#anyway that’s the horrifying story of how i got glasses. tune in next time

[kaiparker-avengerssmut]

Their Doll 4

Y/n Stark

B.Barnes x Reader, S.Rogers x Stark!Reader

series synopsis:  y/n Stark, all records of her non existent, and yet Hydra still find her. When she is kidnapped by a certain super-soldier and no one believes her, she finds herself searching for unexpected familiarity in her not-so-distant past.

Series Warnings: smut, violence, torture, swearing

Chapter Summary: the avengers find some stuff out about y/n

Warnings: swearing

A/n: The timeline in this has been altered, as there I things I wanted to include but I also wanted this fic to follow the storyline/timeline of Winter Soldier and Civil war.So for purposes of this fanfic, Peter Parker was discovered by Tony at a much younger age - when he was bitten - and has been an intern with him since, almost like a protégée.(For the purposes of this story Peter was bitten much younger too - more like when he was 9 or ten rather than 14/15)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist

"SO there's some weird HYDRA girl locked and sedated in my basement? Cool, don't want to know." Tony dismissed, not looking up from his white mug as he tipped a generous amping of sugar into his black coffee. He swirled the liquid in the mug and turned around, leaning against the counter as he raised the drink to lips lips and took a sip before sighing intently. Bruce frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Tony, I don't think you get it, I ran a DNA test and-"

"And she's probably some innocent girl that went missing years ago and was never found? I get it, I feel bad for her but at the end of the day she has nothing to do with me." Tony dismissed, pushing away from the counted to deposit his now-empty mug in the sink. He turned the tap on, rinsing out the cup before carelessly placing it on the drying rack.

"Just, please, come and see her. You won't regret it, and if you do - dinner's on me?" Bruce suggest, arms outstretched in welcome. Tony rolled his eyes, before scoffing.

"Yeah, no. I'm good. Catch you in the lab later though?" Tony was quick to deflect, exiting the room with so much as another glance. Bruce's hands feel to his side with a slap as his shoulders sagged in defeat.

...

Bruce nervously paced the lab, desperate to tell someone his horrifying discovery. The click of the door made his head snap up, a smile of relief spreading his on lips at the sight of Nat.

"Nat, finally." He sighed, walking towards the scowling girl.

"What did you need to tell me Bruce? You sounded pretty urgent when you called." She pressed, crossing her arms over her chest and raising a brow. His smile faulted, his gaze dropping to his hands where he fondled with a biro pen.

"I- uh. I made a... discovery about y/n." Bruce confessed, finally meeting Nat's eyes.

"Go on.." Nat prompted. Bruce took a deep breath, chewing on his bottom lip nervously. "Bruce-" she started.

"Y/n isn't entirely human-"

"Well we knew that much."

"It's what she is, that's shocking. Looking threw all her blood tests and whatnot - it's showing she has an ability to manipulate minds when she s-sings. It's like a certain note her voice forms that can control the minds of people around her."

"So what is she?"

"I don't know, there's not really a name-"

"A siren. She's a siren." A third voice joined the room, and both the avengers' heads snapped round to the direction it came from. In the door stood Steve, shoulder leant against the frame and ankles crossed.

"Who's watching y/n?" Nat asked.

"Clint. Anyway, my father - he used to read me a story when I was a kid. The Odyssey, I believe it was called. It was a Greek myth about a bewitching girl who lured saloons in with her voice so she could feed off them." Steve continued, pushing himself off the door frame and walking further into the room.

"There's no way that's real, though." Nat dismissed, frowning heavily at his words.

"No, no. He has a point - I mean, look at Steve. Look at me." Bruce said, gesturing to himself and Steve. "We shouldn't be possible, but science does some crazy things. Y/n was with HYDRA, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"Well, what if they did this to her. We know she was taken when she was young, so what if they did so to experiment on her?"

"I should go talk to her, you know - girl on girl. She seems to like me, maybe she knows what she is and she might open up to me, if I ask nicely." Nat suggests, walking out the room when she was met with no protests from the two men.

"There's something else I should mention." Bruce started fidgeting again, which man Steve's brown knit together.

"What is it, Bruce?" The super-soldier prompted. Bruce continued to fidget, not looking up from him hands as he spoke.

"Are you aware Tony used to have daughter?" Bruce asked sheepishly.

"Tony had a daughter?" Steve said, brows now raised with genuine shock. He knew of Tony's...escapades from before he was with Pepper, but he couldn't see Tony as the type to actually keep a child from just a one-night stand.

"She was adopted, some kid he found on the streets with no parents. So he took her in, raised her and then she just disappeared. Many people have forgotten she existed, and those that remember her are all under the impression that she is dead. I thought so too, until..." Bruce paused, flipping through some papers on his clipboard until he found what he was looking for. "Until this." He finished, handing the board over to Steve.

In Steve's hands was proof that matched y/n's DNA to that of Tony's adopted daughter.

"Well that explains the name, and her hesitation to tell us who she really is." Steve frowned, eyes scanning over the paper repeatedly. Bruce hummed in agreement, taking the clipboard back from Steve when he held it out for Bruce to take. "Do we tell Tony?" Steve asked after a moment.

"He doesn't want to know, I've tried telling him but he doesn't care." Bruce told Steve and Steve pressed his lips together as he thought. "I do think we should wake her up though. If she's Tony's daughter there can't be anything that's more dangerous about her than you expect her attitude." Bruce said and Steve nodded, suppressing a laugh.

"I'll tell Nat to wake her up." Steve said as he exited the lab.

...

The steam from the shower engulfed me, my hands running through my hair and brushing out the tangles lightly. As I scrubbed the shampoo from my scalp, I hummed a small tune - thankful to be somewhere noisy enough that I wouldn't risk affecting anyone with my powers. After waking me up Nat told me to clean up and get changed before handing me a pile of clothes and telling me that she would meet me at my room in half an hour to take me to meet the rest of the team.

Shutting the water off, I slid the glass door open and my feet padded onto the thin bath-mat. The towel wrapped around me as I patted my hair dry with another one, looking over my scarred figure in the large mirror opposite me.

A large scar spanned the width of my stomach, smaller remnants of cuts littering my thighs that were joined by one larger one from where I was once stabbed. Looking at myself over my shoulder, I observed the large scars that spanned over my back, the layers fading at different degrees from their varying ages. The memory of how I got them brought tears to my eyes, which I was quick to blink away and focus back onto what I was doing.

Pulling the large sweatshirt Steve had lent me over my head, I left the large bathroom clad in a pair of leggings and some socks I borrowed from Nat. I brushed my fingers through my wet locks, detangling them. I threw the towel onto the bed in the room I had been assigned and plopped down next to it, taking my time to survey the room I barely got a look of earlier.

The door to the en-suite bathroom I just exited sat on one side of the room, accompanied by a big closet and a dressing table. A chest of draws was propped next to the king sized bed the sat in and the free corner housed a small kitchen. It had a stove, fridge-freezer, sink and a few cabinets. On the side sat a kettle, toaster, blender and some chopping boards.

A sharp knock on the door bought me back to my senses, making me perk up a little at the sound of Nat's voice.

"You feeling okay?" I nodded. "Good, well Steve and Bruce want you to meet them in conference room 4. I'll take you." She quickly added the last part in seeing my scared face.

As we walked down the halls we chatted, talking about our pasts and finding out that we were fairly similar - we were both forced into the bad things we did, we both found a way to redeem ourselves, neither of us have ever had a boyfriend and we both love chicken noodle soup.

"Well, this is it." She announced, pointing at a door to our left. I nodded, going to open the door before pausing and turning around.

"Thank you. For taking me with you, for giving me this chance, for hiding me from HYDRA - thank you, really." I spoke softly, giving her the friendliest smile I could muster.

"No problem. I couldn't live with myself if I knew we could've helped you. Everyone deserves a second chance."

"I genuinely can't thank you enough - you saved me." I said, quickly swiping away the threatening tears with the heels of my hands.

"I was nice meeting you, y/n."

"You too." And with the last words said, I pushed the door open, walking into the room and being instantly greeted by Bruce and Steve.

"Hey, y/n, why don't you take a seat and we'll get the introductions out the way?" Bruce suggested and I nodded shyly. I took a seat next to Steve, who appeared to shuffle slightly away from me but I couldn't be sure.

"So, another midgardian?" a bulky man with shoulder length blonde hair and a red cape clipped to his shoulders broke the silence. He was clearly the God I'd been hearing about - I mean how much more of a costume does he need to look like Thor?

"Yes, we think so." Bruce confirmed. I frowned at this. Midgardian? What the hell was a midgardian?

"We think she's been tampered with, like me," Steve elaborated, "but as far as we know, she is of this earth." Steve spoke and Thor nodded. "We are keeping her safe from HYDRA." Steve said to break the silence as they all stared at me with funny looks. I kept my eyes cast down now, cheeks hot with embarrassment after feeling so many eyes on me at once.

"Does she-" I interjected the second I heard another voice. I stood abruptly, pushing me seat back and wincing at the screeching noise it made before resuming my angry face. I slammed my hand down the table as I stood, catching the attention of everyone sat at the table.

"If even one more of you refers to me as 'she' rather than just fucking talking directly to me I am going to end up sirening one of your asses!" I demanded, seething with anger. A grin broke out on Thor's face.

"Atta girl, I like this one already!" He laughed and I sat down again, smiling contented ay his compliment.

"She's got Tony's patience, all right." Another man remarked with a smirk. Steve simply rolled his eyes as common menus about my attitude were thrown around the room. Finally, someone addressed me. It was a woman with Blonde hair and kind eyes. She looked motherly.

"Hey, I'm pepper." She smiled kindly and I quickly reciprocated it. They went around the table - the man who had commented about my patience was called Clint, the blonde man was was indeed called Thor and obviously I'd already met Bruce and Steve.

"I'm y/n." I returned and she repeated my name in her beautiful voice, almost as if she was testing how I'd felt in her mouth.

"Y/n. A stunning name for a stunning lady." Thor commented, boyish grin still in place and I gave him a sheepish smile.

"Oh, cut it out big guy - you're like, a billion times her age." A voice came from the door and we all turned to find out who it was.

"Tony. I wasn't aware you'd be joining us." Steve said in a monotone voice and Tony gave him a tight smile.

"You don't get everything your way, Capsicle. Now, who's this?" Tony said, stuffing a mouthful of blueberries in his mouth before stuffing the bag of food in his back pocket and motioning to me with a nod.

"Tony, this is y/n," Bruce said moving out the way from where he was standing so Tony could see my face. The man's eyes widened instantly as the recognition sank in. "Y/n Stark."

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: Jaw$! or How Lena Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Webby (Lena Retrospective Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Trigger Warning: Part of this review contains discussions of abuse which can’t be avoided but I still want to be senstive to my audience and any trauma they’ve gone through.  Welcome back weblena world to Shadow Into Light: My Lena Sabrewing Retrospective. And Jaw$ is here, long live Jaw$. Tiffany was a shark who bites the law she was in an episode i’m reviewing called Jaw$. 

And it’s the money shark before the storm as next month i’ll be going from two Ducktales reviews a week with the Lena retrospective and the last few episodes.. to three, as i’ll ALSO be covering the Della arc from season 1 in the build up to shadow war. And if your wondering if I expertly planned this to coincide with the finale, to the point the shadow war review and those leading up to it will be on the same week as the finale.... nope. I just got REALLLLY lucky as I already had all of that planned out, and the schedule for the  new episodes happened to synch up perfectly, ending just in time for me to revisit the series start and having Magica’s big in person appearance reviewed a week after we get her backstory in Life and Crimes. Though I am VERY happy it worked out this way as I get to properly celebrate the series end with more ducks than ever, and get to cover the pilot the same month as the finale, all things i’d of loved to do anyway and probably would’ve rejiggered my schedule to do. Point is lot of Ducktales content coming for this blog if you like that so stay tuned, but for now join me won’t you under the cut as we dive into a money bin of gay ducks, shadowy machinations, and Bad PR. 

We open as Lena and Donald awkwardly sit on the couch, waiting for Scrooge and the Kids to get home. Understandably it’s just.. dead silence.Given their a cynical teenager secretly working for and forced to obey a horrifying shadow monster and a 35 year old man who dosen’t like living in this house due to painful memories of his presumed dead sister.. and painful memories of pain in general, you have a huge awkward bowl of chips and “I really don’t want to be here right now”. 

Our heroes return though, and Louie tries to take some of their haul for himself but Scrooge stops that “It goes in the bin not to next of kin. “... Man in a Hurry if you would please. 

Thank you. Man in a Hurry everybody. He has to go now, he’s in a hurry. 

 As you can probably guess I do not like this, as it reminds me WAY too much of Scrooge’s worst “quirk” in the comics: how he’d barely pay his nephews, who are often hard up for cash mind you and one of whom is supporting three children ALONE, take them around the world and reap all the benefit for their hard work. It’s not like he did nothing, he did, but it’s way to exploitive for my tastes and can often sink a story if taken too far. It’s not AS bad... but they all went on the mission they all deserve at least something. I DO get keeping the rarest and most dangerous stuff for himself, as he is bankrolling things and does have two bins and a massive garage to safetly store them. But this just comes off as douchey for this version, who while liable to make mistakes with them, is far more nurturing towards his boys and girls. 

Thankfully this was course corrected next season. While Scrooge’s greed was properly restored.. this sort of treatment wasn’t. “Treasure of the Found Lamp” had him undergo character development and realize simply hoarding his treasures isn’t right or fair, and set up a musuem wing so both duckburg and his descendants can see them and get the stories behind them. And on not getting to take things clearly he’s eithe relaxed or stopped the policy as our heroes do have souveneers from time to time. Not a LOT mind, but little things like Dewey having a giant sword or Scrooge outright giving Louie one of his things show he did soften up. Though Della’s return and likely lack of tolerance for this stupid policy in the first place probably helped a lot, I also like to think he did change a bit and realize it was deeply unfair they didn’t get more than a few treasures of their own. So the writers did realize they kind of went overboard here.  I suspect this was more to setup for the episode’s subplot and to make Scrooge’s karma at the end feel justified. Speaking of which we get the start of said Subplot as Beakley comes in with a money cart and the news the board called. Why they called his house instead of his phone I don’t know, some things slip through the cracks when you running both a billion dollar company an da trillion dollar fiendish organization  for world larceny. I mean they clearly worked themselves so hard the other two apparently died between seasons. That or it was the diet of whiskey, orphan tears and grease in a wine glass both had. Bradford always told them it’d kill them though to his credit he only said I told you so twice at their funeral. 

For once no their not mad Scrooge is spending all the money they use to buy fowl jetskis, but because the Company’s having a bit of a PR nightmare now that Scrooge is back in the adventuring game. And we cut to the beanstalk they just adventured on having tore up a good chunk of the town and destroyed large swaths of it just to sell the point this isn’t their normal old man yells at other old man for spending all me money schitck, but a serious problem. As such they’ve booked him an interview with Roxanne Fetherly to improve his image and the companies. 

Scrooge scoffs at this, baffled why he has bad pr as his adventuring is GOOD for the city in the long run: He pays for any damages it causes, and likely at a cost no less which is a LOT coming from scrooge, and puts most of the money he makes on these adventures back into the city and his company, creating more jobs and better living conditions. He does get a wakeup call via  truly hilarous gag as Launchpad pops his head up to say “Good news mr. mcdee, it missed the orphange!” before getting ready to chainsaw the stalk for him. He quickly realizes MAYBE he needs some PR and agress to the interview. 

 This whole subplot really plays into one of the series main themes, one Frank brought up a few months back: Risk vs Reward. Adventuring is entirely about this, that adventure is dangerous, can cost you a lot as we see with Della and the aftermath of her terrible decision making, and can hurt people.. but it can also help people, bring money to those who need it, free those who are being oppressed and open new worlds to everyone. This subplot distills it down great: Scrooge is right that his adventures do bring in money, and as seen with the first episode brought in clean water and power with no drawbacks and only asked to be paid for it, which is fair given he still has to run machines and likely help relocate any workers whose jobs are now redundant to other parts of the company and retrain them. But it costs people their homes and jobs, not forever but still as long as it takes to construct, tears up roads and puts people in danger. It’s plots like this that make Bradford the perfect final boss for the series: He’s someone who blinds himself to the reward of all this and only sees the risk, and raises valid points even if he himself is deeply wrong. He’s right Scrooge causes a lot of danger and threat to the world.. but wrong in that he dosen’t see it’s all worth it for the good of everyone. 

But enough about future story arcs let’s get back to this one, as Webby excitedly greets Lena and hugs her, realizes she’s not hugging her back then gives her another squeeze anyway after claming to hate hugs when just a LOOK at Webby would tell you that’s false. The two are having a sleepover, Webby’s first ever.. and given Lena’s essentially an Emo Hobo and the closest thing she has to home is that starlight ancient amptheater that’s never properly explained. Seriously ancient ruins near Duckburg dosen’t suprise me, but at least tell me what they are and why Magica chose them. And why Louie hasn’t tried to sell tickets to Dewey boxing a gorilla in them. Or probably a possum I mean their on a budget and gorillas snap necks, but still i’d pay to see that as would we all. 

Point is it’s their first sleepover and naturally Webby’s first bit of smalltalk.. is how tucking in can be used for interogation techniques. I’d be more suprised if earlier this season it hadn’t already been shown Beakly regularly enrolls her daughter in the no murder, unless you really want to, hunger games every year. The fact Webby hasn’t become the bat is only because she hasn’t found a costume that’s the right combintion of pinks and purples to instill pantswetting terror yet. That shit takes time. 

Lena goes to the bathroom.. to talk to Magica who we properly get to meet. She did speak last time, but this ep is the one that properly establishes her personality for the reboot: she has clever plans, tons of power, if sealed currently, and is a genuine threat.. but she’s also a bit of a ham, in love with the old ultra violence and really short sighted in her plans, something we got hints of last time as her best solution to the Beakly Problem was  to just leave her to die and hope scrooge and webby, two people who love solving mysteries and unlocking puzzles, don’t investigate the horrifying death, accident or not, of their only friend and grandmother, and that neither, especially the 12 year old spiraling with grief, would suspect a former spy died. Thoguh in fairness on the spy thing it’s plausable Magica didn’t know that, but still it’s a bad plan. Magica has good ideas but is just so obessed with the brute force way of doing things she forgets the subtle approach works better.. and so far it has well for Lena.  Problem is it’s VERY clear by this point that Lena likes Webby, maybe not romantic styles JUST YET but it’s getting there. Webby on the otherhand has been in love with Lena from the freaking concept art which showed her blushing around her.. and that was in her 87 design.. which they thankfully changed. It’s not terrible but it just dosen’t fit well with this universe. Point is Lena is catching feelings and Magica realizes this and tries to gaslight her telling her she’d never acccept the truth abotu her and so on. As we all know and as we’ll see that’s bullshit but it’s an effective manipulation. We also find out Magica’s plan: she had Lena sneak a jewel into the treasure going into the bin, and it’s going to turn into a monster that will seek out the Number One Dime for them. She also vaugely hints that there’s something Lena needs from Magica. 

Once Lena returns, and Webby let’s her rabbit know the interogation isn’t over, she gives her possible future girlfirend a gift: friendship bracelets! They both put them on and it’s really fucking cute.. and will be both a tangible symbol of hteir friendship and a plot point several times, something I honestly hadn’t thoguht about till now. Lena, put off by the gesture not because she dosen’t aprpciate it because of the crushing guilt of lying to the one person who cares about her under the insucrtions of a sociopath, goes to Webby’s big old corkboard which is always fun to look at.. especially since it’s clearly the ONLY glimpse at Hortense we’re going to get all series. 

We’re not getting Grandma Duck either. Though at least Frank actually regrets that one. But the important part is one of the posts mentoniing Scrooge hates magic, something Webby elaborates on: He hates spells, hexs curses and what not and feels them a shortcut.  From the man who has a garage full of them. 

I do kid as I did realize there’s a valid expliantion for this: Scrooge will use magical items, protection spells that sort of thing.. but he uses them like anything else as needed. He’s too pragmatic to not say, use the jewel of atlantis to give a city clean energy and water he can montizie, or the split sword against FOWL.. but more often than not he just dosen’t need them. He collects them because it’s fun, oftne profitable.. and their simply SAFER in his museum wing, garage and second bin will get to in two weeks. He’s seen time and time again how people misuse magic, forget it has a price, or just rely on it instead of actual skill. He’s also clearly been on the bad end of a LOT of evil sorcerers and soreceresses, especially magica. Magic isn’t inherently bad, which in itself is a BIG message of Lena’s arc, it’s just somethign that’s the OPPPSOITE OF everythign scrooge is: sacrifcing others for power, relying on something besides yourself, distance attacks versus up close and personal phsycial attacks.. it was never going to be for him and tons of bad experinces with it only cemented it. He’s just not so stubborn outside of the santa thing to avoid something if it’s going to net him a profit or come in a pinch. 

So naturally Scrooge has banned any magic books from his house, as he has no use for spellcasting and any he’d need to keep for saftey or history’s sake are likely at the archives, but just as naturally, Webby smuggled one in and wants to try it with Lena ducking it and asking to play some games. I”m sure Huey has a few yugioh decks in his room go bug him. But before they can decide on one, the boys attack for a PILLOW FIGHT.... which is a sweet gesture and them just wanting to hang out, but ends with them all eating the ground and questioning why they thought attacking the duck equilvent of cassandra cain was a good idea. Louie decides to salvage it with a swim.. but since their pool has a boat in it he has a diffrent location in mind: the bin.

So while they head off to get head injuries, Beakly tries to prepare Scrooge as the Media are vultures and looking for the next scandal with public figures and it’s accurate. But given Scrooge’s natural mood is grumpus, this dosen’t go well at all and even a spray bottle dosen’t exactly help.. I mean it is the best method to deal with grumpy old men but it can only do so much. 

At the bin we get a lovely bit as Dewey prepares to dive and his brothers treat it like an olympic one, with both doing commentary, Dewey’s apparently response to if he was worried about brain damage was Nerp, and we get the wonderous national anthem of dewdonia. Just nice as well as lovely to see the brothers just having a crack and enjoying each others company with their own weird injokes but without the injokes feeling as forced as they were in “Beagle Birthday Massacre”. Things take a turn though as we see just what magica created with the stone... a giant shark made of scrooges money who eats that fucker in a single bite.. in this case Dewey. Louie and Huey naturally run off panicked.

So while Huey and Louie gain another scarring memory to tell their therapist when their older, Scrooge begins his interview with Roxanne Fetherly who.. honestly just weirds me out. Not for any personality stuff but because she has green feathers. And it just.. really feels WEIRD. I mean green ducks are a thing in real life.. but it just looks off to have such a pastel color on a duck when the other colors are white or tones meant to invoke real world races, allowing ducks to be black, latino, asian and so on and so on coded. That’s fine and blends in fine.. but with that metaphor the green just really dosen’t fit well at all. It feels like an early decision they made, but decided not to retcon or go with for anyone else which makes it all the more weird. We’re 3 seasons in , almost at the end, and the only other green duck we’ve seen was like that because of magic and the offputting nature of it WORKS for magica. Here I just don’t get it and I never well. But naturally Roxanne starts in on invasive, gotcha questions with no real good answers or time to respond, so fox news level questions, and then asks what part of ireland he’s from. 

Naturally that sets him off so while that rant goes on, literally next time we see him he’s still going on about it, we cut to the girls playing truth or dare.. and given Webby’s first question is about deepest darkest secrets the boys once again save her by running in... to report on the monster she created that just ate their brother. Lena brushes it off but does get them not to go to scrooge claming he’ll throw them to the shark himself. I mean he’s not comics scrooge so he probably woudln’t but their also two scared 11-12 year olds so it works well enough. They just need a way to go after the money shark. Enter launchapd who in the second best bit of the episode, says he sensed his best friend dewey was in danger. Beck’s delivery is what sells it.. and I’m not going to question it. He’s somehow alive despite presumibly living off a diet of spaghett-o’s, barely avoiding a car accident on his best days, and as we’ll find out later believing children in costumes are monsters he summoned when he was 8. The fact he suddenly has spider sense specifically related to people he cares about is honestly less of a surprise than the fact he’s not in heaven crashing God’s Speedboat into God’s Golden Castle with God’s Golden Lion riding shotgun. 

So they do the natural thing and.. steal Donald’s houseboat while he sleeps. He has no more involvement in this episode other than noticing it’s back and not in great condition at the end. I bring this up because this is one of Donalds ONLY apperances this season, and it’s part of the larger more irritating problem that he’s hardly ever used.. despite promoting him as a major part of the series. 

I will talk about this more during the Della arc as i’ts more relevant there, but needless to say it bothers me a lot and not knowing how to ballance it’s massive main cast was a constant struggle for the series even up to the final episodes going on right now. 

So our heroes head out on the bin late at night, where could the Jaw$ be she’s nowhere in sight. So they decide to use other treasure as a lure they either fished out of a bin or out of scrooge’s bathwater. How bathing in coins gets him clean I don’t know and frankly I dont’ think we want the answers to that and the idea of scrooge fully naked is so horrifying I forgot what I was talking about.

Ah yes our heroes are playing bait the money monster and find out it’s a shark, and Lena.. is not okay with that and goes to talk to Magica inside the boat. Magica tells us she has a name, Tiffany. Awww what a lovely name for a money shark. I would of gone with Rags to Bitches, but I may have brain damage.  Lena understandabily does not like the idea of getting eaten by a shark, asked to be informed and while Magica is mad at her for going after the thing, Lena reasonably points out that it was this or Scrooge got involved.  Up top Huey tries catching it with a bit of treasure on a rope.. after not shutting up about shark facts because “Facts comfort me when i’m nervous!” Precious angel. But Huey’s leg gets caught and he and Louie, somehow on the latter get thrown up in the air and chomped. Back bellow Webby has a suggestion: using magic. Lena naturally not wanting to blow her cover or really liking magic period is against it for now. 

Back at the interview, Roxanne brings on a special guest to prove people don’t like scrooge: GLOMGOLD!

Glomgold may create some issues for the subplot and we’ll get to those in due time, but damn if it isn’t always a pleasure to see him. He’s also on good terms with Roxanne... are.. are we sure this is local news and not fox news? Taking the word of a conservative greedy billionare over a progressive one seems like a fox move. Though I might actually watch fox news if glomgold was a commentator.  “I propose a red new deal instead of this blasted green new deal, I throw Scrooge to a tank of sharks connected to a generator, the tank turns red with his blood and that somehow creates power! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT MCDUCK” 

So we get the best bit of the episode as Glomgold tries to complain about his building being destroyed which would be fair... if he hadn’t tried to blow up Scrooge’s bin twice this week, with Glomgold going for THREE.. for threee.. for three... it dosen’t go off but it does get scrooge to say he’s glad the building was destroyed. Which is fair but NOT super great PR.  

Back at the shark things don’t get better as Webby and Lena argue over the use of magic, I mean as much as they can argue Webby just wants to know why she’s so cagey about this while they go with plan “Launchpad crash into it”. Launchpad also gives a hell of a monologue. Good on you bud. As you can see launchpad’s gotten 100% better since his low point in our last episode. That’s because it’s clear the writers had some struggle ballancing his amped up stupidity with actual competence, making him primarily jokey comic relief in the first few episodes and I wouldn’t be shocked if Terror of The Terra Firmians was written before a lot of the later episodes despite airing around the same time. But by mid-season he’s got his much more lovable charactersation of a dangerous moron..l but one who CAN be competent and is genuinely charming due to how much he cares about his friends and his job. They also dialed down the stupid down to an acceptable homer simpson level: still a danger to himself and others but hilariously so. Point is they fixed it and while i’ll complain about mistakes the show made I will give this crew all the credit for course correcting time and time again and actually listening to fan feedback.

So Webby figures they tried the Jaws option and lost the boat and launchpad, time for plan Magic. They hold hands, EEEEEEEEE, and try a spell.. and it clearly starts working but almost works TOO well, as Lena starts glowing first purple.. then blue. Hmmmm... intresteing. Lena breaks it off and Tiffany breaks out of the bin.. just as scrooge says on the news his adventures aren’t dangerous. 

Scrooge naturally goes to face it while Webby wonders why Lena didn’t go for it. To make it a triple Scrooge shows up in time to distract tiffany.. with the number one dime, which as lena found out earlier is on his person rather than at the bin like the public thinks. So while Scrooge puts up a good show.. seriously it’s really awesome and really neat looking, though he also gets VERY upset that people are naturally holding out buckets for the cash shark, which he’s not happy about because well.. he did EARN that money. Most bin money is stuff directly earned by him so fair enough. But while he’s you know, Scrooge Fucking McDuck, and thus puts up a good fight the monster eats him.. and gets the dime stuck in it’s tooth with Magica wanting Lena to grab for it, forgetting that minons, while mildly disposable, aren’t really replaceable when your SOUL’S ATTACHED TO THEM. That’s where Magica’s weakness is. her plans aren’t half bad but as I said, she’s far too bloodthirsty and short sighted. She has better ones than glomgold but ironcially they share the same problem of not thinkign them through. And Magica cares so little for lena she’s blinded to the fact her own personal saftey is tied up in her. 

Lena naturally dives for her future girlfrriend and heads into the belly of the beast. And it’s here her REAL moment of truth is. While the one last episode was noble.. it was also easy enough to brush off internal as pragmatisim. Letting Beakly die would’ve brought too much heat and been too easy to quickly go terrible, while saving her got her off Lena’s trail and gave her free reign of the manner. But here? Webby is about to slip into Tiffany’s stomach and whle she hasn’t digested anyone yet given who made Tiffany with it’s likely just because she hasn’t had enough mass to create chainsaws to carve them all up. It’s the Dime or Webby. Lena’s own freedom or the girl she loves. Nothing good comes from saving Webby.. other than Webby. Other than the one person whose truly loved her. I mean think about it: She was created by magica, abused for a good decade and a half. No one but Magica has had a chance to care about her and as we’ve seen Magica only sees her as a weapon to get back at scrooge and not as a person. Webby was the first person she’s ever made a genuine connection with, that’s been there for her, that loves her unconditionally and woiuld be there for her no matter what. And it’s in that moment Lena realizes she can’t sacrifice her for her own good... that after years of having to be selfish to surivive being chained to that monster... she can’t be this time. No mastter what it costs her.. Webby is priceless. So Lena recites the spell, growing bright blue and blowing up tiffany. Lena gladly hugs webby who reciorpates, awww gaybies, and Launchpad hugs dewey. Awww... what it’s still precious he’s a good surrogate uncle. The wacky kind who sleeps in a van on your lawn. 

So Scrooge is glad.. though it’s here his subplot falls flat. Him getting attacked by the media and getting a compupance by loosing tons of money from tiffany is fine. Evne if he earned it, his lack of care did bring this on him.. hte problem is they take it too far by having all his nemies show up, him unable to say anything and glomgold blatantly doing so just to steal from him. Otherwise the subplot is fine, a bit heavy on scrooge being a dick but it has to to work and puts him in an awkward situation. But this ending just feels to over the top to realy enjoy. And the series does do over the top humor well so I don’t know what happened here. But having a bunch of outright thieves steel his money instad of a bunch of citizens who didn’t know better and deserved it for the damage, feels wrong and it tastes wrong. 

Speaking of feels wrong and tastes wrong we get an INTEINTONAL dose of that as back at the amptheater, Lena and Magica argue about the situation and Magica trying to kill her. Lena tries to walk away but can’t.. phsyically. Magica won’t let her. And this is honestly a very crushing and very well crafted metaphor for how abuse victims sometimes CAN’T escape their abusers. Magica is verbally abusive, treats lena like she’s disposable and constnatly downtalks her self esteem. To Lena magica is nothing but a tool.. but like MANY children caught in horrifcally abusive situations Lena can’t get away. It’s a literal metaphor, an da good one, for how you can’t ALWAYS escape abuse easily, and this especially true for kids who have nowhere to go and hte law on their abusers side more often than not. It’s hard to escape an abusive parent and even harder when they dont’ consider you a person. I thankfully have no personal experince with this but it dosen’t make it any less of a problem nor any less noble of this show to tackle the subject in a frank, if fantastical, way, and a good chunk of Lena’s arc is overcoming this abuse and not letting her abusive past drown her. But for now.. all she can do is agree to do what Magica says till she can hopefully be rid of her. But the light at the end of the tunnel’s coming.. there’s just a whole lotta darkness first. 

Next Time: We take a break from the episodes to cover some Lena related comics for a double feature; The first Spies Like Us has everyones faviorite lesbian ducks go on a spy adventure that was never printed in the us for silly reasons we’lll get to and then the 87 ducktales comic dime after dime which features Lena’s predecessor Minima. 

Later Today: Close Enough Season 2 is here! I”m going to talk about it! Exclimation Points! 

If you liked this review feel free to follow for more. And if you have an episode of Ducktales or another animated show you’d like me to cover just hit me up via my asks or direct messages on here and comission it. And if you’d rather just support me on a monthly basis, head over to my patreon. THE LINK IS RIGHT HERE.  Even a buck a month would help and the more of you that donate the closer we get to my Duckcentric stretch goals. The current closest ones are 15, which would lead to reviews of The Goofy Movies and Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and 20 which would lead both to a review of the Super Ducktales mini series, and monthly darkwing duck reviews! So if you like me talking about ducks and want to bolt some duck reviews to the schedule, even a dollar a month would inch me closer to that goal. Eveyr bit helps. But money or not, it’s been a pleasure and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[fires-of-ninjago]

Chubby Zane Rights (Continued)

As promised last week, here's my latest continuation to Chubby Zane!

I'm just sorry this one took so long, but as I said last week, I was just bogged-down with work.

Title: Hot Ice

Word Count: 1,478

Pairing(s): Oppositeshipping

Warnings: Fat Shaming, body image, homophobic slurs, implied abuse

Kai downed the rest of his drink as Dareth droned on about one of his many, many exaggerated achievements. Zane looked down at his lemonade as he listened to the story. The more he heard, the more he thought that it sounded just too far-fetched to him. I mean; Dareth, just finding Garmadon’s Helmet of Shadows, and using it to control the stone army like that? Just how could someone get that lucky?!

“...Are you guys even listening?” Dareth asked. Kai gave him one of his signature, cocked-smiles that made everyone instantly believe that he knew exactly what was going on...At least, those who didn’t actually know him, anyway. Zane recognized it as his slightly drunk, but faking focus grins.

“Of course!” Kai said. “Hat falls out of the sky, monster army suddenly obeying your every command, horrifying visions of days yet to come, nightmares of the First Master’s childhood, I hear ya!” Zane perked up at the mention of those last two parts. He normally tuned most of their middle-aged friend’s ramblings out mid-way through, but lately, his boyfriend seemed to be paying closer attention the more he drank. Dareth took a swig of his own drink, and for the first time, Zane realized that it was the same as Kai’s.

“I think you two should slow down?” Zane asked; “Those are your third and fourth whiskey’s tonight.” Kai gave him a side grin as he winked.

“C’mon Zane! We all just got our teaching certs; we’re celebrating!” Zane nodded as he felt the frost crawling along the side of the glass.

“Yeah!” Dareth cheered; “And after all of the- *BUUUURP!*” Zane scrunched his nose as the smell hit him like a steel pipe. Had he been human, then his eyes would definitely be watering at the potent smell of garlic and alcohol. Kai however, was fanning his face.

“Aw, Dareth! How many of those garlic rolls did you eat?!” He said. Their friend gave them an embarrassed chuckle as he leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that guys,” he said as he gave his now plump stomach a pat. “They were just so delicious, I couldn’t help myself!” Wait, what? What did he mean by that? Zane looked down at the empty baskets sitting in front of him as he realized exactly that was.

“But Dareth, one of those was supposed to be for Kai!” The look on the Brown Ninja’s face changed to confusion as he looked down at the remains of the food.

“Huh? But Kai here told me that he wasn’t all that hungry, so he told me to take it.” So that’s what happened; Zane figured something like that was the case, but now that it was out in the open, the Nindroid wasn’t going to let this chance to dive deeper pass by.

“Kai,” he began. When was the last-” The doors to the bar burst open before he could finish the thought. The two of them turned to see a group of bikers standing there.

“Sup, Gerald,” the old man at the head of the group said to the barkeeper. Zane noticed the burn scar on his cheek as he leaned against the bar. “We saw you ‘ere havin’ a party in here and decided to invite ourselves!” They surveyed the bar, grinning as Zane and Kai kept their heads down.

“So who’s this party for anyway?” One of the other bikers; a much younger woman asked as she stepped closer to the bar. “What, is it someone’s birthday? Are one of these widdol’ kiddies finally old enough to be let out of their widdol’ strollers?” Zane could see steam building in his boyfriend’s eyes at how they were taunting the owner, but there was nothing that they could do, especially while Kai was still processing all of the alcohol that he’d drunk.

“Listen guys, I don’t want any trouble,” the bartender said. “But the group I got here tonight...I don’t think-” The lead biker reached across the bar, and grabbed the bartender’s shirt, pulling him close.

“Since when do I care what you think!” The leader asked. Zane was getting ready to jump into action, when Kai decided to slowly stand up.

“Hello Bart,” Nya said in an unusually calm voice. Every alarm in Zane’s head was going off as he recognized that name. Both Zane and Dareth turned to see the two of them standing; the Nindroid felt his power core skip a pulse in fear as he saw the same dark look reflected in the eyes of both siblings. Bart however, seemed to laugh.

“HEY!” He howled as he released the bartender from his grip; “if it isn’t my two favorite kids!” Bart held his arms open, like he was expecting them to run into them.

“Like hell!” Kai shouted; “If you know what’s good for you, then you ‘n your friends will leave.” Zane felt a chill run up his spine as he heard the venom in Kai’s voice. He didn’t know exactly what happened between them, but he knew that it was bad; especially by the way he partially closed his bad eye whenever anyone asked about it.

“Oy! Is that any way ta’ talk to yer foster daddy?” Zane’s eyes went wide as he realized what this was. Kai practically snarled as he readied himself to attack, only for Nya to beat him to the punch. She came out of nowhere; her fists making contact with jaw in the blink of an eye, sending him spinning back as he hit the floor. Nya huffed as she screamed. If it weren’t for the younger woman intercepting her next hit, she would have pummeled him into the tile. Kai however, wasn’t far behind.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!” He shouted, as he jumped into spinjitsu. Flames licked the bar, setting some of the glasses aflame as he barreled towards them. With a look of fear in his eyes, Bart rolled out of the way just in time for Kai’s foot to miss him by a hair. His leather jacket smoked as he hopped to his feet.

“Holy fuck, where da’ hell did ya’ learn that shit?!” He asked. Kai looked like he was about to start foaming at the mouth, when Zane hopped in to put out the small fires from the now flaming drinks.

“Hold up, Jefe,” The woman said, as she staggered out of Nya’s grip. “They’re the fuckin’ ninja!” Zane could see the delight start twisting in Bart’s eyes, as he let out a low, manic laugh.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!” He clutched his stomach as he ran out of breath; blood beginning to run down the side of his face from a cut caused by one of the rings that Nya was wearing. “Yer’ shittin’ me!” Zane could feel the rage building in the siblings, as the older man continued.

“Ta think, you two would grow up to be this famous! Maybe there is a place fer ya in my family after all?” He gave Zane a good once-over as well as the gears started grinding behind his eyes.

“An’ you must be that ice ninja,” he started. “Yer a lil chubby, aren’t cha? Well as long as ya’ can fight like Twig and Shit-foot here, ya can join too.” Zane froze as he heard what he said. It had been so long since he’d even thought about it, that he’d stopped trying to hide his weight a long time ago, even if he still chose to wear loose-fitting clothes whenever he could. It was almost faster than the last time, but now Zane saw Kai launch himself forward. If it weren’t for Zane managing to grab one of his arms, then he would have tackled Bart out-right.

“SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH-!” He howled at the top of his lungs. One of the other bikers laughed as they all moved to encircle the trio.

“Haha, aww, look-et how he’s jumping to tubbo’s defence; how cute.” Now Zane was starting to feel the taunts as he struggled to hold-back his boyfriend. It would be so easy to let him go; even his primary programming: Protect the unprotected, was having trouble deciding if he should keep holding Kai back. Just as Zane was about to try and defuse the situation himself, one of the bikers shouted as he was electrocuted.

“KAI, ZANE, NYA! DUCK!” The trio didn’t even think about it; in one felled motion, they all rolled to the ground as Cole came zipping above them, taking down two more of the group. Once they were on the ground, both Kai and Zane jumped up, and with a practiced ease, blew a spray of ice and fire to create a chilly mist. That was when Zane felt his programming make it’s choice: Protect Kai and Nya from the people who hurt them.

[random-mha-thoughts]

Mama’s Boy/Lover’s Boy (Bakugou x Reader)

Pairing: Bakugou x Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff

Inspo: “Down for You” by Cosmo’s Midnight/Ruel

Summary: Bakugou hates being dragged to fancy parties for many reasons, but only one thing makes it all worth it.

Word Count: 2,322

Tags:  @yuki-osaki​ @liviitehe​ @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog​ @bunnythepipsqueak​

a/n:  I absolutely adore this picture, ngl that was the whole inspo for this.

It's not fair that a whole Katsuki exists while I'm bleeding out and my hormones are out of whack.  I'M A LOYAL SHOUTO HO, STAY IN YOUR LANE KATSUKI!  DON'T TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MY INSTABILITY LIKE THIS!

When I was at the last few paragraphs, I realized I would've loved to let Baku lose his shit and almost crash the entire thing like in Murphy's Law (man I loved writing that), but that wouldn't be good.  We love a good chaotic fluff monster.

This turned out a lot longer than I thought it would, but I really like how it turned out!  Definitely more fluff than I expected, but who's mad at that?  I'm bleeding out of my uterus and my mom and dad got me feverish and sick and I definitely needed this, so I KNOW you Baku stans are gushing at this too.  Thanks to @rubyred-imagines​ for one of the story beats here!

Spice might be incoming in the next day or two ;3  Not sure which character yet, but it's gonna happen!

"Babe, your face."

"What about it?!"

"Stop looking like you want to kill everyone."

"But I do!"

"I know you do, but don't look it."

Katsuki walks into the grand hall, muscular arm linked through his dazzling girlfriend's slender one.  He really doesn't want to be here; he hates these high-class, uptight gatherings, he hates this constricting tuxedo he has to wear, he hates how he barely knows anyone here, and he especially hates that he could've been on a date with her alone instead of being surrounded by these suffocating faces.

His lovely girlfriend announced this unfortunate outing a few weeks ago right before Katsuki was going to suggest the idea of having a date night, since they haven't had any quality alone time together in a while.  Her eyes lit up when she reported that she RSVP-ed for both of them to attend her company's fancy dinner.  And his plans were crushed like that.  He wanted to grumble and refuse, but she'd yell right back at him anyway, being the stubborn person she is.

She reminds him of his mother.

"You're just like my mom," Katsuki rolls his eyes.  "She used to drag me to her company dinners all the time, too."

"We won't stay for long, I promise," she pats his arm with her perfectly manicured fingernails.

"She used to say that too, and then we'd be out for hours," he mumbles to himself.

The girl looks up at him sweetly.  "And you'll be a good boyfriend and stay here with me the whole time, right?"

The blond growls low in his throat.  "I don't even belong here, you were invited, not me."

"Katsuki, you're my guest, of course you belong here."  She leans up to whisper in his ear, "Besides, you're more handsome than any of the guys here, show them all up."

That makes Katsuki smirk.  "Damn right I am, babe."

The couple find their table after an irritating amount of time.  Every few steps, some other pretentious stranger from his girlfriend's company sweeps over to exchange empty kisses and the same empty conversation.  Katsuki thinks it's some kind of script everyone practiced from, no one deviating from the script or else the entire simulation might fall apart.  Actually, he would like to say something inappropriate just to relish their horrified or disgusted faces, but he for the sake of his precious girlfriend, he keeps his mouth shut, teeth grit, and smile plastered each time he's introduced to a new face.

"Do you really know everyone here, babe?" Katsuki mutters in her ear as they finally approach the table.

"Not everyone," she hums in response, "I don't know most of the employees from the other two companies here, but I know the higher-ups through my boss."

He briefly remembers her saying this dinner was for a big merger deal between these three companies.  His girlfriend works tirelessly for her boss, usually taking on more than she can handle and coming home late most nights.  She'd been promoted from just being a regular company worker to being in a near-the-top position right under the main board managers.  He admires her dedication, but he's always worried about her health and energy level.  He may be a Pro Hero, but she's the real superhuman in the relationship.

Katsuki does the gentlemanly thing of pulling the chair out for his lady and pushing her back in before settling in his seat next to her, purposely shifting closer to her than the person on his other side.

"What manners your boyfriend has," one of the older ladies at the table coos at the couple.

"Thank you, I'm very grateful to have him," the girl smiles politely in response.

Katsuki's heart melts at the pride dripping from her voice as she compliments him.  "And I'm very lucky to have her."  It felt like the right thing to say as he squeezes her hand under the table and briefly glances into her eyes.

The two don't tear away from each other until someone else approaches his girlfriend and she stands to greet him briefly.  Katsuki surveys him in case he would do something ballsy to his girlfriend.

She turns and places a hand on Katsuki's shoulder.  "This is my boyfriend, Katsuki Bakugou."

Hell yeah, I am, you better not pull anything, dumbass.  He stands and shakes the other man's hand, polite but stiff.

"Nice to meet you.  Your girlfriend is honestly a powerhouse, she's amazing," the man gushes.

"Yes, I'm aware," the blond replies tersely.  He's on guard because he doesn't get a good vibe from this man.

Sure enough, he goes on a little too animatedly about how much his girlfriend does for the company and the rest of the company.  It comes off to Katsuki as fake and kiss-ass.  Nonetheless, his girlfriend accepts all the compliments like the graceful goddess she is.  He realizes this boy is one of his girlfriend's juniors as they descend into a conversation surrounding work and future projects.

After dismissing him, another group of his girlfriend's underlings rushes over with compliments and "Oh my gosh, senpai!  You look amazing!" and the like.  Each time, she would accept the praise, introduce him, before launching into more work-related subject matter that Katsuki learned to tune out eventually.

Honestly, he's annoyed at how everyone here is overwhelmingly toxic.  All the subordinates or peers are kiss-ups and her superiors are pretentious stick-up-their-asses that look down on his girlfriend.  He can't stand that his lover is surrounded by this atmosphere all day.  They don't know the genuine type of person she is, other than that she's kind and easy to walk all over.  No one seems like they care enough to carry genuine conversation, and he'd rather not tune into that energy.

Instead, Katsuki directs his attention to his lovely girlfriend.  Staring at her face, he recalls how painstakingly long it took for her to paint her face with makeup to look this flawless.  He's sure she would've had a mental breakdown while doing her eyes, especially putting on her eyeliner.  She was chanting to herself cutely to get them even, almost coaxing her shaky hands in front of the mirror to perform some kind of magic.  If he had done the wrong thing and hurried her or teased her habits, she would've unleashed all her anger on him.  He's learned that the hard way.  In the end, she was able to achieve this masterpiece on her face without making herself look like a completely different person, highlighting her natural beauty.

Scanning downward to her dress, he remembers fondly going shopping with her last weekend.  Her hair was in a topknot as she fumbled through the racks for a dress to wear.  She had dragged him along because she trusted his opinion on fashion choices.  While he would've liked for her to choose a scarlet red gown, Katsuki knew she'd look infinitely better in the sapphire blue number she's wearing now.  The skinny straps holding the dress up leads down to a not-too-plunging neckline that suits her shoulders, collarbone, and chest perfectly.  The dress cinches in at the waist to emphasize the figure he knows she has before falling straight down from her hips, and the mid-thigh slit on one side is subtly sexy without having her risk overexposure.  Finishing the entire outfit is a classic pair of nude pumps, a dainty gold necklace, matching dangling earrings, and a clutch matching her shoes.  Her hair is curled in waves cascading down her back with some stands hanging over one shoulder.

Katsuki can't help but smile unconsciously.  He can't wait to someday place the finishing touch she deserves: a simple but elegant ring on her left hand.

After all the formalities, the two finally sit down and start eating the dinner courses that have started gracing their place settings.

"I know you wanted to go out for date night today," his girlfriend begins gently, "But we can imagine this is a fancy restaurant with just us two, and everything else is just a backdrop."

"Shouldn't you be paying attention to what's going on?" Katsuki quirks an eyebrow.

She waves her hand and takes a refined sip of her wine.  "I've already heard them practice this speech too many times."

The devilish blond smirks and slinks closer to her.  "That's not something a good employee would do, is it?"

"I'm not working right now," she smoothly responds back, replicating his energy.

The organizer of the dinner finally takes the stage and starts his speech.  Katsuki keeps his gaze on his beautiful girlfriend, admiring her delicately picking and eating at her plate.  She's so precious to him, he doesn't care if he's making heart eyes and everyone can see.

When the speech finishes, his girlfriend's glass also empties and she indicates that she's going to get another.  It leaves him on edge, he hates being alone with all these strangers even for a few minutes.  He doesn't want to tell you this, but if one of these people try to small talk him without you here, he might actually break something.

"So, Bakugou, what do you do?" the same lady from earlier chirps at him.

He whips his head up.  For fuck's sake.  "I'm a...public safety worker of sorts."  He tries so hard to sound polite for his girlfriend's sake.  He also can't resist scanning the room for her as a safety reflex.  With all the shady people around, he doesn't trust that something bad won't happen.  And he also wants your comfort in these uncomfortable situations, but he'll never admit that either.

"Oh, I see."  The old lady seems satisfied with his tone, barely noticing his fidgeting as she launches into a whole story about her grandson wanting to do something like that, and all the tangents related to that.

Katsuki is relieved that he doesn't have to talk for the rest of the time, just nodding along  and humming to prove he's passively listening.  He finally spots his angel a few tables away, groaning internally that she was stopped by someone, keeping her from coming back to him.  It seems they were having a deep conversation at first, but suddenly the man cracks a smile and a joke that makes her cover her mouth in respectful laughter.

Katsuki's annoyance is cut through at her wholehearted display of emotions.  The entire night, he's been complaining about how much he hates everyone here, but it's only now he realizes how relaxed she looks in the entire situation.  She's completely in her element; he'd get easily drained by all the suffocating small talk, but her?  She thrives off this, she gains energy from it.  Although she comes home late, overworked and tired, she still faces every day with a smile on her face.  She makes it look so easy to talk to people, striking up and following conversations with everyone in the most endearing and poised way possible.

Katsuki smiles to himself, warmth washing over him.  Yes, just like his mom, but it makes his girlfriend all the more stunning and admirable in his eyes.

His girlfriend finally returns to the table, her recently-acquired glass already half empty.  "What did I miss?" she asks, buzzing with both energy and alcohol.

Katsuki leans his head on his palm.  "Nothing much."  He's still basking in the glow of his wonderful girlfriend, casually sipping his own wine absently.

She turns towards the clearing in the center of the room and takes his free hand.  "Let's go dance, babe!"

Any other time, Katsuki would have sternly declined, but he can't resist her today.  Without a single complaint, he rises and lets her drag him by their entwined hands to the dance floor.  Guiding his large hand around her waist as her one hand plants to his shoulder, she raises their joined hands and starts swaying them to the classic orchestral ensemble's upbeat performance.

The man doesn't know if it's the overwhelming feeling of pride he recently uncovered, or the way their bodies press together gently as he inhales her floral perfume, but he can't find the words to describe everything he wants to say. He settles on simply smiling warmly down at her as he whispers, "You're amazing, you know that?"

His girlfriend's cheeks flush and she erupts into giggles.  "What's with the sudden compliment?"

He shakes his head.  "I just realized it, that's all.  Just like my mom."

"You sure are a Mama's boy, aren't you?"

He scoffs at the idea.  "I love the old hag, but I'll never tell her that.  Besides, I'd say I'm whipped for a different woman in my life."  He brushes hair behind her ear, her earring glinting against the light, and places a kiss on her perfect temple.  "You look stunning tonight."

His girlfriend's eyes close in half-lidded affection.  "I'm sorry this isn't the perfect date night you wanted."

The blond leans his forehead on her's, slowing their pace to allow time to pass much more leisurely around them.  "I get to dance with you, I think that's a definite win."

"I guess so."

Katsuki comes to realize that he can be forced to come to all of these events.  All that matters is his enchanting lover and her smile.  When the night is over, he can't wait to let her take her heels off and carry her bridal style to their car as everyone watches in envy and awe.  He'd let her recline and rest her weary feet, telling her stories of his adventures of night outings with his mom to lull her to sleep in his passenger seat.  And then he'd carry her sleeping figure up to their bedroom and wake her gently so she can clean herself up and change into her cute pajamas, just so they can cuddle in each other's warmth until they fall asleep.

Maybe he's not a Mama's boy anymore.  More like he's a Lover's boy.

[dreamingofscully]

Grey Canyon 6/?

Rating: Current Chapter: PG, Series: up to Mature Categories: Western AU / MSR / WIP WC: 1870 / Total WC:  5868

Updated on Mondays and Fridays.

Thank you to @ceruleanmilieu​ for the beta ❤️ Tagging: @impulsive-astrophile​ @baronessblixen​ @suitablyaggrieved​ @gillywitch​ @today-in-fic​ (let me know if you want to be tagged when I post!)

all chapters in order: ao3 / tumblr

CH 1 / CH 2 / CH 3 / CH 4 / CH 5

CHAPTER 6: “A gift”

Grey Canyon, Colorado 1885

He tapped on her door, trying to ignore his sweaty palms and pounding heart. Before tonight, he’d kept himself in her company only at midday. He adjusted the plate he held, silently repeated the flimsy excuse he meant to give her, and patted the papers he’d brought in his jacket pocket.

When she opened the door, his words scattered and he stood there, mute. She’s lovely, was his only thought.

“Mr. Mulder?” She smiled at him, and if he squinted perhaps he could pretend she was glad to see him as well.

“Uhh... “

“Did you want to join me for dinner?” She opened the door wider, allowed him to brush past her, then shut and locked it behind her, blanketing them both in the shadows of her room. Beyond the oil lamp on the table, only a few small candles provided illumination.

The table she’d been sitting at didn’t seem to have room for him: papers neatly stacked next to her fountain pen and inkwell, a variety of ribbons hanging from a stack of books. He had no doubt, though, that she could locate anything in a second. When he thought of his own messy desk in his room, which always looked like a whirlwind had passed through it, he envied her neatness.

He set his plate down on her empty dresser, wiped his hands on his trousers and removed his hat. She stood by the door, watching him, a question in her eyes. She's busy, of course she is. How could he have thought she would want him here?

“It’s inappropriate for me to be here, a lady’s room alone at such an hour. I--” he started.

“Sit, Mr. Mulder,” she interrupted, gesturing to the chair on the opposite end of the table. “I don’t mind your company. Besides, there is no one else here that would know of our impropriety.”

She smiled one of her small, mysterious smiles at him. He wasn’t sure what went on inside her mind most times, but one of those looks from her and he felt instantly sure of himself. She moved her things to a desk in the corner, retrieving an extra glass as well as a pitcher of water for them to share.

“I’m afraid this is all I can offer you to drink. I don’t keep any alcohol in my room.”

“This is great. I, uh, I don’t drink anyway.”

“No?”

“I tend to do foolish things when I drink,” he said.

“From what I’ve seen, you still do foolish things, Mr. Mulder.” She sat, then looked up at him, still standing in the middle of her room, twisting the brim of his hat in his hands. “Now, sit. Join me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He hung his hat on the back of his chair, removed his jacket, and sat with her. They ate together, the golden glow from the lamp on her table cocooning them in its warmth. He could believe they were the only ones for miles, if he tuned out the faint sounds of raucous laughter and music coming from beyond her chamber.

As he’d known it would be, the incident from last week had been all but forgotten. The girls whispered and stared awestruck at Dana as she performed her duties. Dana herself went on as if nothing had happened, but he saw a sadness in her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking. Before the shooting, he wondered if she’d been on the verge of sharing part of herself with him, but now she looked away and politely changed the subject when he asked questions about herself. Perhaps it was too much to hope that she was interested in him as a friend, as anything more than good conversation during lunchtime. Well, she's allowing me to be here in her rooms now, isn't she?

The silence continued for a while, and he shifted in his seat restlessly, searching for something to speak about, to earn his right to be here.

“Did you know that there was another group, a few weeks after the Donner Party, who fell victim to the same gruesome fate?” he said, through a mouthful of pot pie.

“Oh?” she said, watching him curiously.

He ate a few more bites, knowing she would find the tale interesting, if nothing else. He didn’t kid himself that she would be convinced; she was the most stubborn doubter he’d ever met. For some reason, though, it made him even more determined to find the story that would change her mind.

“They were also forced to…” he waved his hands, not sure he should speak the words aloud while they ate.

“Consume each other,” she filled in for him, lowering her eyes briefly to take a bite of her meal, then returning her steady gaze to his own.

He nodded, then winced and set down his fork, continuing with his story. “It is unknown whether Armbruster Pike, the leader of the group, was killed first or his legs removed and eaten before his death, but witnesses have seen him in the area several times over the past few decades, his spirit appearing with ragged long white hair and... no legs.”

She bit her lip, but didn’t interrupt.

“Heedless of these horrifying sights…” he said, watching her roll her eyes and shake her head at his embellishments. Despite her feigned annoyance, there was a twinkle in her eyes and the hint of a smile, telling him that she was enjoying herself. His heart skipped a beat at the thought, and he struggled to get back to his story. “Uh... mining towns have been springing up in the region. And…”

He paused. She raised her eyebrows.

“Miners have been going missing,” he finished, grinning at her.

“Mr. Mulder,” she said, then waited.

Here it comes, he thought. He enjoyed the way she listened to him carefully, even if she didn’t believe his tales, and fought back against his claims systematically and logically, rather than just dismissing him outright.

“You don’t really believe such things, do you?” Her eyebrow quirked upwards.

“I have heard of many such sightings - apparitions, ghasts. People have even seen their loved ones just before learning about their passing on.”

She merely looked at him, her smile growing wider as his heart thumped in his chest. Another reason, he thought, to amuse her with strange tales: he somehow managed to make her smile.

“We don’t know what happens when we die, Dana. These spirits, mostly passed on due to violent circumstances, well… perhaps they have some reason to hold on to the places where they died.”

Dana laughed aloud. “And just how many of these witnesses were drunk? Or people who want to see such things.”

“I’ve never seen a ghast.”

“Of course you haven’t.” She patted his hand, kept it there. Her thumb grazed over his knuckles in a gesture he thought was meant to soothe, but he felt quite the opposite; he leant towards her, gooseflesh rising on his arms.

She smiled softly. “Perhaps there is a reason your sleep is so terrible, if you think such things are real. It’s just not supported by any evidence. I have read about investigations into similar claims, and in each case they were unable to repeat the results you speak about. Those miners who went missing? It is very easy to disappear if you do not want to be found, or perhaps they fell off of a cliff in a desolate part of the mountains. People see what they wish to see, and believe what they wish to believe, Mr. Mulder.”

“You can call me ‘Mulder’, you know. Just Mulder,” he murmured, his quiet voice nearly swallowed by shadows of her room. He turned his hand over, grasping hers and trailing a finger along the soft skin of her wrist.

She stared at their entwined hands, and even with the low light he saw a flush creeping into her cheeks. “Not Fox?”

“I hate my name.”

“Why don’t you tell everyone not to call you that?”

“There doesn’t seem to be a point to it, I’ve found most don’t care to listen.”

“Alright... Mulder,” she smiled again, a dimple appearing in her right cheek. She squeezed his hand. “I will listen. About ghasts, however… I believe I was punching holes in all of your ideas, or did you not want to continue with that?”

He chuckled, shaking his head.

“Oh! I forgot,” Mulder withdrew his hand from hers and reached into his pocket to pull out the papers he’d picked up earlier that day. “I got these for you.”

He handed over the manuscripts, their ragged edges and stained pages showing how little their former owner had appreciated them. Their fingers touched once more as she took them, and he watched her closely to see whether his instincts had been correct.

“The New England Journal of Medicine?” Her fingers traced over the title and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Her husky voice lit a spark in his chest that spread outward, warming his face. “How did you manage to find this?”

Seeing her eyes shine with excitement, he was very glad he spotted them in the physician's office, sitting underneath some bloodied papers while he waited for John to pick up supplies.

She reached forward again, and grasped his hand. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”

Mulder felt lighter, the burden of his guilt shifting slightly at her words, and he wondered if he’d be able to float out of her room like the spirits in the story he’d been telling. Their eyes connected, and for once, he thought he could really see her, the woman who she was before she’d found herself in this lonely place, hiding away in her darkened room. Overwhelmed, his nerves gave way under her scrutiny. What had possessed him to think he could love this woman, and that she could love him?

“Well, you and Dr. Hodge seem like kindred spirits,” Mulder joked, tearing his eyes away and withdrawing his hand, hoping she wouldn’t take the comparison of her to the filthy, offensive, and balding town physician too seriously. She ignored his jest and shifted her attention back to the journal, running her fingers along the words as if to reassure herself that it was real. He watched as she perched her glasses onto her nose, her mouth moving as she read, shifting the pages closer to the lamp and turning up the flame. She was lost, and so was he.

“I think I’ll leave you to that.” He stood, donning his hat and resting his jacket on his arm, taking his empty plate in hand.

She barely looked up, but nodded her acknowledgement.

“Good night, Dana,” he said.

He opened the door, letting the sounds and light from the outside invade her space. When he turned back once more, she was watching him, smiling. “Good night, Mulder. I hope you do sleep well -- just remember that ghasts aren’t real.”

He chuckled and tipped his hat at her before leaving. Tucking her words and the look on her face inside himself, he thought that, perhaps, good dreams weren’t entirely impossible tonight.

[dis--parity]

the message.

Summary: Meanwhile, in a hospital in the south of Sweden, a person reduced to a thoughtless shell is filled with new life. Trigger warnings: None. Author’s note: A little bonus chapter that I was excited to get out! It pertains to the final interview file and, well... it’s a pretty big piece of someone’s story.

It’s such a strange, horrible sensation, being trapped in your own body. Motionless, breathless, not even able to blink, not even able to see what little I hear. Days have passed. Or at least, I think they have; all my vision’s a blackout, and I’m quickly losing track of all time. When your eyes aren’t open, when your brain isn’t working right but your ears hear everything around you, it all just seems to melt together. The conversations of the doctors and nurses around me change at the flip of a switch.

I can’t even bring myself to try and count the hours, the days, the months I’ve been out cold. The last sensation stuck in my mind is the impact of a hammer against my arm, my chest, my head. Then, numbness, darkness, oblivion. Absolutely nothing crosses my mind after that. And I can’t even remember how long it’s been this way. 

It’s funny. For as long as I can remember, I’ve romanticised the idea of shutting off from the world; to be alone with the imagination without having to concern yourself with the real world. What a dream that must be, I thought. What a unique, astonishing bliss that must provide. Though, now that I lay here, unaware of how long it’s been, where the hell I am, and without even the will to decide whether I should be thankful for, or horrified by this comatose oblivion, something occurs to me.

The lucky ones, I’ve come to realise, are the ones whose mind and body die at the same time.

Will I ever wake up? Or will this mind finally give in and follow suit to my failing faculties? When I think about it enough, it crosses my mind that it probably doesn’t even matter which way that goes; my mind’s been like scrambled eggs for as long as my eyes have been closed, for as long as this ventilator’s been stuck on my mouth and this IV has been in my arm. I can only think of one person right now that would miss me if I slipped quietly past the veil - and they aren’t even here.

 I hear a jingle from what I think is right in front of me; there’s a TV in the room. I hear the news come and go from time to time, when my brain decides to tune back into the world around it. I’m guessing it’s in the corner of the room, seeing as I’m in a hospital bed right now. I can at least guess that much. If I ever wake up, maybe I’ll get a nice window view. 

Who knows, though? My thoughts and musings about the ray of sunlight I’ll probably never get to see quickly fade away as I’m forced to listen to the the only thing that’s really present in the room. Well, it’s not like I can get up and change the channel anyway, and apparently, I’ve got all the time in the world to absorb whatever this is. Whether I’ll actually retain any of the passing news about politics, science, celebrity gossip and the like, that’s another thing. But this… it seems different to what I’ve heard before. I hear a man delivering a more serious, monotone preamble, but-...

“... as announced earlier, the entirety of the contents of these ‘Haemolife Files’ will now be played on this channel for the purpose of transparency towards the public…”     Haemolife.

My body would have jolted, if only it could. Who knows how long it had been since I heard that name? That name of which a single utterance was enough to snap me back into focus. Up ‘til that point, I could feel my grasp on awareness starting to drift... 

No.

I snatch my awareness back. I have to. For the first time in God knows how long, I had something to pay attention to. Something I had to try and listen to. The voice of an unfamiliar man talks about his discoveries in a crackly audio recording, and asks a question to someone else he’s apparently with. I don’t catch all of it, I know, and I wasn’t about to get my hopes up, but there was only one person I could think of at that moment.

    Gale. Gale. Gale.     Please.     Please, tell me someone remembered you.

“... why do this? Haemolife was more or less off the radar until that weapons shipment came in.”

“... think that was the point they factored Gale in… had the willpower to defy… didn’t have the same fear Iris did. They knew… they knew she’d blab eventually. Desperate times, maybe.”

...what?

No. There’s no way. There’s no fucking way. 

    Every part of me was looking out for that name -  a mention of her would have craved that phantom hunger my near-lifeless body felt right now. But, oh, did I hear so much more than my failing mind could have expected. She was dead. For the longest time, I thought she was dead. And now, as I’m hearing her voice, saying her name, talking about what she went through… I found my thoughts paralyzed again. It’s too much, this is far too much–

But, no! No! I can’t lose this moment! This might be the only chance I get to know that she’s alive, I can’t let my mind slip again now! My body doesn’t move, but I can practically feel my stomach turn as I try to regain my focus, try to recoil from the shock I heard from that name alone and listen, for God’s sake, listen to what she has to say.

“And the way Rosenfeld took ‘desperate measures’ was to initiate a terrorist attack before you could expose the truth?”

“No - not to take everyone else out. To destroy everyone in the know - myself included. Maybe something changed along the way, maybe they realised your CIA was onto them. Either way… it was the end for all of us.”

“Even the ones cross country… shit. They were prepared for this. Shit… I mean… you told me about your parents. I guess you didn’t leave anyone behind, at least.”

There’s silence for a moment. I wonder if I’m losing awareness again before I hear that familiar sigh through crackling audio. Finally, I heard her speak up again, her voice more shaken than it was before. I don’t know what led to me hearing this, what led to all this being exposed when it had been so long, but it was no less painful for me to listen to her, to be reminded of all that had happened to her, to us. I was starting to wonder if she even remembered who I was, when my answer came to me without me having to ask.

“… we did. Fuck. I did. We… couldn’t even say goodbye. We knew what was happening, and-... we pushed him away. We didn’t want to drag him into this, too.”

“Who?”

“… his name was Alex.“

Me? Me? She remembered, after all this time? I ask the brief silence that’s allowed between me registering my own name and her next sentence how this could even be possible. There’s no reply but the gentle static of the television as she continues speaking.

“He was there for us. If it wasn’t for him, we might not be Garis now.” ‘Garis’? What kind of name is that? Don’t tell me… no. Save that thought for another time.

“He showed us the best of times, and stuck with us in the worst of times. He knew… he knew about what we truly went through, we told him. And he helped us anyway. Loved us anyway. He…” ...what’s that silence for? “They, told me about how their dad used to isolate them socially, stick them to one place, and how they grew jealous of all the other kids who had parents who loved them, parents who took them places instead of keeping them cooped up in their rooms, parents that… didn’t have any agreement between each other to do what they wanted to their children. Together, we figured out ways to fight back against our abusers. I was able to defy the God in the Numbers because of them. Because of their... humanity, that nobody else showed us. Fuck… all that time, we thought we were saving them. But, now we’re together, we realise… they were saving us. If they became a target…”

I hear her sniffle. I feel as if I could cry, but my stupid, stupid body just won’t let me. It won’t let me get up, it won’t let me reach out, call to her, speak to her and tell her that I’m okay, that I’m happy that she’s okay! I wanted her to know, more than anything in the world, that I was thankful for her!

… tell me something,” I hear the other man say. “If there’s something you could say to them right now, if they’re alive, if they could listen... what would it be?” I didn’t want to stop listening to her voice now. If it were me, I know I’d refuse to answer and be out of there, and that’s precisely what I expected from her. We were the same, so I thought. And, hey, they never were the type to wear their heart on their sleeve. But that’s when I heard her again.

“… I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry I couldn’t explain to you what was happening, Alex. But… you saved my life. I wish I knew where you were, and I promise one day we’ll find a way to talk to each other again, someway, somehow, and I’ll tell you, once and for all…

Thank you.”

When I heard those words echoing in my mind, I thought I would break. Shatter like glass on this bed. That I would black out just from hearing her say that, and mean it. It was then that I realised something; for as comatose, unable to act or speak as I was, I was alive.

I’d finally stood up to my dad. It got me where I am now, but it was worth it. When I finally put that bastard in his place, when I made it damn clear that I wasn’t ever going to be a puppet again… I thought of her. I thought of all we’d been through, all she’d taught me. We were just kids, seeking shelter in each other’s misery, but we’d both saved each others’ lives through that. What goes around comes around, I guess.

I want to smile. I want to laugh. I want to scream, I want to cry. I can already feel my mind drifting, her final words echoing in my brain as I slip back into my lack of awareness, the only proof I’ll ever have that the person I once loved and leaned on was alive. Who knows if I’d ever find her again? One thing’s for sure, though, I thought to myself as I drifted through that dark space once more, time losing all meaning in the face of one single, burning objective, my determination already scorching like the sun in my eyes, still forced shut. For as long as it would take for me to get out of here, get back into the world, I carried just one thought; I will wake up from this void, this nightmare. I will live. I will thrive. I’ll be free from the chains that held me down for all those years he stole from me. I will work for myself, and maybe, just maybe… I’ll love again.

I’ll manifest the one thing my dad was right about; I was born for greatness.

And now there’s a world waiting for me that’s worth waking up to. A world with you in it.

Please, for the love of God, wait for me.

However long it takes.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader -”What Death Tastes Like”

Scarecrow’s daughter might be only 22, yet the terminal lung cancer she was diagnosed with six months ago didn’t discriminate against her age; the young woman didn’t show worrisome symptoms until it was too late. Y/N always had a fascination for the much older King of Gotham and despite the consequences, maybe it’s finally time to do something about it.

Part 2      Part 3      Part 4      Part 5

“Hi daddy,” Emma enters the kitchen and you follow, immediately greeting The Joker.

“Hello Mister J.”

“Pumpkin,” he acknowledges his daughter. “Miss Crane,” he growls at your presence and you can’t help it:

“I like your purple shirt Mister J; makes you look ravishing.”

“Oh yeah?” he scoffs, used to the 22 year old throwing this kind of stuff his way on a regular basis.

“Definitely!” you approach and point at his can of grape juice. “Can I take a sip?”

“Since when you like grape juice?’ The Clown Prince of Crime frowns but hands over the container anyway.

“I don’t,” you taste the sweet liquid and continue: “I just wanted to touch something your lips touched.”

“That’s a new one!” he rolls his eyes and snatches back his drink while Emma closes the fridge in a hurry, appalled you always flirt with her father.

“Keep her on a leash!” J advises his offspring and you snicker as she pushes you out of the kitchen.

“I can’t believe you say those things to him!” Emma gives you a nudge on the hallway, amused and horrified in the same time. “He could be your dad!”

“But he’s not,” you wink, dodging her grip. “He could be my daddy though!”

“You shameless jerk!!” she laughs and starts chasing you. “How dare you??!!”

“He’s really hot for being 40-ish!” the enthusiastic Y/N teases more, speeding up so she won’t get caught. “I’m going to marry him and I’ll be your step mom. You’ll have to call me mommy!”

“Whaaaattt??!!” Emma shouts and The King of Gotham shakes his head because he can still perceive your aberrations: the truth is he’s uncertain if that’s all they are, thus the dilemma J doesn’t care to solve regardless.

You quickly run into Emma bedroom and snatch a pillow in order to protect yourself from her attack.

“I love your dad!” you grin and she keeps relentlessly hitting you with her fluffy cushion, annoyed:

“I hate you!! I totally hate you!!!”

You suddenly start coughing and your best friend halts her rampage, concerned.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Where’s your med?”

You pull the vial out of your jean’s pocket and she opens it while your cough intensifies; Emma fingers tremble at the sight of blood stains on the palm of your hand.

“Here, take this. Two?”

“Y-yes,” you struggle to talk and swallow the tablets, finding it difficult to calm down without the remedy you failed to ingest earlier before the worse happened.

“Come’ere,” she carefully sits you on the bed and begins wiping the red spots off your skin with a clean tissue. “There you go… Deep breaths, OK?” the young woman urges on the verge of crying: although she’s used to your episodes, she can’t cope with the thought of losing her best friend.

Scarecrow’s daughter might be only 22, yet the terminal lung cancer she was diagnosed with six months ago didn’t discriminate against her age; she didn’t show worrisome symptoms until it was too late.

“Better?” Emma analyzes your face and you can tell how upset she is, that’s why you try to distract her the best way you know how.

“Is your dad wearing a new cologne?”

“Huh?”

“He smells sooooo good, I swear I get this uncontrollable desire to kiss him all over,” you cough a bit more and she slaps your thigh, outraged.

“Would you stop it???!!!”

“I think he’ll miss me when I’m gone,” you playfully giggle. “Who else would flirt with an old man in his 40’s?!”

“Stupid girl…” Emma’s voice quivers since she doesn’t like to be reminded you’ll leave her. You both are silent for a few moments before she gathers the strength to continue the planned evening.

“I’m going to prepare you a nice, warm bath, then we’ll tag along with my dad at his Neon Devil club, alright?” she pouts and you don’t have the heart to admit you don’t feel like going out anymore.

“Sure… … sounds perfect,” you sigh and underline. “Only if I can spend some time alone with Mister Joker in the VIP section.”

“You’re incorrigible,” Emma concludes and you won’t quit.

“I didn’t say anything bad, you’re the perv for thinking indecencies regarding a man and a woman…alone… in the luscious VIP room… a few drinks… music blasting… attractiveness mooing to be unleashed…”

“Mooing???” she burst out laughing, forgetting she was about to admonish on your crazy ideas…again.

“Yup, mooing…” you proclaim with delight. “It’s a very sexy term, won’t you agree? … … Sexy like your dad!” you immediately blur out and stomp towards the bathroom while she hunts you down with the only purpose of shutting down the outpour of nonsense flowing out of you.

***************

Neon Devil Club, 10:36pm

“Are you going to dance?” Emma’s red cheeks pop up next to you.

“No, not tonight. Don’t worry, I’m having fun!” you point at the two empty cocktail glasses in front of you, still working on your third one. “I think I might call it a night soon, I’m tired.”

“OK, Y/N. Let me know when, we’ll both go!” she yells over the deafening tune.

“Stay and have fun, I can get a ride!” you glare at The Joker sitting at the bar a few inches away from you, totally absorbed by his text messages.

“Are you sure?” Emma hesitates and you poke J’s arm in order to get his attention.

He finally looks up and his daughter pleads:

“Daddy, can you take Y/N back to our house when she’s ready? I want her to be there when I return, this way we can gossip after the wild intercourse I’m gonna have with one of these lucky guys!”

The Clown Prince of Crime stares at her, displeased with the comments.

“Hilarious,” he growls and she jumps up and down, excited to see Bane’s son in the crowd.

“Don’t get mad, daddy!” she pecks his cheek. “I’m joking… Maybe…” Emma chuckles at his grumpiness and you are proud of her achievement in mocking the forever serious Joker: despite the nickname, the green haired menace is not the epitome of joyfulness.

“Are you supposed to have alcohol with the medications you’re taking?” he gestures at your cocktail.

“Nope,” you serenely confess and guzzle down more. “I’m a burden to my father and he doesn’t even know it,” you sniffle and J senses something strange about your affirmation. “He locks himself in the lab for days, researching on ways to overcome my terminal cancer. Did you know Evelyn left him two weeks ago?” you ask and The King feels cornered; you’re probably tipsy and in mood to chat while he’s not. “She’s perfect for him and he let her go… He would ignore her for days, immersed in his ridiculous project of saving me. The amazing Doctor Crane can’t take the hint this is a battle he won’t win. I made peace with what’s happening to me, but he can’t...,” you wave at the bartender for another glass. “Why won’t my father accept the inevitable outcome?” the pain in your tone prompts J to mutter:

“He just tries to postpone the inevitable.”

“I’m grateful for his help,” you ramble on. “I take remedies he makes for me and it’s nice to avoid the traditional chemo and losing my hair. I don’t look like I’m dying, correct? If you wouldn’t weren’t aware of my illness, you couldn’t tell, right?”

“Yes,” The impatient Joker signals the bartender to halt mixing your fresh drink; in his opinion you had enough.

“I got my test results this morning, “ you disclose, pouting. “They’re bad…” Y/N inhales the rest of her liquid courage and taps on the marble counter, disappointed at her own statement. “Did you ever taste death?” the weird question makes him taunt.

“Naahhh.”

“This is what it tastes like,” the heartbroken Y/N softly kisses The Joker and his remark hurts more than her disappointing routine evaluation:

“Strawberry margarita?”

You hop off your high chair so fast he realizes you’re flustered; it was the first time you kissed him, not that kind of kiss anyway and he completely dismissed your candor in the worst possible way.  

“Can we go please?” you intensely glare at your sandals and J opts out of attempting to patch up his callous reply; possibly the best decision regarding these circumstances simply because it doesn’t affect him at all.

“Sure, we can bail,” he grumbles and escorts you out of the club, wondering if you are done talking about matters of no importance to him.

****************

The master bedroom is cracked opened and you knock until The Joker bothers to acknowledge your existence.

“What is it?”

You sneak inside, adamant to request a tiny favor.

“Can I watch TV in here?”

“Why?” he wiggles in the middle of his bed, certainly not thrilled at your proposal.

“I won’t inconvenience you, ok?” you evade his inquiry and still being a bit tipsy briefly aids your plan; your drag your feet to the humongous mattress, then slip inside the purple sheets at the edge of the bed. “You know… If I would have lived longer, I bet you would have married me,” you gaze at the man relaxing close to your body.

The Joker nonexistent eyebrows go up so high it’s possibly a new record: why did Emma have to stay at the club instead of distracting you from whatever the hell this is?!

“We would have had at least 4 kids…” you continue your story. “ I’m young so every two years I could have been convinced to get pregnant; we would have had a small army of little Jokers and Y/Ns… I picked a few names already, would you like to hear them?”

“NO!!” he sucks on his teeth, irritated.

“Hmm…” you get discouraged yet it doesn’t last. “ You would have died at 65…”

“Why would I die at 65?!” J interrupts and his interest gives you a boost of much needed confidence.

“Car accident; you’re a shitty driver,” you lift your shoulders up, instantly correcting your sentence. “I meant reckless.”

The Clown Prince of Crime huffs and the fact that he engaged into this monologue of yours hopefully suggests he won’t chase you away until you finish.

“After your demise I would have mourned you for a decent amount of months, then I would have remarried a guy my age, this way I’m not in any danger of becoming a widow for the second time. I would obviously have our children too so not to worry, I would have survived without you.”

“Awesome, I was anxious you won’t overcome the grief,” his sassiness triggers your approval.

“Indeed; yet I have to warn you: if you ever cheated on me, I would have asked my father to create a special virus to obliterate you from the face of the planet!”

“Why are you shouting?!” The Joker scratches his chin, confused about your attitude.

“Sorry,” you take it down a notch. “I always get emotional when I think about this part…”

“Is this soap opera of yours almost done?” the impatience emerges; I suppose you tested his composure enough.

“I really like you,” you cut off his vexation. “You should be happy a young woman would crave an older man in his 40’s or 50’s,” you snort while adding to his growing restlessness.

“I think it’s time for you and the alcohol in your system to take a nap!” J hints at your departure and you abruptly bring it up since he’s basically throwing you out:

“Do you like me? You never get mad or chase me when I flirt with you…” you scoot over and cuddle next to him.

“What are you doing?!” J gets pissed at your boldness.

“I’m cold,“ you lie without a problem and he’s done with the dumb night he had to put up with so far.

“Get out!” The King of Gotham snaps and his sudden aggressiveness throws you off.

“I want to stay and watch TV; I promise I’ll be super quiet from now on. Cross my heart and hope to die!” you smile and your silly pun doesn’t have the outcome you hoped for.

“You know why I indulge a shallow brat’s idiotic flirting?!” he raises his voice and you shrivel because you realize he won’t utter anything nice at this point. “Who wouldn’t feel sorry for a walking corpse, hm? Despite what people think, I’m not that insensitive!”

You gulp and slowly roll out of bed, trying not to cry in front of him; you don’t remember sensing a stronger pain in your life, not even after you got sick.

“You’re so mean, “ you whisper and can’t stop the first tears streaming down your face. “I wouldn’t have married you anyway,” you rush out of the master bedroom and The Joker reprises his movie, undisturbed at the events he created out of spite.

“Fuck…” he mumbles when it hits: Emma will chew him alive if she finds about his behavior; would you mention this to her? Or she would guess something went wrong if you depart from the mansion when she asked you to stay? The only person that counts is bound to make him rethink his awful actions; his daughter wouldn’t forgive him unless he patches up things. Might as well get it over with before he lands in hotter waters.

“Uggghhhh,” The Joker puckers his lips and contemplates his choices: not too many, thus he ends up in front of your bedroom 10 minutes after the fight.

He can discern your sobbing and opens the door without knocking because another human’s privacy is simply not his issue. You are standing by the windows and turn towards him, mad you didn’t lock the entrance.

“Your company is required in the master bedroom,” J elaborates on the subject and Y/N’s silence evokes a faint apology. “I don’t think you’re a walking corpse… … …”

No reaction.

“Come on, let’s watch TV in my room…”

“Why would you need a shallow brat’s idiotic company?” you blow your nose in a tissue and emphasize. “I don’t want your pity.”

“Crane’s a genius but the trait is clearly skipping a generation,” his way of attempting to restore the mood totally sucks. “It’s not pity.”

“What is it then?” you wipe your tears and he has no clue himself.

“Not…pity.”

Are you debating on his offer?

“Come on,” J grabs your hand and your resistance works a miracle nonetheless. “I’m sorry, alright? Not a word to Emma, deal? Or your dad, he would probably create a goddamned virus to exterminate me from this planet. Don’t laugh, it’s not funny,” he sulks, crabby at the idea of being killed for offending Scarecrow’s princess.

“I won’t…” you promise and you’re actually surprised when he lifts you up, guiding your legs around his waist.

“You can sleep in my bed if you want to… until Emma gets back,” The Joker recommends and you hide your astonishment the best way you can.

“Sleep like in dozing of or…?” you wish to determine and the response doesn’t fail to deepen the mystery:

“As I said, genius sometimes skips a generation.”

The King strolls out of the bedroom with Y/N clinging to him while he lifts her higher in his arms, closing his eyes when she kisses him.

And the only thing The Joker can think of for the moment is that if death tastes like this, it’s not the worst way to go.

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can also follow me on Ao3 and Wattpad under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[death-himself]

Could You Meet Me Beyond the Grave?—Chapter 12

Summary: On this episode of "Virgil is Bad at Peopling" we tune in on Virgil attempting to have a conversation with one of his soulmates and, despite how horrible he is at it, it somehow ends okay

Pairings: LAMP (mainly Moxiety in this)

Word Count: 1,627

Warnings: Awkwardness, mentioned gore, lots of talk about death, talk of discrimination, talk of religion (specifically paganism and implied Catholicism), I think that’s it? This chapter talks about kinda dark stuff

previous next (AO3 Link)

“So, uh...”

“Hey...” I looked over at Patton, letting out an awkward laugh. “Hey...” We went silent again, unsure of what to say. I heard him shifting from one foot to the other uneasily.

“So do you, uh...” I gestured inside vaguely, clearing my throat, “wanna come in, or just...stand there?”

“Oh, yeah!” He followed me in hastily, taking a seat across from me at the dining table. I pulled my knees up to my chest, his gaze feeling like laser beams burning through my face.

“Nice place you have.” Patton tried to start a conversation. I quickly tried to come up with a response.

“Yeah, I bet it looks a lot better now that you’re not...tied up and stuff.” Oh god, I wish I had just gone to hell like a normal human. Patton went silent. I was fully ready for him to realize that he wasn’t safe here and make a run for it.

He tapped on the table a few times, before speaking again. “Anyway! How have you been?” We don’t talk about the kidnapping, got it.

“Could be worse, I guess. I could be dead.” I wanted to smack myself. I was already dead. “How—How about you, Patton?”

“Been doing pretty good.” He answered quickly, seeming to want to turn the conversation as fast as possible. “I’ve been really busy with work lately, so I haven’t really had any time to visit.”

“You actually wanted to come to this place?”

“Well...this is your home, isn’t it? I wanted to see you.” I felt my cold heart flutter in my chest. I tried to hide my face from him, standing up and heading to the fridge.

“Do you want anything to drink?” I opened the fridge, being met with the smell of iron and rotting flesh. I slammed it shut. Oh yeah, there was a dismembered body in there, stuffed in between some red bull and alcohol, the only other things we really kept in there. I turned to the counters, hoping something on there would save me. “We have, uh...water?”

Patton seemed to understand what was going on and said in a high-pitched, squeaky tone, “Yeah. Water sounds nice.” I grabbed two water bottles out of our supply, hands trembling and face burning.

“Hey, how about we go talk somewhere else? I mean, this area is great, but...it’s a little stuffy.” I nodded stiffly. “Yeah, sounds good.”

Patton led me outside, opting to sit with his back against the tower wall. I took a seat a few feet away from him, pulling my hood over my head in shame.

“Hey, Vee?” My throat dried up.

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I’ve been kinda curious. So...how did you die?” Every muscle in my body tightened, the choker around my throat feeling as if it were growing tighter and tighter.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I mumbled out.

“Okay! That’s fine! I won’t ask.” Patton was quick to try and soothe me, the grass and dirt under him rustling as he moved. I huffed, taking a small sip of my water to try and calm myself.

“Is it alright if I ask about the others? Or would it be better if I just asked them myself?”

“Eh. They don’t really mind.”

“Okay...then, how did they die?”

“Remy was stabbed outside of a strip club by his ex. He makes jokes about it now, but when he first became a Willow his main goal was revenge.” I snickered, trying to hide it behind my hand. “It was wild when we met his ex while we were hunting. He had so much fun torturing him.” I could only imagine the horrified look Patton was giving me, but hey, I was just describing how things really were. How dark we were (and still are).

“Emile had colon cancer; it wasn’t really caught until it had progressed too far for any real treatment. He was in pain for less than a year, and he died surrounded by his loved ones, so he doesn’t feel as bad about his death as the rest of us did with ours.” I hesitated for a moment, wondering if Dee would be okay with me talking about his story.

“Dee was alive in the 1800’s. He was also studying witchcraft and paganism. In a very...not so open town. A friend of his found an altar to one of the deities he worshipped in his room and promised to keep it a secret. But then he went ahead and told some people about it, and suddenly Dee was getting beat to death by his own parents.”

“Ouch.” Patton winced in sympathy.

“Yeah. After he became a Willow, the first thing he did was hex the guy, and every time he tells me this story he hums something about the three-fold law being bullshit; I have no idea what that is—it might be a personal belief—at this point I’m too afraid to ask, but yeah.” I fidgeted with my sleeves as the words fell out of my mouth.

“I guess that’s why he didn’t like us too much...being human and all.”

“Eh. Could be one of the reasons. I mean, it’s been 200 years and he still doesn’t even allow us to watch him do any of his stuff. Pretty sure he keeps his altars hidden in his closet or somethin’.” I shrugged, pulling my jacket tighter around myself. The air had begun getting cooler—the sun must have been setting.

Before I could point it out to Patton, he asked another question. “What do you usually do for fun around here?” I rubbed the nape of my neck, head tilted to the sky. “Just...stay in my room. Read, watch some movies, go on the Internet. Stuff like that.”

“You have internet here?”

“At this point, I basically am the internet. My powers are the only thing keeping the electricity running, and I’m the only one smart enough with modern tech to figure out a way of connecting to the Internet. Which is weird, considering I was raised in the 1960s.” Patton hummed, drumming his fingers on his thigh as he thought.

“You have Netflix?”

“You mean that Netflix and chill thing Remy talks about?” Patton laughed, before pulling out his phone and tapping my arm with it.

“Why don’t we just hang out and watch some shows? Inside, it’s getting kinda dark, and cold...and scary.”

I sighed, standing up. “Alright, if you’re okay with it.” He hopped up enthusiastically, taking me gently by the arm and allowing me to lead him to my room, acting only a bit like a mother hen as we climbed up the stairs.

I blocked the door off with a chair once the two of us stepped in. “Hey, Virgil?”

“Hmm?”

“What happened to your window?”

“An...accident flew through it.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Remy. Remy was the accident.” Patton whispered a small oh, before slowly drifting over to my bed, sitting down and supposedly looking through his phone for something to watch. “Let’s just go with Voltron.”

“The fuck is that?” I laid down on my bed behind him. I heard some sort of opening begin playing, and he shifted, lying down next to me and holding his phone up between us.

I felt my face begin burning again as I felt his shoulder against mine, trying my best to focus on the audio instead while my brain continued to scream about the warmth of his body next to mine.

His arm had dropped onto my chest, the show having been long forgotten. His breathing was slow and steady. His head was tucked into my chest, a bit of drool seeping into my shirt. He was asleep. Around me of all people. We had only been three episodes in, too; he must have been tired.

I carefully reached for his face, fingers meeting the plastic of his big round glasses, and slowly pulling them off of his face, putting them on my bedside dresser.

A ding came from both of our phones, a text in our group chat, I guess. I checked my phone; Roman had begun spamming the chat asking where Patton was, followed by Logan asking him to calm down, and Roman spamming even more because of that. You said you’d be home and safe by ten! It’s eleven! Please tell me you’re okay! You’re okay, right? They didn’t kill and eat you, did they?

I sighed, texting back explaining what was happening. As if I believe you! What have you done to my poor prince? I groaned, causing Patton to mumble something, and me to go silent again. I thought for a moment, before going to my camera and taking as best of a picture of Patton as I could, sending it to Roman with the simple caption of He’s asleep, dipshit. Roman went strangely quiet after that.

Kiss him goodnight for the two of us. I blinked, asking Siri to read the line again and again, before coming to the conclusion that it was indeed real. I turned to Patton, running a hand slowly through his soft hair. I bit at my lip, before slowly bringing my head closer to his.

With a gentle peck at the top of his head, I whispered a soft, “Goodnight, Pat.” I then turned back to my phone and, in my flustered state, answered with “The deed is done,” resulting in multiple concerned messages from Roman.

I simply turned mine and Patton’s phones to silent, carefully running my hand through Patton’s hair again, and slowly drifting off to sleep myself, feeling warm and content for the first time in years.

[thespoonplayer]

(DJ) Spoon’s Review of 2018

This year I haven’t listened to much music at all, at least not in comparison to previous years and I certainly haven’t been to many gigs. I’m sure this won’t last but this year I’ve been busier at work so less likely to plug in, I’ve stuck to the radio in the car just to keep up with how messy Brexit really is (ooer a bit of politics) and my runs have been 100% fueled by podcasts so music has just taken a backseat. However, I couldn’t let the year go past without some kind of list...so here is a pot pourri of my favourite discoveries of 2018.

1. Podcasts

Seeing as these have been so important this year I’ll start here...and cheat slightly by bigging up some oldies, but good enough to bang on about again.

Old favourites : Running Commentary (Comedians Paul Tonkinson and Rob Deering take you on their runs and chat sometimes about running, but always about life, kids, comedy and anything that pops into their heads), Adam Buxton (always entertaining ramble chat from Dr Buckles whoever is on, I’ve learnt stuff and I’ve laughed a lot), My Dad Wrote a Porno (Sheer filth as ever but genuinely caused me to LOL during my runs, wondering if people can hear that I’m listening to chat about vaginal lids).

New entries : Off Menu (Ed Gamble and James Acaster opened their genie run fantasy restaurant a month ago and it has quickly become one of my favourite podcasts ever. Eclectic guests pick their fantasy 3 course meals, simple premise and it works. The Scroobius Pip episode was a perfect clash of two excellent pods), Blank (another late entry into 2018 from Jim Daly and Giles Paley-Phillips ostensibly about blank moments in life but just rammed with infotaining chat from ‘non standard’ guests including a jaw dropping episode with Michael Rosen and fun with Gary Lineker and Susie Dent), Poddin’ on the Ritz (sadly now finished with maybe its only series) this pod recorded backstage at Young Frankenstein by Hadley Fraser and the sublime Ross Noble made me laugh more than any other in 2018, it might be about musicals but their search for Kenneth Branagh’s snowglobes and Lesley Joseph adoration was a joy.

2. Board games

They say a family that plays together, stays together. Well we are together more than you can imagine. We’ve played over 220 games this year! Here are our favourite new games into our collection:

The game of the year is Azul, a seemingly simple tile grab and place game, building up a mosaic prettier than anyone else, is full of strategy and a little (but not too much) shafting of others. If you really want to shaft your fellow players though then pick up Unstable Unicorns, a card game where you aim to grow your stable of unicorns, whilst stopping others filling theirs. SO many different cards, tactics and ways to mess it up, you will swear at some point. Discovered in the excellent new board game cafe The Dice Box in Leamington, we bought Meeple Circus before we left, it’s that much fun. Rehearse and perform the best tiny wooden meeple circus performance, accompanied by a bespoke playlist. Stack the acrobats, balance the lions and raise the bar. Another board game cafe, Chance & Counters in Bristol introduced us to the frantic game of Klask, a cross between air hockey, pool and table football. Slide the magnets around to flick a ball into your opponents hole, avoid the magnetic biscuits and don’t KLASK! When is a game not a game? another game of the year has been played a lot in our house, and it’s The Mind. 100 cards numbered 1-100, no words between players and a tense task to lay cards in ascending order. Simple? yes? possible? nope! but it’s sure to cause fun and arguments. The final two of MY favourite sadly aren’t quite as loved by my family, but I’ll get them there. Sagrada is a similar game to Azul with you attempting to build a beautiful stained glass window with coloured dice. More variations and thinking needed than Azul which adds to the challenge. And finally and lovely chess like 2 player game which transports you to the sun dappled Greek island of Santorini. Take the powers of a god and build the traditional blue domed white houses of the island whilst trying to stop your opponent climbing onto a roof. A lot of ‘aha, you’ve stopped me’ moments.

3. TV

It’s been a long old year at work, and in the world of parenting so we’ve found ourselves flopped on the settee many evenings just soaking up great drama, comedy and chilling ;o)

We are very late to the party with Suits but that means we have 8 series to wade through! Really neat writing, bants and relationships between characters, a ‘don’t worry they will always win’ calmness about it and you get to see the Queen in her knickers...ish. Another Netflix treat this year was Magic for Humans with Justin Willman, a hugely likeable and funny magician pulling off tricks that constantly make me smirk with a huge dollop of WTF? amazing. A huge recommendation. A late entry to my TV highlights of 2018 is from the warped warped mind of Charlie Brooker...of course with Bandersnatch. An interactive choose your own adventure TV ‘event’ (I know) that had us hooked for the full 90 minutes (only if you want to see how much bloodshed you can invoke!). Completely on the other end of the spectrum was the sublime and minimalistic Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. I don’t like fishing and why would I find two old mates just teasing each other for half an hour entertaining? No idea but it was beautiful. Like Radio 4, comforting and perfect. Then a few suspenseful dramas that got us on the edge of the settee, Killing Eve (quirky AF), Bodyguard (did they really kill Keely Hawes that early?) and Informer (bleak bleak bleak) and sweaty bullocks in ‘should be in the next section really’ Bird Box (made Informer seem like a giggle fest).

4. Films

Really haven’t been to the cinema much in the last 12 months and only once to see a ‘grown up’ film I think but kid’s films are SO good at the moment that’s ok. A few stand out films for me were:

Ralph Breaks the Internet, much better than the first one, lots of #lolz internet jokes and more than a little heart. Wrap me up in a duvet and give me a hot cocoa and Paddington 2 any day, tears at the end. A little more sighing but just as much emotion in Christopher Robin, not sure why Eeyore had an American accent but the characters were spot on and nicely faithful to the original concepts. The one time I did venture out for an adult (it’s a 12 so almost ;o) and saw Ready Player One I was delighted, yeah it might not be a) as good as or b) anything like the book but a visual treat and an enjoyable romp.

5. Books

I read A LOT, until my Kindle donks me on the head in bed anyway...literally a tiny selection of books that have kept me awake. 

The Secret Lives of Colour - Kassia St Clair. They say never judge a book by its cover. Well that didn’t work...I bought this purely because it is a beautiful package, the hardback a lot more pleasing imho. Simply 2 coloured pages about how each colour was discovered, invented and introduced throughout history. I never really gave it a thought that colours were...made. Weird and fascinating.

This Is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay. A hilarious ‘secret’ diary of a junior doctor that horrifies at the same time. I think we all knew it was a hard life but bloody hell, if you didn’t love the NHS before you will after this. A thoroughly enjoyable and insightful story of Adam’s journey through medicine. And that ending...wooof.

Moose Allain - I Wonder What I’m Thinking About. I love Moose, I love his colour-me-advent calendars, I love his tweet threads that show the best in Twitter, I love his cartoons and this book is all of those wrapped up in one. And a certain Mr Spoon is to thank for the publication, find me in the back of Unbound funders! An inspiring book for anyone who loves art, creativity and childish humour.

Factfulness : Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World - Hans Rosling. A brilliantly clever and educational book about why the world is NOT as shit as it might seem some times. It’s all backed up by real data and lovely lovely graphs!

Lee Child and Ian Rankin. A highlight of the year is the next Reacher and Rebus novels and these two didn’t disappoint. Rebus’ latest adventure Past Tense, is a self-contained story that could introduce anyone to the man machine that is Jack Reacher. Rebus however is back, retired but won’t lie down, in In A House of Lies, an old case comes back to haunt him and will this finally be his downfall? I doubt it!

6. Music

As mentioned, I haven’t ‘been into music’ as much in 2018 for various reasons but I’ve still enjoyed some great new discoveries:

Barns Courtney - The Attractions of Youth, discovered via the use of Glitter and Gold for the theme tune of Netflix’s Safe. An album of ‘cheesy, commercially viable blues and folk rock’ apparently. I just liked the visceral nature of some of the tracks and it always fired me up at work on slow days.

Isaac Gracie - Isaac Gracie, a rare listened to recommendation from my wife. Isaac is everything I claim to like, fragile thin sensitive boys with acoustic guitars....and I do very much with this. Painful screeched out tales of heartbreak. Sublime.

R.E.M. - Live at the BBC, 104 rare and live tracks from arguably one of the best bands ever. Some of the tracks I haven’t heard since my bootleg cassette buying days at Sheffield Uni, when the world was in black and white. Not all tracks are of the greatest audio quality but bliss for a fanboy like me.

Creep Show - Mr Dynamite, a spin off project for Mr John Grant and even from the eclectic crooner this is an odd one. Glitchy electronica with vocoders all over the place. Weird and very Marmite.

Public Service Broadcasting - Every Valley and everything else. The latest offering from the other PSB was a trip through the miner’s crisis and Thatcher years. Bleak? yup but fascinating snippets of well, public service broadcasting and guest stars including the obligatory Welsh rockers the Manics. This album is perfect by itself but it ‘forced’ me to go back and really discover all the PSB albums. The Live at Brixton release is a huge recommendation, I wish I was there.

Rex Orange County - Apricot Princess, maybe I just added this in to seem cool as Rex, aka Alexander O’Conner, was ‘one to watch in 2018′ from the BBC. A multi-instrumentalist that dabbles with hippity hop, R&B and piano pop. The first track alone contains about three musical styles if you wait. 

7. Food & Drink

I run, because I really like food. And thankfully I’ve run a lot in 2018 so I got to enjoy a lot.

I was introduced to the weird fermented tea monstrosity that is kombucha by my sister-in-law. Vinegar tasting drink that may or may not help your gut that grows in your living room. WTAF? However, health benefits aside the LA Brewery Strawberry and Black Pepper drink is something, alongside my pilgrimage to Leon, worth going to London for. I’ve heard it’s also for sale in Solihull but I don’t often travel that far beyond my class ;o) I’d say, try it...but I suspect 9/10 people with hate the flavour. 

I suspect 10/10 people that try the Aldi Black Forest Mince Pies would love them, but you won’t get a chance as I’ve bought them ALL. Aldi are a bugger for getting you hooked then never restocking. I only managed 10 boxes in 2018 and we’ve rationed well so have 12 left to get us through the bleak January weather. Cherries, Dark Chocolate, Chocolate pastry and a smidge of mincemeat. Perfect!

There are many ingredient delivery services available and I’ve only tried Gousto but I don’t know why you’d go anywhere else. 33 recipes tried and 32 of them I’d have again, with the one not so good one was still far better than anything I’d cook by myself. So easy, so tasty and if you want to try it I can give you a big discount that will help us buy another box, a tad expensive without a discount but worth a treat every so often.

Genuinely I traveled to London just to visit Max’s Sandwich Shop...kinda. It was certainly the deciding factor in a day out at the Summer Exhibition (see below). I downloaded the Kindle version of this book when it was promoted in an email, I bought some Scampi Fries and made a Fish Finger sandwich, I crumbled up some Ginger Nuts into a Mascarpone and Jam sandwich and I made a Fried Egg, Shoestring Fried and Gammon sandwich then I NEEDED to go and see how it’s really done. Amazing over the top sandwiches in a rough little hipster cafe in Stroud Green (no me neither and it’s a long walk from the tube!). So good I had to a) buy the hard copy of the book and b) carry half the sandwich home as even I couldn’t manage it all...not with deep fried macaroni balls filling me up ;o)

8. Places

A family that plays together, stays together as a great man once said. And we don’t just play inside, we love adventures so adventures we had.

I’d never been to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, as it’s in that there London which often seems hundreds of miles away...but I’m so glad that I visited this year. A trip with a good friend with neither of us knowing quite what to expect. We saw, and laughed, and marveled at, paintings, sculptures, videos, photos, models, and weirdness by Banksy next to Joe Lycett next to Grayson Perry next to Harry Hill, next to me mate Lorsen Camps from Coventry. The SA allows ANYONE to submit artwork for consideration and anyone can be accepted. I think this has to become a yearly visit, awesome.

My parents have been wanting to take our kids, and their big kid, to The Forbidden Corner in North Yorkshire for a few years now...and I’m so happy we finally got round to going. Started as a folly to entertain his children this huge labyrinthine site is crammed with strange sculptures, mazes, tricks and squirting fountains. Many hours were spent squeezing through holes, getting lost and getting wet. Beautifully eccentric.

A family holiday to Brittany meant we could visit the loopy city (it’s their phrase!) of Nantes and more importantly Les Machines d’Ile. Ostensibly the workshop of  a group of engineers and artists that make huge animatronic machines and animals...that you can ride on! Needs to be seen to be believed, the Elephant brings out the big kid in everyone...and we can’t wait to go back in a few years when they’ve built a huge forest over the river with ride on caterpillars and dragonfly. Incredible. The city itself is dotted with crazy art and interactive pieces encouraging play, I know a city closer to home that should be the UK Loopy City of Culture!

Luckily Tilly is a Harry Potter obsessive AND it was her birthday last year so it gave us the excuse we didn’t need to visit the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour. Wow, just wow. The incredible detail in everything made for the film, the engineering, the amount of artists involved and the presentation of the exhibition blew us away. I’ve enjoyed everything in this list but this maybe was the most magical in the best way.

Many many amazing experiences warrant a mention, but I just don’t have enough words, include Talking Birds - Walk with Me, Print Manufactory Darkroom Workshop, Ludic Rooms Random String Festival, Go Karting with Tilly, some dancing balloons in Broadgate, Godiva Festival with Tony Christie et al, Bristol Gromit trail, Disc Golfing with my girls, Edinburgh Fringe with Dick and Dom and with another wonderful dick from Coventry starring in Bon Jovi musical We’ve Got Each Other, Pandas! at Edinburgh Zoo, Matilda the Musical with Tilly at last, running the Coventry Mile with the girls’ school, Dippy the Dinosaur in Brum, Wicksteed Park (amazing family fun theme park like what they used to be), Cycling on Stratford Greenway in the sun, Autotesting at MotoFest, Bourton-on-the-Water (it’s just a shame 3 million other people know about this gorgeous village), Giant Pac Man in the city centre, Pork Pie making with a good friend, CET several times, Novelty Automation in London and being on The One Show, a couple of Hope & Social gigs and much much much more fun with my wonderful fam and friends. Roll on 2019!

[newkate]

Siege Harder

For @noirearrowshoot: a Die Hard / Dragon Age 2 mashup for @teamblueandangry Let it Glow event!

mHanders, sfw. CW: about as bloody and violent as Die Hard and DA2. But actually fluff. ~4,5k.

During Satinalia week the College of Enchanters was always almost empty. Most students and staff went home, to celebrate with their families or catch up with their friends. The only children left were the ones who didn’t have a home to go back to: orphans, or those who’d been disowned by their parents when their magic came in. That happened rarely now, mostly in remote and fervently devout areas of Ferelden and Anderfels. Every year one teacher stayed in the College with them, helped them put together their daily meals and a little holiday feast, and made sure the little ones weren’t scared to sleep in their emptied dorms.

This year it was Anders’ turn. Hawke grumbled, of course, but he understood. They lived in town, a short walk from the College, they spent every night together. He would be fine alone for just a week. He could use the opportunity to spend more time with Bethany’s brood, remind them he was definitely their best and most beloved uncle, no matter how hard Uncle Varric tried to buy their allegiance with thrilling stories and lavish presents or how allegedly cool and handsome Uncle Fenris was.

Still, Hawke could visit his husband and bring him Satinalia treats. That wasn’t clingy or lovesick, that was just good manners.

He bought a few things at the market: some sugared plums and roasted nuts, some toys for the little magelings. He walked to the College Square, whistling a festive tune, and then his hands went numb and all the lovingly wrapped parcels spilt into frozen mud.

There was a templar on the main balcony. He was at the same spot where Dean Fiona would stand at the start of each term, to address the new intake of students and their families. Seeing the shiny helmet there instead of her smiling face felt like the worst kind of nightmare.

“Magic must be leashed!” the man yelled. “Magic must serve us! We must cleanse this place!”

There were others, more helmets bobbing in the doorway behind him. The great doors, the main entrance to the College, had always been flung wide open in daytime despite the drafts it caused in the lobby in winter. The mages wanted to have that symbol: the College was free, open to the world. Now the doors were shut. There were a couple of city guards pushing and pulling at them, but by the way the doors didn’t budge at all they seemed to be barred from the inside.

A crowd of townspeople gathered under the balcony, exchanging worried words. Two full squads of city guards were there, shuffling in place, probably awaiting orders.

“What’s going on?” Hawke asked the nearest one.

“Templars,” the woman said. “Templars came from Maker knows where. Took the College, shut the doors, said they’d kill the kids if we try to siege. How many kids are there?”

“About two dozen,” Hawke muttered and stepped closer to the building.

“Anders!” he yelled through his cupped hands. “Anders! Anders!”

The templar on the balcony stopped the speech and probably glared at him - not that Hawke could tell through the helmet.

“Anders!” he kept going. “Anders!”

Two floors above the balcony a window opened and a dear, beloved face peeked out, and Hawke nearly whimpered in relief.

“Hello, love!” Anders yelled, smiling, a gave him a wave. “We’re all fine, we locked ourselves in the library! The kids are being really brave! I’m just trying to figure out how…”

“No!” Hawke screamed. “Stay put, babe! Don’t do anything! I got you, you just stay safe!”

More templars popped out onto the balcony and craned their heads up to look at him. Hawke tensed, expecting them to hit Anders with a smite, but they made no attempt to. He was probably out of range.

“You don’t have to!” Anders screamed, smiling wider. “It’s fine, really!”

“No! Look after the kids, just be safe!” Hawke answered, and then, in front of half the town and all those mystery templars, blushing like a girl, he yelled on top of his lungs: “I love you!”

“I love you too!” Anders replied, leaning out of the window more, as if he wanted to leap into Hawke’s arms - and how wonderful would that be, if Hawke could really catch him like that and whisk him away from danger.

“Don’t you dare!” the templar roared. “Don’t anyone fucking dare get in here! You two, get away from the doors! If the city values these children’s lives, nobody will interfere with our work! We need four covered carts drawn by good horses in front of these doors by noon. We will take the children to a safe location and check them for possessions. We will release everyone who’s clean…”

Hawke dramatically flipped the templar off and ran into an alley leading away from the College. He needed some supplies, but mostly he needed to disguise his approach. They wouldn’t know what would hit them.

Half an hour later, armed and extremely dangerous, the former Champion of Kirkwall sleekly penetrated the templars’ defences through the laundry room window.

He nearly got stuck in there. He spent a few horrifying, humiliating moments wriggling in the narrow frame, frantically trying to suck his stomach in. He should have expected this, really - he’d barely managed to squeeze into his old armour. Quite a few belts had to be left unfastened, which, in his opinion, looked dashing and stylish.

Eventually he struggled through, softly landed on the tiled floor and tiptoed toward the main entrance.

There were two templars by the barred doors. They were busy ripping coat hangers out of the cloak room. Some other broken furniture were already piled in front of the door to reinforce it in case of a siege. Hawke cut them both down before they could reach for their swords. He moved the barricade, unbarred the doors and lingered there, considering his next move.

He could open the doors and let the city guard in. But that would alert the rest of the templars right away, and any chance of subtlety would be lost with a throng of flat-footed guards bumbling around the place. It didn’t matter if Anders and the children were safe in the library, but if the templars would manage to capture them…

No. He’d handle this on his own.

Hawke considered the layout of the place, the routes to the library and best possible spots for traps and ambushes, and began working his way up.

The next two templars he came across were at the doors of the College vault, trying to tamper with the locks. Hawke was going to sneak closer to watch and listen and figure out what they were up to, but, as it turned out, the last fifteen years of happy, sedate married life took their toll not just on his waist circumference. His steps were a lot heavier now. The templars heard him, wheeled around and drew their swords, and he had to kill them both before he could find an opening to secure and interrogate at least one.

Hawke took his boots off after that and proceeded soundlessly. The next templar he found was in the Dean’s office, swigging her prized Orlesian brandy straight from the bottle and rummaging through her desk.

“Hello,” said Hawke, stepping up to him from behind, and put the point of his dagger to the man’s inner thigh through his skirt. “Nice and easy now, if that goes through your femoral artery--”

The templar screamed, twisted around, carelessly sliced himself on the knife and smashed his bottle over Hawke’s head. Hawke staggered backwards, a little dazed, and cut his right heel open on a bottle shard. The templar reached for his sword, and managed to half-draw it before collapsing in the pool of his own blood, his skirts turning redder.

There were clanging footsteps in the corridor: several templars were running here, alerted by the scream. Hawke slipped outside, wrapped his neck scarf over his foot to stop smearing bloody prints over the floor, dashed around the corner, curled in the empty dumbwaiter shaft and closed the hatch behind himself.

If they found him here, he’d have no choice but to kill them. But what he really needed was intelligence on their numbers and intentions.

“Dead,” said one of the templars once they reached the Dean’s office. “Go check on the others downstairs.”

Someone clanged past Hawke’s hideout and soon announced the discovery of the other bodies.

“I bet it’s that fat old man with the stupid beard,” said someone else and Hawke tried to memorise the voice to be sure to kill that one with extreme prejudice. He was not fat, and only forty seven, and his beard was gorgeous. Anders adored it.

“Look, these tracks, that must be his blood. He’s wounded. He won’t be trouble much longer.”

“Still, we better make sure…”

They moved away, and he couldn’t hear them anymore. But it stood to reason that they would search this floor and guard the staircases. Hawke climbed up the shaft, fumbling and slipping in the darkness, as far as it would take him. It didn’t go all the way to the library floor, but it made a decent shortcut, anyway.

This level of the College was mostly classrooms, where the students could practice their spells without endangering priceless books in the library. There were no signs of the templars here so far. Hawke curled on a chair by a window in an empty classroom to pick glass out of his foot, rest his tired muscles and have a little think.

Something had been bothering him about these templars since he saw and heard the first one, out there on the balcony, and only now he’d managed to put his finger on it. It’s been fifteen years since the Circles had been abolished and the templar order effectively disbanded. Hawke had been thirty two back then, but of course plenty of templars had to be as young as nineteen. Still, even those would be in their mid-thirties by now. But all the templars he’d come across had seemed younger. Suddenly he regretted not taking their helmets off to make sure. Where had they been hiding all that time? Where did they get their lyrium from, come to think of it?

There was a soft sound outside, and Hawke drew his daggers and hopped there on his good foot to take a look.

There was a boy of about eighteen, in College apprentice robes, huddled under a desk in one of the empty classrooms. He saw Hawke loom in a doorway and flung his arms out, as if about to cast an offencive spell.

“It’s all right,” Hawke said. “I won’t hurt you. What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “I got separated from the others, I think they hid. The templars are going to kill us, aren’t they? I’m so scared!”

“We’ll be fine. I can use a little help, though. What’s your name?”

“Jean…”

“I’m Garrett. What schools do you specialise in?”

“I’m… not very good,” the boy said meekly. “Can’t really control what happens, it just goes wild. In the olden times I’d be Tranquil by now.”

“No worries, we all learn at our own pace. My nephew iced himself to the floor just the other week, shit happens. He’s five, though, but I’m sure you’ll both get it when it’s time. Come on, we better get this over with. Do you know how many templars are there?”

“Lots. Maybe thirty. Shouldn’t we just wait here? What can we do against so many, we’ll both die!”

“We won’t,” Hawke said soothingly. He led Jean into another classroom and shut the door behind them. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“The stairs are that way…” Jean gestured behind them.

“Sure, but they must expect me to come up there. I know a secret passage, it’s over here. We’ll flank them and pick them out one by one.”

There was no secret passage, of course. They were almost up to the blind wall that didn’t connect with the library floor in any way when Jean fell back a little, drew a dagger from his sleeve and aimed a confident stab between Hawke’s ribs.

Hawke caught his hand mid-swing and broke his wrist with one vicious twist. Jean wailed in pain and fell to his knees, and Hawke perched himself on a desk and disapprovingly shook his head.

“Backstabbing an old rogue? Really, did you think that would work? And, just so you know, these robes are tailored for every apprentice, and yours don’t fit. Come on now, how many of you really are there?”

“Help!” Jean yelled. “Attack, now!”

“The rooms here are soundproof,” Hawke said. “The kids cast tempests here all day every day, the walls and the doors are very thick. Answer the question.”

Jean spat out a string of curses, cradling his broken wrist to his chest. Now that he didn’t keep up a carefully gormless wide-eyed expression he didn’t look as young, but still seemed barely in his twenties.

“All right, let me introduce myself properly,” Hawke said. “I’m Garrett Hawke, the husband of the man you have trapped up there. I used to be pretty famous when I was the Champion of Kirkwall. And afterwards for a bit. If you know me from The Tale of the Champion, you don’t really know me. Varric, bless his britches, left out a lot of ugly stuff. Like the agony I can inflict on you with or without my knives, while keeping you alive. Please don’t make me do that. How many of you are there?”

“There was ten of us before you showed up,” Jean gritted out. “You killed my best friend, you fuck!”

“Oh, I went through half of you already? Good. Now, explain to me why do I have templars in my city fifteen years after the order was abolished. You must have been, what, seven, when the last templar snorted up his last doze of lyrium? Is someone still training you in secret? Come to think of it, why haven’t I seen any smiting from you lot?”

Jean bared his teeth in defiance, and Hawke sighed and reached for his knife.

“We’re not really templars,” Jean said quickly. “We got the armour from that crazy old man who used to collect them.”

“Names, please. What man, where?”

“I don’t know, some guy in Kirkwall, we didn’t ask his name. We got word he had lots of good stuff in his basement, but there was mostly just templar armour. So then we had this idea…”

“What idea, to cleanse this place? But if you’re not even templars - ah, right. The vault. You’re just robbers, aren’t you?”

“It’s not right, what happened to the templars,” Jean said, suddenly solemn. “The mages are a threat to us all. They’re mixing with us and polluting our blood. There will be none of us normal people left if this is allowed to continue. They’ll rule over us, like in Tevinter. The templars knew that. They were protecting us.”

Hawke could rant on that topic for days. But in the end, here was the truth: there was now a whole generation that didn’t remember what things were like in the olden days, even for the ones who had no mages in their families. What Kirkwall was like for the last three years of Meredith’s rule. What happened when the templars broke the accords and set out to eliminate the mages and their sympathisers wherever they found them. What the templars were like when they ran out of lyrium.

Hawke had made his peace with the former templars a long time ago, even though that was a long and winding road that involved punching at least one Knight-Captain in the face and scarring the poor sod for life. A lot of them were victims too, orphanage brats forced into it, made addicts, brainwashed until they didn’t see “the robes” as people any more.

These young ones, though, they grew up during peacetime, in a kind of prosperity Ferelden and the Free Marches hadn’t known since before the Blight. They took for granted everything their parents’ generation had fought for. For reasons Hawke couldn’t begin to understand, these boys have built up new romantic ideas of what the templars had been like. The helmets weren’t just a convenient disguise for robbing the empty College, Hawke could see it now. These boys were proud to wear them. They thought themselves champions of the just.

He suddenly felt very tired, old and defeated, but this was not a time to feel sorry for himself.

“Why all the theatrics, why not just empty the vault in the middle of the night and run?” he asked.

“Because if we have the kids as hostages we can take everything,” Jean said. He seemed suddenly encouraged - probably, since Hawke hadn’t replied to his speech about the templars, he assumed he’d won the old man over. “Not just whatever we can stuff in our bags. The books upstairs are priceless. The city will give us those carts and horses, they’ll cave in, I know it. We can load up half the library in those. And nobody will chase us. We’ll ride away, and then we’ll disappear. Nobody would have seen our faces. Look, your husband locked himself in there with all the children, he wouldn’t open. We’re going to set fire to the doors and smoke them out. If he keeps on being stubborn, children might die. He might die. Now, if you convince him to let us in, nobody will get hurt. You’ll both come with us, to keep the children from freaking out. And when we’re clear, we’ll let you go and give you a share. With five of us dead, you can have half of what was to go to them.”

“Hang on,” Hawke said. “Wouldn’t it take a while to fence all this? The books and the trinkets from the vault are all highly specific, very traceable items. To get the right price you need the right buyer. How are you going to cut me my share before you even sell anything?”

“No, that’s the best part, we already have a buyer! For the artifacts, and the books, and the kids…”

“The kids?”

“Only the elf ones,” Jean said. “We were going to let the human ones go.”

Hawke sighed, grabbed him by the neck, hauled him toward the window and swung him out.

“Hawke!” yelled the Captain of the City guard at the sight of him. Now every guard from the barracks seemed to be here, including the off-duty shift, lined up and in a middle of some kind of tactical briefing. “That better not be a hostage!”

“Why would it be? This is the ringleader of the gang!” Hawke helpfully explained, dangling his wheezing captive over the courtyard stones. “He has information about slavers in the area! Get a blanket or something, my arm’s getting tired!”

“Hawke, we talked about this!” the Captain screamed mournfully. He pulled off his own cloak and instructed the guard to stretch it under the window.

Hawke let go and watched Jean plunge down with a howl. He bounced off the spread cloak and fell onto the stones, and screamed when the guards attempted to pull him up.

“Hopefully broke another bone,” Hawke muttered and gave the guards a thumbs-up. “The door's open, by the way! Come in!”

“Hawke, please stay put, just don’t do anything,” the Captain started, and Hawke shut the window and limped to the stairs. Anders and the children were still safe, if Jean was to be believed, but he couldn’t wait any longer.

He ran up the stairs to the library floor. Jean hadn’t lied: there really were just four fake tempars left there on the landing. Two were facing the stairs with their swords drawn, waiting for Jean to walk Hawke into the ambush, hopefully already with a knife in his back. Two others crouched by the massive oak doors that led to the library proper. The door was splattered with oil, and small blue flames already danced up those dark patches, not hot enough yet to eat into the old wood, but moments from it.

“I’ll give you one chance to surrender,” Hawke managed before they all rushed him.

He’d wanted to fight them. For all the fear and helplessness they’d made him feel, for all the memories they’d dredged up. For Anders, for the children. But even as he dodged the first attack he already knew that fighting four swordsmen alone was a stupid idea. It would have been even fifteen years ago, when he’d been young, fit and sharp from regular skirmishes, but it was spectacularly unwise now.

“Should have waited for the guard,” he sighed to himself as his arms screamed in pain from parrying the sword blows, as his knees loudly popped whenever he rolled under a sword swing. “Should have waited.”

In the end he only took a few glancing hits, shallow wounds Anders would fix in one breath, and only once slipped on the blood still gushing from his foot. Luckily, falling spared him from a stab he wouldn’t have been fast enough to side-step. After he felled the last robber Hawke smothered the fire with the stolen templar skirts and slumped by the singed door to catch his breath.

With his ear to the door he could just hear Anders’ voice, steady and clear. He was entertaining the kids, keeping them calm.

“And then they all attacked me and stabbed me right through the heart!” Anders said, eliciting a few gasps from his audience. “But Justice, my good spirit friend who lives inside me, always comes to my aid in times of trouble. He popped out, healed my wound, defeated all the templars and ate them.”

“Gross!” laughed a few children.

“Right? Spirits are not like us, you see, he didn’t see anything wrong with that. He knows better now. But he’ll still always protect me and all my friends and students. So don’t worry. You’re always safe with me.”

“Justice will save us from the bad men?” asked a child that sounded about as young as Bethany’s latest masterpiece, five-year-old Malcolm.

“Even better, this time my husband will save us! The bravest and most handsome man in all the Thedas! He’s so charming and gorgeous, and there’s no better fighter. These cowards are no match for him.”

Hawke smiled to himself and knocked on the door.

“Babe,” he called. “It’s me, it’s safe to open. Bit messy here, though.”

He heard Anders’ footsteps approach, the bolts inside slide free, and then the door opened and he saw his love again, smiling, safe and unharmed.

Hawke stepped through and shut the door, leaving the corpses behind.

“Let the guards clean up before the kids come out,” he said and drew Anders into his arms.

They kissed, and it felt just like that first time almost two decades ago: everything else fading away, Anders clinging to him with his whole body, making desperate noises against his mouth.

“You’re safe,” Hawke said afterwards, gasping a little for breath, and stroked Anders’ fair hair, traced the familiar silver streaks in it with his fingers. “I know you probably could have dealt with them by yourself--”

“Yes, but I was worried about the kids. You remember how Justice can be around the templars. I knew they’d be no trouble for you.”

“They weren’t even real templars. Just stupid brats playing at a heist.”

“Good,” Anders said and kissed him again, and Hawke melted into it, forgetting all about his injuries. “It did unsettle me a little, seeing them again. But I knew there had to be a simple explanation. It’s all over, it can’t happen again. It never will.”

“Never,” said Hawke, as if swearing a vow, and Anders led him inside the library, closer to the windows, where the children were waiting, quiet and worried.

“Who wants to see spirit healing of a real life wound?” Anders asked, and all the kids threw their hands up and clumped around them to watch as Anders healed Hawke’s foot, the cuts on his arms and ribs.

“Is he really the handsomest man?” Hawke noticed one teenage girl whisper to her friends sceptically, but he ignored it.

Afterwards Anders channelled Panacea to heal Hawke’s tired muscles and strained joints, cuddled Hawke to his side and told the kids about their wedding and their top three most romantic dates. The Guard Captain popped inside the library and gave Hawke a well-worn speech, chiding him for interference with the proper protocols. Hawke nodded along and, as usual, promised it wouldn’t happen again.

After the bodies were removed and the blood was mopped up they finally left the library. The kids instantly split up into little groups and dispersed through the building, desperate to run and play after hours of being cooped up and probably scared out of their minds despite their teacher’s best efforts.

“Can we go home?” Hawke begged. He couldn’t imagine leaving and letting Anders out of his sight again.

“You know I can’t leave the children. Especially now. They’ll need me.”

“They seem fine.”

“They’re relieved now. This will wear off by supper, and there will be tears. You can stay here, though.”

He gave Hawke his beautiful, warm smile, the same one that had dazzled Hawke all those years ago. The smiles revealed more lines at his eyes now, but that only made them more radiant.

“After we tuck the children in,” he said. “I’ll take you to my room and give you your Satinalia present. And your reward for rescuing me today.”

“Are they the same thing?” Hawke asked hopefully. “Twice?”

“It’s a surprise,” Anders smiled and gave Hawke’s butt a loving squeeze. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

[summerstainedandtemporary]

I decided to overthink my fear. Sue me, I’m a Scorpio.

“What is your biggest fear?”              

“Blood.”  

Growing up, I had been a sickly child who didn’t get to go to my nursery classes because I was confined at home, watching Looney Tunes over the smoke and noise of a nebulizer to treat my frequent asthma attacks. When I mean “sickly”, it’s when I was confined both at home and at the hospital majority of my childhood. Dengue fever, UTI, Asthma. Most of my childhood memories were made up of trips to the albularyo because of fevers or coughs that would never go away. I’d also remember the bitterness of medications I drank that took an hour of persuading, coercing, and pleading from my parents for me to drink. I took too many medications back then that I developed black teeth when I was a kid.

Most of all, I had too many encounters with blood-related sicknesses or accidents. The most distinct one was that there was a point in my childhood where I’d wake up every night with a nosebleed. I used to sleep in between my parents back then. Imagine the horror of waking up to your child with blood dripping down their nose like some kind of an exorcism film. I would hear the panic and worry in Mama’s voice as she would wake up Papa. I rarely hear that kind of voice from her, so in turn, I would also panic. Was I dying?

It went on for weeks but we never really went to the doctor to know the cause or treat it. But I heard from them that I might be probably just suffering the consequences of the abrupt changes in temperature and weather. My parents just got used to the routine of sleepily tilting my head up in the middle of the night until the bleeding stops. But not me, I never got used to it. I was still on high alert long after the bleeding stopped with the lingering taste of copper at the back of my throat. There were nights that I’ve mistaken the nosebleed for a runny nose and the next morning, I would wake up to the sight of bloody shirt and hands like I just murdered somebody in my sleep.

I like to think that this was where I started to develop my fear of blood.

One would say that the experience could have made me used to the sight of blood. But, it didn’t. The gamble of opening my eyes to blood or not traumatized me. Up until now, when I’d be having a runny nose at night, I would almost always turn on my phone’s flashlight to check if it is blood. I’m not grossed out by the dark thick liquid, no. It’s the implication that something serious might have happened.  

Like that one time in grade school where I wondered what would it feel like to run with my eyes closed. The feeling was liberating, with the wind against my body. It was like that scene from The Sound of Music where Julie Andrews was singing on a grass field with her hands held up. But it didn’t felt so freeing when I smacked my head into a concrete post. I bounced back and fell on my behind, eyes still closed. There was that horrifying moment again. The uncertainty of what liquid was dripping from my nose. Was it blood? It was. I saw it coating my hands again. Like those many nights. There was blood. Something terrible happened.  

I didn’t know why everything was hazy and I felt so sleepy. My aunt, who was taking care of us that time, had found me and wiped all the blood from my face that I couldn’t bear to do. The parents and yayas waiting for their children along with Aunty Upeng were alarmed once they saw my state. The clinic was closed during that hour as it was exams week, so the parents fussed over me while I drowsily leaned over my aunt. They bought an ice candy from the canteen and put it to my forehead which apparently had a bump. I also remembered throwing up a lot. In the bathroom. In the pavement. Even in the tricycle we rode on the way to the hospital. Aunty Upeng apologized to the driver, but I still felt bad. I didn’t say anything though. I just wanted to sleep back then. But I was continuously woken up by my aunt who was dragging me to the hospital where my mother was waiting.

I had a concussion that afternoon. And apparently, I also broke my nose. Fortunately, I wasn’t confined which relieved me so much from my worries. However, when I discovered we were going to the hospital, I panicked. Hospitals are for emergencies, accidents, deaths. It’s the place I’ve been confined in too much in my life with lingering scents of rubbing alcohol, squeaky wheels from metal carts containing rattling needles and syringes that have been injected on my arms too much too count. The main problem I had that time was if I were to be confined and injected with an IV drip. Not my concussion or broken nose. It was the IV drip and how they would puncture my skin. The act of opening my flesh with a sharp object.

My fear of blood came hand in hand with hospitals. When I see blood, I think of being in the hospital. I hate how stark white hospitals are. White bed sheets and pillowcases. White walls and floors. White uniforms. White cottons, tissues, and bandages. I hate it so much because dark red blood looks so glaringly daunting on white objects or surfaces. Somehow, it amplifies its presence in a room. And it is inevitable to encounter blood while in a hospital because of my frequent nosebleeds and injections. I’ve learned the skill of not moving my left arm for hours because of the fear that blood would appear on the tube connecting my hand and the IV drip.  

This reminds me of how I had always been longing to donate blood in a blood drive despite this fear of mine. But I’ve always made up excuses whenever there’s a blood drive in the university. I’d say, “I’m busy with school work that day” or “I slept late last night, it’s not allowed”. The truth is I’m really just avoiding this confrontation with blood and needles. Will I faint? My friend told me once how her blood stopped flowing out because she was nervous. Would I experience the same thing? It would be like an IV drip all over again. Only this time, it won’t be clear liquid flowing from the tube. It would be what I was avoiding: dark red warm blood.

Mama convinces me to this day to take up Medicine and be a doctor. This is the very reason why I didn’t and would not. I still panic even when the blood does not come from me.

Like that one night when my family and I were on the road to eat somewhere after the Sunday mass. There was no traffic because Papa was driving smoothly. I was at the back leaning in between the driver’s seat and passenger seat in front and we were all happily talking over each other; each with our own different stories to tell. I remembered someone was singing – it could have been me – and was abruptly cut off. I was thrown forward the same time Papa hit the brakes and something crashed into the front of the car. Thankfully, I had taken a hold of the car seats so my face was still intact. No noses broken.

               I remembered Papa being calm, despite having a known personality of being too sensitive and caring for the condition of our car. He exits the vehicle along with Mama, then, there was a blur of commotion outside. My brothers and I were asked to be seated at the back of the vehicle and the car’s sliding door was opened and a man was laid on the floor of the car. The door wasn’t closed the whole ride to the hospital as his feet dangled over. We were discouraged to ask questions or look over the man. But I had seen his foot. I was overtaken with the feeling that I should not move or else something will happen. The seats covered the rest of his body, but I saw his foot. His were wounded; blood and dirt covered his foot to his ankles. It was unmoving. And it looked pretty pale. To this day, I never knew if he survived. All I knew was that he was the one who hit our car with his motorcycle because he had been drinking. I wasn’t the one bleeding that night, but the image still haunts me to this day.  

“But what about your period?”

I’d scoff. Maybe if they’re an acquaintance or someone I just met, I would politely smile. This question really comes off as patronizing for me when one asks this in a teasing manner. It’s like assuming someone with glasses cannot see the number of fingers you’re holding up. They can see it, only a lot less clearly. People seem to exaggerate the irrationality of these situations and try to know to the extent of these irrationalities mockingly. Like maybe they’d expect me to faint then die while sitting on a toilet upon seeing my bloody underwear. Or maybe they’d expect that I’d avoid going to the toilet and handling the bloody mess. Yes, blood makes me anxious but I have no choice but to get used to the sight of it. Actually, period blood does not alarm me for the most part. But sometimes, I’d be horrified by the amount of blood leaving my body. Or flushing the toilet becomes dreadful because I have to take in the sight of a bloody toilet. It’s similar to saying “Oh you don’t like blood? But it’s inside you….” then comes their how-is-this-possible­-I-need-to-know-more gaze with a little bit – just a little bit – of judgement in their eyes. This tiny glimpse of judgement would rile up something in me, a need to justify my fear, despite knowing that I don’t need to defend myself. I’d explain anyway.

What people typically assume is that blood scares me because it’s blood; it’s gross. What they don’t know is that bleeding gives me an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and panic because the feeling is so much like the idea that something is leaking from you. And it’s oozing in the colour of a hauntingly dark red, something-terrible-happened red, dangerous glaring red. Might it be from a cut or wound, a part of you has been forcefully opened and that scares me more than anything. The body should be intact in the assurance that you’re okay. Blood is supposed to be INSIDE the body. The intact body. And when it’s not, it automatically turns on a panic alarm in my head with the bold words of SOMETHING HAPPENED flashing on and off in my mind because blood’s not inside me where it should be. It has made its way outside through an opening I don’t know where. I’m open somewhere. Vulnerable. The very thing that sustains my life is flowing out. And the idea that it’s already outside my body leaves me a feeling of not being in control. I don’t just simply cover up a wound with a band aid and call it a day. I still have to sit for a while and convince myself I’m not dying.

When I say blood, I also mean pain. Of flesh being sliced opened. People would tell me stories about how they were cut or wounded by an accident and I’d imagine the whole thing. Mama once told me a story of how she cut her arm up because she draw her arm back while a jewelry box closed on her, so the clasp tore her skin open. My mind would close in on the description of her flesh being torn and imagine it in every detail. The smooth flesh being run over with a sharp metal. At first, nothing will happen, or at most, the affected, marked skin would slowly turn pale like a chalked sketch of the outline of the cut. A few seconds in, little droplets of blood will seep through, slowly peeking out from the cut as if asking for a permission to come out. You move the injured arm and blood will flow out of it like dark red wine slowly dripping from a bottle. You move it more, and then you can see the skin opening, forming a mouth. Through the blood, you can see bits of pink flesh, the texture and appearance so similar to tocino ­– not the ones you order in carinderias where the pork is still a vibrant light pink; it’s the colour of the tocino you cook at home where you overcook it somehow because it tastes sweeter when burnt. The colour bordering between pink and red. I could immediately visualize it happening to my own skin. And then, a phantom of the pain would follow. The intensity of the phantom pain dependent on what my phobia tells me how painful it must be. That’s the routine. As a joke, my friends would share images of their fingers cut up or hold them up to my face when we’re together. As a habit, I’d clench my fists, my nails forming red little moon marks on my palms. I’d look away, of course. But my mind has already conjured up a visualization of how it came to be. It gets easier once the phantom pain pass.

When I say blood, I also mean death. I do not mean that bleeding automatically leads to death. It is the possibility of death that haunts me. That when I see blood, I am filled with the overwhelming panic to not die. So, maybe I fear blood because it implies a painful death. Maybe what I really fear is the thought that the last thing I’d feel when I’m alive is excruciating pain from mutilation, from my own flesh being torn open. But then again, I also fear the uncertainty of death. Death. How peaceful I envision it to be, but also how disruptive it is to a life I like to control. Dying means confronting the fact that I didn’t get to live my life the way I wanted it to be. Seeing blood haunts me with the concept of life flashing before my eyes. I wouldn’t say that mine would be boring to watch because I’m sure the flashes would contain several experiences of mine that I enjoyed. Flashes of me in the middle of a laugh while on a road trip with my family because Mama was teasing Papa’s funny English pronunciations. Flashes of me waking up on our terrace to the view of a pink sunrise; my friends still asleep on the mess of pillows and blankets I snatched from my room and laptops still open after a night of editing a film. Flashes of me floating peacefully on my back in Pasacao; my body being rocked by the constant waves of the sea and my ears drowned out by the sound of shallow waters, as I stare up the night sky and try to find a Scorpio constellation I once memorized from ninth grade. Seeing blood taunts me with the possibility that these could stop existing in an instant.

However, these flashes are not only limited to the good parts. I expect a re-run of several of my breakdowns; those caused by little petty things, like not getting to watch Jojo Circus peacefully because of a noisy construction happening in our living room, to those breakdowns caused by serious things like my parents constantly comparing me to my neighbour who could sing flawlessly to the high notes of Aegis songs or to my classmate who have been the top of my class since kindergarten. Maybe the flashes could surprise me and show me memories I’ve repressed and pushed too much to the back of my brain in hopes of completely erasing it from my memory because of how painful it had been. Flashes of a dark, cold room; my bed a witness to many of my sleepless nights asking God the million dollar question “what is the point anymore?” Or maybe a glimpse of Mama having a panic attack, mumbling “ayoko na, beh. ayoko na” while I have to hold her and calmly tell her to breathe with me as I desperately tried to keep my lips from trembling or my voice from cracking. God forbid the flashes show me a hunched figure of myself on the floor of our dorm’s cr, staring blankly at the white tiles, a razor in hand. Pathetic. Vulnerable. Not in control.

And then, death starts to look like a good idea. I never even willingly made the choice to be in this merciless rollercoaster ride we call “life” in the first place. So is it really scary to stop existing? Death seems so quiet and still. A possibility of nothingness. And in my life, there have been too many instances where I am desperate for that stillness, that nothingness. Buried underneath all the sunshine and rainbows we constantly try to project in our lives, I have been yearning to stop feeling altogether. I am reminded that maybe, just maybe, a part of me actually craves death. If it takes pain to stop existing, to stop feeling, then a painful death looks a lot less threatening and more inviting.

Then and only then, it gets a little easier seeing blood.              

[spideychelle-romanogers]

Heaven Lost An Angel - Part 1

First series from the Cringe-Worthy Spideychelle AUs Collection

Prompt: Trying to create the cheesiest, most unfortunate Spideychelle story possible.

Michelle Jones is a triple threat pop star that misses her old non-famous life. Peter Parker is an unemployed starving artist who is offered the chance to be her assistant.

Image credit: here Betas: @female-overlord-3  & @smileholland 

This job wasn’t just Peter’s last hope, it was the only way he’d be able to keep his secret.

Peter Parker was struggling. A few months out of grad school, Peter was already out of a job. Three years later, he was doing his best as freelance to keep himself afloat. He’d spent three months now on his best friend Ned’s couch, unable to pay his rent. It wasn’t until this offer came up through Ned’s connection at the Daily Bugle that he ever had any hope of getting back to work.

No one really told him what he was interviewing for. He dressed in a t-shirt and jeans like he would for all of his freelance work. When he stepped into the building, he realized his mistake.  He was brought into the office, noting the high ceiling and even snapping a few photos.

He was finally told the name of the man he would be interviewed by: Happy Hogan. He was interviewing people for work as an assistant, but no one could tell him for whom. He didn’t wait long before a man much taller than him came up and loomed over him in the waiting room.

“You’re a bit young,” was all he said before waving for Peter to follow him. The interview was fast paced and nonsensical. It descended from talk about his work all the way to questions like: “Can you take a hit?”

“What?” Peter asked, incredulous.

“Can you take a hit?” he repeated impatiently.

“....Yes.” No.

“How are your reflexes?”

“Good, I think.” Adjusting his glasses, Peter nervously shifted in his seat, looking around the room for help. There were records hanging around the office, trophies on shelves, this man was clearly proud, if a little bit shameless. It looked so clean, Peter could only imagine he didn’t spend much time here.

“Starting tomorrow, I need you to be able to think fast on your feet,” he warned. Peter grinned. “Don’t get too excited. This is a one-time thing for the tour. I don’t like hiring people without experience but this was very last minute and Mr. Jameson said you’re reliable. What did you major in again?”

“I got my masters in photography,” Peter answered as he distractedly wondered how much begging it took for Ned to convince Jameson to say anything nice. That man had influence, and if there was anything he’d use it for, it’s to tell everyone how useless Peter is at just about everything he does. The only use he had for Jameson was his photos. “He said you’ve been working as his assistant the past three years.”

What did Ned have on Jameson?

“Yes,” Peter lied.

“And before that you were Tony Stark’s intern?” Peter nodded, though that was not as interesting as it sounded. Peter was never even in the same room as Tony Stark. They shook hands and Peter counted his blessings that no one looked too far into this. He was desperate and nothing could stop him from holding this job. “You’ll have to start tonight. We’re on tour all summer and I need someone who can be there every day.”

“I’m ready. Wait- tour?”

“You’ll be assisting MJ,” he noted, as though Peter should already know who that is. Happy stared at him as if he was testing his reaction.

“Oh! That’s great. I’m so honored,” he answered as he stared back, willing himself not to look as confused as he was.

Walking into the concert hall, Peter caught the last song muffled through the floor. The concrete walls of the basement drowned out most of the noise. Everyone was bustling about so quickly, Peter decided to take a few photos as he walked around. The stage hands didn’t seem happy but he avoided them as he made his way past.

For the most part, Peter’s new employer was a mystery. Being so desperate, he wasn’t in a position to ask a lot of questions. The girl’s name was Mary Jane. While he’d never heard of her before, he did a bit of research before coming. After digging for hours, all he could find was information on her and her fiance. There was almost nothing available on her past or her beginnings.

MJ was known for being almost angelic during interviews and very sweet to her fans. She catered mostly to younger audiences, and her music wasn’t really to his taste. He cringed as the first few bars of music played. Then suddenly, he heard her singing and he was charmed. It would be a pleasure to work with someone so talented and humble.

Making his way backstage, Peter held his staff pass out like he was braced for confrontation. He couldn’t relax until Happy found him.

“Dress differently next time,” was all he was met with before being told to follow him. Peter looked down at himself, still wearing the same t-shirt and jeans. He didn’t realize there was a dress code for an assistant but he made an excuse anyway.

“Okay. I didn’t really have time to run home.”

“We’ll go meet her at her dressing room, then I’ll introduce you to the crew. You’ll have to memorize every face and name you meet, so pay attention.” They were about to walk on when Happy noticed Peter camera, hanging from a strap around his neck. “Do you take that everywhere you go?”

“Yes,” Peter said, adjusting his glasses nervously again. “Why?”

Happy sighed out. “Let’s just see how this goes. Shall we?” Peter Parker had never worked as an assistant in his life but he still told himself with full confidence that he’d make things up as he went along.

Stepping off her stage, Michelle would always get this rush for a moment that would make her feel like nothing had ever gone wrong. She got into this business for the fans. She loved the idea of someone looking up to her. There was this rush of happiness she felt whenever she took her final bow. Every night ended in more tasks, more news, more scandals to handle, but that one minute of bliss was all she had to hang onto.

That and the phone calls from her mother.

It had been months since she had been home to see her family. Her fiance Harry visited last night and she begged him to stay. It was desperate, it was pathetic, but then, so was she.

The stress wasn’t just taking over, it won her over. All she could feel was down. She used to have allies in this business but with time everyone showed their weakness. Hollywood is enough to break down everyone’s last reserve of good. Michelle learned that the hard way when she found her assistant flirting with Harry. He resisted this time, to his credit. Maybe this meant he was changing but Michelle didn’t really like to admit to her hope anymore.

After firing her last assistant, Michelle became sure that there was nobody left for her to trust. Her manager was supportive, but he would always put his job before her feelings. Tuning out of her own thoughts, she heard the chanting. The concert had been over five minutes now and they were still chanting her name. Well, they chanted-

Mary Jane.

They took her name from her too. Now she was MJ, but no longer Michelle Jones. Before she could use that thought to drag herself down again, she smiled to herself, knowing it was a show of love. One of the stage assistants handed her phone to her as she adjusted the shoulder of her dress. There were so many texts asking her how she was. The first one was an apology.

“I really am sorry, Michelle,” the text read. It was Harry.

Rushing back to her dressing room, Michelle turned on the television, looking for the entertainment channel. In silence, she waited. They talked about movies, sports, music, the scandals always came towards the end of the episode. The wardrobe team tried to get her out of her outfit but she kicked them all out so she could watch the news alone. It only took a minute for them to cycle the headlines before getting to the news about Harry.

Harry Osborn, billionaire fiance to the up-and-coming superstar Mary Jane was photographed kissing his ex-girlfriend outside of her apartment in Los Angeles.

Maybe she blacked out for a minute. It felt like an hour had passed before she was aware of her surroundings. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this to her, but it was the first since she really believed he had changed. Just before she could start to panic, she glanced down at her phone again to the apology. She missed the sound of someone knocking on the door as she screamed out and threw her phone to the wall.

Her manager stepped in with some kid standing behind him. She was embarrassed anyone caught her in her outburst, but she reacted as though it was his fault for interrupting. Happy looked unamused, but the kid looked downright horrified.

“This your nephew, Happy?” she asked, her tone bored. She hated when the crew would bring family by to meet her. She needed privacy, not more people poking around.

“You should be changed by now,” he noted. For someone so much older than her, he really managed to stay young. His skin was clear for someone with such a high-stress job. Michelle assumed it came with the power of their influence now. She was a household name now, he had everything he wanted out of her.

“I’m busy. Leave,” she huffed, resisting more outbursts for the moment. When the rage subsided, the tears would come. She wanted Happy and the guest out of here so she could have her moment. Looking behind Happy, she saw a short kid with a staff pass and a camera. “I’m not in the mood for pictures right now so you’ll just have to go home.”

“Meet your new assistant,” Happy said gesturing to the boy behind him. He looked so young and a little familiar but she didn’t pay it any mind. He looked unremarkable, in her opinion. Everyone did. “This is Peter Parker.”

“Are you kidding?” Michelle asked, pulling her earrings off and throwing them on her vanity.

“You specifically asked for a man.” Happy didn’t say it but she could hear the insinuation: a man so that Harry can’t flirt with them.

“Yes, a man,” she repeated, not noting she also wanted someone mute so she wouldn’t have to listen to them. The kid hadn’t spoken yet, maybe that favor had been served at least. She took a good look at him. “This isn’t a man, it’s a boy. He looks ten. He looks like a fan.”

“Mary,” her manager warned in a stiff tone. Michelle rolled her eyes and turned to Peter.

“I am very sorry…. Pedro, was it?”

“Peter.”

“Peter, I am very sorry but this isn’t going to work. I’m sure Happy can find you placement with the stage hands.”

“I don’t have time to hire another assistant, Mary, so you either keep him or you get your own coffee.” Michelle scowled at her manager, not knowing why he insisted so heavily on calling her by a name she detested. At the very least, backstage, he could call her Michelle. “Or we can hire Emily again, since it seems Harry can’t be helped regardless.”

Michelle felt that burning inside at how cruel the comment was. Swallowing, she told herself not to remind Happy it was his fault she’d ever met Harry in the first place. “I can give Emily a call,” Happy continued, reaching for his phone. Michelle knew he was bluffing but she could feel her chest closing up. She needed them to leave.

“He stays for the tour. Just for the tour.” Peter looked worried at the idea of being out of a job in a few months. Surely someone would hire him if he survived the summer, right? She had a reputation for being difficult. If he could survive this, he could survive anywhere. Michelle wouldn’t let herself feel responsible for someone else’s livelihood.

Happy left without a word, but Peter was too busy staring at her in fear to realize they were alone. She gave him another look over, at one point lifting the collar of his shirt to feel the material. Polyester, dear God. “If you annoy me once, Pedro, you’re out,” she said, getting his name wrong yet again.  “And for fuck’s sake, ask Happy for an advance and go get yourself some new clothes. I won’t have you embarrassing me.”

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[regigigina]

So I went to an escape room...

Not sure if reliving this traumatic experience through writing is beneficial for my mental and physical health, but hey, I need a topic to write upon.

I have been a patron on an escape room establishment in Singapore some four years earlier and found the experience displeasing if not altogether upsetting. The game was treasure-hunt themed and we were given a full hour to solve puzzles and retrieve keys, with which we discover yet another hidden room and another locked chest. 

It was not so much the difficulty that baffled me, but several of these riddles seemed too far fetched that they were incomprehensible without hints rendered through the walkie-talkie. Above all that, since time was of the essence, we had to work on each puzzle separately. The obsessive compulsive in me was displeased with not knowing how the others were solved - not until after the end of the game, at least.

So when I got invited to another escape room game late last November, I knew not to expect control over the situation and just enjoy the game. By now, I had in fact learnt to surrender control over everything which are not my own doing. I was not the least bit compelled to ask about the minutiae of our game and left the entire arrangement to my friends.

We arrived at the premises just in time, promptly made our payment and signed a waiver. I am one who would skim through the small prints in T&Cs, so breezing through this 10pt font waiver was nothing. The content was surprisingly pretty serious, with mentions of holding the business harmless of injuries, heart attack and death incurred during the game. I did not recall the game being that grim, what on earth are we playing anyway?

To my horror, my friends pointed at the far right of the three posters hung on the wall behind the reception desk. The title “SANATORIUM” was written large and blood-red across the top of the poster. In the background was a corner of a room, gray and in industrial style, plain but stained. Right in that very corner was a long-haired female figure with long white dress, crouching on the floor so that the face was hidden from view. A shiver ran through my spine, my stomach tied up in knots, suddenly my steps were heavy.

“...I thought these games were all treasure hunt and detective themed,” I said in defeat.

“That doesn’t sound like much fun! It’s only fun because some of us are scared.” replied a friend who came up with the idea to play this escape game (duh).

Now it appeared impossible to back out of the game having paid my share of it, and to the mental list of pros and cons I added good reasons to go on such as not wanting to be a killjoy, and a wish to be invited the next time they go out. But now it looked as though the waiver terms were tailor made for me, and there was no eradicating the possibility that I would emerge from the room horizontal on a stretcher.

Worse, we had discussed on the way, at some point in the game the five of us would have to split into two groups. In the car I (only half) joked that I was not scared to die so feel free to throw me under the bus, but secretly dreaded not being able to figure out the riddles by myself. Upon the disclosure of our game title, I simply dreaded being on my own.

"It is all in my head,” I repeated to myself as I fought my gut feeling and proceeded toward the locker.

No phones or bags were allowed in the game, instead we were given one walkie-talkie to communicate with a helper stationed outside. We stood in an all-black antechamber next to a metal door bearing our game title. On the opposite wall, sound effects and scream or shouts of other players blared from behind closed doors.

After a brief explanation, the helper bid us good luck and - not open the door to our game, mind you - showed us a ladder leading to the ventilation, through which we crawled our way into the game. Already my imagination ran wild in that corridor, any moment now rats could run squeaking past me, hands reaching my legs, a shiver up my spine again.

Clawing our way through that corridor we emerged into a chilly, virtually pitch black reception room save for one mounted monitor which first gave us the background of the story. The scant lighting from the screen illuminated the four walls around us and, bloody hell, the wall was literally splattered with blood and scrape marks - what the hell am I doing here???

A creepy tune started playing and the video explained that we were actually locked in the hospital reception for our own safety. The doctors and nurses had all abandoned the scene due to ravages by an eerie patient (guess who? that woman in the poster!), so we must find the clues they left behind and get out of there before she finds us. Fuck me. A mild gush of cold air blew and the woman’s shriek blared across the room. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck! I let out an abrupt scream and glued my back to the nearest wall, not that it made me feel less frightened.

The haunting tune lingered throughout the game, interspersed with the woman’s howling, doors’ creaking and something clanking. The atmosphere grew infinitely eerie while I grew infinitely stressed. I cannot tell you enough how much my imagination is my curse. I stopped watching horror movies in eight grade when they started to creep into my dreams. Twelve years later now, I am no less adept at picturing my own reflection smiling back at me, or a hand jolting from behind a glass or mirror.

The guys were having fun and actually working on the puzzles, but I was too petrified to function from the start. Imagine my terror when they finally managed to unlock the exit door, opening up a hallway leading to - yet - a number of other doors (we were probably only 20 minutes into the game by then). I plunged into anxiety and apprehension. I felt my heart raced uncontrollably, lightheaded and sick in the stomach. I begged to give up the game early but my friends gave me that we-don’t-want-to-be-the-bad-guy-but-that’s-a-no look.

When the time came to split into two groups, things went horribly wrong and we ended up with groups of three guys and two girls. We, two girls, huddled up and crouched under a computer desk, terrified. I was near crying and fainting - and by crying I mean wailing, because tears had been discreetly shedding since long before. Tortured, I dared not look but to my feet.

It was horrifying when there were five of us; now that there were only two of us I thought a heart attack was imminent. I had been clutching hard to my friend’s arm and she, in turn, was clutching hard to the walkie-talkie.

“Ugh.. We give up, please get us out of here, please... We’re too scared to continue. I think I might need the toilet too,” my friend radioed the helper outside.

“....so you guys need the toilet?” he answered.

“We can’t walk out of here... We can’t go on anymore, we give up, please send someone to pick us up,” we begged.

“...you can’t.”

A short silence.

“Your friends need you.” he continued.

At once we both gave a loud, despaired, helpless sigh and let our heads fall back to the wall. In retrospect, this was perhaps the most hilarious moment - here we were two girls waiting to be saved, but had no choice other than to be the knights lest our friends would be forever stuck in the escape room. Kudos to my friend for saving the guys all by herself, while I desperately clung to her and painstakingly covered my view from everything but the floor I walk on.

There were a handful other funny moments throughout, but elaborating on them would be spoiling the best bits of the ingenious plot. Safe to say there were enough jump scares to leave me with a fresh phobia of doors for a couple of days. Just writing down some of the details here gave me the chills... Needless to say I took precaution not to work on this article after dark.

[somebodyhelpthenotdeadfreds]

Day 8: The Swan Princess

@thesilverqueenlady this one is a good one :) more Black Swan inspired, actually please read the rest of my series here. oh, and listen to this video when you reach that point in the fic. you’ll know which one. enjoy!

Jack hadn’t been the same since Will and Hannibal went over that cliff and never resurfaced. They were alive, he just knew that they were, even though they were declared dead. Purnell told him to drop the case or else finally retire. He chose to drop the case.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

He had borrowed Will’s imagination and he had broken it. Then dragged him back when he finally got out of this life, dragged him away from Molly and back into Hannibal’s clutches.

And now he was gone. If he wasn’t dead because of the fall, Hannibal was probably torturing him wherever they were. He shuddered to think of what Hannibal would do after Will tried to kill him this time.

Jack owed it to Will to find him. To set things right.

It had become an obsession that ate away at him, day after day. It interfered with his other cases, it gnawed at him as he tried to sleep. So many fuzzy photos, so many grainy videos.

His biggest break was finding Dr. Du Maurier in a classy apartment in upstate New York, in a nondescript neighborhood, not thrilled at the prospect of an interview. Her long blonde hair was shorter now, in a jagged cut, and there was also the small matter of the fact that she only had one leg. She downed two painkillers with a glass of Chardonnay as he sat in front of her.

“It still hurts,” he asked, but phrased it as a statement. She only scoffed at him cracking open a fresh bottle and pouring another glass, even if she refused to offer him a glass as well.

“Amputate a leg, you can still feel it tickling, twitching where it once was. An itch you can never really scratch, there’s nothing there. I still remember how it tastes,” she said passively, staring into her glass. “Nothing washes that taste out.”

“Dr. Du Maurier-”

“It tasted like pork. Isn’t that funny? Like pork. He did it Kalua style, roasted ti leaves and all. I think there was some pineapple juice in the marinade for it, some roasted peppers, something tangy. Maybe that was just my flavor, though. You know, women eat pineapple so that they taste better, that probably has something to do with it, I ate garlic before that dinner.”

Jack interrupted her, uncomfortable with how blasé she was about her situations. “Bedelia,” he stated firmly, using her name to get her to look up at him. “Hannibal- where is he?”

“Don’t you mean they?”

“I-”

“You don’t want to admit it,” she sighed, taking a long sip. “You don’t want to admit it to yourself, Jack Crawford. Will Graham’s not eating oysters for Hannibal, he’s eating pineapple and drinking cranberry juice.”

“What are you-”

“I was still high after dinner, but I’m pretty sure they christened my guest room, I heard it,” she groaned, taking a slug right from the bottle. “I’m hoping I can wreck my liver and poison my blood so I taste real bitter if they come back.”

“You’re not making sense, doctor.”

“I’m not, Jack?” she snapped. “Get it through your skull, and give up on them. The Will Graham you knew was never real. And you will never catch them. You found us in Italy because Hannibal wanted you to, he wanted Will to. You think he’ll let you find him now, with his ultimate prize finally in his arms? It’s like a shit ballet, going round and round the stage but we all know the ending anyway.”

Jack said nothing. “...I have to find them.”

“I’ll send flowers to your funeral, then. Goodbye, Jack.”

                                                       ***

“Jack?” Brian asked hesitantly, knocking on the doorframe to his office. Jack only glared from behind his laptop. Brian knew what he was doing, he was searching the crazy conspiracy side of the Internet looking for pictures, videos, any sort of proof of either Hannibal or Will’s existence. It was getting scary, watching stoic Jack Crawford stand on the precipice of mad obsession.

“Jack, we found something on the Lance case, could you-”

“I’m busy, Brian, I’ll be down later.”

He couldn’t hold back. “Jack, please, you need to stop doing this. Just - just let them stay dead. Maybe - maybe they deserve each other.”

“Out,” Jack growled. Brian bit his lip and nodded, leaving the room. He shook his head to Jimmy outside, who had sent a questioning look.

“He can’t let them go, he’ll look at every grainy photo and video there is. I’ve seen better pictures of Bigfoot than the ‘proof’ he obsesses over.”

Meanwhile, Jack had received a new email, with an attached video and a note:

Stop looking, Jack.

Angry, and with nerves jumping, he clicked on the video crudely titled Rothbart and the Black Swan.

The screen lit up with a scene of a costume ball, elegant in nature, probably no more than a hundred people in attendance. It was apparent that the camera was placed up in a balcony above the ballroom, and was scanning over the crowd. The timestamp dated it. Two weeks ago today. From the muttering of the cameraman, somewhere in Italy. Tuscany? Venice? It was unclear.

The camera chose to zoom in on a man in an fancy crimson suit jacket, a cape and mask to match, his hair back in a slight ponytail. There was a fencing sword in a scabbard by his leg. Maybe it was real, maybe it wasn’t, none of the guests seemed to not notice or care. He was finishing his drink, handing the glass over to a waiter before crossing the room, in search of someone. The camera zoomed in and out of focus, obviously trying to avoid detection until it finally stopped on the man bowing to another man, offering his hand for a dance.

Jack examined this new player carefully. Short brown hair, left long enough for it to curl. The black feathered mask covered his features well, and he had what appeared to be an engraved hunting knife strapped to his thigh. But what really struck Jack was how the man was dressed all in black, complete with a cape that looked as though it were made of raven feathers.

He accepted the man’s offer as the orchestra struck up the next song. Jack found that he recognized the song, and it tugged on painful memories.

It was Scène: Allegro, Tempo di valse, Allegro vivo, of Swan Lake.

When she was alive, Bella had loved the ballet. One of Jack’s fondest memories was taking her to a production of Swan Lake for their anniversary, and seeing her eyes light up with the stage. And he would admit, it was a beautiful performance, and no performance had been as memorable as the first time he saw it. He remembered Bella gasping at the ending, where the prince and his love, the White Swan-

lept into the lake together to avoid being separated.

Jack’s eyes widened in horror and realization as he watched the mystery pair danced so in tune with each other. It was uncanny. They flowed together as though they were two halves of one person. For a while the man in crimson led, then his partner took over, and they switched back and forth over and over again with no discernible pattern, always changing, always turning, but never stepping out of place.

The song. The song. Scène: Allegro, Tempo di valse, Allegro vivo. It was the song of the Black Swan’s dance of deception.

And the man in the crimson suit was dancing with his own black swan. They were fooling the crowd, all of them.

The black swan looked as though he was being led, but instead was leading with such obvious, controlling ease it was though he was born for this role. He was composed, lithe, but - but he felt dangerous, almost as though he could turn around snap at any moment.

The man spun his black swan around when he was leading again, twirled him away before bringing him back even closer. A hand possessively gripping his partner’s lower back, as the partner had an arm around his neck while holding the other’s hand.

When the crimson prince spun the black swan out again, the swan stared directly into the camera. Jack looked back and saw deep, piercing, familiar blue eyes.

If you stare long enough into the abyss, eventually the abyss will stare back into you.

He spun back into the arms of his crimson prince, clutching his shoulder with his black glove tight enough to rumple the velvet. It was passionate, it was carnal.

Will.

(Odette could only turn back into her true self if she won the love of one who had never loved before.)

Will was never the white swan, with the darkness fighting to take over. No. Will was always the black swan, and now he had shed his white, downy feathers for long, thick black ones.

It felt as though the dance went on forever, they danced around the room in hypnotic circles, twirling in time to the music, faster and faster, only focused on each other. Jack’s vision was blurring with black feathers, the music sounded like wings flapping, tearing at his skull. Will was transforming before his eyes as they spun faster and faster. He was becoming a real black swan, his arms became wings, embracing his darkness along with - with - Hannibal.

Hannibal was never the damn prince in this story. He was Rothbart, he had transformed Will, but not into a pathetic little thing. A helpless little swan became a confident, horrifying force. He was his.

And then, just like that, the music stopped on the crescendo. The prince dipped the swan into a final pose and held it. Then he pulled him back up, only for the swan grip him by the collar and yank him down into a hard kiss.

Around them, the crowd clapped, and Jack felt like clapping as well, as his veins filled with cold dread.

The swan broke the kiss first. Blood was smeared across his lips, and the prince’s lip was bleeding from a bite. But he was smiling, looking proud. The swan was smiling as well, leaning close to his prince, not even turning as he snatched a piece of pineapple off of a waiter’s tray. He slowly ate it, slowly dragged the toothpick out between his teeth. He winked.

That was enough, Jack couldn’t stand it any longer, he pressed ‘pause.’

He closed his eyes to try to calm down. He took a deep breath and reopened his eyes, hitting the play button again.

But there was no prince. There was no swan.

They were never there. They were never there. 

He was losing it.

He was losing it. 

But then he heard choked sputters and the camera turned around. The cameraman’s eyes rolled back and went cold, his body jerking like a dying fish. The engraved knife from earlier was removed from the man’s chest. Jack squinted in order to make out the face of the killer, but all he saw was the Black Swan staring into the camera as the prince pressed kisses down the hollow of his throat. The Swan smiled, a gloved hand tousling the other man’s hair and murmuring something in French.

He smirked into the camera, before suddenly reaching out and sending the camera smashing into the ground, causing Jack to physically jump out of his chair. He swore loudly, slamming the laptop closed, slamming that chapter of the case closed.

La commedia è finita. The comedy is finished.

Jack’s dreams were filled with images of black feathers and crimson velvet and bloody lips and blue eyes, with Swan Lake playing in the background.

Tomorrow: a excuse for me to write Will with a southern accent.