#anyway this post has been in my drafts for too long. be released my child | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

val-aquenta · 4 years ago

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I’m on fire posting these fics. They have mostly been languishing in my drafts, so I really just have to spruce them up a tad to post them ahahah.

Here on ao3

Qui-Gon is the first to call him Ben. Obi-Wan is a name that is too long for him to yell, so he is nicknamed Ben. At least, that’s what he said. Obi-Wan thinks otherwise, obviously.

“Why Ben? What’s wrong with Obi-Wan?” He wonders, not noticing he’s said it out loud until he hears Qui-Gon chuckle. “What?” He flushes, affronted by the cheeky grin on his Master’s face. It is a look that screams trouble.

“A little long, Obi-Wan, huh?” Qui-Gon pauses for a moment from where he is preparing for flight. “Not exactly perfect for yelling when I need your attention.”

Obi-Wan puffs up a bit, not dissimilar to a loth cat Qui-Gon notes with amusement. “Obi-Wan is a good name.” The boy defiantly tries not to pout while saying this. “It’s not like I call you… John.” He mutters softly, voice sounding put off.

“John?” The older man’s wrinkles crease around his eyes as he smiles. He shrugs. “Ben is a good name regardless.” He defends.

“Obi-Wan’s better.” He opposes tetchily, eyebrows furrowing. “What’s so special about Ben anyways?” He asks with curiosity, always eager for new information.

“Well, Ben technically means son of my right hand, a phrase from my homeworld’s main religion.” Qui-Gon murmurs, willing to try and satisfy Obi-Wan’s need for answers. “The religion is… complex. I don’t even understand it completely, but I do understand the meaning of the phrase.” He pauses.

“Well… what’s the meaning of the phrase?” Obi-Wan fiddles with his hands, eyes alight with interest. He flushes self-consciously when Qui-Gon lifts his eyebrows as though proving a point. He ducks his head, a hint of red on his cheeks.

“Well, in the religion, there is an entity called God. And the phrase to be at the right hand refers to being in a space of special honour, the right hand, of God.” He explains, enjoying the way Obi-Wan seems to brighten with the new information. “Being the son of the right hand should mean that you will grow into this space of importance. Rather fitting, don’t you think?”

“Oh…” Obi-Wan flushes, freckles disappearing into the deep red colour. Qui-Gon swears the tips of the boy’s ears are red. “That is kind of you to say, Master.”

“It is the truth, my Padawan.” Qui-Gon smiles, clapping a large hand on his shoulder and tugging the boy in for a hug. Obi-Wan startles, tensing for a couple of seconds until he relaxes, shorter arms just barely managing to reach around Qui-Gon.

::::

Satine was the next to call him Ben. You see, Bant never truly latched onto the name that Qui-Gon christened him with, preferring to stick to her shortened form, Obi. Therefore, Satine is the next. She hears it once when they’re getting shot at and Qui-Gon has a plan that has an 80% chance of ending up with all three of them dead, but it’s better than their current odds. Qui-Gon yells it at him to get the boy to pay attention.

At first, Satine is startled, thinking a new ally has joined them but is surprised that it’s just a nickname for Obi-Wan. Granted, she doesn’t call him Ben for that long because she, like Bant, prefers to call him Obi.

She does call him Ben when they’re parting ways, and Obi-Wan’s chest aches something fierce. Qui-Gon watches, eyes somewhat sympathetic as they follow Obi-Wan. He pretends not to notice as they share one small, sweet, innocent kiss. It’s everything Obi-Wan wants, but he hesitates and glances back at his Master, and then pulls away from the embrace, head bowed. It is almost everything he wants, and that makes all the difference. If he stayed, he would abandon his Master and his family in the Temple. More than that, he would abandon his path as a Jedi. Even Satine, for all he cares about her, is not enough to sway him from his path. The Force whispers in his mind, sorrow and apologetic, thankful for his sacrifice. The choice cements and he lets go of Satine.

“Ben…” Satine whispers, the word almost lost in the wind. “I… good luck.” Her blonde hair, carefully arranged on her head, moves as she bows. “Thank you, Master Jedi, for your protection.” Obi-Wan bows back, though his head remains tilted down, not willing to look at the woman.

“It was our pleasure,” Qui-Gon responds, sending a little pang of comfort down the growing bond with his Padawan.

“Do be careful.” She says, deviating from her formal script. “Farewell, Master Jinn, Padawan Kenobi.” The names fall easily onto her tongue as though she hadn’t spent almost a year calling them something else with much more familiarity.

“May the force be with you, Duchess Kryze,” Obi-Wan murmurs, and he walks away from Satine, from the comfort of that life, and into the Jedi transport, his Master, a steady and strong pillar in the Force, ahead of him.

“… Ben?”

“Yes, Master.” Qui-Gon looks as though he wants to say something, wants to spill some secret, but he thinks better of it, instead closing his mouth and opening his arms, catching Obi-Wan as he falls into them.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs into the pale ear, his hand stroking circles into Obi-Wan’s shoulders. The boy, because that’s what he is, does not respond, only tightening his grip and inhaling the comforting scent of his Master.

::::

Mace is the third Jedi off the transport ship. He is also the third to call Obi-Wan Ben, though that happened a while back on a joint undercover mission with Qui-Gon. He reverted to calling him Obi-Wan, but then he reverts once more. He’s older and wiser, and, has been a friend ever since Obi-Wan was a small young child of the creche.

“Obi-Wa… Ben.” Obi-Wan’s heart cracks just a bit more. Never again will he hear that familiar voice whispering that name to him. The deep baritone voice rumbling it. It hurts worse than leaving Satine, Cerasi, or Siri, or losing Reeft had. “Sit down with me and let’s talk.”

“Yes, Master Windu.” The response is immediate, drilled into him with years of training.

“Tell me how you feel, Ben.” Mace rumbles, voice not as deep as Qui-Gon’s, but very close. Obi-Wan is certain that if he were to press his ear to the bald Jedi’s chest, he would feel the voice vibrating.

“Fine…” That response is nailed into him out of fear. Fear of not being good enough.

“Really?” Mace murmurs disbelievingly, leaning forwards and taking in the red-tinged eyes. A hand reaches out and takes one of Obi-Wan’s hands, feeling the slight chill that seems to emanate from him. “You don’t look fine to me.” He says in a frank manner that only he can pull off without sounding overly rude.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” Obi-Wan responds, more exasperated than he thought it was going to sound.

“Ben… you’re not wrong to be sad. It isn’t wrong to feel loss or to grieve.” Mace says, voice closer to whispering than to speaking. The man scoots closer to Obi-Wan who, in the eyes of the Republic is also a man but, in reality, still feels like the thirteen-year-old being sent to Bandomeer, or the sixteen-year-old who left Satine, or the- “You’ve just lost a man who has been by your side for twelve years. It will hurt.” Obi-Wan laughs, but it is more cracked and painful than any laugh Mace has heard. He desperately scrubbing at his eyes as though he wishes to scour them away.

“I know it hurts, Master. Force, my chest feels as though I was the one who was run through with a lightsaber, not Qu-” His voice breaks around the name, and he devolves into small sobs. Mace observes the boy being thrust into Knighthood with something close to helplessness. He had lost Cyslin in a less brutal manner and yet it had hurt all the same. All Mace can do is offer some comfort to the man. “There’s a hole where he was and I can’t-” Obi-Wan's voice cuts off as he cradles his head in his hands.

“Ben,” Mace says it curtly, as though fully taking advantage of how short it is. Qui-Gon dragged it out a bit, seemingly relishing the way the name made his mouth shape. Satine’s lips always made the name sound sweet. Short and filled with emotions. “Observe and release your emotions.”

“I can’t,” Obi-Wan admits. He tries to look at his emotions. He can understand, but he can’t release and make them go away. There’s just too much. He says as much to Mace.

“Let me help, Ben.” And it is as though Obi-Wan is a youngling once more, trailing behind Padawan Windu in cream coloured corridors. As though they’ve been transported to a time when Mace’s forehead did not have the stressed wrinkles it does now. As though Obi-Wan hasn’t just had a piece of his heart carved out with a sith lightsaber. Together they sink into meditation, aware of each other, and acknowledging one another. With a little flick from Mace, Obi-Wan begins to reveal his mind warped by guilt and self-loathing and anger and pain and… it’s too much, Mace admits to himself. So, he starts small. A small statement, I was too slow, is given to him, and they watch it together, understand it together, and accept it together. Then, he moves to another, unwanted. And to the dozens that remain. Mace does not judge, and his heart aches at the knowledge of the burdens Obi-Wan is thrusting upon himself, but he says nothing about it, only reaching for the boy… man after their meditation and bringing him into a hug that lasts a full minute.

::::

Cody is a really good researcher. Sure, he’s great with a blaster, and hand to hand combat, and anything to do with the military really. He was trained under Jango Fett and the Kaminoans. But, one of his greatest strengths is his efficient diving into the Holonet. He can splice information from different databases, even the Jedi Temple’s database. Technically, he could just go to the Archives and find the information, but he could be seen there, so he doesn’t. Instead, he sits at the main console of his barracks and begins to get information regarding his new General. The Jedi, Kenobi, seems nice enough, but looks can be deceiving. In this case, however, it seems that they’re not. The little ginger seems to have a kind streak about the size of Ryloth.

“What in the world…” He mutters as browsers pop up. Multiple mission reports that he skims through to reveal another thing. Apparently, the General has a penchant for injuries. A really bad one if the reports are not a joke. He digs through one that was co-written by one Qui-Gon Jinn, and he spots some errors. At least, he’s sure they are errors because he’s pretty sure the General’s called Obi-Wan… not Ben. However, he doubts that the General would let that slide.

“Ben.” He forms the name under breath, making some multi-syllable word from it. “Ben.” He says it curtly. It is more efficient than to say General Kenobi or, Force forbid, Obi-Wan. The Jedi have the oddest names.

“Commander…” He jumps, turning to look at the man in question as he walks into the barracks completely unannounced. “I was, ah, wondering if you would like-” He squints at the console’s screen. Cody flushes deeper than before, the crimson stain spreading around his neck and up to his ears. Caught researching his General by the General in question. Rex will never let it go.

“General Kenobi, sir.” He plants his feet and straightens his back. Obi-Wan looks at the report and then at Cody and then back to the report.

“Did you… hack into the Temple?” He questions curiously.

“Well… I do have the access codes…” He trails off.

“Is this… the mission to Joonta?” The General strokes his beard, leaning forwards to read his report. “Force, my diction was horrible back then. So was Qui-Gon’s.” He scrolls down.

“Sir…”

“Yes, Cody.” He seems oddly enthralled by the report, scrolling rather quickly through the pages.

“Is your name Ben?”

“Sometimes.” Obi-Wan… Ben? Hums. Reading through the report absently. Noticing the silent prompting from Cody, the General shakes himself a bit. “Oh. It’s a nickname given by my Master. Almost no one uses it.”

“Ah.”

“Cody… you can call me Ben if you’d like. I don’t mind.” He stops the frantic scrolling to look at Cody.

“The vod will better understand if I call you General Kenobi, sir,” Cody says while ticking the name onto the General’s name. General Obi-Wan ‘Ben’ Kenobi. Jedi and their names.

“If that is your wish.” Obi-Wan smiles. “Now, I came here to offer you tea in my quarters. Would you like to come?”

::::

Ahsoka’s always heard of the famous Master Kenobi or Padawan Kenobi or Knight Kenobi in pairs. Padawan Kenobi was always paired with Master Jinn, Knight Kenobi was paired with Padawan Skywalker, and Master Kenobi is paired with Knight Skywalker. Knight Skywalker is now obviously paired with Padawan Tano, so they're all connected. Contrary to what Anakin would think, Padawan Kenobi is the term she’s much more familiar with, and therefore is more familiar with the pairing of Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi. Even though she knows so much about Anakin and Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are within all the stories that the Crechemasters say. She knows of the most interesting missions that the duo took and is somewhat embarrassed to admit the amount of hero-worship she has for the two.

“Master Obi-Wan, is it true that you had to drink pirates under the table to rescue Master Jinn?” She asks out of the blue one day, noticing the way Anakin’s hand tightens ever-so-slightly, blue eyes dashing to Obi-Wan’s pinched expression. She’s new to her apprenticeship and she still feels overwhelmed if she thinks too hard about the fact that she’s the Padawan of The Anakin Skywalker, and is part of the famous lineage.

“… Yes. Where did you hear that, Ahsoka?” He frowns while stroking his beard, a habit he can’t seem to break. He doesn’t look too annoyed by the question. Instead, he looks amused and rather curious.

“Ages ago, Master, in the creche.” Obi-Wan shrugs and continues, waving off Anakin’s worried words. The smile on his face is nice to see. Ahsoka thinks it looks bad when the Frown is in place, and that is all that has been in place since the invasion of Ryloth began. She’s happy that she could coax a smile out of the typically austere looking man.

A few months later while they’re travelling through hyperspace on Obi-Wan’s ship, Ahsoka blurts another question. Obi-Wan had offered to teach Ahsoka some jar’kai during the hyperspace travel, and Anakin had assented, remaining on his ship while Ahsoka trained with her other Master. “Master Obi-Wan, is it true that you once were eaten by a large squid and then spat out?” She asks at the mess hall. Cody, who was rather peacefully eating his meal thank you very much, chokes on the ration’s he was chowing on. Stitches, the medic, appears to have swallowed water down the wrong pipe and is sending a concerned look at Obi-Wan. The man in question deflates, shrugs, and answers quietly.

“Yes, Ahsoka. On Fuleya. Master Jinn thought I was dead for two minutes. Nearly screamed his throat raw trying to cut me from the beast's stomach.” He shrugs and then proceeds to tap on his datapad as though the clones in the immediate vicinity aren’t looking as though they’re having heart attacks. They’re very… protective of their General sometimes. Ahsoka shrugs as well, turning back to her meal. “Was this also heard in the creche?” He asks with the very amused glint in his eyes. The smile also seems to brighten his face.

Ahsoka feels a warmth in her stomach at having brought another smile to the man’s face, especially considering the stress he seems to be under with the war. “Yes. I heard lots about you.” He shakes his head fondly. She thinks that the smile on his face is worth the possibility that the clones might wrap him in blankets and lock him on the ship. Not that that would be a bad idea thinking about it…

“Master Obi-Wan,” She starts, her head tilted in wonder. This time, they’re alone. They are at the Temple, in Obi-Wan’s living room, sharing some tea. Anakin, ever the disliker of tea, had opted out, likely going off to see Padmè. “Is it true that your second name is Ben?” At this, Obi-Wan chokes on his tea, spraying the liquid around the room as he coughs.

Ahsoka startles, putting her own cup down and scooting closer to offer some assistance. “What?” He asks weakly, bringing a hand to his chest. This has been the most intense reaction so far. She rubs her hand softly on his back. Humans are ever so slightly warmer than togruta, and she delights in feeling the warmth through his Jedi robes.

“Barriss told me that Master Unduli told her that Master Windu told her that your second name is Ben.” Ahsoka chatters, looking curiously at the man who lies on the couch.

“Technically, Ben is not my second name. I don’t have one.” Obi-Wan runs a weary hand down his face. “Ben is a nickname given to me by my Master.”

Ahsoka perks up. “Oh, really? Like I’m ‘Snips’ to Anakin?” She questions, excited to learn more of the rather mysterious Master.

“Well, I suppose? Ben probably has more thought put into it than Snips.” He smirks playfully.

“How so?” At this Obi-Wan flinches. Ahsoka casts him another worried look but he waves it off.

“It’s a name meaning that I‘ll be special, essentially. It’s native to Qui-Gon’s homeworld.” He smiles softly at Ahsoka. “Much better than ‘Don’t get snippy with me.’” She laughs, happy to once more bring another smile to his face.

“Maybe.” She concedes. “I like Snips though.” Obi-Wan lifts an amused brow.

“I like Ben too.” They smile at each other.

::::

Luke never knows Obi-Wan as Obi-Wan. The thing is, Obi-Wan is dead before Luke is even born. In his place, Ben Kenobi is there. He knows the rough and weathered hand of Ben, not the smooth hand of Obi-Wan. He listens to the voice of Ben, not Obi-Wan. Because of that, there is no need for Luke to call Ben anything but Ben.

“Ben… why are you called Ben?” He asks one day. Owen is feeling in a more forgiving mood and Beru probably took pity on the sad old man, and they have allowed Ben to visit for a bit.

“The same reason you’re called Luke. I was named Ben.” He responds with a slight smile.

“Your Mom named you Ben?” Luke asks head tilted in curiosity much like another youngling tilted her head while asking about the name Ben. He wonders where the young togruta is, or even whether she’s still alive.

“No. My… father named me Ben." He swears that there is the gentle hum of laughter in the deep rumbling voice of his Master floating through the air. He looks around, but just the typical homestead surrounds him.

“Oh. That’s cool.” And that’s that. The boy runs away to the deeper parts of the house, a smile on his face. In his hands, a soft blue blanket flies in the wind.

::::

Vader knows who Obi-Wan Kenobi is. He is the man who took everything from him. He took his unborn child, his wife, his limbs, and his potential. Vader is sure that most of his problems stem from this Obi-Wan. Vader, however, does not know who Ben Kenobi is. You see, Anakin never knew Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan together long enough to know of the nickname. He wasn’t there as Qui-Gon whispered the name softly before his death. He never listened to Master Windu sigh his name as the two were chatting as they walked the halls. He never listened to the now-dead Duchess whispering nicknames into the ear of his former Master. He never listened to Cody jokingly calling the ginger, Ben. He never noticed how Ahsoka would whisper to Master Ben sometimes. Because of this, he misses the Jedi Master in his hiding spot.

“Darth Vader. Have you found your former Master as I asked?” Sidious sits on his throne of lies and steeples his fingers, wretched features obscured by his long, dark robe.

“No, my Lord.” The man bows stiffly at the waist, metal limbs not allowing anything truly graceful. “Kenobi is elusive, but he is old. Soon, he will be dead.”

Unknown to the two, Ben Kenobi, not Obi-Wan because that man died alongside the thousands of Jedi in the Purge, watches as a boy, the son of his fallen brother, plays in the sand, a toy spaceship in hand. Ben sits on the tip of a dune, smiling at the happiness the boy unknowingly projects as he wooshes the ship around above him. Ben’s hands are busy, carving a new ship for the child. He plans to make a Nubian for the boy.

“Ben!” The boy shouts across the desert, waving his hand. “Hello!” Ben smiles, and waves his hand in a silent greeting before he stands, joints creaking as he does, and turns back to his hut. Another day and the boy is safe. Cocooned in the silence of Tatooine, Ben takes comfort in the setting suns.

“Ben.” He hears the wind whisper, joining the deep baritone of Qui-Gon, the dulcet tones of Satine, the curt voice of Mace, the kind voice of Cody, and the young voice of Ahsoka. Luke’s toddler voice adds itself to the litany of voices, and Ben grins, watching the ever-changing dunes. Today was a good day. Seeing Luke usually makes his day, and this is one of those instances. A visit from his Master would do him good, he thinks. Soon, he will be too old for the lessons that the man has planned, but he plans to enjoy them while they last. Ben walks into the dunes, towards his hut. He might only have the ghost of one of the people who called him Ben, but he carries the other four close to his heart, carefully adding one more to that collection. The newest addition has a clear voice that is destined to deepen as he ages.

“How was your day, Padawan?” Qui-Gon is standing in front of the hut, serene as he was in life. Perhaps even more so.

Obi-Wan smiles wryly, feeling at peace for one of the first times in a while, “Quite nice, Master.”

Qui-Gon smiles indulgently, pleased that Obi-Wan still finds some joy in his life, “That is comforting to hear, Ben.”

#fanfic #star wars fanfic #duna writes #obi wan kenobi #mace windu #qui gon jinn #satine kryze #The slightest hint of obitine #obitine #Ahsoka Tano #commander cody #anakin skywalker

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pianostarinwonderland · 4 years ago

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Birthday Azul Story Details and Thoughts

I think I’m finally calm enough to be able to relay my thoughts on the lore we got from Azul’s story. So we’ll go through the details in order that they were brought up, and in bullet points, I may detail my thoughts ranging from pure keysmash to actual questions and theories.

I will place most of the post under a cut because this may get a bit long. Do note also that this contains spoilers for his birthday story so take caution.

Azul’s birthday parties are celebrated with the family and the staff. The restaurant would close for a day or two, and they will have a celebration where all of his favorite foods are laid out onto a table. While now, he thinks it may have been too much, as a child, this made him very happy.

First off, I FEEL SO SOFT OVER THIS;;; before his birthday card got released, I always thought Azul might not like his birthday because what if he associated it with the bullying he endured and maybe his bullies managed to ruin it. But nO, he actually had a happy birthday... no, multiple happy birthdays, and I’m just so fucking glad because HE CAN AT LEAST ENJOY HIS BIRTHDAY UEUEUEUEUE

It’s also very sweet how the staff would join in the celebration!! It’s so cute, and the way Azul talks about them gives that idea that he includes them as family;;;

Azul’s mom manages the restaurant. Her business started out small, but by the time Azul was able to understand the world around him more (I’m going to guess at least around 8 years old), the restaurant is now the most famous in the Coral Sea and many of the staff are professionals. Furthermore, she is not only an excellent cook, but also a genius manager. She’s also invested in the Mostro Lounge.

First off, I stan his mom

No wonder why Azul’s so good with what he does, he has a really successful and badass mom

It’s actually sweet that Azul calls her a genius cook and manager and includes the staff as family despite having an apparent dislike for the restaurant itself.

Also like, the fact his mom apparently helps him with the lounge?? Like brooo that mother-son relationship is sexy

As someone who would lean to mom more for help than dad, this really makes me feel so... is happy even a perfect word to describe it? I guess it’s just, wow more similarities to share with Azul I guess. 😳

This actually made me remember an essay I had to do in grade 7 HAHAHAHA it was about women leaders. I forgot what exactly I wrote, but part of my research was centered on how women were better in business than men. A quick Google search will lead you to an article that states that women are more honest, more empathetic and collaborative, and more resilient (having faced discrimination and all that), and the article also shows that women-run businesses generate more revenue than men-run businesses. I say take those details with a grain of salt unless you can prove that all of it is true. It’s not to say there aren’t successful men. Anyway, some people have a business-y mind and others don’t. I really just brought this up because it was funny how I remembered this. 😆

And I thought I would never use my school essays again.

I doubt she knows about the shadier side of the deals xD no matter how mature Azul tries to be, teenagers will be teenagers and will hide stuff from their parents

Azul’s father... is not actually his biological father but his stepfather. He is a lawyer who met his mom when she was filing for her divorce. While he is a kind and sincere man in general, in his work ethic, he is very thorough and flawless. He’s the one who taught Azul all about contracts and law.

Now here is the explanation as to how Azul knows about drafting contracts xD his dad knows about the law!

Even if he’s not his actual dad, I’ll still refer to him as dad because the kanji says stepfather but Azul calls him father. At least, that’s what my JP friend said. Point is, Azul respects him enough to include him as part of the family, and I actually really like that?? Not many media would depict characters liking their stepparents, but here, Azul is actually comfy with him. It’s like taking in a fresh breath of air.

I find it amusing that his mom probably married her divorce lawyer. xD I say probably because it technically wasn’t stated and for all we know, she had an entirely different lawyer and she just saw him around lmao though then again, idk how the divorce process works 💀

This puts a lot of things into perspective, both in regards to Azul’s mom and Azul himself. First off, his mom literally raised her son (who was being bullied in school) while filing a divorce and managing a business that was small. She’s gone through so much man, and now look at her! Her business is successful, her new husband is a kind man who is accepted by her son, and she’s got all this good staff.

As for Azul himself, this is more focused on the bullying side. From the way he talked, it seemed like he was already there when the divorce occurred... actually, even before that. Obviously, there’s a reason why his mom filed a divorce. Could it be that his household environment was toxic because his parents often argued? Possibly, it could be worse...

And it could be because of that that he couldn’t share his problems to his parents. Actual dad seemed like a jackass and his mom was probably stressed out because of him. Having these things in mind, he would shy away from them because he didn’t want to get either of them mad or anything.

I wonder if the business got successful when his mom remarried or after she remarried because that’s the idea I’m getting, but it’s all based on assumption. And if I am correct, that means by the time his mom remarried, Azul’s already pretty much deep into the spite he feels for his bullies. Which is sad if ever my theories on this are right;;; had Azul have a better home life earlier on... well, who knows?

Everyone in the family can use magic, but Azul’s grandmother is especially talented with magic. She uses them to help others.

Jeez, what’s with all the grandmas in Twst being so magically talented? At this rate, they’re going to be the final bosses of the game.

But seriously, Malleus has his grandmother who is the Queen of the Valley of Thorns. Now we have Azul’s grandmother, whom he described as someone benevolent... and take note, this is how he describes the Sea Witch often.

Definitely, the grandma and the Sea Witch are not the same person because Azul is a fanboy of the Sea Witch lmao and he’d have called her his grandma kek (plus idk if the Sea Witch is still alive). But just... the similarities are uncanny.

Plot twist: Azul is related to the Sea Witch because his actual dad is a direct descendant of her— shot

In the Mostro Lounge, Azul is very particular about the tableware because to him, the presentation is just as important as the taste. No matter how delectable the dish, it’s going to be ruined if the presentation is ugly. Because of this, their tableware comes from a high-quality brand. Despite this, Floyd sometimes breaks the tableware.

Holy shit, I never really thought about the tableware playing a role. But he really does have a point. Imagine eating something like beef wellington using a plastic spoon and fork. 💀

Ok, that is an exaggeration. But like, say you use the simple spoon and fork to eat your everyday meals. You’re not going to use those utensils when you have guests over, no, you’re going to use your nice tableware.

Damn, the few people I know who manage a restaurant are very particular about food presentation, but I think caring about it is a sign of a good manager. Azul cares about what he’s serving to the customers, and he isn’t about to give them something subpar. He may scam your ass, but he will make sure that customers enjoy the experience.

I’d be pissed off too if Floyd broke the tableware. That shit is expensive. 🗿 Don’t break things just because you’re moody smh

Azul also implies that the teacups are pricey, saying that we wouldn’t be holding the cup so carelessly if we knew the price. Guess that’s why the place is so damn expensive.

Azul brings up how difficult it was setting up. They had to research on famous restaurants, send staff to the suppliers, etc.

Ngl, I had to ask my dad about how difficult setting up a restaurant was because he used to run a restaurant. It’s just so I can get a good perspective of things, even if Azul’s business is essentially a student-run business.

He said that it really isn’t all that difficult, as long as you “know the numbers”. So I guess as long as you have your basic foundation, then you can go off from that. He also emphasized the importance of having good business partners.

I think what made it difficult for Azul was that he was pretty much running a fancy restaurant that isn’t just being bought from another brand, so it required a lot more research on how other famous restaurants worked, as well as who are the best suppliers around.

Ngl, I could kinda imagine how it looked like. Having to see the construction work, having to consult with a lot of people, having to ask for a lot of help...

But it really highlights Azul’s perserverance and determination. Despite the difficulties, he was able to open up a restaurant at 17, which may be mainly for NRC, but it also opens up to the public on some occasions. Damn, I stan that.

Azul takes breaks by reading autobiographies of businessmen he finds in the library in the dim lights of his room. His room also relaxes him because it contains his tastes in design and collectables.

I lowkey wanna clown him for reading autobiographies because damn, how do you find relaxation from reading about the lives of businessmen?

And then I proceed to clown myself because in a sense, I am analyzing his life and he is a businessman... but hey, at least we have pictures and voices. 🗿

Okay but I’m actually relieved that he does take breaks?? He does give that idea that he continuously does his work and has to be yanked out of his office to rest but no, he actually knows how to take a damn break... granted, he’s still trying to pursue business by reading up on those people, but hey, if it’s a passion, it’s not work. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also like that this implies that he isn’t so conceited as to think that he’s already the best he can be. No, if anything, this shows that he’s aware that he has so much more to learn, and he can learn from reading up on the lives of others who have gone before him. Learn from their mistakes. He’s striving to improve, and that is so inspiring;;;;

Also can I just say this does fulfill one of the things I rot about because he definitely would visit the bookstore to read a book, and I used to visit the bookstore to read and imagine if we meet there aha ahahaha just kidding,,, unless,,,,,,

Azul’s hobby is coin collecting. When he was a child, he discovered a coin in a sunken ship. He thought it didn’t mean much, but after studying it, there’s only 100 of those made. While its face value was 100 madols, for a collector, it may as well be worth 500,000 madols. Currently, he has about 200 coins collected, and the ones he’s especially interested in, he frames them.

Damn, and I thought he likes coins because octopuses are into shiny things. I like that there’s more to it. Granted, it’s still Azul being Azul, but we love him nonetheless.

He said something about how the economy doesn’t affect the value of the coins? To be honest, my brain works so horribly with things related to economy that even simple business and economic jargon just fly over my head. It’s frustrating. 😔

I wonder if he wandered off into the sunken ship because he was running away from his bullies;;;

Furthermore, this also gives him a similarity with Ariel: they find things around and collect them lmao

Another hobby Azul has is board games. When he first started school, he was looking for a club to join when he stumbled upon the board game club and met Idia... though it’s more like he met Idia’s brother, Ortho. Ortho showed him a game that simulates business, and Azul thought that this would benefit him in the business world so he signed up immediately for it. He adds that he loves to defeat people in games of intellect.

Ortho, what have you done 💀 why did you show him Monopoly—

Damn, he really tries to apply business into everything, but I can’t blame him. XD

Okay, but wow, that��s sexy of him to love defeating people in intellect 😳😳 like bruh . I feel him??? I love planning on how to secure my victory in games. It’s especially fun during EBG. 😆 @twstpasta can attest to this. :)

I don’t know if I ever mentioned this here, but I love that he does have board games as a hobby. Even if it’s because of business, it’s at least a way for him to relax and actually have something that makes him feel like a teenager. 😭

All in all, Azul’s birthday story gave us so much food, and I’m so happy about it. Honest to God, it makes me look up to him even more because he continues to learn, he doesn’t give up on his passions, and he knows how to take it easy when he should.

Maybe it’s my bias for him, but the feeling I felt when taking all this in is indescribable. It’s like I enter a buffet expecting to have a good meal, or I enter a Catholic mass and expect to be enriched by a good homily, or even I enter a Ludovico Einaudi concert and expect to be touched at the heart. Then I partake in all three, and I come out of the buffet having the best meal of my life, or I come out of the church, hearing the best homily I ever had in my life, or I leave the concert, feeling the most light and whole I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m just so inspired after reading that, rot aside.

And with this, I end with a happy birthday to Azul, you’re such an amazing person even if you’re not real. I really hope you have an enjoyable birthday. 🥺

#twisted wonderland #twst #azul ashengrotto #twst spoilers

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tanoraqui · 5 years ago

Note

Grave dirt baby... 🥺✨

me, procrastinating my actual fic? no... GRAVE DIRT BABY A-YUAN

HEY TUMBLR FUCKED UP ALL MY BULLET POINTS ON THIS THE SECOND I HIT POST BUT IT’S 4AM SO I’M LEAVING IT UP ANYWAY. STUPID GODDAMN WEBSITE.

Wei Wuxian has been in the Burial Mounds for like 2.5 months out of what he doesn’t yet know will be about 3. He’s not even sure he’s going to survive yet. But he has managed to manifest an evil sword - the evil sword - out of the aether/ambient resentful energy/an attunement set with an unwise touch in the belly of an evil turtle

and he does know that he’s not going to survive if he doesn’t get the power of the Burial Mounds under some sort of control

so he cuts his arm and with blood running down the blade, draws something adjacent to the first demon-summoning flag but as an array in the dirt. He stands in the middle and - keep in mind that he more or less hasn’t slept in 2.5 months - plunges the sword into the center, still coated in his blood, and draws in all the resentful energy of the Burial Mounds

was it supposed to go into the sword? Into himself? Into just the single 4ft diameter array area, a column of bound death? who knows, not Wei Wuxian! it’s pure gut instinct

u know what else works on gut instinct, thought? Fairy tales.

And in a fairy tale, why, clay of the earth plus iron enough for a blade plus still-warm blood to show the way...

There’s an implosion and Wei Wuxian is standing - somehow still standing - in a small crater where the array used to be, and his evil sword is plunged into the belly of a baby

He yanks it out in horrified reflex, and realizes a moment later that the baby seems unfazed by this. If there was even a wound, it closes before his eyes, and the glimpse he had showed something more bloody clay than flesh beneath the skin

the iron sword crumbles as he pulls it away, as though rusted a thousand years. the baby turns its head from the iron shavings that falls on it, but then reaches up for Wei Wuxian with a cheerfully demanding cry

he picks it up, of course. (he’d think he was hallucinating if he wasn’t absolutely and utterly aware that he’s not)

it is, as far as he can tell, with physical and spiritual resentful inspection, an absolutely normal baby

oh, except when he looks really closely. Then he can sense the neutron star–dense knot of resentful energy where a golden core might (but will definitely not have room to) form. Also, it can command the dead, and when he holds it, so can he. He’s not sure if it’s a proximity-based power share or if he’s passing his desires through the baby, but even Wei Wuxian, at about 3 months with no food save the rage of the dead and no rest save the promise of final release, has to stop investigating at some point. He has things to do!

specifically, he has Wens to kill

so instead of the iconic shot of the dark flautist in the moonlight, we get the dark, uh...man singing a very spooky lullaby to his baby in the moonlight. It is still deeply creepy. It’s a making-it-up-as-he-goes tune based on a Yunmengi lullaby that he certainly learned from neither of his foster parents, and the lyrics are along the lines of, “let them remember what they did, sweet little potato, let them remember why they’re dying”

yeah he’s been calling this child “Little Potato” for 2 weeks

why

is that not how you name a child

sometimes when he’s more annoyed at it, he calls it “Little Radish”, or even less appetizing root vegetables

by the time he walks in, the baby is asleep in his arms and he’s not singing anymore, just letting the dead do his will. This is what Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji see. The subsequent conversation, Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu at their feet, goes like this:

LWJ: Wei Ying. You have a baby.

WWX: Oh, uh...

PLAY DUMB!

WWX: What baby?

NOT THAT DUMB!

WWX: Oh, this baby! Haha yeah. I...found it.

JC: What the fuck

WWX: Yeah, weird, right? Right near the, uh...

LWJ: They said you were in the Burial Mounds

WWX: Yyyyup. Yes that is. I found this baby by the side of the road after I walked out of the Burial Mounds.

JC, briefly too morbidly fascinated to think about either the demonic cultivation they just watched or the fact that he wants to hug his brother like he’s never wanted to hug another being in his life: What did you name it?

WWX: ....

JC, desire to hug intensifying together with exasperation: oh my god

Sometime in the next couple days - after sleeping a bit, maybe - it occurs to Wei Wuxian that his raw instincts were right and things will go very badly for little A-Yuan (his siblings insisted he name it) if anyone finds out that he’s a not-yet-walking, not-yet-talking little neuron star of resentful energy. So he takes the iron shavings that are all that remain of the Stygian Turtle Sword and forges them into a Tiger-shaped Seal. He also carves a bamboo flute, like he’d been thinking about before the whole...baby thing. He loudly proclaims both to be dark and terrible weapons

(it really is helpful. The sword was...kind of A-Yuan’s other parent, after all, in addition to their third partner, the Burial Mounds. Chenqing gives him finer control of whatever stray resentful energy he chooses to pick up, and the Stygian Seal lets him channel A-Yuan’s power at need, even when not touching him. Which is good - a battlefield is no place for a baby)

even if that baby thinks ghosts and ghouls exist to pick him up and rock him or toss him around (babies like to be tossed)

Wei Wuxian puts so many goddamn spirit-repelling charms on that child, and lets it be marked down to the paranoia of a survivor

using whatever resentful energy he picks up is generally more effective, actually. Less strong, but it quickly becomes clear that the way this works does, in fact, involve Wei Wuxian communicating his desires through A-Yuan, or at least A-Yuan has to put up with the loan of power. There’s nothing quite like abruptly losing control of a field of corpses because the baby got abruptly uncooperative with anything that wasn’t barfing

the baby does eat, for the record. As far as Wei Wuxian can tell, he doesn’t actually need to, but once WWX fed him once, when they first left the Mounds, he wanted it all the time

he still takes A-Yuan with him when he can. That is the paranoia of a survivor. A-Yuan is...

“A battlefield is no place for a baby, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli says gently, as he sets out from Carp Tower after another stolen visit, another failed attempt to convince Jin Guangshan off his ass. “And you are...so busy. LanlingJin takes in orphans, you know...”

“A-Yuan...he’s my blood,” Wei Wuxian says quietly. He’s never been good at lying to his shijie

Whatwherewhenhowwho, he’d see on her face if he was looking at it. But he isn’t. It’s not shame, though, she can see (it really never is, with Wei Wuxian). Fear of disappointing her, slight resignation...but mostly acceptance. Determination. Something almost like contentment.

(When Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangj first took him back to whatever resembled a base camp - somewhere in Qinghe, probably, or maybe Lanling - he had to let a trained healer look at A-Yuan, physical and spiritual examination, and he held his breath and calculated how many people he’d have to kill to get out of here, how fast he’d have to move to not hurt his brother or any particular friends; thought, oh, he’s mine, in a way he hadn’t before - as a child, a son, not just a very strange weapon -

“He’s quite healthy,” said the doctor, mildly surprised, bouncing A-Yuan on one knee. A-Yuan gurgled happily. “About three months old?”

the longer Wei Wuxian took to answer, the more disapproving her stare got. But that did make sense)

Then all else can be dealt with later. “You should still leave him here,” Jiang Yanli says firmly. “You need to look after yourself and A-Cheng out there. I can look after A-Yuan.”

It takes a bit under two years to win back the lost and burnt territories, scour the Wens out of every crevice, corner Wen Ruohan in his precious Nightless City and bring it tumbling down. Nobody will know the timing but A-Yuan sleeps through the final battle, smiling at dreams that would make a grown man weep in horror. Somewhere, his father is playing a lullaby

About a week later, Jiang Cheng stalks into Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, which he shares with A-Yuan. One of the first rooms rebuilt in the new Lotus Pier. A-Yuan is there, too, playing with blocks while Wei Wuxian idly drafts talismans

“A-jie said the kid is yours,” he says, crossed arms. “Like, yours-yours. When the fuck did you do that?”

(Wei Wuxian has thought about this, by now; gone over the pros and cons of every possibility, the politics and potentials and maybe even the giddy possibility of telling something like the truth)

(the guiding principle is: he has no interest in drawing on the “Stygian Tiger Seal” ever again. The Sunshot Campaign is over. His loved ones are safe, and he sees no reason why they shouldn’t all live long, happy, normal lives)

(also/though, he will burn Jin Sect, Carp Tower, and all of Lanling to the ground before the new Chief Cultivator should touch his son)

“In Caiyi,” he lies. “Right before I got kicked out. I, uh, snuck out a lot more often than you noticed.”

His brother squints at him suspiciously. But Wei Wuxian can also watch him do the math in his head and reluctantly admit that it works.

“So are you claiming him or what?” he challenges. “’Wei Yuan’? You have a courtesy name - wait, no, you are not naming that kid again. You’re going to make his courtesy name be Carrothead or something.”

“Should I let you pick it, oh wise and noble shidi - no, shushu?!” Wei Wuxian teases, as A-Yuan gets tired of his blocks and starts climbing up him like a jungle gym

Jiang Cheng sighs like the north wind - gusting long and hard, with just the faintest chill to suggest that the skies will be weeping, soon

But...

Despite some evidence to the contrary, Wei Wuxian is generally fully aware of when he’s about to cross a line that cannot be backtracked over. So he meets Wen Qing in the city, and before going to Lanling, he nips into Lotus Pier and picks up A-Yuan

He might leave A-Yuan with Wen Qing in the city when he goes to Glamour Hall, but Qiongqi Pass happens with a toddler watching silently from Wei Wuxian’s hip. Does Wei Wuxian tell him to look away, bury his face in baba’s shirt, or does he not bother, knowing the sort of song that makes up A-Yuan’s sweet dreams?

The Wens become the second through 51st or so people who learn what A-Yuan is. Wei Wuxian briefly considers trying to hide it, but, honestly, there are dead things everywhere on the Burial Mounds, and despite his genuine efforts, he cannot convince A-Yuan that a fierce corpse is anything but the ideal patty-cake companion. (They’ll play with him for hours! It’s a two-nearly-three-year-old’s dream!)

(he doesn’t want to convince him, not really. The last thing he wants to do ever is give A-Yuan anything to be scared of)

nor could he possibly wish that A-Yuan not be...obviously hale and hearty, running rosy-cheeked and strong around these hills of death that slowly seep the energy from any humans, animals, or even sturdy root crops

“So, uh, this is actually my demon baby,” said Wei Wuxian as they all settled in

“this day has been so weird already, this might as well goddamn happen”, said the Wens collectively

“You created a living child out of dead earth, so I’m going to take that as a yes that you can bring my brother back,” said Wen Qing specifically

“...fuck. I mean, yes. I mean - fuck,” said Wei Wuxian. “I- of course I will.”

(it doesn’t work like that, though)

The 52nd person to find out what A-Yuan is is Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian very much does not tell him. They have a pleasant toy-shopping trip and lunch in town, and then the alarm talisman goes off and Wei Wuxian grabs A-Yuan and Lan Wangji tugs them both onto Bichen and when they arrive, Wen Ning is roaring. Lan Wangji knows what’s important; he takes A-Yuan so Wei Wuxian’s hands are free and he doesn’t have to worry about his son

except Wen Ning, black-eyed with rage, throws Wei Wuxian into a tree hard enough to crack a rib, and even as Lan Wangji raises Bichen, A-Yuan shouts,

“Uncle Ning, stop!”

and Wen Ning stops

(as a rule, Wei Wuxian can’t take over with himself and Chenqing anything A-Yuan is controlling, unless A-Yuan lets him, and vice versa. To eliminate variables, Wei Wuxian had made sure that any reins on Wen Ning were his (Wei Wuxian’s) alone. But in that moment, before Wen Ning came fully back to himself, his reins were swinging free - and they were back within the bounds of the Burial Mounds, where A-Yuan was always strong)

and Lan Wangji puts several pieces together at once and prays to every single god in heaven and every ancestor he’s disappointing right now that this was a miracle of love and a very cute child piercing through a fierce corpse’s mindless rampage. That he simply...hallucinated the burst of resentful energy he just felt from the child in his arms

but he’s absolutely, utterly aware that he didn’t

Wei Wuxian explains, stilted and awkward at the bottom of the hill. Challenging and terrified. Holding on to A-Yuan.

Lan Wangji promises to keep the secret.

Wei Wuxian takes Hanguang-jun’s word

Remember, oh, remember, that Wei Wuxian walks A-Yuan back up the hill until A-Yuan gets tired and Wei Wuxian picks him up, on their one-and-a-half–man plank bridge through the dark. Remember remember remember that before he can finish speaking that line, there is light - the clearing is lit with lanterns and secret-keepers 2 through 51, and I suppose 53 now that Wen Ning is awake, are waiting with dinner and warmth and welcome. Reader, remember this.

But then...

Aunt Qing and Uncle Ning had gone, and then, with a terrible expression on his face, so had A-Yuan’s baba. Now his baba’s anger and sadness is so strong that the weight of it makes A-Yuan cry from hundreds of miles away, and he curls into Granny’s arms and sends his baba everything he can. Will everything be okay, then? Will everyone come home; will they be able to smile again?

(oh, A-Yuan...)

(No.)

A-Yuan - Wei Yuan, Little Potato (when he’s good for baba or bad for Aunt Qing) or Little Radish (inverse); one day to be Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui - was born in the good old fairy tale way of earth and iron and blood. It’s a hard thing for any child to lose even a single parent - in one day, in one minute, A-Yuan loses two of three, as the father of his blood burns away in hand the last shreds of Stygian iron, and promptly loses control of his own resentful energy

(the Tiger Seal does nothing like explode, in this world. It was never more than a prop - but a vital one. the benefit of proving it destroyed would be worth the loss of a parent, if only a second didn’t follow on its heels)

A-Yuan has been a dead thing (or close enough) come to life all his life, and both dead and living have been his friends and family. But he’s never felt the transition the other way: from life to death

It’s no wonder, really, that he can’t remember it afterward. No wonder that even on the land that was the last part of him, he was feverish and barely conscious when Lan Wangji stumbled, bleeding, off of Bichen, and took in his arms. No wonder that he remembered very little at all, including the dead.

But he would be okay. Under physical and spiritual inspection, he’s a perfectly normal boy. He may not be able to form a golden core (there's something in the way), but there are...workarounds. He’ll grow up in one of the most heavily spiritually warded enclaves in the world, safe and loved as he relearns (mostly in secret) what he can do

(For the sake of this story, and A-Yuan’s survival as something close to canon, let’s say there are some truly dark things in the forbidden section of the Lan Library, that could only be used for nefarious purposes - though, I suppose we already knew that. Let’s say there are talismans that will disguise the very nature of qi, so resentful energy may appear spiritual. Let’s say, Lan Xichen becomes the 53rd to know the truth, because his brother needs help - and it’s Wei Wuxian’s child, okay? It’s just Wei Wuxian’s child, quiet and unsure rather than laughing as he always was. If you were in the inner circle of leaders of the Sunshot Campaign, you have absolutely met this child, probably held him and bounced him on one knee)

(What keeps Lan Xichen up at night isn’t the concealing amulet he helped his brother make, which Lan Yuan wears at all times around his neck. It’s the silence he keeps every time he meets Jiang Wanyin’s eyes over a diplomatic table. If anyone had the right to know Wei Yuan survived... But Sandu Sengshou killed Wei Wuxian, everyone knows that, and now he hunts demonic cultivators - what might his pride drive him to do to his nephew, if he ever learned the truth? (Selfishly, Lan Xichen know that if Lan Wangji lost A-Yuan, even just to living at Lotus Pier, Lan Xichen might lose his brother. That fear ebbs with time passing, but the the longer he hasn’t spoken, the worse it would be to do so...))

They don’t restrict Lan Yuan to the Cloud Recesses, no more than any other novice. For memory of their mother, neither of them could bear that. Jiang Cheng does eventually see him at a conference, and stops dead. Years have passed, but that is an entire goddamn nephew, right there. But - how? No, it can’t be. That’s...everyone knows Lan Wangji hated Wei Wuxian. It’s just...and someone would have told him. The Lans value propriety above all, after all.

Anything that can be done with spiritual cultivation can be done with demonic cultivation, save heal. Lan Sizhui makes up for it with an encyclopedic knowledge of undead and monsters, and a prodigal talent for Inquiry

On their first night hunt, the young juniors face ghosts. Unfortunately, this is when Lan Jingyi learns that he’s terrified of ghosts. He’s hiding behind Lan Sizhui and panic is contagious, and the senior accompanying them is in a different room of the abandoned house, and Lan Sizhui forgets that he’s holding a sword and just shouts, “Stop! Go away!”

the ghost, of course, obeys

Lan Jingyi peeks out form behind him. “Did- did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Sizhui admits (except that he’s absolutely sure he did)

There’s another flicker of movement, just the wind blowing ashes but Jingyi whips around with wild eyes. “Can you do it again?”

[friendship. my point is, he’s a demon baby but he has family and friends who love and accept him.]

And one day, some absolute fucking morons are going to bring him back home, where he can never be anything but strong, and threaten his friends and family? And the threat is an army of his old playmates, commanded by an attempt at recreating some combination of Chenqing and the Tiger Seal? He couldn’t manage it in Yi City, but now A-Yuan, Wei Yuan, Lan Sizhui stands on earth that has never stopped being part of him, or maybe he’s never stopped being part of it. If he closed his eyes he could feel every foot on it, living and restless dead. And they’re threatening his baba - who he remembers, as the earth remembers its old partner, even though the blood is changed - and his father Hanguang-jun, and his extended family and friends?

No.

#lyratalus #mdzs #the untamed #ficlet #lan sizhui #wei wuxian #uh who else is here #must i tag them all? don't wanna #my fic #hmm need the speaker for the dead variant to get more childhood stuff; they're similar there

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cannibal-wings · 5 years ago

Text

One of the upsides of being probably one of the oldest fans of Outlast still participating in the fandom, is that I remember or have saved really old pieces of canon or subcanon.

In the latest update of my fic, I mentioned an article that Miles wrote about Murkoff before the games took place. It’s about a water scandal involving Murkoff in Ghana. Originally it was a bit of promotional material released before Outlast came out in 2013, if I’m remembering right Red Barrels had a mock webpage for it containing the article, but I could be remembering that bit wrong and it was just sent out as a general bit of promotional material.

Anyways, way back in 2013 when I started drafting Survivors I saved this article to my reference document, and some people in the comments expressed that they wanted to read it for themselves. So I’m going to post the article in full and link this post in the comments and in the author notes of the fic. The wiki used to link to the article, or at least mention it, but it seems to have been long deleted, maybe it’s not “canon” enough, though I don’t see why it can’t go in the trivia section. Or maybe perhaps the webpage it was hosted on is also, long deleted.

“THE DEVIL’S BARGAIN How Murkoff Turned the Global Water Crisis into a Billion Dollar Revenue Stream By Miles Upshur

May 9, 2013 2:19pm ACCRA, GHANA

Nine-year old Akosua stands before the water-vending machine with its bright “ALSAB” logo, a few bills clutched in her small hand. You can still see the blank place on the machine’s hull where the words “Freeflow Global Charities” was pried away last year.

She explains that 2 cedis (about $1) will buy her five liters of purified water, which her Cholera-afflicted mother desperately needs. But 17 cedis at the Worldfree Clinic would buy her mother the course of antibiotics that would shorten the disease’ course and possibly save her life. It’s a terrible choice for a child to make, and one facing more and more of the world’s 1.6 billion inhabitants without access to clean drinking water.

More than a quarter of Accra’s citizens buy their water from Wellspring Industries, either monthly through their taps, or directly from the ubiquitous, bright yellow Alsab machines. What few Ghanians know, however, is the hidden connection between Wellspring Industries, Alsab, Freeflow Global Charities, and Worldfree Clinics.

All of them are subsidiaries of the multinational Murkoff Corporation.

In an increasingly clear partnership between Western Capitalism and Third World corruption, the Murkoff Corporation has used its dozens of subsidiaries to open back doors into selling the source of life to drought-starved populations in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia.

Here’s how it works: a newly-started charity, fueled largely by donations, establishes a water supply and sewage systems for communities whose well water has been rendered non-potable by industrial runoff. Murkoff gets the tax write-off for charitable spending, while their subsidiary Alsab gets the profits for building and installing the system. When the cost of running the system becomes too great, the charity (in Ghana’s case, Freeflow Global) declares bankruptcy and abandons the project. Then Murkoff subsidiary Wellspring Industries (or another Murkoff shell company) steps in and offers the local government completion and maintenance of the project in return for the construction fee and complete deregulation of the water supply, allowing Wellspring/Murkoff to name the price of the population’s water.

As Murkoff is also the owner of the three most active pharmaceutical manufacturers to the Third World, they’ll profit nicely whether the locals choose clean water or cholera.

It’s only the latest in Murkoff’s near-century long history of playing both sides against the middle, maximizing profits at the cost of human rights. Whether licensing aggressively pollinating, genetically-modified rice with a built in “suicide gene” to India, flipping blood diamond real estate in Angola and Sierra Leone, or peddling amphetamines to the Nazis in World War II, you can’t swing a dead cat in an arena of human suffering without knocking over a Murkoff piggy bank.

Water is fast becoming the new oil, an issue largely ignored by the developed world, by wealthy Americans and Europeans comfortable with their hot showers and iced drinks.

But earlier this year Murkoff subsidiary Heartland Springs Charity began construction of three Alsab-built water purification plants in Detroit. Welcome to New World Water.”

#Outlast #Miles Upshur

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theoriginalladya · 5 years ago

Text

WIP Wednesday

Since I know there are a few people out there interested, and since the first draft ended up turning out remarkably good for a first draft (or so I think), have a bit of fluffier Caleb Shepard and Kaidan post-war, post adventure (this comes at the end of my planned story for them) after the Reaper War. (last night’s Reaper War angst is still bugging me so I’m feeling generous. Under the cut for length)

This goes with my previous post about them.

~~~

(setting: Western Irish coast)

“Do you ever think we might have missed our calling?” Caleb asks.

Kaidan’s eyebrow arches. Taking a knee, he picks up a stone, bounces it in his hand for a moment then hefts it into the air, throwing it toward the sea. The winds are strong, however, and before Caleb can blink, just a hint of bluish dark energy envelops it, guiding it out to the waves beyond. “What are you thinking?” he counters after a moment. “That we should have become prothean experts like a certain asari friend of ours?”

It’s difficult not to laugh, and Caleb doesn’t even try. “Something like that. Maybe,” he agrees. He stares out to the horizon, nothing but churning waves and water as far as the eye can see. The height of the cliffs offer a bit of drama to the scene. It’s a much better setting than he could ever have hoped for; if only he could find the words.

Kaidan moves up next to him, his eyes as sharp and searching as Caleb’s. “Not English Bay,” he admits with a hint of a smile and a quick grin, “but a beautiful view nonetheless.”

Caleb sighs and nods. Pulling his gaze from the Atlantic, he glances just to their north. These days, the ruins are barely discernible from the cliffs, but he knows they’re there. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

They walk for a while in silence, carefully navigating the craggy landscape. It’s strange to see; there’s barely any sign that the Reapers made it out this far. Finally, they reach the spot. Here, the ruins are a bit more noticeable, but still blend in if you aren’t looking for them. Caleb leans on the cane, thankful for it in these past few minutes. Lifting his right hand, he traces the outline in the air. “See it?”

Kaidan is beside him again. “Yeah,” he breathes, astonishment clear. “Wow. How old is that?”

Caleb shrugs. “Built in the 1400s, so the stories say,” he explains. “To protect us from invasion by the sea.” Silence falls again; Caleb’s thoughts fall to the past.

“Nothing could have stopped the Reapers,” Kaidan says after a moment.

Caleb stirs from his thoughts. “Hmm? Oh, I wasn’t thinking of them, but the Greystones.” Which, he knows, is just as ironic as their background was filled with repelling enemies from the sea as well. Ireland never had the same luck.

The wind gusts in off the sea and toys with his hair, mussing it up and casting it about wildly to tickle along his cheek and forehead. It reminds him of his younger years, too. “Anyway, my point is, despite everything that’s happened – time, war, Reapers – it still lives on, in some shape or form.”

Kaidan gives him a skeptical side-glance. “You’ve been talking to Liara again, haven’t you?”

“What?” With a half laugh, Caleb pushes his hair out of his eyes. “No. I’ve told you before, we Irish are sentimental bastards at best.” A grin turns upward at the right corner of his lips.

Kaidan’s smile matches it. “That you have.”

His eyes drifting back to the ruins, Caleb asks, “You ever wonder about leaving some kind of legacy of your own behind?”

Kaidan is silent for a minute, and it’s enough to drive Caleb to distraction so he hobbles forward a few steps. As he does, he notices something wedged in between some rocks. Crouching carefully, he retrieves it … a flutter in his chest leaving him speechless. Rising once more, he half turns to look over at Kaidan.

“If you’re asking if I’m as determined as Henry Lawson was, the answer is no,” Kaidan finally replies.

“No,” Caleb insists with a grimace, “not like that.” The loss of Miranda at the hands of her father is still surprisingly sharp after all these weeks and months. While they had never been close, she had been a friend, of a sort.

Another gust of wind kicks up, this time leaving Kaidan shivering slightly. “I guess I never really thought about it,” he admits as he walks over to join Caleb. “Ever since Eden Prime, everything’s been focused on the Reapers …”

Their eyes meet, but as usual, Caleb cannot decipher what he sees there. “And now that they’re gone?”

“A lot more possibilities are available.”

Possibilities. Caleb swallows convulsively. Possibilities he can work with, but he needs to be sure … “Look,” he says quietly, his left hand gesturing with the cane as a reminder, “if I’m just going to hold you back –.”

Kaidan moves with a speed Caleb has seen rarely outside of battle, and when he has, it’s been focused on far more pleasanter things. Before Caleb can even catch his breath, Kaidan’s hand wraps around his good wrist and tugs gently, pulling him close. The kiss that follows is fierce, possessive, and leaves Caleb’s belly flipping more wildly than before, if that’s even possible. “You don’t,” he insists when he pulls back a pace; but his hand remains securely around Caleb’s. “Don’t ever think that.”

It takes Caleb a long minute to catch his thoughts and refocus, but the vehemence in the order helps. “Right.” With effort, he pulls his gaze from Kaidan’s – he has to or he isn’t going to be able to go through with this – and stares back at the ruins again. The vaguest hint of pressure around his hand as he draws in a deep breath is the deciding factor. Tucking the cane under his left arm, he uses his now free hand to fish out the small box from his jacket pocket. At the same time, a silent prayer of thanks to his friends who were able to make this happen is sent forth; to Liara whose connections cut through red tape like a hot knife through butter, to Coats whose unending, if teasing, support had him sneaking off on his own a couple of days ago to retrieve them, to Athair whose faith in him never wavered from the moment he helped rescue the small child who wandered into St. Senan’s so many years ago.

When he pulls his hand from the pocket, he looks back over at Kaidan. The chilling bite of metal against the skin of his palm helps provide clarity for the moment; the winds off the Atlantic slow, the sun peeks through fluffy white clouds and shines down upon them, and in Kaidan’s eyes he sees … curiosity. Caleb laughs softly. Always curious. “So,” he starts, then pauses to clear his throat. “So, if you really mean that –.”

“I do.”

The smile widens a fraction. The wind teases at the edges of Kaidan’s hair now, a testament to just how strong it blows in off the coast, and Caleb reaches over to push it out of his eyes. The hint of exasperation in Kaidan’s eyes pulls yet another chuckle out of Caleb. But, as he lowers his hand, his forefinger caressing down Kaidan’s temple to his jaw, he brings it to rest between them, open, palm up. The sun flickers brightly, glancing off the mixture of gold and silver resting there, woven together in a pattern as familiar to Caleb as breathing. In silence, he watches Kaidan’s gaze shift down, notes the surprise that follows … and morphs into shock before darting back to his.

“Is this …?” he chokes, eyes wide and unable to hide anything from Caleb now.

A sudden moment of peace and calm fills Caleb, and the nerves that have plagued him for days now settle. “I’ve told you the story,” he says. “I was thinking, if you are agreeable –.”

“Agreeable?”

The amount of disbelief in Kaidan’s exclamation chases away the last of the lingering concerns. With a twist of his wrist, he moves the rings between his fingers, holding them a bit higher for Kaidan to see. “Friendship,” he murmurs, his eyes locked onto Kaidan’s now. “Loyalty. Love. I’d say that describes us, wouldn’t you?”

Kaidan opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out; all Caleb sees is a few convulsive swallows. Leaning in, he rests his forehead against Kaidan’s. “I didn’t want to say anything until the Reapers were dealt with,” he whispers, eyes closing to hide momentary grief and pain at the loss all that entailed. “But, now that they’re gone, I can’t imagine going back to a life where you aren’t a part of it.”

Kaidan’s free hand slides up Caleb’s back, coming to rest at the back of his head. He shifts just a bit, enough to tilt his head to the side so their lips can meet, and the moment their lips connect, Caleb knows he has his answer. It’s rare he can catch Kaidan off guard to the point of speechlessness, but it seems he’s succeeded; a moment he’ll always remember.

When they break apart, gasping for air as the wind buffers gently around them, Kaidan manages, “How … did you even …?”

Caleb laughs softly, releasing some of the nervous energy. “I’m Commander Fucking Shepard, according to James, remember? I can get anything done.” He concludes with a wink as his lips slide back into a grin.

Kaidan, finally, joins in. “Well, he’s sure got you figured out.”

Taking one of the rings, Caleb holds it between his thumb and forefinger. He eyes Kaidan with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “I can’t wear both of these, you know.”

There is still the tiniest tremor in Kaidan’s hand as he lifts his hand. Caleb slides the ring onto his finger; perfect fit. Then he offers the other and the process is repeated. Caleb isn’t unaffected, and by the time they exchange another kiss, he drops the cane back into place and leans heavily upon it.

“So,” Kaidan says after a while, his eyes focused on the ring on his hand, “should I assume if you figured this part out you have something else in mind for what follows?”

Caleb nods. “I don’t want to steal any thunder from your mother,” he explains, “but I thought before we left … something small and private.”

For just a moment, Kaidan stills and stares at Caleb. “That’s why you snuck off to the church the other day, isn’t it?”

One brow arches and Caleb gives his best, Who, me? look which only draws a laugh. “Maybe,” he agrees. “I guess he thought if we aren’t staying here, we might as well have something better to remember my home by.”

Kaidan’s laughter is refreshing. “I’m not likely to forget,” he replies. “With you and the kids, I’ll be the odd one out, remember?”

Caleb reaches over to run his thumb along Kaidan’s stubbled cheek. “You’ll sound like one of us soon enough.”

“God help us all.”

#ladya writes #when the muses attack #mshenko #Caleb Shepard #Kaidan Alenko #post war #mass effect fanfiction #marriage proposal #I'm such a sap when I go fluffy #but dammit they need it!

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alarawriting · 4 years ago

Text

The Cold At The Heart of the Light: Chapter One

I’ve decided I’ll post probably the first three chapters of this as I work on it. There’s currently six chapters written and the seventh is started; I have been planning about twelve of them.

This is gonna have to be edited a lot when I finish the whole thing -- it’s too goddamn long, for one thing -- but I can’t spend too much time editing the first draft when I’m not done with it.

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

As soon as the maid led me to the living room and I got my first look at the little girl, I could tell the child was dying. She was sitting on an overstuffed, white suede couch with brown fringy pillows all around her, at the back of a living room that looked like something out of House Beautiful, all tall wide windows and understated elegance in brown and beige and gold and white. She was maybe about seven, if her disease hadn’t undersized her, feet dangling off the couch and not moving. When children whose feet are dangling are not kicking those feet, and there is neither a book nor a TV nearby to explain the discrepancy, I can generally tell something is wrong. Her blonde curly wig was as expensive as the décor of her parents’ living room, but I’m an expert in these matters – I could tell the chemo had taken her hair. And her skin was dull and dry looking, her eyes vague and unfocused, her expression indrawn and blank, her small limbs painfully skinny. She showed all the signs of either being abused, drugged, or severely ill, and given that her father had called me in, I knew that at least it was the last. Probably the second as well. The pharmaceutical industry has never solved the problem of stopping children’s pain to my satisfaction (or, for that matter, the children’s.)

Her mother would have been an elegantly plastic politician’s wife if she hadn’t been sitting tensely at the edge of the sofa, arm around her daughter, clutching the child. Fear and anxiety make even women with $500 haircuts and botoxed foreheads seem human. I’d already forgotten the woman’s name; after checking over the daughter with a quick glance, I turned to focus on her father. Senator John Lightman, one of those politicians who manages to look “boyish” simply by being a thin dark-haired man in his prime when everyone else in the Senate is somewhere between 60 and dead, was walking toward me, reaching out a hand as if to shake it. I saw the look of puzzlement cross his face as he got a good look at me. “Are you…”

“Dr. Mystery?” I filled in the blank. “Yes, of course, I apologize. You couldn’t possibly recognize me like this.” I had arrived in a stock form, a middle-aged woman of average height, weight and appearance with blonde graying hair in a short fluffy do. I couldn’t very well drive around town in my working form, but now that I was here, it was time to shock and awe the mundanes. With a thought, I transformed.

When I first adopted this as my working form, it used to take me ten or twenty minutes in front of a mirror to get it just right, because it doesn’t look human enough for me to use DNA as a model anywhere – I have to brute-force it. But by this time I’d been doing it for so many years, it took only a few seconds. Changing doesn’t hurt – it feels like having a really good stretch, actually.

In a moment, I was six feet tall, simultaneously busty and thin, with the golden skin of an Academy award, iris-less purple eyes with cat pupils, and flame-red hair down to the small of my back. I wore a skin-tight black leather catsuit with no shoes, and modified pelvis and leg muscles so I looked like I was wearing high heels even though I was barefoot – an anatomic impossibility for other women, but there’s no point in having total control over your own flesh if you can’t use it to show off a little. To complete the costume I grew a white cotton labcoat over the catsuit; not exactly a cape, but the name is Doctor Mystery, not Ms. Mystery or Lady Mystery or Sexy Chick I’d Like To Do Mystery.

Being a supervillain’s all about the power and the respect. Back when my working form wasn’t quite so do-me hot, I actually used to get less respect as a villain, as if a woman couldn’t possibly really be all that mad, bad and dangerous to know if she doesn’t look like a supermodel. But when I do the catsuit without the lab coat, I get respect as a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, not as a biomedical genius. Not that I’m not a badass with dangerous powers and incredible fighting skills, but I’m not a teen thug for hire anymore, I’m a bona fide mad scientist and I want people to remember that, dammit.

Mrs. Lightman’s eyes went wide, and she made a tiny little yelping noise and clutched her little girl… who rather than looking frightened, actually looked mildly interested for the first time since I’d arrived. Her dad was trying to hide it, but his lips had compressed as if he were trying not to bite them and there was just the tiniest tremor in his hands. I expected Mrs. Lightman’s reaction, but the Senator could have gone one of two ways – men usually react to me with fear or lust, or a combination. I didn’t think I saw lust in Senator Lightman, and when I took his hand and shook it, I confirmed it. He was on the verge of peeing his pants. I might have believed he wasn’t reacting with any lust because he really had eyes only for his wife, if he weren’t a politician. But I’ve known very few male politicians to be faithful, and even they couldn’t avoid being lustful. Senator Lightman was terrified of me because I was a Proxima and he was a Sapien-centric bigot. Also, probably, because I was a supervillain and a killer and I could drop him dead in a second, turn him inside out, make the skin melt off his flesh or give him cancer, just from the touch of his hand in mine. But I suspected I’d have gotten the same reaction if I’d been a member of the Peace Force, or even a Girl Scout with purple eyes and gold skin trying to sell him cookies. He hated my kind, but he needed me today.

And I intended to use his need to my people’s advantage.

“Introduce me to your family, Senator,” I said.

I felt his adrenaline spike through the skin connection of our clasped hands, but he managed not to show it. He let go of me. “This is my wife, Dot, and our daughter Mindy. She’s eight.”

I walked over to Mindy and knelt down in front of her, prompting more tension and white knuckles from her mother clasping her. “Hello, Mindy,” I said.

“Hi,” she mumbled.

“Do you know who I am?”

“My daddy says you’re some kind of super doctor.”

Super doctor. I liked that. “He’s right. I’m here to help you. I imagine you’ve gotten real tired of being sick.”

She smiled wanly. “Yeah.”

“Let me have your hands.”

“Will it hurt?” Her tone was tired and apathetic, as if it didn’t really matter if it was going to hurt or not. I suspected it was more resignation than apathy.

“Not at all.” I smiled at her. “I’m a super doctor, remember? It doesn’t hurt if I don’t want it to.”

She gave me her small hands and I clasped them in mine. I can’t entirely describe what I feel when I examine a living creature, not in terms that refer to the senses everyone else has. It’s like feeling a symphony or hearing a tapestry. Everything is very complex and interrelated, and I get signals from thousands of processes in the body, but it all melds together into a single big picture. The big picture here was that Mindy’s body was attacking itself. Her bone marrow was busily churning out cancerous white blood cells that didn’t work, filling her bloodstream with useless cells that crowded out and starved the working, useful ones. The pain signals were overwhelming even with the drugs trying to mask them, and the drugs themselves were dulling her mind as much as the fatigue and weakness from the disease.

Like many terminally ill children, she was quiet and accepting, which is constantly mistaken in glurgy human interest stories about terminally ill children for bravery. Children who go out with scarves on their bald heads and run lemonade stands to raise money to research and cure their own illnesses are brave. Children who are too tired to feel fear and have been living with a disease too long to cry about it are just normal human beings. Mindy was a normal human being, and her leukemia was also perfectly normal, something I’d dealt with a hundred times before.

I closed my eyes so I could focus better on Mindy’s internal world. First I triggered the release of endorphins into her bloodstream to mask any pain caused by what I was about to do. The human body rebels against my power, seeing my authority as a violation of its autonomy, and frequently reacts by tattling to the brain about it in a way that the mind perceives as agonizing, but unspecific, pain. As I told Mindy, though, no one feels pain in my hands unless I allow it. As soon as her body was saturated with endorphins and I’d shut down most of the internal sensory trunk lines to the brain, making her internally numb while leaving her ability to sense anything touching her skin, I swept my concentration through her body and killed every immature white blood cell she had. I then targeted the surviving mature white cells and forced them to rapidly replicate and mature, until she had almost a normal white blood cell count and they all worked correctly.

To finish off, I blocked the drugs that hadn’t been working so well anyway, turned the internal nerves back on, and filled Mindy with a combination of endorphin and oxytocin, and other hormones designed to make people feel good. This particular cocktail wouldn’t have sexual effects – Mindy’s brain lacked some of the structures needed to process that, yet, and I always took great care with children not to do anything inappropriate to their age. After what my own father did to me… well, I may be a supervillain, but I am not a child molester, and that makes me better than he was. What I was going for – what I always gave the children I treated – can be best described, if you remember being a kid, as the excitement from knowing you’re about to go to an amusement park, coupled with the pleasure you get from eating ice cream, and all that combined with the warm snuggly feeling you get when you’re cuddled with your parents. Mindy wouldn’t know why, in the future, she looked forward to my visits and felt very warm and positive emotions toward me. She would just know that seeing Dr. Mystery would be the coolest thing ever, and just my presence would be more fun than any doctor’s office lollipop ever was.

Combine such warm and pleasant emotions with the freakish physical appearance of an obvious Proxima, and Mindy would not grow up to share her dad’s bigotry, even if he tried to teach it to her.

“Mindy?” Dot Lightman asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Are you all right?”

Mindy lifted her head. Her skin didn’t look any better, of course – I hadn’t done any cosmetic work – but her eyes were refocusing, turning bright and engaged. “Mommy? I feel good, Mommy. I think the doctor fixed me!”

With my endorphin cocktail chasing away her fatigue temporarily, she leapt to her feet. “Thank you, Super Doctor Mystery! I feel all better!” She twirled around, perhaps to prove to all of us that she was fully healed… and stumbled. “Whoa, dizzy!”

“Slow up there, kiddo,” I said. “You’re not cured. You feel a lot better and you’re going to be a lot better, but you’ve spent a couple of years being sick and you’re not going to be back to your full strength overnight. Take it easy.”

“Is she—is she going to be cured?” her mother asked, looking at me, her lower lip trembling.

“She’s much healthier, right now. But no, as I said, I haven’t cured her yet. I triggered a temporary remission and bolstered her immune system to compensate for what the disease did to it, so she needn’t suffer while she’s waiting for a full cure.” I turned to Senator Lightman. “To cure her, I’ll need to perform three treatments, about two months apart. The cost will be $8,000 per treatment. When we’re done, not only won’t she have leukemia, but the genetic potential for cancer will be purged from her system, so it will be very, very unlikely that she ever get any cancer-like disease again. Short of living on top of a radioactive landfill, of course, but you understand what I mean.”

“Oh, God….” Mrs. Lightman started to cry. “Oh, God, thank you…”

“Don’t cry, Mommy,” Mindy said, and gave her mom a hug. “It’s good news. Don’t cry.”

“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” Mrs. Lightman said.

“I—I don’t know what to say, Doctor. You have a deal. I’d pay anything to save Mindy’s life, and your prices… well, they’re much more reasonable than I was led to assume. I’d pay more than that for hospital treatments, even with the insurance.” I was pretty sure this was a fib – Senators get damn good health insurance. But of course Lightman belonged to the party that thought that health insurance was a privilege, not a right, and downplaying the high quality of his own state-sponsored insurance was probably a reflex by this point.

I smiled at him. “That’s because most of my payment is non-monetary.”

“Non-monetary?”

“Let’s go have a discussion, Senator. I imagine you must have a private office in this house somewhere?”

His wife gave me a hard-eyed look. I returned her look with an “oh, please” expression, just the slightest of eye rolls and sardonic smile. “There’s nothing you can say to me that you can’t say in front of my wife,” Lightman said, his voice hardening.

“Yes, there is,” I said, pleasantly. “You want to tell her all about it when we’re done talking, that’s your prerogative. But I am here to negotiate with a United States Senator, not a husband or a father.”

He stiffened. “All right,” he said slowly. “We can go downstairs to the den.”

“Is it—is it going to be all right?” Dot Lightman asked her husband.

“I don’t see that I have much choice, Dot,” he said. “She’s the only hope Mindy has. You know that.”

“Mommy? Can I play outside?”

“Sure. Sure thing,” Dot said, her voice breaking again. “I’ll play with you.”

“Don’t let her overexert herself,” I said. “As I said, she’s better, not cured, and even if she were cured she’d still need time to recover her energy. She wants to run around and play now because she’s not in pain, but she actually still does need to save her strength.”

“We’ll go for a walk,” Dot said. “How’s that sound, Mindy?”

“Sure, Mommy. We can do that.”

“The den is this way,” Senator Lightman said.

It was a typical suburban finished basement, not nearly as fancy looking as the living room, if you didn’t count the huge projection television. I perched on the still-nice-but-obviously-worn couch, sitting on the back of it. “Let’s get down to it, Senator,” I said. “You’re a member of the Committee to Analyze Parahuman Activity. You’re aware as well as I am that the United States government has been investigating or implementing various techniques to control or eliminate the Proxima population, including laws to create a registry for us as if we’re sex offenders, black ops soldiers with power suits to hunt us down, attempting to find cures for us like we’re a disease, secret databases being maintained in an attempt to identify us in the absence of a registry law… so on and so forth.” I didn’t mention the biowarfare; people who didn’t live through being imprisoned in a government research facility and watching others being injected with various tailored viruses have a tendency to assume that government biowarfare is the stuff of paranoid conspiracy theories, and I doubted anyone had actually let Congress know what was going on there. The others, I was pretty sure he’d been briefed on, if not actively involved with. “And you’re an active supporter of the Human Definition Amendment, which would deprive us of any human rights whatsoever on the basis of junk science.”

The faintest beading of sweat broke out on his forehead. “The United States government hasn’t taken any illegal actions to ‘control’ the Proxima population, as you put it, and certainly not to eliminate you. You must understand, however, that we do have the right and the duty to protect normal humans from people like…”

He hesitated just a moment too long. “Me?”

“I was going to say, people like Caesar Primus or Optometron. But if the rumors about your activities are true, then yes, you. Weren’t you some sort of assassin? An enforcer for a drug lord?”

While technically the description was almost true, the idea of describing David as a “drug lord” almost made me laugh. Almost. I don’t actually have a lot of a sense of humor when it comes to David. “And I was rehabilitated by the Peace Force and today I’m a fine, upstanding citizen who cures little girls of leukemia,” I said.

“That isn’t a lot of comfort to the families of the people you killed.”

“Maybe not. But if I’d been killed by American soldiers in power suits then, your daughter would be out of luck now, wouldn’t she?” I slid off the back of the couch and paced around him. “And this isn’t about me. How many people were saved when the Irregulars stopped that second plane from crashing into the Trade Towers? When they held up the collapsing building so the firefighters could get out? When the Peace Force shored up the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina so the city didn’t flood, or when Maui’s volcano went active and they shut it down again?” The Senator didn’t actually need to know that was a plot of Professor Octohedron’s, if he didn’t already. The Peace Force hadn’t actually broadcast the fact that the disaster had been caused by a Proxima in the first place; I only knew about it because Octohedron continued to believe that he could get into my pants if only he could impress me enough, and he hadn’t actually ever managed to figure out that I wasn’t impressed by grandiose plots to take over the world by threatening to activate volcanoes. “You might owe your life to a Proxima. You are about to owe your daughter’s life. So I want your support for our basic human rights. Oppose the Parahuman Registry, oppose the research to kill us or break us of our powers, and oppose the Human Definition Amendment.”

“The Human Definition Amendment isn’t designed to take away your human rights,” he said. “It’s designed to clarify the rights you do have. I mean, there have to be different ways to handle you people vs. the rest of us. Remember when the ACLU sued on behalf of the Heat Miser? They said that it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep him continuously drugged in prison. And as soon as they won and the drugs were withdrawn, his powers came back and he burned the prison down. 700 people were killed, over 100 guards and the rest of them human inmates, who’d been sentenced to serve time in jail for their crimes, not to burn to death.”

“Then you redefine cruel and unusual punishment to state that methods intended to block Proximas from using superhuman powers to escape from prison are not cruel and are perfectly usual. Passing an amendment to the Constitution that declares that Proximas aren’t human is overkill.”

“It actually declares that humans belong to the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, and that the law should not be automatically extended to grant human rights to people who can destroy our entire planet with a thought just because some bleeding heart doesn’t think they deserve to go to jail for killing hundreds of people.”

“Yes, and by declaring that Homo sapiens promixus does not automatically count as human, it effectively says that we’re not, and we can be shot on sight with no one but the ASPCA to worry about our murders, let alone suffer discrimination in every part of our lives. You do not live with the reality of what being defined as non-human means, Senator. I do.”

“And you, Doctor, don’t live with the reality of inhabiting a world filled with creatures who can kill you with a thought, steal everything you own, destroy your home without even touching it, or make you believe that up is down and black is white.”

I could argue that last point, if I wanted to be a smartass – I lived in the world where there was conservative talk radio, and it had convinced any number of people that up was down and black was white. But that would be sidetracking. “True. But you’re so focused on perceiving yourself as a victim of the existence of Proximas that you’ve given no thought to what it would be like to be one of us. And you really should. Because you have a child, Senator, and she is too young to be confirmed as Sapien or Proxima. You don’t know what she is, and you’re just assuming she’s Sapien. What if she’s Proxima?”

He blinked. “Well, of course I—but she doesn’t have anything in her background – I mean neither her mother nor I have anything unusual, genetically—“

“No one knows what’s causing the sudden explosion in powered humans, Senator, but we do know that it’s some type of mutation. 90% of Proximas have parents who were Sapien. And the number is that low only because some of us have started having kids. If your daughter was a Proxima with two fully Sapien parents, she’d be in the same boat as most Proximas. Including me. So you really need to think about it.”

“Well, I – I certainly wouldn’t treat Mindy any differently if she were – but if she were, you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t check for it. But I could, yes.”

“Well, if she turned out to be, you could just fix it, right? As part of the treatment?”

I stared at him as if I’d just found him on my shoe. “Of course I could. And if she was black, I could make her white and blonde and blue-eyed. And I could change her into a boy if you decided you really wanted a son. Have you any idea how offensive what you just said is?”

“I – I didn’t mean to give offense. I just want Mindy to have a normal life.”

“Most Proximas do. I don't look like this all the time, Senator. When I'm not treating hopeless cases, I live in a nice little townhouse, with two cats and a cockatiel. I go dancing with men friends on weekends, I buy groceries, I do my laundry. I choose to look like this when I'm treating people like your daughter, because I have no desire to be kidnapped and pressed into the service of crime lords or the government."

"Why would the government kidnap you? Proximas have rights. If you’ve served your time for your previous crimes, and committed no new ones--"

"--I would still have the power to make old men young, cure impotence and infertility, heal disease and scarring, change people's appearances... come on now, Senator, don't be naive. If you had a way to make me heal your daughter without paying my price, you'd do it. And I think you're basically a good man, who’s concerned for the child he loves. Can you say none of your colleagues would want me to heal them? To restore lost youth, or whatever they had lost?" I thought of the white room then, the snipers with guns outside ready to blow my head off if the important old men screaming under my hands didn’t get up and walk free completely healed when I was done. Never again.

"I... suppose power corrupts. There are some bad elements in any system, but that doesn't mean the system is evil."

"I didn’t say the system was evil. I said it’s not designed to protect people like me. And if you and your fellows have their way, it’ll be even harder for me to live a normal, safe life.” I shook my head. "We're sidetracking. If Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, she could still have an entirely normal and happy life, so long as you didn't reject her for it and the government didn't kill her for it."

"I would never reject Mindy. No matter what. If-- if she was a parahuman--"

"Then your opinions on appropriate treatment of Proximas would be rather different, wouldn't they?"

He sighed. “Look, I have a constituency, Doctor Mystery. They elected me into office to protect them and serve them, and they have ideas as to what constitutes doing that. If I do something that they don’t approve of, I won’t have the power they’ve given me for very long.”

I flopped down on his couch again. “Oh, baloney. You mean that if you can’t fearmonger about hidden Proximas living among us and the draconian measures the Daddy State will take under your watch to protect the poor scared soccer moms and NASCAR dads, you can’t get elected.” I sat up and leaned forward. “It’s all bullshit. The tide of history always favors greater human rights, greater freedoms, greater protections for minorities vs. mobs. And it always works out better in the end that way. I understand that you have to protect yourself from lunatics who shoot death rays out of their elbows, but you know, you also have to protect yourself from lunatics who break into the McDonalds’ with a gun and start shooting people, and somehow it was your party who decided it was an unacceptable infringement on your freedom to hunt, shoot intruders, and generally feel like manly men to make people undergo background checks to get assault weapons.”

“The Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.”

“The Constitution wouldn’t say that if you passed an amendment redefining a ‘well-regulated militia’ as the National Guard. Which I’m not saying you should. I’m in favor of your right to protect yourself with a gun. I’m in favor of your right to shoot animals for fun if you feel like it; I’m a Darwinist and you’re a predator. It’s in your genes. Go shoot deer if you want. But the Constitution currently states that I am a human being, because it doesn’t say that I’m not, and I was born in the United States to two human beings, share 99.9% of my DNA with you, speak your language, look like you, and have sex with you. Well, not you personally, but Sapiens men. So if it’s so vitally important to preserve the right to bear arms, because it’s in the Constitution, that it’s okay to let sociopaths get guns and shoot up college campuses, then it is vastly more important to make sure that every child born in this country to human parents is defined as human.

“If you pass this Definition of Humanity amendment in order to protect your constituency, and Mindy turns out to be a Proxima, then she can be raped and her rapist could be charged with bestiality at best, because she wouldn’t be legally a child who can be molested, she’d be legally an animal. She could be killed, and the most her killer could be charged with is animal cruelty. No school would have to take her, no hospital would have to treat her diseases, no restaurant would have to let her in to eat with you. You would have to fight a battle to get her treated in a way that you humans take for granted, every time. Want her to die in a car accident because the paramedics didn’t want to treat a Proxima? Want her to die in a fire because the firefighters didn’t want to risk themselves going into a burning building for someone who isn’t even human? There are better ways to defend Sapiens than making it legally open season on us.”

“But you’re against those too. The Parahuman Registry would allow us to track dangerous people without having to deprive any of you of basic civil rights.”

“Except I’ve never heard of a version of it suggesting that only parahuman criminals be added to the registry.”

“Well, dangerous parahumans haven’t necessarily committed crimes yet. But for instance, if your next door neighbor turns up dead of a heart attack and everyone knows you were fighting with him, isn’t it important that the police know you have the power to stop people’s hearts by touching them?”

“If your next door neighbor has a gun, isn’t it important that you know about it so you can keep your daughter from playing in his yard?”

“Most gun owners are law abiding citizens, and if someone is killed with a gun we already have laws on the books to help the police track down the killer. If someone is killed with a superpower, we wouldn’t even necessarily know to look for a superpower.”

“So educate the cops better on superpowers. Most Proximas are law abiding citizens. If you kill your neighbor by hitting him over the head with a frying pan, does that mean you needed to be on some sort of registry of frying pan owners?” I started pacing again. “It’s irrelevant in any case. I don’t care what your personal beliefs are. I care that you love your daughter and want her to be healthy.”

“So you’re blackmailing me.”

“Blackmail? I’m demanding payment. When your campaign contributors give you money for re-election, they’re not blackmailing you to expect that you’re going to show them some quid pro quo. I’m offering you something far, far more valuable than a few dollars in your re-election coffers; I’m offering you your daughter’s life and health. I think expecting a little quid pro quo is not unreasonable.”

“And what if I refused? Would you let her die?”

At one point that would have been a tough one; in this line of work you have to appear to be compassionate, but you also have to be tough or the patients will walk all over you. I had had plenty of experience dealing with this particular conundrum, though. “Do you know what I did for Mindy today? Do you understand her disease at all?”

“I don’t know what you did, no. You keep saying you made her better but you didn’t cure her. But I do know something about her disease. The doctors tell me that she’s making too many white blood cells, and it’s crowding out and killing the rest of her blood.”

“Close. They’re immature, cancerous blood cells, so they don’t work to protect her from disease the way mature white blood cells would. This lowers her general immunity, and yes, it clogs up her bloodstream and takes resource away from working cells. What I did today was to kill all the immature cells and regenerate some of the mature ones. She still has leukemia; she’s still making too many immature cells. Without a full treatment that will never stop. What I’ve done is to ease her symptoms. Until she builds up too many immature cells again, she’ll feel better.” I leaned on the wall, arms folded. “I’m perfectly capable of doing this every six months and never actually curing her. She’ll feel better, and she’ll have a happy, normal life, as long as she gets her treatments on time. The one time she misses a treatment, though – maybe because the government kidnapped me, arrested me, killed me or took my powers away – she’ll have full-blown leukemia again, and within a year or two she’ll die.” I pushed off the wall. “So you can support me up front because it’s the right thing to do for the person who gave you back your daughter’s life, or you can hedge and haw and refuse to get with my program, and if so your daughter will be well for exactly as long as I am able to continue treating her. The very laws you want to pass that will harm me, will block my ability to heal her sooner or later, and then she’ll die, and it’ll be your fault.”

“And how do I know that if I promise to do as you ask, you really will heal Mindy and you won’t just do what you just said?”

“How do I know that if I really heal Mindy, you won’t go back on your word and start pushing for the Human Definition Amendment again? It’s a matter of trust, Senator. You trust me, I trust you. Or you don’t trust me, I don’t trust you. Tit for tat. What’s it going to be?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m not going to just rubber stamp your suggestions. Even if that was the right thing to do for my constituency, and it’s not. I’m going to study the situation and try to do the best thing to protect my people and yours. You can accept that or not.”

“All right, I’ll accept that, with one caveat. The Human Definition Amendment is totally off-limits. You can switch your support to the Inclusive Humanity Amendment, or just drop your support of Human Definition, but if you don’t publicly do one or the other within the month Mindy does not get fully cured. The other stuff, do the studies you want to do, but I think you’ll find that when you look at Proximas as if we are people and not weird animal things with superpowers, you’ll find it a lot easier to come up with ways to help protect your kind without harming mine.”

Lightman nodded. “All right, Doctor. Then we have a deal. When do you want to perform the first treatment?”

“If you’ve got $8,000 lying around in a checking account, we can do it today.”

“I do. Who do I make the check out to? I don’t imagine you can cash a check made out to Doctor Mystery.”

“Make it out to Miracle of Life, LLC.” I had about twenty-seven of these shell companies I used to funnel my various payments through, since even Senators typically had a hard time coming up with $8,000 in small unmarked bills on short notice, and a girl’s gotta eat. Playing politics is all well and good, but I needed to cover the mortgage and the gas money for my various trips to clients, plus the funds for my various Activities of Mad Science. Just because you can manipulate any organic tissue with a touch, doesn’t mean you get your beakers and retorts and Petri dishes for free. “Let’s go upstairs. I’m sure Mindy is eager to begin freeing herself from this disease.”

“Of course.”

At the top of the stairs, I reached out for his hand. Too afraid of giving offense to refuse me, he took it, and I shook with him. “Pleasure doing business with you, Senator. Go call your daughter in, give me a check and we’ll do this thing.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mystery. I may not entirely approve of your politics, but thank you for giving my daughter back her life.”

He wouldn’t be thanking me so much if he had known I’d just planted a tiny clump of slow-growing cancerous cells deep in his brain. It’d be a year from now before he started feeling any symptoms, and that would land in the middle of his re-election campaign. If he did what I wanted after I finished healing his daughter and we were on good terms, I’d find some excuse to come by and heal him or prune it down again. If not… there was a reason I was a feared supervillain even though most people knew me, if they knew me at all, as some kind of uber-doctor. You didn’t double-cross Dr. Mystery and survive it. Ever.

Well, unless you were Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar. Then you got any number of free passes.

***

The truth was, I was being something of a hypocrite.

I was offended at Lightman’s suggestion that I make his daughter a Sapiens if she turned out to be a Proxima, but not for the reason I told him. The difference between a Proxima becoming a Sapien and a Sapien becoming Proxima isn’t the difference between black changing to white or male changing to female. The difference was described by Plato as a man raised in the darkness leaving the cave to see the light of the sun, vs. a man raised in the sunlight doomed to spend the rest of his life in a cave. Making a Proxima a Sapiens is like giving someone a lobotomy, or a clitoridectomy, or binding her feet until she can’t walk. It’s an obscenity, a Harrison Bergeron nightmare of breaking the best down to the level of the mediocre, taking away a birthright one was born with.

Making a Sapien a Proxima is, on the other hand, one of my great callings in life.

Mindy Lightman wasn’t a Proxima before I touched her. But she would be, before I was done. I did a preliminary assessment of her DNA while I was performing the first treatment, and I stored a small amount of her cellular matter in a pocket under the skin of my hand, to study at length later. I’d determine how much energy her mitochondria could supply her and which latent powers-complex genes she had, and which powers they were likely to ignite into. If she had something distressing, like death touch or world-shattering TK or the gene for turning blue, I’d edit the complex over the next two sessions into something more palatable for the child of a public figure, something frilly and unthreatening. Maybe the ability to make pretty light shows, or fly. Most flyers loved it, and it didn’t seem to frighten Sapiens as much as some other powers did.

When I left the Lightmans’, now back in my middle-aged lady persona, I headed first to the bank to deposit the check. Senators whose daughter’s lives are on the line don’t give me checks that bounce, but they do take time to clear, so the sooner I got it in, the better. And then I dumped the rental car at the airport, changed form in the bathroom, and got on the Metro to head back home.

****

Science fact: There is only one gene that determines the difference between a Sapiens and a Proxima.

To most people this seems insane. Proximas come in an entire extra range of colors besides the human norm, have powers ordinary humans can only dream of, and get energy to fuel these powers from a source that is frankly incomprehensible. We just have to be a separate species, in most people’s minds. When Proximas were first discovered, there was a huge push to label us a fully separate species – Homo superior (thankfully, that one got shot down real fast) or Homo proximus, “the man who comes next.” Scientists – not me at the time, since I was too young, but reputable geneticists and biologists – had to constantly point out that the definition of a species is that they cannot viably interbreed. The children of superpowered and ordinary humans were themselves perfectly fertile. Ergo, we cannot be a separate species.

But we hadn’t mapped the genome then, and we didn’t know exactly why Proximas had powers. So scientists made, in my opinion, a mistake. They agreed to classify us as a separate sub-species.

You’ve grown up being told that you are Homo sapiens. What you might not know is that technically, if you’re not a parahuman, you are actually Homo sapiens sapiens. There were several other subspecies of humans, all extinct, such as Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man). It is still scientific nonsense to call us a subspecies, when we’re only different by one gene – to put this in perspective, parents and children differ by many, many more than one gene – and in fact the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature keeps debating changing it to Homo sapiens sapiens proximus or dropping the designate proximus entirely. But the scientific evidence that we aren’t even a separate subspecies gets even less play in the media than studies that show that men and women are alike, if such a thing is possible. And at least the Homo sapiens proximus nomenclature reinforces that we are of the human species.

The trouble is, most people don’t know that the true name of Homo sapiens is actually Homo sapiens sapiens. So when they hear the short designators – Sapiens vs. Proxima – they assume that our species is Homo proximus. We’re widely believed to be an entirely separate species, and it doesn’t help that high-profile supervillains like Caesar Primus (who is 2,000 years old and knows as much as any Roman gladiator about science, which is to say, diddly jack), or Professor Octohedron (a brilliant physicist and inventor, but he knows about as much biology as I know about fixing my car, and let me put it this way, the last time I ended up dead on the side of the road I needed a friendly dude passing by to tell me I’d run out of oil) are constantly spouting off about how we are a new, superior species. Informed laypeople and doctors usually know better, but the truth – that we are different by only one gene – is so appallingly counterintuitive that you almost need to be a geneticist or an evolutionary biologist to get it.

But here’s the truth.

The human genome is packed with genes that don’t do anything. Most come from our evolutionary history. You may have heard that we are less than 1% genetically different from chimpanzees. That 1% consists mostly of control genes, which govern when, how and if the other genes turn on.

It turns out that some of those genes generate superpowers, under the right conditions. One of them turns melanin, the brown pigment of humans, blue in the presence of a hormone called catalysine. Others use catalysine to activate superhuman abilities. All humans carry some of these genes. But only a very, very tiny number – about 1 in 10,000 – have the gene that codes for the creation of catalysine.

Like testosterone, catalysine has two surges in a person’s life cycle. One is pre-natally. The amount generated is small and doesn’t pass the placental barrier, so no, pregnant women do not manifest superpowers when carrying a Proxima baby. That’s an urban myth. The surge pre-natally does little, usually, except to prepare the brain to control superpowers someday, creating a brain nucleus and appropriate wiring. In cases where the child has two Proxima genes – for example, the child of two Proxima parents-- the amount of catalysine created pre-natally might be enough to distort the child’s appearance, begin converting melanin into azurin, or awaken a low level of superpower.

When the child hits puberty, the same genes that turn on sex hormones turn on catalysine production. The superpowers appear, and wire up to the brain structures created in utero. If the child has the gene for azurin conversion, their pigment changes from brown to blue – so pale red-haired and blonde white children suddenly develop purple, green or blue hair, while brown-skinned children turn blue all over. (Azurin is also rare. Only about 5% of all people carry the gene for azurin production, and only Proximas ever display it. Non-Proximas with the azurin mutation never express it, and end up creating perfectly normal melanin, because they are never exposed to catalysine.)

The “power mitochondria” are another pan-human phenomenon that only expresses itself in Proximas. All living cells on Earth contain tiny organelles called mitochondria – practically separate living things, with their own DNA, they use oxygen and sugar to generate the chemical that powers all life, ATP. Power mitochondria vastly overproduce ATP, and no one knows where they get the energy to do it – it’s like they suck potential energy out of the universe and convert it to life force. But they do this only when activated by catalysine within the cell. About 1/3rd of humans have power mitochondria. In the presence of the Proxima gene, these people generate energy above and beyond what they take in from food and air, which is then consumed by their superpowers. Without power mitochondria, a Proxima must draw from their own life force to fuel their superpower, which makes their powers pretty weak. The exact same genes for telekinesis can code for a person that can lift 70 lbs with their mind with effort vs. a person who can lift an aircraft carrier out of the water and break it in half, depending on the presence and output of the power mitochondria. Since mitochondria are passed by the mother, Proximas who inherit their power from a powerful mother will always be very powerful themselves, whereas Proximas who inherit from a powerful Proxima father depend entirely on the hidden status of their mother for their own strength.

(Funny fact, here: when Proximas were first discovered, male Proximas freely dated, married and fathered children on human women, because our entire society says it’s okay for men to have wives who are weaker than they are. Proxima women, on the other hand, mostly stuck to their own kind. In the seven years since we discovered the role of the power mitochondria, we have seen a dramatic reversal in which powerful Proxima men will not marry or get serious with human women unless they consider themselves “childfree” or have had the human woman’s mitochondria analyzed for power status, and more and more Proxima women are dating Sapiens men.)

So most of what goes into making a Proxima is actually in a vast percentage of the human population – 30% have power mitochondria, pretty much all of them have powers-complex. It’s the presence of the single gene that codes for catalysine production that makes a person Proxima as opposed to Sapiens. My belief was that Proximas would not be safe from the fear and envy of Sapiens unless we were normalized. The more Proximas there were, the more the law would adapt to and accommodate us and our needs and the less we’d need to fear the mob of Sapiens out to kill or control us. So my primary work, since I became Dr. Mystery, had been to increase the number of Proximas by giving as many Sapiens the Proxima gene as I can.

In my early experiments, when I used uncontrolled methods like retroviruses to mutate people, there were high casualty rates. Sapiens adults whose brains have not been exposed to catalysine in utero can’t control whatever superpowers they develop if they suddenly start making catalysine. So I started working primarily with children, usually terminally or chronically ill children that I could get direct access to. My power can create new brain pathways, and in a child or teen, with a developing brain, I can do it transparently, with no one noticing. Adults cannot experience sudden brain growth and change without noticing that something’s wrong – memories suddenly becoming lost, well-developed skills becoming weaker, mood swings, etc—so I only alter adults into Proximas if they request it. I often modify women of child-bearing age so that all their eggs carry the Proxima gene, ensuring that they’ll give birth to Proximas if they ever have kids. It’s harder with men, because men are generating new sperm all the time – I’d have to alter the spermatogonia, and since they’re part of the body, the body’s immune system might notice that they are genetically different from the other cells and attack them, making the man infertile. So I only make men into Proxima-fathers if I have plenty of time to work with them and tweak their immune systems, if necessary – and if they’re likely to have kids. Gay men coming to me to save them from AIDS and 70-year-olds who don’t want to get Alzheimer’s are usually not worth modifying reproductively.

The Peace Force were aware of my work, and opposed it. They believed it was wrong of me to change people’s genes without their consent. Technically, maybe they were right, but come on, what sane person would object to having superpowers? The only reason anyone would not want to be a Proxima is the prejudice against us, and I was working on that too. So I had to maintain a low profile because every so often the Peace Force would take it into their heads to try to capture me. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t fully legal – I was pardoned for my activities as Megamorph by Bill Clinton (did you know that Hillary Clinton once had breast cancer? No? Well, neither does anyone else), and nothing illegal I’d done as Dr. Mystery could be proven in a court of law. But the law hadn’t caught up with Proxima abilities, so the Peace Force never overly concerned themselves with whether they could prove wrongdoing or not. Their mentor and leader, Dr. Suryabati Chandrasekhar, aka Doctor Sun, was a telepath, and if she said, “Bad guy! Go fetch!” they would jump like puppydogs after a thrown stick.

So I lived in Baltimore, in a townhome in the Woodberry neighborhood, on Television Hill, because living directly under the broadcast tower generated enough interference that Suri couldn’t find me telepathically. I’d have preferred Little Italy, or better yet, a real city like New York or Philly (and I’d come way down in the world, admitting that Philly is a real city), but New York was far too close to Suri, whose base of operations was in Manhattan, and a lot of my work was done with politicians, making Baltimore or DC more convenient than Philly. And DC had the Special Service, human police in power suits who patrolled to protect the Capitol from parahuman attack. I never felt safe in DC. My Woodberry home had civilians living on both sides and a children’s day care across the street, ensuring that the Peace Force couldn’t attack me in force – they’d know the threat to civilians from a power battle would be too great to risk it politically for my sake (and to be fair, most of them are goody-two-shoes hero types who wouldn’t risk civilians, especially preschool children, even if they had perfect political cover for the operation.) So I figured that if Suri ever found me, she’d still think twice about siccing her dogs on me.

Also, the Light Rail, Baltimore’s sad and pathetic substitute for a subway, had a stop near my home. I didn’t learn to drive until I was 28, and I still hated it with a passion. I was a Brooklyn girl – give me a city with buses and subways and railways, so I wouldn’t have to dodge hurtling chunks of death metal just to get where I was going. From DC’s Metro, after I dropped my rental car at the airport, I changed at Union Station to the Camden line, took it to the baseball stadium in Baltimore, and changed there for the Light Rail. This took far longer than a car would have, but didn’t involve me being isolated in a tiny box with no source of living organic matter other than my own flesh and facing careening metal boxes coming right for me. It also didn’t involve traffic jams, which are brutal on the DC Beltway. A short walk from my stop later, and I was home.

As I unlocked my front door, Brian the cockatiel chirped at me wildly, flapping his wings in his cage. I’m really proud of Brian – in some ways he’s my greatest work. He used to be a man, or the head of a man, who attempted to rape me once. The truly pathetic thing was that Brian had been a good-looking guy, wiry and blond, the way I like them, and if he’d been willing to wait half an hour I would happily have had sex with him. But he hadn’t wanted sex, he’d wanted rape – the only reason he dated women and went back to their houses with them, rather than jumping out of the bushes with a knife, was that he was a lawyer and knew that a handsome man with money who date rapes a woman will basically never, ever be convicted. People think rapists have to be hard up for sex, or have to somehow look evil – the idea that a handsome, charming guy who could get any woman he wanted would actually prefer to hold screaming women down and force them when he could get consensual sex with the exact same woman instead breaks people’s brains. They assume the woman must be lying, because what man who could get mutual fun would prefer to commit rape? No one wants to admit how common misogynistic sadists actually are or how normal they look.

I found out from Brian that he’d date-raped ten women before me, that only two had tried to press charges, and the cops had refused to take the charges in one case and upset the other one so badly with their disbelief that she’d dropped the charges. I found this out while I had him paralyzed but still able to feel sensation, his voice made too hoarse to do more than whisper no matter how much he suffered, on a cot in the basement. Over the course of the two weeks that I used him in experiments, he told me his entire life story, amidst lots of self-justifications, begging, pleading and promising to change his ways. Then I started turning his body parts into animals, bit by bit. The rats and mice I made of his arms and legs didn’t come out right, and they died. The cockroaches who used to be his testicles were actually very robust, but after the cat knocked over the terrarium I was keeping them in, I had to get an exterminator to kill them because who wants cockroaches in their house? I was actually quite sad when the puppy I made out of his guts wouldn’t wake up and live – sometimes they just won’t come alive no matter what I do. Living things are very complex, and it’s more an art than a science to do things like make life into different life.

Since at that point, Brian had no way to digest food or ingest water, and he was therefore only a day or two away from death, I finally put him out of his misery by turning his head into a cockatiel and his torso into an iguana, a gecko, and a handful of tropical fish. Nothing lived longer than a week except the cockatiel, which so far had lasted three years. I often wondered, since I’d used some of the original brain tissue in making Brian’s new cockatiel brain, if he had any dim sense that he used to be human.

I fed Brian a cracker, re-absorbed my shoes into my flesh, and took back my original human form before plopping down on the couch to relax and await my cats. My actual body was permanently frozen at about age 22 or so; I changed it so often, I’d never really had the opportunity to let it naturally age. I could have forced it up to 36, where I really was, if I had to, but why bother? No one was going to see me and think less of me for looking too childish. My natural form is about 5’4” and built like a gymnast – tiny breasts, thickly muscled legs and arms, a rounded and balanced body with a low center of gravity and nothing sticking way out of line with the rest of it. For gymnastics – my childhood passion – and for combat, it was a fantastic body, and I used it for years as Megamorph before it occurred to me that maybe I should hide my true face if I was going to be a criminal. For instantly commanding respect, making men drool and women envy, or sending the signal “I AM A SERIOUS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND”, it wasn’t so good. It was short, the face looked too young and soft (and too much like a young, soft Gillian Anderson – people in med school actually used to call me “Scully”), and a body perfectly proportioned for gymnastics or martial arts isn’t all that attractive by the psycho standards of our culture. But it was my body, and in my home, with the shades drawn and the security system on, I went back to it because it was me.

As I wiggled my toes on my shag carpet and then propped my feet up on my coffee table, I wondered where my cats were. They were well-fed cats, but their heightened metabolisms made them constantly hungry, and they knew I was a sucker for giving them treats when I’d first come home. Normally, they’d be leaping on me minutes after my arrival. This worried me. If I had accidentally shut them in the bedroom, Angelkitty would probably pee on my ceiling to express her displeasure and Pikachu might have destroyed my furniture with a few good lightning blasts by now.

My cats were also experiments. I’d been curious to see if the genetic structures I’d observed in other mammals that seemed related to the human powers-complex were in fact superpowers, so I got myself a pair of abandoned newborn kittens and in between the droppers of kitten formula (I really drew the line at making cat milk in my own breasts; those little things have teeth very early), I modified them to generate catalysine. The female promptly grew bird wings (which didn’t attach to the right spot on her back and were too small; she’d never have flown if I hadn’t heavily modified them for her), and the male developed the ability to shoot lightning out of his paws, so I named them Angelkitty and Pikachu. (Technically, if you have seen the Pokemon cartoon, which I admit I have, Pikachu is a mouse that shoots electricity, or something rodentlike anyway, but come on, there aren’t exactly any mythological figures of cats that shoot electricity.) Angelkitty’s a Siamese and Pikachu is mostly white with some orange. They don’t have power mitochondria – that does appear to be a human thing – so they eat like pigs. I could feed six ordinary cats off what my two eat, but they remain extraordinarily svelte, almost feral in their slimness. And so if they weren’t here to pester me for fish treats, something was wrong.

I got up and went out to the kitchen. To my relief, my cats were still noshing on their tuna fish, which amazingly it looked like they had barely touched before I came home. (I always fed them human food. Why not? I had the money to keep them in canned tuna rather than cat food, and they loved the stuff.) Pikachu looked up at me, gave me a meow that I interpreted as “Oh, you’re home, good,” and then went back to his meal.

Wait a minute. There was more food in the bowl than there had been when I said good-bye to them this morning. And it was beyond the realm of possibility that they’d left so much food untouched for so long, anyway. And the tuna looked fresh out of the can. So how—

“I was wondering when you were going to get home,” a woman’s voice said behind me. I was already spinning to face her, preparing to leap at her, but as soon as I saw her I realized it was hopeless. “Don’t you ever feed these cats? They look like they’re starving.”

Ciana Kim, aka Sapphire, my once-classmate and current dire nemesis, was standing – well, floating—above my stairs in her traditional blue bubble, her features slightly obscured by the blue distortion and concealed behind her mask. The combat leader of the Peace Force was in my house.

I backed up. I couldn’t take Sapphire directly. Her power was to generate spherical or toroid magnetic fields, which glowed blue due to the way they bent light, hence her name. I needed organic channels to send my power through—behind her force field, Sapphire was totally safe from me, because I couldn’t touch her. I wasn’t safe from her, though. She could generate a force field around me, trapping me, any time she wanted.

There was a switch by the door to my basement, labeled “FURNACE – DO NOT TOUCH,” that would actually activate an EMP. All the computer and electronic equipment I had in my house outside the Faraday cage of the basement would fry, but Sapphire’s power would fail as well, and I could leap on her before she could reset her power. Or, if I didn’t really want to replace my MP3 player, phones, and the laptop in the bedroom, perhaps I could grab Pikachu and throw him at her. He’d be startled enough to discharge a bolt, and the electrical surge should pop her field like a soap bubble. I knew I had a faster reaction time than Sapphire – after years of modifying and tuning up my nervous system, I’m faster than anyone who doesn’t have super-speed as a specific power – so I should be able to grab her and neutralize her power or knock her out before she could get a force field back up again. I was reluctant to do that because Pikachu was my kitty and throwing him at superheroes seemed kind of mean, even though I knew he wouldn’t be hurt, but the EMP generator could theoretically blow out TV Hill, and then I’d have to dodge swarms of reporters trying to find out why they suddenly couldn’t get on the air anymore.

I stalled for time. “They’ve got very fast metabolisms. I feed them all the time, but they’ll pester anyone they meet for more.”

Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Oh, stand down, Meg. If I was here to capture you or beat you up, I’d have done it before you knew I was here.”

She had a point. Sapphire wasn’t stupid, and she had completely gotten the drop on me, to the point that I was actually really embarrassed about it. “So what do you want? Cooking advice? I always prefer to replace the generic vegetable oil with olive or canola, it’s easier on the heart.” The last time I’d been in the same household as her, Ciana Kim had refused to learn to cook, for very similar reasons to her refusal to learn hand-to-hand combat.

She ignored my jab. “Doctor Sun sent me. She needs your help and she asked me to ask you.”

I blinked. Doctor Sun wanted my help? Cold day in hell. But it’d have to get a lot colder before I’d say yes. “She wants my help? And she actually thinks I might agree? Excuse me, but the last time I interacted with any of you people you wrecked my lab, ruined four years of work and set me back half a million dollars.”

“You were infecting children’s vaccines with a retrovirus. Did you seriously think we’d let you just get away with it?”

“All it would have done was make them into Proximas. What do you think I am?”

“Someone who mutates people against their will. And how do you know that’s all it would have done? Retroviruses mutate. Besides, it’s still wrong to change people without their consent. How do you know those kids would even have wanted superpowers?”

“Oh, be real. Who wouldn’t want superpowers?”

“If I wasn’t a Proxima, I might have been an Olympic gold medalist.”

She was telling the truth. One of the things that annoyed me so much about Ciana was how close her life had been to mine, minus the dysfunctional family. I, too, had had Olympic dreams once, and my coach had told me when I was 11 that I might seriously make it as a contender. But no matter how good I’d been, I’d never really had a chance; if my parents hadn’t died when I was 13, some other aspect of my family’s screwed-up-ness would have ruined it for me.

Ciana Kim, however, had had a good and loving family who’d pushed her hard in the belief that she could achieve anything. She was a third-generation Korean American from California and her parents were doctors or something like that, and they’d stood behind her every step of the way. Even after everything had fallen apart in my life and I’d basically become a thug for hire, I had followed the Olympic gymnastic news, so I’d known all about this as it was happening.

Ciana was originally to be the USA’s representative to the Olympics in Seoul for women’s artistic gymnastics. Much was made in the media of a Korean American going to Seoul to represent America, but Ciana had been very photogenic and full of great soundbites about how she was as American as apple pie and she was honored to represent our great country and she was so looking forward to bringing a medal home for the US and she was following in Mary Lou Retton’s footsteps and blah blah blah. And then, a week before the Olympics, it had come out that she was a Proxima. They’d finally figured out that doing a blood test for catalysine would find any Proxima with an active power.

The truth is that even now, twenty years later, as an experienced superhero who uses her powers all the time, Ciana still can’t use her powers invisibly. There’s always a shiny blue blob there. And she had no training with her powers when she was 16, so it would have been even more implausible that she could have somehow used her powers to secretly cheat. I would be disqualified from a Sapiens competition in gymnastics in any sane world because of what my powers actually are, but Ciana was disqualified solely from anti-Proxima prejudice (and, to be fair, probably some anti-Asian prejudice from the Americans whose job it would have been to advocate for her). The Americans paid for their prejudices when Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union took home all the women’s gymnastics medals (I don’t like Ciana, but I’m pretty sure she would have won at least a silver in something, if not a gold.) Ciana was recruited by Dr. Chandrasekhar to learn how to use her powers and eventually join the Peace Force, Dr. Chandrasekhar’s UN-supported superhero team.

So it wasn’t that I had no respect for Ciana’s loss, but it irritated me that she saw the problem as being that she was a Proxima rather than that the Olympic committee was scared of Proximas. And also, that being an Olympic medalist was better than being a superhero. “Yeah yeah, you could have had your moment of glory, and nowadays you’d be selling sneakers and breakfast cereal to pay the bills, assuming anyone even remembered you at all. What’s Mary Lou Retton doing with her life?”

“She’s been an Olympics commentator, and she’s a motivational speaker who supports physical fitness.”

Trust Ciana to actually know this. “And that’s better than being a superhero how? You save lives, you have an action figure, millions of little girls look up to you—“

“—I wear a mask when I save lives because otherwise supervillains or stalkers might hunt me down, no one knows my real name, my family aren’t allowed to tell anyone what I do for a living, I’ll probably never have a normal life with a husband and kids—“

“--You could marry some guy and quit the superhero business any time you wanted to, it’s just your overblown sense of responsibility that says you can’t quit your job to have babies until your powers give out on you, because you think the world needs you, and if that’s the case where would they have been if you hadn’t been a Proxima?”

“Someone else would have taken my place if I hadn’t been a Proxima. And all of this is besides the point; no matter how great you or even I might think it is to have superpowers, the fact is that you were planning to infect helpless babies with a retrovirus that would have mutated them. Some of them might have died of it. Some might have been killed by their families for being Proximas once they manifested. You don’t have the right to play God that way.”

“Nobody would have died of my virus,” I retorted. “I tested it thoroughly ahead of time. But you also notice, I haven’t done it again.”

“Because you know we’ll stop you.”

“Because I listened to your arguments that retroviruses are unstable and highly prone to mutation, and I decided that maybe you have a point.”

“Then why did you bring it up?”

“You didn’t even try to just persuade me. You just blew up my lab! Do you know how many vials of vaccine I hadn’t modified yet you destroyed?”

“All of this is pointless,” Sapphire snapped. “I’m wasting time arguing with you when Doctor Sun is dying. Are you coming or not?”

Wait, what? Dying?

I had been a half-crazed killer with no self-esteem, no sense of myself being able to be or do anything good, no belief that anyone could ever care about me – at least not without dying for it – after David died. Dr. Chandrasekhar had taken me in and taught me that I could have a better destiny than being a tool for monsters to use to kill each other with; that I didn’t have to be a monster myself. I could use my powers for good. I could help people. I could be a decent person.

Viewed from her perspective, I suppose, it didn’t last – I freely admit I am a supervillain and I do highly unethical things, up to and including killing people. But I do it for a cause I believe in. I do it to save my people from the bio-engineered diseases I was forced to participate in creating at Sonnebend. I do it so girls with superpowers who are going to medical school to learn how to save lives will not be kidnapped, stripped of their powers except when convenient for their captors, raped, tortured and forced to use their powers to heal enemies and kill their own kind, by agents of their own government. I do it so my people can enjoy the same rights and privileges as every other human on this planet. And the fact that I can fight for a cause, that I can see myself as a person with a noble goal of my own… I owe that entirely to Doctor Sun.

No matter what she does to me, no matter what she orders her Peace Force to do, I can’t ever get away from that.

“Dying of what?”

“She was kidnapped and raped by Caesar Primus. When she escaped, she was two months’ pregnant, but the doctors say it seems more like six months. The child is growing too rapidly for her to handle it, and it’ll kill her.”

Oh, God.

My heart started pounding, my throat went dry. I could feel the adrenaline surging, my sympathetic nervous system revving up for a totally inappropriate fight-or-flight response. I couldn’t stop imagining the reality behind Sapphire’s words. It didn’t help that I’d once had sex with Primus myself – consensual, sort of, but I could entirely too easily imagine what it’d be like to be raped by him, without powers to protect you. And Primus was immune to telepathy, so effectively Suri would have been helpless. God, no. I didn’t want to think about that.

So I was flippant, and cold. “Doctor Sun’s a woman of the world. You’re telling me she’s never heard of an abortion?”

“She doesn’t want an abortion. She says she won’t compound Primus’ act by taking an innocent life.”

“When did Doctor Sun turn into a pro-lifer?”

“She says the baby has a mind and she won’t kill it.” Sapphire floated herself down onto my dining room floor, still surrounded by a protective bubble but no longer on my stairs. “Are you going to help, or not?”

“I’m a feminist Darwinist. I’m morally opposed to letting a fetus conceived in rape live. It lets dangerous genes persist in the population. Suri knows that.”

Sapphire sighed explosively. “Fine. I knew you weren’t going to be any help, but Doctor Sun believed in you. I’ll just go tell her I was right and she was wrong.”

“What is this supposed to be, reverse psychology?”

“Nothing reverse about it. I knew before I got here that I would be wasting my time. You’re a killer with no conscience; why Doctor Sun ever thought you might help, I have no idea.”

“Because she knows me better than you.” I stepped forward. “If this is reverse psychology bullshit, it isn’t necessary. I’ve known I was going to agree to help you since you told me she was dying. And if you really believe what you’re saying, then nyaah nyaah nyaah. I’m a doctor; everything I do, I do to save lives. And at least I have to try to persuade Doctor Sun to abort the thing. Besides, if she was raped by Primus she might have injuries she could need my help with.” Primus had hammered at me like he was trying to break my pelvis, and without my powers he might actually have done so. And I’d voluntarily gone to bed with him. What he’d do to a woman he was raping, I really really didn’t want to imagine.

I didn’t mention to Sapphire that this was partly my fault anyway. When I’d met her, Suri (Dr. Suri to me in those days, but I feel I have the right to call her by her first name now) had been dying slowly of multiple sclerosis. She had met me on a good day; she’d only needed crutches and braces to move. On bad days she’d been confined to a wheelchair, and on really bad days she’d had to stay in bed. I’d healed her, and in the process I’d turned her from a forty-something woman approaching menopause back to a woman in her prime, young and healthy, physically in her 20’s. It had been almost 20 years since I’d done that; Suri would be approaching menopause again, but obviously wasn’t there yet. By now she’d be well past childbearing if I hadn’t de-aged her when I’d healed her disease.

I didn’t know whether Primus had raped her to torture her, to express domination over her, to really make the Peace Force mad at him, or to impregnate her, but I knew he had enough control over his body that if he hadn’t wanted to impregnate her, it wouldn’t have happened. It was entirely possible that the goal of the whole thing had been to force her to carry his child; Suri was an enormously powerful Proxima with high output power mitochondria, and most women with such energy-full mitochondria would have had a power they could use to fight back against Primus. Blocking a Proxima woman’s powers while she was pregnant carried high risk to the fetus if it too was a Proxima; it could prevent the fetus from developing the ability to control its powers as an adult. Suri was rare in that she was incredibly powerful but only telepathic, with no telekinetic abilities, and with Primus’ immunity to telepathy, she’d have had no way to fight back against him even at her full power. If Primus had wanted a powerful woman to pass her mitochondria to his child, and he hadn’t cared about her consent, there were few Proximas who’d make a better target for him. And if that was the case, then the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t made her younger, sixteen years ago.

Sapphire blinked. “Wait. You are coming?”

“I just said so. But we have to bring my cats. They need to eat more than the average cat – they’d starve if I left them without food for three or four days, and obviously I can’t ask the neighbors to come feed them.”

“Fine. Sedate them; I don’t need a cat flying all over my car, or meowing and moaning in his carrier the whole time. We’ll put them in one of the suites and make sure they get fed.”

I took my cell phone – it had all of my appointments and contacts in it, and I’d have to call them all to reschedule once I knew how long this was going to take. If I could talk Suri into aborting the fetus, this could probably go very quickly, but I knew how stubborn she was. If I had to save the baby too, I could possibly have to take a few weeks.

Damn Suri. Why the hell was I taking time off my work and spending four hours in a car with one of the people who most annoyed me in the entire world to go save my greatest opponent anyway? From a problem she could just fix herself if she wasn’t so damn stubborn?

But I already knew. I couldn’t let Suryabati Chandrasekhar die; not under any circumstances, and most especially not if she’d asked for me specifically. Our differences were ideological; what she’d done for me went beyond ideology. I would fight her and her people when I had to, but if she was dying and she needed me, I had to go.

#nanowrimo #cold light #wip #supervillains #tw: csa #tw: rape #the trigger warnings are for things being talked about not things we see

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btswrckd · 6 years ago

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Not Afraid Anymore

Jeon Jungkook x Reader

Summary: You didn’t think Jungkook could you want you in any way other than friendship but it seems you were wrong.

Warnings: Idol au, unprotected sex, fingering, dirty talk, poorly written smut

A/N: I’m not going to lie to you guys, I have no title (literally, it’s just the song I was listening to when I wrote it) and no real summary for this, but I found it sitting in my drafts and remembered that I had promised this long before I started working on Hunting a Hybrid. Also, it’s not going to stay this way, I have much bigger plans for this fic but I wanted to post it because I neglected it for so long. Hope you enjoy anyways!

P.S. If you’re curious about the song, it’s Not Afraid Anymore by Halsey for the Fifty Shades Darker soundtrack.

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“It's too early for this.” You groaned while bundled up in Jin's hoodie and dropped your head to Taehyung's shoulder. “How do you guys constantly get up at the ass crack of dawn like this?”

“You learn to get used to it.” Taehyung kissed your temple and chuckled at the way you flailed your arms about in a small tantrum. “I told you to get some rest but no, you had to---.”

“Don't say it.” You warned and pinched his arm. “Why do I always have to remind you guys to be careful with what you say when we're in public?”

“Taehyung, behave,” Jin strode up to the two of you, leaning down to brush a kiss to your forehead. “Y/N's right. We're around all kinds of people everyday and we never know who’s recording what. Not everyone will understand our relationship. We’re lucky the team we have now tolerates our actions.”

“Sorry, hyung,” Taehyung bowed his head in apology before being called away for his change of clothes.

You let out a long sigh and sank into the cushions of the couch. Watching the multitude of people swarm around the room, you always wondered how the 7 men got used to the bumbling and bustling.

“Remind me again why I agreed to be part of this music video.” You asked Jisoo, the longest makeup artist to stick with the company and your best friend when she held up a black bag.

“Because you love the guys.” She giggled as you took the bag from her. “And because their management team has something pretty juicy up their sleeves for this comeback. Can you imagine all the theories the fans will come up with?”

“You mean can I imagine all the fans finally figuring out I'm sleeping with 6 members of Bangtan and then roasting me alive? Yes, yes I can.”

“Oh my god,” Jisoo rolled her eyes and pushed you in the direction of the dressing room. “You're being dramatic. The guys would never let that happen to you and the fans will be knee deep in wondering why BigHit put out a music video with a more adult theme than the guys have ever had. So the fans pick up on something going on between you and the guys, that's what good actors do.”

“And the trophy for number one fan of Bangtan goes to...” You snorted as she shoved you for teasing her and you fell into a solid chest.

“Ah, noona, are you okay?”

You blinked up at Jungkook and somehow lost the ability to speak. His large hands clasping your hips tight and keeping you steady left you a stuttering mess. Jungkook had been the only member to never sleep with you, never even try to sleep with you. You couldn't say you weren't a little offended, but you also knew it was quite selfish of you to want him in that way when he had no interest in you.

“Kook.” You blushed at his fingers dipping underneath your shirt to keep a firm grip on you. Your hands curled into the fabric of the leather jacket he had just changed in to. “Um, hi.”

“Hi, noona,” He shook his head, his lips curling up into a teasing smile. He really did love to get a rise out of you, it was easily his favorite way to pass the time. He tilted his head to the side, a seemingly innocent gesture to anyone not frequently hovering around him.

To you it was his way of making you feel like a child when you would sputter and huff out a frustrated breath at not being able to string together an intelligent sentence. Truthfully, you wondered how Namjoon put up with you most of the time.

“Are you okay?” Jungkook repeated, breaking you from your thoughts. “Did you not sleep well? You were up pretty late.”

“Jeon Jungkook!” You hissed and stepped out of his hold. You weren't too sure why you were embarrassed at having been heard by him the previous night. Maybe it was because when he was in the house, you did your best not to disturb him when you were being intimate with another member.

But he was home last night, he heard everything, and you wished the ground would open up and swallow you whole.

“Can you please go get dressed?” Jisoo ushered you away and into a nearby dressing room. “We're running behind schedule.”

Jungkook watched you go, letting his eyes drop to the sway of your hips. Of course he wanted to be with you. He'd have to be an idiot not to. But there was a lingering fear that he wouldn't be enough for you. He was the youngest member and while he was by no means a virgin, he wasn't as experienced as his elders.

“Could you be anymore obvious?” Jisoo’s voice had him jumping, not having realized she was still standing next to him.

“You scared the life out of me.” He put his hand to his racing heart and sighed while she laughed and patted his back. “What are you talking about? Obvious about what?”

“You like Y/N,” She clarified as she tugged on his sleeve to bring him to her makeup station, sitting him in her chair to touch up his hair. “Don’t deny it, Jeon Jungkook, it’s written all over your face. Why don’t you tell her?”

“Because what if I’m not good enough.” Jungkook mumbled. “My hyungs are more...experienced. I wouldn't want to disappoint her.”

She rolled her eyes and swept some hair from his face, “You've seen her drool over you. I very highly doubt you'll disappoint her.”

Just as he was about to speak, you emerged from the room Jisoo had ushered you into and his breath hitched at the sight of you; Jisoo had picked out a gorgeous black dress that left little to the imagination. He watched you tug at the hem as if that was going to make it grow longer.

“Oh my god, you look amazing!” Jisoo squealed, running over to you and hauling into a chair next to Jungkook. “I told you a lace bodice would look good on you miss 'it's gonna be too tight'.” She turned to Jungkook with a smirk as he took a sudden interest in his own reflection. “It looks good, right Jungkook?”

“Mmhmm, yeah, looks great.” He scratched at the back of his neck and let out an awkward cough.

You slumped in your chair, any hopes of getting a compliment out of him long gone. Crossing your knees, you grumbled at having to repeatedly pull on the end of your dress to keep it from riding up your thighs. You hated dresses, they were a pain and the way the lace clung to your frame was not appreciated. You could barely move in the material. How the hell were you supposed to get through the choreography?

You wiggled around in your chair as Jisoo tried her best to keep you in place to apply your makeup. The foundation felt heavy on your skin even when she swore it was only a thin layer, teasing you for trying to swat her hand away as she brought a shade of red lipstick to your mouth.

“Honestly, if you're not going to hold still then I'm going to tie you down.” She nudged your shoulder, whispering in your ear, “And I'll get Jungkook to help.”

A blush crept up your collarbone and cheeks, resembling a tomato as she laughed and stalked off to find a curling iron. It was official, you hated your best friend.

A sudden weight on your knees caught your attention and you glanced at your lap to find Jungkook's leather jacket draped over your legs. You looked up in time to find his face right in front of yours, his eyes boring into yours and you swore he could hear the rapid beating of your heart.

“Kook?” Your breathed fanned across his face and he smiled at you, his bunny teeth breaking through and you squeezed your thighs together as an unexpected pang of arousal shot through you. You were mortified as he raised a brow, having noticed the action.

“You seem uncomfortable in your dress, noona.” He observed. “Doesn't Jisoo have another one picked out just in case?”

“I uh,” You toyed with the leather of his jacket and focused on the mirror behind him. Which was clearly a mistake as you saw the muscles of his back flex beneath his dress shirt. “Th-This one is fine. I mean I can't really move as freely as when I'm in sweatpants, but…”

“You look really gorgeous,” Jungkook backed away when Jisoo approached your chair, curling iron in one hand and a hair brush in the other.

“I've been waiting forever to finally get ahold of you long enough to curl your hair,” She pulled the elastic band from your ponytail and began brushing it out. She eyed Jungkook after seeing his jacket on your knees, “Did you get cold or something?”

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

It took a good 20 minutes for Jisoo to release your final curl from the iron, hairspray following soon after. She grinned and fluffed your curls with excitement.

“You look so good!” She squealed, shaking your shoulders and you laughed at her enthusiasm. “Oh, we have some other backup dresses in the next room if you want to take a look. I know that one must feel a little short.”

“Thank you!” You stood from her chair and stretched your hands above your head, hearing your back pop in the process and you let out a satisfied moan. Forgoing the heels picked out for you, you stepped into a pair of slippers and made your way to the room next door.

The most expensive of dresses lined a clothing rack right next to the boys’ outfits. A beautiful ballet halter dress caught your eye, the white starting at the neckline flowing down into an aqua blue color as it reached your calves. Taking it off the rack and stripping from the current dress you had on, you pulled on a pair of spandex shorts before slipping the new dress over your head. The material flared out more and more after it reached your hips, giving you a lot more room to work with and you smiled.

Hearing the click of the door behind you had you spinning around to face whoever walked in. A small laugh made its way out of your mouth at Jungkook admiring the new dress. “Hey. You scared me, Kookie.”

“Sorry, noona,” He chuckled and let his eyes roam your face, jaw clenching when you tucked your bottom lip between your teeth. “I um, was coming to see if you were okay. You didn’t look comfortable in Jisoo-noona’s chair earlier.”

“I’m okay,” You nodded, grabbing the material of your dress and swaying the material to show how easy it was to move in. “Much better actually. Did you see how tight that other one was? I love Jisoo’s sense of style but I like this one a lot more.”

“Of course,” Jungkook gave you a warm smile and took the time to scan you from head to toe while you were preoccupied with looking through the duffel bag you’d brought with you.

You were intent on finding your jazz flats; heels weren’t going to be much help in the type of choreography Hoseok had taught you in the last few weeks. Finally finding your split-soles, you gestured for Jungkook to come closer and he obeyed silently, debating on whether or not it was a good idea to be close to you when he was already half hard from your earlier dress.

He stood tall next to you, watching as you clamped a hand on his shoulder to keep your balance as you slipped the shoes on. His mouth parted in awe as you tested them for flexibility, bouncing from one foot to the other, stretching your leg as far back behind you as you could, and standing on the tips of your toes as if to break the shoes in some more. He always marveled at your dance skills that easily rivaled or sometimes even dominated Hoseok’s.

“What do you think, Jungkookie?” You managed to snap him from his thoughts, blushing when his dark eyes ventured from your breasts to your face. “Does it...look okay?”

“You’re beautiful as always. There’s not a day you look anything but, noona.” His eyes focused on the small blotch of lipstick staining your chin.

“Oh, um, you’ve got…” Jungkook gestured to the side of his mouth, smiling when you wiped away at your own face but missing the small stain.

“No, here,” He stepped close and lifted his hand to skim his fingers across your face. “How is it that you managed to smudge your lipstick right after Jisoo applied it?”

“Ah, you know I fuss a lot when she does my makeup.” You wrapped your fingers around his wrist and turned away from his gaze, leaning against the empty table behind you. “The stylists are going to kill you for barging in on me, you know? You should head back out there. I’ll be done in a minute.”

Jungkook didn’t move for a solid minute before deciding ‘fuck it’ and pressed his hips to yours, crowding you and planting both palms on either side of your body to keep you in place. “I’ll just tell them I came to check on you. Since your face was all red back there.”

“Right.” You attempted to sound as normal as possible, but you knew that was a lost cause when he chuckled and used one hand to brush the hair from your face. “I just, um---.”

“Why do you always blush around me, noona?” Jungkook leaned close to plant a soft kiss to your cheek, your body stiffening at the sudden act of affection. If it weren't for all the times he'd caught you staring at his every move when you thought you were being subtle, he would have backed away. Panic would have washed over him and he'd try to play it off as his awkward attempt at joking if he didn't know you inside and out. “Do you still see me as just a kid?”

“What? O-Of course not, Jungkook. I---.”

“Then can I kiss you?” He was closer than before now, his nose and lips brushing against your own and you found yourself chasing after his almost kiss when he pulled back. “Please?”

You could only nod wordlessly, your knees buckling at the first press of his lips and he had to wrap one arm around your waist to keep you from falling. One of your hands came off the table to press against his chest while the other slid its way up to tangle in his hair.

Your lips were soft and warm as they moved in sync with his, the smallest of moans miffed by the sudden prodding of his tongue. He coaxed your mouth open with small licks and nips of his teeth on your bottom lip.

“Kook,” You broke away from him as breathing was soon becoming a problem. His mouth instead moving down your jaw to decorate the expanse of your neck in purple bruises. “You know Jisoo's going to kill you for marking me up.”

“Jisoo's not as scary as she likes to think.” Jungkook reached down to cup the back of your thighs and lift you onto the table, burying his face into your neck and inching his fingers up higher until they met the hem of your spandex shorts.

“Jungkook,” You breathed against his ear before he pulled back to peel the material down to pool at his feet, “are you sure? You know your hyungs and I never pushed---ah!”

His thumbed pushed past the lace of your panties and thrummed against your clit before he slipped a finger past your wet folds, slowly adding another. “I know. I know you did your best to make me comfortable, noona. Your relationship with my brothers was always your business. But, fuck, I can't help it anymore. You're so gorgeous, noona, and you sound so pretty when you moan. Won't you make those sounds for me too?”

You gasped, looping your arms around his neck and tugging on his hair. Your legs crossed behind his back and you rocked your hips up to meet the thrusting of his fingers. “God, Jungkook.”

“Just like that, baby.” Jungkook groaned at your juices coating his fingers while his other hand worked on undoing his belt.

You pulled back to untuck his shirt from his pants, undoing the buttons quickly. “This isn't how I'd imagined being with you for the first time.”

“I know, noona,” He pressed a gentle kiss to your lips, deepening it while your hands worked at the zipper of his jeans. “I promise we have plenty of time to go slow later. I just need to be inside you right now.”

“Mmm I don't know, Kookie,” You slipped your hand into his boxers, running your fingers along the length of his cock. Your mouth went dry at how thick he was, your forefinger having trouble touching your thumb. “Do you deserve it? You did make me wait all this time, after all. Maybe I should make you wait until we get back to the dorms.”

A growl made its way up Jungkook's throat as he hit a particular spot inside of you, making you arch your back. “That's not a game you want to play with me, sweetheart.”

“Ah, Jungkookie,” You giggled and pumped your hand slowly, your thumb coming around to swipe at the precum pooling on the head of his cock. You smirked as his head fell forward to your shoulder and his hips rocked into your touch, thrusting into your hand while your grip tightened slightly. “I think I’d win that game pretty easily.”

He moaned at the feel of your lips against his neck, sucking pretty bruises into his skin and his fingers curled inside of you, a small whimper leaving you. He knew you wanted to be able to control the situation, and any other day he would gladly let you if time was something to be spared. Today though, you were all on a schedule and were already running late, he didn’t want anyone barging into the room in search of you.

Jungkook pulled his fingers away and lifted you up, turning and sitting on the table while pulling you onto his lap. Bunching your dress up and gathering both of your wrists in one hand, he pulled your chest flush against his.

“We've both waited long enough, noona,” He used his free hand to pull his cock free from his jeans, using the head to run along your folds and coat himself in your juices. Pushing your panties to the side, he felt your thighs tremble before sheathing himself fully inside.

“Fuck!” You whimpered and dropped your head to his shoulder. His size took much more time adjusting to than the 6 other members. “W-why...how are you so...big?”

He gripped your hips roughly and rocked you back and forth on his lap. Your breath hitched with every movement, feeling the sweet drag of his cock against your walls. “All those nights I had to listen to you and my brothers,” he bucked his hips up to meet your thrusts, “all this time I had to listen to you beg for them to touch you. How do you think I felt?”

You turned your head to brush your lips against his neck and listened to the lewd sounds of skin slapping against skin. Chewing on your bottom lip, you tried your best to conceal your moans but it was proving to be difficult with the way he slammed into you. “You know I wanted you too, Kookie. You know how much I wanted you to touch me too.”

“Yeah? How bad did you want me, Y/N?” Jungkook cupped the back of your head and pulled your mouth up to his. “Did you think of me when you were with my brothers? Like last night when Jimin-hyung fucked you in the shower?”

“Y-Yes,” You admitted because their shared bathroom was right next to Jungkook's room and you knew he could hear everything so there was no sense in denying it. “I w-wanted you to hear.”

“Oh? Why is that?” He planted his feet firmly, grinding up into you as hard as he could, almost like punishment. “Does hyung know I was on your mind when he had you on your knees for him?”

“Yes!” You cried out at a particularly harsh thrust, hissing when his fingernails dug into the skin of your neck, your knees burning red from rubbing against the plastic table, “Yes, Jimin knew. It wa-was his idea. Said he wanted you to kn-know what you were missing. Fuck, Kook!”

“You want to cum, baby?” He felt your walls clench around him, making a mental note to kill Jimin later. The sudden ringing of his phone didn't phase him as he let go of your neck and dug into his pocket, answering with a growl. “Hyung?”

“Where the hell are you?” Namjoon asked through grit teeth. “And where is Y/N? Jisoo is looking for her and let me tell you---.”

Namjoon's rant was cut off by Jungkook's groan and your accompanying moan. His eyebrows shot up in surprise and he had to scan the room to make sure no one was too close to overhear him. “Are you guys…? Jeon Jungkook, you better not have hauled her off for some quickie right before we're about to shoot.”

“Sorry,” Jungkook let out a breathless chuckle and dropped his head back as you rolled your hips, lifting yourself up and dropping back down at an achingly slow pace. “She just looked so good, hyung. So pretty and the way she clenched her thighs together when I got near her...ugh, fuck, she feels so good.”

“Yeah, only took you long enough.” Namjoon snorted and tried to discreetly adjust himself. He always did get off to the sounds of you and one of his members. “Maybe here and now of all places wasn't the best timing. Are you even listening?!”

“No,” Jungkook moved his free hand down to rub circles on your clit, not even bothering to lie. “Are you close, baby? You look so beautiful when you cum and it's going to be all for me, right pet?”

Namjoon took in a deep breath and tried to focus on something other than your whines and instead hearing the rustling of fabric. “You better not be messing up her dress, Kook, you hear me?”

Jungkook wrapped an arm around your waist and held you steady, grinding his hips up and hissing as you dug your nails into his shoulders. “Don't worry, hyung, I'm not going to dirty her dress. Our little pet is going to let me cum inside, right baby?”

You nodded as a choked sob left your mouth, clinging to his shoulders and combing your fingers through his hair.

“Use your words.” Jungkook demanded with grit teeth and moved his free hand up to your back, splaying his fingers between your shoulder blades. “Where am I gonna cum, baby? Say it. Say it loud enough for Namjoon-hyung to hear.”

“Inside, Jungkook, pl-please cum inside me.” You were breathless and struggling to form coherent sentences but years of sleeping with someone as dominant as his older brothers taught you that when they ask, you answer.

“Fuck,” Namjoon groaned from his side of the phone. “You better be careful, Jungkook, I'm not kidding. None of us have ever...we always wear condoms.”

“She's been a good girl, hyung,” Jungkook panted and felt your walls clench around him once more, a curse falling from his lips. “She's been taking her birth control pills.”

“Ah, Jungkook!” You cried when he pulled you close and bit down on the skin of your neck, decorating it in purple.

“She knows how much I've wanted to be inside her like this, right sweetheart? Tell hyung how much you want it.”

You whimpered as he put the phone to your ear and you heard Namjoon's ragged breathing. “Yes! Yes, I want it. Please, Joon, please can I have it?”

“Goddamnit,” Namjoon cursed and had to turn away from the crowd of stylists surrounding him to put the finishing touches on his face and hair. “Yes, princess, you can have it. Take all of Kookie's cum like a good girl.”

Dropping his phone to the floor, Jungkook shot up from the table to press you flat against it and he pushed your legs up to your chest while his cock sank deeper, hitting that spot that had you keening.

Your own hand came up to clamp over your mouth in hopes of muddling the cries that accompanied his harsh thrusts, the coil that formed long ago in the pit of your belly finally snapping and your back arched up with the intensity of your orgasm.

“Shit,” He leaned his forehead against yours where your lips met in a kiss made of nothing but teeth and tongue. The small press of your fingers against his abdomen had him slowing his hips until he was simply fit snug inside of your cunt. “Please, noona, just a little more.”

“I just…” You whimpered as he shifted his weight impatiently, “I need a second, Kook.”

Jungkook nodded, little droplets of sweat dripping onto your cheek as he peppered your neck and collar bone with kisses and little nips of his teeth. He felt your hands ghosting across his chest as if familiarizing yourself with every muscle, his body shuddering when one hand snuck its way underneath his shirt and your nails dug into his skin. Your fingers caressed up the length of his neck, to his jaw, and then to his cheek where he turned and kissed the palm of your hand lovingly.

Propping yourself up on one elbow forced Jungkook to give you some space and let your legs dangle on either side of his. You were too lost in the way his eyes held yours to notice when he gave an experimental thrust. Then two, then three and before you knew it, he had set another pace that had your toes curling.

“You can give me one more, can't you noona?” Jungkook straightened his back and hitched your thigh over his hip to give him a different angle, his pace relentless. “You'll be a good girl and cum again for me, won't you?”

“Shit, shit, shit!” You chanted as another orgasm washed over you, triggering his own and he painted your walls white with ropes of cum. Feeling his fingers grip your chin, his lips were on yours to muffle his groans while he rocked against you gently.

Your heavy breathing and his filled the room as he rode out his orgasm, your chest rising and falling heavily and you let out a small laugh, “Kookie, the stylists are going to kill you.”

“Mmm,” He scrunched his nose up in a smile, “then I'd die happy.”

“You're a brat.” You teased and slapped his shoulder, pushing him away gently, a mix of your juices and his trickling down your thigh.

He snorted and reached under your dress to collect it and used two fingers to push his cum back inside your sensitive folds. “This stays in you, Y/N. Not a drop spills or Namjoon-hyung will punish you.”

You nodded with a blush dusting across your cheeks and readjusted your dress to look as presentable as possible.

Jungkook ran a hand through his hair and knew he was going to catch hell for messing up the clothes that had been laid out for the both of you. He tucked his now soft cock back into his pants and cupped your face to leave a small peck on your lips. “I love you, noona.”

Your stomach flipped, butterflies fluttering like you were a teenager again and hearing those words for the first time ever. “I love you too, Jungkookie.”

He pulled back to let you stand and smooth down your dress before he took your hand in his, lacing your fingers together to guide you back to the awaiting crew.

“Everyone's staring.” You mumbled as you stepped out of the dressing room and immediately caught the attention of the 6 other boys.

“What the hell?!” Jisoo seethed and stormed up to the two of you, poking Jungkook in the chest. “Have you lost your mind, Jeon Jungkook? Do you know how long it took me to do her makeup and now I have to cover up more hickies? Your hyungs are bad enough.”

Jungkook ducked his head in apology and let her take you back to her makeup chair. He stalked over to his seniors and blushed when Namjoon clapped him on the back.

“What's gotten into you?” Namjoon chuckled while Hoseok pinched his cheek. “You know you didn't even hang up the damn phone. Jimin's ready to burst.”

“Hyung,” Jimin pouted and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans in attempt to hide his arousal.

“Our Jungkookie's becoming a man, Namjoon.” Hoseok cooed as Jungkook slapped his hands away.

“Pet,” Namjoon repeated in a teasing tone, “sweetheart, baby. Someone's been listening in on us.”

“Well the walls aren't exactly soundproof!” Jungkook looked away from his seniors as another makeup artist approached them, using a makeup wipe to clean his neck and face, ridding him of the red lipstick stains.

“Our little Kookie's finally grown up.” Taehyung put a hand to his chest and wiped away an invisible tear. “We're so proud.”

“Stop it,” You warned, approaching them with a fresh coat of lipstick and the hickies nowhere to be found thanks to Jisoo.

“How are you feeling, baby?” Namjoon took you in his embrace and kissed the top of your head.

“Sore.” You whispered in hopes of not embarrassing Jungkook more. “The hell have you guys been teaching him?”

“He learned all that on his own.” Namjoon smirked down at you. “It was pretty hot though.”

“Oh my God, shut up.” You pushed away from him and crossed your arms. “Can you be any more embarrassing?”

“Oh Jungkook! Oh Kookie! Please can I have it?! I want it!” Namjoon mocked and laughed as your jaw fell in horror before your fist reared back and came forward to connect with his stomach. He doubled over in pain as his other members laughed and Jungkook tried to sink in on himself to disappear.

“You know what? Just for that,” You huffed and glanced around to see if anyone was listening, “Kookie's the only one who can touch me for the next week.”

“What?!” The 6 other members gaped at you.

“Why am I being punished?!” Taehyung whined. “I didn't even do anything!”

You crooked your finger at Jungkook and wrapped your arms around his neck when he got close enough. You smiled as his bunny teeth broke through his grin and you really wanted to give him another kiss but one look from Jisoo had you pouting and stepping away before you got into any more trouble.

3 Days Later:

You didn't remember how you ended up flat on your back on the kitchen counter with Jungkook buried balls deep inside you but you were pretty sure it was his intention to be so just as his older brothers walked through the door.

Yoongi was the first to spot you two, stopping dead in his tracks and barely budging as each member behind him ran into his back. His pupils blowing out at the sight of your naked body clinging to Jungkook's like your life depended on it and your breasts bouncing against the maknae's chest with each harsh thrust.

His hands curled into fists, his blunt nails digging into the skin as a way to keep himself from hauling you off. They were being punished for teasing Jungkook and now they all had to watch Jungkook's lips suck at your skin greedily and your fingers tugging on his hair.

Yoongi figured that you used this time to familiarize yourself with Jungkook's likes and dislikes, and to your surprise and his seniors, you quickly learned that Jungkook was not a fan of condoms. He was the first of the members to fuck you without one and you both knew that it meant Taehyung probably gathered every condom in the house and threw them out.

“Kookie,” You gasped out as your other hand brushed down his back, your nails biting into his skin. You heard the sounds of the keypad and tapped Jungkook's shoulder to try and get his attention but it was useless as his mouth worked at your neck. It was when Namjoon rounded the corner to catch your eye that you braced your hands against Jungkook's chest to push him away.

“No, no, princess,” Namjoon's firm command didn't deter Jungkook, who instead wound his arm beneath your knee. “It's okay, baby, let Jungkookie make you feel good.”

You could have cried if it felt any better. Jungkook was long and thick, leaving you to wonder how the hell he could wear such tight pants. “Fuck!”

Jungkook grunted in agreement as he buried himself to the hilt, making you come undone. His lips moved lower to your chest to feather kisses along your heaving breasts. You were both sweaty and spent but he really had no care in the world as he took his time coaxing you to relax with small brushes of his lips.

“You look tired, baby,” Namjoon frowned and reached over to push your sweat soaked hair from your face. “Jungkookie, did you make sure your noona was alright?”

Jungkook only nodded while trying to catch his breath, decorating your chest in love bites and glancing up at his senior.

“Are you still hard, Kook?” Namjoon shot him a glare. Of course the little devil would time it just right so his brothers could catch a glimpse of what they were missing.

“Yes,” Jungkook panted into your bruising skin, “But I'm okay noona, I don't have to---.”

“Kookie, relax,” You soothed him with a soft kiss, “it's okay.”

“Ah, but you're tired and I---.”

“Need a cold shower.” Taehyung piped up from the living room and Jungkook blushed a deep shade of red.

You smiled gently at him, running your hands down his chest and admiring his tanned skin. “I'm okay, Jungkook. Keep going. Please.”

“Can you even still handle it, baby?,” Hoseok was suddenly next to Namjoon, Yoongi not far behind. “You look exhausted. Jungkook-ah, how long have you…?”

“Since you left.” You hummed as if you hadn't been out of breath a moment ago.

“What?” Yoongi blanched, trying to decide if he should be impressed with Jungkook’s stamina or pissed that there was still a whole 4 days left before he could get his hands on you.

“That's the appeal of a younger man, hyung,” Jungkook teased, rolling his hips gently and hoping he wasn’t overstimulating you.

“Yah, you little brat!” Yoongi lunged for the maknae but was held back by Hoseok wrapping his arms around Yoongi's shoulders. “I could kill you right here, kid!”

“Okay, we're just gonna,” Hoseok struggled to pull Yoongi to the front door, nodding his head for the rest to follow, “take a walk.”

Namjoon patted Jungkook's shoulder with a smile, “He's going to murder you when we get back.”

Jungkook buried his face into the crook of your neck to hide his smile while you giggled at Yoongi’s outburst, knowing full well that he couldn’t stay mad at you. He felt your soft kisses against his temple to coax him into looking back at your face to kiss him properly, your fingers pulling at his black locks. Your other hand skimmed up his shoulder to join the already tangled fingers in his hair, tugging to expose the column of his throat and he moaned as your lips travelled to his jaw line then lower.

Teeth sinking into his soft skin ever so gently, you gasped when his hips rocked into yours to start a wonderfully quick pace before you guys had been interrupted. You could hear the small grunts of effort whispered against the shell of your ear and you dropped back against the counter to admire the way his jaw clenched and the veins pop out against his neck.

With your head lolling from side to side, Jungkook sped up his thrusts and nearly smirked at the way your eyes rolled into the back of your head but your fourth orgasm of the night triggered his own, hips colliding with yours once more before filling you to the brim with his cum.

“Holy shit,” You breathed and reached up to run your fingers through your hair, “you’re so much work, Kookie.”

“Hey,” Jungkook whined and tried his best to keep from collapsing onto you, “I’m the one that did all the extra work this time.”

“Oh? And earlier when you made me ride you in your gaming chair wasn’t extra work?” You pinched his cheek, biting your bottom lip as he pulled out, your juices leaking along the insides of your thighs. Your legs felt like jelly and you were almost embarrassed to admit you couldn’t even stand because the last thing you needed was to stroke his already too big ego.

“Come on, noona,” He chuckled and tucked his arms underneath your limp body to carry you to the bathroom where he gently sat you in the tub and ran a warm bath for the both of you. He slid into the ceramic tub behind you, pulling your back flush against his chest and resting his chin on your shoulder. He felt you hum in content and brought his hands up to twine his fingers with yours, placing a small kiss to the back of your head. “I love you, noona, you know that right?”

“Of course,” You frowned and turned your head to look at him, searching his features for any sign of doubt. “I love you too.”

“Good because Yoongi hyung is gonna kill me when he gets back and I needed to hear that.”

#jeon jungkook smut #jeon jungkook fic #bts imagine #bts smut #bts fic #idol au #not afraid anymore fic #jeon jungkook imagine

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grisdidthis · 4 years ago

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CHAPTER ONE: FIRST SIGHT

AKA, blessed fucknuggets, why do these fools feel the need to put themselves through high school, my sources tell me that the US school system isn’t all that to begin with, what gives?

PREVIOUS ENTRIES

(Warning: this got long. Looooong. Hence, cut, so that I don’t murder your dash like Edward doesn’t murder Bella in this chapter.)

Welcome to the first entry of a live-read that no one asked for, in which I’ll go through the first chapter of Midnight Sun, i.e. a retelling of the first Twilight book from Edward Cullen’s POV. Not to be confused with Grey, a retelling of the first volume of a Twilight fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, or the Life and Death edition, a retelling of the first Twilight book in which Bella Swan is genderbent into a dude called Beau, who utters the immortal line “I knew I must look like a gorilla on a greyhound.” Which still tickles my humerus to this day.

I’ve waited for this novel to drop so long that at some point I’d stopped waiting. If by some freaky turn of chance you stumbled on this without knowing about the hoopla surrounding the publication, here’s a Wikipedia link. The gist is that the first few chapters of the WIP got leaked, the author got upset, the book got shelved until ??? and no further information about it was forthcoming until a while ago, when out of the blue arrive the news that it’s getting released in August.

My first thought was “Oh, yay, something actually NICE is happening this year!”

My second thought was “Please let it be good, so that I can laugh outrageously at [name redacted] for mocking my enjoyment of this series!” And. Look. I know what’s said about Twilight with regards to its literary merit and Stephenie Meyer’s abilities as a writer. A lot of it is admittedly accurate. However, the metrics by which I measure the value of a book are a) did it entertain me? and b) did I gain anything by having read it? And yeah, those are personal and subjective items, but objectivity is a lie, Jesus enjoys using toasters to take selfies, and if ten years ago I hadn’t been looking for a place to post my 50k+ epic Renesmee-centric fanfic, I wouldn’t have met the people who are currently my best friends.

Which is to say: I’m too attached to this series to give a fig what color the prose is. Deal.

And yet. Me hoping that Midnight Sun would be good, in a way that people who don’t have my level of emotional investment might acknowledge, wasn’t… that farfetched? Because the last book Meyer released before this one, The Chemist? Is an improvement on all her previous work. A huge improvement! It’s competently written! The characters read like they were intended to be flawed, messy people.

The main romance isn’t the kind of fucked up that Bella and Edward’s is, where you can pen treatises on why they’re omg so unhealthy. It’s the kind of fucked up where five seconds after meeting her love interest, the protagonist drugs him unconscious, kidnaps him, sticks a urinary catheter up his ding dong, straps him to a table and tortures him for information until the guy’s ex-CIA identical twin drops a plane on the barn they’re in and crashes through the ceiling all “HANDS OFF MY BABY BROTHER YOU DISCOUNT MATA HARI!”

Then they all make friends and go on a road trip together because a shady government organization is after them.

That’s not a fucked-up relationship that you write an essay analyzing the fucked-up-ness of. It’s something you stare at, stunned and, if you’re me, torn between thinking “Holy shit, this is so my brand of heroine!!!” and “How much crack was Auntie Steph on when she wrote this?” And it’s beautiful. I want ten more like it. So my hopes for Midnight Sun are tempered by the knowledge that, being a retelling of an established narrative, it can’t go all-out with the batshit. But I’m still optimistic that some part of it will give me that warm “Awww, you’ve come a long way from where we first met, author! Good on you!” feeling.

Now let’s (finally!) get started on the chapter proper.

…oh wait there’s an author’s note.

…uhm. Yeah. My dreams. About those. *fixed stare at faraway bonfire* Actually, let’s not talk about those and just move on to Edward Not Liking High School, thank you. Yeah. That’s good.

Edward Cullen doesn’t like high school. Edward doesn’t like that people think. Edward doesn’t like that the human student body is beside itself with the arrival of some new chick. Edward thinks his adopted siblings are super basic. (Rosalie = shallow, Emmett = simple, Jasper = psycho two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage.) We don’t get to hear his utterly unbiased assessment of Alice, because she butts in and starts a one-sided telepathic convo about how Jasper is two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage. You know. Normal sibling stuff.

WHY DO YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS HASSLE, WHY!

(Let me take this opportunity to share my pet crack theory that Carlisle Cullen is secretly the most twisted, evil vampire in all of vampiredom, and that the sending the young ones to high school bit is something he does solely because he gets his evil fix by feasting on the emotional toil it inflicts on them. Also why he’s a doctor; he can ignore the call of blood, because being surrounded by the pain of patients and their loved ones already keeps him fed. I mean. He was chilling with the Volturi way back when, and Aro gives off a handsy vibe. No way he didn’t get his mind read in every which way, and if that happened - if he were reaaaalllyyyyy that nice, why would he still ping them as a threat of any kind?)

(This has holes in it, I know. And clashes with my other pet crack theory, which posits that the whole immortal child/Let’s Catch Them All: Cullen Edition was in fact the fallout of a Very Bad Italian Breakup, with Aro being the pissy ex who wants sole custody of the kids.)

Whatever. It still makes more sense than them going through “the inert state between active periods” when. My dudes! College is right there. Some places you can even sit out 90% of lectures and still get your diploma if you don’t feel like faking one, so Jasper would be all set! And you can pick different subjects! Diversify! Why must it always be med school rehashes, there are other worthy professions! And whole fields that are useless for getting-a-job purposes, but still interesting and enriching for those who have the luxury to pursue them. Let Emmett do Viking Studies, for fuck’s sake!

This amuses me much more than it rightfully should. I’m a child.

The Cullen clan tries to pep talk Jasper into not getting his murder on. Jasper is like OMG WILL YOU GUYS LAY OFF, while Edward is busy doing his judgy Edward thing and thinking to himself that Jasper should accept his limitations, that it’s a bad idea to have him at school at all, blah blah bleh, and you know what, I’m with you there, Ed.

Although we all know that this is just setup for the irony that will ensue as soon as Bella the Delicious klutzes her way into his line of smell.

Oh yah! Enter Bella. Edward can’t hear her thoughts. Jessica Stanley is a b-word. Edward wonders whether not being able to butt into the new girl’s head may be a red flag for vampire Alzheimer. Biology class next! The teacher is a man “of no more than average intellect” and, lord. It’s lucky that Edward is the mind reader in the family, because imagine if it were one of the others and they had to put up with listening to him bitch about the world at large, nonstop, at all hours of the day. And night, since these guys don’t sleep. Angela Webber is the only soul in the whole school whose thoughts have the Edward Cullen seal of approval. I feel sorry for her. I also feel this weird sense of hey, this all seems familiar in senses other than being a retelling, have I been here before?

Wait.

WAAAIIIIIITEEEEE.

*googles for the old version*

*runs first chapters through copyleaks*

*kubrick stare* MEYER, YOU LAZY SO AND SO, HOW COULD YOU!

*slams head on desk*

Well. At least I know what I’m in for. HONESTLY! It’s been. It’s been THIS MANY YEARS since the leaked version appeared, and that was a first draft, how in the… she’s way better than this, now! Was this novel produced in a terminal state of $#%CARING#NOT?&FOUND?! Is half of it just going to be the same old thing with a thin veneer of polish? I’m.

*sigh* You know what, I’m okay. We’re just going to call this first part a re-read. It’s been ten years, so I remember not a whole lot of the specifics, so at least I won’t be bored. BUT COME CHAPTER 13 I EXPECT TO BE SWEPT OFF MY FEET, DO YOU HEAR ME?!

Biology. Bella walks in right past a fan and gives Edward a throbbing throat boner. How awkward. Then she goes and sits right next to him and saucily tosses her hair around like he’s not actively plotting her murder and that of the rest of the class. The cheek of the thing!

Fortunately, Bella’s tasty ass is momentarily saved by a stiff breeze.

…I think we may have found the solution to Jasper’s control issues. The Cullens just need to start carrying air freshener around and spray the murder out of him every time he starts looking peckish. It would look weird if anyone else did it, but since they’re all pretty and rich, it’s more likely that the trend will catch on and cause Febreze sales to skyrocket.

Anyway. We’re not done victim-blaming Bella for…

…at least another couple of pages, but at least Edward gets his head out of his ass long enough to recall that hey, vampire! Oxygen is optional! But he still spends another lot of words grumbling about what a hassle it is to be forced to hold his breath in order to dampen his murderous urges. This is why you are a virgin, Edward. No, I don’t mean the planning the assassination a classmate’s assassination, plenty of serial killers still manage to get laid heaps, consensually, even! It’s the fact that you’re this much of a buzzkill that’s the issue.

Live, laugh, love, you dumbass disco ball!

Yep, he’s still on about how he’s going to kill her, totes kill her, he feral dangerous vampire, rawr. The miracle of adequate indoor airflow only got him to railroad a quartet of brain cells into thinking up smarter ways of snuffing Bella out. Now he wants to lure her to the forest. No, he’s going to kill her at home! He hates her! No, he hates himself and is projecting!

So he flees to his car, plays some calming music, breathes in and out and thinks about his family and how disappointed they’d be in him if he were to help himself to a Swan shake. Well, I’m nobody to shit talk anyone’s self-soothing routine. I’d probably throw in a truck of food + a bath, but he’s had 100+ years to figure out what coping mechanisms work for him, so let’s just let him do his-

Edward.

EDWARD.

…do you actually think this is an appropriate time to start a ginger-off with some random desk lady? Yes, we know you’re the One True Redhead To Rule Them All. (Though Kvothe from Name of the Wind may beg to differ, and I don’t know who would win that fight.) I mean, really? You pull this crap when you just barely talked yourself out of a murder? And then you call her eyes flat! What!

One of my favorite comic book series, Y the Last Man, features a scene where two characters discuss what it is that truly binds people together. One of them presents the argument that stronger bonds are formed not by shared love, but by shared hates. By which they mean not a kiss-kiss-slap-slap, enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamic, but like… you, being someone who really hates coleslaw, having a partner who likewise hates coleslaw, with whom you can indulge in tireless verbal roastings of coleslaw and who will never get tired of your complaining, because the fire of their loathing burns every bit as hot as yours.

I’ve always felt that this concept resonated with me deeply. And if you apply it to Bella and Edward, by its standards, they have the real deal. Go through the namesake chapter in Twilight-the-book, and you find Bella thinking similarly judgy thoughts, being irked by the same shit that no one normal would bat an eye to, going “Ugh!” and “Gah!” at everything that makes Edward wince internally. So their love will be eternal for sure. Perhaps not in an epic way. They’ll live boringly ever after, until they’re ancient and onion-skinned and lurking at passerby humans through the geraniums on their windowsill, exchanging “Holy crow, I can’t believe she bought a hydrogen engine car just to show off!” / “Awful! She should know that thinning the deer population so that they produce less flatulence is the most sound way of controlling toxic emissions!” And then probably gazing at one another like idiots for an ice age or two.

Edward wants to be moved out of Biology class. Goes back and forth with the desk lady, who obviously wants to tap that, because of course she does. Every hot-blooded woman within spitting distance must crave his alluring icicle, even as he mentally eviscerates every minuscule detail of their appearance.

Except Bella, because she’s soft, translucent, deep-eyed and edible. And, I mean. You can complain all you want about “you’re different from anyone else I’ve ever met, you’re SPECIAL, better, more beautiful, more everything!” being a dead horse of a trope so old and beaten that by all rights it should have turned to smelly glue, but. That pony is still kicking. And by kicking, I mean selling. And it sells because being made to feel special, even if it’s happening by proxy while you’re immersed into the thoughts of a fictional character, is nice. Readers enjoying that experience and seeking out fiction that provides it shouldn’t be considered so… mock-worthy as I’ve seen it be, in discussion of works that feature the trope prominently.

Which doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be nicer if Edward’s narration were focused solely on elevating Bella, instead of also viciously kicking down everyone in the vicinity. Man, we get the message, okay? You don’t need to act like you’ve swallowed a Simon Cowell before coming in for school.

I swear, it’s almost a relief when Bella interrupts, heralding the triumphant return of the throat boner. Edward’s thoughts about the people around him are actually LESS gratuitously bitchy when he’s contemplating how to best murder them.

At least this time he is able to extract himself from the situation and flee speedily. (Which… in Biology, what exactly was preventing him from asking for a bathroom break? Or just saying he was feeling poorly and getting the fuck out of there?)

He meets the sibs. Only Alice has any clue of what is going on because visions, and she doesn’t explain anything to the others, who just stand there baffled while Edward decides to get his shiny ass in his shiny Volvo and run off to Alaska. Probably because it would ruin the serious mood of the scene if she told them and Jasper started doing happy cartwheels at the prospect of no longer being the only fuckup in the family.

END CHAPTER. Same time tomorrow, hopefully, and I’ll TRY to be less longwinded. Try.

#TWILIGHT #MIDNIGHT SUN #EDWARD CULLEN #GRISREADSMS #MIDNIGHT SUN SPOILERS

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lavender-montgomery · 5 years ago

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Brahms: The Boy II (2020) - Thoughts [SPOILERS]

So I went to go see The Boy II within a few days of release. I mean, Monday is half price day AND I get someone in free with me due to disability, plus The Boy is one of my favourite movies, so how could I not? I’m writing this post a week after seeing it - not a good sign already. Also, I have a post in my drafts about something else I watched that I currently don’t have the heart to finish. So here I am writing about The Boy II.

I will start this by saying - what a disappointment. I absolutely adored the first movie. I loved the nanny, I loved the doll, I loved Brahms, I loved his parents. I loved how it looked like the doll was haunted by a dead child but turned out it wasn’t, it was unexpected and was different to the usual haunted doll we see so often. I respected that and that’s part of why I love the film so much. However, the sequel completely went against that and went against the whole point of the first movie. In the sequel, the doll IS haunted by Brahms. After the end of the movie, Brahms put the doll back together and eventually died. Doesn’t say when or how. Just that he died. The doll was haunted by him, it was centered around the house he was raised in and it was passed from family to family wreaking havoc. Why? The whole point was that he wasn’t haunted. That was the idea. Very disappointing that they went against that. I kinda understand, it woulda been a bit harder to incorporate the actual Brahms into it. But they coulda done so much with this and they just... didn’t.

I don’t want to talk badly about this movie, I really don’t. I’ve said how muh I loved the first, I’m considering customising my own Brahms doll and I was so, so excited for the second movie, more so when I found out it was in the cinema. But this movie was bad and bland. It relied too heavily on jump scares which is incredibly boring.

So, let’s talk about the movie and go through the plot.

It started off with a theme that I believe wasn’t featured in the first movie. It reminded me a lot of the music in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd. Yeah. I just sighed to myself at that part, not off to a great start already - as much as I love his version of Sweeney Todd, it’s great but awful. The movie is based around a family of three - two parents and their son who is about eleven I’d say. Dad was British and quite attractive. Mum and son were american. One of the first things one of the parents said, I believe it was the dad, was ‘you’re too old to sleep with a teddy.’ Excuse me?! I am OFFENDED. I am 22 and I sleep with MANY teddies - with PRIDE. Hehe.

It starts off with the dad being away for work, so mum Liza and her son Jude are home alone. She wakes in the night to sounds so goes to investigate - but not once turns a light or torch on - then son investigates, to be attacked by people who broke into the house. Both are traumatised, kid goes mute and mum is angry a lot and has vicious nightmares. They decide to take a break, spending some time away at a house a while away. Shockingly, it’s a house neighbouring the one Brahms grew up in. Within minutes of arriving at the house, Jude gets hold of Brahms. Didn’t take long at all. Most boys his age wouldn’t really want a doll as that’s ‘girly’, but Jude dug Brahms up out of the dirt. His mum cleans Brahms up and Jude is very quickly attached to him. Then things start to get weird. Jude communicates through a notebook - which Brahms also writes in. But what I don’t get is... No one sees Brahms moving, they only see him after he moved. Does Jude see Brahms write in the book? They are together 24/7. Brahms writes a note that says ‘take me to where you found me’, where Jude discovers Brahms’ belongings and the rules from the first movie.

There is a caretaker character that I don’t like in the movie. He knows about the doll and Brahms from the start, yet when he sees Jude has the doll, he doesn’t tell Jude’s parents anything. Why? Surely knowing the truth about the doll he’d try and help them. The caretaker’s dog really doesn’t like Brahms, infact he barks at it whenever he sees him and he sits outside the family’s house.

It takes a while for the parents to realise there’s something creepy about the doll. Only when the doll locks itself in a bedroom does the mum’s cogs start turning. Of course when she researches the house, learns the history and confronts the caretaker, she’s horrified yet STILL doesn’t do anything about the doll. So frustrating. Not even when Jude starts dressing like Brahms, when his cousin nearly dies, when the dog is murdered or when Jude draws himself killing his own parents, not even then does the mum properly take action.

There is a scene where Jude and Brahms Doll are back at Brahms’ home and the mum follows where they go inside the walls where human Brahms used to live, here I was hopeful that human Brahms would make an appearance, but he doesn’t.

Two things I did like about this movie - the movement from the doll was minimal. Eyes shifting, head turning, every movement was slight. I also liked both scenes of Jude wearing the Brahms mask that human Brahms wore - once in his mum’s nightmare and once in the big house.

It’s quite chilling how Jude was becoming Brahms, not quite a demonic possession but Brahms’ spirit was slowly becoming inside of Jude. It was creepy and the child playing Jude performed it incredibly well. It wasn’t at all over the top or underdone, he did it perfectly and this child was the best part of the whole movie.

The part where Brahms was left outside and Jude told his mum everything made me sad. This poor child feared the doll, yet it seemed like he also loved him.

Towards the end of the movie, the dad smashes Brahms’ head I think with a baseball bat. Inside he was a disgsuting, black, rotten fleshy... thing. Why? What was the point in that? It was creepy but didn’t really make sense. The doll had been smashed before and he didn’t look like that. After the doll was smashed, Jude returned and was no longer becoming Brahms. It was very quick and sudden.

I didn’t like the ending, it was too predicatable. The doll being disposed of and Jude still being disturbed and keeping the Brahms mask was what I expected and sure enough that’s what happened. I wish something more exciting happened at the end, but with the final scene with the doll I suppose not much could have been done anyway.

The spirit was in the mask that Jude kept. Will there be a third movie? I hope not, not if the second was anything to go by.

I wasn’t satisfied with this movie. The first movie was excellent. A gripping plot, lots of twists, an unexpected ending, spooky and didn’t rely on jump scares. They really milked the fanbase for the second movie and I feel it was too rushed and cheaped out on. I wouldn’t recommend this movie, especially if you haven’t seen the first installment, and I definitely won’t be watching it a second time.

Was it really necessary to make Brahms doll a haunted doll, when the end of the first film really emphasised on the fact he wasn’t haunted? This second movie was deifnitley nothing but a rushed money maker, not contributing anything of value to the fanbase or first movie.

What a disappointment.

#mine #my post #horror film #horror movie #horror movie review #Horror film review #the boy #the boy ii #the boy 2 #brahms #brahms: the boy 2 #brahms: the boy ii #haunted doll #horror #scary #spooky

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ahopefuldoubt · 5 years ago

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River ways (a Prince of Egypt drabble)

first drafted nov. 2016, edited mostly aug. 2017, finished/posted sept. 28, 2017. a not-quite drabble; partly an attempt to work out how, in the film's canon, miriam would have followed moses in the basket. a family's complex emotions upon experiencing a heavy loss. notes under the cut.

Yocheved and Aaron do not go home that morning, not right away.

Instead, they watch Miriam disappear into the rushes, and they wait; Yocheved holding her son tightly in prayerful silence, occasionally combing her fingers through his unruly hair.

Their uneasiness is shared: One child, one sibling, has gone, and behind him, another. Before departing, Miriam had exchanged a look with Yocheved, who had inclined her head.

They wait for Miriam to come back. Forever passes before she returns. When she does, she pushes through the reeds, and folds, exhausted and muddy, to the ground beside her family. Her eyes are bright, brows knit.

“He is safe!”

Upon hearing these words, Yocheved loosens her grasp on Aaron, but keeps an arm looped around him, and she reaches forward to gather her daughter into a full embrace. She gives a cry and then cries, Miriam alongside her. Yet, they’re smiling, too. Caught edgeways in this hug, Aaron hesitates, concerned, unsure himself whether to mirror their tears or their smiles. He knows that Miriam is here, though, even if their brother can’t be, and so he throws his arms around his mother first and then around his sister, resting a cheek against her shoulder. She twists to the side to hug him, pressing her lips to the top of his head. She says again, “He’s safe.”

This is something I drafted a year ago but didn’t finish until recently. I’m not sure if I can call it a story; it was supposed to be a fic at one point, and in this form I’m just afraid that it’s lacking in a lot of places... Still, it’s something of a sequel to “But now gone,” an actual drabble. (And it’s been in my head all this time, which might be why this section is so long.)

Anyway, Aaron is three, while Miriam is seven (based on the source material [edit: Aaron should be four? I can’t math. 2019 note: Aaron should be three; Miriam, six. I still can’t math.]). I’d wanted to try to work out a bit of the surrounding detail of how PoE Miriam would have followed Moses in the basket. I read that, in the midrash, Yocheved and Amram (I think both?) place trust in their prophetess daughter to go and see what becomes of Moses after he’s set in the river. So, I tried to maintain a similar spirit here. In any case, surely it would have been too dangerous for Miriam to return to Goshen on her own, especially that day, and I don’t think she would have snuck off without Yocheved knowing where she went. I wanted there to be an understanding between them, that perhaps they’d agreed beforehand that she would follow Moses. I wanted to show Yocheved and Aaron waiting for her and being there for her when she came back; to establish and reinforce a core sense of faith for Aaron as well—he sees the trust between his sister and mother, sees Miriam leave and come back. Also, “safe” is complicated, I think. But, of course, it’s an important echo of Miriam’s own lullaby: “Brother, you’re safe now...”

The above provides only some background information. The drabble probably doesn't capture enough emotion or enough of the situation, but... I was finding it really difficult to write about something that hits so close to home, as well as try to convey/balance the complexity of it all (grief, hope, trauma, worry, relief, love, etc.). Switching perspectives between Yocheved, Miriam, and Aaron was very emotionally involving and I think I had to pull back a little for that reason too. So, there's an intentional "tip of the iceberg," or "open," kind of feel. For example, I wrote/interpret Yocheved's and Miriam's smiles as part shock, part release of adrenaline, part relief, etc. (a mess of emotions, basically), but people are of course welcome to read into this in other ways... I know I still do!

Last edited: 1/18/18

#the prince of egypt #miriam #aaron #yocheved #my stuff #my writing #my fic #drabble collection #yeah me queue

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caspian-skye · 5 years ago

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The Apoptosis Project, Chapter 1: Darkness Returns.

IT’S HERE! I’m not releasing it on fanfiction until New Years Day, but I thought I’d do a little trial run on here first. I’ve put it under the read more because it’s long and I’d rather not clog your feed. Anyway, I’ve been drafting this since the Summer of 2016 and I’m SUPER passionate about it, so let me know what you think! Likes/Reblogs are much appreciated.

(Cover art of characters is by Stygmatus on here)

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

On a clear night, sailors off Vale’s coast swore they could see the lights of Port Cyrreine from fifty miles away. A myriad of glimmering spires rose into the night sky. The rainbow of hues, from thousands of windows and holographic ads within the maze of skyscrapers, reflected in countless ripples upon the placid black waters off the city’s Southern shore. In front of the wall of light, a lively boardwalk; the vendors stands, restaurants, and crowds of people barely visible in the shadow of a ferris wheel lit bright blue for the night. From a distance, a muffled chorus of sirens could be heard.

Two airships jetted toward the city, the air in their wake tearing the water’s surface.

“Reports on the ground indicate an attack by the creatures of grimm,” a man’s voice scratched through the radio. “I repeat, eyewitnesses are reporting an attack by the creatures of grimm!”

“Grimm?!” Another voice repeated. “No way in hell, those things have been gone for, what? Thirty years now? You sure it’s not Sentinel’s animatronics?”

“We’ve established contact with Headmaster Skye of Sentinel. He was at the academy’s practice grounds when the incident began, and has confirmed all animatronics are in place,” a woman reported.

“What do we know about the incident so far, then?”

“Just under a hundred port workers were laid off, and replaced with a couple dozen of Frontline’s organic androids. A peaceful protest turned violent when the Red Claw showed up. Right after that is when reports of grimm started coming in,” the woman replied.

“Griswold Baine has sent his son and a team of organds to help sort things out on the ground over there. ETA: less than five minutes,” the man on the radio concluded.

The two airships landed on a flat slab of concrete near the docks, lit by the shipyard cranes above. The door to one lifted to reveal a golden-haired warrior. His armor, fixed over a jet black bodysuit, was dozens of silvery white plates covering chest, shoulders, waist, hips, and legs; the edge of each plate gilded with a shining trim. His eyes were obscured by a knight-like visor, with a single light blue band to ensure vision. Behind him, a score of armored huntsmen.

“There have been reports of deaths in the area,” the man assessed. “All of you. Secure the entrances to each building. Search for survivors, and ensure their safety!”

“Yes, sir!” the huntsmen shouted in unison. They began to pour out onto the streets, save three.

“Desmond, Lavender, Nikole! You three are with me!”

“Yes, sir!” a broad-shouldered man, and two women confirmed.

The street before the huntsmen was a hellscape, far from the peaceful mundanity typical of the city’s port district. To each side of the street, flames leapt from shattered windows, dumpsters, and the hollowed-out remains of cars and shipping equipment. Smoke poured into the alleyways, shading the entire area an eerie shade of orange.

The golden-haired warrior held his wrist out in front of him, projecting a holographic screen from his Holoband, a watch-like strap around his wrist. With two fingers, he zoomed in on a map of the area. A yellow marker indicated his position on the water’s edge. Several blocks away, a zone was highlighted a bright red.

“Looks like the Red Claw’s taken control of a warehouse two blocks Northwest. Our mission is to clear them out, and secure the area. Move out!”

“Midas! Look!” One of the huntsman’s allies interjected, pointing ahead.

He raised his head. Through the smoke, he could make out several black forms. Though on all fours, they stood nearly his height. Their claws scratched viciously at the pavement as they charged forward, their hungry snarls audible above the breaking of glass and crackling of flame.

“Beowolves.”

Without a second’s hesitation, Midas charged forward with Desmond, Lavender, and Nikole in tow. From his back he pulled a beautiful halberd, taller than he and crafted from the same steel as his armor. He plunged the tip of his weapon into the open jaws of the first beast, and flipped through the air. He flung the unfortunate grimm backward into a shield bash from Desmond, and brought the axe’s head down on the next beast as he landed. A pair of swift spins despatched two more grimm before he ducked, deflecting the swipe of another across the shaft of his weapon. Lavender, his teammate in purple, pounced with a pair of bladed tonfas.

The four continued on, clearing out a handful more grimm on the way to the warehouse. As Midas approached a corner, he held an arm out, indicating his teammates to stop. “The Red Claw’s stronghold is just ahead. Post up here, and defend my flank from grimm. I’ll be fine alone.”

The three filled into the street; Desmond in front, posted with his shield. Nikole and Lavender to his sides. Midas stepped forward. The smoke and uncanny glow of the main street grew more intense as he pressed on. From the fog came the scratching of countless feet, their claws impaling concrete with each heavy step.

A stark white pincer, as big as Midas himself, burst from the smoke. He held his weapon up to block the attack, but was forced backward by the power behind the strike. Another pincer attack was met with his weapon’s axehead, and forced into the ground. Two lines of beady red eyes glowed behind the pair of claws, and the creature scuttled into view. Its body was the length of a school bus, low to the ground and clad in bony spines for armor. The scorpion’s tail curled over its body, ending in a malicious golden stinger.

The deathstalker screamed with rage. Midas spun with the momentum of another blocked claw swipe, and thrust the tip of his halberd into the stinger as it bore down on him. He gripped his weapon’s handle as the beast hoisted him into the air.

He cracked a grin as the tip of his halberd unfolded, freeing him from the monster. His weapon’s shaft folded backward, until it had transformed into a bow. Still in mid-air, he pulled back on the string of hard-light dust. The vibrant arcs of electricity crackling around his body became one with the bolt of focused energy forming at his weapon, and he let fly.

The deathstalker halted in sudden stiffness as the bolt shattered the armor at the back of its head, a shockwave rippling through the smoke. The beast’s tail uncurled and slammed to the ground next to the huntsman as he landed. It began to dissolve into the night.

The huntsman paused, eyes fixed ahead. He had only taken two labored breaths before two men leapt into view, blades prepared to kill. He swore, and electricity coarsed its way through his halberd just before he raised it to block a vicious overhead axe swing. Static worked its way down his enemy’s weapon. The faunus seized up, and Midas freed his weapon. Aura crackled around the assailant’s gut as the tip of Midas’s spear was thrust forward. Midas set his feet, once again transforming his weapon back into a bow. He let fly on his second enemy with a point-blank jolt of dust.

The smoke began to clear.

Two dozen feet ahead, a truck had been tipped onto its side, blocking most of the lane. On the edge of the trailer sat a bald-headed woman, clad in leather robes of black and white. As her eyes met his visor, a broad, serpentine tail pulled up from behind her, and settled in her lap.

“Red Claw commander!” Midas called. “Who are you working for? He’s here, isn’t he?!”

“And why would I tell you, prettyboy?” the commander mocked, her tail lashing once. “Although, by the way you asked that, you already know the answer.”

–

“C…. w..ke ..p,” a young woman’s voice faded in and out.

The morning light pouring in the window was far too bright. The plush bedcovers weighed the boy’s body down, sinking him deeper into his mattress. He groaned, and rolled over.

“Come on, get up. My breakfast is getting cold.”

“Go away, Lazula,” the boy mumbled, feebly shooing her away. He gathered his pillow in front of his eyes.

“Lilly’s gonna be there…” the young woman teased, her voice softening. “Sleep much longer, and you won’t be able to shower.”

Lilly. Lilliane Corvis-Braun. The very image of beauty, kindness, and feminine grace, in the boy’s eyes. Sure, they had been friends for the longest time. She probably wouldn’t judge him for one morning of disheveled hair. But still. He couldn’t stand the thought of questionable hygiene on a day he would see her. He worked his way upright, shivering as the blankets fell to his waist. He turned to look at his sister with an exaggerated look of bitterness.

Though the two were twins, the young man and Lazula bore little resemblance. Lazula had inherited her father’s strong chin; dark, full brows; and long, straight nose. Her eye color was difficult to discern. Though mostly a green-heavy hazel, transient flecks of nearly every color seemed to come and go, by lighting and by the minute. Her hair, a vivid electric blue, was swept to one side in front, tied into a messy low bun in back. Caspian guessed she had snuck in some early-morning training.

Between the young man’s soft, kind-looking face, large round eyes of a vivid blue, and button nose, he was quite obviously his mother’s child. His hair was coarse yet voluminous, falling in fluffy layers to eyebrow level in front, and chin level in back. His deep blue roots were visible at the crown of his head, but faded to silver further away.

“Good morning, Caspian. You slept for seven hours and thirty-seven minutes,” the automated voice of a woman reported from the headboard. “Would you like to see this morning’s top news stories?”

“Yes,” Lazula cut in. She nudged her brother as he began to doze off again.

A holographic screen flashed up across the foot of the bed, displaying an aerial view of a street near the docks. Between the stacks of shipping containers and open flames, three beowolves and a hulking, ursine form ran. “Darkness returns: eight are confirmed dead and fourteen have been wounded in a Port Cyrreine grimm attack overnight. Authorities confirm this is the first grimm attack in twenty-five years,” the voice stated. “Vytal Tournament champion Midas Baine was dispatched to the scene with his team and several organic androids, but was ultimately unsuccessful in apprehending the woman believed to be behind the attack.”

“Geez… Looks like Ichigo was right,” Caspian said, putting on the round lens, wire-framed glasses that rested against his bedside lamp. “He told me grimm were sighted, and I… well, was I supposed to just believe it?”

Lazula sighed. “Looks like this huntsman education will do us some good after all.” She stood, and walked to the door of Caspian’s room. She rested one hand on the doorknob and turned around. “We have to pass the entrance exam first. You should start getting ready.”

“Of course you’ll pass…” Caspian muttered, watching Lazula leave. He switched off the holographic screen, which had changed stories to show a bald, bearded man in a tailored suit giving a speech. After grabbing a bite to eat, throwing a few last-minute items into his suitcase, and grabbing his pre-planned outfit of a blue knit sweater and khakis, he made his way to the shower.

The water scalded his back, but he paid no mind as it drained between his feet. “Today is the day,” he thought. He took a deep breath. The final entrance examination. His written scores, apparently, had been on par with the top percentage of Sentinel applicants. He scraped by the physical tests, but today…

Every time he thought about it, it made him feel a little sick.

Caspian turned off the water. One typical morning routine later, and he opened the door, giving himself one last look in the mirror. Yet as he turned to the doorway, he started.

His eyes locked with a colorless stare. Not silver, not even a light blue. Her irises were entirely devoid of color. Her matching hair was styled neatly, bangs sweeping across her forehead and tucking under the locks that framed her doll-like face. Her hair in back tapered to a single point at the nape of her neck.

“Oh! Snow. Thank you, for the jumpscare,” Caspian said, grinning with embarrassment and holding a hand over his chest.

Though Caspian’s heart was one beat from leaping out of his throat, the girl was entirely unperturbed. Her gaze followed him. “Your mother told me to tell you she would like to leave in twenty minutes.” Her eyes cast downward, looking to the holoscreen she projected from the band at her wrist. “This was two minutes ago. Will you be ready in eighteen minutes?”

“Eighteen?” Caspian repeated. He pursed his lips, and grabbed several items from the bathroom counter. “I guess I’ll have to be. Oh, if you’re here, is Uncle Doug around?” he guessed.

“He’s working this morning. He said he will try to attend the Final Examination,” Snow said. Her voice was soft, hardly ever carrying much more strength than a whisper. Words followed each other in disengaged monotony.

She turned, beginning to walk down the hall. Caspian admired her combat outfit, which she had already changed into. A snow white vest made of neoprene met her skirt at belt level, on which she holstered the handle of her weapon. The skirt was patterned into the interweaving fractal arms of a snowflake, layers underneath, visible in the gaps between the snowflake’s arms, a shade of light blue. She wore a collared shirt of the same shade beneath her vest, the tight sleeves coming down to her wrists. Black socks were the only hint of darkness to her outfit, starting at her knee and feeding into her glossy white boots.

The hum of the airship’s engines was all Caspian heard. It was the perfect background noise for his thoughts, all blending together into one monotonous drone. Snow sat beside him, her vacant gaze matching Caspian’s out the window. Lazula sat a few rows behind the pair, watching a video from her last tournament, playing and replaying to study each of her moves meticulously.

The city of Port Cyrreine was founded on two peninsulas, jutting out into the ocean like a massive pair of jaws. The Southern peninsula, further from the airship window, held the city’s downtown. Closer to the mainland, the skyscrapers tapered off into a maze of dingy mid-rise buildings, and area of town Caspian intended to avoid.

Toward the peninsula’s tip, a magnificent structure of glass and steel. The apexes of two black towers, one just half the height of the taller, skewered the sky. A golden ring circled the neck of the giant, holding an airship platform nearly a thousand feet above the ground below. A shell of smooth, silvery-white encased the Northern side of the structure, which loomed above the mouth of the bay. It was the Headquarters of Frontline Biomedical Technologies.

Snow’s eyes seemed intent on the building.

The Northern peninsula; the tract of land the airship carrying Caspian, Lazula, and Snow, descended over; was almost entirely residential. Frontline’s main hospital sat on the tip, directly North of corporate headquarters.

“Perks of being the Headmaster’s kids,” Caspian noted, sticking a finger to the window and peering down. “We don’t have to sit in that.”

Lazula appeared, leaning over Caspian’s seat and looking to the city below. Seacrest Bridge, the lone road between the two halves of Port Cyrreine, was packed bumper to bumper.

“Lilly’s there, she said she’s with Rowan and Ichigo,” Lazula said. “Laurel’s on her way, but the traffic doesn’t look bad from the North. Still, I don’t envy whoever’s stuck in that mess.”

A few minutes passed, and Caspian looked away from the window and into his lap as the airship slowed to a stall. He felt it begin to descend upon a mile-wide cape that stuck into the bay from the city’s Northern half.

The campus of Sentinel Academy.

#RWBY #roosterteeth #rwby oc #rwby fanfiction #fanfiction #rwby oc fanfiction

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