#anyway for the record it was less 'people yelling directly at us' that made us snap

[theminecraftbee]

because i'm seeing it come up again, a quick "mod thoughts re: all the voter fraud" discussion:

okay so like. in a perfect world, tumblr would have email verification that actually mattered, and we, the mods, would have some more effective way to prevent voter fraud than saying "oh no don't do fraud that's bad". however, we have neither of those things, and doing fraud on our polls is... ridiculously, laughably easy.

so, imagine our distress when during the techno/scar round, a lot of scar fans started getting very, very angry about fraud we weren't sure was even happening? that, indeed, we had absolutely no reason to think was happening at the time, and no way to do anything about it if was?

well. there were two options. and we took the one that would lead to everyone having more fun and things being less toxic overall in the community. the thing is: if we'd said "voter fraud is entirely unallowed, this thing we can't prevent and can't moderate", then the toxicity of fanbases blaming each other for "breaking the rules" would have gone through the roof. full-stop. and we... didn't want that. this poll did not matter. it still doesn't matter. it had grown wildly, wildly bigger than we'd expected, and we had basically no way to control the way everyone was acting about it, but we didn't want to make a statement that would cause people to be even meaner to each other.

so instead, we took the funny option. we said "yeah do whatever voter fraud you want we don't care". SLIGHTLY regret that we didn't know tumblr tried to make you follow random strangers' blogs when you made a new account otherwise maybe we would have been a BIT more clear about 'don't do that', but listen. by saying "voter fraud is totally fine" we made it funny that people were cheating. we made it so there was basically no such thing as "cheating". we made it so, and this was key, the growing toxicity about "but they're BOTTING" was stupid, because like... everyone's doing it now. openly and blatantly doing it. voters fraud is a beautiful name for a baby girl, and this poll doesn't matter and isn't worth getting worked up over, and you can't cheat if it's not against the rules and everyone's doing it anyway, is the idea here.

like, in an ideal world, would we have rampant voter fraud? nah. in a world where we can't stop it if it happens, though... may as well make sure both sides have equal opportunity to fraud, right? like, that makes it even again, right? and more importantly, it reminds people that this shit really, really doesn't matter.

anyway all of this is to say that if you all start coming into our notes and inbox again to start being really toxic about the other side of the poll and make me cry again i will be pissed.

[eddiemunsonsbedroom]

20 Somethings - Part 1

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

Eddie Munson x afab!reader/Joyce’sSister!reader

Summary: Joyce’s sister works at a record store and plays guitar in a band with some local pot-heads. When her coworker/bandmate invites his friend Eddie and his band to jam with them, she quickly becomes intrigued. (I suck at summaries).

Warnings: Smoking a joint while driving (don’t do this?!), Slight (legal) age gap, drug use (weed), sexual undertones, flirting, hella swearing.

Hopper and the Byers are in Hawkins for the sake of this fic, and I may have ripped off reader’s band name from an actual band on accident? Sorry it’s so short for a part 1! Nothing too exciting yet, just laying the ground-work and testing the waters. This is my first real fanfic that I’d count, and first multi-part fic, so please be gentle. Let me know if there are any errors that you see, and feedback is greatly appreciated! -H

 ————-

“Christ alive,” you mutter, giving your car radio a less-than-gentle smack. Driving with your knees while smacking your radio like a madman to jostle the tape and ashing the joint in your other hand all over your lap is probably not the safest way to drive. Actually, you’re breaking multiple laws right now, if you add in speeding.

Quickly glancing up you see Hopper, Sheriff of Hawkins, driving past you with a disgruntled, knowing look on his face. He gives you a small beep of his horn with an exasperated pointed look, warning you to put the damn joint out before another cop happens to drive by.

Knowing Hop since you were a kid and him being close with your sister, Joyce, means he has a little bit of a soft spot for you and looks the other way on a lot of things (which he’d deny outright if directly asked). Besides the time when you were 16 and he found you by Lover’s Lake with Tommy Lane’s hand up your shirt… He put the fear of god into that kid and you never saw him again.

You were an Oops! Baby, significantly younger than your sister. Joyce in her 40s, while you’re sitting at only 24 years of age. Your parents had you in their mid-40s, which means people were always surprised when you told them that your parents were pushing 70. Joyce always made it a point to form a bond with you, even with her being just about out of the house when you were born, and soon after that having Jonathan and Will. They were almost like cousins to you, or even brothers, when in reality, they were your nephews. In high school, your parents allowed you to move in with Joyce, as they couldn’t really relate to you with such an age difference, and you were always with Joyce and the boys anyway. You just moved out of her house a year or so ago into your own shitty apartment near Hawkins High.

Taking one last drag and not-so-discretely tossing your roach out the window, you finally approached your bandmate, Al’s house. You met Al while working at the record shop, and when he found out that you knew how to play guitar, he almost shit himself, asking you to try out for his band immediately. Which is how you ended up playing lead guitar for The Living Daylights. You cannot imagine that Al, stoner of the universe, who almost sets his house on fire weekly by forgetting frozen pizzas in the oven, is the only one to think of that band name, but hey, it’s not like you’re Metallica. No one at The Hideout is going to give a shit.

Your car groans to a stop next to a big black van you can’t recall seeing before, when it hits you: tonight is the night that Al’s friend’s band was going to jam with you guys and drink some beer. What the hell was their name? Corrupted Casket?

Lugging your guitar case out of the back seat, you swear at your car when the case gets caught between the seat and the floor. “Come, on, Betsy, you old bitch, let her GO!” you whisper-yell before it finally breaks free of Betsy’s clutches. You hope she doesn’t make you pay for that comment later, as you don’t have any extra cash to fix her if she breaks down out of spite.

“Yelling at inanimate objects now, y/n?” You look for the source of the voice only to see Jerry, your ridiculously long-haired bassist, holding the outside door to the basement open, cigarette in hand. His blond hair was prettier than any girl’s you’d ever seen, but when you told him that, he held your guitar over his head until you took your comment back.

“Spying on unsuspecting women now, Jer?” you quip, swinging the strap to your guitar case over your shoulder and starting down the stairs.

“Had to grab my smokes,” he shakes the cigarette pack, “not my fault you’re outside screaming loud enough to scare the birds.”

“That’s a hyperbole if I’ve ever heard one,” you reply, stepping into the basement.

“A what?”

You roll your eyes and make your way around the washer and dryer to the dirty old rug that holds Rob’s drum set and all of your amps. Next to the rug are the ratty orange couch and matching old chairs that you’ve spent way too much time in over the last year, and filling them are three guys you’ve never met before. You stop short, having somehow already forgotten between fighting your bitch car and the banter with Jerry, that you’d be having company. Corrupted Casket? Right?? Shit.

Al whips his dark, curly-haired head toward you, shit-eating grin on his face while ashing his joint. You internally groan in anticipation of his smart-ass remark.

“Hey, look what the cat finally dragged in! Forgot that Hawkins is located in the lesser-known time zone, ‘WheneverTheHellY/NFeelsLikeIt!’” he yells, smirking at his own shitty joke. Seeing each other at work and in most of your free-time, you’re used to Al’s stupid humor and banter, and actually look forward to the back and forth.

Withholding the mirth from your eyes, you deadpan, “Aw, did you get lost? Nurse, he’s awake!”

Listening to the snickers and setting your guitar down, you hear a single sharp laugh from Al as he flips you off with a grin.

With your own smirk on your face, you glance over the three new faces, landing on the guy with long, wavy dark hair and huge brown eyes looking at you with a piercing gaze. You hold his stare for a beat too long, feeling like a rabbit caught in a snare, before clearing your throat and blinking away. He seems to snap out of it as well, shifting in his seat and taking a drink from his beer. Good Lord that’s a beautiful man.

Act natural, you horny wench, you scold yourself internally. You wonder why you haven’t seen him around before. It was slim-pickings in Hawkins, you’d have known if you saw a dream-boat such as this man out and around town.

You casually sit in the empty lawn chair across the coffee table from him and now the basement is suddenly sweltering.

Pushing your denim jacket down your shoulders, you blindly throw it over the couch, hearing a “jeez!” from Al who is swatting it off of his lap. Ignoring him, you decide to say, “fuck it” and make the first introduction before the tension in the room becomes too awkward.

“Hi. I’m the looks of the group, clearly,” you joke to the three new guys, but mostly to the hot man directly in front of you. Your bandmates roll their eyes and huff at your comment.

“Uh, I’m Gareth,” one boy says, seeming a bit nervous.

“Jeff,” the other says, shaking your hand.

Letting it go, you look to the guy whose name you’re really after. If you’d have blinked you’d have missed it, but a flash of awe and uncertainty goes through his eyes at he looks at you before a confident smirk graces his lips. “Eddie,” he says, shaking your hand. You guys shake hands for longer than is necessary before you remember he’s probably waiting for your name.

“Y/N, which you may have gathered from Al’s shitty joke earlier.”

“Woooow,” you faintly hear Al snark in response, but you’re so far from listening to him right now; not while Eddie’s eyes are boring into yours. He’s not used to a woman who doesn’t take shit from men and can dish it out just as well as she can take it. He wonders if that applies to more than just wordplay, but swallows down those thoughts. He’s getting way ahead of himself.

Forcing yourself to let go of his hand before you give yourself away completely, you settle back into your chair. Jerry breaks the new bout of silence by asking you if you want a beer on his way to the fridge.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Rob quips, pushing his bangs away from his eyes and winking at you. You roll your eyes. If you’d have grown up with slightly older brothers, this is exactly what it’d have been like.

“You make me sound like an alcoholic,” you say, unamused.

“Hey, if the shoe fits.”

“Dick!” you laugh. Cracking your beer by hitting it between your palm and the edge of the coffee table, you take a sip, seeing Eddie’s eyes flash a little. He’s very quickly become intrigued by you. A woman who’s funny, can kick back with the guys fully at ease, and who plays in a band? And she’s hot? Where have you been hiding?

Relaxing for a bit, a few different conversations kick up around you. As the joint is passed your way, you take a hit, holding it in for a long beat before slowly blowing the smoke out. Eddie fidgets with his beer, then moves onto playing with the many rings adorning his fingers. You subconsciously bite your lip while watching his fingers move, unbeknownst to him. He appears nervous, like he doesn’t know how to completely insert himself into this environment with new people.

Observing him slyly, you can see the moment he seems to make up his mind about something. He stops fidgeting and straightens his shoulders, getting to his feet. To your surprise he makes his way to sit in the empty folding chair next to you. You’re trying to appear nonchalant, when all you want to do is squirm in your seat.

He clears his throat, “So, how do you know Al then?” Fuck! He internally curses at himself. They’re in a band together, dumb ass. That’s how they know each other.

To his surprise you just smile and say, “Well, we met working at the record store together, and he needed a guitarist. I figured, hell, I’ve been meaning to do some charity work anyway,” you respond.

He lets out a surprised laugh at your quick wit. But inside you’re worried you’re coming off arrogant, which is so far from how you actually feel in this moment that it’s comical. But it’s either this humor or self-deprecating. You can’t tell which is worse.

“How about you?” you ask him, sipping your beer. At some point you crossed your legs towards him without realizing and bumped his knee with yours. He inhales sharply, but it’s so quiet that you can’t tell if you imagined it.

“Uh…” he gets his supply of weed from Al now that Reefer Rick’s locked up again, but he doesn’t want to seem like a drug dealer by saying that. Dude, you are a drug dealer, he tells himself. Oh yeah, he responds to himself. Why am I talking to myself? Fuck, maybe I am high. Shit, she’s looking at me, how long has it been?

Not trying to hide your smirk at the fact that you can almost see literal cogs turning in his head to produce a sentence, you say, “uh…?” to help him push his thought along.

“He supplies me with weed that I, uh, sell. To others. For cash. And I smoke it. And stuff,” he blurts out.

You burst out laughing, your eyes twinkling. You’re looking at him like you genuinely find him funny, and he quietly sighs in relief.

Somehow, the ice has been broken, and you guys settle into a surprisingly easy back and forth. He tells you that he lives in a trailer with his uncle, Wayne, a few miles from Al’s. He seems a little embarrassed, but you quickly reassure him that you only moved out a year ago, and into a crappy apartment, no less. He says that he has no siblings, and you tell him that you have an older sister.

Eddie’s eyes light up as a thought dawns on him, “wait! You work at The Screaming Owl! I go in there all the time!” he chirps excitedly, referencing the record shop.

“You do?! How have we never seen each other?” you ask, racking your brain. You cannot imagine you missed each other.

“I go in every Saturday.”

Ah. “Okay, that makes sense. I only work weekdays,” you say.

“Do you go to school?” he asks off-handedly, not at all expecting the way you’re about to respond.

“Nah, I haven’t gotten around to college yet. Graduated from Hawkins High in ’80 though,” you say, stubbing out your cigarette. While you’re looking down, Eddie’s eyes bug out of his head as he tries to do mental gymnastics to figure out your age. 24?! He takes a drink of his beer and looks away, trying to be casual. There’s no way in hell you’re going to want to be with a 20-year-old super senior in fucking high school.

Swiveling back his way, you ask, “So what about you?”

“Huh?” he sputters, ungracefully.

You laugh. “Are you in school?”

Fuck! He swallows thickly, mind-racing, trying to figure out how he’s going to respond. “Yeah-“ he starts, and, thank fuck, Al interrupts with, “Yo! Are we gonna jam or what?”

@sublimecatgalaxy​ @bethii1

[mcu-fan-fics-blog]

Sunrises, Waffles, and Weddings ii

Pt.1, Pt. 3

One Shot Mini Series Au (No Powers) 

Wanda Maximoff x Fem Reader

Word Count: 2651 (Not My GIF)

A/N: Hey Guys! Thank you for reading and liking this story. This part Is a little more background. There will be two more parts in this mini series, I hope you enjoy it. <3

Tag list: @xxxtwilightaxelxxx​

It's at times like this that you wish you couldn't read people so well… Although it wouldn't take a genius to know that Pietro wasn't happy. No, you'd just have to be insensitive, and you were anything but. "Alright why are you looking at me like that?" You ask calmly and he shakes his head. "No… no this is just all of a sudden." He tries to dismiss it. Now it's your turn to give him a look. "We've been honest with each other thus far… let's not change that now." You state firmly.  "I don't… like change I-i don't do well with it." You nod. He looks at you and smiles sadly. Slowly he finishes his beer and sighs heavily falling back on the couch next to you. "Everything is changing now… Paul and Sarah are married, and now you're leaving."  You nod, getting exactly where he was coming from and sigh. Tonight felt like one of those nights… long and sleepless. You take the beers and make your way to the back porch. "Change is scary." You admit turning slightly to see him. "I lost my parents too…" you mention quietly. Pietro looks at you surprised, noticing the pained expression in his eyes. "It's not what you went through, but still… My parents were great, loving, and so kind." A small smile grows on your face.

 "They walked out the door one day… and they never got to come back." The tears welling in your eyes. "I hated them for the longest time… I didn't understand that 'they're gone' meant they were dead." His eyes refused to meet yours. "I felt so guilty when I realized… but I was still so angry, so mad at them for having left that day." You sighed. "Are you still angry?" He asks, looking at you, tears threatening his eyes. "No, I'm sad… I'm sad that they missed all of it … Sarah's wedding, everything I guess." You look at him and ask him the same question. "I miss them all the time… and it makes me mad… guilty that I'm forgetting them." He answers. You sighed, taking a deep breath. "Are you mad at me?" You questioned. He shakes his head. "No… I-i I'm proud of you." He states. After that you both reached an understanding. Unspoken nonetheless you'd reached an understanding. Sitting in quiet contemplation you watched and enjoyed what would be the last time you did this. Reaching out for your hand he nods and gives it a good squeeze before letting go. 

Quiet chuckling knocked you out of your trance. Looking at Pietro he gives you a playful smirk. "You made quite the impression on my sister." He chuckles. "She will not stop talking about you. I think she likes you." He mentions. Your cheeks burn at the insinuation making him chuckle even louder. He gets quiet again lost in thought. "What if this week… we spend it like the old times? We can go to the lake, stay up all night and tell scary stories. The whole shabang!" You suggest watching his eyes light up. "For old times sake." You add making him laugh and nod. “That sounds amazing, you know what else would cheer me up?” You shake your head, telling him to continue. “If you would be kind enough to hook me up with that cute cousin of yours… What's her name? Martha? Mary? M…” You burst out laughing knowing exactly who he’s talking about. “Cousin May is a complete stick in the mud… She’s a stick with a stick up her ass!” You laugh at your own joke. He chuckles. “Not with me…” He states smugly, which completely shuts you up leaving you speechless. 

“As much as I love you Pietro you are not getting her number.” You say quickly. “You are better off without her, trust me.” He laughs nodding his head. “Fine then we’ll do your thing, a whole week of drinking and laying around sounds good.” He sits up quickly. "On one condition… Wanda gets to come." He states. "Of course she can come! " You say. "But only if she wants to come… you got to stop forcing her to do things." You state seriously. "oNLy iF sHe wAntS tO coMe" He mocks you. "Of course she'll want to come." You laugh, raising your hands in surrender. “Speaking of where's your lovely sister?” You ask curiously. He shrugs. “You know what would cheer me up?” You ask smugly. You burst out laughing watching as Pietro spits his beer out, coughing and trying to breathe. As soon as he calms down you pat his back, and look at him. “So what are the digits?” He shakes his head. “Right… I’ll just ask her myself then… I made ‘quite the impression’ Didn’t I?” You tease using his own words against him. 

The rest of the night was exactly as you had predicted. You drank yourselves silly, soon you found your way inside and crashed on the couch. “You’re sisterrr is um- she’s ah really perty.” You slur out looking directly into Pietro's eyes. He’s quiet for a long while, before he belches startling you. You stare at Pietro in astonishment looking at him like he was a god. “That’s- that’s gotta be a world record.” He states. You nod and lay back down. Staring at the ceiling in the room you hear Pietro begin to shuffle. “I think that I’m Wanda’s ‘Shawn’ and I-i just don't know” He says as he rubs his temples. “What do you mean?” He sighs deeply. “I feel like I’m cutting her wings. She’s always wanted to leave this place.” You nod. “I-i She just wants to make sure you’re okay.” You state confidently. He scoffs. “No offence Y/n but how could you know that?” You shake your head in denial. 

“I know more than you’d think… I stayed here for so long because I wanted to take care of Sarah.” You reveal making him look at you curiously. “I-i uhg. I don't need her to take care of me…” You hum. “Then tell her… It’s not going to hurt her feelings, and you’ll feel better about ‘setting her free’. I feel like she’d appreciate it.” You answer simply deep in thought. You didn't even notice when Pietro took off with his phone in hand making a beeline for the back porch. “I did it! I AM THE MAN!” He yells through the house triumphantly. You only nod your eyes heavy with sleep drifting off. You dream of everything, being together with your parents and Sarah. It was truly saddening you were happy as could be until you looked up and their faces were blank and devoid of any facial features. “Y/n?” You hear a soft voice calling your name. You jump up in a cold sweat, tears already forming in your eyes. You feel hands cup your cheeks forcing your eyes to look at them. 

You’re slightly surprised to see her intense green eyes looking back at you. Disregarding anything else you wrap your arms around her back and cry. She stiffens slightly in your hold but eventually hugs you back and rubs her hand on your back. “What did you dream about?” She asks carefully when you calm down. “I can’t, I can’t… I can’t remember them.” You pull away abruptly trying to calm your breathing. “You can’t remember who?” She asks. That's when Pietro walks in. “Y/n… What's happening?” You rub your face with your hands meeting his worried gaze. “I can’t remember them Piet…” Realization flashes his face. “Do-do you want to talk about it?” He questions softly. “No, no I just got really scared for a while back there.” Your breathing steadies and you begin to take in your surroundings. Your eyes suddenly land on her and you make a double take. “Oh God, I’m so sorry you had to see that.” You say apologizing for the scene. She chuckles slightly at our embarrassment. “It’s fine. I promise I wont think any less of you.” She teases. Gratefully you take the change in subject and stand. “What are you doing here anyways.” You ask. 

“Pietro Invited me late last night and said, and I quote ‘you should totally stop by, I set you free’ weird right?” She reflects. “No, not really It’s Pietro.” You state calmly. She nods. “But, we did want to invite you to hang out this week before I leave.” You say. She almost chokes on her own breath as her brain processes your words. “Wait… You’re leaving?” She questions softly. You nod a little concerned by the lack of reaction. “Uhm, Yes I’m leaving. You know I don’t have Shawn dragging me down anymore… And Sarah well she’s all taken care of now. There's nothing really left for me here.” You say honestly gauging her reactions. She seems hesitant, when her eyes meet yours a smile forms on her face. This made you really look at her… your eyebrows furrow trying to place it, the difference. This was not the smile that you saw all those weeks ago, this one seemed forced, dare you say fake. “That’s great, amazing really… You finally get to leave this place behind.” You grimace at her words and their harsh double meaning. The flash of hurt that passes in your features makes her stop in her tracks. She goes to say something, but you change the subject before she could. 

“So, are you spending the week with us… It’s going to be fun.” You ask, completely avoiding her gaze as you stand from the couch. Suddenly feeling the effects of your poor decisions last night, you rush towards the restroom and basically bury your face into the toilet. You hear shuffling and then your hair is out of your face. As you were about to say something another wave of nausea hit. As soon as you're done she pats your back. “Thank you.” You say sincerely. Changing the subject you notice her hand in yours. A small smile passes through your features, when you notice you give it a squeeze before letting go. You could have sworn she was blushing, but before you could make sure she was out of the room. Deciding to give her some space you get ready for the day, and most likely the week. After you’re ready you go down stairs, and find the siblings on the couch watching something on the Tv. “So… what are we watching?” You ask into Pietro's ear. You and Wanda share a laugh watching as Pietro screamed and jumped in his seat. “We were watching reruns while we waited on you.” Wanda states simply.

Pietro clearing his throat knocks you both out of the daze you were in. “Alright now that that’s over…” He says referring to the intense eye contact, he continues. “You two ready to go to the lake?” He asks with a smile forming on his face. You nod and smile when Pietro extends his hand towards you.  

Flash Back

“Hey, Y/n Is it okay if Paul brings his friend over?” You hear Sarah ask as she nears your door, leaning on the frame as she waits for your answer. “Yeah of course, but why are you asking me? This is your house as much as it is mine.” You state confused. She chuckles and shakes her head. Leaning closer to you she whispers in your ear. “Paul seems to think you two will hit it off.” She smiles as she pulls back a smug smile on her face as she watches your reaction. Blushing and stumbling over your words you manage to compose yourself before making a complete fool out of yourself. “Need I remind you that I am still dating Shawn?” You ask rhetorically, to which your sister immediately rolls her eyes at his mention. “Well, I don’t like him and neither does Paul. His friend's name is Pietro, I expect you to play nice.” Your sister warns before she wanders off into another part of the house. 

Hours later you heard the door open and the sound of laughter grew louder. Sighing internally you made your way towards the dining room where they were all apparently waiting for you. “Hi, I’m Pietro. It's really nice to finally meet you and put a face to the name.” You smile politely and take his hand. “Y/n, Likewise although I have only just heard of you?” You state glaring lightly at both Paul and Sarah. He chuckles nodding, but nonetheless he still pulls out your seat for you. Not long into that dinner Paul gets a ‘call’ informing him of an “emergency” that both he and Sarah had to tend to. After sitting in an uncomfortable silence for what felt like hours you both look up at the same time. Looking at each other for a moment you both break out laughing. “This is extremely pathetic even for Sarah.” You state chugging the rest of the wine in your glass. And to your surprise he nod s and agrees with you. So to pass the time you actually got to know each other, and by the end of it you were practically best friends.

Later Paul would grow to regret his decision to try and set you and Pietro up. You matched each other's energy, and you somehow just understood each other and clicked. A week after that disastrous first encounter you had, formulated and perfectly executed your special hand shake. “If I'd have known you’d steal my best friend I never would’ve introduced you two.” Paul states bitterly as he watches you greet Pietro. At that moment you saw the glint in Pietro's eyes and with the ghost of a nod you both proceeded to walk past him like he didn't exist. The foundation of your friendship with Pietro was your unrelenting desire to make Paul tick. Eventually you both ‘grew out’ of that phase, but still you remained best of friends

End Flashback 

Cutting back to present time here you were making a complete fool out of yourself in front of Wanda. You felt so accomplished the first time you and Pietro completed the hand shake, which at this point was not a handshake but a whole two minute choreography. You both had that ‘too much’ gene and you just kept adding to it throughout the years. You felt so badass, as you pulled off each of the steps, but are suddenly brought back to reality when you see Wanda laughing. You both stop and glare at the girl, still laughing. “You look like fools… Oh god and that little thing with the feet, and who thought it was a good Idea to sing that song?” You and Pietro both look at each other, it was a drunken addition of Singing We will rock you. “Don’t mind her Y/n, she lacks any class, and taste.” and easy as that the tables turned. You looked at Pietro and laughed. After that Pietro excused himself and made sure everything was ready for the trip. Before he actually left the house he yelled. “You only hate us cuz you aint us… Keep your jealousy in check.” You chuckle, shaking your head. But promptly stop when you realize Wand wasn't laughing with you.

In that moment realization hit you like a truck and you almost couldn't believe it. “Oh my god, you ARE jealous!” You stated as an amused grin found its way to your face. “Oh, shut up!” She didn't contradict you, but you could tell she was getting a little uncomfortable so you turned it down. “We can make a handshake if you want?” You state looking at her. She smiles and finally that beautiful, real, and truly breathtaking smile shone through. You could’ve died right then and there and you’d die happy. “I’d really like that…”

[not-all-dead]

"It’s not a surprise when the Chief of Police comes out. There have been betting pools for years, and the announcement is met with mostly indifference. What is a surprise, however, is the interview that comes out alongside the announcement. The interview that is complete with a photoshoot of Lin Beifong in civilian clothes, talking about the challenges of her position. No one can remember the last time the Chief has given an interview, and the photo becomes the talk of the town."

How do you think the interview goes? What would Lin say?

link to (what i believe was) the original post of this! with some amazing art that VERY much helped me write this :DD (by @mgthejerkbender)

i was originally just gonna write a dialogue or notes for this but uh- i got a little carried away so here’s a 3687 word fic of the interview oops

CW: implications of past trauma (mentions of r@pe/s*xual assa*lt, public humiliation, not graphic at all), homophobia, sexism

fic under the cut :)

Lin walked into the room in a soft green turtleneck and dark brown pants that almost looked black without the light. There was sound equipment set up all over the place, with two armchairs in the middle of it all. A desk sat over to the side, a typewriter and paper sitting atop it. Quite a few people were rushing around, making sure that everything was in place for the broadcast. She watched a young woman sit at the desk, prepping the typewriter to transcribe the entire thing.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Lin turned to see a man in his early forties standing with a small journal behind her.

He wore a plain suit with a pale orange tie, his greying hair slicked back neatly. His eyes flitted around the room, checking things briefly for himself before focusing on Lin. He opened the notebook to a page about a quarter of the way through and smiled at Lin, nodding at the chairs behind her.

“Care to sit?” he asked, moving toward the chairs.

She took the seat farthest from where they’d just been standing, shifting to get comfortable while she waited for him to sit and get things rolling. She didn’t want to admit it, but her heart was racing. She hadn’t done anything like this is ages, especially not so casually. The topic of discussion also made her nervous, both because her job was something she rarely spoke of with anyone outside a professional context, and because of the announcement that would come with the interview. She’d encountered plenty of bigoted people in the past, and had no doubt that her officially coming out would only press them to question her position more than usual.

She picked idly at the fuzzballs on her turtleneck until the man sitting beside her cleared his throat. Her head snapped up to look at him, her body tensing briefly before seeing that he was testing the microphones. She sighed and relaxed slightly, speaking into the microphone placed before her when the sound technician prompted her to do so. Once everything seemed to be in place and ready to go, the broadcast started.

“Welcome, listeners, to tonight’s special program. I’m your host, Kaja Posicopolis, here with our esteemed Chief of Police, Lin Beifong. So, Chief, how are you on this fine night?” he started, putting on his radio voice.

“Good, I’m good,” Lin responded, leaning slightly forwards in her seat.

“That’s good to hear. I think I’ll launch right into our questions if you don’t mind, we’ve got a lot to get through tonight,” Lin nodded when he looked over to her, giving him the go ahead.

“Why don’t we start with something positive. What’s your favourite thing about your position as Chief? What about the job brings you the most joy?” he turned to watch her while waiting for her answer.

She looked at the floor for a moment, thinking before speaking.

“I think I’d have to say getting to help people. Ever since I was young I’ve wanted to protect others as much as possible, and being Chief makes that a lot easier and a lot more… legal,” he joined her when she chuckled lightly, but her smile only lasted a moment.

“Of course, I’m not perfect, and there are always times when things go wrong. I can’t say that those times don’t affect me, but I try to think of the people we as a force have helped over the years and that keeps me going,” she took a deep breath and looked to Kaja as he glanced at his notepad.

“That leads right into my next question; how do you do it? Not even your infamous mother was Chief for as long as you’ve been, and her time was already impressive. You’ve given so much to Republic City already, why, and how, do you keep giving?” there was a look of wonder and admiration on his face when he finished the question.

“I grew up in Republic City. It always has been, and will be, my home. And who doesn’t want to protect their home? I think that as long as I live here, I’ll be working to do anything in my power to help the city. I hate watching neighborhoods suffer… actually, I’m working on a plan with President Moon at the moment with the hopes of helping out the poorer parts of the city, providing homes for the homeless, all that good stuff. I just want to see Republic City thriving, and I want to help it get to that point. As I said before, it’s my home; everyone here is part of a community, a family, if you will, and that means everything to me,” Lin leaned back, resting against the cushion behind her, setting her right foot on her left knee.

“That’s a beautiful sentiment, thank you. I love the idea of the city being one big family, and that project sounds like it’ll be very good for the future of Republic City,” Kaja turned his gaze back to his notes, stopping the conversation briefly.

“The next question I have here is less uppity; what has your biggest struggle been with regards to your job?”

“That’s a hard one,” she paused. “I’ve had many struggles with work over my years as Chief, but I think of everything that’s happened… being a woman, and a queer one at that, has definetly taken it’s toll. Other things have been more directly challenging, but that’s been present since day one.”

“Would you care to elaborate on that?” he prompted leaning slightly towards her.

She inhaled and held her breath for a split second before sighing lightly.

“Sure, why not,” she gave a small smile to Kaja before starting.

“When I was much younger, just starting out in the force, I could already see the inherent bias against women that so many male officers held. My mother wasn’t immune to their verbal attacks, though she would give them a good… sparring match, lets say, if they ever so much as laid a finger on her. After a few times, that generally stopped happening, but people would still talk. The number of disgusting, awful things I heard coming from some of those men…” she huffed and shifted in her seat, putting one elbow on her armrest and resting her head on her hand.

“Anyway, I started to pay attention to every little thing. I noticed how many male politicians talked down to my mother, and not because of her blindness. Even a few of the men on our own council at the time would treat her as less-than for no apparent reason.

“I saw it happening in my own life and career, too. How my male counterparts got the promotion before I was even considered, despite performing just as well as them, if not better. How I was never asked for input on supposedly collective decisions or plans, and if I was or tried to interject, I was almost always dismissed. It seemed like any man of higher or equal rank to me thought I was some… assistant to bring him coffee and reports and not do any actual work.

“Seeing that attitude so often pissed me off. I made it my mission to prove myself beyond what was necessary. I wanted to show them that I could do anything they could just as well, sometimes even better. My work paid off eventually and I began to climb the ranks, not letting myself rest for a second. And I wanted to help people as well, of course, but it started out more as wanting to teach those bastards a lesson,” she moved again, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward on her elbows.

“Once I became Chief, a lot of people seemed determined to put me down. Practically every man, be he politician or merchant on the street, told me something insinuating that I was handed the position just because my mother was Chief before me. Every time I wanted to yell at them, to show them records of how hard I’d worked to get there, how much harder I’d had to work than most of my colleagues. With the politicians and other major figureheads, how much harder I’d had to work than they probably had.

“It was frustrating, but I got used to it. It was a constant that came with working a so-called, and I’m not making this up, it’s been said directly to my face before, ‘Man’s job’,” she stopped for a moment and looked over at Kaja, who was staring at her in disbelief.

She couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at his expression before looking back down and continuing.

“There was also the issue of my queerness,” she shook her head and took a deep breath, sitting back as she continued.

“I started working as a proper officer when I was about eighteen. Within my first year working, I was-,” she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth for a second.

“I had an encounter with a man, an older officer who was overseeing the training group I was a part of. He tried to initiate certain… activities with me, none of which I wanted to partake in. I did manage to get rid of him and filed a report against him, but it wasn’t the last time it happened.

“I was a pretty regular customer at a few of the underground bars for people like me at the time. I did my best to hide my face when I left, but there were always times I was careless, or somebody saw me in the seconds I let my guard down. Usually it was no big deal, but occasionally it was someone from work. Once, it was that man.

“He found me at work the next day and asked me about it. Yelled at me, really. He tried to make it seem like that’s why I’d denied him, and the names he called me weren’t pretty to say the least. He started to physically attack me, throwing punch after punch and not giving me the slightest chance to fight back.

“After that day, I stopped going to those bars altogether. The first time I went back to one was actually just a few years ago. I started dating Tenzin a few years later, and though people weren’t so outwardly expressive of their opinions on my relationships, the disapproval was still present.

“By the time Tenzin and I split up, I think some people still suspected my queerness, but it wasn’t a widely adopted theory. I had my fair share of men approach me, some with better intentions than others, and turned down most of them. Some of them didn’t react all that well, and I ended up filing several more reports. I don’t think any of them actually got charged, though.

“I entertained short romances with some men, some women too. Nothing stuck, not really anyway. I kept every relationship very quiet, including those with men, just for the sake of privacy. When I was with women, it was also to avoid getting hate-crimed, but I really did prefer to keep at least some things private.

“In the context of work, there were also challenges. That first superior to try getting at me like that must’ve talked, telling anyone who would listen about my excursions to the underground bars. People looked at me oddly in just about any shared workspace there was, though a few times I made friends because of it. Those were always good times, even if few and far between.

“Some people just gave a judgemental stare or vaguely rude comment every so often, but a few others took it further. Much further,” she looked up to the ceiling as she recalled another story.

“I had a supervisor when I was probably about, oh, twenty seven or so. He was a few ranks below my mother, and I one below him. He decided that one day it would be absolutely hysterical to cover my desk in obscene printed images of women I didn’t recognize, along with toys of a certain nature. I was mortified when I came in and saw the spectacle. The worst part was that almost everyone working in that part of the building at the time laughed with him, and those who didn’t weren’t exactly helpful.

“I didn’t come back to work for a week after that. It was awful, his stupid prank making me so shamed of who I was, who I loved. I know now that my loving both women and men isn’t a bad thing, and is simply part of me. It was harder to accept that, to accept myself, when I saw people like him in positions of power over me.

“I kept working though, and there was never an incident quite like that one again. A few others were more directly hateful than most, but it was easier to deal with. As with people treating me as less because of my gender, I got used to it,” she turned to Kaja, a hint of guilt on her face after talking for so long.

He shook his head, disbelief still spread across his face. His eyes flitted back and forth between floor tiles as he searched for the right words to respond.

“That sounds awful. I’m so sorry you had to deal with people like that,” he looked back up at Lin.

“So am I,” she scoffed, her fingers picking at her turtleneck again.

There was a small silence before Kaja looked back down at his notepad and then at the clock on the wall.

“We’ve got enough time for one last question, so is there anything you’d like to tell young women and queer people living in the city?” His expression was almost hopeful now, desperate to end off on a lighter note.

Lin smiled in amusement at him before looking down at her hands, fiddling her thumbs in her lap. After a moment, she looked back up at him and started speaking again.

“Absolutely,” she began, her gaze drifting around the room and landing on each individual at least once.

“To all the women working your asses off in the workforce: stand up for yourself. Don’t let any man devalue you because of your gender. Be the best you can be and wipe the smiles clean off their faces as you do it. Start your own businesses, get that promotion, set goals for yourself and fly past them. You can do just about anything you put your mind to, despite what many men might say,” her voice was strong, almost commanding as she began her final statement.

“And to all the young queer people out there; you are so, so strong. Keep loving each other, keep being yourselves. I know how awful people can be, but their opinions do not define you. You are perfect exactly as you are, and nothing can change that. It might seem like it’ll never be true, but I believe we will live in a time when acceptance is the norm. I believe that that time, with hard work and patience with those who need teaching, will be here soon.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much for your time, Chief,” Kaja said, looking at the clock again.

“Thank you for having me,” Lin replied, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“And with that, folks, we wrap up today’s special broadcast. I’ll be back in the studio tomorrow resuming our usual radio program. Until then, I’m Kaja Posicopolis, and this is eighty six point four, your favourite music station,” Kaja finished, staying silent for a few seconds until a man from across the room nodded at him.

He rolled his head around and got up from his chair, setting his notepad down behind him.

“How are you now?” he asked Lin as he stretched his arms out and cracked his back.

Lin scoffed and stood, going through a couple of her own stretches. She straightened her shirt and tucked a few stray hairs back before responding.

“I feel like I just stood naked in front of the entire city,” she said, unable to hold back a small smile when Kaja laughed.

“Well, we’re about to expose you even more. You ready for the photo shoot?” he grabbed his notebook and pen and closed them, watching Lin for an answer.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Lin sighed before following him out of the room.

They walked down several long hallways, eventually coming to a large open room. The walls and floor were a pale grey cement, and there were expensive looking lights set up all over the place. A dark green upholstered bench sat to one side of the room, a tall light shining down on it. A few people saw them coming in and rushed around, turning off almost every other light. One of them knocked on a door that was on the other end of the room, calling for someone inside.

“This seems a bit excessive,” Lin muttered, her eyes wandering the room.

“Only the best for you, Chief,” a man said from somewhere in the shadows.

Lin glanced behind her only to see Kaja talking to someone near the door. When she turned back to where the voice had come from, she had to bite back a laugh. She tried not to, but couldn’t help smiling at the absolute glow that radiated from the man in front of her.

“You like my outfit?” he asked with a grin, twirling around for her.

He had on bright red fit-and-flare pants with a stripe of gold sequins down their side; a matching red low-cut tank top; a purple feather-covered knee-length jacket; gold sparkly platform shoes that made him tower over Lin more than he already would have; and a top hat that belonged with a businessman’s black tie attire.

“It’s incredible,” Lin chuckled, crossing her arms casually over her chest.

“You look sharp yourself today, Chief,” he said with a grin, taking a few steps towards her.

Before she could object, he pulled her into a tight hug. His arms squashed her face against his lower chest, making Lin painfully aware of the extent of their height difference. She laughed and patted his arm, thankfully getting him to release her.

“I’m assuming you’re the photographer, then?” she asked, grinning up at him.

He nodded enthusiastically and spun on his heel, walking back into the darkness. She heard a couple of small crashes and a string of profanities before he came back, a large camera and it’s stand filling his arms.

“Uh- where am I going?” he asked Lin, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She let out a small laugh and stepped towards him, placing her hand on his arm. She guided him towards the bench setup, stopping them near where the light stood.

“Thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed, setting down the camera’s stand first and then fastening the camera to it.

“Of course,” Lin breathed, suddenly nervous to have her photo taken.

The photographer immediately noticed her mood change and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make you look,” he closed his eyes and blew a chef's kiss to the side.

Lin nodded and took a deep breath, filling her lungs as much as she could before letting it all out. The photographer made a few adjustments to the camera stand, making sure it would stay while he got her in position, and then led her to the bench. He sat her down in the middle of it and walked back to his camera, dragging the stand loudly over so he was more to her right.

“Don’t be so stiff,” he called, looking at her through the viewfinder and flapping his hand in the air.

“Just- pretend I’m not here, you’re just sitting at home listening to the radio.”

He stepped back from the camera and watched Lin as she settled her head on her left fist with her right elbow on her knee. The photographer gave her a big thumbs up, calling “Much better!” and going back to looking through his camera.

He shifted it a few times before taking any photos, wanting to get it right in as few shots as possible considering the price and rarity of film in stores. Lin looked at the camera for the first few, looking away because of her boredom growing steadily. When he seemed satisfied with the shots, he took the camera off the stand and walked over to the bench.

“Room for another?” he asked, not letting Lin answer before settling himself beside her.

The images printed slowly, one at a time. After each was out, he placed them in the shadow under the bench to protect them from overexposure. Once the last one printed, he reached down and grabbed the first. It had settled well, the colours coming out nice and bright.

“It’s perfect,” Lin gasped, staring in wonder at the photo that managed to make her alright with how she looked out-of-uniform.

The photographer grinned at her, holding the photo up.

“I agree,” he said proudly, forgetting his other photos and standing.

Lin watched as he brought the photo to Kaja, engaging the shorter man in a quick and lively discussion before handing off the photo and walking back. He grinned ear to ear at her, and she sighed before relenting and giving a small smile back.

“Nervous, Chief?” he asked, standing before her with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket.

Lin chuckled and shook her head.

“I just haven’t done something like this in ages… or ever, really,” she said, her hands moving to grip the edge of the bench.

“Hey,” the photographer moved to place a hand on her shoulder, prompting her to look up at him.

“You’re doing great, Chief, trust me,” Lin let out a breath and really smiled at him this time.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, meaning it with every ounce of her being.

[thatslikely]

Seeker Pt. 2 - D.M.

Seeker Part 2- Draco Malfoy x fem!reader (unspecified house but not Slytherin)

Warnings: None! Just a fluffy sequel :)

Word Count: 3.0k

A/N: You can find part 1 here if you haven’t read it already!  Sorry this took so long, I’ve just been trying to make sure its a worthy sequel.  I wanna thank everyone for over 150 notes on Part 1, I never expected such astounding support!  Also keep your eye out for the mini surprise at the end ;)  Also I would really love feedback since this is my first sequel, especially to my first ever fic.

Just a reminder: Y/N is Your Name and Y/L/N is Your Last Name

----

Meet me at our spot tonight at 11.  I’ve missed you.

D.M.

You slid the perfectly-written crisp parchment back into the expensive black envelope it arrived in, to hide it from your nosy dorm-mates.  Draco’s owl perched patiently at the open window of your dorm, barely making a chirp. You handed the well-trained bird a small piece of chocolate, which was previously stowed away in your nightstand, before sitting down at your desk to pen Draco a response.   

The holiday break had been relaxing, especially since you got a long break from Quidditch practices.  You loved Quidditch, you dare say almost as much as Oliver Wood did, but your muscles were perpetually sore, much to your displeasure.

You hadn’t seen the Slytherin Seeker, who you now affectionately call your friend, since the day before break began, and you were desperate to see his handsome smile again.  You missed the glow of his hair in the moonlight, the ambitious and determined look in his eyes before a match, the soft touch of his hands as he held your shoulder or less frequently, your hand.

The line between friend and lover had always been blurred with him; often people accused him of being your boyfriend.  Some days he reluctantly denied it, but some he just gave you a charming wink as he grasped your hand firmly.

It would be idiotic to deny your abundant feelings for him.  At first, it was the subtle ways you’d pick up the little habits about him: how he fiddled with his rings when he was nervous, or how he always polished his broom every afternoon before a game or even the way he swiftly brushed his hand through his platinum blonde hair the moment he saw you walk towards him.

The blush that crept up on his alluring face every time you were near signalled that the feelings were thankfully mutual.  He was painfully obvious, as you were sure you were too, so it was only a matter of time before he’d ask you out on a date to Hogsmeade.   Hopefully, it will even be tonight.

The blonde’s owl had flown away by the time you realized that you had yet to jot him down an answer.  You could always send him an acknowledging wink at dinner since you always purposefully made sure to position yourself for a picture-perfect view of him in all his glory.

Dinner came and went.  The food was delicious per usual, you were constantly glancing at Draco from across the Great Hall, you chatted with your friends about the upcoming Potions test, which Draco would surely insist on helping you study for.  And of course, you sent him a playful wink as promised.

His silver eyes weren’t off you either.  He loved to admire the way your face morphed into a lively laugh or the soft, warm glow that bounced off your face, courtesy of thousands of floating candles overhead.  He loved everything about you, inside and out, and he was ready to show it.

By the time eleven rolled around, you were thoroughly prepared.  You ensured your hair was perfect and your outfit was warm but eye-catching.  You clasped a delicate hand-wrapped forest green box, which’s lid was held on with a beautiful piece of starlight-silver twine.

It was a tradition to get your friends presents upon returning from the snow-speckled break, and Draco would be no exception.  You were certain you would receive no gift in return, but you didn’t care.  Draco, for lack of a closer term, was your friend, so he was no exception to your tradition. 

----

Draco had definitely gone soft on you, and his fellow Slytherins didn’t fail to notice.  Every time he snuck out even a second past curfew to see you at the Owlery, or Astronomy Tower, or anywhere really, they’d crack some sort of joke at both his and yours’ expense.  

He had not only gone soft on you but perhaps the whole school, in a way.  He was less prone to impulsively hexing first years, instead opting for slightly rude remarks.  He was even a tad bit nicer to the Golden Trio. 

He was still smart and sharp as ever though, maybe even paying a little bit more attention in class, in case you needed help studying.  

One thing didn’t change about him though, and that was his attitude regarding Quidditch.  He was fierce and strong as ever, and there was no way he’d back down during a game, even for you.  Even when he wasn’t playing against you, he’d play extra competitively, in an attempt to both intimidate and impress you.

And whenever it was you on the broom and him in the stands, he always cheered for you as loud as his lungs allowed.  You always wondered why his voice was hoarse after you won a match the night before, not thinking that it was his yells that rang the loudest through the pitch.

----

The steps up to the Owlery were icy, just as you were afraid of.  Your knuckle was white from gripping the freezing stone rail up the endless steps.  Finally, though, you reached the top, unsurprised to see that Draco had beaten you up here.  He was always one step ahead, after all. 

“It’s felt like ages since I’ve seen you, Y/N.  How was your holidays?”  His face lightened at the sight of you peeking elegantly through the cracks of moonlight.  You looked as gorgeous as ever.

“It was wonderful!  I got a brand new Quidditch broom, so be prepared to eat my dust, Malfoy,” you said with a smirk.  Your hands rested suspiciously behind your back, carefully concealing Draco’s present. 

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Y/L/N.  Remember, I won’t hesitate to push you off your broom, even if it kills you.”  Draco’s words, even the taunting ones, sounded like the most eloquent poetry to your love-struck heart.  

“Right back at you.  I actually practiced my shoving techniques every morning back home.  I bet I could push you off your broom 23 different ways if I really wanted to.”

Draco chuckled at your comment and you let your sarcastic expression fade into a genuine smile.  The blonde slowly inches even closer to you; your face is eventually so close to Draco’s that you can see every detail imprinted on his pale skin.  He accidentally brushes his ring ornamented hand against yours, causing your cheeks to become pink and warm, imitating the effects of sipping some freshly-steeped tea.   

“Well anyway, I have something for you.  For the holidays, you know.”  Draco pulls out a small black box from his matching black trousers with a charming smile.  His rings reflect the pale moonlight magnificently, and you catch yourself staring at the back of his hands.

You slowly accept the box from his hand, your hand half holding his as you take it.  You say quietly, “You didn’t have to get me a gift, Draco.”

 “I didn’t have to.  I wanted to, love.  I care about you, more than you’ll ever know.”  You felt the corners of your eyes prick with tears at his kind words.  Everything he said somehow managed to hit you directly in the heart.  

You carefully opened the inky-black box.  Draco looked down at you anticipatedly, a hopeful grin painting his face.

Laying perfectly inside of the box was a beautiful, ornate, and expensive silver serpent necklace, identical to the rings that he wore daily.  The glimmering eyes of the snake were magnificent, crystalline emeralds, which precisely matched the bold hue of Slytherin’s Quidditch robes.

Your eyes continued to grow misty; your hand that wasn’t admiring every microscopic detail of the necklace was covering your mouth in awe.  Draco’s lips quirked into a cocky smile at your reaction, clearly pleased with himself.  

Without hesitation, you clasped the necklace around your neck.  You couldn’t stop fiddling with it until Draco grabbed your hand, using the connection to pull your chest into his slowly.  He softly muttered, “I like you, more than you’ll ever know” before leaning in for a kiss.

Draco’s lips on yours were like nothing you’ve ever felt.  He felt magnetic.  You would never be able to let go of this moment, the way his hand cupped your cheek gently, the way your hand glided from his chest to his shoulder, pulling him impossibly closer.  You felt whole.  

When you finally pulled away, your electrified lips yearned to touch his’ again.  Instead of kissing him again though, you barely managed to squeak, “I like you, too.”

----

The next Quidditch match came by faster than you expected, and you were scrambling to prepare for your battle against the Slytherins once again.  Draco had been gloating all day about how much he and the team had improved since your previous game.  

“You may have gotten lucky last match, Y/L/N, but this time you’ll like a first-year learning how to fly next to me.  Do you think the gold of the Snitch will compliment my hair?”  Draco swept his hand through his perfectly-styled platinum blonde locks, a cocky expression unsurprisingly on his face.

“You won’t even have to worry about whether it matches your stupidly gorgeous head of hair or not since it’ll be me who gets it in the first place!”  You retorted, rolling your eyes at him instinctively.    

“Oh, really?” he asked flirtatiously, before giving you a small peck.  The sudden kiss caused you to become so flustered, that you couldn’t do anything but shut up; he grinned triumphantly at your reaction.

The game started not long after yet again another boastful interaction with Draco.  You hovered high above the ground on your new, polished broom, ready to beat your Slytherin ‘rival’ once more.

Draco could be seen across the field, cracking his knuckles in an attempt to look intimidating.  While his Quidditch record would ordinarily frighten a Seeker such as yourself, you knew the real Draco, and he didn’t scare you one bit.  

A booming “brooms up!” echoed through the pitch, and immediately you flew directly to the top of the pitch, looking down at the whizzing flashes of green like a cat peering attentively through a fishbowl.  

Draco soon joined you up at the top of the pitch, following your exact movements just as he had done before.  He spat, “Scared, Y/N?” almost identically to the last match.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you said with a knowing smile.  He playfully rolled his eyes at you, and the corners of his mouth raised to an adorable and goofy smile.  

“Remember, I won’t be going easy on you, even if things are different.  Just because I fancy you doesn’t-” he was quickly cut off by the shimmer of gold seen out of the corner of his eye.  His expensive and sleek black broom immediately flew him to the well-manicured grass that lined the ground of the pitch.

By the time you had caught up with the cocky Seeker, he was mere feet from the Snitch.  You quickly flew to his side so you two were parallel, both of your hands, which had been intertwined so many times before, now opposing each other in the battle for the elusive winged sphere.

It seemed the game that you and Draco had played against each other last time, which results you wished so desperately would repeat, was doomed to change.  He clashed his torso into yours harshly, in an attempt to throw you off.  

Instead of toppling off your broom, you tried to give him a taste of his own medicine; you felt your bones shake after jerking your body weight into him, but he looked as if he had only been hit with the force of a leaf languidly fluttering in the wind.

Draco emitted a snarl after you rammed into his side, but he was undaunted in his pursuit of the Snitch.  His pupils were practically glued to the medal-colored blur, which was darting rapidly in any direction it could.

You knew you couldn’t beat Draco this time.  At least, not like how you had been playing so far.  Your arm was too short, your broom too slow, so you used the last of what little energy you had within yourself to pelt all of yourself, including your heart, at him. 

Instead of colliding into your green-glad admirer as you intended, you were only met with the cold and terrifying emptiness of oxygen.  

The ground felt so close, your tongue could almost taste the metallic copper bite of blood.  You could vividly see the way your side would slam into the spiky grass like a ragdoll, your bloodied nostrils filling with the smells of grass and the morning sun. You could envision players draped in uniforms of clashing hues dashing to your pain-ridden body, ready to carry you to Madame Pomfrey. 

But due to Draco Malfoy, that horrifying situation remained trapped only within the confines of your mind.  

You never thought you could love Draco as much as you did right now.  

His arms were outstretched and strong as you landed into them, light as a feather.  The blonde strands of hair that clung to his forehead in sweat and the unwavering confident look in his eyes drew you closer to him unconsciously.  His biceps, which were nicely toned due to his years of Quidditch, set you gently in front of him on his broom.

He wrapped one of his arms securely around your chest, which soothed your increasingly rapid racing heart exponentially.  His other arm was held high above his head, valiantly boasting the Snitch that resided within his glove-covered hands.

The crowd that resided in the green and grey towers of the pitch were erupting with joy.  You were almost too shocked from your near-fall to roll your eyes at his huge display of cockiness and pride, keyword being almost.  You leaned your head against his chest, listening to the ego-boosted beating of his heart, a stark contrast from your own.

The final moments before the two of you drifted to the ground were spent with him cheering in pride, and you taking comfort from his compassionate embrace.  And maybe you were wafting in a bit of his pleasant-smelling cologne, too.

----

Your house’s common room looked dreary and deflated, comparable only to that of a seven-year-old’s birthday party- where nobody bothered to show up.  While everyone was sympathetic for you, you couldn’t help but sense a slight tinge of resentment hidden beneath every soft pat on the back or obligatory smile.  

The Slytherin common room, however, was filled to the brim with its cunning house-members.  Firewhiskey was flowing through the crowd like pouring rain after centuries of drought.  The music was pounding so loud that the intricate chandeliers hanging from the top of the dungeon were shaking violently along with the beat. 

Draco and his posse stood at the corner of the alcohol-drenched room, leaning against the signature green walls, away from the large mob of partiers that had accumulated in the center.  

While the Firewhiskey normally would have clouded the blonde’s head by now, tonight his mind was crystal-clear.  

He couldn’t get Y/N out of his head, and frankly, he didn’t want to.  He should be focused on how utterly heroic he was during the Quidditch match or his huge victory for Slytherin.  But instead, he thought about how you felt under his arm, how your head softly rested on his chest.  It felt like the final puzzle piece had been placed, his love and need for you cemented.

He wouldn’t be able to live without your embrace again, he was sure of that, but maybe he wouldn’t even be able to last five more minutes.

He muttered a quick, “I’ll be back,” to his surrounding house-mates before shoving his green half-full cup of Firewhiskey into one of their hands.  He walked confidently through the mob of intoxicated partiers towards the enchanted stone wall exit.  

His eyes darted around the corridor as he paced towards your common room.  You wouldn’t be found in your common room, however, for the sulking of your house-mates was too much to bear.  

You instead could be found seated at a desk in the library, channeling your pent-up guilt from your performance at the Quidditch match into vigorously studying for a Potions exam on Monday.  

Your beat-up textbook was littered with dog-eared pages and bookmarks scribbled with helpful messages; it lay open on the page for Amortentia.  Your hand gripped your quill tightly, carving notes onto your piece of parchment.  Your eyes were briskly darting from one word to the next.

You were so wrapped up in your work that you didn’t notice that Draco had taken a seat next to you, enraptured in your presence.  His elbow lay pressed on the desk, head in his hand.  Your concentration was broken with a clear of his throat, followed by, “Hey darling, what’re you doing?”

“I’m studying,” you said, before adding meekly, “for Potions.”

“Oh love, you know I could’ve helped you,” he said with a disappointed smile.  His eyebrows furrowed as he flipped through your notes, noticing you were writing about the infamous love potion.  You let the quill in your hand go, letting your hand melt under Draco’s large palm. 

In an attempt to cheer you up, he said, “You know, I have a hunch on what I would smell in Amortentia, want to know what it is?” you nodded, “tea, warm autumn’s breeze, and maybe the faint smell of sweaty Quidditch robes.”

You let out a small laugh, adorning your now-pink face with a genuine smile.  “You know what I would smell?  Expensive cologne, green apples, and maybe a bit of sweetness under a cold exterior.”

“I’m not sweet, but if I was it’d only be for you,” Draco said with a sarcastic grumble.  

You looked up at Draco, who simply let his eyes take in all of you, adoring every single angle of your body.  The loving look in his eyes was enough to make your heart explode; your legs felt like jelly and your heart was beating out of your chest so loudly, you were sure he could hear it.

And soon he could, as his body grew slowly closer and closer to yours.  You pressed your forehead against his’, his molten silver eyes piercing through your own.  

Finally, after moments of staring longingly at each other, you tugged his green and grey pin-striped tie in for a kiss.

----

(Bonus) Epilogue:

The Three Broomsticks was filled to the brim with students from the Wizarding School across the bend.  Tables were littered with half-drank glasses of butterbeer; a few students could be seen snogging in the back booths of the tavern.  

You sat across from Draco Malfoy, your amazing boyfriend, as he rambled endlessly about Potter.  You weren’t listening to a word about the famous Gryffindor, instead, you were watching the way his lips articulated every word that spilled from his mouth.

“Right, darling?” Draco asked expectantly.

You nodded supportively.  Draco, instead of looking satisfied, quizzically asked, “so you think I should poor my butterbeer all over your head?  I’d be happy to.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening.  You just look so good when you talk, I got distracted.”

“It’s fine, love.  Well, I’m glad we finally got to go to Hogsmeade together.”

“After three months too!  Why couldn’t you have taken me sooner?” you asked overdramatically, tugging on your bag full of sweets from Honeydukes.  

“I’m sorry, but I seem to recall it’s your fault.  Study, Quidditch, study, Quidditch, study, Quiddit-”

“Okay, okay.  I get it.  I’m just not as naturally smart as you, Mister Potions Master.”  You rolled your eyes as he grinned at his title.

“Do you only flatter me so I do your essays for you?  Because if so, I hate to admit it’s working.”  He tucked a loose piece of your hair out of your face and behind your ear tenderly.

“Oh, Draco.  You don’t need to know.”  You fiddled with the silver serpent necklace that hangs around your neck that had been kissed so many times.  

You were head over heels for Draco.  Luckily, you were all his, and you would be forever. 

[anika-ann]

State Your Name (for the Record) - S.R.

Type: One-shot, Reader Insert, emotional H/C

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader       Word count: 5560

Summary:  For a man haunted by nightmares, waking up was an ambivalent process.

For a man in love, the pros outweighed the cons. And make no mistake, Steve Rogers was a man in love. 

In which Steve feels blue, but he can count on his girl to raise his spirits – especially since she can convince his whole team to do something nice for him.

Warnings: implied mission going not so well, angst, crying, self-doubts,  swearing ,fluff and cheesiness of the highest order

Waking up was an everyday process most people considered unpleasant.

For a man haunted by nightmares, either made up by his traumatised mind or simply by pressing re-play on one from the stack of torturous memories, the action was both relieving and exhausting.

Waking up meant the nightmares were over; waking up meant he had to pick himself up and, despite all odds, face another day, even when his body ached and his soul seemed too tired, yet determined to continue to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

For a man in love, the pros outweighed the cons. And make no mistake, Steve Rogers was a man in love.

A woman he proudly called his girlfriend was nothing less than everything he could wish for; she carried beauty in features she considered imperfect, she never failed to make him smile for at least a fraction, her laughter filled his chest with delight as it lit up the room and she was gentle and dorky to a fault. And for he was willing to give her the world, she reciprocated his feelings to full extend.

Waking up next to the woman he loved was what always won over the desire to bury his face under the covers and tell the world to let him fucking rest.

He even cherished waking up with you. Hell, if he could squeeze in a morning run between the time he got up and you did, the better. He loved pulling you from your dreamland, even when you had clearly been dreaming a sweet dream, your lips gently curled up in a smile; because every time he tenderly welcomed you in a new day, your smile would turn brighter.

Which was exactly the reason why, when he opened his eyes today and found your side of the bed – how bold of him to call it that, when you usually slept in his embrace anyway, keeping his heart warm while he did the same for your body – empty, he knew that day would downright suck.

Steve muttered a curse under his breath, running his hand down his face as he forced himself to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

You weren’t exactly a proclaimed early riser, so not only that your absence was unnerving and painful, because today more than at any other day Steve would beg for you to be there when he entered the reality, but it was also slightly disconcerting.

He tried not to read more into it and as he glanced at the clock, he knew shouldn’t – after all, he had been informed you would be gone at that time.

Still though, dark thoughts were sometimes hard to chase away. Thoughts regarding you avoiding him. He hated when he was pulling your bright spirit down, dragging you into the shadows of his world, bloody and violent, fearsome and traumatising, offering nothing but bruises, cuts, stab-wounds and shot-wounds, broken bones and broken minds.

Whenever he came back to you from a mission – a bad one, in particular – and you offered him comfort, kindness and understanding that rationally didn’t have any base since you weren’t a soldier of any kind, he questioned whether this was the last time. Whether this was the last drop into the metaphorical goblet of your patience with which it would overflow and you would finally break things off with him after a year being together, living with him for half of that time.

Steve closed his eyes, recalling your words from yesterday, ones that, at the time, fell to deaf ears.

“It wasn’t your fault,�� you soothed him when he told you what had happened, how he had messed up and nearly got Natasha killed, which had resulted in Clint yelling at him for being incompetent for leading the team. “From what I hear, anyone would have made the same decision on their best conscience if they received the same intel – hell, this was the best option, they could have decided worse. You’re a great leader. And an amazing friend. The fact you’re beating yourself over something that was beyond anyone’s control only proves it. Let the guilt go.”

He had basked in your embrace and soothing voice, but the message you had been trying to send was not quite getting through, leaving him restless and feeling uneasy, drowning in self-doubt and pain.

Of course, being a bioengineer, having been the one to help developing actual painkillers and anaesthetics for him, you had also basically shoved the former down his throat because of his healing broken ribs, which caused him to sleep through your alarm and wake up at shamefully late hour.

Which meant he missed you and you had already must be on your way to France for symposium of biogenetics.

As if it wasn’t enough that he was questioning his yesterday’s decisions, his position in the team as a leader and a person to be begin with, and his life choices overall you weren’t here.

Maybe Clint was right; he might have been a captain, but in a name only. He fucked up royally and it could have cost his dear friend her life. He wasn’t what he had used to be. This century offered people much stronger, smarter and more capable than him, easily being able to replace him in the position.

His gut twisted at that idea, but perhaps this could be the time he should make space for someone else and just follow orders. Hell, he never wanted to lead in the first place! Not when he had first joined the army nearly a hundred years ago.

His sigh was the only sound in the screaming silence of the bedroom and Steve pushed himself to his feet, not surprised at all that his ribs only echoed the previous pain, and shuffled to the bathroom to have a shower.

Too sleepy and cranky to notice it earlier, he only found a sticky note – possibly having been on the mirror but peeling off because of the steam from the shower – in the bathroom sink.

Unwittingly, his lips curled up in a small smile when he recognized your messy handwriting.

Morning, Stevie. Find a little thing in our kitchen :)

Not bothering to wear more than his boxers, he obediently walked to your private kitchen. You both enjoyed breakfast with the team in the communal kitchen, but there were times you wanted some privacy, revelling in the moments you could have only for yourselves.

Kitchen? Had you managed to make him breakfast? Steve wasn’t hungry, his insides too tight for that, his mind too heavy, but he appreciated the gesture anyw-

He frowned when he found his laptop on the counter instead, a flash drive lying on top of it with another note. He wondered how could he not wake up with you moving around the apartment.

Please, play ‘PLAY ME’ video. I think it’ll be worth it. xxx

Steve found himself tilting his head to side, curious and confused. He couldn’t imagine you leaving something of a-- dirty nature for him, knowing the mood he had been in last night and yesterday in general. Sex was usually not the best way of cheering him up in such situation. As embarrassing as it might seem, he was more of a cuddler at times like these.

Not bothering with fixing himself breakfast, debating Natasha was probably still asleep in her bed in the med bay, he seated himself on the bar stool and heard out your plea.

He was not by any means ready for what was waiting for him after pressing play.

Whoever was filming was apparently not very good at it as the screen appeared to be shaking, but in the end, the device must have been placed on a steady surface and actually zoomed onto something concrete instead of showing a blur.

What surprised him more though was that it was Clint’s voice sounding from the speakers of his laptop, even before the screen showed his face.

“You for real? Do you realize what time it is…? --Oh, not as late as I thought actually. Ugh, okay. I guess that’s fair. You’re actually making this easier for me, you know that?”

Steve frowned, gulping as the voice of his teammate turned from annoyed to surprised to grateful. All of the emotions were far from what Steve had been met with yesterday’s afternoon after the mission.

The archer was seated on an empty bed in med bay, probably alone in the room (unless Steve counted the person who was filming), because there were no intrusive sounds. Steve wasn’t taken aback by the environment he found him in – after all, Clint probably spent a lot of time there, watching over his partner in both work and personal life. He fidgeted before looking directly to the camera.

“Okay. Here we go. Hey, Cap. Steve. I’m sorry. I… I shouldn’t have yelled at you yesterday. I was being an ass,” he admitted, the annoyance back – this time though, it looked as if the source of his indignation was Clint himself. “You know… you know Tasha’s my whole world and seeing her almost blown up… it got the best of me. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. In fact, I think I’d give the same order. So… I’m sorry.”

Steve gulped, not entirely convinced. If he was being honest, the seeds of doubts had been planted and while Clint’s apology did lift some of the weight from Steve’s shoulders, genuinely appreciated, his mood remained rather sour and gloomy.

Confusion never left him either. He was 95% percent sure you had been the one to film the apology, but the reason behind such action was escaping him. Had Clint left with you, hence apologizing like this instead of in person? That wasn’t right. Why would he go with you?

Turned out, expecting that that was it, the end of the recording, was a mistake. The recording went on and Steve only now noticed what length the timer actually showed. It would go for… several minutes, actually.

That was strange.

Clint on the screen fidgeted and took a deep breath, exchanging a look with of whom Steve assumed was you.

“The truth is, I wouldn’t trade places with you. Like, ever. The pressure we put on you must be unbearable. I think we forget about that sometimes, what a toll it has to take on you. The responsibility on your shoulders has to weigh a fucking ton. We don’t say thank you enough and when we do, you shrug it off, because that’s what you do. Because you think that’s what’s expected of you.”

Steve blinked in surprise, the words striking him right in his chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. What… why would Clint say that?

“And it is, but I want to tell you we appreciate it. We do. To actually fulfil my assignment, I should phrase it differently. I appreciate your modesty, your determination and the fact I can always rely on you. Except when your lady’s around. Then you kinda get lost in-”

A terribly aimed slipper hit the archer in his shoulder and the corners of Steve’s lips automatically twitched in amusement. Oh yeah, it was definitely you behind the camera, now he was sure. Familiar warmth spread around his heart when he realized you wanted to prove him that Clint not only didn’t blame him, but appreciated him even.

What had Steve even done to deserve you?

“-ouch!” the man in the recording complained, pretending to be wounded. “What? It’s the truth—fine. You’re just- you’re great, man, alright? That’s it.”

Steve nearly went for his phone that very second, wanting to let you know how much he loved you, even though his doubts didn’t go away.

The picture changing in a sharp cut made him stop as he spotted a flash of red hair.

Natasha. She was awake. It was undoubtedly her and in a recent footage, because Steve recognized that wound on her head – and she was lying in a hospital bed.

What in the world even…?

The tension in his shoulders eased despite his heart racing. She was smirking even.

“Hey there, you righteous guilty-driven ass!” she greeted him, only to be scolded by your voice from behind the camera.

“Nat!“

“I swear I’m about to make a point!” the spy protested, raising her uninjured hand in a gesture of surrender. “So from what I understand, you’ll get this video only in the morning and by that time, you’ll have already checked up on me for three times – or four, unless you bothered to find this recording first thing after waking up – despite doctors telling you I’d be fine every time you do.”

That-- was unsurprisingly accurate. What Natasha said was true – Steve had checked up on her three times before you had talked him into finally going to bed to get some sleep and he had been thinking about stopping by first thing after finishing this video.

It was almost infuriating how much Natasha knew him, but Steve was too relieved she was awake, speaking and calling him out on his bullshit to care.

“‘cause you’re fussing, Rogers. You’re a mother hen.”

Steve sighed. She was right once more. He had been said such, multiple times. But he felt responsible for his team, for his friends and you and he had seen too many deaths in both the past and the modern times to not to fuss.

“But you know what? We bitch about it, but we love it,” Natasha announced, her smirk softening into a smile. “Let’s be honest; our team needs a babysitter. Clint and Tony are giant children with dangerous weapons, not to mention oh so mighty Thor, I admit I can get cocky just to prove myself in the sea of testosterone from all of you and Bruce… you always try to get him in, showing him that he’s worthy as both the Hulk and his human self. You’re a mother hen with giant heart and you’re baring it for us, carrying it on your sleeve and putting in into everything you do. So… keep rolling. And for god’s sake, do not visit me again.”

Terrible wink followed, very unsubtle, as if she was telling him she was only kidding, but at the same time not quite, because he was overdoing it with his mother-henning.

And Steve found himself laughing at the glint in her eyes, feeling tears forming in his own. His limbs felt strangely floaty, as did his head. He couldn’t remember receiving so much compliments and support in a very long time, certainly not from the former assassin duo.

The sensation was pleasant, but oh so unusual, he couldn’t even describe it.

Of course, the fact you had orchestrated this whole this was not helping his lovesickness. It was hard to tell whether it was day or night from the footage, when exactly you did this, but he was aware of how nervous you were about the symposium. You should have been going through your notes for your presentation (for like… the tenth time, because for all your brilliance, you were a very nervous speaker, a bit like Bruce); instead, you spent your spare time doing this, only to make Steve feel better.

And the video was far from being over.

Surely enough, the scenery changed again, the camera aimed at a computer screen this time. Steve didn’t understand until he recognized Thor, who was currently spending his time with Jane Foster in New Mexico, video-conferencing with you.

“Unbelievable,” Steve muttered under his breath, amazed.  

“What is it, lady of Captain’s?” the alien demigod asked, frowning at the screen of his own computer. “This way of communication is still confusing, why are you writing when we can talk together? …Oh.”

The blond was silent for a moment, appearing in deep thought, before smiling broadly.

“Very well. What is of the Captain’s qualities. He’s a mighty warrior. A brave man I would always follow into battle without question. Excellent leader, always having his garrison’s safety in mind-“

A sting of guilt burned at Steve’s consciousness at that.

Did he? He always tried, sure… but was it enough? Yesterday’s incident was proving the opposite, yet he had been acting in utter belief that what he had decided was for the best, confident that the risk for his teammate was minimal. That was the problem with bad intel; they never knew it was bad until something blew up in their faces, sometimes literally. He could never predict what had happened.

And with each minute of this video, Steve felt he was letting a piece of the guilt go, along with doubt.

He wasn’t stupid; he knew that precisely that was the point of this thing, but… yeah, that realization did nothing against the fact that it was working.

“Steven radiates strength, both bodily and mentally and he is a great friend of all,” Thor on the screen continued in his loud voice. “I feel blessed by the Allfather and all Gods above for I encountered him and fought side-by-side with him as well celebrated victories. I look forward for more to come, always delighted by reconnecting with him.”

By the time Bruce in his lab coat appeared (seriously, how did you manage to get a hold of everyone? Steve wasn’t sleeping for that long, though it probably helped that half of his team, if not all, were insomniacs), Steve was breathless with anticipation, greedy for hearing what others had to say, no matter how selfish it made him.

He craved comfort and since you weren’t there… you obtained a different kind of comfort for him and shit, was it working.

“Uh. I’m not good at this-”

“Try? Please?” you asked the scientist softly and Steve could imagine your soothing smile, the gentle hope and plea in your eyes. Steve could never deny you when you asked something of him like that and when you stooped even lower and used your puppy eyes, he stood no chance.

“He’s lucky to have you, you know,” Bruce noted and Steve’s smile widened when you sounded flustered at that remark.

“Bruce…”

“What? You’re an important part of him we appreciate. But I understand complimenting you isn’t the point of this. Just let me… eh. Alright. I think I got it. I’m not good at talking, but I’m gonna try,” he exclaimed, clearly determined. He wasn’t looking directly into the camera, but that didn’t steal any significance from his words.

“Steve, I hope you don’t beat yourself over what happened yesterday. I mean… I know you do, but my point is – don’t. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. You do what you believe is right and we know you long enough to know that that moral compass of yours is as important as your quick decisions in the field – right ones. But what is even more important and why I appreciate you is that… you try to see that piece of goodness in everyone. You see it in Nat, who sure made some questionable things in the past. You see through Tony’s façade and… you see good in me. You look and you see good in people – and every creature – and that’s the best thing about you. Ugh… yeah, I don’t think I can do more.”

He smiled awkwardly, fiddling with his fingers then and lowering his gaze.

It was easy to imagine what – or rather who – was coming next. Steve wasn’t confident he could take it. He had felt an uncomfortable stinging in his eyes two people back, few tears at bay, but he wanted to watch the rest.

The floating sensation overwhelmed his brain and he was honestly surprised he was still breathing, because he felt too stunned to do so. And he felt… moved. Appreciated. Cherished. Hell, he even felt the confidence he needed in the field to the exact quick decisions Bruce had mentioned slowly returning.

His team, his friends… they trusted him. They doubted him less than he doubted himself.

The picture got blurry once more, Tony’s incredulous voice crystal clear.

“So you want me to make a video equivalent of a love letter to him,” the billionaire stated sceptically and despite himself, Steve grinned.

Tony was a complicated person, but leave it to him to be sarcastic and lift the spirit in his own very specific way.

“No! That’s not- Tony. Please?”

“You know, this puppy eyes shit only works on Rogers, not-“ he wavered and Steve laughed as the recording cleared and focused on Tony’s torn expression. Oh, he was going to give in to Steve’s amazing girl, Steve could tell. “-shit. I can’t believe you’re making me do this. You’re infuriating.”

“I know,” you sing-sang as Tony sunk further into the chair in his workshop. “And thanks.”

“Fine. Hey, Capsicle.”

Steve could practically hear your eyeroll at the nickname and for a good measure, he rolled his eyes too. Capsicle. It used to irritate him more, the word Stark used the first time they met. Now it was-- Steve was only mildly annoyed when Tony called him that. There were worse names he had been called.

“Steve. I bet you know, unlike like Miss America over here, that I only give nicknames to people I like,” Tony made a point, looking at you with a smirk and Steve was sure a light-bulb appeared above his own head as he realized that… it actually made sense.

“There aren’t many of those and even less of them realize that they are part of that exclusive club. Look, I do stupid shit. I built robots for fun and to cover for the fact I couldn’t exactly fight without them, and I’m terrible with people. Fury didn’t even want me on the Avengers initiative, because I’m known for being a selfish bastard and not a team player, which you recognized within five minutes of meeting me.”

Steve felt rather bad for such an early assumption. Admittedly, he had been harsh on the man, letting the information he had received cloud his judgement and became a willing victim of prejudice. Hearing Tony self-reflecting his faults, eating the humble pie, it only proved how wrong Steve had been. Hell, Tony had turned out to be the man to make the sacrifice the very same day Steve had accused him of his inability to do so.

Which was why Tony’s next words knocked the air out of Steve’s lungs very effectively, striking his heart with deadly precision. He honestly had no idea what to do with the knowledge he obtained now.

“The thing is, your stupid blond ass is making me want to change that. I hate saying this, because I’m aware it can be used against me, but you’re my friend. I respect you and I admire you. You inspire people. I will always brag about the time I carried a nuke into a wormhole, but the truth is, as much as I liked Coulson and his death was something that brought us together, without you, I don’t think I would have done it. I will bitch about you, I will call you names, I will be an arrogant ass, because that’s who I am, but it won’t change the fact I look up to you. …‘kay. I think that I did ok-- are you crying?”

Steve shook himself, for a moment swearing Tony could see him and spoke directly to him. He quickly blinked away the few tears, shocked to his very core.

Tony… was claiming to take the risk of dying during the battle of New York, because… Steve had inspired him? What the actual-

“Shut up,” you murmured at Tony’s accusation and Steve couldn’t blame you one bit for the tears he couldn’t see. He was such a mess himself. This was too much.

What Tony had said, what you had done for him, what everyone shared through this recording--

He wanted to close the laptop shut and deal with the raging sea of emotions, the silly laugh and tears threatening to spill in waterfalls, the feeling of his heart swelling and nearly bursting in his chest, making it difficult to breathe, his head spinning-

But the video was still not over.

The scenery didn’t quite change, except the chair Tony had been sitting in was empty now, his voice sounding as he spoke from a different angle to the device.

“Come on, doc, you have to do this too, otherwise it won’t count. Do it for the old man. Should I leave so my virgin ears don’t bleed on the dirty things you-“

“Tony… shut up.”

Steve could hear your sigh and heavy hesitant steps and then you appeared in the frame, seating into the chair with a discontent frown, fidgeting nervously.

Steve thought his mouth might actually tear with how widely he was smiling now. You were adorable as the camera revealed you in all your glory – Steve’s long t-shirt you usually slept in and a pair of baggy sweatpants you wore when you were cold, as well as a light sweater thrown over your shoulders. Which, given how tired you looked, made sense, because you were always cold when you didn’t get enough sleep.

Steve hadn’t thought he could get any more touched by what you did, but seeing you now, he assessed the sacrifice you had made just to make him feel better all over again, the severity of your actions hitting him.

What you had done must have been a spontaneous action; you had actually filmed all of those things in the late night and early morning. Tired, with no make-up on yet, but smiling that nervous sweet smile, you tucked a loose strand of your hair behind your ear. You were not looking to the camera, worrying your teeth over your lip.

“Okay, okay…. Please, look directly to the camera and state your name and date of birth for the record,” Tony encouraged you, indulging the moment your roles reversed.

“I’m not doing that,” you hissed, but then you raised your gaze and Steve’s heart stopped. Despite the exhaustion on your face, your eyes radiated warmth and tenderness. “Hey, Stevie. I guess Tony has a point for once-“

“Hey-!“

“-and since I came up with this, I should contribute. But where do I even start?” you wondered as if you truly had to wonder, as if there were too many things to point out. Steve craved having you in his arms to hug you profusely and kiss the living daylight of you for being so sweet and precious.

“And they all gave names to your qualities so well! Uhm… now, I don’t have a first-hand experience with your Avenging, so I can leave out this part of you, but there is still so much to love about you. First of all, you’re kind. Such a gentle soul, such a giver. You’ve been kicked down so many times and yet here you are, not yelling at me when I eat too much chocolate and then complain about stomach-ache and my belly being too soft-“ Steve chuckled at that, recalling way too many times that situation occurred. “I bet that watching this video, you’re still thinking I look cute instead of acknowledging I look like shit. Because you seek the beauty in everything and you love the world. It was one of the first things I noticed about you-“

“Right after his ass and muscles, no doubt mesmerized by his sky-blue eyes,“ Tony hummed from the background, effectively startling Steve who had honestly let the fact that Tony was even there slip from his mind, too lost in your love declarations.

“Fuck you, Tony. And his eyes are not sky-blue, they have a little green in them.“

“Really? Jarvis, show me a good picture…”

“Anyway. You give so much and don’t ask anything in return. Sometimes I can see how much you want to, but you never do. It’s like you don’t expect to get it anyway, not even the little things. As if you didn’t deserve it. Newsflash, Stevie, you do. You deserve the world. I wish I could give it to you…”

Oh, you’re doing that, sweetheart, Steve wished to tell you, but even if he had you on the phone at the moment, he wouldn’t be able to say a word with his throat constricted with the overwhelming emotions.

“And the world itself won’t come crushing down over a mistake that wasn’t even in your power to avoid and it won’t break down if you take a breath and relax. I always think I’m on the right way to convince you about that, but then you shy away from it. You matter, Stevie. You, Steven Grant Rogers, matter so much. Everyone pointed out at least one thing about you and not the Captain and that’s not a coincidence. Despite everything, you’re only human, we remember that and we all love you for it.”

“Some more than others…” Tony interrupted again, his voice carrying a hoarseness as if he was affected by your speech as well. You pointedly ignored him.

“Don’t forget that. I have it from a good source that a guy once told you that everything special about you came from a bottle. We both know that’s a load of bullshit. Even Doctor Erskine recognized how special you were and decided to choose you. Good becomes great, you told me he said. Well, sure. It just needed an opportunity to show. Let’s be honest, I have no doubt that your stubbornness and other tiny flaws amplified too, because you’re unbelievable sometimes, but that’s okay. In the end, you’re the best man I have ever met and I am lucky and feel proud to be called yours. I love you, Stevie. So much,” your voice lowered to a whisper and with a tight smile, you lightly kissed your fingers and nearly touched the lens of the camera.

Steve choked on a watery laugh. You really were too cute for words. A brilliant scientist, one of the most intelligent women the world knew, and here you were being adorable and utterly devoted to him.

Christ, he didn’t deserve you.

“Stupid allergies…” Tony complained, fooling no one as his voice came out scratchy from the lump that no doubt formed in his throat. “You done?”

To Steve’s utter surprise, you shook your head, drying a stray tear that escaped your eyes as well, but the corners of your lips twitched in attempted smile.

“Just a sec. I’m sorry, I want to edit this video more, cut some parts out, but I’ll probably run out of time and I want you to have it in the morning. It’s a bit messy, but I hope with all my heart that you received the message loud and clear.” You have no idea. “Also, sorry for the killer dose of painkillers and sneaking out without a goodbye. I’d be pissed if you did that to me, so… you know, sorry. I promise to make it up to you when I’m back-”

“Ouch, ouch! That’s what I was talking about, I did not want to hear that! I’m scarred for life!” Tony howled dramatically and Steve didn’t even had energy to roll his eyes. He was a complete mess.

“Tony? You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re too good to be true, doc. I think you gotta get on the plane in like thirty minutes, so-“

A look of utter shock and horror appeared on your face and you jumped from the chair with admirable energy for such an early hour and the all-nighter you pulled. “Shit, shit shit-- I’m not gonna edit it at all then, dammit-“

“Nah, I bet it’s better without it, more authentic. Go write a note or something equally sickeningly sweet that you romantics do-”

“Turn it off, you goof!” you giggled, reaching for the camera and the screen went black as if on command.

Steve sat on the bar stool for several minutes, staring on the screen absently, grinning and feeling… so indescribably loved he couldn’t quite contain it.

What you had done-

Feeling like an idiot for not doing it earlier, he sprang towards the bedroom to get his phone, typing a message to you. If he remembered correctly, you might still be on your way, but sometimes it was hard to tell with Tony’s inventions.

S: Have a safe flight and nice stay, sweetheart. You’ll rock. x

S: And thank you for what you’ve done. I don’t deserve you.

His heart skipped a beat when the phone chimed in response almost instantly.

♥: Clearly, you weren’t paying enough attention when watching. Go play it again, Stevie.

He grinned. Apparently, despite the lack of sleep and the nerves he had seen every time you had thought of your presentation, you were fine.

His heart felt too big for his ribcage, squishing his lungs as it grew in size, barely being able to let out a laugh.

S: I did!

S: Correction then: thank you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ll always be grateful for you and I love you more than anything.

This time, he expected the early comeback.

♥: Love you too. Miss you already! xxx

Steve set the phone down with a goofy smile plastered over his face and went to watch the video again – the part with you anyway.

He could go and check on Natasha later. After all, she told him not to do that again anyway.

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

S.R. masterlist

⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊰

I should be posting Errare Humanum Est and Attached, but I was feeling a bit down and overwhelmed with schoolwork, so I dusted off this baby for you. I hope you enjoyed :-*

Steve deserves some love from his girl and from his teammates. I actually considered writing this with few alternations so it was Peter doing the video (as a non-relationship kind of thing), but I guess this is even sweeter... in a romantic way anyway.

Thank you for reading!

[actuallybarb]

The Aftermath ~ Part 2

Summary: y/n gets knocked around by a water monster, has secret-sharing time with peter, and decides mj is more important than her pride. sleep deprivation and caffeine consumption are definitely involved. 

Pairing: peter parker x reader

Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, mysterio being a dick, trauma, it’s marvel what did you expect

Word Count: 3978 give or take

A/N: endgame is canon, *vomits*, but we’ve all got a thing for broken peter parker, even if all i want is his never ending happiness

                                                         ///////////

“I can’t believe you punched Flash.” Brad, of course, decided to sit next to me on the gondola ride to the hotel. Figures.

“You better believe it, ‘cuz it actually happened.” I tried to pay as little attention to him as possible and just take pictures on my phone, but he kept talking.

“Why don’t you like me?”

I groaned. “Because, Brad, you ask stupid questions like that.”

We pulled up to the hotel and were all sufficiently underwhelmed.

“It’s flooded!”

“The hotel is sinking?”

I considered helping the hotel out, at least while we stayed at it, but there wasn’t much hope left for it. I took my room key and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have a room on the ground level. In fact, I was sharing with MJ. I waited patiently behind her as she jiggled the door open.

“Is it safe to assume the building will crumble any second now?”

MJ burst out laughing. “I think that’s an understatement.”

“If I get TB, I’m suing.”

“The hotel?”

“Harrington.”

She smiled. “C’mon, let’s get outside before we drown.”

We walked along the water and let the sun happily reflect on our exhausted faces. Everyone was enjoying themselves, but I was starting to feel queasy. It was almost imperceptible, but I could feel the city moving with the water, and it was making me sick. I started lagging back and tried to find my “sea legs,” but Peter noticed and stuck back too. “You alright?”

I plastered on a weak smile. “That long flight is catching up with me. I’m just going to grab an espresso, I’ll meet up with you guys soon.” He looked at me one more time before nodding and meeting the rest of the group.

I didn’t completely lie — I was getting an espresso. But I wasn’t going to catch up with them, at least, not for a while. I needed to get away from the water, even just for a little bit.

I can’t fly, per se. I can control the air currents around me and change them how I want them too, like I did on the airplane with the turbulence. I can do that with most elements, (except wood, I hate wood) and that gives me a heightened awareness of them. I’m basically the Avatar and the characters from Percy Jackson. All I have to do is shave my head and tattoo blue arrows on my body. (And, yes, I did watch all seven seasons of the two series and read all ten Percy Jackson books to actually figure out what the hell it was that I could do. It helped. Clearly.)

I just lifted myself to the top of the coffee shop. I’m a sucker for espresso, I like to be close to it. The distance helped. I felt grounded enough to walk on the normal streets of Venice again, but when I touched down, I suddenly lurched to the right.

“What the hell,” I muttered. I got my answer soon enough. A huge river monster was crashing its giant water arms on anything it could see. And I was directly in its path. “Oh, shit.”

I shouldn’t have been as terrified as I was. I mean, come on, I can control water. Dissipate the water man, Y/N, I can almost hear you yelling at me. Shut up, I was scared. This thing was twice as tall as any of the buildings, and it had a direct path to anywhere in the city. Me, a seventeen year old girl, against that? Not a good idea.

So, like any logical human being, I ran. And I still got clobbered with water and ended up actually falling into the water. Let me just tell you, Italy needs to get a Brita, ‘cause their river is nasty.

But, once I was actually in the water, the river monster looked a lot less intimidating. Sure, the water was churning around and sucking everything into its path, but I was in my element — literally. I got close to it, like, really close. I pushed against the flow of the water and tried to stop the monster from forming, and it worked, for a little bit. It slowed down, and I got some newfound momentum, when all of the sudden, it all stopped, and tons of water crashed to the surface. That was my cue to leave, but then something caught my eye. A flash of metal was in the water. Luck would have it, though, that I could bend water and metal (shout out to Toph Beifong). I latched onto the metal and pulled it close to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Didn’t mean I would trash it though, this water was disgusting enough. I tucked it in my pocket and started swimming to the surface.

I got out of the water actually pretty close to the rest of the class, but I was the only one completely drenched.

“Oh, Y/N, good! We’re all here,” Mr. Harrington celebrated. “Let’s get back to the hotel, your families will want to know you’re all fine.”

“You’re soaked.”

I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold. The temperature difference between the water and the air was enough to make me shake. “Astute observation, Brad.”

“Here, you can have my jacket.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want it.” I kept walking and managed to bump into Peter. “You got wet too?”

“Just splashed. Did you get thrown in?”

“Yeah, the bastard caught me by surprise. I’m okay, just cold.”

“Here.” Peter slung his backpack around and took out a mostly dry sweatshirt. He gestured it my way, but I didn’t take it. “It’s just a jacket, Y/N. You’ll get a cold with your hair dripping all around you.”

I knew that wasn’t how colds worked, but I took it anyway and let it soak in the water from my hair. It helped, surprisingly, at least making me not shiver. We made it back to the hotel with no other complications, aside from Flash tripping over his own shoelace because he was too busy recording for his Instagram followers to pay attention to where he was going. I quickly went upstairs and changed out of my clothes, putting on a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt that used to belong to Jessica. The room had a tiny balcony, and I took advantage of it and laid out all of my clothes and Peter’s sweatshirt. The last thing MJ or I needed was a puddle of water to slip in.

I went back downstairs and sat close to the top of the stairs, not wanting to get anywhere near the water at the bottom. MJ was a few steps below me, and Peter was leaning against the stairs, talking to someone on the phone. He hung up, and I slipped past MJ and wrapped around to the phone. I was about to dial, when I remembered something. “Hey, Peter.”

“What’s up?”

I pulled him away from the stairs and whispered, “Is the plan still working?”

“The—oh, that plan. Uh, yeah, I think so. I got her this necklace of a black dahlia from a glass shop, and I want to give it to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

I smiled. “That’s adorable. I’m going to use the phone, do you mind?”

“Oh, sorry, I’ll get out of your way.” We smiled at each other, then I grabbed the receiver and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom, it’s Y/N.”

“Oh my—John, it’s her. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Harrington wanted all of us to call our parents, so this is me, doing my due diligence. We’re still set for Paris tomorrow, so I’ll call you then, okay? Love you.” I didn’t even really wait for them to respond before I hung up. Truth was, I didn’t want to talk to them. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but I had to make one more phone call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jess, it’s Y/N. You watch the news nonstop, so I figured I’d call, let you know I’m okay.”

“Thank god, I was so worried about you. What happened?”

“This water monster literally came out of nowhere and knocked me straight into the murky junk, it was disgusting.”

“Were you able to help at all?” Jess was one of two other people in the world who knew about what I could do. She was the one who bought me the tv shows and books, of course she knew.

“I slowed it down at some point, but then all of a sudden it just dissipated, it was weird. I did find this weird metal thing in the water, I picked it up. I’ll send you a picture of it when I get the chance.”

“Okay. Call me soon, got it?”

“Count on it. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore, so I walked up the stairs, ready to succumb to the moldy mattress in my room. Unfortunately, I had to collect my clothes.

Everything was nearly dry, and Peter’s sweatshirt was definitely dry, so I brought them inside. I almost didn’t want to give Peter his sweatshirt back, just because it was so soft, but knowing him, it was probably the only one he brought, so I walked the ten feet to his front door and knocked. I wasn’t told not to enter, so I turned the knob and walked in. “Hey, Pete, I—“ I stopped with my hand by my face, terrified. A small dart was less than an inch away from my palm. I turned to the man in the corner who was holding the gun. “Did you just try to shoot me?”

“You’re the one who came barging in.” The scary looking guy with the eyepatch leaned forward. “What’s your name?”

I laughed heartlessly. “Ha, yeah, like I’m going to tell the man who just pulled a gun on me.” I looked at Peter and threw his jacket at him. “I brought this back.” Then I turned to the man in the chair. I crunched the dart, letting it fold on top of itself before his eyes, then I let it fall to the floor. “You can keep that.” I looked at Peter one more time, then slammed the door on my way out.

MJ was laying on her bed when I walked back in, but she could tell something was up. She had impeccable observational skills. “You good?”

I was pacing, a bad habit I picked up after The Snap first happened. “I just need to look something up.”

“Well, the hotel might be sinking, but they’ve at least got good wifi.”

I finally sat and opened my laptop, then turned on my VPN and put the whole device on ‘incognito mode.’ I had some serious investigations to conduct, I didn’t need the government to see what I was doing. Okay, I only had one serious investigation, but that could possibly have lead to more, so I kept my guard up.

First search: scary-looking black man with an eyepatch. The guy’s face was the first image that popped up. Nick Fury. Ex-director of SHIELD before all of that went to shit. Now he’s running some ‘underground’ SHIELD, I guess. Now I know the guy’s name.

But why was he talking to Peter? And why did he shoot me?

I was up all night doing research. Not just on Nick Fury, but on the metal piece I had found in the water, the Avengers, and as much as I could find on Peter Parker himself. Sooner than I thought, the sun peeked between the curtains at the window and MJ’s alarm came blaring through the speakers on her phone.

“Morning,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and finally taking a break from my computer screen.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Are you going to yell at me if I say no?” MJ just pursed her lips. I knew she wouldn’t.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve pulled an all nighter. At least this one was productive.

“What’s on your bed?” She picked up a small spring and looked it over before putting it back beside the rest of the pieces of the metal thing. “Did you take apart your toothbrush?”

I chuckled. “No, I found this thing in the river when I got knocked in. I didn’t know what it was, so I took it apart.”

“Have you figured it out?”

“Not yet.” I rubbed my eyes again and groaned. “We’re going to Paris today, right?”

“Yeah.” MJ stood and stretched and I caught the smallest smile on her face when she replied. I smiled too and packed up my project. Something for another late night.

We were escorted outside with our luggage in tow, but Mr. Harrington happily informed us we would be taking a bus to Prague instead of a train to Paris. You’ve got to be kidding.

Peter was walking to the bus in front of me, but I grabbed his arm and dragged him away. “What the hell, Peter?”

“You can control metal?” He was in awe. His admiration would’ve been flattering if I wasn’t so pissed.

“You had Nick Fury in your room last night. I almost got shot last night. What the hell is going on?”

“It was only a tranquilizer, you would’ve been fine—“

“That’s not the point, Parker!” I basically hissed at him. He looked a little surprised that I was so upset. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down enough to not start shouting. “We were attacked by a water monster, I almost got shot, I didn’t sleep, and now four people in the world know what I can do, so give me some damn answers, because I sure as hell deserve them.”

Peter looked around, like he was looking for an escape, but I was ready. I might not have slept in almost 48 hours, but I wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.

Then Harrington was calling us over to the bus. Perfect timing.

“Can we talk on the bus?”

I nodded and let him lead the way to the back. Surprisingly we were the only ones that occupied those seats and the ones surrounding, but that’s what happens when you get a bunch of nerds in the same vehicle—they all sit in the front. He sat low in his seat, and I did the same, and I let him start the conversation. Prying it out of him wouldn’t be too successful, I figured, not with something like this.

We got fifteen minutes out of the city before he started talking. “Fury wanted me to go with him to meet this guy who defeated the Elemental yesterday.”

“Why you? And what’s an Elemental?”

“The water monster, it’s called an Elemental. And he asked me because I’m—I’m,” his voice dropped to an even lower whisper, “I’m Spider-Man.”

I almost didn’t believe him.

I almost burst out laughing at the hilarity of it all. Peter Parker, Spider-Man? Ridiculous.

But, remember, I learned from Toph Beifong. I can tell when people are lying.

And Peter?

Peter wasn’t lying.

Well, shit.

How do I even respond to something like that?

“Okay.” Good one. “Who was the other guy you met with?”

“You—you’re not surprised?”

Oh, young Parker, I was dumbfounded. But I had learned two years earlier how to control my heart rate, so he would never know how freaked out I actually was.

“You saw me stop a dart mid-air, Peter, you being Spider-Man is hardly out of the ordinary.”

He looked relieved, but he still hadn’t answered my question.

“Who was the other guy?”

“Oh. His name is Quentin Beck. He’s—“ another low whisper, “he’s from an alternate universe. He fought the Elementals before, and he and them got sucked into our universe when Tha—Hulk brought everyone back.” He didn’t look me in the eye when he talked about the snaps. I wouldn’t either, but I felt the little blip his heart made at the mention of Thanos’s name, so I didn’t push. Even though Quentin Beck and his story sounded like bullshit.

“Do you have a picture of him?” Peter looked at me skeptically, but hooked up his mask to his phone. A somewhat blurry picture of Quentin Beck popped up, and he sent it to me, but he didn’t seem happy about it. “I just want to know who to look out for. If I start chucking rocks at people, I don’t want to hit the wrong one.” The lie seemed to relax him a little bit. It wasn’t a complete lie, I did want to know who to look out for, but I also wanted to find this guy in our universe. “What’s the plan now?”

“They think another one will pop up in Prague—“

“Peter, we’re driving toward Prague. Shouldn’t we be going away from it?”

“I have to help fight this thing—“

“Let the Beck guy do it!” My voice had risen above a whisper and Peter quickly shushed me. “He’s done it before, he can do it again.”

“They need my help, I can—“

“Peter.” He kept muttering, convincing himself he needed to help, but I wasn’t having it. “You don’t have to save the world, Peter.”

That got him to shut up.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t owe the world a goddamn thing.”

“Help me.” That got me to shut up. “Help me fight the Elemental.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’re one of the only people who can! The next one that’s coming, they’re pretty sure it’s the fire elemental, and any time it absorbs metal it can get stronger. You can help us beat it by keeping the metal away from it!”

Oh. He didn’t know I could do more than that.

“Peter, I — ”

“Please.” Peter Parker had the best puppy-dog eyes I had ever seen in my life. But I wasn’t convinced.

“I’m here for a school trip, Pete, not to save the world.”

It’s like I sucker punched him. He deflated immediately and looked away, and I got up and moved a few rows ahead.

I wasn’t opposed to helping, but I didn’t want to get near Quentin Beck until I had a full story on him. And that would take a lot of research and caffeine.

“Hey, Eugene.” We had stopped for a bathroom break and he was still using his phone to update his Instagram followers on all of the happenings on our way to Prague.

“Are you here to break my jaw again, Y/L/N?”

I looked at his face and didn’t see any swelling, barely any discoloration. “Nope, you’re healing nicely, I’m impressed. Do you have a hotspot?”

“Why do you think I have a hotspot?”

“Because you’ve been on your phone the entire trip.”

“What will you do for me if I let you on it?”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. Of course he would ask for a favor. “Anything. Within reason.”

“Can I cash in on the favor later?”

Goddamnit. “Sure, whatever.”

He laughed maniacally. “Okay, Flash Hotspot is the user, and spidermanrocks is the password, no spaces, no caps.”

“Really, Eugene, you went with that password?” I almost had to laugh. He would have an aneurysm if he knew who was really Spider-Man.

“What?”

“It’s a bit obvious, don’t you think?”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What were you doing with Parker?”

“Plotting the downfall of the European Union.” I let out a laugh. “We were talking about the water monster, and how there’s a light festival in Prague that’d be cool to go to.”

“Gonna go on a date with Penis Parker?”

“I was actually thinking about asking Brad.” That made Flash laugh, and I smiled myself. “But seriously, stop calling him that.”

“Whatever.”

Peter looked flustered as he got back on the bus, but I didn’t pry. But Brad looked awfully smug as he sat beside MJ. Focus, Y/N, you have to find Quentin Beck. I hunkered down in my seat and slipped my headphones over my ears, then logged onto Flash’s hotspot and got to work.

The number of illegal websites I went on was not something I’m willing to admit out loud, but I couldn’t find anything. Not a single facial-recognition scan showed any results for Quentin Beck, and I tried as many as I could get my hands on. But the more I looked at his face, the more I felt like I’d seen him before. And honestly, it was pissing me off.

I stared at the image on my phone, and I had a gut feeling it had to do with Tony Stark. This Beck guy was somehow connected to Stark. It’s like the answer was on the tip of my tongue. I rubbed my temples in frustration, wishing I could just reach into my memory and pull out the information when it hit me. “Memory, you’re so stupid, Y/N.”

Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, affectionately called B.A.R.F. was presented by Tony Stark at a lecture he did at MIT almost seven years ago. But this guy had released a paper about it six months before—a guy named Quentin Beck. I remembered reading about it for a school project, and the picture of the guy was the same person Peter met.

“There’s no way.”

I looked up the article, and sure enough, I was right. Quentin Beck was the scientist behind the technology, and he was an employee for Stark Industries when the article was published.

Great, now I had to break into Stark Industries and access their archives while on a hotspot provided by Eugene Thompson. Lucky for me, we pulled into the parking lot for our much improved hotel, which meant free wifi. Unlucky for me, Mr. Harrington now felt he needed to start bossing us around, considering he was the teacher. Which meant I had to put my investigations to the side. For now.

“Okay, kids, grab your room keys, same roommates as before. Meet back in the lobby at five o’clock for the light festival!”

MJ and I dragged our cases up to the third floor. We each chose a bed, but she was moody, more than her usual angst. But I didn’t have time to play therapist. “Did we get a wifi password?”

“Uh, yeah.” She passed over the card after logging in herself and sat on her bed, glancing back at me every ten seconds.

I was typing away madly, but her stares were making me uncomfortable. “Why are you staring?”

She looked away quickly. “I’m not staring.”

“You were totally staring.” I kept clicking and typing. “What?”

“What are you looking for? I know you stayed up all last night on your computer.”

To tell or not to tell, that is the question. Not a very hard one, but it’s still the question. This secret isn’t mine to make public, though. “I’m trying to prove someone wrong.”

“Who?”

I hesitated. “Peter.”

“Why do you need to prove him wrong?”

“Because he’s gotten his idyllic little hopes up and I want to squash them like a bug.” I glanced at her and smirked. “I’m kidding. I just don’t think he’s right about something, and I’m proving it.”

She nodded, not entirely convinced. “You’re coming to the light festival, right?”

I looked at her. Really looked at her. She was pulling her long sleeves over her wrists and switching her weight from foot to foot—uncomfortable as hell. I gave her a genuine smile and closed my computer. “Wouldn’t miss it. Wanna help me figure out what to wear?”

Friends come before saving the world any day.

tags: @eridanuswave @vampirestrawberries​

[harrysgloves]

Let Your Hair Down (chapter v)

Get caught up with the Let Your Hair Down Masterlist!

word count: 3,128

story summary: Harry gets more than he bargains for when he falls not only for you but your little girl as well.

chapter summary: Harry crashes your and your daughters girls night. 

warnings: Language and FINALLY THE SMUTTY THINGS okay not actual smut yet but it’s leading up to it. We got hot and heavy making out, daddy kink, choking, spanking.. you know all the goods.

a/n: Okay so the smut is being put in another chapter, don’t murder me for that! It’s my first time writing smut so it’s taking a bit longer than I thought it would.. anyways let me know if you like the chapter! xx

>>><<<

The workweek was a long and exhausting one but it definitely had its good moments. Like Harry stopping in twice to surprise you with a coffee. Something you weren't at all used to but thought was adorable as he stood awkwardly by the desk both times, looking so out of place but trying his hardest to impress you. He even took you out on your lunch break once and you hated to admit how well you two actually seemed to click and even though a month ago you were so sure you could never be with him, you felt a part of your walls start to break down the more time you spent together.

And you actually started to wonder if maybe you should give him a chance.

But now it was Friday night and couldn't have been more excited to slip on your sleep shorts and your old shirt from high school. It was a tradition in your house since the divorce to spend every Friday night with Thea, having a girls' night. Which meant pizza, Disney movies, board games, nail polish, and your favorite part; a pile of pillows in blankets in the middle of the living room where you two would curl up and cuddle before bed.

Thea was already in her own set of Princess Ariel PJs. She sat in front of the DVD cabinet, trying to find the movie she wanted to watch while you guys ate when there was a knock at your door. You quickly made your way for it, tying your hair up in a messy bun as you walked.

"Thea go find my wallet please." You said as you walked through the living room. Thea jumped at the opportunity to help you out whenever she could and made her way for your purse when you threw the front door open.

The smiling, charming, green-eyed guy in front of you was definitely not the pizza man and you couldn't help but smile at his own set of sweats he was wearing. He definitely had his pjs on and you had a sneaking suspicion that Thea had invited him since he had his guitar with him in one hand and a box of pizza in the other.

"Stopped the pizza guy on the way up." He said nodding towards the box in his hand and you couldn't do anything else but smile at him. You had no idea how someone could be so sweet.

"Was told I had to wear pjs if I wanted to come over. Oh, and I have to play her song for her before bed." He smiled as you stepped sideways and held the door open for him. That child of yours was just as sneaky as her Aunt Sarah.

"Thea!" You sang out and she rounded the corner, sliding in her socks on the hardwood floor when she stopped.

"HARRY! You came! You came!" She yelled excitedly, abandoning your wallet on the counter as she took off and hugged Harry around the legs. A small 'umpf' coming from him when she almost knocked him over.

"Thea," You said, pulling her attention back to you as you shot her your mom look. "You gotta tell me when you invite people over."

"But momma," She sighed, not letting go of Harry's legs. "It's just Harry and he promised to let me practice painting his nails at Uncle Mitch's." She pouted and if you weren't so good at ignoring it you would have easily let it slide. Your quirked your eyebrow at her, not wanting to let this go but not wanting to get into it with her in front of Harry.

"Sweetheart, your mum's right." Harry said as he leaned down to her height to talk to her, completely catching you off guard. Most people never agreed with you when you disciplined her in front of them.

"You should have asked before telling me to come here. Gotta promise you won't do that again."

"Promise." She said in a dramatically sad voice.

"Good now if you're momma says it's fine, I'll stay." He smiled as he looked up to you and Thea turned around with a big pout on her face. Her hands clapped together in a pleading way and her big lip out.

"Pleeeeease?" They both asked at the same exact time and you knew you couldn't say no even if you wanted to. They were just too cute.

"Okay you can crash girls night." You said taking the pizza from Harry's hand and sitting it down in the living room as Thea squealed, happy you let him stay. She pulled him over to the movie cabinet and had him pick out his favorite Disney movie. Insisting he get to pick it since he's the guest.

You pulled out the paper plates and napkins from the kitchen and walked back into the living room as Thea popped in the Little Mermaid into the DVD player. You smiled over to Harry, not sure if he picked it cause it was actually his favorite or if it was because he noticed Ariel on Thea's PJs. Either way it was cute.

You leaned back against the couch when you sat on the floor. Harry sat beside you, doing the same until Thea moved directly in between you two, wiggling her butt to make more room. You laughed a little as Harry looked over her to you and you shrugged your shoulders.

The movie played and you all ate pizza and then moved onto board games and eventually nail painting.

"You should have let momma paint them for you." Thea sighed as she accidentally painted the top of Harry's whole finger instead of just his nail. You looked up from painting your own nails to look at the damage done but smiled down at her.

"You just gotta wipe it off with a paper towel. You're doing a great job." You encouraged her to keep going after showing her how to wipe the messed up part of the nail polish off.

"Are your nails going to match mine?" Harry asked as he looked up towards her, while she stayed hyper-focused on painting Harry's nails, her tongue poked out of her mouth every so often as she tried her best to paint straight.

"But I can't paint my own nails good yet." She said, never taking her eyes off what she was doing.

"Well, I can paint them for you." Harry said as Thea finished his last nail. They definitely weren't the best but she did a good job for her first time. She pushed the bottle of nail polish toward him and laid her hands flat over the towel you had laying down on the floor to catch any fallout.

"Okay, we can match." She smiled as Harry got to work painting her tiny nails the teal color Thea had picked out for Harry. You smiled down at your own nails, trying your best to hide how happy you were right now. You never imagined yourself in this situation but as you sat with both of them it felt weirdly… natural.

After everyone's nails dried and Harry sang Thea her song, it was time for her to go to bed. Luckily, she was easy to put down and was out in less than 15 minutes. You quietly closed her bedroom door behind you as you walked out to the living room but stopped in your tracks. Harry had picked up everything from the night for you.

"You didn't have to do that." You said but still smiled. It was amazing to not have to worry about cleaning up when you were so ready to wind down and relax.

"Wanted to." He said, patting the spot on the couch next to him, some reality tv show playing gently in the background.

"Hold on." You walked over to the kitchen and took down two wine glasses and pulled out a bottle of wine, opening it before walking back into the living room. If you were going to have a full girls' night with him, he had to have the full experience.

"Once she's asleep I usually finish off girls night with a drink and paperwork." You sat down the glasses on the coffee table that was now moved back into its proper spot. You poured you both a glass and set the bottle down. Picking up your glass and plopping down on the couch with a sigh.

Harry quickly picked up his own glass and sat back draping his other arm around the back of the couch, directly behind you. You took a big drink from your cup as his eyes scanned your whole apartment and finally settled on the record collection you had sitting out.

"Got anything good?" He asked taking a sip from his own glass and nodded towards the records.

"Got Fine Line if that's what you meant." You teased and he barked out a laugh.

"I meant other than that." He said getting up to go through the album's but he didn't get very far through it before he pulled out your Up All Night album.

"Always knew you were a fan." He laughed silently as you sat more embarrassed than you thought was ever possible.

"Shut it Harold. I was a proud Louis girl." You snapped back causing him to whip around and glare at you.

"Wow, love, know how to go right for the low blows." He tsked as he put the album back and pulled out a Fleetwood Mac one and placed it on your record player, making sure the volume was down before placing the needle on it.

"Never claimed to be nice." You said biting your lip to stop the grin from breaking out across your face at his slightly annoyed look.

"Can't wait to tell Lou I'm chasing after someone who wants him more." He sat back down on the couch in his previous position but you snuggled up slightly closer to him. Your knees pulled to your chest but you leaned your side in close to him as you took another drink from your glass.

"God, don't tell him that!" You shrieked at the thought as you sat down your now empty glass on the table beside Harry's mostly full one.

"Afraid he won't want to be your boyfriend after that?" He grinned noticing you had gotten flustered as he leaned closer to you and tickled your sides.

"Harry!" You said pushing his hands away from you quickly as you laughed and he joined in.

"Come on, love, tell me who else is on your celebrity top 5." He said, still tickling you as you tried hard to get away. You started to stand up but he wrapped his arms around you, bringing you back down to the couch.

"No way am I telling you that!" You said through giggles, trying to wiggle your way away from him as he straddled your waist to keep your legs from kicking him. Hovering completely over you to keep tickling your sides.

"I'm not stopping till you tell me."

"Okay! Okay!" You squealed pushing his hands down and he immediately stopped tickling you, and rested both of them on either side of your head.

"God, this is stupid, you better not tell anyone. Especially Mitch." You said jabbing your finger at his chest.

"Promise. Now tell me or I'll start again." He said threateningly and you immediately covered your face and let out a groan.

"Luke Hemmings, Sebastian Stan, Chris Evans, Matt Schultz…" you rambled quickly into your hands. You knew he could still hear you by his laughing.

"Hemmings? Really?" He asked pulling your hands down to see your face.

"Hey! Don't talk shit." You started at him, trying to defend your boy.

"'M not. Just surprised. Who's the last one?" He asked as he laid his hands back by your head. You immediately covered your face again but he nudged your hands with his nose, trying to get you to tell him.

"No, it's too embarrassing." You said not budging your hands.

"Y/N, come on." You could hear the smile in his voice and wanted to throat punch him. Smug bastard. You refused and you didn't speak one word. Which meant he started tickling you again.

"GORDON RAMSAY OKAY?" You yelled as you grabbed his hands and pulled them in front of you.

"Wat?" He said laughing so hard the word barely came out.

"I know but listen, he'd make the best after sex food and a girl's gotta eat!" You clamped your hands back over your heated face and Harry literally shook with laughter.

"I didn't beat out Gordon Ramsay in your list?" He asked, still laughing.

"Hey! You're not a Michelin star chef!" You said getting defensive over your list.

"Yeah but he's old enough to be your dad."

"Oh, so we're kink-shaming now?" You quirked your eyebrow, teasing Harry but the sharp breath he drew in, let you know you hit a nerve. Oh. So he was into that.

A big smug grin made its way across your face as you looked up to him with your big doe eyes. Your brain already coming up with a thousand ways to tease him back after he embarrassed the hell out of you. You gripped onto his wrist tighter and pulled him down towards you, his green eyes widening at your sudden movement.

"What's wrong Harry?" You asked in the sweetest softest voice you could put on. "You wanna be my daddy?"

"Stop." He whined and buried his face into your shoulder but you weren't having any of that. Maybe it was the wine or maybe it was the fact your hormones were raging any time he was remotely near you that made you throw common sense right out the damn window.

"Why daddy? You don't like it?" You whispered directly in his ear, biting the side of his neck as you pushed your hips up into his.

He pulled his hand free from your grasp and placed it over your neck, squeezing the side of it. His eyes were completely lust blown and you were proud of yourself for getting this type of reaction from him but when his lips slammed on yours all thoughts of payback left your mind.

He was ferocious with his kiss, demanding. His lips were everything you had been dreaming about and as his tongue traced the bottom of your lip you didn't hesitate once to open for him. Moaning softly as his tongue seemed to move perfectly in sync with your own.

He pulled back from the kiss. Looking shocked that he had done it and quickly removed his hand from your neck but as your chest heaved up and down, you didn't want him to stop. You lifted your face up and captured his lips again.

This time it was his time to surprise you as he lifted you up from the couch and moved to sit with you straddle him. You couldn't help the involuntary rotation of your hips as you got settled on top of him. His hands immediately went to your messy bun, taking the hair tie out of it and throwing it somewhere in the room. His fingers laced into the back of your hair as he pulled you back down to him for an earth-shattering kiss.

Your hands rest on his chest as your lips moved so well together you couldn't help the small moans that left you. You were trying your hardest to not grind against him again but the electricity he was shooting down your spine with just a simple kiss was driving you insane, especially when he took your bottom lip between his perfect teeth, biting it lightly. Tired of his teasing you sat back down on him, moving your hips back and forth to get any type of relief you could. When you felt his growing bulge, you couldn't help but smirk.

"Got a roll of quarters in there?" You leaned back slightly from him, resting your forehead against his own. His hands ran from your hair all the way down your back and thighs, coming back up to rest on your ass before he gave you a harsh spank through the thin fabric of your sleep shorts. His hands went back to your waist, digging in tightly, as he pushed your hips down onto him again.

"Who said you could stop, love?" He questioned as your head fell forward into his neck as you tried to hide your moan.

"Fuck." You whimpered as his erection dragged across your clothed clit. You wanted so much more, needed it. You moved your lips to his neck kissing softly up to his ear.

"Bedroom?" You whispered to him as he kept your hips rotating around him. Your underwear were about to be completely soaked through and if he wasn't going to get you off you would gladly kick him out and finish the job yourself.

He groaned the second the word left your mouth. Your lips ghosting over his ear so he was able to hear every small breathy moan he was dragging out of you.

"Dirty girl." He said spanking your ass again, his rings biting into your skin, and he quickly rubbed his large hand over the place that you were sure was turning red.

"You got no idea." You whimpered softly at the feeling of his hand soothing the sore skin of your bum. It had been so long since you'd gotten laid. Sex stopped way before your divorce was finalized and you hadn't been with anyone else since. You weren't sure how much teasing you could take. You needed him, now.

"You're killin' me." He groaned laying his head back on the couch and pulled you back from his shoulder to look at him. He already looked like a complete mess, making you feel better for not being the only desperate one in this situation.

"Y'sure about this?" He asked, gently brushing back the few strands of hair that fell across your face. You didn't want to sit and debate over all the thoughts going through your head about if this was a good idea or not. You simply nodded your agreement but he wasn't having it, his large hand moved from your hair to your jaw, immediately getting your attention, and drawing a whimper from you. If you knew he was going to be this dominating you would have decided to do this a long time ago.

"Need to hear you say it darling." His grip was still on your jaw.

"Please daddy." You moaned, laying on his shoulder as your nails dug into his chest over his shirt. "Please fuck me."

[wolftraps]

For the reverb inspiration thing honestly I'd kinda like more Ethan stuff? Mostly because it'd be fun to see someone adjusting to the future institute and that sort of flavor of outsider POV intrigues me. Plus I also just... Love Naomi a lot...

As happens with literally everything I write, this ended up longer than intended. So here’s Ethan’s first week at the Blackwood Institute. Poor guy. His boss is a creepy moron. Warning for a brief mention of self-harm and eye trauma right at the start here, but pretty much everything is canon-typical. This is also on AO3.

--

Being an Assistant Archivist at the Blackwood Institute is… well, it’s nerve-wracking honestly. There’s no formal training, and this seems to be largely because there’s been only one other person to have held the position in… ever, as far as Ethan can tell. And that had been over fifteen years ago and lasted a grand total of nine months before Chloe Halloway, age 29, had a “crisis of faith” and tendered her resignation by pouring bleach directly into her eyes.

“If you’re going to reconsider your position here,” Jon said matter-of-factly, after telling Ethan this, “I highly suggest you do so prior to signing a permanent contract.”

Which was really unnecessarily creepy, sure, but creepy is sort of why Ethan is here in the first place, so not that surprising. The least Miss Halloway could have done, in his opinion, was leave some kind of manual or something behind. A guide. Notes. Ethan would probably be willing to kill a man for a “To-Do list” at this point.

Technically Ethan has his own office, but the room is dusty and cluttered and doesn’t actually have a desk or chair yet, so he set up in the main Archive area, where there are three ancient desks, three slightly less ancient desk chairs, a small table, and inexplicably, a wardrobe and a worn armchair. Finding the least uncomfortable configuration of furniture made him feel a bit like Goldilocks, despite the desks and corresponding chairs being virtually identical. He figured that was what had been meant by “make yourself comfortable.” Jon didn’t say any different.

Between orientation (signing papers, sitting through general training, another tour, getting his picture taken with an actual polaroid camera, etc) and “settling in,” it hadn’t mattered the first day that Jon didn’t give him any direction. And when Ethan got in on the second day, Jon had already been in the middle of taking a statement, so Ethan had busied himself going through the desk he’d taken. And then another desk. And then the other desk.

At the end of that task, he had various office supplies, a good dozen unfiled statements, five tape recorders, sixteen unlabeled tapes, five labeled tapes that didn’t match any of the unfiled statements, a small notebook with a few unfinished poems, a bag of what might have once been gummy worms, a nearly empty bottle of vodka, two very faded polaroids of a younger Jon and Martin with a woman identified on the back as Sasha, and a large, large stack of poorly drawn and seemingly conflicting maps. Also a lingering feeling that he would never be able to fully get the cobwebs off his arms.

He wasn’t sure what to do with any of it.

Well, except for the gummy worms and vodka, which he promptly disposed of.

Most of the rest ended up on top of one of the unused desks. And by the time that was done, it was nearly time to leave. As far as Ethan could tell, Jon hadn’t come out of his office once. Though, apparently the statement-giver had left at some point without Ethan noticing, so he couldn’t actually be sure. He does have a tendency to block everything else out when he’s focused on a task.

When he came in on the third day, the desk he’d placed everything on was clear and Jon wasn’t in his office. In absence of anything else to do, Ethan started looking through the database. From reading (and supposing any of what he heard on The Observer Chronicles was accurate), he thought he understood a couple of the categories. Others seemed a bit too… arbitrary. Most entries appeared to have corresponding files regarding any follow-up done, but very few had actual digital copies of the statements themselves. And only the discredited statements had audio files.

Jon didn’t return until well after lunch time, and when he did he seemed almost surprised to see Ethan there.

“You should take an early day,” Jon told him, before Ethan managed to formulate any of his questions. “Daisy’s brought me a statement. Probably best it doesn’t see you in case we decide to let it go.”

And then he went into his office. Ethan had no idea who Daisy was or how a statement was supposed to see him— or what it would do to him if it did— but it didn’t look like he was going to get any answers now, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to risk it. So he was left with nothing but to do as Jon suggested.

—

“You’re home early,” Naomi says when he walks in to find his mum sitting on the couch.

“So are you,” Ethan replies, and he didn’t even do all that much today, but he feels exhausted none-the-less.

“I had an appointment,” she reminds him. Right. He knew that. He’d just… forgotten. But he knows she hadn’t really expected him to remember. “Nothing to report. So? What has you home already?”

“Jon told me to go home. Someone named Daisy brought him a statement, and he thought it was better I wasn’t there. Why? I have no idea.”

“Well, it’s early yet, and they deal with some pretty dangerous things there,” she reasons. “The Jon I knew tried to look out for people. Can’t say I’m not glad if it’s still the same.”

“Sure, but…” Ethan stands there, fiddling with the strap of his bag, staring at the coffee table as he tries to find the words. Naomi waits, but he’s not sure what to say.

“Why don’t you go put your bag down,” she says eventually. “Think it over a bit, then come sit with me. I’ll get you some tea and wake up Beaker.”

True to her word, when Ethan gets back in more comfortable clothes, there’s a cup of tea waiting on the table, just barely steaming, and a squirming, growling ball of orange fluff in his mum’s lap. The moment he sits and Naomi lets go, the cat is in his lap, squeaking her indignation. Her brush is already set on the couch beside him.

“Thanks,” he says, and his mum just nods.

“So?” she prompts.

Ethan sighs. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Ethan, you’ve only been there three days. Not even three days. Everyone feels lost when they start a new job. It happened literally every time you started a new year in school, if you’ll recall.” He keeps brushing Beaker, but he can see his mum smiling in his peripheral vision and he rolls his eyes.

“No, yeah, I know that. I mean I literally have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. There’s been no training. No instructions. I don’t- I cleaned out desks and I looked through the database and I read some old statements, and I keep waiting for Jon to say something. Tell me what I’m supposed to do. Explain anything.” Beaker squeaks again, nipping at his arm as he absently tugs a bit too hard at a knot of fur. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“I’m going to be honest,” Naomi says, huffing slightly the same way she does every time the tube runs late, even though she expects it. “That’s far, far more common than you’d think.”

“That makes no sense, though! How are people supposed to do their jobs if no one explains how to do the job?”

“Well… I think a lot of people try to pretend and copy the people around them. It’s usually better to just ask, though. People can get so used to doing something that they honestly forget that other people don’t know how, and Jon’s been doing this for a very long time. What did he say when you asked?”

On the table, Ethan’s tea is going cold. If he leans over to get it, though, Beaker will probably yell at him and run away, and brushing her really is helping him relax. But his mouth feels so dry, and it might be worth it.

“Ethan,” his mum says in that tone. That one she always got right before Caleb tried to lie to her. “You did ask Jon, right?”

There’s another knot in Beaker’s fur, but he takes more care with this one and she just keeps purring. He rocks. His mouth is still so dry.

Naomi sighs, setting her own cup down and passing Ethan his, handle out. It’d be alright today, he thinks, if their hands touched when he took it from her, but she’s always careful anyway. He takes a sip. The tea is good, as always, though he can’t help thinking of his interview with Martin. There’d been a cup waiting for him in Martin’s office. His favorite kind, perfectly made. He’d meant to ask Martin how he knew, but then he just… hadn’t.

“You didn’t. Ethan, you… Okay. Okay. Why not?” his mum asks.

“I don’t know! He’s always… in his office and- and busy or— I don’t know. He makes me a little… nervous or something.”

“Intimidated.”

“Maybe?”

“I can understand that,” she says. “The first time I technically met Jon, I was terrified of him. The first… many times. Even after I actually met him and got to talk to him, I kept having to remind myself that he didn’t want to hurt me. If he’s still like I remember him, and I’m willing to bet he is, then I don’t think leaving you to figure things out yourself or not talking to you is intentional. He’s really a very… very awkward man.” She’s staring at the wall, but doesn’t seem to be looking at anything, and after a moment she laughs a little. “Promise me you’ll at least try to talk to him Monday?”

Ethan promises, of course.

—

Jon doesn’t even seem to understand the words at first, when Ethan asks him what an assistant here does. For a few seconds, there’s no expression, and then Jon’s brow furrows and he looks down at the papers on his desk like he might read the answer there.

“I— Hmm,” he says. “F-file? Organize? I— What did they— I never actually was one, so… It occurs to me that I am very lucky I chose to include Sasha after all. You might ask her? Or- or Martin. They actually did the assisting once upon a time, so…” Jon shrugs, or Ethan thinks he does. There’s a cat draped across his shoulders, so they don’t actually move much. And then Ethan stands there, and Jon sits, and neither of them say anything, and if Ethan’s mum is right, it’s because neither of them is quite sure what to say.

Ethan leaves.

Martin was nice during his interview. Encouraging and friendly and patient when it took some time for Ethan to decide what to say. It was a far, far easier interview than he’d feared. And Martin had said Ethan could come to him if he had any questions. Despite that, Martin makes Ethan even more nervous than Jon. It’s always worse disappointing friendly people.

So instead, Ethan makes his way to the Library, because that’s where Sasha works, if he’s remembering right. Once he’s there, though, he has no idea where to look, and it occurs to him that there may be more than one Sasha. The one he’d seen when he interviewed was young; maybe a couple years older than him. But the one in the pictures he found in the Archives would surely be Jon’s age at least. There’s no one who looks like either of them that he can see.

“Excuse me,” he says to someone who is probably a librarian, since he’s sitting at a desk with a plaque that says the date and ‘You’d have been out of here days ago if you’d just asked for help.’ The man doesn’t look up from his book. “I’m looking for Sasha?”

“Upstairs,” the guy says. The library is only one floor, though. It’s the first time he’s been in it, but Ethan made note of all Mara’s warnings.

“I’d like to speak to Sasha,” he says, firmer. The guy doesn’t look up and doesn’t look up and doesn’t… and then something changes and he stiffens and slowly looks up at Ethan, and he seems almost… nervous.

The man coughs. “O-oh. You’re- you’re from the Archives.”

“Yes,” Ethan agrees. “I need to talk to Sasha?”

“Right. Sure. Um, I’ll get— uh, Kelly- Kelly will help you.” The man nods toward something over Ethan’s shoulder. When he turns there’s someone already there, a bit too close, and Ethan didn’t know teeth could be that white.

“Hi!” They smile and smile. “I’m Michael. You can call me Kelly. I’m here to help. This way please!” Literally turning on their heel, they walk away with a gait more like a bounce than a walk, and Ethan follows. Right up until they hop onto the first step.

“I—” he says. Even before they turn their head, he can somehow see their smile. Human necks almost definitely aren’t supposed to turn that far. He almost forgets what he meant to say.

“Yes?”

“I— I was told the library is only one storey.”

They smile and smile. “That’s right.”

“But… the stairs?” he asks.

“What stairs?” Their head tilts, like a curious dog, still looking over their shoulder. And human necks definitely aren’t supposed to turn like that.

Ethan looks down at the stair Kelly is perched on, and they look down as well. There is no acknowledgement of the stairs.

“Come on!” They smile. “Best to take the first step at a bit of a jump!”

And they keep going up the stairs, so Ethan takes a breath and hops onto the first step.

Except it isn’t a step. It’s… a rug maybe? It doesn’t stop looking like stairs, but the whole thing is level, and he nearly trips more than a couple times expecting his foot to hit the floor before it does. When they reach the end, he looks back. Back and down. Down at the library, one storey below.

At the end of a short hallway, there is a yellow door; one that Ethan is sure he’s seen before, except somewhere else. Kelly bounces up to it and knocks, and looks back at him and smiles and smiles, and then the door creaks open.

The person who emerges is definitely the young woman he saw when he came for his interview, but she’s also almost definitely the woman in the photograph from decades ago.

“Hi, Sasha!” Kelly smiles. “This one wants to talk to you!”

“Oh? Oh!” Sasha also smiles, and there’s a ringing in Ethan’s ear when she talks, but it seems like a fairly normal smile. At least, comparatively. “You’re the new Archival Assistant!”

“Uh, A- Assistant Archivist, actually.” It probably doesn’t matter. People are always telling him things like this don’t matter, and he shouldn’t bother correcting them. For some reason, though, it really feels like this does.

Sasha, at least, looks a bit surprised. “Really? Huh. That’s fascinating.”

Ethan is at least 75% sure she isn’t being sarcastic. “Is it?”

The hallway couldn’t have been more than five meters, but her laugh echoes down it. “It is! Thank you, Kelly. I’ll be sure Ethan makes his way back alright.”

It’s a clear dismissal, but Kelly doesn’t move. They keep looking at Sasha and they smile and smile and smile until eventually Sasha rolls her eyes and scoffs.

“Please,” she says. “I couldn’t lose one of Jon’s if I wanted to. He’ll be back in the Archives as soon as we’re done talking.”

Kelly smiles. “Okay!” they say cheerily, as if there’d never been any tension at all. “Nice to meet you, Ethan!” and then they’re gone.

“They’re a good kid,” Sasha says. “Well, then. Please, step into my office.” She closes the yellow door behind her and opens a different one beside it, that Ethan is also sure hadn’t been there a moment before. It’s a normal enough door, though. Looks a lot like Jon’s, actually. Sasha waves him through, and if he didn’t know better, Ethan would be sure he was back in the Archives.

In fact, he’s pretty sure that’s the same couch that’s currently sitting in Jon’s office and the same armchair he’d moved into his own “office” the other day; though both look in significantly better shape here.

“Have a seat,” Sasha says, dropping onto the couch— or draping herself across it rather— and eliciting a grumbling meow from an almost opalescent white cat that flicks its tail when she goes to pet it and jumps into Ethan’s lap the moment he settles into the chair. At first touch its fur feels like marble, but then he pets it and it feels like plush. He can’t hear the purr, but the rumble makes his fingers tingle.

“So, Ethan. What can I help you with?” Sasha asks.

“Well. My job… I hope.”

She sits up and sounds delighted when she says, “Oh, did you find a statement about me already? You’ve only been here a couple weeks, haven’t you?”

“Four… days?” It’s not a question. Ethan knows this is his fourth day. Knows. Yet for some reason he starts second guessing himself. It has only been four days… right? Yes. Yes, four days.

After the “stairs,” he doesn’t bother asking why there would be statements about her.

Sasha thinks for a moment and then waves his comment away. “Close enough. Time is fake. So… which one is it?”

“I didn’t— find a statement. I’m just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. Jon told me to ask you because you’ve actually done the job before.”

If she keeps laughing like that, he’s going to end up with a headache. The ringing is terrible.

“I’m sorry,” she laughs. “I wish I could think you were joking, but I know you’re not. I love Jon. He’s such a disaster. You know he knows basically everything?” Ethan does not know that. A lot, definitely. More than anyone logically should or could, sure. But everything?

“That… sounds improbable.” Buried in the cat’s equally improbable fur, Ethan’s fingers start going numb.

“He does. He knows almost everything and then always forgets that he knows anything. It’s hilarious,” Sasha says with a grin. “Alright. We used to do a lot of research, but that was back when we were cleaning up Gertrude’s mess and all the work the actual Research department did somehow got lost on its way down the stairs. The real ones. And Jon only knew most things rather than basically everything…”

She tells him she did research and reorganized possibly the worst archiving system in the world. She tells him she took statement-givers’ information and caught flies to feed the spiders in the corners. She tells him she killed worms and mapped underground tunnels and scanned in old letters and typed up written statements and managed “monster relations” and blew up mannequins and recorded false statements and hacked government networks and provided alibis and stole old books from museums and sang to the recorders so they wouldn’t start eating people’s fingers and updated the database and appeased disgruntled “youtubers” and collected obituaries and plotted her boss’s death.

Ethan is sure some of these things aren’t true, but he just walked up a flight of not-stairs, so he honestly couldn’t begin to guess which. He’s also not sure how many of them are relevant.

“Mostly, though,” Sasha concludes, “you take care of Jon.”

He does try to ask about the categories, and a couple of the titles she gives them make some kind of sense, but she also says category 06 is “me”, 09 is poker, 10 is geese, and 15 is millennials, so he decides to take those with a grain of salt as well.

When they finally leave her office, the door opens into the front lobby.

“There we are! Back safe and sane, just like I promised. I know I said I’d get you back to the Archives, but I’m not actually allowed to open doors down there anymore. And it’s only… Oops.” The lobby is quiet and the windows are dark. It’s definitely well into evening, though Ethan suspects midnight has come and gone. His watch starts buzzing with missed messages. “Well, I’m sure it’s at least the same day or Jon would’ve yelled at me by now. I could give you a shortcut home?”

The yellow door is back, and beyond it is a long hallway.

“I think I’d better take the long way,” he says.

Sasha nods. “That’s fair.”

—

If Ethan could actually figure out how to message HR, he would just message them. Even if it took them a day to get back to him, he’d still be better off than he has been so far. Unfortunately, he can’t find any sort of contact information for them at all. So the morning of his fifth day, he goes to the front desk and meets Priya No-Last-Name-As-Is-Tradition, who handles “reception, admin, and whatever Martin needs.”

He doesn’t ask, but she informs him Martin will be in a meeting all morning anyway. That’s fine. She’s more than happy to walk him up to HR and introduce him to a woman named Hope.

Hope startles when she sees them, and her fingers freeze on her keyboard, but there is definitely some kind of movement in her lap, barely visible over the edge of the desk. Then she smiles and turns to face them and Ethan does not comment on the fact that he can see two long, black limbs trying to shove some sort of yarn project into the drawer of a filing cabinet behind her. Priya nods at a job well done and leaves him there.

“How can I help you?” Hope asks. There’s something not quite right about her smile, but Ethan doesn’t comment on that either.

Instead, he says, “Do you have any sort of job description or scope of duties for the Assistant Archivist position?”

Hope blinks.

“The what?” she asks.

“The Assistant Archivist position.”

She blinks again. Her smile is gone, and he’s honestly glad for it. “Assistant… Archivist.”

“Yes.”

“That’s a thing?”

“I would hope so? I was just hired as one, so…”

She blinks again, then shakes her head. “Right. Sorry. Of course. I just… Honestly, I was sort of under the impression no one could work down there but the Archivist.”

Given that apparently only one other person has in longer than Ethan’s been alive, he doesn’t exactly blame her. Still, he’s pretty sure it’s her job to know these things, and he’d really like an answer.

“I understand,” he says, “but I do work down there. So…”

“Right. Yes. Assistant Archivist, you said? Just a moment.” She turns back to her display, taps a few keys, and then starts scrolling. And scrolling. And scrolling. All the while singing “Assistant Archivist Archivist Assistant Assist Assist the Archivist” under her breath.

Three minutes later, Ethan is still waiting.

“Are you… sure that’s your position title?” she asks finally, and Ethan turns around and heads back to the Archives.

—

While he hopes he never has to do most of the things Sasha listed as her duties, there are a couple Ethan thinks he can probably manage. He has no idea what, if anything, might need to be done with the statements that already have case numbers, but there’s a shelf of boxes near the Archive entrance labeled “Me Next!” that Jon had said were unprocessed. Maybe he won’t be able to fit them all into the proper categories, but there have to be some that are obviously false, and it seems as good a way as any to get more familiar with the database.

Halfway through the day, he switches to listening to some of the old audio files to figure out the format. It doesn’t seem too complicated. Probably he can record a couple test statements, get a feel for it.

Twenty minutes later, he gives up searching and asks Jon where to find their recording software. Jon frowns and tells him he’s better off finding a free one online, so Ethan reaches out to IT instead.

Ten minutes after that, he gets a message from Cass Walters telling him to check his apps again and that he’ll “know it when [he] see[s] it.” So he does.

Halfway through the list there’s an icon with a stylized cassette tape. It’s labeled “IM TELLING YOU IT FUCKING WORKS JON”, and Ethan figures that’s probably it. Thankfully it’s fairly intuitive, and it might end up being a total waste of his time, but by the end of the day he has three halfway decent recordings and feels like he accomplished something, at least.

-

On his sixth day, one week after starting, Ethan comes in just in time to hear someone say, “Are you kidding me?!” really quite loudly in Jon’s office.

It doesn’t sound like the sort of conversation he wants to disturb, so he goes to his desk and gets set up as quietly as he can and meets the cat’s judging stare head-on while eavesdropping. She blinks and rubs up against his leg, and he can’t help but think it was some kind of test. Apparently he passed.

“You know everything, Jon,” the same person says, and Ethan is at least 80% sure it’s Martin.

“Not ev—”

“Everything,” Martin repeats. “How can you possibly not know what your own assistant is supposed to be doing?”

“I can’t know things that don’t exist, Martin. Chloe always wanted to figure everything out herself and made things up as she went along. It may as well be a new position. So, I don’t know.” There’s a moment of silence.

“Jon,” Martin says.

“… Yes, Martin.”

“Love,” Martin says.

Jon sighs. “Yes, Martin. I realize—”

“That might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Yes, Martin. I get it.”

“He’s an Assistant Archivist! Tell him what you need assistance archiving!”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jon says. If either of them say anything in the few minutes after that, though, it’s too quiet for Ethan to hear.

“Alright,” Martin says, like they’ve come to some kind of agreement despite the silence. “I love you.”

“Yes, Martin,” Jon says, the same tired way he’d said it before, though there’s a slight laugh at the end now. “I know.”

Martin is smiling when he comes out of Jon’s office. Instead of leaving the Archives, he walks up to Ethan’s desk and sets a mug of barely steaming tea down upon it.

“It should be just right now,” Martin says, like he’d known exactly when Ethan was going to arrive— despite him being half an hour early— and purposely made the tea so it would have cooled to the perfect temperature the moment he walked in. It is, of course, made perfectly as well. “I should have warned you a bit more about Jon. He’s a bit of a moron sometimes, but he means well. The next time you ask a question and he says he doesn’t know or tries to send you to someone else, just ask again, a bit slower. Usually the critical thinking capabilities will catch on then. Come see me whenever you’re free on Friday. I’d like to hear how you’re doing, once you actually get into the work.” And then he’s gone before Ethan can say a word.

In the doorway of his office, Jon clears his throat.

“I’ve been— reliably informed that I owe you an apology,” he says, and Ethan really would rather he didn’t. Apologies are almost always terrible, no matter which side you’re on. They’re awkward and often pointless. It’s not like he’s hurt or anything. Jon feeling bad isn’t going to do anything but make Ethan uncomfortable. “I sho—”

“Okay,” Ethan says. “Can we just skip to you training me?”

“… Yes. Yes, we can,” Jon says, possibly as relieved as Ethan to move on. He looks less tense, at least. “We usually wait until the end of probation to explain the fears, but that won’t exactly work here, so we’ll get to that in a moment. You’ve already started recording, so I suppose the first thing to know is that true statements won’t record digitally. The audio always ends up corrupted. I don’t think I’ll have you start recording any real statements quite yet, but once you do, you’ll have to use the— the tape…” He trails off, staring down at the small stack of statements Ethan recorded yesterday.

When Jon shows no sign of continuing, Ethan tentatively prompts, “The— tape recorders?”

“You’ve already started recording,” Jon says again.

“Yes?”

He pulls out the statement at the bottom of the stack and holds it out to Ethan, shaking it slightly. “You recorded this statement.”

“Yes? It was the last one I did before I went home last night.”

“Play it for me.” So Ethan does. Three minutes in, staring at the paper in his hand, Jon tells him to stop. “That’s not… Set up a new recording. I’m going to start reading this, and after two minutes, I want you to take this from me and stop the recording.” So Ethan does that too.

It had felt a bit… odd, when Ethan read the statement yesterday. Like the air got thicker, almost. But he’d also been very tired, and while a lot of things are weird at the Institute, that doesn’t mean everything is. It’s different when Jon starts reading. Not so much the air getting thicker as pressing down on them, and Ethan feels very uncomfortably like someone is making direct eye contact with him. It’s creepy. He almost misses the two minute mark.

The second he pulls the paper from Jon’s hands, the feeling lifts. Somehow, he isn’t surprised that playback of Jon’s reading comes out with a terrible screech and a whole lot of broken, garbled nonsense.

Jon looks between Ethan, the paper, and the display again and again.

“Jon?” Ethan asks.

“That’s not fair,” Jon replies. Then, with a sigh, “I guess I have more work for you than I thought.”

[anxiouslyfred]

Moss Graffiti

Summary: Virgil was convinced his soulmate worked in nuclear power from the poem he got describing them. He’s about to learn how wrong that is, and how weirdly some corporations view graffiti.

/\/\

Virgil's soulmate had to do something in nuclear power. He was certain of it. Why else would his poem include the line 'Green pollution close to hand'?

Really he'd taken decades to reach that conclusion, trying to decide what it could mean. Pollution usually wasn't anything green at all, but from those Simpsons opening credits, to the glow shows always used for nuclear radiation, that had to be what was intended. Unless there was something else being done that corporations would try to claim as pollution, but that just opened too many trails for his thoughts to follow.

“Uneven floors present a trip hazard and either need indicating or fixing. That's the most important issue, I've found, shall we continue through the rest?” Virgil shook the momentary thoughts of his soulmate from his head, focusing back on the Health & Safety inspection he was doing.

The offices were just waiting for an accident to happen in a lot of places, and if he had to yell to actually get the manager to come over instead of the receptionist, he would be. There's no point booking him to conduct the inspection if they just wanted to ignore the issues raised in his report.

“Mr Furniss has requested you confirm if the pollution on the outer walls will need a specialist to remove.” The receptionist, Miss Mauby, asked, noting down his comments.

“I haven't noticed any pollution. Do you mind showing me the section he's referring to?” Virgil raised an eyebrow. There had been some graffiti on one of the walls near the entrance, but it hadn't looked like anything he'd need to take note of.

The wall he was led to pretty much guaranteed he would be storming back into the manager's office to give his report. Wasting his time demanding answers that a fool could tell was simply moss was absurd, despite the design and words showing it was all deliberately placed. Virgil already agreed that the company had a lot of issues it needed to be addressing, especially regarding the waste products being incorrectly disposed of at the factory site.

Turning to Miss Mauby he nodded, “I believe it would be best for me to give my initial review to Mr Furniss directly, and I'll send the report over in a matter of days.” He didn't wait for a reply, already returning to the building and the office that was indicated to belong to the site manager.

By the time Virgil was leaving the site, he'd begun to calm down and find it amusing. The manager of the place really did think that graffiti was pollution and not just unauthorised artwork. Perhaps they needed some language lessons to clear up the definition and impact of using the wrong terms. Science classes could help more though.

When he glanced back towards the moss words, he had to call over, “Better get away from there. I think Mr Furniss mentioned getting cameras set up to monitor their walls.”

“I'll find some other wall to protest on then. He can't monitor them all and ignores any emails or government mandates to follow the laws for disposal of contaminated waste.” The person called back, voice shrill and uncaring.

Virgil wandered closer, a little curious to know more. “How did you even manage it anyway? I didn't think you could control where or how moss grows.”

“I made moss paint and spray with water each afternoon. For this lot at least. I've got twenty other sites I do this too and commissions to take for peoples gardens occasionally.” Virgil began to worry he'd asked the wrong thing with the lack of energy compared to the person's original response before they jumped to face him, “I'm making nature fight back for itself when it can't speak. The moss, lichens and plants shall rise to destroy humanity with my aid!”

“Okay, cool, erm good luck with that. I'll leave you to it then.” Virgil backed away at the yell, startled and very concerned that if someone in the office came out to see him talking with the moss graffiti guy he could lose payment for his services.

It was only once he got home that Virgil thought whoever it was looking after that moss seemed to fill 3 of the 4 lines in his soul poem, especially with that companies boss claiming graffiti was pollution.

He checked while swapping his jacket for a hoodie and the idea only grew at the familiar lines:

Uncontrolled by any rule,

Dangerous Attitude, surface cool.

Green pollution close to hand.

Trust fleeting as the sand.

Virgil had gotten the poem as a tattoo as soon as he was old enough to. He didn't want anybody finding out what his poem was and the easiest way to ensure that was to keep the only record of it literally on him.

Perhaps they'd encounter each other again in the city. Virgil did have other gigs coming up for offices of corporations known to be major polluters.

/Over to the Graffiti Artist\

Remus had been curious about the guy who'd come over asking about his graffiti, but he got people running away from him. It happened often enough pretty much anytime he tried to make friends.

He pushed the curiosity out of his mind though, focusing on that morning's project. He was still cultivating the moss on the edge of an animal testing lab for a soaps company and needed to make sure he was using the right mosses so the creature yelling at the company was recognisable.

“Get Away from there! I'll call the police on you for doing-” The angry yelling cut off when the woman got close enough.

Remus smirked, not turning around, but well aware it looked like he was just painting water onto the wall with how diluted he'd made the moss-paint today. He'd expected someone to try and stop him and wasn't going to give away what he was doing, including the fact these were rare mosses that if it got out the company had removed would enrage some environmentalist charities.

“Well isn't this fun. Do you often greet contractors by yelling at someone painting the walls with water, or am I just special?” The curious guy from yesterday was back, and apparently ignoring Remus in favour of greeting the woman. It was an interesting way to try and stick up for him though.

None of the apologies she was now stuttering out got directed to him either, and Remus finally realised this was one of the managers of the building and the guy had to be some sort of contractor. Not that it mattered to him of course, guy got scared off by a tiny bit of excitement.

He was humming while working on an established moss garden that evening when the guy walked passed again, and seriously Remus was beginning to think some cosmic force wanted them to talk.

“How'd you get the different colours?” The guy actually stopped to ask, glancing over the patterns. Dull, boring spirals. Remus had a far more interesting moss garden on the outer walls of his apartment.

“Different mosses.” He replied, turning to get more water for his spray bottle. It wasn't necessary, but he didn't feel like watching someone try to escape him currently.

The guy stayed waiting there, long enough Remus couldn't avoid returning to his work. “I'm Virgil by the way. He/Him. Sorry about that bitch this morning. She really needs to focus more on adequate safety railings and less on how the building looks. Aesthetic is not worth health hazards!” He sort of ranted, definitely trying to make conversation.

“I'm Remus and you're already scared of me, so I don't think you want to hear my actual views. Bugger off to screw in a H&S approved fallout bunker or something.” Remus interrupted before he could say anything else.

“No need to be a jerk, and sorry I'm not interested in losing a paycheck because the boss of a building is an asshole. Yelling and getting attention when I've just finished a place that specifically tried to call your work a biohazard could easily have the company finding some way out of paying for aiding a vandal or whatever.” Virgil snapped back, glaring. “I just wanted to know more because your work looks awesome, but fine, I'll leave asking more for some other day.”

Remus scoffed, throwing his spray bottle to one side and turning, “Yeah, when you decide I'm invisible again because I'm near one of those building's that's contracting you to yell at them. Fantastic chance to ask questions when you won't even glance my way.”

His words must have trigger some confusing thought process for Virgil as his right hand jumped to covering his left forearm, almost brushing over it in an odd pattern. He watched for a moment before turning back to checking the outlines were still clear.

“I can't put my chances of making the rent at stake, but fine, next time I see you I'll find time to stop and at least say hi. I'm going to get to know you, Remus. You can trust me on that, whether you believe it or not.” The words were threatening, and Remus wanted to come up with some actual threats Virgil could have used, but still didn't want to watch him run away.

“Only the naïve trust people instantly. Or the people wanting to use you and twist you into a different shape. I'm neither of those and the only time someone else controls how I twist is when they're bending me over.” He dismissed the promise and started humming again, pretending to focus on his work.

If they spoke for much longer of course he'd say something to have this brittle connection thoroughly sever.

That night Remus was still wondering about Virgil. How concerned he sounded over losing pay, and some vague terrible happening that could follow it.

There was definitely something of his soulmate poem in how the man was speaking and acting, but it just felt like another thing for Remus to hope for and end up destroying.

He had to listen to that old song again, if only to confirm it couldn't be Virgil at all:

Lashing out just to be heard

Worry infusing every word.

Cautious but convinceable,

Dreams their friends invincible.

/Days passing by\

The warning Virgil had given on the first time they encountered each other had been proven right. That company had put up cameras over the footpaths on the buildings, with only a few sections left clear of surveillance.

Remus had refreshed his free-running skills enough to get up onto one of the ledges. He wasn't expecting to get yelled at to get down and that it wasn't safe while checking if there was another layer of moss-paint needed or not.

“Virgil, you're really going to attract attention if you don't quiet down.” Remus sing-songed, leaning to look down from the ledge he was stood on, and grinning at the glare he was being given.

He wasn't expecting Virgil to walk a few steps back before launching himself up the wall. “And you're going to do yourself a freaking injury. Is constantly climbing up here really necessary for you to get the message across?”

“Yes, they're going to keep having the message painted until the listen and actually sort out the waste disposal of the factory.” Remus nodded. Virgil had been speaking to him, and actually seeking out the places Remus would turn up ever since threatening to get to know him. “Besides, a suicide on the property with this message growing afterwards would definitely make the news, get public interest sparked over everything they're doing wrong. Sounds like the perfect storm for them to face.”

“Except the part where you die. Not allowed. You act like you're invincible and I wish to whoever's listening you were.” Virgil snapped, and snatched the brush from Remus's hands for some reason. “Come on, tell me where I'm painting this one, and I'll help. Sooner you get this done, the sooner I can get you safely down from here!”

Remus blinked at the change, wondering whether this was what 'cautious but convinceable' meant before shaking it off. “That's for the darker bits. Currently just look like some discolouring. I'll do the pale bits since the difference for those can't be made out yet. Why would you want me to be invincible anyways? Most people would be glad to see something break me, even if they wouldn't wish me dead. A sever injury, maybe causing paralysis, and they'd all sigh knowing where I am and thinking they could control how much trouble I cause.”

“Sounds like you know a ton of jerks then. You're my Friend Remus. Not many people can say that and I'm not going to let you jeopardise my friend's life all to make a point against horrible business practices.” Virgil lectured, already following the lines, although his shoulders were so tense Remus wondered how his movements with the brush could be so fluid.

In more interesting news that literally sounded like the 2 lines Remus had mentally been insisting couldn't relate to Virgil had fallen into place and suddenly fitted him perfectly. He was singing the soul poem without thinking it, performing a short dance when he realised Virgil was staring.

“So are you writing poems about me now or is that, you know?” Virgil muttered a few moments after he finished singing.

“My soul Poem!” Remus squealed and the only thing that stopped him bouncing was Virgil's eyes quickly falling to his feet. The edge was close behind him and he wasn't going to fall after deciding that Virgil was his soulmate. “Seems to be perfect for you, right?!”

Virgil just nodded, shoving up the sleeve of his jacket and holding the arm out to Remus. “Get away from the edge, read this and have a laugh at what the manager of this place called your art.”

The tattoo was brilliant, with letters that looked like they were bleeding, and thorns twisting together to frame it. Realising the poem actually did describe him only made it better.

“So we are simply meant to be.” Remus grinned.

At least he knew this health and safety inspector wasn't completely against breaking the rules occasionally, at least if it meant they could keep each other safe instead.

[princess-of-riviaa]

Meet Me, Love Me chapter 2: daddys_pr1ncess

Chapter 1: The Lieutenant

Pairing: Walter Marshall x OFC (Erin)

Series Summary: After meeting a woman on the dating site Meet Me, Love Me, Walter finds himself falling into a messy web of lies, deceit, and heartbreak.

Chapter Summary: Erin does her best to stay professional around Lieutenant Marshall, which doesn’t last for very long.

Warning(s): masturbating, spanking, slight angst

Word Count: 2,488

“Valdez, you’re with Lieutenant Marshall today,” Officer Romero says before continuing down her list of every intern’s daily task.

Erin’s eyes pop. Today is her first day of field training. She’ll get to be front and center to all the action, which is the entire reason she signed up to be an intern in the first place. She’s been looking forward to this day for weeks. But why are they sending her out with a lieutenant instead of a cop with a lower position and less important things to do? And why, of all people, did it have to Walter she’s paired up with?

“You’re the guy I’ve been sexting for the last month,” she’d said that day in the restaurant as she realized that Lieutenant Walter Marshall was the.lieutenant, AKA the man she’d been calling daddy for the last three weeks. She’d never wished to be swallowed up by the earth more than she had in that moment. “Wait--you’re the guy who’s been sexting me!”

Holy shit.

She spent her mornings taking this guy’s coffee order and her nights making videos for him to jerk off to. How the hell was she supposed to show her face at work now that she knew what his dick looked like, had practically memorized every detail of it after all the pictures he’d sent her of his hard-on?

“What the hell do we do now?” she had asked, not necessarily to him, but to anyone who was listening and had the slightest bit of an answer.

“The only thing we can do.” There’s a reluctance in Lieutenant Marshall’s--Walter’s voice that she’d never heard before.

For some stupid reason, she let herself hope. Hope that he would say something along the lines of I know this is probably breaking twenty HR rules but let’s keep talking anyways, now do you wanna go to my place and fuck? Call her a hopeless romantic, or a stupid idiot. She’s not sure there’s much difference. But her chest had tightened and her heart had fluttered in those few seconds between his sentences.

And then he said: “We can’t do this anymore. We have to stop talking right now. Neither one of us knew who the other was when we started this… this… whatever this was. But it’s over. It has to be.”

Of course, she understood why he did it. Not only was it wrong to keep doing it while they worked together, but he was about ten positions above her, and that made it even worse. He had to save his job and his reputation.

She understood the logic behind it. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Now, a week later, she’s being assigned to him for the day. The wound is still fresh. She still finds herself reaching for her phone to text him, only to stop herself when she opens the app and sees his username. She still reads their texts as she's lying in bed at night, feeling like a clingy idiot. They no longer riled her up now, they only make her start to cry. It’s stupid, she knows that. It wasn’t a real relationship. But she misses having him there, misses talking to someone at all hours of the day. So how the hell is she supposed to act professional around him today?

Once Officer Romero has given her instructions, Erin walks up to her and says, “Sorry, but I thought--”

The older lady holds up a hand, silencing Erin. “First, don’t ever start a sentence with ‘sorry, but..’. If you’re going to say something, you gotta mean it. I expect that kind of confidence in you before you pass your training.”

Erin nods. “Yeah, okay. Sorry. I mean… uh, I was just…”

Someone calls Officer Romero’s name and she excuses herself. Just as she starts to walk down the hall she passes Walter on his way in. She tells him that Erin is going to be under him today and--god, what is wrong with her for finding something dirty in that?--Walter stops in his tracks. He looks around the room until he spots Erin. She tries to give an apologetic smile but it feels more like a grimace.

This is going to be a long day.

An hour later, Walter has settled in, scanned through paperwork, had his three cups of black coffee, and Erin decides it’s time to head down to his unmarked Ford Explorer and wait for him. She’s in an actual police uniform today--normally she’s in sweats and a police t-shirt--and though it’s something that would make her giddy with excitement, the thought of spending her first day out in the field with Walter is killing her buzz.

Walter doesn’t say anything as he makes his way to his car and hits the unlock button on his keys. Erin slides into the passenger seat. Walter turns on the car and adjusts the AC and the police radio without even acknowledging her presence.

“So, I want you to know that I didn’t do anything,” Erin explains. “I didn’t say anything to anyone, Officer Romero just randomly assigned me to you--”

He silences her with a look.

She hesitates before adding, “I just… don’t want you to think that I’m not respecting your wishes. I’m not trying to make your job harder for you.”

His expression slightly softens. Slightly. 

Erin doesn’t let her mouth get away from her this time. The car is tense and silent as Walter switches into drive and heads off down the highway. Erin doesn’t know where they’re going but he looks like a man on a mission so she doesn’t question it.

They spend the first two hours in silence. No calls come in. They just sit on a part of the highway directly between the two biggest cities in the area and wait for a call on the radio that never comes. Neither one of them speaks. Walter finally speeds off down the highway around eleven. Erin thinks he’s been notified of a crime that she isn’t aware of, and is slightly disappointed when they pull into a McDonald’s drive-thru.

“What are we doing here?” she asks.

He ignores her as he pulls up to the window and orders half the menu. He doesn’t even ask if she wants anything before finishing the order.

“Walter?” she asks, then quickly corrects herself. “Er, Lieutenant Marshall?”

He still ignores her. Once he’s paid and gotten the three bags of food, he drives back to their waiting point along the highway. Erin can only stay quiet for a few more minutes.

“I’m putting in a complaint when we get back to the station,” she tells him.

He finally looks at her, giving her a look that says, why the hell are you going to do that?

She just stares at him with a look of her own. If you want me to explain myself, you’ll have to talk.

“Why are you putting in a complaint?” he sighs.

“You’re being completely unprofessional.” Normally she’d be too shy to speak to an officer like this, but she’s had enough of the stupid chip on his shoulder. Plus, he’s seen her naked, so there’s nothing left to be shy about with him.

“I’m not doing anything,” Walter protests.

“Exactly!” Erin agrees. “The point of taking me with you is to teach me stuff. We’ve already wasted half our shift and you’ve taught me nothing, except that you eat enough for a family of four!”

“I only eat once a day,” Walter argues, like that changes anything.

Erin rolls her eyes. “That’s not the point.”

“And what is your point? Do you actually have one or do you just feel like yelling?”

“My point is that you’re discriminating against me,” she says. “You’re letting the whole ‘Meet Me, Love Me’ thing get in your head and you’re using it as a wall between us. You can ignore me for the rest of your life. Fine. But not today. You don’t get to not teach me just because you regret our relationship. So act professional and teach me, Walter!”

He doesn’t say anything. Erin opens her mouth to yell at him some more, when she recognizes the strange new look on his face. His eyes are glazed over and his mouth slightly parted as he stares at Erin’s mouth like he’s under a spell. Erin’s face burns as she realizes what he’s no doubt thinking about: she likes to be a brat sometimes just to get a reaction out of him. He punishes her accordingly every time, but it’s the hottest thing to both of them. Walter loves laying down the law--his law--and Erin loves being punished. Intense heat wets her panties and she squeezes her legs together. He notices. His gaze jumps to her legs immediately and he fucking licks his lips. Is he trying to kill her?

“Walter--” she says, her voice shaking, but Walter’s phone goes off before she can say anything else.

He answers the call and, just like that, the moment is over.

“I’m needed back at the station,” he explains as he hangs up the phone. That’s all he says for the rest of the drive.

…

That night, after enjoying a couple glasses of wine, Erin locks herself in her room, away from her roommates, and decides to watch Pornhub on her laptop. She hasn’t needed to do this in a while; usually sexting with Walter is enough to make her satisfied. So having to look up adult videos is just another bitter reminder that whatever they had--a fling? A relationship?--is done. She may or may not have pulled up her Meet Me, Love Me messages with Walter beforehand, reading through their own conversations as a strange form of roleplay.

What she does do, however, is hit the record button on her phone without realizing. Once she shuts her phone off for the night, it automatically stops recording. And somehow, either through her tipsiness or her fatigue, she hits send. The video of her masturbating--and moaning Walter’s name as she cums--goes straight to the lieutenant himself.

…

The next morning, Walter drags her into a windowless janitor’s closet, his nails digging into her arm. He’s never been rough with her before--occasionally he’ll use harsh words when she’s been acting like a brat, but they’ve never been in physical contact for this to happen, and she has a strange and possibly psychotic gratefulness that his touch will leave bruises on her arm, a reminder that he’s not just some figment of her imagination.

“What kind of game are you playing?” he growls in a whisper-shout, cautious of the people on the other side of the door.

She has no idea what he’s talking about. She says as much.

“Don’t play dumb with me, you dirty little brat,” he spits.

Erin’s going straight to hell for the way those words--and his angry growl--sends heat straight to her core.

Walter continues, “That cute little speech you gave yesterday about wanting to stay professional… you don’t get to say shit like that and then send me videos like the one from last night.”

“What video are you…?” And then it hits her. She has no memory of sending him anything, no memory of even making a video. “Walter, I didn’t mean--”

He takes a step towards her, his shoes now flush with hers. Their chests brush against each other with every inhale. Erin has to crane her neck all the way back to look him in the eye. Dominance radiates off of him, as strong as his cologne, and fuck does it make her wet. She tries to keep her breathing steady, to not make it obvious that her heart is racing, but it gets harder the longer he looks at her with that anger in his eyes. It’s as terrifying as it is arousing.

Walter puts his hands on either side of her head, trapping her. His face is so close to hers that she can feel his breath against her cheeks. “You moaned my goddamn name when you came. You said my name--and you’re really trying to stand here and convince me that you hadn’t meant that video for me?”

“Walter--” Erin begins, her voice shaking, but she can’t get anything more than his name out before his hands are on her hips and he’s spinning her to face the wall. He presses his body against hers. His warmth envelopes her but it makes her shiver. She wants him. God, does she want him. She’d willingly let him fuck her right here and now, damn whoever might walk in on them.

“My name,” he growls in her ear, “is Lieutenant, got it?”

“Yes,” she whimpers. It’s taking every ounce of self-control to not beg him to fuck her. She can feel his erection against her ass; this is just as exciting to him. She wants that cock inside of her, moving between her walls and teasing her pussy, splitting her open as he enters her, fucking her so hard that she can’t walk after.

“Yes, what?” he spits.

“Yes, Lieutenant.” Her arousal is already soaking her panties. She wonders if he can smell it, the way she can smell his arousal.

“Good girl.” He’s really trying to kill her, isn’t he? He knows exactly what that praise does to her, how it makes her weak in the knees. “Now be good and don’t scream.”

Erin pauses, but before she can ask what he’s doing he yanks her pants down. She gasps, her cheeks burning with embarrassment as the cool air hits her asscheeks. And then she gasps again--for an entirely different reason--when Walter begins to knead her cheeks in his hands.

Her Latina heritage blessed her with curves, which includes a big butt. She used to be embarrassed of it her entire life. And then she started dating guys and realized they like touching her big butt as much as she likes it being touched. But Walter’s hands are big enough to make her feel small, even as he touches the biggest part on her body, and that does something to her that she’s never experienced. Something she can’t explain but she knows she likes.

And then he spanks her. His hands come down roughly on both of her cheeks and she gasps, more at the sound than the pain. But when the sting finally registers, it’s not completely unbearable. In fact, there’s something about the way her skin burns that makes it… addicting. She wants him to spank her again.

And he does.

Three more times, on each cheek. He doesn’t bother to be gentle with her. The masochist in her loves it.

And later, as she feels the ghost of his hands with every passing second, she smiles to herself. That video had been sent on accident, but she’d do it over again in a heartbeat.

***

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[modernidolater]

TW: Violence, dark humor, all that jazz. Go no further, angry shit, yadda.

So, yanno...i'm just gonna yell into the void about something.

When i was very young, I read a lot of encyclopedias. Most of my knowledge of the world was attributable to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which my mother kept because well, a home should have a nice, impressive looking set of books. Along with a bunch of other old books that just...really weren't the best choice for a regressive anti-technology apocalyptic fundamentalist cult, but then, as we used to joke, my mother doesn't have to make sense, she just has to make decisions.

So, I eventually started plumbing the depths to try and figure out "what the hell is wrong with my family."

While i didn't get an answer about my family in general, I did note that i seemed to be oddly suited to the definition of "psychopath," minus the whole "being a problem for society at large" thing. Asocial, low empathy, lack of guilt, inability to plan cohesively, difficulty conceptualizing consequences, near total lack of emotions except curiosity and rage, both of which are carefully stifled, aggressive tendencies...frankly, I look at my younger siblings and i can definitely assure anyone that asks that had I not been raised quite far away from society, or if I'd stayed in the cult, I would most definitely have been a problem for society.

But psychopaths are *monsters,* you see. They're so, so bad, you see. Everyone assured me, at great length, that I couldn't be that, no, no sirree. I was too nice. Too kind. I didn't punch people nearly often enough (largely because I don't like being punched outside of sex, and I like to be in charge of where I'm being punched, and even that mostly cause I'm kinda badly out together physically, but that's aside the point.)

I wasn't *hate-able.* My empathy was too high.

On that last note, I have spoken elsewhere and i believe here regarding my empathy. My empathy is specifically a learned skill picked up by reading Edgar Allen Poe's Auguste Dupin stories. Dupin explains his near preternatural ability to get inside people's heads by his learned skill of micro-mimicking body and facial language and then analyzing what he feels when he copies someone else. Works absolute wonders, particularly as up to that point (i was 8-9), I was using the classical technique of provoking and hurting people around me to experimentally figure out how other people worked. Admittedly, it's somewhat like recording a speech and listening to it at the lwvel of a whisper in a crowded room, but then mimicry is far less likely to get you punched, and see previous for my feelings on getting punched.

But now i had, for all intent, a system to demonstrate empathy. Thanks to my mother's abuse, I had a complete paranoid delusion aping guilt. I could check plans past others, and once I got my hands on Google at 14, I had the capacity to directly look up what the general, societal consequences of most actions were and model behaviors that achieved my ends. I further had 18 years of direct training in mind control and manipulation, thanks to my cult.

You may notice that what you just read sounds like the origin story of a serial killer. Ape people around them to avoid detection, paranoia making them scrupulous enough to not get caught, and careful study of laws to find the lines, plus a hyper manipulative persona.

Roll with me here. This continues forward.

So, i'm out and about, 2, 5, 6 years free of my cult. I have married a self avowed psychopath who actually HAS been diagnosed with antisocial disorder thanks to a teenage habit of theft and punching people. He is fairly sure I am not one, since I perform guilt and empathy fantastically, by rote at this point. I literally have days that my face hurts from faking emotions for too long, i am slowly developing agoraphobia because there are far too many people to mimic in a retail job, and my guilt subroutine is just a voice chanting in my head, "they're coming to get you, don't fuck up" 24/7 to the point that i am developing hallucinations, but yeah. It's definitely not psychopathy. At this point, that's just ASPD, and i'm just too darn social. Never that. I'm no monster, you see. I'm "nice."

About this point, I have learned to use mind control techniques to help people, carefully applying them with direct permission to help people open up and discuss problems. My near preternatural ability to get into people's heads, my ability to find information, and my absolute lack of fucks about morals (thus making me wildly nonjudgemental), makes me the go-to confidant for many of my friends. This neatly surrounds me with people that can smooth my life out, but you can't tell people you're friends with them cause the world is made of grey paste and you're deathly bored 24/7 and being allowed to pick through people's minds and help them optimize is the closest you get to not wanting to shoot yourself or others. Or that you carefully maintain contact with people so you can check and make sure you're not doing anything jail worthy. Or that a large group to mimic lets you blend in easier, and finding one that also is transgressive, but socially permissable (thanks, kink) blows off some steam.

Of course, people that don't know me find me deeply off-putting, as I am at this point rapidly learning to turn off the mimicry when not immediately interacting with people. This results in me appearing utterly emotionless, but as soon as people talk to me, bing, back on. I had also joined the kink subculture, giving my hedonistic and transgressive sides an outlet.

I'd also gone to the trouble of getting a multifaceted degree. Ostensibly, my degree is "multimedia journalism." If you aren't aware, this means I have a degree in research, interpersonal communication, public speaking, written communication, mass communication, some psychology, critical thinking, media creation and analysis. In short, I have the literal perfect degree for figuring out, communicating with, and functionally understanding people, as well as a vastly enhanced ability to locate obscure information.

Fast forward again. Three mental breakdowns, four years of therapy, poking at my gender, figuring out a lot of mental health problems, and a rotating series of diagnoses, life is...slowly improving. I've left a toxic marriage (toxic on both sides), moved to a completely new place, started over. I have sort of resigned myself to focusing on my (admittedly annoyingly complex and wide ranging) physical disabilities.

And it comes up, in talking to my partner, that his adoptive mother displayed (she's dead) quite a few signs of ASPD. And he asks curiously if there's any connection between ADHD, autism, and ASPD, mainly cause the "personality disorder" part. PD's can, with long or early exposure, sometimes be passed on, you see.

Guess what's being studied, right now? Not a connection between ASPD and ADHD. A connection between psychopathy and ADHD. Wait, but I thought psychopathy wasn't a thing, says I? I thought there was only ASPD, now?

Ah, but for you see, the DSM is a load of horseshit. And i have heard that from multiple communities with different relations to it, and from multiple therapists, psychiatrists, professors...as a general rule, when the people who use it, the people it's used on, and the people who teach it all agree that a document is manure, I get a touch distrustful. I get more so when current studies use umbrella terms disavowed by a document known for being reductivist and that has been noted as having a great number of entries that were manipulated deliberately to make them as narrow and unusable as possible.

So anyway.

Turns out that while no, ADHD and Autism don't make you a psychopath, there's a distinct overlap. Empathy issues are a possiblity in all three, though both ADHD and autism can create *hyper*empathy. Inability to navigate social constructs is another point of overlap.

But really, it's the serotonin deficiency that hurls it across the line for me. And the genetic factors. Can psychopathy result from environment? Yeah, seems so. But there does seem to be a genetic and neurochemical component. Which is...curious for a disorder presented as purely a traumatic abreaction that creates dangerous amorals.

I then looked it up. And wouldn't you know, psychopathy is only pathologized as ASPD/APD, and DPD? The former is the sort of psychopathy that is characterized by violent amd criminal antisocial behavior, and the other an inability to understand and perform social mores at all. But this is the DSM, so these are of course diagnosed by problems caused for others as a first line.

Violation of societal norms, lack of emotions other than rage, aggression...it's almost like the same people that named a serotonin and function deficiency Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to enshrine the disorder only by those aspects that make neurotypical people uncomfortable rather than seeking to help the neurodivergent person, the same people that invented torturous behavioral correction therapies to "fix" the neurodivergent person? Those strike me as people that might possibly have looked a serotonin deficiency that causes rage, limited emotions, impulsivity, difficulty conceptualizing consequence, and potentially a hell of a lot of other fun side shit and decided to call that "Doesn't get along with others well" disorder.

What really kicks it in the teeth for me, however, is that psychopathy used to mean more than "a social pariah." You see, Theodore Millon, the guy that wrote the book on personality disorders, noted between 5 and 10 subtypes. Do you know what they are?

Nomadic

(including schizoid and avoidant features)

Drifters; roamers, vagrants; adventurer, itinerant vagabonds, tramps, wanderers; they typically adapt easily in difficult situations, shrewd and impulsive. Mood centers in doom and invincibility

Malevolent

(including sadistic and paranoid features)

Belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, sadistic, malignant, brutal, resentful; anticipates betrayal and punishment; desires revenge; truculent, callous, fearless; guiltless; many dangerous criminals, including serial killers.

Covetous

(including negativistic features) Rapacious, begrudging, discontentedly yearning; hostile and domineering; envious, avaricious; pleasures more in taking than in having.

Risk-taking

(including histrionic features) Dauntless, venturesome, intrepid, bold, audacious, daring; reckless, foolhardy, heedless; unfazed by hazard; pursues perilous ventures.

Reputation-defending 

(including narcissistic features) Needs to be thought of as infallible, unbreakable, indomitable, formidable, inviolable; intransigent when status is questioned; overreactive to slights.

(It should be noted: the features listed above are simply what each presentation is most likely to display if disordered. A reputation-defender may not display narcissm, a risk taker may not be histrionic. A malevolent [what a terribly judgy name...] could be negativistic, or avoidant, or histrionic. And so on.)

Now, ya may be going, "wait, hold up, narcissism is on there! We still have that! Schizoid is on there, we have that! Sadism, paranoia, we got all those things!"

Flash quiz: do you know what a personality disorder is? It's a series of learned behaviors that require moderation and unlearning.

Why yes, they did spin multiple neurotypes off into diagnoses that require behavioral therapy to "fix." Why on earth would you think they wouldn't? They're still trying to use reparative therapy on auties. Hell, near as I can figure, histrionic got spun into Borderline Personality disorder. You know what the therapy for that is? DBT, aka, "it IS your fault and you SHOULD feel bad."

Beyond knowing there used to be different flavors, did you know that there is about a millionty scare articles about how psychopaths are everywhere? Guess why.

What do you get when someone has an absolute need to see what's on the other side of the hill and no real fucks to give about how you get there? You get scientists, explorers, people utterly driven to find out. Think about how many of our science and exploration heros are noted as deeply weird and off-kilter. We have whole stereotypes about this. There are books and articles devoted to the transgressive personas and behaviors of famous scientists and explorers.

What do you get when someone is belligerent, paranoid, truculent, violent, fearless? Snipers. Literally. The army has openly stated they like psychopaths quite a lot. Someone that can look at a map of human lives and commit calculus with the phrase "acceptable losses" makes a damn fine general, wouldn't you say? Hunters, too. Make a good king? Or bounty hunter. Or, if we're going to be honest, a martial artist. Hell, think of all the ways our society accepts violence in real terms and symbolically. Management. Video gamer. Espionage. Actuary. Pest control. There are THOUSANDS of of societal uses for people like this.

Covetous? Well, banks are openly quite loving towards psychopaths. CEOs are indicated here. Businessmen. Fandoms with collection as a function have any number of anecdotes of individuals who have an intense drive to get more. "Focused on the chase, rather than the victory, to the exclusion of all else" is considered a positive, laudable personality trait. To put it in other terms, "can't stop, won't stop, never done." Sports players, yes? Football, rugby, hockey...

Risk takers are the real standouts, in terms of societal love. Doctors. Firemen. EMT's. Skydivers. Extreme sports players. Equipment testers. The list goes on. Society loves risk taking psychopaths. Hell, look at the diagnostic criterion up there: it's mostly traits with high positive connotations.

Reputation defending? Politics. Law. Advertising. Acting. Writing. Religion. Leadership of any kind.

I'm not talking out my ass here. All those fields have been noted as friendly towards, attractive to, and having a high representation of people who fit the behavioral model of psychopath.

But only if they're useful. Like literally every other non-normative neurotype.

Society loves ADHD and autistic people when they're displaying savant abilities or when they can mask well enough to use their sensory and cognitive differences to societal ends.

And if they're a problem for people around them, that's treated. The underlying difficulties? The societal structures that punish and harm them? The pain of adapting their entire neurobiome to do all the work of interfacing with different neurotypes while being driven to harness anything useful and discard the rest of their brain? No, we don't treat that. That's just the price of doing business. "Pull yourself up and don't be a problem."

And here's the problem, in plain terms: psychopaths who learn to cope, to mask, to adapt like I did are never diagnosed. I have spent most of my life fairly concerned about the fact that I seem not to have emotions or compunction, that i am always consciously working to figure out and connect to people around me on the most basic level, that I am constantly working to keep an active model of social norms going at all times. And I don't mean "shake hands, eye contact." I mean I have the same mental conversation regarding "don't shoot that person" and "use a turn signal." All prosocial behaviors, all social behaviors period, are a struggle to understand.

The funny thing is, it also makes antisocial behaviors difficult. Shooting someone seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Regardless of whether I care about getting caught or not, shooting somone will interrupt my day.

Not shooting them also seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Yes, it'd be a pain in the ass to shoot them, but then again, if I do it correctly, I only have to do it once.

But again, "correctly" is a wildly unfixed variable, and the whole question won't come up if I always ensure I fail the "do i currently have a firearm" step. And I don't. Ever.

That's how my brain works. Y'all go on about moral and ethical and legal reasons. That's an exhausting conscious mental conversation to have every other day, so my shortcut is:

"Should I shoot them? Oh, right, I don't have a gun. Guess not. Should I get one? No, cause I might shoot someone, and that'd be a pain in the ass. Welp, no shooting people."

And so it goes. I don't understand any social norms. Good or bad. I have all the problematic issues still, mind you. Environmental factors. I mimic and I was raised in an apocalypse cult in Oklahoma. I spend a lot of brain space sorting between prosocial behaviors and the violent antisocial behaviors I was taught were prosocial.

Because, you see, I can't really understand the prosocial behaviors, but I can see they work. And antisocial behaviors don't, really. Have i impulsively pocketed something? Couple times. Even got away with. Can't steal a house, though. And theft gets boring, for me.

Ok, except piracy. I may quite enjoy piracy.

Cooperation with a larger whole can and does yield benefits. Forcing myself to sit through mind numbing gratification delays does seem to yield results that are beneficial, though I really try to keep that one to a minimum. I refuse to be bored if I can help it. Making nice talky sounds gets me shit faster than making angry talky sounds.

Possibly this is a result if being raised manipulative. No idea. Kinda don't care.

Point is, I'm one of the psychopaths that, while not immediately useful, is also not actively a problem. So no-one will listen when i talk about everything being gray and cold and exhaustingly complicated because people make no sense and almost all my emotions are dialed so far down it's a joke i lack the ability to laugh about.

No one has believed me that the one emotion I have in spades is rage and that i have to literally consciously work out from first principles why violence is a bad option as my sole method of controlling that, my ONLY EMOTION OF ANY STRENGTH, which I cannot allow myself to feel for any length of time because I start losing sight of that consequence model and I worry i'll make a mistake I can't unmake. Or that it took me two decades to learn not to smash things I need when someone looks at me funny. Or just smash them.

Or that i have to keep my hands in my pockets and chant "don't steal" in my head some days. That I wear tight clothing with shallow pockets to make stealing harder so that, like guns, I simply can't do it easily and therefore short circuit my behaviors.

People are more than happy to hurl me at any problem that requires a lack of emotion, but if I dare to be less than appropriately emotional on a date? At a wedding? Funeral? If I make an error and don't diagnose it myself and perform contrition appropriately, regardless of if I knew there was a social or personal rule there? Well, I'm fired/broken up with/punished/evicted.

But I am not actively a problem for society. So none of those things are worth diagnosing. Or helping in any way.

And those that are useful? Are often fed utter horseshit and encouraged to break society. Bankers creating recessions. Generals commanding useless wars. Cops. Doctors that uphold a broken system. Politicians that pursue a broken society.

I know, I can see, that ASPD people catch a shit ton of shit cause they get blamed for "useful" psychopaths mistakes, and none of the benefits when said same psychopaths are lionized. Looking back at what it was, and what it is now, pathologically speaking, it makes perfect fucking sense for the asshats that designed a diagnosis to only include the people they don't like as the "sick" ones, and label the "good" ones as "heroes." Makes a nice distinction there between people we want to demonize and people we want to lionize for having the exact same chemical imbalance, and neatly creates a fall group when any of the "heroes" trip up. Silence those who can't cope, elevate those that can, treat neither effectively, and if an elevated one stops coping, we can just "realize" they were "sick" all along, and oh, yeah, those sick people are so bad, you guys, nothing like those heroes at allllllll.

I am...so tired of this society bullshit.

So anyway, I'm a psychopath. Paranoid, some schizoid. So whatever grains of salt you feel like taking, grab 'em, I guess. I'd mostly like for people like me to stop being weaponized, lionized, or punished for having a different neurotype. I'd like to be able to talk to a doctor about that and for there to be some options beyond "stop that," "get locked up," "have you considered the army" (yes, a doctor actually asked me that as a teenager) or "you seem fine, tho."

And if you resonate with this, well...I'm 32, never been arrested, mostly managed to avoid terrible shit, and I've got a life, couple partners, and I'm surviving, so like. You can do this. Lotta people wanna tell you you can't have this or that cause "you're not bad, tho." They're stupid. Y'ain't evil, just different. Don't let them get to you.

And (this is a joke) if you decide to shoot someone, do it once, correctly. Saves time.

[wendell-or-something]

it is time.

I want to compile a more complete rundown of my thoughts about homestuck 2. I want all the stuff in my head to be in one place, and I know this is going to be incredibly long winded and I don’t care. I want to be honest... I want to understand why I don't like this media. on more than a "but of course" level because there are a lot of people who have it as a gut reaction that this stuff isn't right. but I think there are layers to what produces that. I wanna get in depth with this. so that's what I'm gonna attempt to do.

okay, so, the first thing I think I wanna say is a disclaimer. I have not actually read the epilogues. or homestuck 2. I have a peripheral knowledge of what happens in them because, as a concerned citizen, I poked around enough to pick up details and know that I wouldn't enjoy this media if I fully engaged with it. my assessment of the material may be flawed because of this, but I mean... if the things I've heard about the epilogues deterred me from reading it, then I guess that's what I'm analyzing? not only what I understand based on my limited knowledge, but also why it is so limited to begin with. why this media is such a huge deterrent to so many people who care so much about homestuck. ultimately, this is not to shame people who like this media... I will be addressing common takes I've heard from people who defend the epilogues, but I'm not singling anyone out, and anyone who reads this has a right to disagree, or better yet, ignore me and find enjoyment where you are able, even if I cannot. I will not begrudge you that. additionally, I am considering the epilogues and homestuck 2 to be one unit. not necessarily in terms of structure, but because the events of one lead directly into the events of the other, and the two have similar issues. I think I'll shorthand the combination of the two as EP/HS2 for simplicity, and refer to either individually if I have something specific to say about one or the other.

I think the main problem that people have with EP/HS2 is that it's depressing. and it's depressing for a myriad of different reasons, but I'll get to those in a minute. first I want to establish why them being depressing doesn't work for so many people. I feel like this should be examined first, because a lot of the supporters of EP/HS2 are viewing the complaints against it as over sensitivity from fans who only liked the comic for its lighter elements. I keep seeing a "y'all just wanted your rainbow cotton candy fluff ending" kind of sentiment going around. and like... you are right that this isn't a fluff ending. but I think it's unfair to treat the particular type of content that EP/HS2 brought to the table as the only kind of substantial, fulfilling narrative that we could've asked for.

and I think a lot of the dissonance that people see between homestuck and EP/HS2 is based in the ratio of tension to levity, and how far it's shifted toward pure tension... especially because, at the end of homestuck, all the outside threats to this group of friends have already been resolved. and yet, shit feels leagues more catastrophically bad during the epilogues than it did during the comic when the characters were actually under attack, which is super weird when you think about it. I mean, "epilogues" my ass, am I right? it is true that homestuck was never 100% sunshine and rainbows... in fact, some of the darker events that it brought to the table became some of the most hyped shit in the comic. murderstuck is mostly what I'm thinking of first in terms of this, but there was a lot of popular angst laden content within homestuck that the fans latched onto. the thing is, the fans also latched onto the content that was super goofy, and the fan works that you can still find online from the era of homestuck's initial popularity reflect both sides of its tone in equal measure. there was a huge amount of goofy fan content (octopimp's youtube channel is still a record of that, and that wasn't even the half of it). and there was a huge amount of angsty content, and there was a huge amount of heartfelt content... turns out, homestuck had broad appeal, and spoke to different people in different ways. and back then, I never really felt like the goofy stuff was being treated as any less important than the heavy stuff. it wasn't brushed off just because it was seen as lighthearted. people liked to laugh, and I fully believe that Andrew Hussie began doing homestuck as a fun activity.

the reason why I bring this up is because homestuck as a piece of media could beget all of these various takes. the fan works could be tonally dissonant when held side by side with each other, but when held against the parts of the comic that inspired them, they made perfect sense. homestuck could spawn jokes, and angst, and social commentary, and theories... and even extrapolation on canonical events, in ways both silly and serious. and when you look at the kind of content that the fans produced during homestuck's height, you see what was important to them. they put time and effort into crafting even their dumbest meme shit. the fans reflected what the comic gave to them. and humor and heart were among the most beloved core engagements that the comic provided... these were pillars on which a lot of fan enjoyment rested... you really can't begrudge a person their fun.

and treating darkness and angst as the sole indicator of maturity in a work seems misguided to me. because, speaking personally for a moment here, one of the biggest lessons I had to teach myself when I was growing up was how not to wallow in negative emotions. how to find the fun, sometimes rather aggressively, so that you don't just drown. and with EP/HS2, it feels like at every turn, readers are constantly grasping for something nice or fun to keep them afloat in all this heavy stuff, and either they come to accept mere scraps of positivity, or everything they reach for is eventually dissolved as well. and I think the character of a piece of media as a whole can sometimes tell you what level of maturity it's operating under. like, if the text lingers over making the characters miserable, or seems to revel in shooting holes in people's positive interpretations of these people, you have to kind of wonder if this is serving the narrative, or just producing author schadenfreude when they release what amounts to shock content.

it almost feels like a twisting of the way homestuck used to treat the fans, because during it's run, homestuck was very reactive towards the fanbase. this kind of canon responsiveness to the readers was baked into homestuck from the very beginning, back when Hussie was accepting reader suggestions for what John Egbert should do. and need I remind everyone that the trolls were made as parodies of different types of personalities that were common to find online during homestuck's era? they are internet trolls, who are actually an alien race known as trolls, who communicate primarily online, and whose culture and species developed to produce an ornery and antagonistic population, so like... it's trolls all the way down. that's the whole joke. but the real, valuable benefit of parodying your fans with your characters, is that when the trolls act, they reflect the way real people acted. which means that when, say, Nepeta shoehorns RP lingo into casual conversation, some people will be like "it me!" and some people will laugh/cringe because they've seen people actually talk like that, and some people will be like "aww, that used to be me!" and every time a character produces this sense of identification with the audience, it works to create familiarity, and eventually, a sense of fondness.

that fondness is fucking powerful.

that fondness is born out of recognition and empathy, no matter which character you feel it for, and when a giant community of people loves a character that you have seen yourself reflected in so clearly, that is an incredibly validating experience. especially when you’re young, and the pieces of yourself that you saw were some of the nerdiest, weirdest, most awkward parts of you. a very large community of people loves a character that is like you, even, or perhaps especially, because of the flawed parts. and of course these characters were meant to tease the fans a little... these characters were also jokes to some extent the whole time. but they were never seen as cruel or insulting, because these characters were also important. the story literally built whole worlds around their identities... these kids altered universes. and they were allowed to be that important and special without being perfect first. they were dumb, and awkward, and nerdy, and cringey, and allowed to be there anyway. they were you, and you were important.

and this is where I think that EP/HS2 really misses the point. because in homestuck, the characters experienced hardship, but that hardship went on to fuel an overall sense of accomplishment when it was overcome. the road might be long, and it might be tough, and you might face shit that you don't feel prepared for, but when triumph is achieved, it feels that much more earned. and that is a key phrase I want everyone to remember homestuck for:

triumph.

it's the feeling that cascade gave me. it is the highest of heights that this whole thing reached. and it really has so much to do with how homestuck had built itself up until that point. we were mired in the minutiae of these kids' lives. we read their every chat log. we saw them dicking around doing next to nothing. we saw them contact each other and talk to each other for basically no reason other than to catch up. we saw them sharing stupid memes, and yelling at each other for wasting time on pointless bullshit, and dunking on each other's shitty taste in media... every one of them was "you" at some point. "you captchaloged this" or "you decided to do that" and it made a subtle connection in your brain that convinced you to feel things with them and accept what they "decided" as something that you had done alongside them. in some small way, you did homestuck. and this notion was further supported by how much of what the fans were doing would make its way back into what the comic was doing. the comic and the fans existed in a kind of symbiosis, and that fed into the feeling of connection that the fans had with this particular story. this thing was alive, and it moved in tandem with the community.

so when something big like cascade happened, you were right there with them. you were deep in the center of it. and you wanted to be, because this was your payoff. you did the work with these kids... you put in the time. and the triumph was yours too.

this is why EP/HS2 shouldn't be depressing. the core of the story was triumph against all odds. to take the triumph that was earned over the course of the whole story, and ruin it for the sake of generating angst... it misses the point. I did not read all 8000+ pages of homestuck multiple times because I wanted a tragedy. if I wanted tragedy, I would choose a different story. of course a lot of fans would have trouble liking EP/HS2... this wasn't what they signed up for. it pulls the rug out from under the fans of the original comic by pulling a mean genre bait and switch. why would people who liked a story like homestuck want a story like this? and I mean, obviously some people were okay with this. some people like EP/HS2. but you have to admit that it is an entirely different thing than what homestuck was.

I’ve heard some folks try to compare the darker parts of EP/HS2 to the darker parts of homestuck, and this is why they aren't the same. the darkness performs different functions in each story. in homestuck, it contrasts the lighter parts and creates a reason to keep everyone moving. in EP/HS2, it is the whole darn thing. the story is simply woven from it to begin with. I have heard some people say that they think of EP/HS2 as cathartic... as a reflection of life when things are painful or hard. but I think we really need to remember what catharsis is. catharsis doesn’t begin and end with pain. catharsis has to do something with that pain, or it’s just pain for pain’s sake. and the further I look into EP/HS2, the more I feel like the story is just playing it straight as a tragedy... though sometimes I wonder if it knows this.

so let's pull apart the tragedy of EP/HS2. because while I don’t really enjoy tragedies, (hence why I liked homestuck, and didn’t like EP/HS2... they are opposites in this sense), I still understand how tragedies work. catharsis can be part of it... to see something sad happen, and relate to that sadness, and feel a deep emotion... that does make sense. but the line between catharsis and just plain agitation is whether or not the pain actually provides you with a sense of relief. if the story leaves the character stuck in a bad emotional place, you feel stuck too... unable to confront the emotional burden that the story has saddled you with in a satisfying way, because it isn't even your own. in real life, when you are hurt, at least you have the ability to do whatever you need for yourself, in order to eventually feel better. I have grieved before, and somehow found it in me to laugh again since. but in stories, you rely on the author to construct the characters' response to bad events, and if things just go from bad to worse, sometimes with little resistance, the audience is eventually going to feel really agitated by the lack of relief. even stories that end in death provide catharsis due to the finality of it. the life ends, and provides a sense of closure. but EP/HS2 doesn’t give you an out. it just keeps driving many of the characters into more and more mundanely uncomfortable and dissatisfying lives, or turns them into people we would rather not know or read about.... which feels like a loss to the reader, even though the character is right there. at that point, the character's presence only makes you feel worse because they used to be someone you liked, but now they're just a reminder of your disappointment. and this level of your emotional discomfort isn't even something that the narrative will address, because it's just a side effect of how things are going. it isn't poetic, and there is no real comfort given to lighten that load... it's just unpleasant.

and on a more technical level, I would like to point out that stories create a kind of transaction between author and reader. and once you understand the status quo between you and a particular author, you can gauge the level of investment you feel safe putting in the characters. at their core, it stands to reason that stories should require conflict to be interesting. but in order to stay interesting, they also need to give us a reason to care about the conflict. in homestuck, I felt like the story set up a status quo in which we felt comfortable caring about certain characters, because we subtly trusted that the author wasn't wasting our time or jerking us around. like, you knew that a lot of crazy shit was on the table, but it felt like the story was growing, the author was interested in that growth, and thus he would not kill it. even if you couldn't begin to guess what was gonna happen next, you at least didn't have to worry about the author hugely ruining things that you liked about the story. he seemed like he liked those things too. we were all on the same page in that regard.

this is where character investment was very important to homestuck... the readers needed something to hang on to, or they'd lose interest in what was going on, and in homestuck specifically, the thing that kept us hanging on, was our love for these characters, and our wish to see them prevail against the odds. we were hoping for a satisfying ending, and interested in how we'd get there. and by now, I think homestuck fans in particular are very determined to stick to the characters by nature. if we weren't, then we would've been bored out of reading the comic in the first place back in act 1, when the most exciting thing that had happened was John going through his house and finding his dad in the kitchen. if you don't love John at least a little, you won't want to keep reading about him picking up items and describing them to you for a whole chapter, with not but the entertainment value of his character's particular perspective and voice to sustain you.

obviously, character investment isn't always a story's draw... but it was definitely homestuck’s. and even giving EP/HS2 the benefit of the doubt... let's say we're just judging it on the merits of being a tragic story. there are many levels of engagement that a story can hit, and in a lot of tragedies, the interest comes from the machinations of the plot. you already know it's going to end sadly, but you have the ability to process the sadness (a negative emotional experience and potential reader deterrent) while still maintaining interest, because you want to know how it will happen. it is unfortunate then, that EP/HS2 isn't a stand alone story, independent from homestuck itself. because if you tell a homestuck fan that the story will now only end in sadness, they likely won't want to know how it happens. because they already decided to like and relate to these characters, and wish for their happiness. they were taught it was okay to hope for that, based on the way the story used to be. basically, one of the essential appeals of homestuck (character investment) is actively working against the core appeal of a tragedy (understanding how sad events came to pass) because homestuck's appeal worked so well to begin with. it's basically nonsensical to try and jump track from one to the other, because the reader is much more likely to fall off the wagon entirely, and ignore your story in order to preserve their enjoyment of the story they already consumed.

but to get way more blunt about this... homestuck was good, and ruining what it left us with was unpopular for obvious reasons. fans were successfully invested in the story, the final triumphant payoff was a satisfying way to cap the narrative, and honestly... I think homestuck probably should've just stopped while the vibes were good. people were satiated. they were sad that it was over, but the sadness came from fondness, and that just sort of felt appropriate. we had it so good.

the transaction between author and reader was stable at that point. we had conflict. we had a reason to care. we got a resolution. there was a level of trust established, and honored... we trusted that there was a rhythm to the story. a push and pull between the kind of threat that would necessitate action from our heroes, and the ability of the characters to overcome the conflict well enough that we'd be left with something satisfying in the end. this trust no longer exists in EP/HS2. the epilogues broke it, and homestuck 2 has failed to repair it because, to be honest, it was already too badly damaged. it would take a full retcon to actually bring that back after the epilogues, but then it uh... screwed the pooch all over again. sorry, that was insensitive.

anyway. so like... what about the particulars of the story's content? I mean... I know I'm dissatisfied because a lot of the characters have been blatantly destroyed. Dirk will be my example for this bit, I mean, just look at him. in one epilogue route he commits suicide, and by making Ult. Dirk a thing, they effectively unestablished the identity of Dirk as he was in homestuck. and my limited knowledge of the epilogues doesn't allow me to really know about this, but was there even any acknowledgement of how death works in homestuck? Dirk must've known that if he killed himself, he'd end up as a ghost out in the dream bubbles. that is still a thing, right? Dave could've gone looking for him. considering Dirk's pesterquest route, he should've wanted to. and see, there's an example of what might've approached catharsis in a situation like that... pain, but also a human person dealing with that pain in a way that feels like fulfillment. but as far as I've heard, the story didn't go there? so it's just pain for pain's sake... or maybe just a bid to get rid of the more complex version of his character and replace him with an anime villain. and the method doesn't even make any sense, like, Dirk is the last character that would ever commit suicide because, by his own canonical words, he is scared to not exist. he literally couldn't bring himself to destroy the AR because of this, in spite of having every technical and emotional reason to want to. this is a major pain point for him, and I know it's typical to think of someone with self hatred wanting to kill themselves, but Dirk is a particularly different case. he should not be shoved into such an ill fitting generic narrative for shock value.

and beyond that, let's say you're someone who identified with Dirk. let's say that when homestuck said "you are now Dirk Strider" you were like "oh fuck I kinda am tho" and you were invested in him ever since. let's say that the points of investment you felt with him were in his troubles with self loathing, his fear of not existing, or his trouble communicating his true feelings to others. this is a rather dismal end for Dirk to have come to... and a rather dismal story for you to read if you still relate to this character. if you're coming off the end of homestuck still securely relating to him as heavily as you did when he was allowed to triumph, how fucking bad is it gonna feel to see him so thoroughly obliterated? to whiplash so hard from a perceived success to such abject failure is just mean. this story is so mean now, like, everyone's got the bug it seems.

and not only do several characters perish (literally, or by being mismanaged) for cheap drama in EP/HS2, but some just turn into shitty people? like, Rose recently revealed that she cheated on Kanaya. I simply hate the idea that Rose would grow up to be the type of person who would do that. I remember Rose in acts 1 through 5 being the kind of person who had misguided ideas about what course of action she thought would be effective. she would make some pretty big decisions, and act on destructive impulses, often in spite of what her friends thought was safe. in essence, I can see where the authors of homestuck 2 would get the idea of Rose going off and doing big shit without telling people. but this ignores why she was so determined to do any of that stuff in the first place... Rose was just as invested in protecting the people she cared about as anyone. and besides that, I thought her arc in those early acts had taught her something about that approach? I thought she got closer to people, to the point where they could voice a concern and she'd listen.

in regards to her relationship with Kanaya in particular, there's a huge difference between knowing someone for a day at the age of 13, and spending 3 more years getting to know and love that person before deciding to marry them. so even if this was the reflection of a quality that Rose had back then, I thought she grew past it... she had ample time and opportunity... we even watched her get better about this sort of thing. literally this rolls back her character development to when she was a child, and makes her a shitty adult. and if I’m being really scathing here, I might as well say that this feels like an example of that thing that stories sometimes do, where they only care about a relationship while the characters are struggling to get together. and then once they are together, it timeskips past their relationship being functional and lands you at a point where they're experiencing turbulence. at which point it leverages their relationship trouble for drama, rather than letting the two function well as a unit against an outside threat of some kind. like, no happy couples exist in fiction! gotta wring your conflict out of the fact that they’re falling apart! it feels like they’re being exploited by the writers.

and worst of all... this betrayal of trust by Rose either ruins Rose and Kanaya's marriage, or makes Kanaya seem like a fool. I keep thinking back to their time on the meteor, when Rose asked if Kanaya was breaking up with her because they finally reached that tipping point where Rose's drinking had to be acknowledged as a problem. and Kanaya said that no, she wasn't breaking up with her, and stuck with Rose because she was dedicated to loving her even if that meant helping her with a serious problem. that was such a strong character moment for Kanaya. it displayed her loyalty and dedication to Rose, but also a nuanced understanding of when a problem can actually be solved by dedicated effort. having her be so committed to staying with Rose in spite of Rose's transgressions is like a perversion of those positive qualities. now it just feels like Kanaya is irrationally willing to put up with anything from Rose, no matter how egregious. it takes a trait that was so nice about Kanaya, and uses it in such an upsetting way... and honestly, there was no reason to do that.

but this is a huge problem with EP/HS2... there's like, juuuuuust enough of a through line for people to think that it makes sense. so when I try to say that the characters are just better people than this, and that they're smart enough to do the most basic fundamental things to prevent pain in people that they care about... when I say I believe in the integrity of these characters, I could very well get someone adamantly insisting that I was just being naive. that sometimes, in reality, people disappoint you. what can I even do about that, without sounding like I'm in denial, or like I'm only interested in liking these characters when all their rough spots are smoothed away? how can I begin to articulate that these aren't decisions being made by the characters... they're decisions being made by authors who I don't trust for exactly this reason. and I very especially hate this because just... no! I know what these characters' flaws actually were! and what their strengths were! I had a solid read on their identity, because homestuck was so friggin good at establishing that! I know that a huge part of Rose coming into her own was learning how to cut all the snarky passive aggressive sarcasm and just be honest about her feelings... something that she actually advocated for when talking to Dave, but also had to learn to do herself. the logical escalation of Rose’s character would be a trend toward more openness... but also, just in general, Rose never had a kindness problem. like, I guess that’s the biggest thing I have an issue with. Rose was never this unkind.

it just feels like the writers want us to believe that not only was Kanaya played for a fool, but we were as well. we thought Rose was better than this. we thought we were better judges of character than this. and honestly... we were! the writing was not on the wall about this development. but that just doesn't mean anything because EP/HS2 said that it happened.

and this also harms the relatability of Rose for the people who used to identify with her. I'm not saying she has to be perfect... obviously, characters can and should be flawed. and characters can have flaws that you don't perfectly relate to the specifics of. Rose developed a drinking problem at a young age, which a few people might've related to, but it's very specific. but if you broaden the implications of that in the context of a story... a ton of people will be able to relate to the concept of developing an unhealthy coping mechanism, or doing something you don't really enjoy just to relate to a relative who has been distant to you for whatever reason, or even just having a complicated relationship with a parent. so what if you apply this kind of broadened meaning to Rose's cheating? the idea that she is not trustworthy. that she hides major, life altering information from people who are very close to her and should've been told. that she doesn't trust her partner, and would rather sneak around and hide this for years, rather than either letting her partner be involved in this part of her life, or accepting that her partner isn't comfortable with this development and respecting that boundary. this sort of thing is really alienating to people who know that they themselves are better than this. and “alienating” is the exact antithesis of what homestuck always was to the people who loved it.

what's especially interesting to me, is that the effects of this alienation actually come through in the way that people talk about EP/HS2 nowadays. I don't know if anyone has noticed this trend yet, but people tend to talk about the events of EP/HS2 as decisions made by writers, rather than decisions made by characters. which is weird, because people didn't do that so much with homestuck. and for this I wanna break out Vriska as an example. a lot of people like Vriska, and a lot of people hate Vriska. she's controversial. but no matter what, people always take Vriska's actions as though they're hers. and if they hate what Vriska does in the story, then they hate Vriska. not Hussie, for writing her that way. not even the vague concept of the narrative. they consider Vriska's actions to actually belong to her and form her identity, which they then pass judgment on, one way or another. Hussie is even a character that canonically exists within homestuck, and nobody ever thought to blame him, in universe, for being the origin of Vriska as a trouble causing entity in the story. compare that with how many times you'll see someone say that they don't like what the EP/HS2 writers have done with Rose, Jade, Jane, etc.... they tend not to actually level blame at the characters themselves. obviously this does vary a lot from person to person, but as a vague trend, I would say that people are starting to detach themselves from the characters, or at least detach the characters from their actions in EP/HS2. and to me it reads as a bit of a defense mechanism. it is a degree of separation that lets these characters keep their integrity, and the potential for positive development that they had when homestuck initially ended. it is a trend that, to me, proves the point that the level of pain for pain's sake in this story is too much. without relief, people disengage. even if they want to keep up with how the characters are doing, they no longer want to buy into the narrative's reality... so they acknowledge the author, and the fact that this is fiction. they remove themselves from the act of being invested. and the more adamantly you see people doing this, the more uncomfortable you can assume it feels for these people to buy into the events of the story and treat them as real.

to jump track to another odd point that I think creates a further barrier between cast and audience... has anyone noticed the age of the main cast's children that we've seen appear so far? all of them seem to be similar to the ages of the beta kids when we first met them. they're teenagers. and that means that, if my knowledge is correct, we kinda skipped a chunk of these people's lives. we never really spent time seeing the original homestuck kids as new parents... we never saw them raising their babies. and I get that this is an odd complaint, but it's an example of the story not growing with its audience. it's missing a huge opportunity, not only to show us this portion of their lives, but to fill in with some major world building when it comes to Earth C. are we supposed to assume that absolutely none of the main cast of homestuck made any new friends on Earth C? did they not explore what kind of culture popped up on this planet? what if one of the main cast had gone out and met someone totally new to befriend or love on this planet? but no... we're strictly only interested in the original cast and their kids, which they only ever had with each other, and nobody is really friends anymore, but nobody has met anyone new either... basically depression and isolation is the only option for these characters if the writers aren't willing to actually let them live in the world they're living in. and besides that, at time of writing, there is one friend of mine from my friend group that is just now planning on getting married. he'll be the first of all of us. and while he and his fiancé want kids pretty quickly once they're settled down, it still hasn't even happened yet. we're in our late 20s. and believe me, I understand the desire to timeskip to when the kids are old enough to be full people, but you have to remember not only that there are other ways to introduce new characters, but also who we're even trying to relate to here. is it the new kids, or their parents? because most of us aren't parents yet, much less the parents of teenagers, but we aren’t teenagers anymore either, and this isn’t framed as their story anyway. how are the majority of homestuck’s older fans represented in EP/HS2?

and when EP/HS2 skips the portion of these characters' lives that we, in real life, are actually living, it subtly hints that a story that would reflect what our lives are like isn't interesting, and tells us that not much good is expected to be waiting in our futures either. and the bigger problem with that is that the writing decisions in EP/HS2 represent the authors' answer to the question: how do we make this interesting? clearly they didn't think that anyone would be satisfied with a nice little romp through the lives these characters might've built. like, a slice of life type of story? or maybe something with a smaller stakes conflict? I dunno why, but my first thought was like... what if Jane ended up actually becoming a detective, and the story just had an intermission-style detour into her solving a case or something? at least a weird, hyper specific detour like that would signal that we care about what she's doing... that'd be fine by me! but they couldn't even give us something that would frame her as a good person... they just treated her like she never got un-possessed by the Condesce, and called it a day. it just feels like these are authors who wouldn't be satisfied with a story that lets the characters be at ease in their private lives. peace is something that is off the table, like, if the characters are living good, satisfying lives, we will never hear about it because apparently that counts as nothing to report.

but also... in the absence of the larger plot machinations that SBURB provided, what was left to create a struggle for these characters to face? it couldn't be Jack Noir, Lord English, the Condesce... those threats all got resolved. and they couldn’t let the characters exist in any facsimile of peace. so the writers needed something to stir things up. and in trying to find a new challenge to drive the story, they dug into the stuff that, in my opinion, should not have been used in this way. they began grasping at character drama, trying to wring conflict out of the deterioration of the relationships between the characters.

but at the same time, they're trying to capture the grandeur of homestuck during its more iconic moments. and okay, this is a pretty far out there speculation, but I've always made this observation about homestuck, and the way it got popularized. early on, fans would get into it with no real idea of how big or ambitious the story was going to be. going into act 1 blind, you wouldn't suspect this comic of being much more than a quirky, funny little weekly strip, set up for the sole purpose of making weird jokes about Nic Cage or Harry Anderson. then you get to the big shit. which in act 1 could just be the meteor destroying John's house. but that's a pretty impressive amount of escalation based on the expectations you had. fast forward to a bigger moment, like the reveal that the trolls' SGRUB session created the human universe, and you're super excited about this. so you tell whoever will listen that they should really read homestuck! and maybe they listen, and they go to page one and... well... they seem kind of unimpressed by the way the comic looks. this is what all the hype was about? and you really wanna sell it to them, so you're like, no, seriously, it gets so much better. and maybe you show them bits like the LOWAS walk around flash game, or maybe [S] make her pay, or something. and they're like, whoa, the comic gets like that? so perhaps they slog through the early acts, or maybe they just skip to the trolls and double back when they're confused enough... but either way, the comic's selling point is now it's climax, not the buildup.

and the problem with viewing the comic this way is that homestuck is both things. proportionally, homestuck is actually way more composed of the tedious little stuff than the grand big stuff. but homestuck was popularized via the grand big stuff, and sometimes I feel like EP/HS2 is attempting to fill itself with big stuff like that, but it isn't doing the legwork right. it's using character drama to fuel itself, but it's also trying to be highly epic in terms of its presentation. the lack of contrast flattens everything out, and as I described earlier, the story no longer has that essential push and pull between the terrorizing forces that threaten the characters/raise the stakes, and the unity and likability of the cast that makes you care about their struggle/gets you invested in seeing the conflict resolved. and I just wanna point out that those little interstitial bits... the ones that are typically viewed as the stuff you have to slog through in order to get to the interesting part? those were our main source of knowledge when it came to the characters. it's how we got invested in them and came to know that we liked or related to them in the first place.

the larger ramifications of this lean away from the little things, while also leaning into character drama to fuel conflict in the plot, leads to the overuse of bombastic character drama. sensationalized character drama. everything is always a huge fucking deal, while also being primarily concerned with the existing characters, rather than any kind of outside threat. so what are the tools? a wedding? a funeral? terminal illness, betrayal, a change in ideology that creates a schism... the loss of identity. all these high drama moments that generate conflict by sacrificing the bonds these characters shared. you know... letting that core piece of investment self destruct. the story is basically eating itself in order to sustain its momentum, but there's basically no point anymore. it's been gutted of the stuff that really mattered.

so why did everything go so badly? why do half of the characters not even like each other anymore? why do we not even like half of them anymore? why did the writers feel the need to dismantle them like this? well, because what else do we have to work with... how do you introduce a new threat to these characters without it being either SBURB all over again, or something entirely different that just makes these characters seem overwhelmingly put upon by the universe, like, more than any other individuals that have ever existed. it's actually a very rudimentary power escalation problem. gotta find that next level of bigger problem to set on everyone.

but do you wanna know what kind of homestuck fan I’ve been since the very beginning? I started reading homestuck 9 years ago. I think I was like 16 or 17? and at first I wasn’t sure how to interact with the comic, so I went to the “about” section of the website. it told me, in a broad sense, what mspaintadventures.com was, as a collection of work, and suggested that I begin by reading problem sleuth. not knowing that it wasn’t part of homestuck, I did just that. I read all of it. before I even got to homestuck. I am a fan that lives for the small, stupid, tedious fucking around. the slow buildup of total bullshit... the complex setup that gives you a million microscopic payoffs on it’s way to god knows what end goal. it’s like watching an explosion in reverse. all the tiny little pieces fly chaotically together and coalesce into a whole story, and you got to watch it build itself, piece by tiny little piece. I live and breathe for that level of detail. and the most fun I ever had with the story was when the characters were wandering around an environment, exploring and using various objects to set up these wacky chain reactions, half of which you’d never see coming, but which would all retroactively make sense in the end.

what I’m saying is that small scale conflict is interesting. and there are whole genres that build themselves off of this. I actually think that in certain instances, homestuck may fall under the slice of life genre. and slice of life is largely misunderstood as a rather bland genre, but the appeal is watching people with personalities that you enjoy. you watch them live their lives, and you go along for the ride. true slice of life is not a soap opera... it’s just enjoying the company of people who happen to be fictional. there's always been an element of that in homestuck... these were characters that you could see yourself getting along with if you met them. they were entertaining because of how they saw the world... how you would see the world if you were looking through their eyes. and homestuck gave you that opportunity. sometimes, that actually is all that you need.

I'm not saying that homestuck's ideal form is as a purely slice of life type of story... but wasn't that kind of what a lot of the fan works felt like? little comics about funny scenarios, or preexisting comedy bits with roles assigned to the characters they reminded you of... that stuff was the form that fun took for the fans of this comic. why is that so easily dismissed as frivolous? why is it so bad to want a little of that back? sometimes, you do wanna get into the hard stuff. maybe you wanna see Dave and Dirk have a conversation where they both admit that all they wanted as kids was a brother, and neither felt like they got to have that, but in very different ways. maybe you wanna see Roxy and Rose compare their similar feelings of estrangement, and explore the emotions that led them into their respective struggles with alcohol. maybe you wanna see John have a moment of sadness when he decides he wants to raise a kid, because he misses his own dad, and while Jane's dad is definitely family, he isn't the guy that actually raised John for the first 13 years of his life. maybe you wanna see Jade get inordinately clingy with every single one of her friends until one of them finally voices a concern about needing some space, only to see a glimpse of Jade's absolute terror at the thought of being alone again. and that pain is something that could definitely find a place in a story with more actual down time. maybe these moments of actually cathartic lingering pain could be explored with sensitivity in a story that gives them room to breathe. if the writers played their cards right and let the characters heal in meaningful ways, they might've even gotten tears of happiness out of a few of us. wouldn't that have been wild.

I just hate the idea that something is more realistic if it's dark. that's not true at all. I understand where the sentiment comes from. I understand the merits of taking an unflinching look at hard truths. but cynicism is not the same as realism. and realistically, people will try hard to seek good things for themselves in life. and even if they miss the mark... even if they fall into depression, or lack the ability to make their dreams a reality, these particular characters had already sought and found good people. people who would, realistically, absolutely help a friend if they needed it. I know this, because I watched them do that. the whole first five acts were literally about the trolls yelling at the humans because there was a huge problem that they blamed the kids for causing, and what did these kids do? they said "hey wait, let's fix that" and they did. even though the trolls made a horribly rude first impression. even though it was monumentally challenging. these kids have fought and died for each other's sake. they are family. if not by blood then by bond. and when that part of a story resonates with an audience, it is valuable.

I feel like I shouldn't have to defend the value of connecting positively with an audience. I get that this may be kind of a hokey take... I get that the people who currently like EP/HS2 will probably think I'm asking for something far too saccharine. but at this point I don't even care. once again, this is just my personal opinion, long and rant-like though it may be. and clearly it will change nothing about the current state of homestuck's most canon non-canon continuation. I guess my one major frustration is the extent to which some people have bought into what I consider to be blatant character defamation. it pains me when people talk about the actions of some of the characters in EP/HS2, because while many blame the writers for the unsettling behavior displayed by them in EP/HS2, some will readily consider this to be where the kids from the early acts really ended up as people.

[princessozera]

Not OM, I just wanted to post here the first ever fic I actually wrote and published

I WOULD LIKE TO SAY AS A DISCLAIMER EVEN THOUGH I PUBLISHED IT LAST YEAR (2 years ago?) I WAS ACTUALLY YOUNGER WHEN I WROTE THIS. I DO NOT SIMP FOR DAMIAN LIKE THAT ANYMORE, HE IS MY SON.

The Only Exception

 (Aged up/Older Damian Wayne x OC)

The seats are filled, the air is comforting, music and perfume floating in the air. Today Rosella Anderson is to be wed to Damian Wayne. But, weddings never quite go according to plan. Talia and Ra's Al Ghul have made it clear they don't like her, on multiple occasions. But with no less than 50 trained fighters and investigators on both sides of the aisle, nothing can interrupt or ruin her special day...... Right?

Chapter 1: Getting Married Today

"Come on, suck it in!"

       "I HAVEN'T EVEN EATEN TODAY!" I whined as Alice yanked the ribbons on my corset tighter.

       "WATCH IT!" Crystal swats away Alice's hands and undoes the ribbons a bit. "Suffocate her and she doesn't make it down the aisle, pack her like a sausage and my hours of makeup will have gone to waste!" She huffed and finish tying the ribbons, satisfied that they weren't too tight.

       "I don't think I ever really appreciated the amount of work it takes to make curly hair not be frizzy," Barbra Gordon says between sips of champagne, lounging on the hotel bed.

       "That's why I don't do my hair that often," I laugh, sitting on an ottoman so Alice can put my veil on and Crystal can help me put on my garter. My maid of honor, Cassandra Cain, came over and tried to feed me some fruit slices. I tried to argue, but I couldn't hold my own as she stared me down. I let her feed me some cantaloupe slices until she was satisfied and went off to finish getting ready.

       "You really are a queen today!" Stephanie laughed as she walked around the room again, holding a video recorder. I tried to hide my face, but she grabbed my hand and swung it around. "A beautiful princess for Gotham's own prince! Tell us, your majesty, how are you feeling, about to be married off to Gotham's richest stone statue?" The girls laughed but I just shook my head at her. "Me, Tim, and Dick are making a documentary for you two. Any words for the lucky man? Anything you want to say to your future self, your family, your future kids? " Whistles and laughs went around the room and I couldn't help but blush.

       "Well, let's take this one step at a time," I laughed to hide my own embarrassment. "Damian," I started, looking directly into the camera, "I don't believe in love at first sight, but damn did we square up on first sight. Not many people can say they had a full on MMA fight with their future spouse within minutes of meeting them. Yet, after that whole fiasco was solved, you've never been anything but gentle with me. People always said we wouldn't last; lava and ice. Water and a drought. Incompatible. But you were the first to look past who I had to be, to see who I was trying to be. You brought me a family, and I like to think I've brought you some serenity. I don't believe in destiny, and I'm not too sure about fate, but I believe in us. I believe that I'll fight for you until the end of time because you'd do the same for me. Because you are my home, and there's no place I'd rather be." I get choked up, wanting nothing more than to have him in my arms right now. I missed him like hell, even though it's only been 2 days since I've seen him.

       "This isn't the time to start reciting your wedding vows silly," Cass said and I couldn't help but giggle. She wipes away the tears that I hadn't felt form, making sure to not mess with my mascara. Stephanie sighs happily and puts the camcorder down, reaching over to hug me.

       "I'm so glad I get to be your sister," she whispered to me, and I hugged back tighter. We both jerked in surprise at the knock at the door. I immediately reached for my bag, looking for my well-worn notebook, but Cass's hand steadied me. Barbra got up, fixed her dress and went over to the door.

       "Who is-" She stiffens up immediately, hand pulling back from the handle. "It's Talia." Stephanie immediately got in front of me, and I grabbed Cass's hand as she reached for her own bag, searching for her gun. I'd never told my friends about Talia, but they took the hint found their way to their respective bags, throwing knives and whips at the ready. Truthfully, I was finding it a little hard to breathe and I doubt it was the dress. The knock came again, more insistent, but no one moved.

       "It's your call Rose," Barbra said, her eyes never leaving the door.

       "Let her in," I tug on Cass's arm and she helps me stand up. "If she wanted me offed, she would have gotten someone else to do it. Or at least she wouldn't have knocked." Crystal and Alice look between all of us in alarm and decide to take the window as Stephanie goes to back up Babs by the door. The door opens, and there stands Talia, as beautiful and regal as ever. She glances over everyone before finally meeting my eyes.

       "Lady Al Ghul, please come in. To what do I owe the pleasure?" I said, fidgeting with my dress. She steps in, nodding to Babs and Stephanie.

         "I'd like to have a word with you before the ceremony," She says, running her hand along the wet counter cluttered with makeup. "Alone," She said with a pointed look when no one moved. That harsh edge was enough to get everyone to cover or flank me again. She didn't respond to this, simply staring at me. I put my hand on each girl's back, one by one.

       "Go, I'll be fine. We'll be right here," Babs stares me down, but I nod back. She caves and starts to leave; Alice, Crystal and eventually Stephanie following behind, after she grabs something off the bed. Cass refused to move.

       "Do I need to remind you that you can barely move your waist in that monstrous dress? She'd get to you before any of us were the wiser," She whispered in my ear, holding my arm pretty tightly. I wormed my way out of her grasp and grabbed the worn notebook from my bag.

       "I promise, it'll be fine. Anyways, I forgot there were 2 more things I needed to do," I flipped through the pages quickly, finding what I needed and handing it to her. "If you could please take care of it? You should be done by the time we're done talking and we can head to the venue." Cass read through it quickly, then looked at me again. She gave a curt nod and walked out as well.

       "We'll be right outside," Babs says pointedly before closing the door. Talia and I stood in silence for a moment, before she slowly stalked towards me until she was less than 6 feet away.

       "Lady Al-"

       "Your still not worthy of my son." oop. Right to the point, as always. Can't say it didn't hurt.

       "You're a commoner, a nobody. No title, no land, not even superior health to your name. You failed classes in high school, went to college on scholarships, and couldn't land a proper role in your field until a year in. Failure, after pitfall, after failure." JESUS CHRIST THIS LADY DID HER RESEARCH. My face burned in humiliation, but nothing I could say now would justify everything she just listed out. "And yet... Damian loves you."

             "I may not like you, but I know how I raised him, and Bruce has done a good job of bringing up a boy worth more than the names he was born into. Wayne. Al Ghul. Damian. I will have faith in his choice, he is not a stupid boy. Foolish and stubborn yes, but not stupid. If he thinks you are worthy, there may be hope for you yet." holy shit, no way, is this actually happening? I'm too stunned to say anything, just grateful that my mouth isn't hanging open.

       "When you return from your honeymoon I expect you to face me in a formal duel and undergo training as necessary," she puts her hands on her hips, challenging me to argue with her, but I was so happy I had to restrain myself from hugging her.

       "It would be an honor to battle you Lady Al Ghul," I say, finding my tongue, stifling my giddiness with a bow, and a hand over my chest.

       "Talia is also acceptable." She says with a nod, taking another step forward and adjusting the skirt of my dress and finally my veil before turning starting to walk back to the door. "My father and I will also be in attendance to this event, but if you ever wish to gain even an ounce of his approval, you'll need to do another more traditional ceremony at a later date." My heart swelled, and for a second, I legitimately thought I was going to break down crying. This was better than anything I could have prepared for. I couldn't just let her walk out like that.

       "Damian'll be elated!" I yelled out to keep my voice from cracking. Talia stops, and I gush on. "I know you haven't had the easiest of relationships, with conflicting ideology and all, but he really does love you, and Ra's, even if he doesn't say it. He looks up to you guys and wants to make you proud. You being here will mean the world to him." I force myself to stop talking before I say something weird or bad. Talia turns back to me, walks up swiftly, and hugs me. I'm stiff in surprise, but manage to hug her back before she gives me one last nod and walks out. Everyone runs back in the second Talia is out.

       "Are you ok? Are you hurt anywhere?" Babs immediately grabs my arms and starts inspecting me up and down for any sign of injury.

       "Don't cry don't cry!" Alice pleads with me, fanning my face to prevent the tears from falling.

       "Talia hugged her, check her back and skirt for anything weird," I look over to Stephanie, who was staring down at her camcorder. Had she left that hidden on the bed? I didn't even notice. But it was so sweet. I could show Damian later all the sweet words his mother said about him.

       "Jesus, you're so teary today," Cass mumbles as she does her own inspection of my dress. When she's done, she sees my tears are of joy, so she hugs me. "Your journal's impressive," she says handing back my heart covered notebook. I'm still choked up and trying not to bawl in relief so once everyone was satisfied that I wasn't going to drop dead in the middle of the aisle, they sat me down so I could calm down while they finished up. I collected myself, the extremity of these emotions leaving me exhausted. I drifted off with the warm glow of my friend's laughter and love filling the air.

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

       "No way, you did not fall asleep!"

       "Get up get up get up!"

       "Cass, I'm fully warning you right now. If she falls asleep at the ceremony like this, I'm throwing my bouquet at her head"

       "You might have to beat Stephanie to it," Cass giggles, as she gently shakes me awake. I take a second to reorient myself, blinking the drowsiness out of my eyes, and stretching.

       "Ooh, we could coordinate it though!" Stephanie perks up, "if she falls asleep; Alice and Crystal, take your flowers and make it rain, and then Babs, Cass and I hit her in the head. Guaranteed it'll wake her up!" We all laugh and I get up, taking a minute to appreciate my beautiful friends. It was a debated choice, but the deep purple fit everyone perfectly. We did have to make a few adjustments to Stephanie's overall look though, to keep her from looking too similar to her alter ego, Spoiler. Bouquet in every pair of hands, key cards in garter wallets and phones on silent, we made our way down to the venue.

         "We're only running 10 minutes behind, it couldn't be helped," Babs tries to calm my nerves as I all but start jumping in the elevator. Cass also had to put a hand on my waist to pull me back when I almost ran to my place. She escorted me around to the side doors; the girls and I were coming in from the right, Damian and his groomsmen were coming in from the left. He had wanted to avoid any issue of who should walk him down the aisle; I thought it was cute how he couldn't choose between Dick and Bruce. Cass and I were slow dancing to calm my nerves when the rest of the girls came back.

       "Pianist and minister are ready" -Babs

       "Decorations are gorgeous and on point, everyone is in their seat and there are no fussy children" -Alice

       "Lights, audio and AC are perfect and photographers are also ready" - Crystal.

       I nodded, yes, everything was going smoothly. Of course, I had used everything I had when planning this. I was floating on cloud nine, simply nodding along when Babs spoke up.

       "Has anyone seen Stephanie?" she asks, grip tightening on her bouquet. No one knew so we all just waited around for 5 minutes, everyone starting to get fidgety. Stephanie came back, 10 minutes later, looking a little out of breath and a bit pale, even under her makeup.

       "Ok so there's a situation,- the guys are running late but it's okay they're o their way, they'll be here in 20 minutes!" Stephanie sped through the second half of her sentence when she saw that I was going to panic. I breathed out in relief and nodded, satisfied.

       "I'll make the announcement, Dick probably went overboard trying to do his hair again," Babs snickered and headed into the ceremony hall. We played a light game of ninja as we waited to hear from the guys, but I soon became hyper-aware of time passing. I don't have the best perception of time, I don't even have a good memory, but I caught the looks my bridesmaids were giving each other. 

The questioning looks. 

The worry. 

         I let myself get kicked out of the next round and walked a little ways off, pulling my phone out and calling the number I knew by heart, ignoring the time that read that I was now almost 40 minutes late to my own wedding. The phone rang 3 times, and I turned away from my girls who were really getting into this game, rooting for Cass or Alice to win.

       "Damian!" I sighed in relief when the line clicked. "hey, how much longer do you think you guys will be in traffic? If it's going to be another while, I can have it arranged so snacks and drinks are handed out so no one gets restless. I could also give the pianist a break, he's been playing the same chorus on repeat for the last half hour-" I let my voice trail off as I was met by a stone wall of silence. Not even a joke from Dick or Tim or Duke. I waited him out, after a minute of silence, Damian spoke up.

       "I'm sorry beloved, I can't do this."

         "What?" I asked, but my voice was so thin and breathy I doubt he heard me.

       "I can't go through with this. This marriage, this wedding. It's all a joke. Who even cares about this mess? It's all so... stupid. Pointless."   not a hint of hesitation, voice more ruthless than I had ever heard it.   No. No way. was he serious!? I struggled to find my words, I shook with the pure effort of breathing normally even though I felt like I was having an actual heart attack; tight chest, palpitations, the whole 9 yards. Tremors ran through my body and I finally managed to choke out "Damian-"

       "Goodbye Rosella" the line clicked off and I take a shuddering breath.

       "Rose?" Cass says, gently putting a hand on my shoulder.

       "He's not coming."

          "What?"

          "He's not coming!" I shriek, clutching my waist to stop my stomach from churning but to no avail; at least I didn't have much of lunch to throw up.

           "What do you mean he's not coming!" Babs demands, yelling from where she was

           "shit" 

          We all turn and there stands Jason, looking uncomfortable as hell and very much like he didn't want to be here. That confirmed it for everyone. Alice, Crystal, and Babs started yelling questions at Jason. Stephanie pulled out her own phone and started dialing a bunch of numbers but it seemed like no one was answering. Cass tried to speak with me, but my ears were ringing, it all sounded like white noise. And I felt cold. but hot. but freezing. I raise my hand and draw everyone's attention, all becoming deadly silent.

             "Alice, Crystal. please go tell the pianist, the minister, and the photographer. Give them my email so I can settle up the charges later. Stephanie and Cass, please go see if we can keep the party reservations for tonight. Everyone else should enjoy them, even if there is no.... Barbra, could you please break the news that I... we..." everything got really blurry for a second and the floor rushed up to meet me, but I caught myself on the table before I could pass out completely.

Not here, not in front of them. Don't put them through a breakdown.

               Everyone was fussing, but I couldn't stand here for another second. "Go. I just want to be alone. Please. go. GO!" I yelled and they all dispersed, shooting me worried looks. Cass gave me a long hug before she decided I needed a moment alone.

           "Don't move from here." She instructed me. "Go get the guys," she demanded to Jason before going off. Jason looked at me sadly, trying to find the right words to say.

           "Rose-"

          "Please leave." he walked away without another word. Once I was sure he was out of earshot, I ran with everything I had out of the hallway.

Pardon me is everybody there

 because if everybody's there id like to thank you all for coming to the wedding

 I appreciate you going even more

 I mean you must have had better things to do.

 Thank you all for the gifts and the flowers, 

Thank you all, now it's back to the showers 

but I guess I'm not getting married today

       The perfume is suffocating, overly sweet, fake as plastic, thick as sugar. I can't breathe, but I don't need air to run. Don't stop, move. Move. Move. The ribbons are strangling me. The garter is cutting off my circulation. Gloves are hurting me.  High heels, weak ankles. My rolls of fat spilling out of the dress. rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls.  can't stand. can't wait, I throw open the door to the stairs and take them in 3s.

Listen, everybody, 

look, I don't know what you're waiting for.

 A wedding. What's a wedding? 

It's a prehistoric ritual 

Where everybody promises fidelity forever,

 Which is maybe the most horrifying word I ever heard of, 

Which is followed by a honeymoon, where suddenly he'll realize

 He's saddled with a nut, and want to kill me, which he should. 

Thanks a bunch, but I'm not getting married

               I scream as my veil gets caught in the handrail, yanking my head back, falling down a couple of stairs. No question, I rip it off. It stings, it hurts, bobby pins forcefully ripped out. The shoes go too, heels are stupid, why are they so tall. Tall and tall and make my knees wobbly. The taller they are the harder they fall. Up the stairs, 3 at a time, legs on fire. Don't stop, don't stop, hike the dress up and keep running all the way to the 50th floor.

Go have lunch, 'cause I'm not getting married

You've been grand, but I'm not getting married

Don't just stand there, I'm not getting married

But I'm not getting married today.

       I slam open the hotel room door, to hell with neighbors. Suffocating, burning, melting heat. I rip off the gloves, scream as I can't get the ribbons out of my dress. I scream, jump, squirm and throw myself around until it finally comes off.

He didn't come. shut up.

He didn't want to. SHUT THE HELL UP

       I felt everything to an extreme degree. Too much. Why am I breathing so heavily? Why am I sweating bullets!? I throw my hair up in a ponytail, yank the garter off, tripping over my own two feet. My phone falls next to my head and the only thing I can think to do is to throw it into the toilet. I grab my honeymoon bag- no, my emergency bag that happened to have cute clothes instead of food, and switch into my leggings and a t-shirt. It's all I had. It's all I could ask for.

Go! Can't you go?

Why is nobody listening?

Goodbye! Go and cry

At another person's wake.

If you're quick, for a kick

You could pick up a christening

But please, on my knees,

There's a human life at stake!

        I'm parkouring down the stairs, jumping entire sections, falling on knees, but ignoring the pain to jump again. Emergency phone in one hand, I order the uber, start the bank transaction, even though I have to read everything 10 times for it to make sense. What do? where go? don't know. not here. One bad jump and I collapsed entirely, but as I scrambled to throw everything back in my bag, I see the plane tickets. yes. away. out. not here. leave.

Go! Can't you go?

Look, you know I adore you all

But why watch me die

Like Eliza on the ice?

Look, perhaps I'll collapse

In the apse right before you all

So take back the cake

Burn the shoes, and boil the rice

       Out of the stairway, but slammed into a wall. Around the corner, Alice and Babs and Crystal and Jason and Stephanie and Cass and Bruce and Selina and Duke and Tim and Dick and Alfred.

Remember when you first met them? He swore he'd protect you but that they'd love you. please stop! I begged myself, think of anything, anything but him. anything but this. Get out, then we can cry, but not here, not now.  I watched them split up, so I hid behind a corner farther back. Steph and Cass took up the stairs. Everyone else was gone so I ran out the back door. Out of the hotel, away from the perfume, away from the flowers, the candles, the dresses. From them.  And by some small miracle, the car was already here. I jump in, only taking a second to notice that it was, in fact, an uber.

       "Hello, ma'am! How are-"

       "Please! Just go!" my voice breaks and the tears start up again. I brush them aside furiously/ doing everything in my power not to start sobbing, but he listens to me and speeds off.

BECAUSE I'M NOT GETTING MARRIED TODAY

(A twist on this song that actually inspired this whole fic)

Chapter 2: On The Run

I'm going to kill him

Why didn't he show up?

How fucking dare he

Was it something I did?

I was nervous too bitch; I drank a shot of tequila and sucked it up!

Was it something HE did? Was Talia lying? Did Ra's kidnap Damian? Why did the boys wait to tell us? Did Stephanie know that something was up? Do any of them even-

       "Ughhhh," I groaned audibly as my thoughts and emotions started to run together. It had been a while since anything left me this.... discombobulated. Exhausted. A mess. I'd almost forgotten how awfully I reacted to being overwhelmed and out of control. The uber driver shot me a curious look but didn't say anything. Keep it together Rosella. Just, go home and.. I flinched, chagrined at my own stupidity. "Get somewhere safe" I amended under my breath, "and then you can have as big of a breakdown as you want. Just, be a stone again. Close it all out. Suppress the fire, drown the noise." I rubbed my eyes, the dry burn giving me the weirdest throbbing headache.

        The ride to the airport was stiff, to say the least. My driver kept trying to talk to me, but my responses were so dry he gave up. He didn't question the extra stop at the bank, even while he waited outside for half an hour while I verified with tellers inside that I was, in fact, the owner of the account and that I was draining it. 

Erase your tracks. You were never here. Are you even alive? 

         Still, we got to the airport as quickly as I could have hoped for and made sure to give him a large tip for his troubles.  I walked through the airport, undoubtedly looking like some pompous bitch with only a stone face and backpack, my actual suitcase left behind in my whirlwind out. I only had some snacks, a Nintendo ds, some stationary things, deodorant, and a toothbrush. I hadn't even remembered to grab my disposable water bottle, toothpaste, or hair brush before leaving. Whatever.

        It was almost flawless. I bypassed the checked bag lines, slid right through TSA (bless you TSA Pre-check), although I did get some looks when they checked my bag. I guess overall I looked like I should be getting on a school bus instead. I sat down at a cafe and pulled out the tickets, 2 first class tickets to Malaga, Spain.

        I'd set up our honeymoon as a complete surprise to Damian. Bruce and the boys had worked so hard to help me clear out a whole month from his schedule. I'd gone through hell and back to make sure all of my project managers could handle any situation that could happen either in making or transporting our different projects out... We were supposed to be jumping cities for a month in Europe. Cities with small populations, so we could avoid drawing attention, but full of gorgeous architecture and delicious food for me; significant art history and cultural relevance for Damian.

       It's going to be a technical nightmare to cancel all of those reservations and getting the tickets switched and sold. Do people even actually do that? But I have to, I don't know where I'm going but I don't want any of them to tra- SHIT. My head snaps up and one quick look around tells me I'm already too late. I spot 5 cameras easily.

       I grab my things and head over to a gift shop. I grab bunches of clothes and accessories off of the shelves, hurrying off to pay and doing my best to avoid cameras now as I sneak off into the restroom. I throw on some atrocious sundress, flats, and a baseball cap, flipping my hair twice in an attempt to make it look like a pixie cut. For a second I consider actually finding something sharp to hack my hair off. 

         I need you to not be a social breakdown cliche for a minute, it took you years to properly grow those curls out. Please don't waste my efforts. Yeah, it's for the better, I look like Dora the Explorer with short hair anyway. Tim wouldn't sell me out to Damian, right? LMAOO he bailed at the wedding you really think he wants to hunt you down?? Or what if Tim wants to find me? Or anyone else? Damian's pretty good at following people. Even then, Babs, Cass, Roy are competent hackers, any of them could find my data and track me down... Are any of them even on my side?... I couldn't help but let out a whimper. I pursed my lips, placing my hands on the cold sink to calm myself. What's my plan anyways? I can't go to any of the cities in Europe where I already have reservations. Too easy. I could go to the Netherlands...

        "But Damian knows where I lived there, because of the time we visited my friends," I sigh out loud, facepalming. "But not entirely a bad idea..."  I say as I start flipping through the different cities I've lived through. Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Croatia, Portugal, Malta,  Romania, Hungary, Austria, are all out. We'd either been there or they were part of the honeymoon plan. I didn't want any reminder of him.

         Actually, all of Europe is out. I've raved about it too much. We've been too many places, we both had too many ties scattered throughout Europe. I can't speak Russian, Talia and Ra's have connections all across the middle east, and the north half of Africa. Jason and Cass had some unexplainable ties across north and south america. With every city I named, I hated myself more for talking so much. For trusting him with these memories.

      Honeysuckle kisses on cotton candy memories.

       shut up. 

      Isn't there ANYWHERE I've lived and worked that my big mouth hadn't mentioned? As I was starting to get desperate and the headache started acting up again, I found actually ecstatic relief. That would be actually literally perfect. God bless my forgetful memory. The apartment I'd never sold. The country I actively avoided talking about because Damian would get jealous.

      I snuck out of the bathrooms and headed over to customer service. I had to work my way past a large group of people. Overhearing snippets of conversation, apparently, their flight is somewhere between delayed or canceled. Inspiration hit me. Give the ticket to someone here. Send them to Spain, let them stay at the hotel. He could follow a cold lead. This would give me enough time to go to one country and get a ticket to where I actually wanted to go. 

     I look around the group. Too many were in pair or more. Some looked very buisness-y type. There! A girl who looked like a backpacker was chilling, glancing through her phone. You're going to sound absolutely mental. I approach her nevertheless. I pitched her my idea, but she was rightfully skeptical. I swallowed my pride and told her a cold version of the truth. 

     "My fiancee left me at the altar. I'm going to Mongolia. I don't want his ticket, I don't want the hotel. Either take it or I'll give it to someone else. Or let it go to waste. I don't care. I don't want it. I'll even pay the name change charge." The anger in my voice came out clear, and by another miracle, she accepted it. We walked over to the help desk and I spoke with the dude behind the counter. He seemed hesitant at first, but he gave me a double take when he checked my reservations. With a brighter smile, he got me on the first flight he could to Mongolia.

       "Will that be for both tickets Mrs.Wayne?" He asked cheerfully before reeling back, caught off guard by my watering eyes.

       "Anderson. And no," I managed to spit out. I signaled for the girl from earlier to come closer. "I'm transferring the other ticket to her, we need to get the name changed." He looked uncertain but went ahead. If he was accommodating before, I could tell he was bending over backwards now to get everything situated. I could see his concentration as he tried to bypass things without having to question me again.

       "Umm, your profile says you've actually been to Belgium before, how was it?" he asked, trying to lighten the mood.

       "Beautiful and quaint. Great place to relax and enjoy nature if that's your thing. I'd recommend Lithuania too, or Leinchestein." I say, trying to keep a light tone. He nodded happily, seeming to take my recommendations seriously before handing the girl the new plane tickets. We thanked him and headed off on our respective paths, the girl taking a minute to hug me.

       " I hope you can heal soon, and wish you a bright future" she whispered to me. I hugged back, trying not to cry again. She bought me a bag of peach gummy rings and left me at my terminal. I dropped some calls out to friends, blessed that they all decided to take one or more of the reservations around Europe I'd had. I kept the details to a minimum but they figured out pretty quickly not to mention me to Damian if they happened to see him. Some small part of me, thankfully more aware than the rest had the foresight to call some utility companies and get everything at my apartment working again. 

       The help desk attendant worked miracles, my nonstop flight boarded less than an hour later and I had managed to keep a first class seat. I sat down and started doodling nonsense in my journal, blasting music in my headphones. But around 6 hours into this 19-hour flight, exhaustion overcame me and I drifted off to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

       "Beloved," Damian sighed as he wrapped his arms around my waist. "It's almost 11, we need to get out of bed," he murmured into my hair.

       "Nooooooo" I whined, stretching further into the sunlight. The doors were ajar, a nice breeze keeping us cool. I snuggled into him. "We're on a vacation, orders from Bruce. And on vacation, you can stay in bed all day."

       "But there might be monsters nearby-" He said mysteriously, catching my attention.

       "I didn't get reports of any- AH!" I scream as Damian proceeds to tickle me. "No! Sto-" I try to gasp out between laughing. I manage to fight him, tumbling out of bed. He laughed at me as I tried to untangle myself from the blankets.

       "That's a dirty trick Wayne!" I gasp, trying to catch my breath. I grab a pillow and chuck it at him, but he just catches it and throws it back. We have a small impromptu pillow war before he taps out after a good hit knocks him onto the balcony. "BOW TO MY PROWESS!" I jokingly declare, jumping up and down on the ottoman. Damian runs over and sweeps me down.

       "Please. Don't. Fall. And. Break. Your. Head" He accentuates every word with a kiss, making me giggle. He lets me go and takes the bathroom to shower first. I head out into the kitchen, humming to myself. I grab some of the fruit we bought yesterday and start making a fruit bowl. I'm halfway through cutting the Jicama when Damian's arms are around my waist again.

       "What are you doing?" He asks, resting his chin on my shoulder. Before I could answer, his grip around me tightened. "Be careful!" He whispered harshly, putting his hands over mine. "Your knife skills could use some work, you could have cut your finger off like that!" He scolded me but I scoffed.

       "Haven't lost a finger yet"

       "No, but you did set your oven on fire. THREE TIMES" He elbowed my side and I pouted.

       "Excuse you, that 2nd time wasn't my fault, remember? Dick broke into my place and fell asleep making fish sticks," I retaliated, squirming out of his grip and started making some sandwiches for lunch.

       "I really should improve the security at your apartment," Damian says as he finished cutting up the Jicama and strawberries, plating them and dropping them off at the table.

       "As if that would stop every vigilante from the northern hemisphere from breaking in," I snorted, bringing over the sandwiches. We ate in peace, letting the soft instrumental music from the radio fill the silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

       I sigh happily, turning in my chair, reaching out for Damian's hand. The second I touched the cold seat next to me, my body freezes too. "Damian?"  I muttered drowsily, sitting up straight. His bag isn't under his chair. Why am I wearing a dress? Why are my leggings rolled up? I start to panic, breathing rapidly and trying to blink away the tears in my eyes. It's enough to pull me awake and I remember what happened.

       "Oh... oh" I hiccup and bite my lip, looking back out the window into the starry night. The tears start falling, but I'm being quiet so I let them. My skin itches. My neck, my wrists, under my eyes. I start scratching, trying to ignore my memories. The trip to Italy, our joint project to improve the villain resistance of the infrastructure of Gotham, the charity events we attended.

       "Ma'am?" I look up, a stewardess in the aisle leaning over. I wipe my eyes, catching the furious red color my wrists had become, before turning to her. "Uh, you missed your meal earlier and I was wondering if there was anything I could get you?" She looked uncomfortable now, glancing between my red eyes, red nose, and now red wrists and presumably red neck. I glanced over the menu she handed me, ordering a full meal. She dropped the food off and scurried away, not meeting my eyes.

        The meal was laid out beautifully; tomato soup, grilled cheese and grilled chicken with a slice of cheesecake. Yet, I couldn't seem to muster the strength to eat. It didn't really seem appetizing, and I wasn't hungry. 

        The last time you ate was over 10 HOURS ago, and that wasn't even a full meal. C'mon, one bite. I picked up the fork, but simply twirled it in my hand, watching the metal catch the light. You'll get a raging headache if you don't eat soon. Might get that deep vein thrombosis. I take a bite of the chicken, tasting nothing despite its obvious layer of seasoning. I swallowed it with half a glass of water. It felt thick, heavy, almost like swallowing a rock. But I had to eat. When I didn't immediately throw up, I set up my phone to play a cache of 65 action movies to distract myself and started eating bit by bit. I could tell I was drinking a ridiculous amount of water, but the stewardess replaced my glass without it ever going entirely empty so I didn't really notice how much I had downed. She cleared my tray when I was done, and I just kept watching movies. Whenever I thought I was going to fall asleep, I'd crank the volume up, scroll forward to fight scenes and take a drink of sprite. I was about 4 movies in when I threw off my headphones, whimpering with how severe my headache had gotten despite eating and drinking water.

       "Good morning passengers, it is 10 pm and we're about to start our final descent so if you could all please put up your trays and turn off the wifi in your electronics, we'll be landing shortly." Not gonna lie, the time zone jump threw me for a minute, I had taken a second to figure out how we made the flight in 8 hours instead of 19. I shoved everything into my bag, forcing the zipper closed. I wanted to put on some rock or pop punk songs, “Battle On!” seeming weirdly appealing, even though I hadn't heard it in a while. I felt a vein in my neck twitch, so I settled on music from the swan lake instead.

       The second we touched down I was up.  I only had my backpack so I was able to squeeze by people, ignoring protests and complaints to get off the plane. Off the plane, past the luggage claim, I was going down the escalator when I spotted them. Advika was talking to Zay, looking mad as hell, but she noticed me first. She ran over and almost tackled me to hug me, Zay taking my bag. "Princessa, baby girl, I'm so sorry." She cries into my hair, "I didn't think he was an asshole, oh god, how could he do that to you!"

       "We have the plane ready to go," Zay says, joining in on the hug. I let Advika cling to me as we make our way to the opposite side of the airport. Once we're in a more private area, Advika speaks up again.

       "I'm going to kill him. How fucking dare he!" She squeezed my hand, and now started pulling me towards the airplane.

       "Isn't that Rosella's line?" Zay prods before looking back at me. "But in all seriousness, we will absolutely end him, just say the word. Don't even say it, blink morse code, ASL, anything." I keep my mouth shut and let Advika continue to rave about the different ways she'll end Damian; financially, socially, whatever I wanted. We went out onto the runway and I couldn't help but chuckle.

       "The company jet? Isn't that a bit much?" I say as Zay escorts us in, before heading to the back.

       "The boss said it's okay. Nearly bit my head off when I called to ask but said it was ok. You did help establish our company in the foreign market," Advika takes a seat but gestures for me to lay down on the couch. "No offense mi princessa, but you look like a fucking mess. Please take a nap."

       "I don't know if I can do that," I say, letting out a long sigh. Zay comes back, handing Advika a small purse and laying a platter of cheese and crackers on the table across from us. He sets up instrumental music, from “Carmen” if I'm not mistaken, as Advika takes my hat off and starts combing my hair. I lay back into her, letting her brush out my hair, counting her impeccable pattern. 2 squirts from a spray bottle to moisten my hair, 10 brush strokes. 2 then 10 then 2 then 10. My eyes started feeling heavy so I forced myself to take a deep breath and sit up. The motion made her accidentally yank my hair and woke me a bit. As she apologized I alternated my breathing patterns to try to stay awake, noticing for the first time that we were already in the air. 

      "Please, just go to sleep," Advika begged, grabbing my hands and forcing me to look at her. I stared at her for a moment before answering.

       "I did... on the plane. I dreamed of him. The disorientation of waking up made me think I was on my way to my honeymoon," I let out a bitter laugh and she flinches, looking over to Zay, unsure what to say.

       "You look pale," Zay interjects. He comes over to me, placing a hand on my head and then my neck. He doesn't comment on the marks, but he and Advika share a look. "Change your clothes, drink some water, then these, we don't want you getting sick." He puts 2 pills in my hands before going off to find me some water.

       "Yeah, getting sick is the absolute worst thing that can happen to me right now. How silly of me," I roll my eyes and Advika snorts, trying to mask her laughter. I leave the Nyquil pills on the couch and get changed. I come back and take the pills, leaning into Advika again so she can continue to play with my hair. She spoke about anything and everything, filling the silence with her happy chatter. Undoubtedly, she was trying to distract my conscious so if I did dream again, it wouldn't be about him. It worked, her happy banter following me into my dreamless slumber.

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

       I awoke to Zay gently shaking me, thankfully a lot less disoriented than last time. I gather up my things, helping myself to the bottles of water they had around. I ignore the bandages wrapped around my wrist, but the one on my throat was quickly starting to freak me out. Advika seemed to sense my discomfort, immediately coming over and cutting the bandages off.

       "Sorry, your skin seemed a bit raw so we wrapped it up," she explains calmly, alternating to rubbing her hand up and down my arm to soothe me.

       "S'ok," I mumble, taking my bag from Zay.

       "We called you a cab -it got here a couple of minutes ago-, but you're more than welcome to stay with either of us back in Mongolia. Neha and Juniper also moved here ya know, I'm sure she'd-" I cut Zay off with a shake of my head, and follow him out of the plane.

       "I just really want to be alone for a while, ya know?" As alone as I can be with my differing opinions yelling at me and my endless train of thought that does NOT SHUT UP. Zay nodded but Advika grabbed my arm before I could hail the cab closer to the plane.

       "I know you want to be alone- and you absolutely do need some time alone, this is going to be a lot to process- but...." She hesitated, biting her lip. "I know how you can get Ro. don't even try to argue with me on this. Please, take some time, but do not hesitate to call me or anyone else." Would this be a bad time to throw up? That's one way to diverge the conversation. Advika held me but I wouldn't meet her eyes. "You know what? If you don't check in with me in a week I will track you down and drag you to live with me. I'm not joking. Do you understand" I want to protest, but then I remember she didn't even have my phone number. Game on. I agree and they both give me a hug before I board the cab.

       "Good morning"

       "Good morning, where should I take you?" ah. another thing that I hadn't thought of. Without even bothering to check my bag, I knew I didn't have my keys. But I knew someone who might. I give the cab driver an address and I pull out my phone. But I can't even ask because I don't remember her number. I sigh, hoping things hadn't changed as much as I thought.

       We're in downtown Seoul before I can start properly stressing myself with the "what ifs". Had she moved? What if she didn't have the key? Would she yell at me for arriving at... Almost 3 am? I decided to do the math to distract myself, reworking the math on how a 4-hour flight turned into a 5-hour flight for a solid 10 minutes before I realized that I had not taken another time zone into play. Small miracles were on my side today. Yesterday? Tomorrow? Whatever the fuck day it is. Since it was so early, there wasn't much in the way of traffic, and the doorman was the same one that had been here when I lived her for however long it was. I explained to him that I was here to see Hong and after some reluctance, he let me in.

       Up the elevator to the fifth door, doors opening to crisp air, reminiscent of fall. Exactly 30 steps forward to a door with 4 pastel sierra sunset decorations on the door. I knock, timidly at first as to not wake the neighbors. In 5 minutes, again, a little louder. I did this for an hour before I gave up and simply stood there with my head on the door.

       "Hong. Hooooonnnngggggg" I whined quietly. Wow, thank goodness it's so early, everyone would think you're a creeper. lmaooo just imagine getting arrested your first day back. I whined into the door, contemplating just sleeping out here.

       "Rosella?" a soft voice came from behind me. I turn to see Hong with Geo's arm around her. There were 2 more people behind her but I barely had the awareness to nod as a greeting. "What are you doing here? Wasn't yesterday your-" She stops, noticing that my lip had begun to tremble. 

      "Rosella-" she comes over and wraps her arms around me, hiding my face from view of the others. Someone unlocks the door and she drags me inside. The sequins on her dress start to itch, but I continue to hug her. Once I'm ready to let go, she sits me down and goes to change her outfit while Geo sits with me. in awkward silence for a while.

       "Rose, what happened?" He eventually asks, sliding over a glass of ice water. "I thought your wedding was yesterday. Wasn't your honeymoon suppose to be in Europe?" I couldn't seem to muster the strength to answer, simply staring at him and sighing.

       "You have no tact," Hong comments, combing back in her usual floral pjs. She flops down next to me, placing her hand on mine. "You don't have to tell us now, but I would like for you to tell us eventually." I can't help but smile, she always has a soothing air to her. It's impossible to be mad or upset near her. " I have some clothes you can borrow; I have friends over today so you'll have to take the couch, but you can have the guest room tomorrow." I shake my head, forcing myself to pull away from her motherly touch.

       "I could never impose on you, I was just wondering if you have my spare key? I really want to go home." I let my voice crack at the end, hoping she wouldn't push for me to stay here. Geo looked at me like I was crazy, staring particularly long at my single backpack.

       "Okay. Geo, could you get her key? It's in the top dresser with a purple tip," Hong nods to him and he leaves. " I do feel the need to remind you that you pretty much purged the place when you left. I don't remember the last time I visited either, so its probably super dusty too."

       "I'll make do for tonight. I'll go to the store tomorrow for food and cleaning supplies, ok?"

       "You'd better, you forgetful dip stick," Geo grunts as he hands me the key. "Actually, we could probably find somewhere open rn. We could swing by and-"

       "I was actually going to walk home it's a nice night and-"

       "Absolutely not." Hong interrupted me, sounding her top tier forceful. "I know you've been through some shit in the last 48 hours but I'm not going to let you commit suicide by stupidity!" I took a minute to process this, for a second I thought I was back in Gotham.

       "It's not far... I only have my backpack and the crime rates here aren't even that high Hong. You know I took mi-"

       "Yes yes, I know about your MMA history, but I draw the line. I don't know how much the others have let you get away with but you are not walking alone at night!" I don't fight her, letting her drag me to her car, Geo driving. We're at my complex within minutes.

       "Take care of yourself Rosie." Hong says, giving me a half hug through the car window, Geo simply putting a hand on my head. "I'll come to check up on you- and if you don't answer the door I'll call the cops" she threatened before letting go.

       "Thank you, seriously, this is so great that you had my key, and for dropping me off." I hesitate before heading up. "If you don't mind me asking, how long have you two been dating?" Geo's blush was extremely visible against his skin, even in the shadows.

       "It's that obvious huh? We've been together for about 5 months," Hong replied, blushing as well.

          "I always thought you two would look cute together," I said, this time with a genuine smile. I wave them off and opt to take the stairs up. I opened the door to my apartment. 

        It's freezing, dust dancing in the waning moonlight. I set my bag down, pulling out another change of clothing from what I had bought at the airport. I threw it into the bathroom before heading over to my emergency closet. Never though the emergency stash would be used like this. Maybe we shouldn't use it? Earth shattering heartbreak is too an emergency, fuck off. I'll restock it anyways. I pull out some towels and bath supplies. I get in the shower, letting the steaming hot water run over me.

         Since when have I not been able to feel my fingers? I ask myself, flexing them one by one. It's like the stakeout in Boston that one winter, Dick brought us hot chocolate-

         No. Don't even. Dust! This place is messy and I want to properly disinfect it- unconsciously increasing the pressure with my loofah- I'll need Lysol, tide pods, scrubs, dish rags. Probably should buy more plates too. Damian always had a peculiar adoration for matching cutlery sets, when he bought me some ramen bowls-

OW OW OW OW OW OW OW! I jerk up, my hand immediately going to my upper spine. I breathe in too quickly, taking in some water. I pull open the curtain and lean over the tub, cough and sputtering, trying to catch my breath.

       "What- the- fuck-" I manage to gasp out. I was sitting down in the tub, I guess I had fallen asleep???? I shake the drowsiness off, turning off the water and getting out. Despite, or maybe because of, my broken sleep this last day I was still exhausted once I had gotten changed and my heartbeat had slowed down. I looked to my room door, but collapsed on the sofa, letting the musty leather suffocate me to sleep as my bones sunk into the couch.

Chapter 3: Safehouse

 I awoke the same way I fell asleep.

Suffocating.

        I wanted to get up, find a tissue to blow my nose, but every muscle in me ached a million ways. Did I fall off the empire state building while I was asleep? Did some cannibal beat me with a meat tenderizer for hours and just leave me on this couch? Holy FUCK.

        Even twisting my face away from the couch so I could get some fresh air strained my neck. Every joint felt dislocated, limbs lifeless like a broken marionette. The dust. Allergies. I can't breathe...

Can't breathe

Can't breathe

      Suffocating! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE- I panic, throwing myself off the couch. Landing on the ground actually didn't cause any more pain. I laid there for a minute, mentally trying to put my joints back in their sockets. It isn't a large enough distraction, and I'm soon hyper-aware of everything. My skin was burning where the sunlight touched, the dust in the air was so heavy I could have sworn I lost my vision again. I could hear the meaningless hustle of cars and people outside on the sidewalk, but worst of all was my pounding heartbeat in my ears.

       THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP

I forced myself to get up, groaning as all my muscles pinched as they got back into place. I made a lot of unnecessary noise as I cleaned up my mess from last night. Throwing the shower caddy under the sink, flipping my backpack and letting everything fall out, slamming my dirty clothes into a pile in a corner. And I couldn't help but look around every couple of minutes, not entirely understanding where I was. Trying and failing to compensate for the noises that usually find me when I wake up. When I threw open the balcony windows, I realized I was still waiting to hear another window slide open and a soft "I'm home", even though it was well past noon.

        How wild would it be if he actually went on parole after all that? Would a fight have broken out? Would it have been like the whole Owls mishap again?

       Get your head out of your ass, they're his family; blood is thicker than water.

Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.

He's been helping and fighting alongside them much longer than you have you dip. I storm into the kitchen, only grunting as I smash my hip against the counter. I set out 4 pages of stationary in front of me and made lists; food, clothes, furniture, extra. I took my papers and started walking around, jotting notes of what I needed. Talking to fill the void.

"More toilet paper, hand soap, towels," I hum under my breath, not really checking the cabinets. "As for clothes I should-" my voice caught when I walked into the bedroom. It was freezing. I reflexively bit my lip,  eyes watering. Instead of goosebumps, this cold sat in my stomach. The same cold in my hands, from the airplane seat, returned- lacing up my arms, down my stomach and legs. Stabbing my heart and restricting my lungs.

I'm alone.

"I should buy like 4 interchangeable outfits," the whimper barely sounded through the silent tears. I shut the door tight, almost running back to the living room. I sat just outside the ring of light, hunching over my paper. "Jeans, underwear, toothpasTE-" I sniffled but my vision only got blurrier.

"BoOKcASes, a bEd, mayBE a BeAr," my heart squeezed every time my voice broke, and in seconds I couldn't write on the soaked paper. The hiccups were my only air, snot streaking my trembling chin.

  "What did I do? What. diD. I DOOO?" I sobbed, wailing into my hands. I curled around a leg of the coffee table, letting its corners cut into my stomach. Wailing until I was dry heaving, scratching my eyes to get rid of these acidic tears, blowing my nose with my shirt- moist blotches sticking to my skin. "Day- Damian" I cried to myself until I passed out again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Afternoons spent silently reading with each other

Matching outfits for galas, some he designed himself, just for me

Our home downtown- bought to have some peace and quiet from his family. Although half the time they broke in, the other half we ended up back in the manor.

Traveling for work, for fun, for missions he didn't think were dangerous.

Sparring with Jason and Cass.

Jason showing me a hundred new bands when I got him into new music genres, trying to help each other find less aggressive ways to vent. Giving him the cream to completely erase the J from his cheek was different, the first time I saw him cry. He understood that blood family wasn't always loyal, and that I didn't mean it when I'd punch or insult someone to hide softer feelings.

Cass just vibing, understanding me and letting me get close. She was always the first to come help me when I was hurt, I became the person she could cry to. The way her face lit up when we were just able to chill a whole night, singing, watching movies and simply understanding each other on a fundamental level.

Barbra growing aggravated as she tried to teach me how to do more with technology than just googling things. Her forgiving my stupidity after I built her a new computer.

The long talks I had with Dick. Anything and everything. The first time hurt, when I called him out. He was giddy and chipper, dramatic as ever but when he caught me staring and stopped for long enough to look back, the pain in his eyes was clear as day. He had just broken up with Kory after all. He didn't need to lie, he didn't need to lighten the mood, he just needed to be honest. But once he could smile honestly again, I couldn't help but remember that he was the one who found out about me and Damian first. He'd been there to spy on our first date, hiding it from Bruce. He was the first to take me out for ice cream then subtly threaten my life if I harmed Damian, the first to swing by for spontaneous days out. To get to know me, to see if I was right for Damian.

Stephanie, Tim and I bonding over teasing and pranking Damian.

Tim and I being forced into caffeine and sleep interventions. Coffee and Coke. And then the beautiful irony of us falling asleep halfway through, especially after I taught him how to sleep with his eyes open.

Cooking with Alfred, learning his famous cookie recipes. Showing him more authentic Hispanic recipes, and him comforting me and being the first to compliment me after I was duped into cooking for the ENTIRE family.

Philosophical and political discussions with Bruce. Talks about war and power, cultural similarities and their origins. Talks about Damian as a child to mess with him. Opening up about paranoia, fear of losing loved ones, the controversies of being "too much" for some people. He understood, sometimes the ultimate sacrifices had to be made in a second. He understood because he was the same. We'd give up our lives before anyone else.

It's all gone.

So much of my past, and now, my whole future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it's cold. i stripped off my shirt and blew my nose.

blood. eww, it's hot. i hold my shirt to my nose, crawling under the table, balling up until i could feel all 4 legs pressing into me.

tuneless humming, watching the room light up until my eyes burn.

I have to pee.

I wash my hands, the water making me aware of my bone dry mouth. My tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. I let the water pour through my fingers for another minute before walking away, laying back under the coffee table.

long grains. shades of brown. like dead grass. my fingers run over the million tiny bumps watching the wood fade from a blurry brown to a million tiny wooden grains.

My hair is on fire. The sun reaches it from under the table.

There are people in the hallway. They're as loud as the cars outside.

the ac is running. i start humming to drown it out.

i'm melting. i force my eyes to blink but they continue to burn. 

I can't breathe. I stagger to the bathroom and after a few minutes of moving my jaw up and down, my mouth manages to open. I swig some water before throwing some on my face. fever? headache at least. I grab a towel to wipe my face, fumbling back into the hall. fuck was i looking directly at the sun? there is only one place colder than the sun. i walk to my bedroom, the cold imperceptible to me now.

but the second i put my eyes directly onto the empty bed frame, i could almost hear them sizzle. it exhausted me. I hadn't realized how hot my face was until i laid it on the floor. like a refreshing bath, calming. i just focused on my heat being transferred to the floor, unaware that I was falling asleep again.

((The writing for the last chapter is intentionally like that, I was attempting to write Rose being in a type of  disassociated kind of state; where you aren't aware of time passing, noting seems real, even things in your immediate vicinity. Knowing that you should be doing something, drinking water, changing clothes, listening to music, ANYTHING-but still not doing it. The capitalization/simple sentences and repetition on the latter part was intentional. ))

[justheretobreakthings]

Welcome to the Family - Chapter 8

(Previous Chapter)

Word Count: 3,089 (Total Word Count: 20,507) Read on AO3

Story Summary: Lance had been excited about his family taking in a foster kid, eager to get to meet his brand new little brother or sister, who would surely adore and idolize their super cool Big Brother Lance. What he got instead was a sullen, quiet, temperamental teenage housemate with a criminal record and a disastrous haircut.

It was a tough adjustment, going back to school for the first time in over a year. Kolivan had warned him about that after he had first been released, that it may be difficult for him to be back in a regular school setting, but there wasn’t exactly much to be done about it. There wasn’t very well any way to practice being back at school in the two weeks between his release and the start of the new school year, so the best Kolivan could do was recommend that he go to the school counselor if he had any trouble.

Which Keith was in no hurry to do. Back at the detention facility, they’d mandated he see a counselor too. Everyone had to, and as far as Keith could tell, it hadn’t done any good for any of the kids there. The counselor he’d seen had been constantly dismissive, writing off any trouble he was having with the other juveniles as him simply losing his temper, and telling Keith that he was exaggerating the problems in his past due to his ‘negative life outlook’ and needed to simply look on the positive side of things more.

Of course, that counselor also didn’t use the title of ‘doctor’, and had yelled at Keith when the latter had first asked about his credentials, so maybe he wasn’t exactly the best example of a counselor. But it left Keith on his guard.

If you assume out the gate that all counselors were underqualified and disparaging, you won’t be disappointed when it turns out to be the case. A lesson he had learned long ago and applied to caseworkers, and classmates, and homes. They weren’t all bad, but the ones that were…

It was a tough adjustment.

Still, as patronizing as that counselor’s advice had been, he tried his best to focus on the positives, listing them in his head throughout the day as he came up with them.

He had his own locker. That was nice. Privacy was always hard to come by, whether he was with a foster family or a group home or back in juvie, so every little bit was a relief.

The teachers actually seemed to give a shit about their subjects, which had not been at all the case for him last year. He was pretty sure that the tutors’ credentials had been even less valid than the counselor’s, and none of the other boys at the center had actually cared about learning anyway - or if they did, they had the sense to keep it to themselves - so the tutors were pretty quick to give up anyway. So that was a nice change.

The place as a whole seemed generally well-kept. No obvious damage like broken windows or exposed wires, and they had those modern drinking fountains with the bottle-filling stations built in. When Keith went to the bathroom after lunch, there was some graffiti in the stall, but it was just the ‘Here I sit brokenhearted’ poem in Sharpie. Pretty innocuous.

And he’d had a place to sit at lunch, which was a major step up from some past foster homes where he’d either been the only kid, or the other kids in the house wanted nothing to do with him. Of course, there had still been some weirdness there. While Hunk had seemed nice and Pidge’s sarcasm hadn’t seemed malicious and Lance did seem concerned about whether or not he ate, it was hard to say how genuine it was or how long it would last. After all, he’d messed up. He’d accidentally insulted Tania, and it had upset Lance, and he hadn’t missed how much all three of the others had stared at him throughout the meal, even if they tried to hide it.

He didn’t like being stared at. He didn’t like it when people were curious, when they tried to dig into him and his life.

Being back in a crowded school made that harder to avoid, which was one of the negatives that he tried not to focus on but couldn’t help but let intrude his mind whenever he got the inkling that there were eyes on him. Which, admittedly, happened a hell of a lot, more than was probably realistic.

The counselor had called him paranoid, but he was sometimes right, and if he was sometimes right, then it wasn’t paranoia, it was just caution. There was nothing wrong with caution. Sure, maybe the times he caught people staring in his direction, they weren’t actually looking at him, and maybe when people whispered nearby or muffled a laugh as they passed him, they weren’t discussing him. But maybe they were. And Keith never knew how to handle that.

It’s not as though there wasn’t plenty of reason for him to be stared at or gossiped about. He reeked of not belonging, and he knew it. He was very obviously the ‘new guy’, not knowing any names or where anything was and three times so far he’d had to ask for directions, a task that had no business being as anxiety-inducing as it was. He’d had Algebra 1 for fourth period, and he was pretty sure he was the only sophomore in a class otherwise full of freshman, which he knew was going to be the case in Spanish 1 tomorrow as well, and no doubt his classmates would have questions about that. And, of course, there was his scar. He supposed he couldn’t blame people for staring at that, but that didn’t mean he had to like it or stop glowering at other students when he caught them at it.

Point was, though, he made it. He made it through the day without any big problems. No one was outright antagonistic to him, nothing the teachers assigned seemed beyond his ability. Sure, there were still a hundred and seventy-nine days left in the school year to ruin that, but at least he was starting off on the right foot. Or, a neutral foot. Whatever.

His last class of the day was P.E., and he was one of the first in the class to leave the locker room at the end of class. Since it was the final period, some of the boys opted not to shower afterward, which was a relief to Keith, as it made the fact that he wasn’t doing so stand out less. You only needed to get your clothes stolen from the gym locker one time in middle school before you took steps to ensure that it never happened again, so he had no problem waiting until he got back to the McClains’ house to clean up.

He had ducked into a bathroom stall to change out of his gym uniform - he would have to ask Lance what the weird cartoon clipart of a knight on the tee shirt was all about - and fortunately it didn’t seem like anyone had paid him enough attention to notice and given him any shit about his excessive modesty, so he was able to slip out of the locker room a minute before the final bell, an extra minute that he definitely needed to find his way back to the sophomore lockers.

After he gathered his things, he headed out to the parking lot to wait next to Rachel’s car, although it was at least another twenty minutes more before he spotted her and Lance leaving the school building. He lifted a hand to wave at them from where he sat perched on the car’s hood, but slowly lowered it again as he noticed the annoyed look on Lance’s face.

“That’s where he was,” Lance said loudly once they were in earshot. “Damn it, we were looking all over for you.”

“What?” said Keith. “Why?”

“Because you weren’t at the entrance,” said Lance. “We waited for you. Rachel was starting to worry you ditched school or something. How come you didn’t meet us there?”

“I… didn’t know I was supposed to?” Keith said, raising a brow. “What entrance?”

“The music wing entrance,” Rachel said. She reached the front door and pulled it open, hitting the button on the inside to unlock the rest of the car. “We always meet there at the end of the day. Didn’t Lance tell you that?”

“No.”

“Hey, what?” Lance said as he slid into his own seat. “Why was that my job? You’re the driver, you were supposed to coordinate everything!”

“...Oh.” Rachel frowned. “Okay, fair, guess this one’s on me. Sorry, Keith.”

“S’okay,” Keith mumbled. He clambered into the passenger seat as Rachel turned the ignition, and leaned in toward the fan as the air-conditioning kicked on.

“From now on, we don’t count on Rachel for anything,” said Lance.

“Fine,” Rachel said. “Good luck getting home from school without me.”

“From now on, we count on Rachel for only one thing.”

“There we go.” Rachel nodded. “Anyway, right, from now on, just meet at the music wing, okay? The front entrance has a sign pointing to the auditorium, so if you go there, it’s just down the hall on the right, and you’re there.”

“Got it,” Keith said.

“We woulda texted you,” said Lance, “But you didn’t give us your number.”

“I don’t have a phone,” said Keith.

“What? Why not?”

Keith turned around to scowl at Lance, and the latter was quick to deflate. “Oh, sorry, was that offensive? Somehow?”

“I just don’t have one,” Keith snapped.

“Talk to Mamá about that,” said Rachel. “I just upgraded a few months ago, she’ll probably let you have my old one, and Luis is off the family plan now so we can add another number.”

“All right,” Keith said. “Um, thanks?”

“Don’t mention it. Not like I’m using it anyw- Lance, don’t you dare take your shoes off in my car!”

Lance looked up, his feet already up on the seat next to him and one shoe off, holding the laces of the other. “Oh, come on, it’s a thousand degrees outside, my feet are hot!”

“No, you are not stinking up my car with your weird foot odors. Wait ‘til we get home.”

“First of all, your car stinks anyway, and second of all, my feet are beautiful and your car should be honored to smell like them.”

“If your feet are so great you wouldn’t need to spend an hour every day rubbing all those creams and oils and stuff on them.”

“Um, it’s called self-care.”

Deciding that the sibling bickering was probably going to go on for the rest of the ride home, Keith leaned toward the dashboard and adjusted the fans to blow directly into his face, closing his eyes and letting the sound of the blowing air conditioning drown out everything else. At first he was a little worried that the fans might spread the smell of the sweat left over from gym class throughout the car, but neither Lance nor Rachel made any comment about it - the smell of Lance’s feet was the only one they seemed focused on - so he was able to relax up until they pulled up to the McClains’ house, coming to a forceful and crooked stop on the curb.

The other two tossed their backpacks onto a chair in their den and shouted greetings to their mother as they entered the house, while Keith kept quiet and kept his bag with him until he’d gotten upstairs and dropped it into his desk chair. Lance had first dibs on the bathroom, so Keith waited on his bed for his turn to grab a shower. When that turn finally came, he turned the water up to near scalding and took a few minutes to just stand and soak. It hadn’t been a bad day, nothing big had happened, but he was still exhausted. Being around so many people for eight hours straight had drained him.

It took a long while and a mental reminder that the others in the house would probably be pissed if he went and used up the hot water for him to finally pick up his bottle - a single, all-in-one shampoo-conditioner-body wash that he’d picked out from the store and that was conspicuously dull among the dozen bottles of brightly colored and sweetly scented who-knows-what that Lance had arranged on the rim of the tub for himself - and start washing up. Once finished, he towel dried thoroughly and got fully dressed again before finally stepping out of the bathroom, letting the steam waft into the hallway behind him.

By this point he was starting to get hungry, the awkward school lunch long behind him, so he started down the stairs, hoping to find something in the kitchen to sneak back up with him before dinner. The den was empty, and the muted sound of Rachel’s trumpet indicated she was practicing in the basement, so the coast seemed clear until he reached the bottom of the stairs and caught the voices of Lance and Tania in the kitchen. Keith hesitated, hand on the banister, deciding to wait it out.

“It’ll just be the morning meeting tomorrow for this week,” Lance was saying. “But starting on Monday we’re back to three morning practices a week, and I think we’ll start on the afternoon practices again in October, so you’re gonna need to tell Rachel she has to drive me.”

“Lance, we can’t base Rachel’s whole sleep schedule on your swim practices,” Tania replied. “I’ll drive you when I can, and we really need to arrange a carpool for you this year. Your friend Nadia doesn’t live too far from here, right?”

“Yeah, but her dad listens to country music in the car. It’s torture.”

“Too bad, mijo, it’s either find a carpool or skip some practices.”

“Fine. I’ll ask her. Oh, and I still need the money for the new trunks this year. My old ones are getting tight as hell.”

“Language.”

“Sorry, tight as heck. Anyway, I need a check for them.”

“All right.” Keith heard the sound of a drawer opening and papers rifling.

“And for a team jacket,” Lance added.

“Ah, ah, no,” said Tania, “I told you already, you want one of those jackets, you pay for it yourself.”

“But Mamá, it’s school spirit!”

“It’s fifty-dollar school spirit and I’m not paying for it. You want extra money, you do some extra help on the farm or you wait ‘til Christmas. For now, how much for the trunks?”

“Twenty.” There was quiet in the kitchen for a few seconds, then the sound of tearing paper. “Thanks,” said Lance.

“Don’t you lose that check, now,” said Tania. “Put it in your backpack before you forget.”

“I will.” A cabinet opened and a couple of dishes clattered against the countertop before Lance cleared his throat. “Hey, uh,” he said. “Speaking of checks, uh…”

“Mm?” Tania hummed.

“Something kinda weird happened at lunch today.”

Keith tensed, his grip tightening against the staircase’s banister.

“How do you mean?”

“With Keith. He tried to skip lunch, said he was saving for when he ‘needed’ it.”

“What does that - ?”

“Well, apparently he thought that the check you gave him for lunch was supposed to cover the whole school year. He was trying to ration it out.”

There was a pause before Tania softly muttered, “Oh querido…”

“Did he, like, act weird at all when you wrote out the check? Or did you say something that he thought meant - ”

“No, no, I think it was just - ” Her sigh was nearly drowned out by a cutlery drawer opening and closing. “Don’t worry over it, cariño, I’ll talk to him.”

“Yeah, but what are you gonna say? Do you know what that was about?”

“Never you mind, Lance, I’ll take care of it.”

“But why did he think - ?”

Finally, Keith had heard enough, and he stepped out into the dining room, ensuring that his footfall was loud enough to get their attention. It worked, as both Tania and Lance looked up at his entrance. Lance quickly looked away again, face sheepish, but Tania plastered a smile onto her face and gestured for him to come into the kitchen. “Keith, dear, good to see you!” she said brightly. “How was your first day?”

“Fine,” Keith said.

“The school seem like it could be a good fit for you? Do we need to make any changes to your classes at all?”

“They’re fine.”

“You’re okay with having Rachel drive you? Her driving didn’t scare you too badly?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“How are your classmates? Met any nice people? Make any new friends?”

“I - I just came in to get a snack…”

“Oh! Right, right.” Tania ran a flustered hand through her hair and turned back to the counter. “Well, I’m actually going to start making dinner here, so if you don’t mind waiting a little longer, there’ll be plenty to eat soon.”

“Oh,” said Keith. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry!” Tania said. “It’s fine, it’s perfectly fine. Would you like to help with dinner, sweetie? I could use a hand peeling potatoes if you’re up for it. Have you used a potato peeler before, Keith?”

“Um, yeah. Sure, I can - I can help,” Keith said.

He shuffled toward the counter. Lance leaned in to whisper something to Tania that he didn’t catch, and she shook her head and waved him away in response. Lance pouted as he stepped away. “Well, uh, I’ll get outta your way, then,” he said.

“You sure you don’t wanna help too, mijo?” said Tania.

“I’m on dish duty tonight, Mamá, you can’t make me do double chores. I’ll strike.”

Tania picked up a dish towel and lightly swatted Lance on the shoulder with it. “If you’re not gonna work in the kitchen, you can’t stand around in the kitchen. Get.”

“All right, all right,” Lance said, turning and walking out toward the dining room. Before he left fully, he glanced over his shoulder toward Tania and said, “¿Me lo dirán luego?”

“No, Lance,” Tania snapped. Lance muttered something under his breath and left as Tania slid a bag of potatoes across the counter and handed Keith a peeler. “We should only need around eight,” she said. “I’ll start on the chicken, and you just let me know if you need anything, okay dear?”

“Okay,” Keith said with a nod. She turned her attention away, and Keith glanced hesitantly back toward the sound of Lance’s retreating footsteps before he shook his head clear, rolled his shoulders, and got to work.

[marithlizard]

Thoughts on RWBY v8c1, “Divide”

Summary: Much as expected!   Top-notch animation and imagery, terrifying plot, sloppy writing.

(I am just going to have to accept that RWBY no longer cares if details make sense, or are strictly in character, as long as they lead to Something Cool.  Which is frustrating! I’ve never been particularly a fan of most of the big story franchises for precisely that reason  -  I want a canon text that holds up to my obsessively analytic fangirl scrutiny.)

(Yes OKAY I know, they sent a dog through the mail way back in v2 and that should’ve been a clue, but the plot holes didn’t get big enough to actually annoy me until v5-v6. And I still love my favorite characters so I’m going to have to suck it up.  Onward to the episode!)

CINDER BACKSTORY ALERT

Oh, now that's a lovely transition,  present-day Cinder’s nails scratching in time with past-Cinder’s scrubbing of the floor. 

Damn it, Neo, you should not be here. You're not evil enough for  this crowd no matter how many people you may have killed.  And you know it, from that look of fear.  Roman would be yelling at you to run.

Did they - are those the murderwhale's gills?  Turned into landing pads for small airships? And those are teeth. Salem's throne room/bridge is in its mouth. So cool.

Credit? No, you  don't get credit,  Neo. That's not how this works.

Oh,  no. No, Emerald, don't - yeah.  

I love the weird biomagical-Grimm technology Salem uses.  It pulsates.  Of course it pulsates.

"Without you I am nothing".  I still don't think Cinder is delivering that line sincerely, not one bit.  She just knows the situation. 

And Salem just shoos them away with a little wave of her fingers, go away minion-flies.   There are only two players in the entire world as far as she's concerned.  Only two people, really.  Humanity 2.0 doesn't count.

Oscar and Ozpin in a freezing little collection of hovels. Probably still the same quarry or mine they fell into.   Oh YAY reunion approximately 1000% sooner than anyone was predicting!  But...Oscar doesn't actually look relieved to see Ruby.

Yeah, he hasn't told them about Oz being back.  

So they've joined forces with the Huntresses, excellent. And May Marigold on top of things as dispatcher!

AWWWW Nora didn't bowl him over.  Hopefully it's not just that she has no exuberance in her, and she has actually picked up the clear signals that he doesn't like it.

Wanting to talk it out with Ozpin first is a good reason. Not done talking? You haven't even started.  But...it's going to make the others mad all over again, and this time they'll be mad at you, Oscar.  

Ozpin has had only two lines so far, but there's a different quality to his voice now.  I think they changed up the sound effect but it's more than that.  Oz used to always sound at least a bit smug and very self-assured.  Every trace of that is just...gone.  And Oscar himself is sounding very Oz-like, with the “every choice I’ve made has been the wrong one” angst.   I’m starting to really worry we will lose Ozpin this volume. :( 

Qrow and Robyn's arrest hasn't been publicized.  But their pictures are gone from the wanted mug shots.  Arrested or dead seem obvious conclusions - I guess they're too afraid of the second to make any guesses.

Ironwood's rationale last season for stopping the Mantle evacuations was that they were going to raise Atlas so there wasn't time.  But that no longer applies, Atlas can't be raised without Penny.   So he's just decided their lives aren't worth spending resources on.  Which makes me wonder what's happened to the Mantle residents who have already been evacuated.   Being warehoused somewhere in poor conditions with no one having a clue what to do with them?  We probably won't find out. It's not the kind of detail RWBY is good at following up on, unfortunately.

Huh.  I see the logic of the crater being warm and centralized...but when Salem attacks Atlas they're going to be directly underneath.  

Ouch, that photograph and broken luggage are effective. I may have complaints about the writing but RWBY's storyboarders and animators do a stellar job.

Speaking of which, apparently we really ARE handwaving physics and major  engineering projects so that Amity can be launched with Pietro's knowhow and a  roll of duct tape.  The only requirement is to push the equivalent of the big green button on a computer.  

AND Ruby wants to go ahead with telling the world about Salem?  Despite it having been acknowledged last volume that there would be global chaos and Grimm invasions?  Ironwood's plan to "lend forces"  after the fact was hopelessly inadequate and would have killed millions.  Now there's no plan for  aid at all.  

ARGH - hm.  Well.  I guess I do see Ruby's point about feeling obligated to warn everyone Salem's army is on the move.  But what defense can anyone else in the world mount?  Atlas is the only place with a real army anyway.   And the Beacon footage already triggered waves of despair and Grimm, I don't think Lionheart was lying about that.   Ruby's plan just means people will die sooner.   I'm with Yang, they should help Mantle and concentrate on fighting  Salem here and now.

...wait,is Yang rebelling?  Just like that?  Is it v6c2 all over again with even less buildup?  Ooh, no, because  Ruby's not alone. It's a genuine party split.

Oh god, someone explain to Penny that she must stay out of Salem's clutches at all costs.  That's a frightening level of naivete.  In fact, they should be getting Penny the fuck out of Atlas and as far away as possible.

RNBWP and YJOR,  Rainbow-P and, er,  hm, the fandom will doubtless come up with a better name than "Orgy".  An interesting breakdown.  I'm just glad they were able to do it peacefully. (Although Nora sounds salty in the extreme and Ren looks betrayed.)

I'm just going to assume Pietro disabled the tracking on their scrolls, and that James can't find them using this phone call.

Oh, Ironwood.   That is...not remotely convincing.  But you think of her as a little kid still, one who was always eager to please before.

He's got a valid point from  his chess-game perspective, it's true.  If Salem gets all four relics, Remnant really is doomed.  (He doesn't know about the summoning-gods clause, but even without that she could reshape the planet).  But raising Atlas to keep it safe while she rains down destruction on the rest of the world is not a viable plan either morally or strategically.  

Annd we cut to the Ace Ops without hearing Ruby's answer. Ace Ops looking variously depressed, impassive, and pissed off.

..er.  Clover IS dead, right?  Must be, or he'd be covered in IVs and monitors, but that we're standing in a medical facility next to Winter getting treatment makes it seem  ambiguous. That's pretty cruel to the FairGame shippers, c'mon, they've suffered enough.

I wish I hadn't learned about the robot arm, because it would've been a nicely shocking reveal.  It's not Pietro's  work, James.  Pietro left you and you'll be reminded of that every time you clench your inferiorly-made fingers.

Oof, Winter is tied to Ironwood by his sincere gratitude, as well as duty and loyalty.  That bond is going to be tested further.

Okay the Councilors are acting like idiots. Martial law is a terrible idea 99% of the time. But when you have an massive Grimm army, a flying murderwhale and the queen of evil on your doorstep might be a reasonable time to contemplate the 1%.    

did you - did you just kill a councillor

please tell me that was a warning shot

Harriet and Winter both have "my boss is going round the twist fast, oh shit" looks on their faces.  And they exchanged a glance there.

And we end with the scene from the trailer of Salem ordering a flying monkey-bloodhound to fetch Oscar.  She's talking to the lamp - I wonder if Jinn can hear?  Probably not, it was definitely implied she was waking up from sleep in v6c2.

New opening!  I've already commented on the dramatic title card of the others "turning their backs" on Ruby.   Ooh,  Clover's shadow is going to hang long over this season, apparently!  And - whoa,  THAT'S an unexpected juxtaposition of characters.

Are they going to team up? Is Harriet going to break Qrow out of prison,  yell at him to stop being a lump and avenge Clover?   Definite teamup for him and Robyn, unsurprising but good.  (I don't think romance is in the cards for Qrow this volume, it'll be wall-to-wall doom, but for the record anyone who can give this man a happy ending is okay by me.)

It's just not looking good for Oscar and Oz at all.  :(    

Whitley and Willow in the credits!   Yes please, they both have so much potential to grow out of Jacques' shadow.

Watts, you smug little fucker.   Smug tall fucker. You know what I mean. Oh no - he’s going to hijack Ruby’s broadcast from Amity.  It’ll be like Beacon but worse. That’s such a horrible idea that it is now my official prediction. 

Interesting use of mirrors here.

That little glance between Yang and Ruby suggests they won't truly come to enmity, thank goodness.  

I wonder if there's something significant in the relative positioning of Emerald and Mercury.  Is he going to rise higher in Salem's ranks while she and Neo are reluctant, and possibly team up to escape? 

"Some lives will end much too soon,some evil will never ever die"  YES THANK YOU CASEY AND JEFF WE GET IT

Oh MY.  RWBY falling into deep water just like Cinder, with golden sparkles that sure do make it seem a lot like the buried GoL pool of creation. The staff floating above out of reach.  Is this hinting at an unwelcome transformation of some  kind?  

Scribbly outlines of weapons and Grimm and Penny, her colors changing.  "HAPPY EVER AFTER" being crossed out and replaced by "HAPPY NEVER AGAIN".  

hello yes I'm scared for the entire team, you can stop any time now.