illogical distress. He grabs Roman’s rapier wrist and twists around him before the next round of bullets can find a target, shoving Roman’s hand in between his shoulder blades, in a way that he knows hurts.

“You’re brainwashed,” Remus snarls right into Roman ear.

“And you’re fucking insane!” Roman yells right back. The world floods green and R--

--oman’s center of gravity drops as he curls forward, throwing Remus back into the line of fire, head over heels and several thousand curses on his tongue. The edge of the rapier scrapes the side of his neck, hot and blood and someone is screaming his name, harsh and violent and gratingly hopelessly worried. The vest takes two shots like fucking swords slamming into his already struggling lungs and Remus looks up just in time to see the next one inches from his fa--

--oman’s center of gravity drops as he curls forward, throwing Remus’s body over him like he weighs absolutely nothing and means even less to him. He twists his neck to side, barely avoiding the blade edge and someone screams his name like a prayer, like a call to a god that is not listening, like a beg to Roman to think for once in his fucking life. Remus’s lungs take two punches to them, and leaves him g-g-gasping for air where there is none. He spits out a curse right before that last bullet drives right through his jaw and everything around him explodes--

--emus lets go of Roman before he can leverage Remus into the air. His body rolls to the side, avoiding the bullets that send the crowds both outside and inside into a panicking screeching riot.

“REMY!” Logan screams and now he doesn’t sound anything like the bold character who talked his way into getting Remus murdered.

Remus’s ankle catches on the floor tripping him into the polished hard wood so hard his teeth crack and his mouth blooms with blood, blood, blood. Bullets slam into his back, his shoulder blade, his spine tearing through the padding, and Remus catches sight of black combat boots in a forgotten iced coffee mixed with something far too scarlet to be anything but blood--

--emus lets go of Roman before he can leverage Remus into the air, and then he shoves him forward with all the strength that he can manage. The bullets freeze, terrified of hitting their own superhero, and Remus watches as Roman stumbles directly into Virgil’s arms, watches the way that Roman gathers his balance, his mouth curls into a grim thank you, as he shifts to turn back to Remus because like usual he’s not looking at the right mouth because Remus hates Roman but there’s someone who hates him more right there--

--emus throws himself away from Roman with enough force that Roman goes stumbling directly into the line of fire that had previously been marked as Remus’s. The bullets freeze in the air, too worried, terrified, petrified at the idea of tearing through Roman’s precious paper skin. Remus chokes on his blood, spitting it out of his mouth before it causes him to vomit, his head riiiiiinging with the sounds of gunshots and screams from futures that aren’t going to happen and ones that are.

Roman stumbles into Virgil, his rapier nearly tumbling to the ground from his twisted wrist. Virgil’s eyes widen, the whites gleaming in the artificial light. Remus feels the seconds grind to halt; everything happening so fast that his brain-mind-thoughts are moving hundreds of times faster than the events around them, than how rapidly his own body can move, than how quickly anyone else can seem to comprehend what is going to happen.

“It’s time to pick a side!” Remus yells, taking steps back. “Aren’t you tired of hiding? Of being alone?”

“It’s over Remus!” Roman shouts, eyes glowing green, green, green.

There’s an inhale.

Virgil has startling brown eyes, with speckles of purple in them.

Exhale.

“Aren’t you tired of being scared of Death?” Remus asks.

“You’re the worst,” Virgil says clear as day, voice vibrating through the air like a sword slashing away all the other sound, his body moving as fluidly as air.

Roman has half a second, a fourth of a second, an eighth of a second to turn back at the sudden noise distortion— it’s not even enough to recognize how Virgil’s fingers hooked his mask and dragged it down and how his tongue rolls wetly over his thin lips before they open and—

Remus only has half of a second, a fourth of a second, and eighth of a second, to dive the fuck out of the way before the static air slams Roman at him like a brick wall. A catapult of Red and White and Regis flings over his shoulder and Remus can’t stop himself from gawking at Roman slams into a shelf of books and topples it.

“Great!” Virgil yells, “They’re going to revoke my library card now!”

But all Remus can do is laugh.

The nearest hired guard turns their gun towards Virgil and Virgil swears on Remus’s mother, as he throws up his arms like that would defend against a bullet to his face.

But before they can pull the trigger, another man appears from the back halls where the conference rooms were, wearing a doctor’s lab coat and glasses with graying out hair and charges recklessly right in between the guard and Virgil. The man is screaming something that Remus can’t quite make out with all the static noise in the air but from the way that man points behind him and Remus can’t help the grin on his face.

The guard hesitates for a moment looking where the doctor points and well…that’s all the time that Dr. Janus Witchall needs before he’s driving his knee into the man’s gut, just under his chest protector. The gun falls from the man’s hands and Janus spins and kicks him in the head like some type of martial artist master in a lab coat and Remus is swooning.

“Apologies, darling,” Janus says, scales dancing along his cheeks, as he pulls off the wire rimmed glasses and tosses them carelessly over his shoulder. His hair swoops back to the blond he prefers, and it’s like looking at a sophisticated version of Janus that had been forced to go to Med School instead of being forced to kill his only friend. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for too long.”

“Basilisk!” Zeal yells, sounding wounded, sounding hurt, sounding betrayed. “What did you— ”

Janus smiles sweetly. “Relax, Patton. I left your doctors with some very lovely headaches. Please don’t blame Mrs. Maddock too much; her daughter thought it was really funny when I told her I wanted to play a prank on her mom. Poor woman fainted the moment I grew a tail.”

Remus actually had the strong suspicion that it was less of the woman fainting and more of her sitting quietly as Janus knocked out the doctor and stole his clothes, considering she hated the whole FBE registration requirement with all of her heart and when Janus had visited her with about $30,000 in cash asking to dress up as her daughter, the woman had pushed the backpack away and said he could do it for free if he made sure to punch Roman in the face. Remus would even bet real money that the woman had calmly discussed tea flavors with Janus as he tied her up to make it look like she’d been caught by surprise.

Remus didn’t respect a lot of people, but Linda Maddock was probably one of his new favorite people.

Remus laughs bubbling like blood flavored champagne in his chest. “I was worried you were going to miss the party!”

Janus cartwheels over himself, driving his heel into the face of a hired gunman so hard the visor shatters and the man screams despite the No Talking sign right next to them. Even in the form of a forty seven year old, he moves with all the grace and fluidity of his regular self. “Why do all your parties involve you covered in blood?”

“I think it’s really sexy of me to still be breathing right now!”

“Can the two of you flirt some other time?!” Virgil snarls ducking under a table and clamping his headphones to his head as Zeal’s power misses him by inches. “Son of a bitch!”

The remaining glass windows shatter at his exclamation, knocking several more gunmen to the ground away from him but Virgil very much looks like he didn’t even notice them approaching. He squeezes his eyes close, gritting his teeth, and curls up like he jumped on a live grenade.

“Just fucking get out of here already!”

Janus meets Remus’s eyes, gaze calculating with a question that Remus has already answered again and again and again.

“Come now, Dearest,” Janus says without needing to look at Virgil. “You chose us, didn’t you? Why would we leave without you?”

“Fuck you!”

“Asshole!” Roman explodes out of the pile of books that Virgil acquainted his stupid perfect face with. Remus laughs, dodging forward out of the way of Roman’s recovery rapier slash by inches, centimeters, breaths.

Roman presses forward, blocking Remus out of his escape with that stupid sword of his, nearly nicking Remus’s fishnets, and Remus grabs a book from a shelf and throws it at his face before sliding around the aisle. Several of the civilians had launched this way when the gunfire had started and Remus didn’t, doesn’t, won't have a plan but he reaches out and is grabbing the first person he sees and yanking them in front of him as a barrier between him and Roman.

“You wouldn’t hurt a civilian!” Remus says facing Roman, gripping the kid— ah fuck it was the kid form Logan’s futures, the one with the glasses and the ice coffee, the one that wanted Roman’s signature in a future that Remus hadn’t realized didn’t happen until it was too late.

The kid— Remy? Remy— was just tall enough to be annoying, with Remus’s hold on his throat from behind causing the kid’s spine to bend awkwardly at an angle that did not do either of them any favors. But even with him struggling like a fish on a hook, and Remus’s heart pounding like a drum at how Roman blocked him off from joining up with Janus and Virgil to get the fuck out of here.

Roman pants, snarling but doesn’t attack. “You dishonorable— ”

“Sorry, I wasn’t afforded a childhood that allowed me to have honor,” Remus says dragging Remy and himself back another several steps, and ignoring the sound of something crunching under his boot.

Remy, Logan’s brother, swears and claws at Remus’s arm.

“Shut up and work with me if you don’t want to die,” Remus growls under his breath.

“Bitch!” The boy spat out. “Those were my favorite glasses!”

To their left, a guard flings through the air and crashes through the elegant stained glass windows and into the crowd outside. Roman throws his arms up to protect himself from the onslaught of sound vibrations and books tumbling off the shelves.

Remus spits blood out of his mouth and grabs the collar of Remy’s jacket and hoists him through the nearest door away from Roman. He shoves the kid forward and yanks the door closed behind them, swirling around to find something to block it with. Except that, Remus’s lungs scream when he recognizes the bland concrete stairwell that must lead up to the mezzanine level, and that his hostage had already scrambled up the first half flight while Remus was wasting his time.

Remus takes the stairs two at a time, ignoring the way that the fight rings and echoes in the confines around him. He scoops up Remy again, catching him before the fist can land in his face and tripping the kid before he can get any good contact with Remus’s shins.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to actually fight?” Remus asks.

“Girl, I’m too cute to be involved in fights!” the kid says. “Let go, man! Logan will— ”

Remus kicks open the door to the mezzanine floor, ducking out of the way of several stray bullets before he drags Remy out with him. He feels like the air is shattering, like gravity is working from every direction to tear his limbs apart, like every single one of the bullets that whizzed by had actually exploded through his rib cage.

Remus had only glanced at the mezzanine floor when he had been looking at the floor plans, plotting where he and Janus could place the fake bombs while everyone was concerned about the little fire up front. When he had come inside the library there had been two guards up on the level watching with a critical eye but the cavernous layout of the main entrance made the “bombs” still too far away to make out.

Virgil’s sound vibrations had knocked one of them to the floor so hard he’d been knocked out, and Remus didn’t see the other one, though he kept Remy pinned in front of him as he checked the shelves with a quick look and then analyzed the fight down below.

The drop is close to twenty feet, and Remus has jumped, skipped, fallen, danced off higher, but his stomach churns at the sight.

Remus swears under his breath, “This is not where I want to be.”

The blood in the back of his throat tastes like death, like his esophagus had suddenly decided to go through emergency surgery, like his stomach acids had suddenly gotten formed a union and were rebelling against working conditions. He could jump, leave Remy right up here for Roman to console, he could jump and roll and only shatter his leg into a billion ways. He could fall and break his neck, he could spring and belly flop and hope that Janus could move fast enough to catch him.

Janus flips, swinging a tail around behind him to knock two different attackers in their throats. He might be able to grow wings if Remus tested his adrenaline enough, but Janus moving so fast would…. well…Virgil is back-to-back with him, hands raised and every projectile shot towards him slams to a stop and drops to the ground as if there was an invisible wall in front of him. If Janus chose to save Remus, Virgil’s back wouldn’t be protected.

“LOGAN!” Remy screams from Remus’s arms and from the awkward angle behind the receptionist desk Logan’s face pops up in distress.

Janus yells something to Zeal, but it's Logan’s cadence that answers back.

“Yo, Banshee!” Remus yells ducking as the bookshelf holding Eastern European history books explodes under gunfire. “Flood the building with white noise!”

“What?!” Virgil screams. “Do I look like a white noise machine to you?!”

“Logan’s power is voice-fucking-activated!” Remus yells back, hauling Remy up when he trips on the threadbare carpet. “Shut him up before he says something worthwhile!”

Virgil doesn’t respond but it doesn’t matter much because Remus’s ears are ringing and he can hear the door behind them slam open with Roman’s signature heroic entrance and Remus is out of time.

“There’s nowhere to go, Remus!” Roman yells.

Remus shouldn’t look. Remus shouldn’t look. Remus shouldn’t look anywhere but at Janus who is so far down below yelling out something about a plan, but at Virgil who is nodding to him, but at his own future because he promised himself he’d stop dying when he didn’t need to and if he dies than everything about this was just wasted time.

But then in front of him, miles away and only twenty feet at the same time, Roman is screaming his name from across the ocean of wood floors, furious and angry and green eyes alight and--

--And Roman is standing there in the kitchen, winded, out of breath, his lips on the cusp of a smile that Remus hasn’t seen ever directed at him since they were eight years old and didn’t know about five words or silver sedans or how alone sharing a room could feel. He looks happy, lovely, free; like who he would have been, if Remus hadn’t loved him with all that he was. The sunlight pouring in from between the curtain windows paints him like a golden angel, like a god blessed hero, like something more than Roman Regis.

It matches the blood stain on this chest.--

-- and that green light washes over the mezzanine level diving right into the ancient, antique wood boards with all the grace of a pretty ineffective light show, and Remus has his mouth open to stall for more time, any more time, any time he can get before he has to admit he failed.

The entire building shakes from the sound vibrations Virgil is sending off, and Remus is holding a child hostage in front of him and there are no kitchens here and Roman probably deserves it if he was going to be shot dead suddenly and Remus’s skin is breaking out in goosebumps and his throat is sore and he thinks that all the screaming in the world will probably never reach Roman if nothing else today had.

“D-don’t come closer, Roman!”

But Roman is looking at the ground with a wide eyed, panicked expression. “Wait, Remus— !”

Remus’s foot slides back the last step.The railing is digging into his back, the kid is clawing at his already injured arm and Remus feels the cracking before he hears it.

There’s a rumble under Remus’s shoes that he almost believes is his brain misunderstanding gravity for a moment, that the combined weight of him and the are muddling with his ability to stand on his own two legs, that maybe he’s more injured than he really knew, bleeding from a place he hadn’t realized because he’s so used to the unwavering high of losing all the blood inside of him. But then the vibrations race through Remus’s entire body enough to make him stumble and almost lose his grip on the boy’s jacket. And the poppoppoping and tingtingting of the gunfire around them is drowned out completely by the aching, brittle snap, snap, snapping.

“Oh fuck,” Remus grounds out just as the railing and the ancient wooden floors splinter under his and the kid’s combined weight and Remus plunges into a freefall that tastes like a thunderstorm at 3AM.

[Next Chapter]

#deja vu au #remus sanders #janus sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #romans sanders #Sanders Sides #remy sanders #Janus's plan wasn't actually that great but Remus is in love #What the fuck is Logan's superpower?#Janus: i need you to stall for time #Remus: trauma dump got it!#Roman out here with the What about me!? defense #love that for him #Patton and Logan and Virgil are so very tired #Demus #anxceit

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midnight-serendipity · 2 years ago

Text

Better than the Fantasy: Chapter Three

Pairing: Jax Teller x Female OC (AU - Older Man, Younger Woman, College Girl, Secret Identity)

Rating M: (Sexual Content, Violence, Swearing, Mentions of Drugs, Mentions of Alcoholism, Mentions of Marital Issues)

Synopsis: Freshly exonerated and newly-minted president, Jax feels out of touch with everything around him, and somewhere amid the hullaballoos, he lands himself in an online site, enticed with the company of a masked stranger, who unknowingly had closer ties to the club than both of them could have ever guessed.

Word count: 7.7k

Chapter 3: Lace and String

Observant blue eyes rounded the table, taking in the set of somber faces surrounding it. Gone was the jubilant air that swirled around the clubhouse three nights ago. In its stead was a heavier, despondent mood. The club president didn’t need a mirror; he knew he reflected his brothers’ expressions. He sighed, just before his blues passed a not-so-new addition to the table. There, sandwiched between Happy and Juice, and looking a helluva lot like he’s just brought home the gold was Kip. Yeah, Jax heard he got patched while some of them were in Stockton.

That’s some good news for a change.

He didn’t know how many church meetings the kid had already been to. Judging by the all-too-pleased smile that certainly looked out of place, Jax guessed not much. Stifling a laugh, he moved on with his scrutiny.

Despite the Antarctic treatment from his girlfriend, Jax slept like a baby Friday night. Thanks to Gemma’s pep talk. Feeling like they were all in need of a much-deserved rest, the prez decided to push church further. Not that he reaped any wins from his own good deed. With Tara very much hung-up on her ice throne the whole weekend, Jax decided to shift his sights back to the club. With each new day, the gears of his brain drove themselves to exhaustion as he struggled to weave the threads of his thoughts into something bigger – clearer. And as each day ended, it took with it a little of the bravado he earned Friday night. So much that when he woke up this morning, that air of confidence swirling within his veins was flatter than a popped balloon.

Fuckin’ hell. What do I bring to the table?

And that was when his hopes started spiraling downhill. Down to the cold tiles of his bathroom. Because what kind of president held his very first church with no agenda?

Jax Fuckin’ Teller it seemed.

Although it wasn’t because he didn’t know what he wanted for the club – that was actually the easiest, simplest part. Going back two years ago, it was still clear as day how he had first brought in talks about the club getting out of guns. Not everyone was swayed with the notion. But their then-VP was confident that eventually, he could get the whole table to his side.

That, however, was before the whole of Charming PD swarmed into their clubhouse like bees to honey and had the half of them cuffed. Now, still reeling with the aftermath, Jax was clueless as a newborn bub. Not only did his plans crash and burn to the ground faster than a Boeing gone defunct, but all avenues in his pocket were already as outdated as Unser.

Then, there was the Cartel and he knew a simple sorry ese wasn’t going to cut it with them.

But even if he didn’t know where to begin this time around and even if his ideas kept going in circles, he owed it to everyone in this room to try. Again, his eyes surveyed the room, this time meeting each of his brothers’ gazes. One by one they tipped their chins in silence. In trust. In blind faith.

And that was the fuel to his fire.

He let out an exhale and straightened in his chair, placing his palms on the table. “First thing I wanna say is congratulations to our brother Half-Sack for gettin’ the patch.”

The entire room erupted in cheers. Tig, Chibs, Kozik, Happy and Juice drummed their right hands on the table, while Bobby just reached over and clapped Kip on the back.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t here, you sorry sack o’shit. I woulda voted no.”

Opie’s shoulders shook as he chuckled, while Jax shook his head in amusement at Tig’s declaration. Ever the sport, Kip just waved him off with his hand.

“A’ight, calm down you animals.” Jax called out. “Now each of us here are all aware of what happened the past two years. We’ve all taken hits, all because of the man who used to sit in this chair.”

And just like that the momentary uplift was sucked out of the room. Inevitably, Jax’s gaze was drawn straight forward. He watched as a dark look shadowed Piney’s face and gave him a nod. Everyone knew he and Gemma swallowed the most bitter pill than the rest of them.

“But I want to thank you all, especially – Opie, Chibs, Happy, Piney and Kozik, for lookin’ after the club.” Another round of cheers echoed. “Before some of us went to Stockton, I told the club we should move outta guns. I still feel the same way and after everything that’s happened, I know this is the best time for SAMCRO to finally act on it. The money is great. But givin’ it a closer look, we barely earn anythin’ and with the cartel loomin’, the threat to us is greater than ever. I want us out of guns and if it was up to me SAMCRO woulda been out of it way before.” He paused, meeting each and every single pair of orbs. He caught Bobby’s smirk of smug approval, Piney’s tip of head and the proud tilt of Opie’s mouth.

“But I am not and will never be Clay. Even if I feel this is what’s best for the club, I will never take your right to vote. If you ask me right now how I’m planning to do that, I’m gonna be honest with ya – I don’t have a fucking clue yet. But just because nuthin’s set in stone yet doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen. Because I really believe we can move past that. But only…only if you all want that as well.” Jax paused just to let all of that sink in. Seeing some gestures that he was sure were sloping towards the affirmative, he took a little breath then went on.

“We can vote on that later on. Now for the cartel,” Jax shifted, right elbow on the arm of his chair and tipped his chin to the left before resting it on his thumb and forefinger. “Bring us up to speed, VP.”

After taking a drag from his stick, Opie motioned for the lone ashtray from his father who was nearest to it and snuffed the light out. “With half of SAMCRO in Stockton, we were forced to honor the cartel’s demands and hauled their cargo. We always made sure we were in twos. Safer that way. None of us liked it, but –”

“Best way to keep the blood out of Charming.”

Opie nodded an agreement to Bobby.

“With only four of us to mule, they okay’d to just half of what Clay had agreed to.”

“How gracious of ‘em,” Tig muttered sarcastically, drawing grins and chuckles of the same nature from ‘round the table.

“But none us ‘ere privy to that agreement.” Chibs aired what was floating on everyone’s mind.

“Oh, they know that brother, they just don’t give a shit.” Opie huffed.

“Because that’s the point, son. None of us are supposed to know.” Piney pointed out.

“Yeah, we know, Pop.” Opie shifted, turning his attention to the head of the table. “Torres ‘n Parada came by last week, knew you were gettin’ out.

Lighting up his own cigarette, Jax stiffened and his brows furrowed. This was news to him. He puffed, letting the smoke billow out of his mouth. “TM?”

It was Happy who answered. “Cara Cara.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Spooked Lyla and the girls.” Opie shook his head. Displeasure was evident on his face as he recalled witnessing a smug Parada with an arm around his uncomfortable old lady.

“What they say?”

“They wanna talk to you, go back to the original arrangements.”

“They know this is just a temporary thing for us.” Bobby retorted with a slanted brow.

“That’s why they want to speak with the prez, convince him of a more permanent setting.” Opie answered.

“’S not gonna happen.” Jax spoke with finality and an air of authority that could only come from the holder of the gavel. An action that didn’t go unnoticed by the oldest member of the club. Piney smirked in approval.

Jax rubbed his free hand down his face and took a long pull from his stick. His eyes landed at the middle of their table. They remained silent, giving him a needed moment to gather his thoughts. Then with another breath, he focused on his best friend.

“They finally say who helped Clay mule? The load they want, ain’t no way Clay was movin’ alone.”

“Nah.”

“Our guess is Cacuzza. He’s always wanted to venture on narcotics,” Chibs piped in.

“He answered any of our calls?” At the shake of heads, Jax felt a crippling hit. But he shook the tendrils of disappointment that started to weave in his chest. He needed to unravel the truth first before drawing up conclusions. “How ‘bout the Mayans? Heard anythin’ ‘bout them?”

“They’re in Lodi mostly. They’re wantin’ to branch out.”

Jax released a breath of smoke. “Still? So they haven’t yet?”

Opie smirked. “Darby bailed.”

“Alvarez is damn pissed.” Kozik chuckled, contagious to most of them.

Brows deeply furrowed, Jax shifted in his chair, surprised by this turn of events. Around two months ago, word through the grapevine was Darby had partnered with the Mayans. It stirred things up and caused quite the unrest, particularly with the Chinese and the Niners.

In his mind, this latest move didn’t make sense. Even before his latest imprisonment, he recalled how keen Darby was to associate himself with someone or someones who had quite the pull and weight on the streets. Particularly any that could match SAMCRO in either brains or brawn. The way Darby saw it, this was the guaranteed opening for his inky tentacles to coil inside Charming. This reasoning was what led Jax to anticipate the Mayans with no mistake.

So why the hell would Darby turn? Unless…

“Lemme guess, the supplier Darby was supposed to hook ‘em up with was a flake.”

“Aye.”

Jax tilted his head to his SAA. In the dimly lit room, Jax’s eyes glinted and even if he tried, he couldn’t refrain from smirking. A silver lining, if anything. “Good thing we know of a reliable pipeline.”

Chibs stiffened beside him. “Jackie, d’you think that’s a good idea? Mayans have beef with us –”

“Alvarez and Clay had beef. Not the Sons and the Mayans. I think it’s time we reach out to Alvarez, let him know there’s a new regime now.”

“D’you think they’ll meet with us?” Juice asked.

Jax breathed another drag from his stick. “We could always ask Nero to set up the meet.”

“And if he doesn’t agree?”

By the smirk on Tig’s lips, Jax could tell he already knew the answer to his own question. “Then we rope in Gemma.”

“Good luck sayin’ no to the artillery.” Another round of chuckles filled the room at Opie’s statement.

“We could get a feel on where the Mayans land on all these first, then we make the call to the Kings.” Collective nods were directed his way.

“Now before we get to the vote. I need you all to understand, if we do decide to move away from guns, we’re sayin’ goodbye to the club’s bread n’ butter for the past decades and our finances will probably hurt from that. I need you to take that in before we vote. But first, speakin’ of finances, heard our resident weirdo wants to share sumthin’ with the club.” Jax tipped his chin to Kip. Kip stood up and stepped out without question, he was after all, the first one Chucky approached.

Tig rubbed a hand down his face. “Maybe he’s goin’ to tell us he’s part leprechaun.”

Opie brought it to his ear – Chucky wanted to speak to the Club about finances, when he was asked about it however, he said he wanted to wait for the prez and the rest of the club. Jax admittedly had a slew of names reserved for Chucky. But Jax did admire him for his respect for him and the club. The door swung open again, as Kip swept in, followed by Chucky, each of them hauling massive duffle bags.

Jax killed his smoke and looked around. He was met with equally stunned faces.

Opie stood up, towering over everyone. “What the hell – ”

Zip.

“There are still two bags in my dorm. But each has fifty grand in them, so that’s two hundred in all.”

They were all on their feet even before Chucky finished his explanation. All of them staring at the open bag, with wide disbelieving eyes. Because just as he said, the bag was overflowing with stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

“Jesus, all real,” Bobby passed the wad of cash he fished and inspected. Jax took it with no hesitation and examined it the way Bobby had, Chibs and Tig both curiously looking over his shoulders.

“Yes, it is,” Jax confirmed, awed, passing it to Ope.

“I think you’re wrong, Tig. Chucky’s not part leprechaun. He is THE leprechaun you sonuvabitch! C’mere!” Kozik exclaimed, pulling Chucky into a one-armed hug.

“Hey! Don’t maul him yet. We’re gonna need some answers first.” Jax called out. Kozik immediately let go of Chucky.

“A’ight,” palms on the table, Jax leaned in and eyed Chucky, looking every bit the investigator. “As pleased as I am with cash suddenly sproutin’ in the clubhouse, I need to know where this,” he tilted his head, “came from. And no, I am not buyin’ the leprechaun shit.”

Chucky very visibly gulped and Jax hoped it’s only because of him and the three Reaper kuttes standing closest to their president while they all stared him down, and not because of something else.

“Well, you remember the night Clay left?”

Unintentionally, Jax’s nostrils flared. Of course, he remembered. That was the night leading to the day of their arrest. The night Clay almost, almost got Gemma killed with his bare hands.

“Of course,” Jax replied with venom in his voice. He didn’t mean to. But he understood perfectly why Chucky recoiled a bit at that.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Juice suddenly materialized beside Chucky and drew an arm around him. “We won’t beat you up unless we have to,” Juice grinned.

“That’s…reassuring.”

“What about that night Chucky?” Opie stepped in. He knew he needed to take the reins. Leaving it to Jax might send Chucky straight to a coronary before they could get anything sensible out of him.

“I was in Gemma’s office, finishing an errand for her. I just shut the lights off when I saw her SUV coming back. I assumed it was her, but when I saw Clay got out, I hid. Something didn’t feel right. He went to the garage, came back out with two bags and went inside again for the other two. He just finished loading everything when Gemma arrived.”

Jax straightened up, arms crossed and teeth clenched. He knew what part was coming. He’s heard it many times. Didn’t make it any easier.

They were all supposed to be out for a gun delivery. Clay, claiming his hands made it difficult to ride, said he couldn’t make the four-hour travel. No alarm bells were triggered as he stayed back, they knew his hands had been acting up as of late and Jax easily stepped in as acting president. The cortisone was barely doing anything anymore – at least that was what he said. Unknown to them, he set out for a meet of his own. Borrowed Gemma’s SUV, on the ruse of dropping by Unser’s office.

It took them a couple of days after that to get the truth ironed out. But Gemma was ahead of them. Although her theory was off some points, still she figured out something was amiss before anyone else did. Turned out, he had been borrowing her vehicles quite some time already and her assumption was a mistress. She placed a tracker in all her wheels, and that night, Gemma thought was the perfect timing to confront him, with the sons out and Piney helping Lyla watch over the kids – no blood will be shed.

“They were busy fighting and the trunk was still open, so I took a peek in the bags. With all of you away, I knew it wasn’t club business. And when I found out it was real money, I moved fast, grabbed them and emptied them in the garage.”

“And Clay didn’t notice that the load was much lighter?” Piney asked, unconvinced.

“He didn’t check it again. And…it actually might have been a little heavier. I replaced it with some tools and bike parts –”

“The missing supplies!” Kip exclaimed.

Jax pictured it. He remembered Sack going on about some supplies TM ordered a week prior to that, that had suddenly vanished into thin air. But with Gemma unconscious in the hospital bed and Clay suspiciously MIA – that had been the least of his worries, even more so when David Hale dropped by with his minions, a warrant on hand.

“And Clay never saw you?” Opie pushed, still quite unsold on the idea.

“Well, he was,” his eyes darted to Jax quickly then back to Opie, “busy.”

Jax snarled, making Chucky flinch. “You mean to tell me, that not only did you have this cash lyin’ ‘round for two years, but you also let Clay pound my mom’s face as distraction?”

“Look, Jax, what was I supposed to do? I can’t throw a punch like you guys. If I interfered, I would have been worse off than Gemma. I just thought I could retaliate in a more effective way. Y’know absolute advantage.”

Put like that, Jax did see from his perspective. While not stock thin as Rat, Clay would have definitely snapped him like a toothpick. Besides, what best way to hurt Clay the most than to take what he worked hard for, right under his very nose. He just wished he witnessed Clay’s face when the rug under his feet was pulled.

“Does make sense,” Bobby echoed Jax’s thoughts, then added, “but why are you only telling us now?”

“I did want to tell the club the next day. But – ” Chucky tipped his head side-to-side, reminding Jax of an upside-down pendulum.

“Yeah we get it – ” Jax replied

Chucky nodded, “Then when you guys got framed, I guessed that was cartel money. So, I hid it and decided to show it at a safer time.

“Where yeh hide it?”

“Ah, I may have asked Unser to hold on to it. Said it was a Club favor.”

Again, Jax’s eyebrows jumped. There were whistles – Juice, Opie and Chibs, while Tig slowly shook his head in time with his hands clapping. Chucky smiled and gave out a breath of relief. He knew he was off the hook.

“Chucky, you are turnin’ me on right now.”

This time, it was Chucky’s eyebrows that went through the roof. “I don’t accept that.” He said with a shake of his head.

“Oi, don’t scare ‘im off.”

“What?” Tig asked Chibs with his palms open. “It’s not like I’m not gonna use some lube and I’mma make sure he gets off too.”

Chucky cringed “I still don’t accept that”.

Tig opened his mouth but Jax cut him off easily, with a finger pointed his way. “Knock it off Tiggy. Go rub one out and stop traumatizin’ people.”

“As for you,” Jax went to Chucky and laid his hands on his shoulders. He tipped his chin, “Go tell my mom we’re givin’ you a raise.”

When her eyes crossed while going over one line of the purchase order she was currently reviewing, Gemma knew it was time to call it a day. She dropped the document on her desk, pursing her lips. Despite TM being open all days of the week, Gemma still found truth to Monday being the shittiest.

Gemma removed her glasses and massaged her eyes with the heel of her palms. Fuckin’ piece of shit lighting.

Well, totally her fault for putting it off. Definitely need to have it replaced. She stood up and stretched. Her back echoed with a series of cracks. And this shit of a chair too.

“Dammit is everythin’ here a piece of crap?” Gemma turned around, taking each item in inventory. It had been a while since she put in more than her usual work hours, and definitely more than a while since she observed every little thing in this room. Her musings were disrupted by a loud, unmistakable roar of a Harley Davidson speeding towards the garage. Curious, she turned and opened the door of the office.

The biker still had his back to her while he parked and killed the engine. But he didn’t need to turn around in order for Gemma to know who it was. The blonde streaks peeking underneath the helmet was more than enough of an indicator. Propping her hip against the doorframe, Gemma glanced at her watch.

7:09 PM

Luann was seriously late. But that wasn’t important. No. Right now, what’s essential for her was to figure out what her son was doing back at TM. Jax and the rest of SAMCRO parted ways for the day just around four o’clock this afternoon and with all of them still occupied with their personal shit, she knew his return wasn’t club related. Plus – Gemma’s eyes narrowed into slits – that backpack, that wasn’t there when he left, triggered the alarms in her head. When he finally unfastened his helmet and turned around, spotting her for the first time since his arrival, Jax very visibly groaned, strengthening her theory further.

Well, glad to see you too shithead.

She tipped her head to the office and turned on her heel.

Jax had to do a double take of the lot. But no, he wasn’t going mental – Gemma’s SUV was indeed nowhere to be found. So why the hell was his mother still here?

Once again, Jax could only groan. After his row with Tara, he didn’t have enough energy to deal with the Russian Roulette incarnate. But he’ll be damned much more if he didn’t follow her. Stepping foot into the small confinement, Jax felt he was heading to his execution as he was met with Gemma leaning onto the table, her arms crossed, and face seemingly carved in stone.

“Where’s your truck?”

“I had Rat and Kip take it home. Luann’s gonna pick me up for dinner.” She tipped her chin, “my assistant manager came in here, sayin’ we’re givin’ him a raise.”

“Yeah,” Jax answered, “fifteen percent seems fair. We can cut five each from TM, Diosa and Cara Cara. Whaddaya think?”

“He’s employed by TM only. He just likes to loiter.” Gemma pointed out.

“So? C’mon, Ma, work your magic. I’m sure it’s just like launderin’,” Jax asked, irritated.

Gemma sighed. Before he pitched the idea to the table, she was the first one he told that he wanted the club out of guns. It made sense. But with this kind of thinking, Gemma wondered how fast these dickheads would make a legit business go belly-up. It seemed she needed to sit them all down for a talk of some sort.

Businesses tend to do that shit.

Jax nodded dropping his pack on the ratty couch. He felt his mom’s eyes on him as he sat down. He propped his elbows on his knees, hands clasping together as he looked up and met Gemma’s stare. She raised an eyebrow.

“Are you gonna tell me, or are you gonna make me ask?”

Jax rubbed his hands over his face then sighed, resuming his previous position. This was the part of the conversation he knew he won’t be able to tiptoe his way around. “Just need to put some distance between me and Tara.”

Gemma huffed, raising both her hands in disbelief, before landing on her hips. She straightened, stepping away from the table, she strutted towards him and left only a few inches in between, forcing Jax to lean back and raise his head.

“Look, Ma, s’not a big deal.”

And maybe those were the wrong words to say as Gemma’s eyes sharpened, and if there was truth to the phrase if looks could kill, they’ll be holding his funeral tomorrow.

“Not a big deal my ass, Jackson!” Gemma exclaimed, completely rebutting his attempts at defusing. “Before you went inside, I watched this happen almost every day. That was two years ago. Are you tellin’ me that’s how it’s gonna be again? –”

“ – ”

“ – ‘Coz if you think that’s in any way normal, I’m tellin’ you it’s not, and it ain’t acceptable either. You haven’t even been back for a week!” Gemma finished in one breath, ignoring his mouth that slid open during her tirade.

“You done? Can I say somethin’?” Jax demanded more than asked, not bothering to mask his annoyance.

It was times like this that had him wondering if his mom was truly one and the same person, because he was having one helluva difficult time believing this tyrant was also the same person who comforted him in the rooftop just a few nights ago. It made him remember a way, way younger version of him asking if his mom’s ability to do a three-sixty in a drop of a hat was normal. The ear-pinch that followed convinced him to never ask that again – at least when she was in hearing range.

“Look, Ma, I know it’s not normal, alright? Why d’you think I choose to stay in my dorm?”

Gemma’s arms crossed, frosty gaze still focused on him. “You tell me, sweetheart. ‘Coz last I checked, I paid half of that house as a gift to you and not to Tara!”

“So what am I s’pposed to do?” Jax asked, arms wide open. “‘Coz I don’t think havin’ her sleep in the clubhouse is the right thing to do here.”

“Then have her check in at a hotel – Jesus Christ, why is this our problem?” Gemma threw her hands up looking way beyond exasperated.

“Because she’s still my girlfriend!” Jax bellowed.

Gemma stilled for a moment and raised an eyebrow. All of a sudden a smile that looked nothing short of triumphant slowly spread on her face, hands on her hips once more “Well, I don’t care sweetheart. In my book you pay for it, it’s yours. S’your right to stay in there and not hers.”

Jax sighed, running a hand through his hair. Gemma was only saying these because she never approved of Tara. If it was any other given day, she and Luann will be preaching how they should be treating their women with more respect. But whatever. The beginning of a throbbing in his temples was a telltale sign of an unforgiving headache if this dragged any longer. He had to switch gears.

He stood up, reaching for Gemma’s shoulders. “Look, Ma, I know you’re only lookin’ out for me, and I really appreciate it. But it’s not helpin’, so why don’t you just let me handle my shit with Tara, a’ight?”

The icy chill that resurfaced on her orbs made it known to him that he should have worded it out much carefully and differently. Shit.

“ – ”

“Knock knock, doll you ready to – Oh, hey Jax,” Luann’s smile dimmed as her eyes slid between the mother-son duo. “Is everythin’ alright? Sorry, am I –”

“Everything’s fine, sweetheart,” Gemma answered, smoothly stepping out of Jax’s hold, taking the time to put a smile on her face as she flipped her bangs with the tips of her fingers.

Jax could only follow her lead, mourning the lost chance of redeeming himself. He’ll try to find it later, preferably with no bystander. No undeserving soul needed to be within Gemma’s sights when on a warpath. He finally turned to Luann, taking her in.

She was wearing fitted jeans and tucked into it was a white – or maybe silver – button down made from a shimmery, silky material. The top few buttons undone. She had a blazer on top of it, and finished the look with a pair of ankle boots. He heard about it from his mom. Apparently, the porn director had been making a fuss about her wardrobe recently, saying she needed to upgrade – whatever the hell that meant – it now that Cara Cara was said to be rising up the ranks in the industry.

But if this was upgrading, Jax had to admit it was doing her wonders.

“Hey, Lu,” Jax motioned to the newcomer with his left hand. Luann took the invitation with gusto, fitting into his side easily as he wrapped an arm around her.

“You look great,” Gemma said.

“Thanks,” Luann smiled.

“Amelia?”

Instantly Luann’s face brightened as she nodded. Jax frowned in curiosity, juggling his memory for an Amelia.

“Who’s Amelia?” he asked in surrender when he didn’t find any.

“Oh, she’s my niece. She’s good with clothes.” She explained with delight.

Jax removed his hold on Luann, crossing both arms on his chest instead as he took a step back, content to be a fly on the wall as the two women talked. With the way her eyes lit up as she proudly talked more about her niece helping with – again – the upgrading of her closet to an interested Gemma, Jax guessed this Amelia was something special to Luann.

“She’s got great taste,” Gemma hummed.

“That she does. Otto’s loving the recent changes with my outfits as well.”

“Oh right, you had your conjugal –”

Jax snorted, and maybe he should have held it in. Because in his opinion once a month was still too few a chance to get laid. Well, not that he was getting much action aside from his own hand lately. But…

Best to leave that detail unannounced.

“What?” Luann asked puzzled.

Jax shook his head. “That’s why you look fresh. You got fertilized.”

Luann’s eyes rounded. “Oh, you are such a prick,” she threw a punch out. But Jax was already anticipating it, moving on reflex he just easily sidestepped and moved out of harm’s way.

“Tell me about it. He seems to be havin’ a field day.” Gemma sassed.

“Oh, c’mon Ma –”

“Hey, Gemma –”

Jesus, was this let’s interrupt Jax day?

They all looked to the direction of the voice, finding Chucky peeking from the door leading to the garage.

“Yeah?”

“Sorry, I know we’re closed but it’s important,” he said, looking every bit as apologetic as he sounded. “Phone. Wilkins. Subaru.”

“Of course, he calls right now after I waited the whole day,” Gemma fell into step and moved to the side.

“Oh, you can transfer it here Jax and I will just –”

“Nah, it’s okay. You two just keep chattin’ I’ll take it here”

Luann turned around after Gemma disappeared. “What’s that about?”

“Nuthin’”

Luann looked at him pointedly. “Really?”

“Just you know, Gemma bein’ Gemma.”

“Hmm. How’re things at home?”

He should’ve known it was pointless to try to keep Luann at arm’s length. At certain times, the woman was just as bad as his mother when prying. Although a milder version. Thankfully.

“Tense.”

“I guess that’s what you were arguing about?”

“Yeah”

She drew an arm around him and rubbed his back. The same way his mother would. “What’s wrong sweetie?”

He shrugged. “I guess we’re just not seein’ eye to eye lately.”

Luann nodded in understanding. “Y’know, your mother doesn’t like being ignored.”

Jax snorted. “Tell me sumthin’ I don’t know.”

Luann just smiled again and shook her head. “Well, you better get ahead of that ‘coz I’m afraid that’s gonna bite you in the ass sooner than later. But what I’m sayin’ is, maybe your mom has been makin’ a point ‘bout you and Tara, but you haven’t been listening to her. I mean when was the last time you referred to Tara as your old lady?”

Jax stiffened, surprise evident on his features.

It was one of the things that often knocked on his conscience, and honestly still quite a mystery when in particular it happened. But every time he tried, the image of Lyla and Tara tending to a wounded Tig would flit in his mind. Tara with the eyes and hands of a surgeon, was methodical and precise in her approach. He remembered watching from the sides as she worked, impressed. After all if it weren’t for her skill and knowledge, they would’ve certainly needed to rush Tig to the ER. Lyla was her second pair of hands, working under her lead and supervision. She didn’t have the same expertise under her belt, but she certainly made up in instinct, and each of her movement didn’t escape Jax’s eyes – each smile, each word and each pass of her fingers coated with abundant care, grace and empathy.

He looked to Opie then, correctly predicting the proud look he had while observing his wife. Well shit, who wouldn’t be? Then his gaze drifted to his own girl. Maybe if Tara could learn to at least respect the life, she’ll be good enough to be an old lady too.

Immediately, the guilt was like a viper that slithered up his spine – swift and unrelenting.

The life they led was hard, and Jax was only on the cusp of sixteen when he discovered that while the Reaper kuttes took the frontline, much of the heavy lifting were quietly – and often unnoticed – supported by their women. Their unsung heroes. With that thought in mind, he knew it was unfair and unreasonable to ask Tara to fall in love with the kutte on the snap of a finger. But even so, that wasn’t the last time the comparisons between her and Lyla reared its ugly head. Yet he made sure he never shared it with anyone. Not even Opie and especially not Gemma – Oh shit.

Because she’s still my girlfriend.

Talk about a major slip up. To his mother most of all. Jax cringed, “You heard that?”

Luann’s brows pinched, drawing back a little. “Heard what?”

“A while ago, ain’t that what this is about?” Jax asked, now looking equally as lost as Luann.

Luann’s brows jumped to her forehead. “Oh – Christ, no. I didn’t hear anythin’ you and your mom were discussin’ a while ago. Believe me. But t’was easy to tell you two were buttin’ heads again. I guessed it’s ‘bout Tara so I just put my two cents in.” She said with a shrug.

If the open mouth was enough indication, Jax was clearly floored. So Luann took that as her cue to keep quiet, unknown to her the gesture was deeply appreciated. Because right that very moment, Jax felt as stupefied as he looked.

That his and Tara’s relationship status was an open book, was an understatement – and their readers were the whole of SAMCRO and everyone closely affiliated to it. If anyone asked, they could give a rundown of his relationship better than Jax ever could. Because what he was once so sure of, now felt like a thousand-piece puzzle, with some pieces missing. Yet in spite of this – all the noises, the questions and the doubts – he made sure to never share those and just keep them deep within his kutte.

So how, how was it that something he guarded so closely, escape him so casually, and without his knowledge?

“Oh hun,” Luann cooed, resuming the comforting rub she had on his back as she spotted the troubled look shadowing his face, “don’t beat yourself up over it. S’just my opinion and I certainly can’t speak for Tara, but maybe she’s –”

“PMSing.”

Before they knew it, Gemma was in front of them again, focused once more on the papers strewn on the top of her desk and completely oblivious to the disapproving scowl on Luann’s face and Jax’s head tilted to the side, frowning in curiosity. He’s pretty sure he’s heard that term somewhere before.

“What’s PMSing?”

Gemma’s hand froze before looking up. It was brief, but Luann saw it. And maybe Jax didn’t recognize it or maybe he wasn’t as much of an afficionado in decoding all things Gemma as she was. The comment was just offhanded – maybe even meant as a joke – but in just the flash of a second, she was confident a golden egg hatched in Gemma’s mind.

“It’s a condition common to women, comes out when we’re stressed and even hurtin’ over somethin’. You should talk to her ‘bout it. It’ll help.”

To his credit, Jax looked skeptical. But Luann could tell he knew he was in a catch 22. Because who in the club could ever classify as a decent source of PMS information?

“Right,” Jax gave a nod.

“Anyway, we’re ‘bout to head out. You want me to get you anythin’?” Gemma asked, picking up her purse and walked over to him and Luann.

“Nah. You two drive safe, alright?” Jax said, reaching out to give a kiss to his mom’s and Luann’s cheeks.

The two women walked to Luann’s car and just as the blonde, biker president was out of earshot, Luann rounded on Gemma.

“PMS really?”

“What?”

“You know what type of conversation usually occurs when you ask a raging girlfriend that. Besides I thought you agreed not to interfere in their relationship anymore.”

Gemma tsked, heading for the passenger side “’M not interferin’. I think it would do him some good actually. It’s time he learned somethin’ ‘bout the female body aside from fucking it.”

Luann shook her head, sighing as she trailed behind her shit stirring friend. Maybe there was a point to be made in that. But…

Oh well, can’t say I didn’t warn Jax.

When was the last time you referred to Tara as your old lady?

Jesus Christ! Jax sat up, running a hand down his face.

Upon arriving at his dorm, he removed his kutte and laid down right away. But how the hell was he supposed to sleep when his mind refused to cooperate?

It didn’t help that his gut churned every single time Luann’s question resurfaced. Jax needed to sleep, otherwise he’d be a fucking zombie. He needed something to calm him down. Something mindless. A distraction.

He got up and walked out of his dorm, stalking towards their lone IT person. He was still perched on the barstool, just as he was when Jax saw him earlier.

“Hey, Juice.”

Juice looked away from the screen “Hey Jax, what’s up?”

Jax tipped his chin towards the laptop “You done soon?”

“Nah, Nero asked me to change some stuff on his site. Need sumthin’?”

“Can’t sleep thought I’d check Netflix.”

“Grab the one Chucky’s usin’. He’s still in the garage. Laptop’s in the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” Jax nodded.

“Everythin’ alright, bro?”

Jax was just about to turn around when Juice spoke. “Yeah, everything’s good.”

None of his brothers were stupid, and Juice was definitely no exception. Jax could see the doubt in his face. That he remained silent was appreciated by the club president. Juice just nodded so Jax went on to the kitchen, grabbed the laptop sitting idly on top of the table and went back to his dorm, keen to start with – hopefully – the peaceful part of his night. It didn’t take him long to fire up the beast as it was just in sleep, landing him straight to a paused video.

Curious, Jax hit play. Wonder what this weirdo’s into?

“Oh, Chucky!” A girl moaned.

Jax’s eyebrows jumped to his forehead. What the hell?

She was on a bed, only in her bra, the sheets giving a thin layer of privacy as it covered her from navel to toes. But no rocket science needed, her hand moving beneath the blanket was very straightforward.

“Jax!”

Jax turned to his door, a panting Chucky obviously in a hurry to reach him.

Jax stood up, running a hand down his face. “You let anyone see your girlfriend like this?” He scowled. Jax knew he didn’t have much leg to stand on here. It wasn’t like he was gunning for boyfriend of the year award but having your girl as a free-for-all was just a different kind of low.

“Oh, Sophie’s not my girl. I’m just a fan – subscriber.”

Having paced away from the direction of his bed, Jax paused mid-step and turned. “What?”

Chucky, collecting the laptop, halted and grinned “OnlyFans. C’mon I’ll show you.”

He seriously had no idea how he got strong-armed into this. All he wanted was a movie. And at one point, everything coming out of Chucky’s mouth was pure gibberish as he schooled him into this OnlyFans thing. His ears only perked up when Chucky started listing down the costs.

“I really think you should try it. C’mon what do you have to lose?”

His brows went to his hairline. “What do I have to lose? Whaddaya think, jackass? My money.”

Immediately Chucky recoiled like a puppy kicked in the gut. Jax’s guilt from earlier resurfaced tenfold, because really? Was this how he was gonna treat the man who went out on a limb for the club?

He sighed and waved a hand. “’M sorry Chucky, it’s just been a long ass day. And I think you’re right, I do need to try this.”

Chucky’s smile returned, megawatt. Jax hoped he wasn’t going to regret this.

“Alright, so first we need to set you up with an account. What username do you want?” Chucky tipped his head. “You can get creative, people often tend to be discreet.”

Well, I wonder why. He could only guess how it would go if Tara found out about this. Tara. Is this alright? Joining this site?

No matter the circumstances, they were still together, and Jax may admittedly have a colorful background, but cheater was one thing he didn’t want to add to that list. He rubbed a hand down his face.

“And if you’re worried about Tara, you can just stay away from the sex workers.”

Jax’s head swiveled to his left, a slow grin spreading on his face. The insightful bastard. “Yeah? So what kind d’you suggest I subscribe to?”

Chucky shrugged. “Influencers, bakers, whatever.”

In other words, things that Jax gave zero fucks about. Yeah, if this was ever unearthed, he could use those as excuses until he was blue in the face. Thing is, he wouldn’t fool even himself into believing it.

Jax almost groaned at the expectant look on Chucky’s face.

“How ‘bout you what’s your username?” He asked, stirring himself away from thoughts of his own grave. He could just give it three days then get outta there.

“Chucky,” Chucky answered.

Again, his eyebrows jumped. There was no telling if Chucky was kidding. Idiot only ever has one expression. “That’s you bein’ discreet?”

“Well, how many Chucky’s you know?”

“Fair enough. But ain’t no way I’m usin’ my own name.”

“Fair enough,” Chucky parroted, drawing an amused chuckle from the SAMCRO president. “How about Mr. Mayhem?”

Jax’s smile slid off his face. “You do know what Mr. Mayhem stands for right?”

Chucky winced. “Sorry, I thought it’d be cool. How about Reaper?”

“Basically, the same thing.”

“Right, how about – I got it!” Chucky’s fingers swept all over the keys, confident he’d thought of something Jax would like. To Chucky’s credit, as he showed the screen to a curious Jax, the blonde biker just gave a nod, impressed.

“Heh, I like it.”

It seemed fairly easy a while ago. Now left to his own devices, Jax was lost navigating this labyrinth of a site. Each damn button looked the same. And what was up with that long ass terms and conditions?

Do people really read that shit?

Jax was just about to give up when a video slid on the top of his screen. Sumthin’ like new videos? New suggestions? Both? Jax tried to recall what Chucky called them. But whatever, his attention was now drawn to the thumbprint.

It was a woman, wearing a sexy piece of lingerie. She was suspended, mid-air, hanging only by a pole, and Jax had absolutely no clue how she got there or how she managed to stay there. It looked like she was sitting, gripping the metal rod only by her thighs.

Strong thighs, he couldn’t help but notice. Her back was to the camera, with one hand idly on her hip, while the other was on the back of her blonde head, hair thrown over her left shoulder. Her head was angled slightly to the side, eyes peeking over her right shoulder, and with a smile for an invitation. She had a mask on, all lace and string. If somebody asked him right at that moment how she looked, he’d say – like a secret you want to unravel.

Unable to tear his eyes off, he clicked it. The video zoomed to the four corners of his screen and Jax’s heart hammered in anticipation. The video was dimly lit, but not of poor quality. The outline of her lithe body was still very visible. This time, as she waited for her cue, she was stood at the floor, then the chords of a familiar song, the inspiration behind her moniker were struck. Not the original, but still a tasteful choice.

She started to move and when her pace and the tempo picked up, it was like she wasn’t even dancing. It looked like she was flowing. And flying and floating – from one movement to the other, as smooth as a breeze, drifting from the floor and all over the pole in the sexiest pair of strappy heels he’s ever seen – that he wondered if there was someone behind holding her by the strings.

The way she moved – hypnotic. Magnetic. Alluring.

So when the prompt for a subscription came up, halting the current video, it was a no-brainer.

“The demarcation between different levels within the fashion market is becoming ever complicated and –”

Buzz.

Drawing a small line on the sentence, Amelia paused and welcomed the much-needed break from her reading. She adjusted her glasses and tapped her phone to life.

Meet your new fan…

Her eyebrows lifted along with the corners of her mouth.

MrPresident. Heh, that’s cute.

A/N: And I’ve been hit with another delay. But here’s chapter three with Amelia and Jax finally (unknowingly) meeting.

I did as much research as I could for OnlyFans. But I’m not a creator nor a subscriber for the site. I tried to make it as authentic as possible, but if anyone reading this who has been on the site find anything inaccurate, I apologize and I hope it won’t be too much of a bother.

To anyone who’s read and liked, thank you. Please leave a comment and/or reblog.

If you want to be added to my taglist, let me know or click here.

Thank you to @lovebarefootblonde for beta-reading for me and for being an awesome friend! 😘 To anyone new to Tumblr and are looking for Jax Teller AUs, go check out her works!

Taglist: @fullwattpadmusictree

#jax teller fanfiction #jax teller x oc #jax teller imagine #charlie hunnam fanfiction #charlie hunnam imagine #sons of anarchy #sons of anarchy au #sons of anarchy fanfiction #sons of anarchy imagine #better than the fantasy #jax and amelia

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acourtofthought · 2 years ago

Note

I love that e/lriels like to ignore the fact that azriel’s inner monologue during his chapter in his moments with elain were literally about how WRONG it all felt and how he had to forcefully ignore that lmao. Which is absolutely not how the mating bonds or long term relationships were ever described. They both know they’re not meant to be and will never work out. The whole chapter made it feel painfully obvious to me that they are destined to fail. I personally think they’ll have a brief fling (or not so brief considering there’s three books left💀) but elain will realize that this man does NOT value her as a person and just wants to tradwife her and kick him to the curb for someone who actually sees her as a person real quick 🦊

"Letting his scarred fingers touch her immaculate skin" "Wrong - it was so wrong" "Such terrible things that it was sacrilege for his fingers to touch her skin, tainting her with his presence" "Just this taste in the dead of the longest night of the year" "This was a mistake" "He hadn't gotten that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to." I mean, that language regarding E/riel in the bonus chapter is concerning. There is no hope in that, there is no joy. It really doesn't matter whether Az has feelings of self doubt because ALL SJM endgame males have felt the same. They questioned their worth, whether they deserved to be happy. But none of them sounded so problematic and put the female on the pedestal Az has with Elain. He literally treats her like a mint condition doll who cannot, at any cost, be blemished, especially not by his own dirty hands. No female should EVER feel like a male views her with such purity because we're all flawed and messy and imperfect. Az has already elevated Elain to an unattainable standard and the entire relationship between them would be Elain needing to constantly reassure Az she thinks he's worthy and then Elain beginning to question her worth when Az finally realizes she's not the fragile, perfect creature he thinks she is, and what will that mean once he does? You're right though, Elain would get sick of being treated like glass pretty quick. Could SJM still go the route of E/riel? Sure. But I would bet money on the fact that they're not happening as she's currently written them. The way they are now is not SJM romance and the way Az speaks of her is cringey. I'm not talking about the sexual aspect, there's nothing wrong with being physically into someone. The other stuff though......his thoughts are very immature (and quite concerning to be honest, he's got a lot of emotional stuff he really needs to deal with rather than focusing on a female right now) and he's putting a kind of purity language on her that is very problematic. When you think of the type of male love interest that SJM prefers, Az with Elain isn't it.

#anti e/riel

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dashielldeveron · 2 years ago

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You ever read something that makes you squeal into your pillow?

That was the shinsou route 😭😭

Oh my gosh, every part of it, I just.

I’m so glad you wrote it as you did, because that hesitance and fear and panic is just so relatable, that’s truly how I’d feel about it, could never go right into things, I’d have to have some sort of introduction stretched out to make me comfortable.

And the way you wrote shinsou doing that?????

You’ll make me cry, you really will. He was so gentle, and caring, and so honestly kind and understanding, and their whole relationship was so silly but so deeply sweet.

The way he talked to the reader after Mawata and the whole incident??? And the texts you sprinkled throughout everything?? It was all just so so cute and ridiculously delightful.

Every inch of it made me feel like I was molasses melting into a chocolate mold, it was so sweet and slow and perfect.

Oooh and the bits that mixed with the Aizawa route with the airport explosion and the call??? The call?? The stuff he talked about with Ito? I mean the entire conversation with Ito honestly was hilarious, his concerns about his own name being on him, the intricate detail about the special kanji in his name was so brilliant, and the ‘b*tch, you’re overthinking,’ it was all so amazing

The conversation with Eri was adorable, truly, but what ended up happening with the handwriting thing they noticed? And what happened with the glowing stuff on Shinsou btw?

THE NARUTO SOUNDTRACK BTW???? I physically can not that bit, I just.

💀

‘His quirk ushered in spring cleaning’ I hope you know this metaphor made my heart feel like it’d just been mopped and everything was squeaky and clean and smelled like lemons and mint

The truth or dare thing was felt on such a deep level, sometimes I want to just rush into things to finally get it over with and others I just want to have had the experience without going through the experience, yknow?

The entire call with Shinsou and him finally exploding and telling the reader that it’s ~fine~ to not have had sex and everyone progresses through life at a different rate and it’s nigh impossibly and, bluntly, stupid to put a specific progress bar on it with little stamps on where a specific event must happen. It’s not some line graph to follow, not some game progression to align with, it’s life and it’s your own

That was a nice moment

Shinsous persisting but somewhat subtle sometimes feeling of being a burden and not really being worthy of love was just, abduiemf, that was a whole thing, I understand him so much but also he was so much just, not that it felt wild that he saw himself as such

Also the MEMORY

I’m going feral I wanna know how it went from ‘ice princess’ to ‘baby’ the entire timeline I’m so mentally ill over the rivals to longtime friends to lovers

‘I don’t want to have sex with you <3’

‘I don’t want to have sex with you too <3’

Best confession ever truly

All in all, I love you 😭😭💞

- ✨anon

oof oof oof yes shinsou would be the perfect man for someone like us who needs lots of reassurance and small steps into intimacy; the man is OBSERVANT; he is CONSIDERATE, and he could HAND US OUR ASS if he weren't so kind and in love

ough shinsou

i'm so glad you brought up the aizawa route overlap!! it makes the aizawa route more romantic, i think, that aizawa wanted his soulmate reader close to him in the explosion, while allowing shinsou as replacement to be seperated during shinsou's route.,.,.,.bc aizawa's so focused on protecting his soulmate. ngl i miss him from last chapter.....,,.. and shinsou's kanji being chastity/honest is legit!! that's what hori uses, and while i get the honest part, i'm not really sure about the chastity part, unless it's supposed to be something like chastity as in abstaining from villainous behaviour with his quirk?? but that feels like a stretch. and ohhoho to have ito throw shinsou's own "you're overthinking" right back at him!!!

okay okay okay they did do the second tier tainted love stuff. it's a bit harder to discern in this route, bc this version of reader doesn't know what any of it is or what it means. in last chapter, the soulmate signal would usually come from reader's gut, so in this one, whenever emotions or words that didn't feel like reader's own words surfaced from her gut, that was the receiving end of the intensified soulmate trope dust. i figured that influenced monoma to use shinsou's quirk, reader's "don't be nervous" actions under his quirk, for the gang at the club to play truth or dare (with shinsou not wanting to play it until the word "cliche" is brought up), for the focus on shinsou during the game, for reader and shinsou getting smushed together on a loveseat that no one else can fit on, for her getting jealous and wanting to be marked by him, for the phone call (even though reader low-key regrets it immediately), and how the phone call stuff unfolded, down to her needing shinsou's help. i don't think shinsou realised that reader had genuinely heard all of the conversation with ito about the soulmate thing, though. i think he just thinks he left his phone on, since reader didn't say anything.

the handwriting thing was originally going to be a bigger deal, but i believe i just have a throwaway line in the monoma-is-helping-search section about how we couldn't find matching handwriting? if not, i may have to go back to add that 😬

lololol the dom hype playlist was either gonna be abba songs or the naruto soundtrack, and i thought naruto was better for going into battle/your crush's room

yes yes i see a lot of fics in which characters have sex just to get it over with, so the fact that shinsou is cool with not having the same timeline as everyone else feels so gentle to me. feels like he's handling us with care. and he's deserves to be handled with care as well, even though he doesn't believe he should be???? he's so lovable and lovely, and he doesn't think of himself that way :( baby boy :(

i legit figure that shinsou and reader went from disliking each other to being friends just through like. one or two conversations. bc they've been relying on what other people have said/observed about each other, so when they actually interact they're like oh 👀 really quickly lololololol

but oh my gosh thaaaaaaank you so much???? for feeling deeply about the "his quirk ushered in spring cleaning"??? for being able to relate to reader's insecurities and experiences???? for appreciating and loving shinsou???? for liking the silly confession??? you're beautiful. you're spectacular. and i love YOU. i hope i can continue to meet your expectations :) xx.

#dash it all #✨ anon

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sea-side-scribbles · 2 years ago

Text

Fanfiction: You Always Meet Twice

Link to ao3

Chapter 45

Nick woke up by the sound of a key turning in a lock. He saw Howard entering his cell and bringing his clothes. Right after, he was shaken by a sneezing fit. Whatever Howard tried to say got drowned out by the noise. Sniffing and blinking away tears, Nick looked back at the man from under the blanket.

“That doesn't sound good. Oh no, don't tell me you really have a cold”, the Headboy commented his behaviour. “How's your voice?” Nick coughed away a lump in his throat and croaked: “I...I don't feel right...Oh, no, my voice is gone! You can't shove me on stage like this!” He clasped his hands together to plead. “I can't take Joy to better my performance!” He coughed more. “Shit! You spare that throat and don't do anything funny.” Howard was about to leave again. “Hey, you can't keep me locked in here!” The other man turned around to give him a look. “Where would you go anyway?” “I love morning showers...”, Nick said quieter with begging eyes.

“Another one? You look fine! Would be good enough for the show if there'll be one.” “But what are you doing to me now?” “Well, I have no choice but to put you back into a good shape, right? I can't let you idle around without pulling your own weight. Don't move.” “Haha”, Nick mouthed and fell back onto his bed. “Why can't I idle around?”, he whispered then. He thought that was what cells were for. He just wanted to sleep again, glad of having a warm blanket to hide under. He had already put the blanket over his head when he noticed that his clothes were back.

Not too fond of the old rags, he was happy to put more fabric around his body. He was surprised by how clean they were. They even smelled good. Hell, this group of hooligans was all nice and clean like schoolboys. Where did they get all their stuff? What would Morrie say when he knew he was here? Ah, he wouldn't be happy about that. But when was he ever happy about something Nick did?

Nick sat in silence, dwelling in painful memories. Tears came back as he wished he'd have kept his stupid mouth shut. Morrie hadn't wanted to hear it anyway, he should've listened to him. But he had thought he knew better. But Morrie had been ambitious in the past, had been dangerous, right? He just didn't see it anymore? Or had he really been nothing but tender, loving and helpful? Different to anyone else who just used Nick Lightbearer as a stepstone for their own career? It was so unlikely, but yet...

Nick was interrupted by Howard who came back with a mug. Immediately, he took in the scent of the drink. “Tea?”, he blurted out, eyes wide. “It's surely not crème brulée”, the Headboy deadpanned. Nick sniffed at the mug. It smelled familiar but he couldn't quite guess it. “What is it?” He already enjoyed cupping his fingers around the hot mug. “Rowan berries with a drop of peppermint for the taste.” Nick sipped. At first, he tasted the sweetness of the mint, and happily drank more. Than the bitter taste of the berries came out, even worse than the fruit itself and he stuck his tongue out.

“Ew, really? Not enough peppermint in this one. Or sugar. Anything. I can't drink this.” “It's medicine, not lemonade. Just finish it before it gets cold, because then it's even worse. But it helps, you'll see.” “No sugar, are you sure?” “It wouldn't make it better.” Howard didn't look like he allowed any more protest. Nick stared at him, pouting, and didn't move. Howard played along for a while, then he answered: “Alright, superstar...” and leaned against the bars. “I don't have to help you, you know? I could announce your show right now and if you fail it's entirely your problem. You're not the only lookalike around and not the only one who'd rather sing than getting his head cracked.”

“I'm not a lookalike!”, Nick moaned. Howard looked him deep into the eyes. “Prove it.” Nick held the gaze for a while, then looked back at the mug. It was getting colder. If this stood between him and his fame... “Fine”, he muttered and emptied the mug. It was awful and made him retch right after. “If this was a prank...”, he muttered. The Headboy grinned. “Good man, Nick. See, if you become as big as you think you are, you can call yourself what you want and get all the sugar you want. But get there first.” Nick handed him the mug, then noticed he didn't cough again. “Hey, that stuff helped!” He gulped to test his throat. The itch was gone. “Alright, I get you more.” “No, no, no, I'm fine now...” Nick hectically waved him off. “U-huh. At least two more. And then you sleep. We need to work a miracle on you.”

The Headboy hurried away and Nick assumed he really wanted to force him to sing tonight. He regretted not looking for a hideout right away, letting himself get soaking wet instead... Well done, Nicky. He attempted to hum a melody, but he didn't like the croaky sound he made. That didn't sound like him at all. They'd take him for a lookalike... He figured he couldn't make a fool out of himself like this. He had to make them keep him. Frustrated, he pulled the blanket over his head again.

After a while, he heard Howard's voice. “Hey, there, superstar. Are you alright?” He felt a finger poking his head and crawled out of the blanket. The Headboy placed the mug and a teapot on this bed stand. “No breakfast?”, Nick noticed. Howard crossed his arms. “I'm beginning to think that you take this for a hotel.” Nick grabbed the tea. “Well, I didn't ask you to lock me in. This would be easier if I could get around myself.” “And fuck you up before you started? Forget it.” “What could I do wrong?” “Everything! Imagine someone asked you for a performance and wouldn't you be in trouble then? You better keep a low profile instead of strutting around like a peacock.” Nick huffed. “I can't help that I have such a classy aura around me. Doesn't that prove I'm a real star?” “Why? Because you're full of yourself? Wouldn't that make most of Wellington a star?” Nick had to chuckle at the thought. “I guess so.” Then he let out a sigh. “There's no way to convince you, right?” Howard didn't answer.

Nick began to drink and the tea just tasted like he felt inside. He grimaced but went on because it helped his throat. He moaned loudly when he put the mug back down. “This is worse than any of Virgil's recipes.” “Who's Virgil? A dealer?” Nick paused at that. “My manager”, he finally brought out. “He's still in Hamlyn. Virgil Dainty. Maybe you heard of him? He had his own recipe against headaches...tasted like shit but it worked wonders...” He wiped his brow, blinking. “I wonder if he misses me...” Howard looked puzzled and even moved. “Hey, now...Wouldn't he make sure his tar would never... I mean...the real Nick is above all rules, he's save with his manager and his bodyguards.” Nick gave him a look, then sighed. “That's what I thought, too. Couldn't help me when I had a breakdown in the streets like a Downer and couldn't take Joy anymore.” “You're telling me Nick Lightbearer has to take Joy to get around?” “Uh, yeah, he had...I had to.” Nick couldn't hide how his question offended him. People always thought he was better off than everyone else and deserved a punishment. Even Morrie...

He stared at the Headboy. “I was locked up in that fancy cage just like all of you! I didn't know what happened until I got here! What's wrong with you people?” He buried his head in his hands. Howard stood there in silence, pondering. Considering that he really caught a big fish here. This man never bragged about his fame, never dropped any biographical facts to make sure everyone got he lived the Lightbearer's life. He never mentioned his golden records or his most famous performances. He acted naturally, as if he didn't have to prove himself. Lookalikes would also fall out of their role from time to time, right? “Why are you still here? Don't you have anything better to do?”, Nick suddenly shouted. “Still want that breakfast?”, Howard asked, softly even. Nick was irritated by the question. Then he nodded. “Yeah”, he sighed. “If it isn't too much to ask for...”

When Howard made his way through the hallway again, Nick stared after him, wiping his face dry. When he felt ready, he filled the mug again and drank. At least his throat thanked him. Then he wrapped himself into the blanket and waited. He felt a lot like in the past when he had been sick and Virgil cared for him. He missed their banters, even Virgil's sarcasm. The manager had never been really mean. Never threw him out of his fucking house because of a single mistake. But how did his star thank him for this?, he thought bitterly.

After a while, the Headboy came back, placed a sandwich on his night stand and checked the tea. Glad that it was empty, he picked it up and then looked at Nick and seemed to search for the right words. “Sleep well,” he then said. “Hmm.” Nick suddenly was too tired to answer, wondering if the tea did that to him. He managed to eat, though. His hunger helped and he got an idea how the sandwich must've tasted like for Morrie when they went through the bridge. Sated and tired, he didn't need long to doze off again. He had a deep, dreamless sleep and awoke when he saw his Headboy again with more tea.

Now refreshed, he smiled. “Are you a nurse or something? You're so caring.” “Bah, nurse! I'm a guard. I swapped my shift just for you.” “I'm flattered.” “You're my mistake, right? I brought you in. And I fucking hope you're not gonna embarrass me.” “Well, that's...motivating.” “Er...okay. I heard your angelic voice and just knew that you're gonna be the best bard we ever had. Better?” “Much better.” Nick gave him a smug grin. “Even if I might have to kick your arse a few times.” “Hey...” Nick sat up. “How's this going to work out? The show, I mean? Do you have a stage? Any equipment? Instruments? Or is this going to be just me and my voice?” Now it was Howard who grinned. “Drink”, he said. “Then I'll show you.”

What Nick saw then surpassed all this expectations. They had a stage with lights and all, amplifiers and a mic. “Whoa, you guys know how to live!” “Would be dull in here very quickly otherwise.”, Howard answered. “If you feel alright, I can introduce you to someone to set up your show.” Nick looked back at him. He really felt great in this moment.

They went into a side room that was full of equipment. Another Headboy was busy rummaging in one of the boxes. Howard approached him and they had a short talk, another introduction of Nick who didn't need to act to look excited. The other Headboy's brow went up when he heard the word “Lightbearer show.” “No problem”, he said. “Shouldn't look too different from the real one.” “Wow, this is smashing...” Nick answered. “But apart from the light and all...do you have any instruments?” That caused the Headboy to laugh. “Oh, do we have instruments. I guess so. Our former bard had a collection, just go and get what you like.” He pointed at another door between piles of boxes.

Nick went there, careful not to knock over the rubble. What he found surprised him once more. There was indeed a collection of guitars, acoustic and electric. Nick walked back and forth between them, stunned to see his old friends again. He picked up a purple guitar and then looked around for an amp. Because he didn't find any, he went back. “Found something?”, the Headboy sneered. “I need to check what they sound like”, Nick answered and off they went. The Headboy began to show him the amps and explained what effects the former bard used. Howard interrupted him soon to say his goodbyes. Nick assured him that he was fine and Howard made him promise to come back for more treatment after the preparations.

What followed next were the most inspiring hours of Nick's life. Experimenting with the new guitars and the equipment made him feel alive again. Just going back to this after such a long time made him remember how much he missed this. Then he heard his voice again, filling the hall and he was about to break into tears again. He felt like himself, finally. It also convinced him that he needed more tea. He wanted his voice to be clearer. He sang a few lines from different songs, to it again. Now it drove him mad how long he had abandoned his precious voice. Just to purr at Morrie. If only he could hear him now.

The pain was short though. The Headboy listened in awe. “Man, you're making me cry. You really sound like him.” “U-huh, me and him have much in common.” “Anything else you need, Golden God?” Nick looked around the stage. The sound was set, the lights too, the improvised playlist... “I'm ready”, his amplified voice announced. He was still surprised by the whole situation. “Perfect! Aww, don't worry, man. What's that face? The lads are gonna love it!” Nick stepped off the stage and looked into the hall. The stadium. He imagined how it would fill with fans. Headboys with batons, more like.

“I bet they're not an easy audience.” “Ah, they just want fun. They're starved of live music. Playing records over and over is boring as hell. Don't fuck up completely and they're gonna be too drunk to even notice it.” “Yeah, I guess...” Nick said absent-mindedly while glancing around. “Anyway, I need to leave or my nurse is gonna get mad.” “Oh, sure...He told me where to bring you...” Nick followed him, again reminded of his status in this odd community. “I'm a prisoner, right?”, he said gloomily as they walked back down the narrow corridor. “Nah, just the usual security measures. We don't take everyone in, you see. Just the toughest and the smartest. Those that stand out. Not the trash collectors you find outside. Prove yourself and you're gonna have a great time.” Nick sighed. “Yeah, I guess...” “Ah...what we don't like is pouting. Are you pouting?” Suddenly a cold shiver ran down his spine. “No”, he said quickly.

The other man laughed. “Good, now get in there and behave until your caretaker comes back.” He opened the cell and Nick went inside to wait on his bed. He was too nervous to be patient. It felt like hours until Howard came back with more tea. When he asked him if he was okay, Nick could confirm, though. Howard looked very relieved to hear this. “I spread the news, then.” “Yeah, do it. I'm ready.” They locked gazes as if they were staging a coup together.

Nick did his best to heal himself before the show. Some time later, Howard opened his cell again and brought him back to the stadium. Nick could hear the audience from afar, shouting and whistling. A loud voice spoke to them. An announcer? Nick felt just like in the Orpheum. As expected, the stadium was crowded with people. From the stage, it didn't matter that they were Headboys. Nick started right away with a song and as soon as he played his first accord on his new purple guitar, he became the Golden God again.

He sang, he danced, he shouted, he purred and the crowd cheered along. His opener gained him thunderous applause, shouts and more whistles. Then he spoke a few words to them and it felt good to hear himself talk to a cheering crowd. He completely forgot his sickness. His adrenaline was up and he gave this show his all. He went through his programme, considering to kiss this technician afterwards for setting the right mood for every song. The guitar sang along with him and their voices matched perfectly. Considering this was a pure solo show, he found himself fantastic. And this audience agreed. They danced, they shouted and just had fun like true fans.

Even when he felt his voice fade, he couldn't stop. He went so far that he had to hide a coughing fit with a guitar solo, but then someone grabbed his arm. Horrified, Nick turned around to see Howard drag him off the stage. “What happened? What did I do wrong?” Nick pulled at his arm to free himself, but the man's grip was too strong. Then he had to cough again. He had no choice but to let himself be dragged away.

Back in the corridor, Howard finally spoke: “Just look at you, you're killing yourself!” “But they love me!” “Yeah, yeah, they're gonna love you more next time.” That made Nick stare at him. “So...I passed? I'm the bard now?” “I'm pretty sure that was a pass. We have to wait until tomorrow for the official decision.” “I didn't get my grand finale!”, Nick whined, tearing at Howard again. “I'm sorry, but you start so sound like shit! You need to get back to bed and sleep it off!” Nick was reminded of Virgil again. “I'm still sleeping in that cell?” “Yup, until you get another room. Sorry, it's the rules.” Nick looked behind himself into the corridor. “I hope that sudden ending was okay.” “Better than letting your voice fail, trust me. And falling over dead.” “I'm fine!”, he shouted but Howard ignored him.

Nick had to admit that his throat was swelling and he felt weak on his feet now that his adrenaline faded. Back in his cell, he stared at Howard, a hundred questions in his look. “You'll be okay”, the man said firmly, gave him one last look and then walked away. Nick put trust in his words and wrapped the blanket around himself. He lay awake for a long time.

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