#anyway now i have to scramble to clean this stupid house just in case (although im almost certain my uncles and aunts are comin over)

[transgaysex]

theres birthdays in my family today you know what that means ☺️

[silverhandy]

House call - chapter 2

Chapter 1 I ao3

    Through his career, he’s been to a lot of places of varying degrees of decay, from the long-abandoned hotels subjected to evergoing gang disputes to the city’s garbage dump stretching miles upon miles outside of the city, a sea of trash and metal, often twisted into unrecognizable shapes, piling up into mountains, where every step meant a very real risk of slipping and impaling himself on a rust-bitten shard. Hidden in between were those unfortunate enough to end their journey in a place like this, abandoned by their rivals or hitmen too lazy to attempt hiding a body within the guts of the city. If they had a working car, and almost all of them did, it was way easier to just drive whatever was left of their target and dump it to be devoured by rats and whatever else evolved enough to survive in a place like this. Sometimes they wouldn’t even bother to check if the person they were leaving there was actually dead, hence the reason why he’d sometimes get calls begging him to fish a guy (or lady) down on their luck out. He found himself digging through trash more often than not, futile in his attempts to pinpoint his awaiting patient’s location. When he was starting out, the thought of giving up his search wouldn’t even cross his mind, he’d spend hours looking, even dragging along metal cutters with him, figuring they’d come in handy. They probably would’ve if not for the fact that he often wasn’t even able to find the person who called him, localization data too patchy to give him a solid lead on where he should even start.

    After a while, when he established himself and lost some of his rookie idealism, he put in a disclaimer that he wouldn’t go trash diving anymore, no matter the pay. A small step, but even at the beginning he tried to have standards.

    V’s apartment was far from Night City’s biggest trash dump, but something about the chaos within it reminded him of that when he switched on the lights. As if the hurricane had swept through the place, some of the furniture was tilted over, a pile of clothes, dangerously balanced on an overfilled laundry basket, threatened to collapse and spill over at any moment. A half-finished box of noodles laid abandoned on the counter, accompanied by a mosaic of pills from a knocked over bottle.

    Viktor found V curled up on the floor next to her bed, wearing a washed-out Samurai t-shirt and sweatpants, covers dragged along with her halfway between the linoleum and the mattress. He could barely see her face from the way she was bundled up. V didn’t move upon hearing his footsteps, didn’t even flinch when he kneeled next to her and reached out a hand to touch her shoulder.

    The ripper dropped the heavy bag at his side and gently cupped V’s face in his hands, wincing at how burned up the woman’s skin was, and turned it so he could take a quick glance. V’s eyes were rolled far back into her skull. Viktor started to have an idea of what he was dealing with here, has seen the wreckage that offensive hacking can cause many times before. They usually started out slow, identical to a bad case of flu but then, if dismissed, proceeded to stir fry one’s brain until not much was left.

    Viktor opened his bag and pulled out a small, remote biomonitor. It took a few seconds to fully calibrate, but eventually, the screen lit up.

    ‘V, can you hear me?’ he asked, not counting on her to answer. 'I’m going to connect your personal link now and see what’s going on in there, okay?' he reached for her wrist, already feeling her racing pulse, and connected it to the device. While it was loading, Viktor propped it up on the wall and grabbed V to lay her on her back to make the job easier for himself, and pulled out a few small gel-filled Ice-Pax. He knew she probably needed more, but those will have to do for now.

    Just as Viktor placed two under her arms and another on her groin, the monitor beeped. He reached over her to grab it and swiftly ran a basic diagnostics program, but save for the things he already knew, it didn’t spew out anything interesting. She was vastly overheated and her blood pressure shot up to a point where an angrily red window kept popping up to inform him of a 72% percent chance of an incoming cardiac event, but he dismissed it for now. Instead, Viktor chose a different angle and ran a more advanced version of the program, letting it comb through V’s frontal cortex and RAM.

    ‘There’s the rub’ he hummed to himself as the program kindly highlighted the results. He let out a long sigh. If V had come to see him a day earlier, he’d fix it in five minutes and she wouldn’t even notice, but now she’ll be out of commission for at least a week before she can even get out of bed. He’ll have to tell her a thing or two about responsibility, not that she’d listen to him anyway. Patients never did, but it still might be worth a shot.

    Viktor typed a few commands to enclose the scrambled code from her RAM and before pulling out V’s personal link, copied her real-time vitals chart onto his interface. After it appeared within his field of vision, he pulled out a worn-out connecting cord that he’s been promising himself he’d replace for ages now and inserted it into the neural port at V’s nape to get a better working field, now that he knew what the problem was. RAM damages were problematic in their very nature but pretty easy to fix once caught, not much of his medical knowledge needed. Viktor simply fired up what ripperdocs tended to call a “palate cleanser” and let it do the work, putting back together what the bug has managed to break.

    While the program was fixing up V’s tech, Viktor got to work on her body. Flipping the ice packs, he took a quick glance at her temperature and was glad to see that it had started to slowly go down, followed by her pulse and blood pressure, all three leaving the life-threatening territory. None of them were quite to his liking just yet, but at least now Viktor was sure V would pull through. Reaching into his bag, he eventually found an IV set, but decided it’d be better to move her onto the bed first, sparing himself all the gymnastics with the tubing and cables. Minding the biomonitor still plugged into her, Viktor leaned down to lift V and put her on the bed. She was quite heavy, the dead weight of her limp body adding to the feeling, but he didn’t even break a sweat carrying her. Taking the covers from the floor, he put them on her, straightening the wrinkled material intuitively.

    Having done that, Viktor grabbed her arm and carefully inserted the needle. To his relief, it went in on the first try. Glad he didn’t need to poke her any more than necessary, Viktor looked around and realized that V didn’t have anything even remotely resembling an IV stand, but when he looked up, he noticed a small hook, probably remains of a poster frame, conveniently placed over the bed. Stepping up on the edge of the bed frame, he placed the bag there, and after making sure that everything was in place, let it drip. That should do the job, maybe paired up with a shot of dopabenzamine if she won’t improve in the next few hours.

    Viktor let out a deep sigh of relief, feeling as if he’s been holding his breath ever since V called. Biomonitor’s estimated time kept shifting but eventually settled on six hours and twenty-three minutes. Viktor nodded to himself and turned around to take another look at the mess that V’s apartment has turned into. He leaned down and reached under the covers to grab the unpleasantly warm ice packs, and throw them in the freezer, wondering if he should clean up, just a little bit. Would V get mad at him for snooping around? Then again, she’ll need a few days to recover and this ever-growing mess around her surely won’t help. Or should he ask Misty? They were closer, he was pretty sure that she’s been over at V’s place at some point.

    Maybe he shouldn’t be overthinking this. Just a little bit, he told himself as he gathered the pills spilled on the counter, inspecting the label while he was at it. Strong shit, impossible to get by simply waltzing into a pharmacy. Viktor made a mental note to ask about it later, just to make sure that V doesn’t swallow these like candy. Of course she doesn’t, he reprimanded himself. She’s an adult, a stupid, reckless one, but an adult nevertheless. It still won’t hurt to bring it up, though.

    He put it back into the medicine cabinet and returned to the kitchen to deal with the noodles, and since they were on the verge of no longer being edible, he just tossed them into the trash can, along with other unfinished takeout he found in various places around the apartment. He didn’t want to snoop through V’s things, so he just folded the clothes that were sprawled all over the floor and couch and put them in a neat pile. When he was done, the place looked somehow presentable, so he settled on the couch opposite V’s bed.

    She appeared to be sleeping, although far from soundly. No longer completely unconscious, she kept tossing and turning, her face grimacing as her recovering brain no doubt served her a concoction of fever dreams.

    Just as Viktor leaned down to relax a little, he heard a ping of an incoming text message. He pulled it up

Misty

>that lady from Biotechnica is here to see you again, but you don’t seem to be in, what should I tell her?

                                                                                              >Tell her to fuck off

                                                        >I’m at V’s and have to stay for a few more                                                              hours, she screwed herself up real bad this                                                            time

>oh no what happened>

>?

                                                         >I’ll tell you all about it later, I got it covered                                                             for now

    He fully expected Misty to call him, alarmed, but apparently, he managed to reassure her just enough. He leaned back and closed his eyes, just for a second, but must’ve dozed off at some point, exhausted after over twenty hours without a chance for a shuteye. When he woke, a groan escaped his lips as the stiffness of his neck hit him with full force.

    That’s what you get for sleeping sitting up, old man, he told himself as he reached to grab his glasses off the floor. They must’ve slipped off at some point during his nap. Viktor stood up and stretched until he heard his joints crack. Still tired, he rubbed his eyes in a futile attempt to wake himself up and walked up to V’s bed to check on her. When he reached for the biomonitor to check the progress bar and see how long he’s been sleeping, V moved slightly. She opened her eyes and scanned the room, looking right over him, and furrowed her eyebrows. Finally, she looked up and saw Vik standing next to the bed and her expression went from blank to confused.

    ‘Vik? What…’ V cleared her throat. ‘What are you doin’ here?’

    ‘You don’t remember calling me?

    ‘Not quite’ she bit her lip, trying to gather her thoughts. ‘It’s a bit of a blur. I was feeling like absolute shit after that last job, thought I could just sleep it off.’ she said quietly, propping her head upon her elbow. ‘I didn’t expect it to grow into...whatever that was.’

    “A neurogenic cybervirus is what that is. Invisible until it starts to fry your brain. You gave me quite a fright.’

    “Fuck. I knew something was off about that netrunner, after she...eh, nevermind. Vik..how long have you been here anyway?

    ‘Uh,’ Viktor took a quick glance at the biomonitor ‘seven hours, give or take?

    ‘Fucking hell. I’m..’ she looked at him apologetically. ‘I’m gonna pay you back. What’s your house call fee again? I don't remember it being listed…’

    ‘Nah, it’s okay. I usually don’t do house calls, so consider that a favor. Just promise me that when you feel something’s off after a job, you’ll come to see me right away. There’s a lot of real vile stuff out there and you won’t even know until it gets you. That’s what you have me for.’

    ‘Sure, dad. You can spare me the lecture' she chuckled. ‘But for real, Vik. Thank you.’

    ‘No problem, really.’ he grabbed the biomonitor. Four minutes left. ‘You’re gonna feel like you were hit by a truck for the next few days, but there shouldn’t be any lasting damage. I’ll check up on you in a few days and send in Misty or Jackie in the meantime to help you out since I’d rather you didn’t get out of bed more often than necessary. Next time you see me, consider getting that new set of optics and a gun grip. Might save your ass next time someone attempts to do you dirty like his.’

    Something akin to a smile appeared on her face. ‘Doctor’s orders?’

    ‘Doctor’s orders.’

[elsaclack]

they’re burning all the witches (even if you aren’t one)

read on ao3

“This is a bad idea.”

Despite the roar of the passing trolley and the responding volley of honks from upheld traffic, Jake knows she heard him. Her back is to him and she makes no move to acknowledge him, aside from a slight tilt of her head and a jump of her shoulders in repressed laughter.

“I told you to meet me in the park,” he tries again as he approaches, lowering his voice accordingly. She still hasn’t turned; he’s afforded a rare view of the back of her head, eyes following the waterfall of hair that falls halfway down her back in slow, tantalizing waves. “Why’d you change the location?”

“First of all,” she says coolly, “when have I ever done what you told me to do?”

He barks out a laugh as he drops off the stoop, closing his eyes as the sound echoes back to him off the other side of the underpass. Pedestrians and vehicle traffic intermingle and pass before them; despite his misgivings, he has to admit, this is a much better place to blend in and go unnoticed.

And blending in is the most important thing to Amy Santiago. She’s looking straight ahead but her expression is relaxed, and after a moment of studying her profile, he follows her lead. “Secondly,” she says once he’s focused on the graffiti on the far end of the underpass, “I got a tip that there might be some action here later. I wanted to be early.”

“So punctual,” he says with a smile. “I’m assuming that it’s action we’ll hear about later?”

“Maybe.”

He shakes his head, still smiling, and leans forward to plant his elbows on his knees. “Well, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me.”

She snorts. “Your facetiousness is noted,” she says. “And it’s really no trouble - I know it must be bad if you’re asking for my help.”

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. As always, she’s startlingly accurate. “Double homicide,” he mutters once his laughter is in check. From the corner of his eye, he sees her lean forward, too - if only slightly. “Both vics died from multiple stab wounds, but they were also shot in the head post-mortem. Execution style. Both bullet wounds had gunpowder burns along the edges, so it was extremely close-range.”

Amy clears her throat. “Any evidence?”

“Nothing substantial yet. Labs are still running tests on the bullets, but there were no casings on site, so it’s not likely to get me very far. Every surface in the house was wiped clean, which makes me think it was professional.”

“And the victims - were they related in any way?”

“Husband and wife, though they were apparently estranged and not on speaking terms, according to the neighbors. None of them heard anything, which again makes me think this was a professional job.” He turns his head slightly, peering at her sideways. “Any of this sound familiar to you?”

She narrows her eyes at him, lips pursed, and he could swear the gears turning in her head are visible even from here. “I know of a few people who might fit the bill,” she finally says, calculating eyes darting back to the opposite side of the underpass. “You got any leads?”

“A vendor who was set up across the street that night has given us a composite sketch, but we’re not sure how accurate it is, since he kept contradicting himself. We questioned him, too, but he checks out -”

“We?” Amy repeats.

He drops his head for a moment. “She’s my partner, Santiago,” he says quietly.

“She doesn’t trust me.”

“Can you blame her? Most cops tend not to trust the badass vigilante types.” Amy scoffs, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “Diaz has helped me cover for you more times than I can count, you know. She may not trust you, but she does respect you.”

“I’m so honored.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes. “Your facetiousness is noted,” he says in a high-pitched voice, and Amy’s responding glare could wilt the flowers sprouting up from the concrete beneath his feet. “Anyways, we have a composite sketch, but we haven’t released it yet since we haven’t been able to verify -”

“Let me see it.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket without another word, pulling the image up quickly and passing it off to her.

And the moment she seems to fully take it in, the color drains from her face.

“I don’t know him,” she says, all but shoving his phone back. Suddenly she’s edging away from him, leaning as far to the right as she can, attention darting and unfocused on the traffic around them. “Never seen anyone like that.”

“Hey,” he grabs her wrist and she whips back toward him, wrenching her arm from his grasp so quickly he barely registers the movement. “Wait, what’s going on?”

“I told you,” she snarls, “I don’t know him and I can’t help you.”

“Okay, it’s very obvious that you do know him - or know of him, at least - who is he? And why are you so scared of him?”

She’s panicking, like a rabbit caught in a trap, eyes wide and fists clenching and unclenching rapidly. “It’s not - I’m not - just -” a passing pedestrian trips over her foot and she lurches forward blindly, seizing at her ankle. “Just don’t, okay? Don’t pursue this, don’t - don’t.”

“What? Don’t pursue this? Are you serious?” She looks to be in agony, her expression so bald-faced he feels his own chest tingling with anxiety. “You’re the one who quit the Academy so that you could help people without all the stupid rules -”

“Rules aren’t stupid, it’s the bureaucratic red tape that contradicts and negates the rules that are meant to help people that are stupid, and that isn’t the point, Peralta. Please, just - just trust me. This case is so much bigger than you could ever imagine -”

“Tell me his name, Santiago.” he interrupts firmly. She shakes her head, stubborn, and he inches closer. “Tell me why you’re scared of him.”

Her chest is heaving and she’s blinking rapidly, but she’s no longer scrambling to get away from him. “Look, there - there are bad guys, and there are villains. There’s crime, and then there’s evil. He -” she points to Jake’s phone still clutched in his hand “- is pure, unadulterated evil. Everything he stands for, everything he’s involved in, is evil. You need to let this go.”

“I can’t. Because those victims have families and those families deserve answers. And this guy deserves to be brought to justice. Him being evil is all the more reason for me to keep pursuing this. Someone has to bring him down.”

“Not you, Peralta.” she says firmly. “You’re not gonna be able to do this alone.”

“I won’t be alone, I’ll have -”

“Diaz won’t be enough,” she snaps. “He’s cunning and cruel and if he finds out that you’re pursuing him, neither one of you will stand a chance. Please, Jake,” her voice cracks, and he’s paralyzed by the desperation in her eyes. “Don’t pursue this. Drop it. Forget it ever crossed your desk. Please.”

“Okay,” he hears himself say. The desperation has not diminished. “Okay, I’ll drop it. I promise.”

He offers her his pinky, and she stares down at it for a beat. Her chest is heaving slightly with the intensity of her urging, but after a moment she raises her hand and hooks her own pinky around his, squeezing firmly.

Her touch is far warmer than he was expecting.

And it isn’t until she’s walked away, disappeared into the flow of foot traffic, that he realizes that was the first time she’s ever called him by his first name.

His name is Freddy Maliardi.

It took a while - far longer than Jake was hoping - but after cross-referencing a dozen criminal databases nationwide, they get a hit on a mugshot marked as a close match out of California.

He served twelve years for aggravated assault, but that isn’t what interests him - what does interest him are the twelve counts of alleged first degree murder, all of which were dropped during his trial due to insufficient evidence.

Maliardi is thin and sickly-looking in his mugshots, but his eyes are dark and glassy - almost dead.

And despite the fact that it’s just a grainy picture, Jake shivers, Amy’s words still ringing in his ears.

“So Santiago didn’t recognize him?” Rosa asks from the other side of the briefing room.

Jake grunts, feigning focus on finding a free thumbtack to add Maliardi’s mugshot to their steadily-growing evidence board. “He’s pretty average-looking,” he says evenly, “and the composite wasn’t the most accurate compared to the real thing.”

“True, although that doesn’t answer my question.” Her heavy combat boots scuff along the tile floor as she approaches, but he doesn’t look around; she pulls even with him and stops, surveying their evidence board with her arms crossed loosely over her middle. “It’s not solid enough to hold up in court, yet, but it’s a start,” she finally mutters. “Is Santiago working her magic or should we start canvasing the scene?”

He clenches his jaw at the contempt in her tone, but stays quiet. His relationship with Amy has always been a bit of a thorn between himself and Rosa, though she seems to have less of a problem with it now than she did way back at the beginning, when Amy’s “anonymous tips” lead to him solving five cases in the amount of time it took her to solve one. “Let’s start with calling the vendor and asking him to come down to verify that this is who he saw that day,” he says. “No point in canvasing if we’ve got the wrong guy.”

He sees Rosa nod in his peripheral vision, but she remains rooted to the spot. “I’m sorry,” she finally mutters. “I know she’s...helpful.”

“She is,” Jake confirms quietly.

Again, Rosa nods. “Probably best to keep me in the dark, but is it safe to assume that we’re just getting the evidence trail and she’ll deliver this guy in a few days? Or -”

“She’s not helping this time,” Jake interrupts. “She took one look at the composite and freaked out. Said he’s pure evil. She didn’t want anything to do with him.”

“What, she’s scared of him?” Jake shrugs, eyes glued to the mugshot. “Why?”

“No idea. But I intend to find out.”

Rosa hovers for another moment, before stepping sideways toward the briefing room doors. “I’ll call the vendor and set up a time for him to come in,” she says, subdued.

Jake nods, jaw clenched, waiting until the doors are closed again. He approaches the evidence board slowly, until the mugshot is just inches from the end of his nose. Maliardi’s cold, dead eyes seem to track his every move.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” he whispers.

For all of her hidden depth and range of emotions, Rosa Diaz has never been one to succumb to terror. Fear in general is not an emotion she has to handle with any regularity; beyond her childhood, she’s hard pressed to pinpoint any one time she’s ever truly felt scared.

Until now.

Fear claws rhythmically up her throat, choking off her airway, and no matter how hard she concentrates on the feeling of her lungs expanding and contracting she can’t shake the feeling of suffocation. The shadows she’s currently shrouded in certainly aren’t helping, but she won’t leave them - she can’t leave them.

Someone may recognize her.

The butt of her gun pressing hard against her palms is the one reassuring lifeline keeping her afloat amidst the shuddering darkness around her, and she grips it as hard as she can as voices approach, crest, and fade from the other end of the alley. She’s been waiting all of two minutes but already it feels like a lifetime - two minutes waiting are two minutes wasted, two minutes she’ll never get back, two minutes more of whatever he’s going through wherever he is -

“Diaz?”

Rosa jumps a foot in the air, nearly whipping her gun out despite the voice’s quiet, gentle tone. Amy Santiago stands ten feet away, hands raised in surrender, eyes wide and uncertain as Rosa heaves for breath. “Jesus Christ,” Rosa snarls, flattening her hand over her hammering heart.

“What’s going on?” Santiago asks slowly, hands still raised. “Where’s Jake?”

And even though adrenaline is still coursing through her veins, Rosa feels her heart squeezing mercilessly at the mention of her partner’s name. “I need your help,” she says quietly.

Somehow, Santiago’s alarm seems to double over. “Where’s Jake?” she repeats, stepping toward her carefully.

“Maliardi,” Rosa says, and even in the faint light she can see how quickly Santiago pales. “We were going to interview a witness to confirm the mugshot was who he saw on the scene, but Peralta got ahead of me ‘cause I had to go back to the car to get his stupid notebook, and by the time I caught up, I - I - they were shoving him into the trunk of a car -”

“How long have they had him?” Santiago’s voice has gone ragged, steely, like the sharpened edge of a serrated blade.

“Twelve hours,” Rosa says hoarsely.

Briefly, Santiago squeezes her eyes shut. “He’s still alive,” she finally says.

Something like relief briefly flares to life, like a match in the pit of a pitch-dark cave. “What makes you - how do you know?”

“Because they’re waiting for me.”

Ice floods through her entire body; without a second thought, Rosa rips her gun out of her jacket and points it directly between Santiago’s eyes.

To her credit, Santiago looks little more than annoyed. “Not like that!” she snaps, but Rosa refuses to lower her gun. “They’re using him to draw me out and force me to intervene. They’ve been trying to get a reaction out of me for months now, but I haven’t directly engaged. They must’ve figured out that Jake - that I -” she stops and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “He’s still alive because they’re waiting to kill him in front of me. Because they know that he’s - important to me.”

Slowly, Rosa lowers her gun, surprised at the genuine distress rolling off of her in waves. It’s been obvious for months now that Jake has been nursing a secret, hideously inappropriate crush on the morally-grey vigilante superhero-wannabe standing before her now, but never in a million years did she suspect that that superhero-wannabe would actually return those hideously inappropriate feelings.

“We’re doing everything we can on our end,” Rosa says, and Santiago nods, looking like she’s hanging off of Rosa’s every word. “We’ve put out APBs on Maliardi, the witness, and the car they drove off in, but it’s been hours and we’re no closer to finding them than we were at the very beginning. I know we’ll find him eventually, but I’m afraid - I’m afraid we might not be fast enough.”

“So you called me,” Santiago offers quietly when Rosa does not continue.

“I know you don’t really have any allegiance to me. We don’t have a lot of history, and what little we do have has been...complicated.” Santiago clenches her jaw, but says nothing else. “I know that you’re scared of Maliardi. I know there’s a history there that I don’t know about, that Jake doesn’t even know about, and I know that the idea of going after him alone is - is probably terrifying. I don’t have any right to ask for your help and I won’t pretend like I don’t need it. Because I do. I need your help, so badly. I know that I don’t stand a chance at solving this and saving him before something really bad goes down. He needs you, Amy. You’re the only chance he’s got - that any of us has got. Please, please help him.”

She swallows hard, gaze searching Rosa’s face. “You realize that if I get caught, they’ll kill him, right?” she asks, voice low. “I may be his only chance of getting out of this alive, but that’s only if I can get to him before they catch me. I’m his best chance, but I’m also his biggest liability. Are you sure?”

“Never been more positive of anything in my life,” Rosa answers quickly.

A beat passes, and then Amy nods, expression quickly slipping into a steely mask of grim determination. “Keep your phone on.” she mutters before backing into the shadows and disappearing from sight.

Through the haze of blood and agony, Jake tastes salt water.

He’s certain it’s a psychological by-product of the salty air blowing in through the busted window to the right of where he’s bound, whipping off the surface of the churning sea beyond it. It fades in and out of his senses, much like his consciousness, but it’s never stronger than it is when Maliardi is pounding the unyielding curve of his steel-toed boots into Jake’s ribs.

His hands are shaking where they’re bound behind his back and Jake gasps for air, grunts and moans of pain escaping his chest of their own volition. Maliardi paces back and forth before him, watching, those dark eyes all the more dead-looking now that they’re up-close and personal.

He’s been at this for hours, starting from the moment Jake lurched back to consciousness bound and gagged here on the floor. There are a half-dozen other men loitering around them, in varying degrees of engagement; a couple of them jeer and mock his screams, some snort with laughter, one has yet to look up from his phone.

That one’s the leader, Jake’s sure of it.

They haven’t really talked to him, outside of taunts. It’s been clear to him since hour one that they’re waiting for someone - that torturing him is merely a way to pass the time.

He isn’t sure how much more of this he can take.

Maliardi kicks him again - inches from his groin - and Jake screams, biting down on his gag until he’s positive his teeth have cracked. The other men are laughing again, and Maliardi is grinning, and as the tears clear up from Jake’s vision, he registers that the leader has looked up from his phone for the first time all day.

“Enough,” the leader says, and Maliardi backs off at once, retreating to the far wall and leaning back with his hands folded behind him. “We need him alive until she gets here.”

“We’ve been waiting for hours,” one of the others pipes up timidly. “Shouldn’t she be here by now?”

“Maybe she isn’t coming,” another one says.

“She’ll be here,” the leader says calmly, knowingly.

Jake heaves down as much air as he can get through his nose, staring up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the conversation. It’s hard to track with his own noisy breathing and the pain radiating through his body, but he understands enough to know that he was correct in his suspicion that they’re waiting on someone.

And that the rest of his lifespan can be measured by that mystery woman’s commute to this warehouse.

It does not occur to him that she might just be his saving grace until after the gunfire has already started.

The world is narrow and unforgiving where he’s trapped flailing on his back, but somehow he remains relatively unscathed even as the volley of bullets exploding deeper in the bowels of this room whiz over his head and crack against the wall to his right. Voices, forever ingrained in his memory for all the taunting and jeering and the like, cry out in the kind of finality that sets his teeth on edge, but instinctively he knows that for every heavy thud of a body hitting the floor, he inches closer and closer to freedom.

As quickly as it started, it stops. And once again, he’s left struggling to hear anything over his own noisy breathing.

The footsteps that approach him are quicker and lighter than any other he’s heard all afternoon, and a split-second later his hazy vision is focusing in on Amy Santiago’s desperate, blood-spattered face. “I told you to drop it,” she growls.

Despite her obvious rage, her fingers are exceedingly gentle where they work the gag out of his mouth. He gasps, lungs filling to capacity for the first time in hours, and lets his head fall back, content in knowing that she’s going to keep him safe. “When have I - ever - done what y-you - told me t’do?” he manages to rasp once his jaw has readjusted.

She tries to stay stoic, she really does, but he catches the exasperated smile that cracks through her glare, and it’s like fireflies flickering in the pit of his gut. Briefly, her hands frame his face, and then she’s scanning down the rest of his body, gingerly picking his shirt up away from his torso and examining what bits of skin she can see through the torn material of his jeans. “Nothing fatal,” she murmurs to herself as she gently touches his face again, thumbs stroking his cheekbones. “You definitely need medical attention, but you’re gonna be alright. Your team is on their way right now, they’ll be here so soon.”

He hums out a broken note, eyes closed in relief and at her touch, relishing in the kindness of each gentle caress. “Good,” he mumbles, “I’m really tired.”

“I know you are,” she whispers. “Just rest, Jake. They’ll be here soon.”

Her hands are no longer on his face and he’s panicking, alone, in pain. “Amy!” he yelps, eyes flying open to find his view of the ceiling unobstructed. “Amy!”

She’s there again, face contorted in alarm, hands warm and steady where they press into his chest. “It’s okay, Jake,” she says quickly, “it’s okay, it’s okay, calm down before you hurt yourself -”

“Please,” he gasps, “don’t go, d-don’t leave me -”

She stares, frozen, gaze burning. “I’m sorry, Jake,” she whispers, barely audible over the sirens quickly fading in from somewhere outside. “I have to go, I’m so sorry - I promise I’ll find you, okay? I swear, I will find you.”

He can barely keep his vision focused, so close to the edge of unconsciousness is he; the last thing he sees is her leaning forward, her lips brushing against his forehead, and then -

And then, darkness.

He’s in and out over the next few hours, each foray into consciousness fleeting, but long enough to know that he’s in the hospital under protective custody, both from the officer standing guard outside his closed door and Rosa, who stubbornly refuses to leave his side. Others have filtered in and out, he’s heard their voices distorted through the filter of sleep; he learns from their quiet conversations that every person who was in the warehouse with him earlier is dead.

Including Freddy Maliardi.

And according to Captain Holt, they have absolutely no idea who is responsible. No idea who would mow through a room full of hardened criminals, including the kingpin of the Ianucci crime family, but leave him alive.

Rosa remains a steady fixture at his side even after visiting hours are over, slumped over in sleep when he briefly surfaces around midnight, clearly insistent on keeping vigil.

Which is why it’s so disorienting when she’s suddenly gone around 2 in the morning.

He blinks, trying to make sense of the empty space she seemingly just occupied. His senses are dulled from whatever painkillers are coursing through his veins, but he’s fairly certain he can’t hear any movement in the bathroom; for the first time since he woke up this morning, he’s alone.

At least, he’s alone until he hears the doorknob turning half a moment later.

It’s hard to tell through the darkness, but he’s pretty sure the person easing their way into the room is a woman. Not Rosa, though - her hair seems straight, no errant, wild curls to catch the moonlight spilling through the window on the opposite side of the room. The woman eases her way inside and quietly closes the door, and then pauses. He can feel her gaze on him, even from here.

“Who’s that?” he asks (slurs).

“You’re awake?”

And now that he’s heard his voice, he feels a little silly for asking. “Amy?”

“Hey,” she crosses the distance between them quickly and claims Rosa’s seat, dragging it closer to the edge of the bed. And now that she’s inches away he can see more details through the darkness, like the way her concern seems to be fading with each second that passes or the way she nibbles on her lower lip subconsciously. “Rosa said you’ve been sleeping since you got here yesterday - how d’you feel?”

He hums. “Surprised,” he says after a moment, and her brows raise in an unvoiced question. “Didn’t know I’ve been here a whole day already.”

She nods, gaze drifting down his neck and chest. “You were pretty beat up,” she murmurs. “And you lost a lot of sleep working on the case. You needed it.”

Slowly, he reaches up, catching a lock of her hair between his fingers and gently tugging. “Are you okay?”

He sees her jaw clench as her eyes squeeze shut. “I will be,” she says after a moment, eyes fluttering open again to meet his gaze. “Knowing that you’re okay definitely helps.”

He swallows, letting her hair slip through his fingers, mesmerized at the silky texture. “You saved me,” he says softly.

She bites down on the inside of her cheek, her right hand gently closing over his forearm bent up toward her hair. “You needed me,” she murmurs, and he nods. “I couldn’t just leave you with them.”

He closes his eyes, the memories of the warehouse flashing through his mind, but he quickly banishes them; all that matters is Amy, now, and the slow, steady lines her fingers stroke into the skin of his forearm.

“I can’t stay long,” she whispers, and his eyes pop open again. “Rosa snuck me in, but I only have a few minutes before the other officer comes back -”

“I don’t want you to go,” he says quickly, and she slides her fingers around his forearm again, squeezing in what he thinks might be a reassuring way. “Please, you saved my life, and I - I want you to stay, please stay, please.”

“I can’t,” she breathes. “I’m so sorry, Jake, but I - I can’t. They might figure out it was me, and if I’m here with you when they figure it out then you’ll be in trouble, too -”

“It was self defense,” he argues, aware of the fact that his voice is rising in pitch and cracking from his own desperation. “You didn’t do it for fun, or because it felt good, you did it to protect yourself and to save me -”

“You’re right,” she says quickly, her voice low and soothing. “You’re right, you’re absolutely right. I didn’t do it because it felt good. But, Jake, the thing is...I’d do it over and over and over again if it meant keeping you safe. I’d do whatever it takes to keep you safe. And right now, the best thing I can do for you to keep you safe is to get as far away from you as possible. Right or wrong, I’m responsible for what happened in that warehouse, and I - I refuse to let you and your career be collateral damage for my actions.”

“But I don’t want you to leave,” he all but whimpers.

“It won’t be forever,” she says softly, free hand reaching to gently card through the curls that have fallen against his forehead. “I just need to lay low for a while, until all of this blows over. I promise you, it won’t be for long. And you have my number - if you ever need anything, I’m just a call or a text away. No matter what.”

He bites his tongue, trying and failing to distract himself from the sharp emotions jutting up his throat and welling in his eyes. “This isn’t fair,” he mutters as the first tears fall.

Her smile is melancholic, and it makes his heart ache. “You’re starting to sound like me, now,” she murmurs, thumb brushing over his forehead. “Don’t pull too hard at that thread - they need good cops like you on the force.”

He swallows thickly, fingers still tugging on her hair. Slowly, he increases the pressure, until she acquiesces and bends her spine a little more. She pauses with less than three inches between the ends of their noses, searching, waiting.

He lifts his hand up through her hair to the back of her head, pulling her down to close the distance, meeting her lips in a slow, sweet kiss. The fireflies that ignited in the pit of his gut before are spreading quickly, bursting through every inch of his body, buzzing with excitement and tenderness and affection as her fingers slowly curve around the back of his neck.

She pulls away much too soon, leaving him aching for more. She looks winded when he manages to pry his own eyes open; winded and vulnerable, and maybe, just a little bit hopeful.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she murmurs, fingers tangling with his as she stands beside his bed.

“Promise?”

A shy smile spreads across her face as her pinky hooks through his and squeezes. “I promise,” she echoes with a nod. “I’ll see you soon.”

He resists the urge to reach for her as she retreats back toward the door, holding his breath until she’s out of the room and the door has clicked shut behind her. He releases it in a long, loud exhale, vision blurry as he stares up at the ceiling.

Rosa makes her way inside a few minutes later, the whites of her eyes visible with the steadily increasing light coming in through the window. “You alright?” she asks, paused at the foot of his bed.

“Yeah,” he grunts, still staring at the ceiling. “Kinda screwed up that she has to go into hiding, now. But I’ll be fine.”

“It’s not fair,” Rosa agrees as she drops into her seat. “She risked a lot to save you, and now it’s like she’s being punished for that. It’s fucked up.”

He turns his head to look at her head-on. “It is fucked up,” he murmurs softly.

She flashes him a half-smile that almost touches her eyes. “So what’re you gonna do now?”

He inhales through his nose, gaze flicking back up to the ceiling. “I’m gonna wait for her,” he says steadily.

Rosa’s quiet for a beat. “It could take years,” she says quietly.

“I know. I don’t care, though. She’s worth the wait.”

“She won’t expect you to wait. Sacrificial lamb complex and all that.”

“I know that, too. That’s part of why I - y’know.” He clears his throat, and Rosa offers him a plastic cup full of half-melted ice chips. “I don’t care how long it takes,” he says, waving his hand in refusal. “She’s worth it. All of it.”

Rosa seems to contemplate it in silence for a while. “I’m starting to agree,” she finally murmurs.

He doesn’t see her again for eight months.

When he does finally spot her, she’s alone, standing still in the midst of a sea of pedestrians, her face like a beacon in the night despite everything that stands between them.

He forgets what he’s doing, why he’s there, who he’s with. His entire world narrows down to her, standing on the sidewalk, less than a block between them.

A slow, hesitant smile begins to spread across her face.

It grows to blinding proportions by the time he actually reaches her.

He wastes no time once his arms are around her, kissing her thoroughly, momentarily forgetting they’re on a sidewalk surrounded by people. She doesn’t seem to care, either - she kisses back enthusiastically, hands curling along the back of his head and neck, respectively, anchoring him to her.

And in an instant, every last ounce of heartache from the last eight months is eradicated.

“Please tell me you’re staying,” he gasps when their lips finally part. “Please say you’re staying.”

“I’m staying,” she breathes, fingers squeezing tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And just like every other promise she’s made to him, she keeps this one, too.

[peaky-yamyam]

Current Circumstances - Isaiah Jesus

(gif credit to @bonniebirdsgifcentre)

Hey could you do a part 3 of not again and sweetie with Isaiah? Where the reader finds out she's pregnant, but doesn't tell Isaiah. Instead she tries to convince him to marry her. When he refuses she goes to a women to 'deal' with it. You could decide if he finds out and stops her or only finds out after 😘 love your writing btw xx 

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Warning for abortion/termination, but super fluffy ending.

A hurried knock at the door wakes Isaiah with a start and he scrambles to pull on some trousers before the incessant knocking wakes his father.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” he hisses, straightening the bottoms on his hips before throwing open the door to find her there.

“Mornin’ sweet,” Isaiah greets.

“Can I come in?” she replies, with her foot already through the door.

“Yeah, sure. Quiet though, dad’s still in bed.”

It’s almost like she hasn’t heard, or more that she’s ignored him as she whirls on the spot to face him, expression drawn back as she fiddles nervously with her finger.

“Babe, is everything alright? Not that I’m not glad to see you but, it’s not even eight in the morning, what’s the matter?” he asks.

“I think we should get married,” she blurts.

For a second Isaiah thinks he’s imagined it, can’t believe that those words have left her mouth, but her adamant stare convinces him.

“Hang on a second, a couple of months ago when I joked about this you threatened to kill me on the spot!”

“Do you want to marry me or not?”

“Babe! Seriously, what is this? What’s this about?” he pleads, though there’s a smile playing at his lips at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Yes or no Isaiah?” she says, voice cracking as if she’s holding something back.

“Look you know how I feel about you, but things aren’t going down like this, I thought we’d agreed that this was good the way it is. Why are you asking me this now?”  

“I’ve just been thinking…” she mumbles, wrapping her arms tighter around herself.

“Wha-”

“Isaiah, you up already son?” Jeremiah calls from up the stairs.

“Yeah dad,” Isaiah calls back begrudgingly, keeping his eyes on her the whole time.

“Is there someone with you? Thought I heard voices.”

She shakes her head, eyes wide in a plea for anonymity.

“No, just me. I’ll put the kettle on yeah? Bring you a tea up.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be down in a minute,” Jeremiah calls back.

Isaiah turns back to her to apologise, but her worried expression has softened into her usual manner, slight raise to the corner of her mouth and his apology catches in his throat.

“So it’s a no?” she says.

“It’s a no, but-”

“I’m sorry Isaiah, for being so weird, just forget I ever said anything. Please, I don’t know what’s the matter with me… lost my head I think,” she babbles, dotting a quick kiss to his cheek before rushing to the door, just in time to avoid being spotted by Jeremiah as he descends the stairs.

“Everything alright son?” he asks, clocking Isaiah’s bewildered stare.

“Yeah… yeah I think so… You want tea or coffee?”

Despite the strange wake-up the rest of the day pans out as normal, and as normal on a friday evening, Isaiah finds himself in the Garrison.

“Alright Isaiah, gotta say I’m surprised to see you here,” John says, gesturing at a space on the Shelby’s table.

“Why? Friday innit?” Isaiah replies and when it’s clear he isn’t grasping the meaning, John pulls him close and lowers his voice.

“Saw your bird on the way over here, going into Mrs Wilcher’s house…”

“Mrs Wilcher?” Isaiah asks, shaking his head and starting on his pint.

“You know, she umm-” John rubs his hand across his mouth and sighs, “-she helps girls who aren’t keen on being in the family way shall we say.”

“The abortion house?” Isaiah scoffs, slamming his pint on the table as he tries to process what John is saying.

“Kinda had you down as the type of bloke to go with her, at least wait outside or sommet… Suppose Arthur never did though, didn’t do any of them girls any harm.”

“What the fuck?” he whispers more to himself than to John as he replays the morning on a loop in his head.

After a few second everything seems to make sense and he snatches his coat and hat and flees from the pub. By the looks of John’s drink he hadn’t been in the pub long and with the speed Isaiah is running through the streets he hopes to make it to the infamous, yet unassuming house before anything happens.

His arrival is less than welcome though, Mrs Wilcher glaring daggers in his direction as he barrels through the door.

“Excuse me, you can’t be here, get out!” the woman almost screams but Isaiah takes no notice, his attention focussed entirely on the girl stood next to her; delicate and ethereal against the drab surroundings of the house, and it takes all he can muster not to wrap her in his arms and carry her from the premises.

But he tells himself that he knows her well enough now to realise that this is a decision that’s been made with careful deliberation, and as such he owes her the respect to listen to her calmly. Unfortunately his mouth runs away from him.

“Oh fuck off!” he shouts back at Mrs Wilcher, before turning his attention to his girl. “You need to explain to me what’s going on. Is this what this morning was about? Why are you here?... And I had to find out from John, John of all-”

“Isaiah, please. Give me a chance to explain. Can you give us a minute?” she asks the older woman, who nods and leaves the room, quietly closing the door on the way.

The house isn’t what I expected on the inside,  although when I think about it, I can’t really imagine an illegal backstreet abortion clinic looking any different.

At least the place is clean I suppose.

The woman in front of me is running through what she’s going to do, how it’ll feel, what i’ll need to do after, but I’m not really listening - I know all about it anyway after bringing a few friends - instead I’m replaying the mess of this morning over and over in my head, cursing my sheer stupidity. I don’t even know what I’d have done had Isaiah agreed to marry me, but the realisation that I was pregnant and the memory of the shitstorm my father kicked up with my sister terrified me, and I panicked.

I debated telling Isaiah the real reason for my outburst, ummed-and-arred about it for the whole day, but I doubt his reaction would be any different than the rest of the Peaky boys who knock someone up; “here’s some cash, get it sorted and be on your way” and if that’s the case, then I’d rather keep it a secret and deal with it myself.

So the last thing I expect is for Isaiah to burst through the door, face flushed and out of breath.

“Excuse me, you can’t be here, get out,” Mrs Wilcher cries at him, almost more shocked than I am to see a man rush through the door.

“Oh fuck off!” he shouts back at her, and I can see by his face she’s lucky that’s all she’s getting. But then he turns his attention to me and softens his voice, if only slightly. “You need to explain to me what’s going on. Is this what this morning was about? Why are you here?... And I had to find out from John, John of all-”

“Isaiah, please. Give me a chance to explain. Can you give us a minute?” I ask Mrs Wilcher, flashing her an apologetic smile as she leaves, and when the door clicks to, I turn back to Isaiah. “I’m sorry that you found out from John, however he knew about it, that’s not how I wanted you to find out, in fact I didn’t want you to find out at all if I’m honest.”

“Why would you not want to tell me?” he asks, guiding me by my hand to the sofa and gesturing for me to sit.

“Because I know how all you boys react to this, and I didn’t want you to ditch me,” I mumble, playing with the fingers he’s laced between mine.

“What are you on about? I wouldn’t have ditched you because you got knocked up, why would you think that?”

“Because that’s what you all do, I’ve been to the house three times before- not for me,” I add quickly when his head shoots up, “with friends who were seeing Peaky lads, and as soon as the boys found out they were pregnant they didn’t want anything to do with the girls anymore.”

“And you really thought I’d do that to you?” he asks, tucking a few errant strands of hair behind my ears.

“I... no. Not really. But I didn’t want to take the chance, and I just honestly didn’t know how to tell you.”

“But you could propose to me?” Isaiah says with a slight smile and I can’t help the bright flush that stains my cheeks at the memory. “For fucks sake, I’d have agreed if I’d have known you were pregnant!”

“That’s not what I want though, I guess, I don’t know… I guess I thought that if you wanted to marry me anyway then we could make it work, but I didn’t want you to feel forced into it or trapped… If you marry me I want it to be because you love me and you want to spend the rest of your life with me, not because you feel like you’ve got to step up because I’m pregnant.”

Isaiah lets out a deep sigh and pulls me against his shoulder for a hug. We sit like that for a moment, the air thick with the question we both know has to be asked.

Isaiah breaks first.

“What do you want to do now?”

I pull back from him so I can face him and he continues.

“You know I’ll step up whatever you choose and we’ll make it work. So the decision’s yours.”

“Thank you, for that. But nothing’s changed Isaiah, not really. I don’t want a baby - not yet anyway. I know everything’s worked out fine for my sister and she loves her little boy more than anything, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if I made the right decision. I want to do things properly, I always have.”

“I agree,” he says with a smile, just as Mrs Wilcher creeps back into the room.

“Everything’s ready when you are,” she says holding the door to the back room open.

“You want me to come with you?” Isaiah asks, still holding my hand.

“No men-”

“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks again, ignoring Mrs Wilcher’s protests.

“No, go honestly. I’ll be fine, you don’t want to hang around here… I’m a big girl Isaiah, I can look after myself,” I add, trying to lighten his stern expression.

He relents and kisses the top of my forehead, before turning to Mrs Wilcher.

“Anything happens to her and I swear on my life you’ll have worse coming your way, you understand?”

“Isaiah, go!” I urge, mumbling an apology to Mrs Wilcher as I head to the back room

The whole thing seems to go quicker than I remember with my friends, although hanging out on the street wondering exactly what’s happening is different than going through it yourself, and although it’s not nearly as bad as I expected it to be, as I wobble back through the house, I regret telling Isaiah to leave.

I manage to get my coat and hat on with shaky hands by myself though and leave the envelope of cash where Mrs Wiltcher instructed, before leaving.

It’s well into the evening now and with the streets dark, I hope that everyone is either in the pub or at home so I can have a relatively undisturbed walk home.

“Oi, sweet! Wait up,” I hear Isaiah shout from behind me, I’m not sure where he was lurking but I didn’t notice him as I left.

“Hi,” I mumble, trying to steady myself after whirling round too quickly.

“Wow, you look… pale. You feel alright? Did something happen? I’ll fucking kill her!” he rambles, cupping my face as he looks me over.

“Calm down, I’m fine. I swear, everything went as well as it could, I’m just a bit queezy is all.”

He seems placated and offers me his elbow to help steady myself as we walk.

“Here, I went and got some suck while I was waiting,” he says holding out a bag full of sweets. “The sugar will do you good.”

I rummage through the bag and pick out the biggest one I can find, popping it into my mouth before offering the bag back, Isaiah waves it off though so I just clutch it tightly in my free hand.

“You don’t have to walk me all the way home you know, you can drop me at the corner so you don’t have to go back on yourself.”

“No, I want to make sure you’re safe before I go anywhere,” he replies with a smile, pulling me a little bit closer to him.

He keeps his word and walks me to the front door of my house, knocking before I have the chance to get my keys from my bag.

“What are you doing?” I hiss. “My dad is going to go insane if he see’s you!”

“Trust me,” is all Isaiah gets to say before my father throws open the front door.

“What the bloody hell time do you call this? And what are you doing walking alone with a boy at this time of night?” he booms.

“Oh dad, it’s not that big of a deal-”

“I found her at the pharmacy looking a bit worse for wear, I just wanted to make sure she got home safe,” Isaiah lies, clasping his hands tightly behind his back.

My mother rounds the corner just in time to hear him and she rushes past my father to pull me into a tight hug.

“Oh darling, what’s the matter? Are you sick?” she coos, brushing my hair back from my face and feeling the temperature of my forehead with her hand.

I can feel Isaiah holding back a laugh behind me and I push her fussing hands off me.

“Mom I’m fine, just… women's issues. It knocked me about a bit, but I don’t really want to talk about it in present company…”

“Of course, of course. Come inside we’ll get you sorted,” she says, wrapping on arm around my shoulder and bundling me into the house and up the stairs.

“Thank you for getting me home safe Isaiah,” I manage to shout down, and I catch him tip his hat with a smile before my mother smuggles me into my bedroom.

After repeating a vague lie about why Isaiah walked me home a hundred times to my mother, she finally leaves me alone with a large pot of tea and an order to drink it all, “for my nerves” or some other bullshit reason, and I flop onto my bed.

I’m disturbed almost immediately though by a knock on my window and when I open it, I find Isaiah on the other side.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you climb up here before,” I comment, helping him through and into my room.

“Yeah, and it’ll be the last time and all. I had a chat with your dad while your mom was giving you the third degree-”

“Why? Why would you do that! What did he say!”

“Give me chance woman,” Isaiah jokes as he prompts me to sit on the bed. “Look, for a minute earlier, I seriously thought I was going to lose you, that the procedure would go wrong or something would happen, and that fucking terrified me because I really like you. When I’m around you, I can’t even describe how I feel. You’re funny and smart and kind, you know what you want and you’re driven enough to make it happen, you know? I’m kind of in awe of you all the time and especially that you want to be around me.

“So, I know you want to do things properly, and that’s why I spoke to your dad. I want to be with you properly, court you or whatever it is they call it, and I wanted to make sure he was alright with it first. And he is, so once you’re one-hundred percent better, we’re going to the pictures. Just you and me, on a date,” he concludes, grin spread wide across his face.

“Thank you Isaiah, that means the world to me, it really does.”

“Mmhmm, no more sneaking around and bundling me out of the window. If I stop round again it's because your dad had given me permission to do so.”

“I don't know if we need to go that far…”

“You were the one who wanted to do this properly.”

“Well yes but I think that particular ship’s sailed considering current circumstances, don't you?”

“No no no, I didn't just have the most awkward conversation with the most terrifying man I've ever met for you to seduce me and ruin the whole thing. No sex until marriage,” he jokes, kicking his leg over the window frame.

I catch him before he disappears completely and pull him into a passionate kiss, trailing my hands down his chest, and when I pull away he’s a little breathless.

“Mmm, well, you might be able to persuade me to reconsider that particular stance if you carry on that way.”

“Goodbye Isaiah,” I say with a smile.

“Goodbye Sweet, get better quick yeah?”

[anmousewrites]

Storm Warning Chapter 2

((... who is late. It is me. I was supposed to post this a little while ago. Whoooooops. Here you go!))

Oliver’s apartment was meticulously clean for a scavenger. He did have a junk room, but even that was organized and tidy. Three of the walls were shelves and the fourth was a big table with all of his tools. The window was almost permanently grimey, but he had scrubbed it hard until the dirt only stuck in the corners and some sunlight could still come through, whatever rays made it through the smog. He had an old radio he had cobbled together and he used it to catch whatever stations worked that day. He wasn’t picky with his music. Anything cheerful. He’d sit in his scrap room and clean pieces or tinker on things until they were sellable. It was probably his favourite part of the job. It was the quietest and safest part, certainly. Today was not a tinker day. Today was a salvage day. That meant that he was hurrying through the crowded streets of the city, his bag on his back and his head bent low, trying to stay inconspicuous. What he did was technically illegal. At least, it was illegal enough. Arguably, the scrap he worked with was old and discarded and should have been free for the taking. On the other hand, people got killed for a lot less these days and even if he didn’t die he was way too poor to even think about the legal system. Nope. NOPE. 

Better to be inconspicuous. And he mostly was. He was poor and dirty (because as soon as he left his apartment, it stuck to him) and his cloud of hair got all the frizzier in whatever heat and dirt there was at ground level. Spectra City was a huge, disgusting rat’s nest of a place with The Dimmet (usually just The Dim) as the center of it all. The apartment buildings were huge. The city had something stupid like one hundred million people in it, so the apartment buildings were almost cities unto themselves. Most had different stores and aid centers built right in, although Oliver wouldn’t go there unless his life depended on it because he’d probably leave with something worse than he went in with.   There were other neighbourhoods outside of The Dim that were maybe not less awful but differently awful. The rich kind of bad. Oliver stayed away from those places. Apartments tended to be nicer the higher up they were, and some buildings in those neighbourhoods were incredibly fancy. How many people to an apartment block in The Dim? Ten thousand? Fifteen thousand? Oliver had no idea. A lot. Too many, usually. Oliver lived in a dump, to be blunt. He was poor, he lived alone, and honestly he was surprised some days that his building was still standing. He had put a lot of work into his little unit, and it was tiny and ugly but it was his. And most importantly, he could afford it with his weird-ass job. Someone tried to pick a fight with a street vendor, and Oliver just ducked his head and walked a little faster. He was okay, maybe, in a fight. Against one guy. Depending on how big the guy was. But he was way better at running away. He knew the city, or at least this part of it, very well. He knew his building very well, at least until about halfway up. It was much easier to disappear into the shadows and the dust. As long as he was afraid, he was great at it. It was when he was comfortable that he got awkward and clumsy again. Oh well. It was a system that worked. He could be awkward in his own house. That’s basically what they were for, anyway. The junk heaps were easy to find once you knew the signs. They were never labeled and no streets led to them. They were just piles of trash, after all. Dark, hidden corners that housed acropolises of old technology. Oliver would find one and then pick it over for anything good to salvage. One pile could last months before he sifted through it enough to be sure that he took everything worthwhile. He had one such pile already discovered and all it took was some winding between a claustrophobic street market and the narrow, dark alleyways between apartment blocks. And he had to keep going down, of course. That’s the thing about cities that got so big. There was always stuff underneath. People just…forgot about stuff. Hell, sometimes they forgot about people. There was certainly once or twice where Oliver was sure he could have just not paid his rent and no one would have noticed. Of course, if he was wrong, he’d be kicked into the street in a heartbeat. There wasn’t enough room for everyone already. He cut through a fallen wall that dropped him down into what looked like an old parking garage under another apartment block. He knew the underside of the building better than the topside. If he got shot down here, he’d have a better chance dragging his ass all the way back to his own block to find help rather than figure out where the aid stations were up top. Better just to not get shot then, because no matter how that story ended, it kind of sucked. The lighting was basically shit, but he was pretty used to working in that kind of set-up. He had a light in his bag if he needed it, but seeing as that drew more attention he’d rather not even bother. A lot of the stuff was garbage, but even garbage was useful. He could always use more wire, right? So he dug around, squinted at things in the darkness, cut away parts and pieces that he needed. He’d stop every few minutes, listening. Nothing but rats and roaches in the dark. He was well past being worried about either of them. He worked until he got hungry. He could set his watch by his stomach. Actually had before, when it died in the middle of the day and he had to figure out when it was safe to leave. Stay out too late and it wouldn’t be the police that killed you. He had some food in his bag, a little metal lunchbox he had put together out of scrap. There wasn’t lots in it, but there was enough. An alarm on his watch told him when his time was up. It would take too long for him to notice the sun setting, he had learned that the hard way.  Oliver silenced the alarm and packed up as quickly as he could, shoving his work into his bag. He got a few good finds, but nothing special. Still, if he could pull that off every day, that would be great. You wouldn’t need great days if you didn’t have bad ones, right? He took the open street back. A lot of people had cleared out now that the sun was getting lower in the sky. He could have cut through the alleyways, it was faster, but Oliver stayed out of the shadows whenever other people were concerned. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, he was just afraid of them. People were, without a doubt, the scariest thing in the world. He didn’t stop until the creaking, unsteady elevator finally dropped him on to his floor. Normally he wouldn’t even hesitate until his door was locked behind him, but he spotted one of his neighbours struggling to carry her things. Mrs. Ahn had only one arm, two little toddlers and a rapidly ripping bag of food. Oliver scrambled with his own supplies and managed to grab the side of the bag that was trying to succumb to gravity. “Thank you!” She said, sounding a little harried. One of the kids stumbled and fell, but seeing as they weren’t very big it wasn’t a long fall. They just blinked up at Oliver and he looked down in time to notice that the kid only had one eye. He couldn’t remember if that was new or not. “Here, I got it. You get the door-” He managed, trying to take the bag from her without spilling every single one of its contents. He knew Mrs. Ahn a little. Sometimes he could hear the kids crying through the walls. He was a ways down, so he wasn’t sure if it was her kids. It didn’t bug him too much. Kids cried. He was sure that some of his machining made noise that was pretty damn annoying too, but nobody complained to him. It seemed only fair. There had been a Mr. Ahn, at one point. Oliver remembered him. Taller, dark hair. But Oliver hadn’t seen him around in a while. Maybe it was just circumstances. She got her door open, the kid still on their feet ran inside and she bent down to scoop the other one up. With them inside, she came back for her bag. He carefully tried to pass her things to her. She thanked him again, and he went off down the hall towards his own apartment. The hallways were wide but cluttered with other people’s junk. There had been a carpet, once, long before Oliver’s time. It still hung on in places but was mostly worn through down to the cement under it. His shoes, almost as worn as the floor, made no sound as he walked. There were some more people, either coming or going, and he waved and called out as necessary. He knew a lot of the people on his floor. Other scavengers and junk workers, factory people, cleaners, the list was endless. He tried to stay on good terms with his neighbours. It had helped him out more than once. There had been a shoot out on his floor a couple months ago. Oliver had not been in his apartment. But, he had sold one of the guys a hard drive and another one had bought a (minimally scratched) touchscreen from him. They let him through to get back into his house, where he pushed an empty book case against the door to hold it closed and laid low until he heard the cops come and clear everyone out. Y’know, hours after it had started. He didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. Or, to be fair, most of the nights after. It gave him a good fucking scare. But nothing that exciting happened now. He unlocked his door (both the key lock, and the two electronic keypads he had installed himself) and closed the door behind him. Time to get some dinner, and then maybe listen to the radio and clean up some of the salvage he got today. He thought about going to the bar, briefly, but decided against it. He was feeling a little raggedy and nervous, and you couldn’t pick up somebody if you were drinking just to steady your hand. Nah, he’d take it easy tonight, and maybe go out for a little tomorrow. The bar was a little drinks n’ karaoke place, and sure it was a little dangerous to get to but there were ways. Oliver went when he was feeling brave, because he liked it there. It was kinda a hotbed of bad shit, or at least illegal shit, but the people were nice and the music was perfectly terrible. Today was not a brave day, and that was alright. He flicked the light on, it stuttered for a minute before it found full brightness, and then he found himself something to eat. The food hadn’t gone bad yet. Y’know, it almost had, but he’d eaten worse. 

He turned the radio on, tuned it to something cheerful and was just about to get to work when, weirdly enough, his phone rang. Oliver’s cellphone was an unusual thing. He had built it out of various scrap bits, and patched it into the network so he’d have service without having to pay the bill. He couldn’t afford one, anyway. It was nothing like those currently on the market. The user interface was hilariously basic (he bought the program off a friend) and it had none of the web capability, visual calling or hard light technology that the new ones did. But it worked. And he could count the amount of people who had his number on one hand. Who could be calling him now? The caller ID only worked if he had the person in his contacts. That was always fine by him, he didn’t want to talk to anyone else. His screen flashed three letters. DAN. Oliver smiled and grabbed the phone. “Hey!” He said, excitedly. He hurried over and turned the radio off so he could hear his answer. “Hello?” Not Dan. A woman’s voice, inquisitive. “Hi. Can I help you?” Oliver’s tone switched over to something more professional. He tried to hide his disappointment. He hadn’t heard from Dan in a while and had just assumed he was busy. He was probably still busy. “Is this Oliver?” She asked. Who had his number and didn’t know who he was? Or, who was calling from Dan’s number? The whole situation was just so weird. He thought that maybe he had saved the number to his phone wrong, but they had been texting back and forth, too. What the hell? “Speaking.” He said simply. “This is Selene Violet. Does that name ring any bells?” Yeah, alarm bells. Still, that seemed rude and he didn’t say that out loud. Selene Violet was a name that was thrown around a lot in the media, so it had eventually worked its way into his knowledge. “You work for Highlight Tech, right?” It took him a while to remember the name. It was written on basically everything. It should have rolled right off his tongue. Why was the... The… What did she do again? Why was someone from HT calling him on Dan’s number? “Yes. I know this must be very strange, so I thank you for your patience. I just thought that it would be best to call and deliver the news myself. I think that so much of humanity is lost to technology today.” She spoke very evenly and politely and it did exactly nothing for his confusion. A cold sense of dread gathered in his chest like storm clouds. No matter what this call was about, it could not be anything good. “What news?” He asked. The words came slowly from his mouth. Something was wrong. Something was really fucking wrong. “Your friend. Dan? He was recently in my employ. There were only two numbers in his phone. One of them didn’t work, and the other led to you. We have no way to contact his family. We don’t know his legal name, or even where he was from.” Breathing was suddenly really hard, and Oliver thought he might faint. “What happened?” He asked. Panic had finally started to creep into his voice. “He’s-” Finally a hesitation, a break in her otherwise pleasant tone. “He passed away. You know, he had some issues. I don’t know the details, but I was told that things had not been very kind to him. He seems to have had some sort of…problem. He took his own life.” It didn’t feel like a punch to the stomach or anything that solid and sure. Instead, Oliver felt his strength run out of him. The news sank in and he wilted, the sight of his home swimming in his vision. “What about the others? Do they know?” Oliver wasn’t super tight with Dan’s friends, but he had met them. They were nice people. She hesitated and Oliver pressed a hand to his mouth, already knowing what was coming next. “They… His breakdown must have been awful. They’re…no longer with us.” She said. There was nothing. No tears. No real grief. Just shock and emptiness. Oliver was just overwhelmed with it. Not Dan. He had been so nice. Funny and honest. Oliver thought he was doing okay. And his friends! He knew what Selene was implying. He couldn’t believe it. “I’m sorry for having to be the one to bring you this news. I just didn’t feel right not telling anyone. You don’t have any way to contact his family, do you?” She asked. Dizzily, he shook his head before he realized she couldn’t see it. “No, no I… I don’t know where they are.” He managed. “I’m sorry. I… I’d really like to meet with you, if that was alright?” She asked him. The idea sounded bizarre but the weirdness of it barely registered. “I should have liked to tell you in person, and he has a few effects here that should really go to someone. I’m so sorry.” “Yeah, I-... Okay.” He would go. He didn’t know about the others, if they had family to care for them, but there was no one else to mourn Dan or to retrieve his things.  He felt he had to. Or, at least, that he should. “Do you know where the office is?” She asked. He did. Not right now, though. Right now he didn’t know a damn thing. “Yeah, it’s across town, by the... “ He gestured aimlessly. “Pharoah Park.” He finally managed to spit out. The skyscraper district. Rich people town. “Yes. Just walk right in the front door and talk to the front desk. Any time you feel you can, okay?” She said. “Mhm.” He agreed. Whenever he could. Maybe when he could feel his legs again. Oliver drew in a shaking breath. Dan. Gone. His friend. No, worse than that, actually. His acquaintance.They had barely started to be friends. It was all over so fast. “I’m sorry for your loss. I hope that I will get to see you in person.” She said. The end of the call. What else could she say? He was lucky he even got a call, honestly. “Have…have a good night.” He managed. Not what he meant, because that would be stupid and cruel but she didn’t say anything about it. He assumed that she understood his intent. She merely said goodbye and hung up the phone. He heard the call disconnect in his ear, and the arm holding the phone dropped. At some point, he had sunk to the floor and now he sat there with his phone in his lap. I’ll call you when I’m back in town, Dan had said. Oliver remembered how he had smiled when he said it. It looked like he was done waiting for the call.

[teacoffeeandwhatnot]

The Gay Agenda - Chapter 4

Severely late but its finally here - Chapter 4! - This weeks menu: Luwoo

Please keep in mind, sentences written in Italic is what is being said by the panel, or people in the studio. Normal text is what is happening otherwise.

As always, also available on my Ao3!

(if you want me to tag you every time i update, please dont hesitate to message me and I’ll add it in the next chapter)

Jungwoo tried really hard not to laugh at the open mouthed, shocked expressions on his friend’s faces. This was even more amusing than he had anticipated it to be.

“Wait, what?” Jaehyun broke the silence.

“You heard me.”

“Ok, but like….I’m so confused?” Johnny finally spoke up.

“What’s there not to get? I signed up for a game show.”

“Yes, see, that’s the part I get. What I don’t get is why you signed up for a game show where you have to”, Johnny lowered his voice, leaned in and whispered, “seduce someone!”

“Again, what’s there not to get? It’s pretty straightforward.”

“Straightforward? Ok, one: literally nothing straight about this. Two: why the fuck would you sign up for something like this? You’re like…the epitome of pure.”

Jungwoo actually snorted out loud at this.

“Pure? Seriously, sometimes its like you people aren’t even my friends. That’s just some weird picture of me that you’ve all convinced yourself of. I’m nothing like what you think of me. Like, for example, how many people have I slept with in the last month?”

Johnny gawked at him. “You slept with people lately? How? When? Is this a trick question? Is it no-one? Please say its no-one.”

Jungwoo scoffed. “I slept with 5 people, hyung, because, as opposed to all your introverted asses, I go partying and turns out, when you leave the house, you meet people. Confusing concept, I know.”

He pointedly ignored the offended looks on his friend’s faces. “You all seem to think I’m this innocent being, just because I’m ‘soft’ and have manners.”

“Wait, did you sign up for this just to prove a point? Because you really don’t have to do that, we believe you, you don’t have to go to such an extreme.”

“Oh my fucking God.” Jungwoo sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I am not doing this just to prove a point. Believe it or not, I actually want to do this, so please stop trying to change my mind, because it won’t work.”

He received skeptical looks from his friends, and was about to leave, slightly annoyed.

Before he could though, Taeyong patted his arm reassuringly and said, “Ok, we believe you. If you really want to do this, then we’ll support you!”

Jungwoo sighed a breath of relief. He was glad that they finally understood

“I really fucking hope you use protection though. Be a hoe but be a smart hoe.”

Actually, never mind, he would sell them to Satan for one corn chip. And he didn’t even like corn chips.

Although he wasn’t exactly nervous, he was still glad to see a familiar face in Jaemin, a junior from his university, whom he knew because Jaemin was part of the dance crew that performed at the winter talent show last Christmas. They weren’t exactly friends or on talking terms, but it still helped.

He decided that he wouldn’t ‘work’ in a shop, not wanting to be tied down, and instead decided to just pose as a regular shopper. He figured he could cover more ground this way, and, if in worst case scenario, he tried flirting with someone and it went horribly wrong, he could easily make a break for it. He also didn’t have to answer to anyone which was refreshing, and not something he dealt with well anyways.

Now, Jungwoo wasn’t vain, but he also wasn’t blind. He knew that he looked good, and fully intended on exploiting that. He made sure his recently dyed orange hair was at maximum floofiness that would make anyone itch to run their fingers through it, put on an over-sized shirt and sweater that gave him the ultimate soft sweater paw look, and balanced that out with some tight white ripped jeans.

To begin with, he just walked around aimlessly, looking into stores that interested him, lowkey forgetting he was there for a specific reason. He caught himself though, and realized he need a game plan. he decided that he would visit every store, floor-wise and see if he could find anyone that interested him. Of course, he had to seem inconspicuous and couldn’t just walk out of a store if there wasn’t anyone good there, so it took quite some time.

He had made it halfway through the second floor, when he came across a sports shop. He went in, with mildly more interest than the shops before, and realized that he actually needed new shin guards for practice since his were on their way to destruction.

He walked straight to the soccer section, not even bothering to look around for anyone in the store, not thinking that there would be anyone anyways. He was on his tiptoes, trying to reach the shelf with the shin guards in his size that were just out of reach, when he heard someone clear their throat behind him.

Startled, he spun around. He came face to face with a brick wall in form of a toned chest and marveled at it for a second before snapping his eyes up to look the person in the face.

“Hi, can I help you in any way?”

Holy shit. For a second, it was like Jungwoo’s brain had a small system failure. In front of him was literally the epitome of everything he dreamed about at night. This dude was slightly taller than him, had the most handsome face that Jungwoo had ever seen in his entire life, fluffy light brown combed back hair, and had a beaming smile on his face. Fuck, he was cute.

He scrambled for something to say, something that would keep this dude talking to him, preferably forever.

“Uh, yeah, hi…. I actually need help… yeah. So I don’t really do sports, and I can’t decide what would be a good one for me to start with, since I want to get healthier so yeah….. any suggestions?”

….what was he thinking? He internally cursed himself for coming up with literally the worst lie ever, especially considering he was at university on a soccer scholarship. But now he was stuck with this stupid lie, and God help him, he was going to stick to it.

To his confusion, the guy in front of him let out a laugh almost like a scoff, like he was making fun of Jungwoo. He tilted his head to the side, and the guy wiped the smirk off his face and turned serious.

“Ok, Sir, well what options have you considered?”

“Uh, I don’t really know, since I don’t really know how any sport works, so I don’t know what I will enjoy, I guess.” God, he was just making this worse and worse.

Again, the shop clerk gave him a strangely knowing look, but Jungwoo held fast in his lie, hoping the more confident he was in it, the more believable it would be.

“Um, ok well, you’re kinda tall so maybe basketball?”

“Is that the one that’s basically the extreme version of ‘don’t let the balloon touch the floor’ with a net in the middle?” he hated himself for even asking it, he’d been on the volleyball team in high school.

It made the employee laugh though, which was a win in his book.

“No, you’re thinking of volleyball, which, come to think of it, you might be good at it.” Quieter, under his breath, he added, “you have the figure for it.” What was that supposed to mean?

The cute clerk proceeded to give him a basic run down of how basketball worked. Jungwoo tried not to wince and correct him, when he explain the rebound slightly wrong, which would totally out him and definitely weird out the employee, like he had come to the store just to test their knowledge or something.

“As much as I like playing with balls, maybe something else?”

Back in the studio, Heechul spat out his drink and Key nearly died as his snort turned into him coughing so hard his eyes started watering. Jin whooped and cheered for the pun and the flirting while Namjoon looked upon him with the weirdest mix of regretting all his life choices and loving adoration.

The store clerk looked slightly taken aback and was clearly looking for something to say when:

“Lucas! Can you please ring this lady up for a second, my hands are kinda full,” The other employee yelled from the back, his hands loaded with shoe boxes.

‘Lucas’ quickly excused himself with a small “I’ll be right back”. Jungwoo let out a long sigh. What the fuck was he doing? He seriously considered just running out of the store and never coming back for a second, which he would’ve definitely already done, if Lucas wasn’t so fucking hot. Even his name was cute. Jungwoo hated his life sometimes.

At least Lucas having to leave for a second gave Jungwoo the opportunity for a little breather and the time to come up with something, so he wouldn’t have to scramble for something to say and make it up on the spot. The more he thought about it though, the more ridiculous this whole thing became in his mind.

He was wracking his brain so hard, he hadn’t even noticed that Lucas had returned.

“So, I was thinking, what about soccer?” Jungwoo startled when he heard Lucas talk really close to his ear.

He spun around and saw that Lucas was once again sporting his shit eating grin.

Jungwoo was at a loss of words. It would be really hard to ask any stupid questions about football, something his entire life basically revolved around at this point.

“I…um….I… Ok, you know what, this is getting stupid,” Jungwoo mumbled under his breath. He inhaled loudly before turning to look Lucas in the eye.

“I have to come clean, I’ve just been playing dumb this whole time to try and flirt with you, but that obviously didn’t work and I look like an absolute idiot, so would it be possible that we could just start over and pretend this whole mess didn’t happen?” He put on his best smile to try and convince Lucas that he wasn’t a moron.

To his utter dismay, Lucas looked like he was trying really hard to hold in his laughter before giving up and bursting out in loud giggles. Jungwoo pouted. Like sure, he looked like an idiot, but being straight up laughed at still hurt. Lucas finally seemed to calm down, straightening up from where he had put his hands on his knees when laughing too hard.

“Oh my God, Jungwoo, I was wondering when you would stop with the shtick.”

He froze. Lucas had just called him by his name.

“Wait, how the fuck do you know my name?? I never told you!”

“I go to the same uni as you, dumbass. I’ve been to one of your games, you know, the ones where you’re the main fucking player?”

Jungwoo wanted to die. This has got the be the most humiliated he had ever felt in his entire life. There was no doubt he was beet red. He couldn’t look Lucas in the eye and hid his face in his hands.

“Oh my fucking God. Oh my God. This is the worst. I’m going to die. That’s it, I’m going home and never leaving my room again. I’m going to become a hermit. Maybe adopt 2 or 3 cats. Wait no, I’m allergic. Maybe a hamster.” He mumbled to himself.

He was about to turn to leave, when he felt someone pry his hands away from his face. He kept his eyes shut, not wanting to face Lucas, who was probably going to look at him like he was the biggest idiot, and honestly? He was not ready for that.

“Jungwoo,” Lucas called quietly. Jungwoo didn’t move, keeping his head bowed and his eyes tightly shut.

“Jungwoo, look at me.” Lucas let go of one of his hands and tilted Jungwoo’s chin up. He reluctantly opened his eyes, but still refused to look in Lucas’ general direction.

“Oh, come on, look at me. Please?” Jungwoo couldn’t resist the cute tone and the puppy eyes he could feel Lucas sending his way.

The smile Lucas had on his face when Jungwoo finally turned to him was enough to make his insides feel gooey.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I was actually quite enjoying it, I didn’t think you’d keep going for so long,” Lucas said with an amused tone.

Jungwoo didn’t say anything, but could feel his cheeks heating up again, which meant that Lucas could probably feel it too, since the hand on his chin had moved to cup his cheek.

“My break starts in 5 minutes, how about I treat you to a cold drink? You look like you need it.”

He agreed and proceeded to wait on a bench in front of the store while Lucas quickly let his co-worker know and clock out.

Although this definitely wasn’t the smoothest thing he had ever done, and he would definitely not be able to ever live this down, the smile on Lucas’ face when he walked towards Jungwoo and the hand he extended towards him to hold, made it all worth it.

Pt. 3