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juletheghoul · 4 years ago

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Oblivius Chapter 4

Am I insane for posting another chapter? Yes. Am I doing it anyway? Yes. Should you message me about how you feel about Spills & Francis? YES!

(Got a song you want added to the playlist? send it to me!)

I've gotten so much love over this series and I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that you guys love these two idiots as much as I do. <3

(Feo means ugly in Spanish but it can be used as a term of endearment between [male] friends)

Likes & reblogs are appreciated

Frankie Morales x F!Reader

Pairing: Frankie x F!Reader

Word Count: 2.2K

Warnings: Angst, yearning, 18+ language, alcohol (Spills gets wasted)(Please let me know if I forget anything)

Masterlist Series Masterlist Part 3 Part 5 Playlist

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Age: 17

“No Francis I don’t wanna watch this - I’m gonna get scared.” It was late, you were both sitting in his cozy living-room, a big shit-eating grin on his face.

“Why, are you chicken? It’s just The Shining, it's not even scary.” He put it on and despite your protests, he settled and let the movie play, You gave him a pout.

“Okay if you really don’t want to I’ll change it you big baby.” He rolled his eyes to grab the remote but you stopped him.

“Promise you’ll walk me home?” You knew it was one of his favourites. He smiled wide.

“Of course! If it’s too much I'll change it.” He gave you most of the blanket that was draped over his legs and you sat very close to him. He was taller than you remembered him being, having gone through a growth spurt over the summer and he towered over you now. All knees and elbows.

When the room scene came on you burrowed your face into his neck and he wrapped an arm around you, you were so pretty. Your hair smelled so good and he buried his nose into the messy bun you wore. You practically clawed at him, trying to get closer - he made you feel safe.

“Is it still scary?” You spoke into his neck.

“Yes - don’t look yet, just a little longer.”

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**Present Day**

Pope was holding up a shot-glass full of something and there were shots lined up for the three of you when you walked in.

“Catfish, I never thought it would happen for you feo, but I’m glad it did. Claudia, he’s lucky to have you.” He raised his shot glass and a chorus of ‘To Frankie and Claudia’ rang out before everyone tipped the liquor back.

The burn in the back of your throat couldn’t just be from the tequila, you’d swallowed a lump. You’d forced back the tears stinging your eyes when he dipped her back to kiss her. With her laughing and grabbing his neck they were the picture of romance and the smile you had plastered to your face must have looked manic. Popes eyes caught yours then and his eyebrows raised, a question in his features that you couldn’t quite read but he looked away and left you with your thoughts.

You got very drunk. Fall-down drunk. Forget about everything drunk.

“Spills, I think you should stop - you’re going to feel like hell tomorrow.” He was softly taking the shot out of your hand and you tried to fight him but his grip was iron.

“St-op t-telling me wh-what to do Francisco.” You tried to take it back but it seemed like the floor was coming up to say hi. An iron grip around your middle stopped you from losing a couple of teeth.

“Jesus Spills, okay - that’s enough. I’m cutting you off.” He held onto you and you wanted nothing more than to turn around and kiss him but you also wanted to throw up. Decisions decisions.

“I-think-imgonnabesick…” you brought your hand up to your mouth and part of you expected him to let go but he didn’t.

“Take a deep breath, it’s okay, Pope can you get me some water?” He was holding onto you, rubbing soothing circles onto your back and you tried to focus on his hands on you as the whole room spun dangerously. A few minutes later he was holding a cold glass of water to your lips. “Drink the whole thing, I'm going to hold it because if you spill it I'll kill you.” You chugged it down and he put it on the table.

“When did you get so strong, Francis?” Your words were slurred and you felt his chest rumbling with laughter at your question. “You smell so good.” You said it lower- more to yourself, but he heard and the laughing stopped.

“Oh no! Are you okay Spills?” Claudia was there now, her hands pulling your hair away from your face and before you could succumb to the urge to tell her never to call you that Frankie spoke up.

“She’s okay, just need to get her home. You’re okay right, Spills?” His voice was lower, so soothing you could fall asleep to it.

“Hey Frankie, you and Claudia should stay, tell me where she lives and I’ll get her home.” It was Pope, Frankie must have trusted him immensely because before you knew it he was putting you into the front seat of Pope's rental and buckling you in. Claudia was tying your hair back and putting your purse into your lap.

“Be careful please - this is her address, just make sure she gets in and lays face down. There should be a bucket somewhere in her bathroom - water and some aspirin on her night table.” Frankie was talking as you closed your eyes. When you opened them you were parked in front of your place.

“Hey honey, come on let's get you inside. I’m just going to look for your keys, okay?” Pope was taking your purse out of your lap. You nodded vaguely.

He helped you in and guided you to your bed. You could feel him taking off your shoes and throwing the blanket over you.

-----

Someone is driving an ice-pick into my skull.

The light was intense and you swore out loud when you cracked an eye open. You stretched and felt a piece of paper beside you on the bed.

“I locked your door - keys are in your mailbox. Drink the water - take the ibuprofen. Let Catfish know you’re okay when you wake up- he was worried. - Pope”

You groaned.

[Francis]: Spills, are you okay?

[Francis]: Can you answer me please?

[Francis]: Don’t tell me you’re still asleep? What, are you a teenager? Getting drunk and sleeping until 4pm????

[Francis]: Sorry Spills, just worried - can you please let me know you’re okay before I show up?

You could see the three little dots signalling that he was in the middle of typing another message and you quickly called him to stop him.

“Jesus, it’s about fucking time.” He sounded worried and relieved and it pulled on your heart strings in a way you both loved and hated.

“Stop yelling Francisco, I am begging you.” You threw your arm over your eyes to block out the light as you lay there, in yesterday's clothes. You didn’t even want to know what you looked like right now.

“Feeling all that tequila aren’t you? I haven’t seen you that drunk for a long time.” You could hear the faint smile in his voice.

“Yes yes I know - so fucking embarrasing. Did I do.. Or say anything..?” You were trying to ask him without asking him.

“You almost threw up, but if you’re asking me if you started table-dancing you’re good.” He laughed and you sighed with palpable relief. All you needed was for him to tell you that you’d confessed your love or told Claudia to fuck off.

“Thank god. That would have been all I needed. Can you tell Pope I said thanks? Okay, I'm going to go shower for a million years now.” You wanted to hang up, your head was pounding and you needed a few hours of silence and about a gallon of water.

“Okay - see you in a few hours.” You didn’t want to deal with both of them together, not with how you felt right now.

“No Francis I don’t want to entertain, I already embarrassed myself enough yesterday.”

“It’s just me coming and I’ve seen you much worse. I haven’t been home in a long time so, take a shower and do what you have to do and I'll be there at seven.” He hung up and you could have thrown your phone across the room.

Fuck.

---

The knock at the door at exactly seven didn’t surprise you.

What did surprise you was how nervous you were that he would be coming over.

You were literally attached at the hip at one point, he’s seen you at your worst.

“You’re looking much better than you did last night, Spills.” He laughed as he walked past you and into your home.

“Oh god.” You groaned as he laughed, why had you been nervous? You watched him as he set down the bags of what looked to be way too much food on your kitchen counter. Grabbing napkins and forks - completely at ease within your space. “What did you bring?” moved to peak into the bags.

“Chinese - “ He looked to see your eyes wide and the big toothy smile you were giving him and laughed. “Did you think I’d forget you always get Chinese when you’re hungover?” He laughed as he took out what looked to be all your favourites.

“You’re a lifesaver Francis, truly.” You were practically bouncing on the balls of your feet as you served yourself.

“I know, I’m practically a saint.” He walked over to your couch and plopped down, an egg-roll in his mouth as he turned on your TV and looked for something to watch. This was it - this was how it was supposed to be.

This was easy.

He had come over in comfy clothes and seeing him on your couch in sweats and a soft flannel was almost too much. His hair had gotten longer than he had worn it before he went away and it looked so soft; practically begged for your fingers.

“Are you still a baby about horror movies?” He asked without looking at you, you saw that he had put on some cheesy zombie movie. A big smile on his face.

“No, I’m okay, as long as you check every single corner of this place before you leave.”

“God I love horror movies, Claudia hates them so we never end up watching.” He sighed. Her name cut through the air like a knife. An ice cube casually dropped into your shirt.

“That’s too bad.” You quickly shoved food into your mouth, stopping yourself from saying anything you’d regret but he knew you too well. He looked at you then, eyes narrowing a fraction.

“Do you like her?” He asked, point blank and your eyes widened at him.

Fuck, don’t make me answer this right now.

“Yeah, she’s great.” To your credit, you tried. You really tried to sound genuine.

“Why don’t you like her Spills?” He sighed heavily, putting his plate down onto your coffee table to face you properly.

“What are you talking about? I said she was great!” You could feel the flush creeping up your neck and licking at your face at the lie. She was great, that wasn’t a lie - you just didn’t like her.

“Seriously? You’re going to act like I can’t tell you’re lying through your teeth? Just tell me! I’m going to marry this girl. I have to know why you don’t like her.” He had a little frown on his face and you could see that he was worried, but what would he have to be worried about? Worried you’d picked up on something he’d missed maybe?

“I just don’t know her, Francis, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with her, you know I'm just weird. She seems really nice and I’m sure I’ll like her once I get to know her better.” You smiled at him sadly, you didn’t want to talk about her anymore.

He smiled back at you and picked up his plate, happy with your explanation.

---

It always seemed to happen this way, ever since you’d been teenagers. He’d put on something scary and you would end up with your face buried into his chest.

“Oh god - that is disgusting!” You shut your eyes as he laughed, his chest rumbling underneath you at a particularly gruesome scene. You felt his hand rubbing your arm, and it was such a comfort that you sighed lightly. The words bubbled up without your permission.

“I missed this.” You felt him rest his chin on the crown of your head.

“Me too Spills, I always missed this while I was away, missed you.” He spoke into your hair, you could feel his breath ghosting along your scalp and your heart raced, you wanted nothing more than to turn and kiss him. His hand stilled, and you felt his heart beating under your ear. You wanted to do it, your whole body seemed to tense with want and you turned slightly to look at him through your lashes. He was already staring at you, his mouth was so close.

His phone rang, snapping him out of his trance and you moved away from him reluctantly.

“Hey babe, what’s up?” He smiled apologetically. “Just take a deep breath, it’ll be okay. I’m on my way.” He hung up and gave you a look that said I’m sorry. “Gotta go, wedding emergency.” He sighed heavily as he got up, taking both your plates to the kitchen with him.

You wanted him to stay, you wanted to grab him and sit him back down on the couch and straddle him. Grab the soft material of the flannel while you kissed him but you didn’t. Instead you smiled and thanked him for coming and for the food.

He made his way through the apartment before he left, opening every door.

“Just checking every corner, so you can sleep.” He smiled.

I love you too.

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thadelightfulone · 5 years ago

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The Firm - Chapter 11

Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Summary: Erik has been hired to find an embezzler for an old friend. The whole gang is back at GBI, ready to fight an old enemy and save their friend.

Pairing: Erik x Black!OC

Genre: Suspense

A/N: *steps up to the mic* Hello everyone! I want to thank everyone who has supported this story. Also, to let you know that this story is coming to a close. I will be dropping a chapter each week until its conclusion.

LaNyah stares at the older women whose hair is much longer and darker than when she helped her out in the parking lot, however long ago that was. Then she looks over at Laura, who is rocking back and forth, whimpering about not wanting to die. Why would she even ask such a thing? What does Laura know about this woman that LaNyah doesn’t? How does she know her? Did Gina say before her friends arrive? Does she mean Alex, Ashley, Stacey, and Erik? LaNyah tries to hold back her smile and closes her eyes to focus on keeping calm while this lady begins her tale.

Gina sitting in the center of the couch, looks between the two stunned women. “As I was saying, this story took place almost 20 years ago. There was a decorated officer who had a loving wife and kids.” She swoons at the memory of her loving brother. “He was the leader of a special ops team until an unjust allegation was brought against him by a team member. Someone he trusted and chose to be on his squad,” Gina snarls out. “He was under investigation during his last mission, and it would have led to a court-martial.” She rushes out before waving her hands in the air like it didn’t matter, “Anyway, before that could happen, members of his team took matters into their own hands. He was brutally murdered, and someone made it to look like an enemy ambush.”

“How do you know that it wasn’t?” Laura asks from beside her.

Gina taps Laura’s upper leg, “Oh dear, it was too perfect. The killing was too clean, everyone’s story was just so– in sync. Nothing about a military death is like that unless it is a cover-up.”

“Maybe, they were trying to spare the family’s feelings, you know, like friendly fire in combat or something?” LaNyah interjected.

“SHUT UP!!!” Gina shouts, startling both Laura and LaNyah. She takes a few deep breathes and smooths out her skirt, “It was not that. My twin brother was callously killed while overseas by members of the team he built.” LaNyah and Laura share a look, and Laura starts crying all over again.

“What does that have to do with us?” LaNyah somberly asks while staring at the crying pregnant woman over Gina.

Sniffling, Laura nods at LaNyah, “Yeah, I don’t know anyone in the military.”

LaNyah looks away, putting her head down at what Laura said because she knows that is not true for her. She only knew of one person until a few weeks ago. Gina can’t mean any of them, right? She inhales sharply, unaware that Gina has been watching her intently since Laura made that last statement, a small smile forming at the corners of her mouth.

She looks over them, “This is my favorite part,” a full smile breaking through while Gina takes Laura’s hands in hers before continuing. “Which brings me to why you two are here. I am going after those responsible for my brother’s death.” Gina rubs the tops of her hands, “Laura, your fiancé works for one of them.”

Laura closes her eyes at this, tears still falling and mutters, “But LaNyah was supposed to be the fall guy, not Matthew.” Gina’s eyes widen at that.

“When did he tell you?”

“What? Wait, he set me up?”

LaNyah and Gina blurt out at the same time. Laura rolls her eyes at LaNyah, “I told you this was all your fault.” LaNyah opens and closes her mouth before looking over at a laughing Gina. She can’t believe it. Minding her own business and she became the ultimate pawn in someone’s game of revenge. What is her life?

---

“Babe, stay here with Stacey. Let us handle this.” Alex moves to keep Ashley from coming with them. Kill is on the other side of the room, tying his combat boots while talking on the phone. Stacey is at the conference room table, pulling up floorplans to the warehouse. Alex and Kill changed into dark military fatigues in preparation for the battle zone they are entering.

“Fuck that! I already told you what I would do when it came to LaNyah.” She gets in his face, “I need to be there when you find her! So, don’t you dare try to keep me from being there!” Ashley snatches up another pair of fatigues and pushes past him towards the bathroom, slamming the door. Alex stops short as the door nearly misses hitting him.

Kill finished with his last call, turns towards him. “Green, stop.” Alex walks back over to him, “Just accept the fact that she is coming with us. You can’t stop her, and even I wouldn’t try to stop her.” Kill walks by Matt, who has been untied and snatches him up. “Come on. You got some more talking to do.”

Everyone packs into the fully loaded Chevy Suburban that one of Kill’s connects dropped off after Matt gave them the location for the warehouse where Gina is keeping the girls. Kill throws the keys to Green so he can drive. Bridges jumps into the front passenger seat. Kill drags Matt to the second row of the SUV; he is behind Green, and Matt is behind Bridges.

Once they hit the freeway headed south to San Diego, Kill turns in his seat to look at Matt. Clearing his throat; he waits until Matt’s attention is on him. Matt’s bloodshot eyes make direct contact with Kill. His petrified stare meets Kill’s murderous scowl. Bridges looks back, turning around in her seat to watch what happens between the two.

“I’m only gonna give you one chance to get this right. From the beginning, when you first met Gina and started working for her. GO!”

Matthew sputters to a start, clenching his hands into fists as they sit on his lap. “She didn’t give me all the details at first. All I know is that she was looking for someone to help her bring down Mr. Green. It was no secret that I had gone out for every single special project, and he never picked me. I know he knew who I was, and even my supervisor helped me become a lead analyst so that I would be on his radar. So, it was no love lost on my part to do something to Mr. Green for how he treated me.” Ashley sucks her teeth, “I swear I didn’t know she was after you when I first started.”

“What was her plan for GBI?” Kill asks him.

Directing his answer to Bridges, “She knew you were married to Mr. Green and figured the easiest way to get you was through him and the company. I was supposed to help her embezzle money from various accounts into her offshore accounts. Make sure all roads led back to him, showing that he was stealing from his own company leading to a prison sentence. My supervisor was her first inside man at GBI when she brought me on to begin the embezzlement, and she killed him.”

“So, Alan didn’t just quit as we all thought? Wow,” Green remarked as he listened to the conversation about Gina’s plan to take down him and GBI.

“No, his job was to find someone who had put in some time with the company and disliked you enough to make her plan a reality, then vouch for me. When that was done, so was he.” He starts to hiccup, struggling to get the next part out. “She said he served his purpose and shot him right in front of me. Not even 10 minutes after I met her.” He shudders and breaks eye contact with the group.

“What about LaNyah?” Ashley jumps in to ask. “Why her?”

Running his hand through his hair, “Convenience, I guess.” Matt shrugs and looks up at Ashley who glares at him, “It was supposed to be Stacey. Gina didn’t care who was in that position; she just needed to know that I was checking their work and would be able to change the reports and move the money. I only had been working for her about 6 months when Mr. Green hired Stacey as his assistant, causing a delay in the plan to search for a new fall guy. Once he hired LaNyah, I passed over whatever information I had to Gina, and she told me when we would start.”

Matthew explains that he only had the background check that HR completed on her. So, it contained the information that Gina would have needed to complete a deep dive of LaNyah, similar to what Kill did when he found out he would be working with her. They all knew what that meant, even if he didn’t.

With LaNyah being new and a personal hire by Green, it made her the perfect scapegoat because everything links her position and working for the company to Green. The money starts disappearing after she began working there, and no one would know because he was altering the reports after she completed her weekly data entry reconciling all the accounts her team handled.

“We started skimming money from the Scholarship account about 3 months after LaNyah joined the company. It would be believable since she needed time to learn the system before manipulating it.”

“So, she’s after Bridges and Green? Anyone else?” Kill asks Matt, wondering if he is the one who gave her the information she needed to track him down finally.

Matt’s eyes lift as he thinks about the question. “You know what, I think she might have, but I have no way of knowing. She only tells me what she feels I need to know when it matters.” He briefly pauses, inhaling deeply, “All I know was she asked me to increase the amount of money we were moving about 3 weeks ago. I told her we needed to be careful because I figured out that Mr. Stevens was here auditing the accounting department.”

“How did you know that?” Green speaks up.

“I am supposed to watch LaNyah, too, and noticed she was meeting with you often before your big trip. Then after you were gone, she was always disappearing to the 35th floor to ‘work’ with Stacey on some project. It didn’t make sense to me because she never stays in the office past 6 like the rest of us. But I do recall walking by her office one Friday afternoon, and she was on the ground surrounded by old reports, muttering to herself.” He loosens his tie, “I never thought she would double-check her work, so that could only mean that she may have figured out what was happening. If that was true, then I knew she probably went and told you,” looking at Green, “and Mr. Green must have hired you to look into it.” Kill nodded his head. “When you warned me to back off of her, I wasn’t sure if you worked for Gina. But I would only see you at GBI, so I guessed you were Mr. Green’s man.”

“When did you tell Gina about Erik?” Ashley asks through gritted teeth. He was the only one she could not find from the entire team all these years, and as soon as she finds him, LaNyah goes missing. Matt hasn’t said anything about kidnapping to make her believe that was part of her original plan. She more than likely planned for her to go to prison along with Alex, leaving Ashley by herself.

“About 3 weeks ago, when Gina called me about doubling the funds, I told her about the audit, and I gave her your name since I couldn’t find much about you on my own.” Matt removes the tie from his neck, placing it in his lap. “She screamed about something –” He jumps in his seat, “OMG, it’s you! She’s after you, too! Said something about you being the missing link.”

“Calm down, Matt.” Green rolls his eyes while watching the man panic through the rearview mirror.

“Gina has always scared me, but that call made me even more paranoid than usual. I just wanted to make sure Laura was ok. I made her go and stay with her mother in Bakersfield, 2 months ago.” Twirling the tie in his lap, “I decided to visit her after the call and walked in to find Gina sitting right next to Laura talking shop like this woman wouldn’t have all of us killed with a snap of her fingers.” Tears blur his vision, and Matt’s voice cracks, “Laura knew I was doing some illegal shit behind Mr. Green’s back, so I came clean about what she didn’t know and told her who she just met. Gina called me back that night and told me exactly how much she wanted to move the next time. A week later, I had everything in place to move more than a million from the account.”

“And it takes two weeks before the money moves from the scholarship account. That was what I saw the night before we came back home.” Green states.

Kill closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, “You were right, Green, she was planning to make her move which is why we saw the major movement from the account. She wanted us to notice.” Clenching his fists by his sides, “We just didn’t know that by the time we saw it, she already had LaNyah.”

“Laura and my son,” Matt squeaks out. Everyone looks at him as he breaks down.

---

Gina moves away from Laura on the couch, focus bouncing between the two of them. This is going to be better than she thought. Laura pissed at LaNyah. LaNyah upset about what she just found out; that she is a doll in this game. And yet, she still doesn’t even know how big a part she plays. With loathing, Gina gazes at her.

Turning to the right, now fully facing LaNyah, Gina’s smile morphs. Gina’s voice laced with all the malice she could muster, “You, Miss LaNyah Cole, have a relationship with every single person on my list.” Laura gasps and shrinks back on the couch, glad she is not in her place. Now, she and the baby stand a better chance of making it out of this place alive.

Tearing up, LaNyah whispers out, “What?”

“My brother was accused of sexually assaulting the only female member on his team, Ashley Bridges.” She stands up and walks to the other side of the table, looking down at both of them. “You both would recognize her by her married name, Ashley Green.”

LaNyah squeaks out, “Ashley! What do you want with her?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, LaNyah, darling. I did not go through all this trouble for Ashley alone.”

“She wants Mr. Green, too, idiot.” Laura huffs out. LaNyah rolls her eyes at her, growing irritated by this whole situation. She didn’t ask to be put in the middle of this. But it seems everyone around her knew something that she didn’t, and that bothers her.

“You want the whole company to go down?” Gina starts slow clapping. LaNyah puts her head in her hands. Of course, she does. It is why she was the perfect patsy. Blame this on the girl who was like the daughter of the two people she held accountable for her brother’s death.

“You are a brilliant woman, Miss Cole.” She walks to her standalone chair and leans against it, “But you are missing the most important thing or person rather. The only person with the skills to kill my brother like that and clean it up so well. A man who, up until a few weeks ago, I only knew by his nickname, Killmonger.” No, no, no, please do not let it be him. LaNyah’s big, confused brown eyes meet steely grey ones, “Mr. Erik Stevens.”

The tears that she was holding back started rolling down her face. LaNyah clutched her chest with both hands while trying to stay seated in the chair. Her breathing was coming out in spurts between her loud sobs. Gina held her hand up to Laura, who was struggling to get up and go to her. She leans over and starts to rub circles into LaNyah’s back. LaNyah flinches at first but just closes her eyes to find something else to focus on to help her breathe.

“I know, sweetheart. It’s hard to find out that the man you like is a stone-cold killer.” LaNyah’s body tenses at her statement. She peeks over at Laura, who has a look of sympathy on her face as she watches LaNyah breaking down at what she learned. Gina closes her eyes as she continues to speak low, still soothing LaNyah with the circles on her back. “He hurt me, too dear. More than you could ever know.”

---

“Did she pay you well for this suicide mission?” Kill demands harshly, Bridges and Green grimly laugh as Matt turns green. “Matthew, you know if we handed you over to her, she would kill you herself. I mean, she did kill the guy you were supposed to replace when she hired you. The money had to be exceptional, right?”

“3 times my annual salary at GBI,” he meekly responds, “and she told me I didn’t have a choice.”

“Let me guess; she threatened to kill you on the spot? Over Alan’s dead body?” Green interjects. Matt just nods his head. They all shake their heads in understanding. It was gonna be him or someone else. But Gina was gonna execute her plan regardless of how many casualties lined the path.

The mood shifts in the SUV as everyone disappears into their thoughts. Ashley is sniffling upfront, swimming in guilt for putting LaNyah in harm’s way. There was no way she knew anyone was coming for her husband or her, but still, Nyah is like her daughter. And in her haste to find LaNyah something to be in control of and help her build a career, Ashley never considered how Nyah working under her husband could lead to such a moment.

Alex looks over at Ashley and grabs her hand, kissing it. “Stop beating yourself up. You could not have known this was gonna happen. We didn’t know McCoy had a twin who would seek vengeance for his death. There is nothing that could have prepared us for any of this. We deal with it now, together as a team. Just like we always have, ok?” Ashley squeezes his hand in response, not trusting her voice at this point.

Kill looks out at the passing fields, controlling his breathing. Gina knows about LaNyah’s connection to Green and Bridges. What else could she know? If Gina is thorough enough to uncover his identity and know that he was involved compared to the rest of the team, then she knows he was the one who killed her brother. She is gunning for him specifically, but she wants to take everyone down – Bridges, who was her brother’s victim; her husband and protector, Green; and their ‘daughter,’ LaNyah. She is using her as bait to bring all three of them to her. No one is supposed to make it out of there alive, except for Gina and her goons.

LaNyah. How is she handling all of this? If he didn’t push her so hard, he could have been watching her like he was supposed to be. Instead, he had hoped his updates from Stacey, as infrequent as those were, would provide him with enough information to know she was doing fine and safe from harm. But this is something else altogether; she was kidnapped in broad daylight by a maniac with no regard for human life. Kill laughs to himself, just like him back then – one goal, one focus, by any means necessary. He runs his hands through his dreads, grateful that he decided to braid them back today. There is no room for any mistakes here and too many lives at risk. It’s LaNyah or bust. He’ll deal with all the other bullshit later.

Snapping his fingers, Bridges and Matt look at him. “You know you’re done, right?” Matt nods, “Good. You’ll serve time in federal prison, but at least you will be alive to meet your son and maybe save your family.”

Matt sighs, “I just wanted to provide for my family. I understand, but I am grateful to be alive.” He glances up at Green catching his eyes in the rearview mirror, “I’m sorry for everything I did to you, sir. To your business and your family, including LaNyah.” Green acknowledges his apology.

Green turns off the road into an industrial complex, leading to Gina’s warehouse. Kill slaps the back of his seat, an old signal from when Green used to drive during other missions. The mission has started, and nothing else matters until they get back into the SUV. Releasing Ashley’s hand, she watches the two of them, Killmonger and Green. The two men who saved her all those years ago are back and ready to do it all over again. She smiles to herself, and they are going to save LaNyah, too.

“You know she’s probably expecting you?” Matt says that like wasn’t the most prominent thought in all of their heads as they approach lot near the warehouse. Everyone was smart enough to keep it to themselves.

“We know.” Green declares.

“And we are ready for her.” The sound of a gun rack sliding catches Matt’s attention, and he looks over to see Kill holding a Glock.

Chapter 12

Taglist: @killmongersaidheyauntie @muse-of-mbaku @panthergoddessbast @youreadthatright @princessstevens @nahimjustfeelingit-writes @stark-red19 @kreolemami @bidibidibombaclaat @iamrheaspeaks @missumuch1918 @simplyyamberr @cheychey10142 @ajspencer1892 @chrismarcs @loosewindmill @sydneebleu @semianta @eyeknowmywrites @alexundefined @itsjustmezari @goddessofthundathighs @guccixcucci @kissmyafropuff @gimmeface @fd-writes @jozigrrl @soufcakmistress @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @shaekingshitup @localtrapgod @post-woke @theesotericqueen

#erik killmonger #erik killmonger x oc #black panther fanfiction #the firm #thadelightfulone

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cutegirlmayra · 4 years ago

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Lavinya the Red Fox’s part in Soler’s story

This is for @solerwolf21‘s story, where he was wondering if I’d let Lavinya have a cameo for it!

Here’s the scenario he gave me for my Sonic OC (Who is OP and basically Genie-like from Aladdin. Just a jester, comedy relief character to be honest, but as brilliant as Jack Sparrow’s accidental tomfoolery)

Our chat:

solerwolf21 : Alright if your down theres two the first is like an intro to the character if you want but basically shes doing some task around the base (leave that up you) and she's about to bite it in doing the task but Soler comes to help her and we learn that they know each other (this definitely isn't the first time he's helped her)

The second is later on Shay escapes and Soler, Shadow and Sally are late to get there but someone is distracting him turns out is its our girly (again you can go nuts with whatever it is shes doing) but before Shay could get in a hit Soler comes in for the save again and though he tries to scold her slightly she feels she's saved the day (which she sorta did lol)

cutegirlmayra : Lol sounds legit how Lavinya behaves lol My first idea is that he's trying to get past her and she slams her hand into the wall to block him and looks up like, "Hey, you're hot." and he's like really confused. "I didn't say that out loud." And he's like, "Are you an idiot?" and she goes, "Wow, but you said that out loud." lolololol

I wrote this immediately after:

First part:

It wasn’t long before the base was trying to recover, and work continued with only a minor set of hiccups…

“HYUK!” A red fox with strange blonde hair suddenly flung her back up from bending over to collect some files out of a cabinet. “Hyuk! Hyuk!” she seemed to have hiccups, and looked around for some water.

Not finding any, her tails suddenly shot her back and made her jolt towards what looked like a corner. “Ow! Hey!” the tail, as though having a mind of its own, felt around a moment before finding a cooler and began to pour a drink.

When it presented the drink to her, she sighed in relief, “HYUK!” she quickly took the cup and drank down the water, holding her breath to try and get rid of the hiccups while the tail seemed to ‘shake it’s head’ at her stupidity to even manage her own life.

“Office work…” she plugged her mouth to not hiccup, when nothing came out, she slowly opened the hand like a barn door… looked down to her mouth to wait… and then continued, “Isn’t really my forte…”

She was startled again when Soler walked by, seeming troubled and maybe focused on staying lost in his thoughts before his foot crinkled a piece of paper in his speedy walk.

“Huh?” He bent down and picked up the paper, amazed by it’s importance before examining the rest of the room. “Why are all these documents scattered everywhere?” He must have thought they were still being ransacked, so the Red fox girl quickly ran over to aid him.

“N-no-no! It’s just a light hurricane of hiccups.” She wagged her hands out in front of her as though to calm him, but he thought she was speaking metaphorically and sighed.

“Lavinya… why is it there’s always a hurricane of something when it comes to you?” He helped her picked up the papers, “You’re more suited for something where you can move around… maybe not something as delicate as… paperwork organizing.” he looked at the crinkled pieces of important papers and sighed again, ‘Who put her up to this anyway?’

“Hehe… yeah… well,... my portal hopping and poofing doesn’t exactly suit well with the princess…” She gulped, feeling her nicely cooled throat by the cold water as she did so. “They say I’m too dangerously unstable for a mission…. Since I could compromise things, and I’m not too good a messenger since I either forget or lose the message in the process. And last time, my brilliant tape recorder was almost stolen by Eggman’s forces too… soo…. I’m kinda here.” she looked around the office, showing her disdain but also sorrow at being so useless to everyone. “I can’t control my powers… so I can’t really follow directives.” she picked up another paper, and her tail swished to do the same, holding it up to her like a mouth of a creature.

She smiled sweetly and took it, “Anyway, that must be hard to understand, right?”

He looked down, thinking hard about what she said. “Actually? I completely understand.” he flopped the papers down on the desk and walked by her, patting her shoulder. “You’ll master your abilities in time. Keep at it. I know there’s a special word and symbol we can’t say or draw around you, but besides that, you’re kinda impossible to defeat, right?”

“Defeat?” She looked a little offended, “What am I? A monster to you!?”

“Well, you do say your tail is a evil mastermind.” he jokingly pointed to her tail, which at the time, was acting like a normal tail. “Who’s to say you aren’t just covering for your random tendencies to cause trouble?”

“I don’t mean too!” She slammed the papers on the desk and stormed after him. “Hey! Soler! Wait!”

“I’m leaving you in the hurricane.” he waved behind him, smiling slightly at how silly this crazy girl could get, but knew in his heart her circumstances weren’t so far off from his own… except, they were completely different, but the feelings and desires to be enough for others were the same.

----

Situation 2:

Shay flexed through the dust of his latest attack, brushing off the rubble and then cracking his individual fingers, “My poor neck…” He taunted, cracking it before rolling his shoulders as though just coming out of a leisurely spa-day. “Now… where is that charming brother of mine..?” he turned to what looked like an office, room with the wall crumbling away from it. “They don’t just kill themselves, now do they?” he continued to march with a purpose before seeing a blonde but red fox girl stick her head up, trembling, from below a desk.

He smirked, seeing the fear. He gestured for her to slowly withdraw back behind the desk, and her blue eyes just simply blinked at his gesture.

He held a finger up to his mouth as though she should remain silent, and continued towards the door.

However, before he could reach it, she slammed her hand into the wall just before the door, putting her elbow up to loop her hand behind her head, and pretended to seem like she was just chilling there.

She stuck up her lower lip and continued to play it cool… even seeing his eyes… slowly… narrow to a deadly, hostile glare of annoyance.

She thought fast, “You’re hot.” she slipped out, checking him out in a humorous way that was completely faked.

Confused, he just narrowed his eyes and slightly withdrew his neck back at her appalling display. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing out loud, I can assure you.” While her hand was behind her, she silently kept snapping it, waiting for something to randomly happen. A rubber duck poofed in behind her head and landed behind her. As it squeaked about hitting the ground, rolling till it’s head got in the way, he slowly turned to glance down at it, then raise an eyebrow.

“Eh heh, office decor. They say it’s like your home so…” she stopped herself from furthering that awkward sentence…

She kept snapping and many random items fell from behind her. A miniature rowboat, a toy snake, a slinky, a stuffed puppy, before Shay finally had enough of it.

“Are you an idiot?” he grabbed her hand that was--not so secretly--snapping and shoved her back against the door.

“Ow!” she flinched, her eye twitching slightly at the pain. “Well, you said that out loud.”

“I won’t say this again.” He leaned in and softly spoke out such harsh and cruel words, twisting his grip to really tighten and pain her arm further. “Get out of my way, witch.”

Her eyes widened slightly.

She flexed out her hand and fell back through a portal.

Out of surprise, he let her go, amazed as the vortex looked so incredibly pitch-black with other minor colors swirling around that he honestly thought she just did something magical. He felt around the space, unable to see anything, before the red fox girl’s head popped out from the ceiling.

“Yoohoo!” she called and he turned around to blast a Chaos beam at her, but she was already portaling to another spot in the office. She blew a raspberry as he suddenly was playing whack-a-mole with this strange fox girl.

“What kind of power is this!?” he stepped back and slid on the rubber ducky, causing him to fall on the rowboat which blasted a horn. He covered his ear and turned, but that triggered the toy snake which clomped on his nose. “AH!” he jumped up to his knees but the Red Fox girl grabbed the slinky by having her two arms stick out of the portals, making a pretty twisty bow as she locked his legs together.

He tried to get up but stumbled from the horrible knot and fell down again, unable to move much but he did struggle.

As he fell, she removed the soft puppy plushie as his head hit the ground hard, and then proceeded to look at the puppy as though not sure how this would help but started whacking him with it.

The door opened and seeing her friends, she held her hands up and swayed them over her face, “Hurricane~” she teased, knowing only Soler would get the reference.

She had stalled him just long enough, and that was honestly her goal.

“Lavinya…” Sally marveled, seeing him struggling to break the slinky and realizing that her power made it an unordinary slinky. “Did you do this?” she looked at her in awe.

Lavinya flexed like a strong man a few times, her tail joining her, “Well, ah-ha, yeah, I did~” she showed off, “But I was honestly going for a sword…” she deflated herself a bit and let her arms dangle down from her hunched back in front of her. Her head also seemed despondent.

“Hmph, maybe you’re not just a clown after all.” Shadow walked by her, rubbing her head as her entire character changed to sudden glee, and he went to finish the ‘rope-tying’ she had started.

“ENOUGH!” Shay blasted the room with a Chaos Blast that had each of them shoved up against a wall.

“Offph..! He hit the mole…” she joked, even while in pain, and slid to the ground. He was strong enough to finally break the strange alien slinky as the rest of Lavinya’s summoned objects suddenly poofed out of existence once she was hit and fell to the ground.

She gripped her head, and as he grabbed her tail--which mimicked biting him, as though it had regained it’s separate personality from her again--looked as though ready to rip her to shreds.

“I’m not very fond of games…”

“Lavinya!” Soler swung a punch to a--once again--distracted Shay and helped her up. “What did I say about trouble!?”

“Sally… S-Shadow…” Lavinya weakly pointed to them as Shay’s eyes shook.

“Oh no.”

-need more @solerwolf21? lol it was fun xD- (This is based on my commission I made for him as well.)

I JUST REALIZED THAT THE COOLER WOULD HAVE FLOODED AND THE RUBBER DUCKY SLIP AND FLOATING ALONG THE SLIPPERY FLOOR WOULD HAVE MADE SO MUCH SENSE AND BEEN SO MUCH MORE FUNNY LOLOLOL

Note: My spell check is the WORST on the planet, so if there’s some errors forgive me T-T

#cutegirlmayra #solerwolf21 #lavinya the red fox #sonic oc #cutegirlmayra oc #me ocs #me sonic ocs #me writings #lavinya dabble #me dabbles #me prompts

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inkribbon796 · 5 years ago

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Hearts Club: Candied Roses

Summary: Iplier never thought much about Valentine’s Day, but this year with another help from someone, he might have a shot at a happy Valentine’s Day.

<= Back to Main

Dr. Iplier was sitting in his office at the hospital. His shift was basically over and it was Valentine’s Day, and like a complete coward he was sitting at work, trying not to go back to the base and have to deal with all the couples coming and going from the main area.

He also had to change the Host’s bandages because the doctor didn’t trust him to take care of himself. But the last thing he wanted was for King to be around while did it.

Iplier was probably making assumptions, but the two seemed close. He’d walked into the library on more than one occasion and seen the two talking and laughing at something. Either the Host really thought King’s jokes were funny, or there was something Iplier was missing.

Finally he just packed his stuff up and left. He could probably badger Henrik to watch movies with him. There were more than a handful of heroes without dates, even if it meant hearing Roman lament about not having someone as he laid on the couch eating ice cream like the drama queen he was.

Iplier took his car, constantly looking over his shoulder for a villain to attack him. He’d been kidnapped by the League from this very parking lot on more than one occasion, and even after the first time he’d gotten suspicious of being out in the open.

He wasn’t attacked and got into the base without incident.

“Tag, Edvard,” Henrik greeted as he walked into the main room. “You are late.”

Iplier took stock of the room. Roman was taking up most of the couch, with Henrik squished into the arm. Robbie was sitting in front of him. Eric was curled up in one of the bean bag chairs. In the kitchen area, Virgil was laying on top of the counter top destroying the contents of a box of Pocky.

“Sup,” Virgil greeted, three sticks of Pocky in his mouth.

“What we watching this year boys?” Iplier sighed and walked over.

“Mouse Hunt,” Henrik answered, staring at the screen.

“Why?”

“Cause I need a laugh,” Henrik reminded, a huge bowl of popcorn in his lap.

“That and Nathan Lane has a fine ass,” Roman agreed, spoon still in his mouth, a bucket of butter pecan ice cream on his stomach, with chocolate syrup poured directly into the box.

“Hey, Princey,” Virgil jabbed. “If I wanted to watch a movie with the Duke, I would have gone back to the apartment to watch him and Dee make out on the table.”

“You take that back, you no-taste charlatan!” Roman barked out in offense.

“You two should make out in ze closet already,” Henrik scoffed. “Ze others already have.”

Virgil began having a coughing fit.

“I spent eleven years too long in there,” Roman rebuked. “You ain’t locking my fine ass back up.”

Then Roman smiled at Virgil, leaning over so he could see him, “You okay there, My Chemical No-Romance?”

“I hate you,” Virgil coughed out.

Eric was looking at Virgil in concern, “D-Do you need some water?”

“M’ fine,” Virgil was already running the tap to grab something to drink to clear his throat.

“O-Okay,” Eric answered.

“You want us to start over?” Roman asked Iplier.

The doctor looked at his watch, “Nah, keep going, I have to go check the Host’s bandages, bet he’s been hiding out all day.”

“Ja, he refused to let me near him,” Henrik confirmed. “Ze man has a preference.”

“No he’s just a stubborn ass,” Iplier grumbled and started to walk towards the door that would take him to the elevator.

The American doctor was gone for five seconds before Virgil rolled over onto his stomach, taking the broken Pocky stick out of his mouth. “Five bucks says he doesn’t come back.”

“Ten says he comes back with a hickey,” Roman snagged some popcorn from Henrik.

The German doctor rolled his eyes, pulling the bowl away, “Nein, you have ice cream all over zhose hands of yours!”

As his friends argued and talked about him, Iplier was taking his medical bag and just stalked towards the elevator. He was trying to clear his head, because it was practically buzzing like a swarm of anxious bees.

His mind always went back to the Host, despite his best efforts to stay professional and ethical about his patient. Iplier didn’t know everything about what the Host used to be before they met. King was upfront about his tax evasion and auditing crimes that he was still on probation for, but Host never talked about it.

Or he couldn’t. The American doctor wasn’t sure which the problem was. Iplier was sure Marvin had been trying to connect the dots too. If King had worked for Dark, and Host had come to Dr. Iplier with him, then it didn’t take a private investigator to figure out that Host probably had too.

He reached the elevator and was about to hit the button when he saw King rushing over to him. “Hey, Doc, hold the door.”

Iplier punched the button a little bit harder than necessary. “King, I haven’t changed Host’s bandages all day, I don’t have time.

When King got to him, he noticed five roses made out of hard candy wrapped in brown paper, a golden ribbon tying it all together. “I’ll just take it down with you then.”

The doctor could have screamed, but the elevator showed up, even if it was slow.

“I would have thought you’d be down there with him already,” Iplier reminded, stepping inside with King.

“I checked on him a couple hours ago,” King waved his free hand. “Guy almost took my head off. Anyways, can’t stay, park tends to get a little crazy on the holidays. Can you do us all a favor and hand these to Host?”

He held up the wrapped roses, and Iplier took a deep breath, afraid for a second that when he opened his mouth he’d start screaming. Frustrated and angry, he finally barked, “Do your own dirty work, kid.”

“I am,” King scoffed. “Host wants to take forever, so I’m giving him a kick in the right direction.”

“I’m not giving your boyfriend flowers and chocolate, do it yourself, just make sure you’re not in my way when I change his bandages.”

The door started to open, but King was faster, darting his arm out to close the door.

“King, get out of my way,” Iplier spat.

Slowly a look of shock and surprise wrapped over King’s face, as if the gears in his head were finally turning the way he wanted them to. “Wait, wait, wait. You think I’m dating Host?”

Iplier almost hit him.

The younger hero looked like he was somewhere between amused as hell, and deeply disgusted. “No,” he balked. “Is that why you’ve been so passive-aggressively pissed at me since forever?”

“If you’re not dating then what is going on between you two?” Iplier asked.

“Doc, we’re brothers,” King told him. “I mean, we’re adopted but if that doesn’t count then nothing does.”

“Oh,” Iplier said, feeling silly and embarrassed.

“Here, give these to the Host,” King was still chuckling to himself. “Both of you are ridiculous.”

Finally he pressed the button to open the door back up, leaning against the door. Iplier took them carefully, noticing that the candy rose petals had strands of gold mixed into the sugar.

Stepping out, Iplier looked back at him, “Where’d you get these?”

“Made ‘em,” King looked inordinately proud of himself. “Trade family secret. Got a whole cookbook of pastry and candy recipes. They’re some black ops level stuff though so, good luck.”

With that he closed the door, and left Iplier alone in front of the door.

Glancing down at the roses, Iplier was frozen in place. Host was probably a mess, and he needed help. The blind man clearly had very little desire to protect himself, easily getting swept up in his visions and stories. It was one of the things Iplier had always loved about him, how passionate he was about his books.

Slowly he started to make his way towards the desk at the center of the massive library. The walk gave him time to think and plan. He was admittedly nervous, Host was going to pick up on the flowers eventually.

“Hey Host,” Iplier began, finally reaching the desk. “I heard you didn’t let Henrik patch you up.”

The doctor froze, there was a folded letter at the front of the Host’s desk. Iplier’s name was written in the Host’s fancy, flowing calligraphy.

“Greetings, Doctor,” the Host smiled. “As for the German doctor, the Host much prefers his current doctor’s steady hand over another’s.”

Iplier set his bag down so he could pick the paper up. “What’s this?”

“It is for the Host’s good doctor,” the Host answered. “Words that he would like to say before the King of the Squirrels involves himself in the Host’s business again.”

“Oh,” Iplier opened the letter to see that it was a poem, words twisted in the shape of Iplier’s face. The prose was flowy and very much in the Host’s style. It took a bit before Iplier fully realized that Host had written him a love poem. Entire sentences detailing his appearance and steady nerve. How the doctor had saved the Host not only from death but from himself.

“Host, did you make this for me?” Dr. Iplier asked.

“The Host spent a great deal of time on what to make so that the good doctor would not ask such a question,” the Host answered. “Does the Doctor like his gift?”

“Of course I do,” Iplier answered. “I love it.”

The Host seemed to let out a sigh of relief. “The Host is glad.”

“I have something for you too, sorry it’s not something homemade,” Iplier apologized and gently passed the flowers over to the Host, suddenly very nervous.

The blind seer let out a chuckle, his narrations quietly describing the flowers to himself, tracing his fingers over it. “Ahh, the Doctor got these from King right?”

“Did you see it in one of your visions?” Iplier asked, realizing that he’d been holding his breath for a bit.

“No, the King of the Squirrels learned how to make these from one of his adopted fathers, he is meddling in the Host’s personal affairs again,” the Host answered, all his focus seemingly on the flowers.

“Oh,” Iplier get his heart constrict a little.

“It is not unappreciated, as it got Iplier and the Host to interact with each other,” Host commented. “The Host very much likes his doctor.”

“I like you a lot too,” Iplier agreed. “Maybe if you’re up for it I can order in some food? I know you don’t like to go out into town.”

The Host whipped his head up to look at him, smiling warmly. “The Host would very much like that, he thanks the Doctor.”

Iplier smiles and after a quick discussion he ordered some Chinese food to the base, and then began changing the Host’s bandages. The two of them talking quietly in the mostly darkened library.

Two men huddled close together admit the smell of old book dust, a tinge of blood, and the sterilization of the doctor’s tools.

#Superhero AU #Masks and Maladies #Markiplier #Jacksepticeye #Thomas Sanders #Dr. Iplierst #Dr. Iplier #the Host #King of the Squirrels #Henrik von Schneeplestein #Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Robbie the Zombie #Eric Derekson #pining #idiots in love #misunderstanding #but the boys work it out in the end

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woossexyponytail · 5 years ago

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Shadow Born Chapter 10 This means war. Final.

Masterlist.

Back at the house the guy's sat around the lounge as I quickly ran upstairs to grab the book that Wooyoung found last year, I opened up the door to auntie room looking around for it, thankfully it didn't take long since it was by the window.

Walking up to it, the book was open on a page that said "Hymenaeum accire ope aliorum animo subvenire." I read out loud, I frowned at the page, 'Did auntie see this coming?' I wondered to myself. Shaking my head I picked up the book and ran back downstairs.

"You have it?" Yunho asked looking around at me and standing up once he saw the book in my hands. I nodded placing it down on the table opening it at the page I found it on, Yunho read over the texts and looked up with widened eyes.

"The book was open here on this page, auntie must of known what would happen to her" I told him, Yunho nodded reading through the book, he looked over at Mingi and Seonghwa.

"We would need help, the more people the powerful the spell is" Yunho said looking over at San and Jongho as well, the four nodded looking back at me.

"So what's the plan then?" Seonghwa asked, I looked over the book reading through one more time.

"Candles, lots of candles" I told them standing up the guys all helped as we collected as many candles we needed for this spell to work. After about an hour we had a black bag full of candles that sat in the middle of the living room.

"So what are we going to do with all these candles anyways?" Yeosang asked looking between us, Yunho picked up the bag and started walking to the door.

"We're going to summon some help" I said following Yunho out the door, San grabbed my wrist stopping me, turning around to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll help, we all will, right guy's?" San said looking behind him to the others, they all cheered agreeing as we walked back out and to the forest.

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

I placed the candles around in a circle as I stood in the middle as the guys stood around watching, Yunho came over to help as Salem, Stolas, Vinegar Tom and Leviathan were protecting us if the angel came back.

"Why are you doing it here?" Jongho asked looking around the forest, Yunho turned around ready to explain but Seonghwa beat him to it.

"Yn doesn't have enough power to do the summoning so she needs more energy that she could borrow from the earth's core. Which is here" he said Yunho nodded turning back to help me. I could see Wooyoung and San share a look with each other.

"Could you all stand around the candles please" I asked they all got in to place around me and the candles. I closed my eyes as I focused on the surrounding, feeling the wind the earth the sky the heat, I am going to give it all I've got.

My eyes snapped open but I couldn't see anything I felt the flames from the candles as I started chanting, hearing Yunho, Mingi and Seonghwa help as I felt myself getting stronger.

"Did you know her eyes could turn red?" Wooyoung turned to asked San, he shook his head no, asking if Wooyoung knew, Wooyoung also shook his head no both of them gulping as they turned back to me.

The sky turned dark grey clouds circling around us the wind blew aggressively around us, thunder crashing and lightning hitting the trees. The lightning hit the ground causing a circle of fire around us.

Lightning came like a rip in the inky night, as if behind the dark canvass was a brilliant light just waiting to flood through any crack no matter how small.

"What...What's happening?" I heard Yeosang ask as he watched the sky, the others looked around at the fire. The thunder crashed as lightning flashed behind all of a sudden thirteen people stood around us.

"What's going on? Who are they?" Wooyoung asked, my sight came back seeing the new group of people. They all had their heads down black cloaks on hidding themselves.

"Who summoned us here?" One asked I stepped forward looking at them, the fire stopped as I walked out of the circle towards them.

"I did, An angel killed my aunt, which means that the war has started again. We need help, please." I said, the one who asked stepped forward taking his hood off showing a middle aged man.

"Don't worry dear, we'll protect you and your friends" he said, the others took of their hoods as well showing all of the shadow born, they ushered us in to the house.

"What do you need us to do?" Yunho asked as we sat down on the sofa, the others sitting around us, the new shadow born grabbed things from the garden.

"What you need to do is stay here and look after your friends protect them, we will handle the angels" the man said, I looked over at Yunho as we both frowned.

"We will leave now keep safe" one of the women said to us as they all left outside the door, leaving the rest of us sitting in the living room in silence.

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

I paced back and forth across the living room, San, Wooyoung and Seonghwa watched me as the rest just stayed silent, Yunho stood up grabbing my shoulders and stopped me.

"Calm down it'll be fine, just breath okay" Yunho said, I nodded sighing and sitting down on the sofa inbetween San and Wooyoung, I layed my head down on Wooyoung's shoulder as San rubbed my arm.

"I just have a bad feeling" I said sighing as I rubbed my eyes, still emotional about auntie death, as we sat in silence Wooyoung stood up and walked to the window along with Hongjoon and Yeosang.

Just then the window smashed broken glass flying everywhere, I bent down covering my face while San protected me as well, we all look up seeing that Wooyoung, Yeosang and Hongjoon are all laying on the floor covered in cuts.

I ran over to Wooyoung crouching next to him, he held on to his right thigh as he grunted in pain, I moved his hands away seeing a large bit of glass digging in to his thigh.

"Ok Wooyoung, look at me, on three I'm going to take this out and heal you ok" I told him, he nodded at me some tears at the corner of his eyes. I counted to three and pulled the glass out of his thigh, Wooyoung screamed in pain as blood ooed out of the open wound.

"Sh*t!, my magic isn't working!?" I said then grabbed the blanket ripping it and tying it around his thigh, looking over at Yeosang and Hongjoon seeing if they were ok, Seonghwa Mingi and Yunho helped them up, both still bleeding as well.

"What the hell was that?" Jongho asked looking out the now broken window, we all looked out, Wooyoung leaning against me as we saw out the window a figure in the distance.

"What is that?" Hongjoon asked rubbing his shoulder, I paled seeing an angel, I looked over at Yunho as we both started panicking.

"Oh that's not good, okay! Time to go!" Yunho yelled as he helped Wooyoung out the door, I grabbed the familiars following Yunho, Seonghwa and Mingi helped Yeosang out and San and Jongho helped Hongjoon.

"Guy's he is coming after us!" Wooyoung yelled, Seonghwa then let go of Yeosang, Mingi holding him up, Seonghwa went to leave but I quickly grabbed him.

"Where do you think your going?" I asked him, Seonghwa stopped looking down at me a small smile on his face.

"You all go on ahead, I'll deal with him" Seonghwa said nodding over to the angel getting closer to us, Seonghwa kissed my head walking off, I tried to grab him again but I was pulled back by someone.

"Let him go" San whispered in my ear, hearing that I started screaming for Seonghwa to come back, Yunho came up to me letting San help Wooyoung while Yunho picked me up carrying me away from what was going to happen.

"Don't look, keep your eyes forward" Yunho repeated to me as we rushed away, I looked behind me seeing Seonghwa collapse to the floor a lot of blood splattered everywhere.

"NO!" I screamed struggling against Yunho as I tried to run back to Seonghwa, not believing him to now be dead too.

"Yn! STOP! I'M sorry but he's gone, look we need to get the others to safety okay, can you focus on that?" Yunho said to me looking in to my eyes, I closed my eyes taking a breath, then nodded.

We all started to running but the angel appeared infront of us stopping us in our tracks, Leviathan flew over to the angel pecking at him as Vinegar Tom slithered over to the angel, wrapping around him and squeezing the life out of him then biting the angel over and over again.

As the angel was distracted we ran off in to town, getting behind one of the stores we collapsed to the floor out of breath, I sat against the wall with Wooyoung checking on his thigh, putting my hand on his shoulder he looked up at me.

"How are you holding up?" I asked, Wooyoung chuckled resting his head on my shoulder, I stroked his head kissing it as I hugged him closer to me, Yunho and Mingi checked on Hongjoon and Yeosang seeing how they're cuts were.

"That's pretty bad- Uh I mean it's fine totally fine" Mingi said looking over Hongjoong's back until Yunho hit his arm to stop Hongjoong from worrying.

"I really don't feel well, can you just tell me how bad it is" Hongjoong said looking over at me, I nodded getting up to take a look at his back.

I grimaced at the sight of it, I looked up to Yunho and Mingi as they shook their heads at me, I sighed as I turning to Hongjoong again, he looked up at me waiting.

"I'm so sorry Hongjoong, it's quite bad. If we don't get it healed now you will lose to much blood" I told him, he looked down taking the information in and nodded standing up.

"Ok let's get help then" he said as he looked between all of us, looking at Wooyoung and Yeosang asking if they were alright to get going they both nodded.

"Uh leaving is a great idea since he is back!" Jongho said pointing out the angel, the man came storming towards us a glear on his face as he brought out a crossbow, I quickly helped Wooyoung up with San's help, Jongho helped Yeosang up and Yunho helped Hongjoong.

"Mingi? Where are you going?" Yunho stopped watching Mingi walk towards the fuming angel. "You guy's head off, I'll hold him back" Mingi said light forming from his hands.

"Mingi no don't!" Yunho yelled, I looked down knowing that Mingi wasn't going to make it either, I grabbed Yunho's hand, he looked over at me tears in his eyes.

"We've got to leave him" I whispered to him, Yunho looked back at Mingi, I got Yunho attention back a we telephoned away from the alley behind the shop.

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

As we all telaported I fell to the floor with a thump, looking up seeing trees surrounded me. Looking to my left San was on the floor as well, getting up and walking over to help him up.

"Are you alright San?" I asked pulling him to his feet, he nodded his head rubbing the back of it, I turned around seeing Wooyoung struggling to get up, both San and I ran to help him.

"Guys! Come here! It's Hongjoong!" Jongho yelled, we looked over seeing Hongjoong just laying on the floor not moving.

"Hongjoong! Hey get up!" Wooyoung yelled at him shaking him, I knelt down checking his pulse, the guys looked at me as I shook my head.

"No this can't be happening" Jongho said as he started tearing up, San hugged him as Jongho cried. I leaned my head down my eyes getting teary again.

"This needs to end" I said standing up and walking around taking a look at where we are, I closed my eyes and took a breath to calm my power.

A flash of blue appeared in front of us as we all watched what was happening the angel appeared out of the blue light.

"Oh come on!" Wooyoung yelled as he tried getting up again, I walked forward towards the angel closing my eyes, I felt both hands being taken, looking up Yunho, San and Jongho all held hands with me as we stood in a line.

"Ego quaeritur de potestate sol et luna, quia illa potestas est ad nos commodare. nobis auxilium prohibere ad angelum meum qui praecedat." I chanted, Yunho following after.

Wooyoung and Yeosang sat beside us as we chanted louder, the angel pulled out his crossbow aiming it at the two. Jongho saw it first as he broke off with the connection and jumped in the way, the arrow plunging right through his chest.

Jongho fell to the floor blood pooling out of him, Wooyoung and Yeosang quickly got over to him to check if he was alright, the two stayed silent and we just knew at that moment Jongho was the next victim.

"quod exterminastis dolorem!" I yelled, the angel dropped to the floor holding his chest in pain, looking up he aimed the crossbow one more time and shot it.

The angel finally collapsed dead on the floor, I let go of San and Yunho hands as we ran over to Jongho, seeing him laying lifeless on the floor broke my heart, looking over at San seeing him crying over his cousin.

I saw Wooyoung struggle seeing him touch his stomach in pain, he moved his hand and my eyes widened as I saw his blood staining his shirt.

"Wooyoung!" I ran to him lifting his shirt seeing a huge hole in his stomach, I put my hands over putting pressure on it, I looked up seeing him really pale as he fell back to the floor.

"Wooyoung! Stay with me Wooyoung!" I begged tears blinding my sight, his hand placed on top of mine as he looked up at me smiling, he placed his hand on my cheek whipping away some tears, he opened his mouth to say something so I leaned down.

"I love you.." he said, I started sobbing my head against his as I kissed him, pulling away slowly his eyes were closed and pulse was gone, San wrapped his arms around me as we both cried now over Wooyoung's death too.

"The battle is over, but the lost was great, I do apologise for the loss of your friends" the shadow born said walking up to us the twelve others behind him.

"Can't you bring them back?" I asked looking up still in San's arms, they all said no with a soft whisper.

"We can make it easier for you to explain the deaths though" one of the women said as she lifted her hand, our surrounding changed as we were all back at the house.

Looking around Seonghwa, Mingi, Hongjoon, Jongho and Wooyoung all layed on the floor, the look of peace on their faces calm me a bit, Yeosang stumbled over to us as Yunho caught him sitting him down on the sofa.

"You know what to do from here" they said as all thirteen of them disappeared from the room, a few seconds later a siren was heard as we told the police about the men that broke in and killed our friends.

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

It was past midnight as I sat down on my bed Yunho was already asleep Yeosang and San staying over too. I couldn't sleep the images of them all dead I couldn't save them any of them.

There was a soft knock on my door as it opened revealing San as he walked in sitting next to me on the bed.

"Can't sleep either?" He asked, I shook my head leaning in to him as he hugged me, we both layed down as we cuddled. The night got calmer as we just layed there, San started playing with my hair.

"I love you" San mumbled in to my ear as I hummed at him turning to face him giving him a kiss, "I love you too" I whispered back to him, laying my head on his chest, I felt tears down my cheeks as I thought about Seonghwa and Wooyoung, I wonder if auntie knew all this was going to happen? I sighed closing my eyes as we both drifted off to sleep.

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virgiltheanxious · 6 years ago

Text

It’s Not Your Fault, Don’t Take Blame (Chapter Two)

Title: It’s Not Your Fault, Don’t Take Blame (Chapter Two)

Masterlist

Previous | Next

Pairing: Eventual Analogical

Warnings: None, I believe.

Word Count: 2,741

Summary: Virgil is a single father. Not only that, but he is a transgender single father. After leaving his parents and not looking back, he is left to raise his child with only help from his High School friend Patton.

As he plans a small birthday party for his son, Aeneas, he meets Roman and Logan. He never had any friends outside of Patton before but now it seems he not only has two new ones but a love interest as well.

Now, the only question is what will he do when someone calls child protective services on him?

Tags: Ask if you want to be tagged! General: @my-happy-little-bean @nightmarejasmine

When Virgil woke up, he didn’t move for at least 30 minutes. Since his shift wasn’t until early in the afternoon, he could wake up whenever. He also didn’t have to worry about sleeping in past his shift because he had Aeneas that would wake him up eventually.

Rolling over and checking the alarm clock that wasn’t used more often than not, he noted that it was already 9 A.M.. Groaning, he rolled back onto his back and put an arm on his forehead. He really, really didn’t want to get up. But he had lots to do himself and he had to make sure Aeneas had breakfast and took a bath. Slowly, he sat up and got out of bed, yawning as he walked to his closet. He grabbed the first pair of pants he saw and put them on, throwing his dirty shorts in the general direction of his hamper. He then chose a shirt and walked his dirty one to the hamper and picked it up, bringing it with him to the living room. He rubbed his face and walked into the kitchen, grabbing the generic cereal that they had and putting it on the kitchen table along with a small bowl and spoon for Aeneas. Then he walked to the said boy’s room.

After he opened the door, Virgil turned on the light and blinked away the sudden black dots that clouded his vision. He put his arm on the wall as he stumbled to Aeneas’s bed. Sitting on the edge of it, Virgil gently shook Aeneas awake.

“Aeneas, it’s time for breakfast bud. I already got the cereal out and everything,” Virgil said lazily.

Aeneas slowly blinked open his eyes and somehow crawled out of the bed with Virgil still sitting on the edge. “Morning Papa,” Aeneas yawned, rubbing his eyes and putting his arms up as a single for Virgil to carry him.

Smiling, Virgil stood and picked Aeneas up, putting him on his hip. “How did you sleep? Any dreams?”

“Yeah! I dreamt about a dragon! He was really cool and was helpin’ this knight fight! He could breathe fire and everything! It was so awesome!” Aeneas rambled as Virgil sat him down in a chair at the table.

“Wow, buddy! That does sound pretty awesome! We gotta do a few things today, though. Okay?” Virgil said. “Which cereal do you want?”

Aeneas pointed to one of the two options, and Virgil poured that cereal into the bowl and put both boxes back in the cabinet. He then grabbed the milk and poured it into the bowl. “Eat up, kiddo!”

When Virgil brought the milk back to the fridge, he grabbed the apple juice they had along with a cup from the cupboard. He poured the apple juice into the glass cup and put the container back into the fridge. As he drank the cup of juice, he walked to the table and sat down across from Aeneas.

“What do we have to do today?” Asked Aeneas.

“Well, after you’re finished with breakfast, I’m going to give you a bath. Once that’s done we’re gonna go down to the basement and put some clothes in the washer. You can help carry the soap, is that good with you?” Virgil asked as Aeneas continued to eat.

“It’s always so heavy, though!” Aeneas complained.

“Not right now, we’re almost done with this bottle. Plus, you’re super strong, aren’t you?” Virgil teased.

“Yeah!” Aeneas said, dropping his spoon into the bowl and making a face and he tried to flex his “muscles” in order to show off. Virgil laughed at him.

“Well, after we do that, how about we go out? I have to do some grown up stuff anyway,” Virgil explained.

Aeneas cringed. “Grown up stuff is boring!”

“You’re right about that one, kid. But I gotta do it anyway, alright? We got no choice on this one,” Virgil said.

As Aeneas finished his bowl of cereal, Virgil stood up with his empty glass and grabbed Aeneas’s bowl as well. He walked to the sink and put them down. He washed Aeneas’s bowl and spoon because they were definitely the easier things to do, and then he started to wash his glass. As he used the sponge to clean it, the glass got too slippery and he dropped it.

“Fuck!” He shouted, jumping back as the glass broke.

“SWEAR JAR!” Aeneas responded, standing up and walking to grab the swear jar.

Sighing, Virgil grabbed the trash can from under the sink and picked up the larger part of the glass that wasn’t broken, carefully putting each piece into the trash bag. Aeneas came back into the room and loudly placed the swear jar on the table.

“Papa, you gotta put the money in!” Aeneas said.

“I know, I will when I’m done cleaning, okay? I want to make sure there isn’t any glass anywhere. Can you get the broom from the closet and lean it against the chair, please? Stay away from the sink for now, okay?” Virgil said, running the water in the sink to make sure any small pieces of glass were no longer there. Since he lived in an apartment, he didn’t really care if the pipe broke because that wouldn’t be his problem to pay, anyway. He grabbed the trash can and walked it over to the chair where Aeneas had already put the broom. He traded the trash with the broom and began to sweep the entire kitchen, which really needed to be done regardless. He made a pile of the dirt in the corner and grabbed the dustpan, sweeping it into there and putting the rest in the trash.

“Aeneas, can you put on your shoes and bring me mine, please? We gotta take out the trash,” Virgil said, grabbing the trash bag and tying it at the top. He put it down next to the trash can and went under the sink to grab a new bag.

“Okay!” Aeneas shouted, sitting down by the door and putting his shoes on.

Virgil, after putting the new trash bag in the can and placed it back under the sink. Aeneas came and gave Virgil his shoes, which Virgil easily slipped on, With his left hand, he grabbed the bag of trash and walked to the door, where Aeneas was waiting. Virgil opened the door and then held his hand out for Aeneas to take as the walked down the stairs and outside to where the larger trash container was. After throwing in the trash bag he picked up Aeneas.

“Hey bub, thanks for cooperating with me. Now let’s go put in the money for the swear jar, huh?” said Virgil, walking back towards the house.

“What does coo-op-erat-ing mean?” Aeneas asked, gripping Virgil’s shoulder and sounding out the word.

“Cooperating? It means, uhm, well it means when you work with me, you know? Like, you don’t complain or make it hard? I’m not the best at explaining this stuff, sorry. I can help explain it better inside if I look it up, alright?”

Aeneas nodded as Virgil opened the door to their apartment. Virgil went to his room and grabbed his wallet from his end table and pulled out a dollar and gave it to Aeneas.

“Here we go, let go bring that to the jar then, shall we?” Virgil asked, adjusting Aeneas on his hip and turning around.

“Yeah!” Aeneas said, excited.

Virgil brought him to the kitchen table, where the jar still was place and leaned over so Aeneas could put it in. Aeneas leaned over himself and shoved it into the jar.

“Yeah! How about we bring the laundry down now, since we both have our shoes on?” Virgil asked, putting Aeneas down.

“Okay, Papa!” Aeneas said, already forgetting about Virgil explaining what cooperate meant. Virgil opened the closet and reached to the top shelf, grabbing the container of Tide and handing it to Aeneas.

“Alright, I’m going to go grab your dirty clothes and then we’ll head down, okay?” Virgil asked, already walking to Aeneas’s room and grabbing his laundry container. He walked back to where he had put his own laundry basket and put the small boy’s laundry in with his own. ‘Ah, shoot. Aeneas can you grab my wallet from my bedroom?” Virgil asked, grabbing a few of Aeneas’s lighter clothes and putting them back in the young boy’s hamper. Aeneas came back and handed Virgil his wallet. ‘Thanks, buddy,” Virgil said, patting his head. “Let’s go down, now.”

As the walked down to the basement, Aeneas clutched onto the bottle of Tide with one hand and clinged to Virgil’s pants with the other. Virgil slowly walked down the steps, glancing back every other one to make sure Aeneas was okay. When they finally made it down the far-too-many steps, Virgil walked to the closest washer, placed down his basket, and opened it. He quickly put in all the clothes they had and looked down at Aeneas.

“Do you want to poor in the soap?” He asked. Aeneas nodded and Virgil smiled as he picked him up. “Okay, you can just pour in the rest of the bottle, okay?” Virgil said, adjusting how Aeneas sat on his hip. Aeneas nodded.

“Okay, hold onto the bottle tight. I’m going to open it up and then you pour it in,” Virgil explained. Aeneas held the bottle with two hands and Virgil unscrewed the cap carefully. Aeneas smiled as he turned the bottle upside down and let it pour onto the clothes.

“Good job buddy!” Virgil said, giving Aeneas a high-five. He closed the lid to the washing machine and fished his wallet out of his pocket. He put in the required amount of quarters, adjusting the settings to what seemed appropriate and turned it on. Grabbing the cap that he had placed on the dryer next to them, he put it in the large trash can that was in the corner of the room. Aeneas threw in the Tide container as well, from Virgil’s hip. Virgil cheered him on as he did so, making Aeneas giggle. Virgil grabbed the hamper and started their way up the stairs.

“Alright, how about that bath next?” offered Virgil as they made their way back to the apartment.

“Can I bring in toys?” Aeneas asked, putting his head on Virgil’s shoulder.

“I don’t see why not. How about we make it a bubble bath while we’re at it, then?” Virgil asked, unlocking the door and pushing it open with his foot. “Alright, go get the toys you want and come into the bathroom, okay?”

Aeneas nodded and ran off to his bedroom. Virgil could hear the crashing of toys around the room and sighed. He was going to need to clean up after Aeneas now. Oh joy.

Virgil put his hamper back in his bedroom and then went to the bathroom. He turned on the water and clogged the tub so it would fill up. He then went underneath the sink and grabbed the bubble bath, placing it next to the tub. He then grabbed a towel from the small closet and placed it on the sink. Virgil took off his sweatshirt, placing it over the towel, and then felt the water. When he determined it was at a good temperature, he poured in the bubble bath and mixed it around to create the bubbles.

Aeneas walked in with an armful of toys which, since Aeneas was so small, actually wasn’t so many. Aeneas plopped them into the water, making big splashes that came up to hit Virgil.

“Thanks, Aeneas,” Virgil joked, rubbing his head. “Let’s get you in the tub now, buddy,” Virgil said, undressing him and putting him into the tub.

Virgil allowed him to play for a bit until he grabbed a pitcher from under the sink and filled it up with water. He helped Aeneas wash up and then allowed him to play for a few more minutes. Virgil checked the time and decided that they should hurry up and do something more productive.

“Alright buddy,” Virgil started, unplugging the tub so the water would go down the drain. “Let’s get you in some clean clothes!” Virgil exclaimed, helping Aeneas out. He wrapped the small blanket around Aeneas’s small form and then grabbed his own sweatshirt, following Aeneas to his room.

“Papa, can I wear my shirt with the doggy on it?” Aeneas asked, waiting by his dresser.

“Was it in the laundry?” Virgil asked, opening the drawers and grabbing pants and underwear, handing them to Aeneas.

“I don’t think so…” Aeneas trailed of, holding the clothes to his chest and going on his tippy toes to look at what Virgil was doing.

Virgil found the shirt and showed Aeneas.

“Yay!” He shouted, grabbing the shirt too.

“Can you get dressed by yourself?” Virgil asked, kneeling down to be the same height as Aeneas.

“I’m a big boy!” Aeneas affirmed, dropping the clothes and pushing Virgil towards the door. Virgil chuckled and moved on his own.

“Okay, but call me in if you need help,” He said, walking out of the room and to his own bedroom.

He grabbed his laptop and brought it to the livingroom, pulling up Netflix as he walked. He checked the time again, noticing that it was already 11. That would mean he and Aeneas could have a few hours of free time, but then they would need to leave so he could drop Aeneas off, get the bill paid, and get to work on time with extra time to spare. Even if he counted for the ten minutes that Patton would hold him talking until he was allowed to leave. So he was good.

Virgil put the laptop on the table and went to Aeneas’s room to find him half in a shirt.

“Aeneas are you good?” Virgil asked, covering his mouth to keep from laughing.

“I’m stuck,” he replied, trying to get out of the shirt but not accomplishing his goal.

“Let me help,” Virgil offered, getting the shirt off with ease. “First of all, you were trying to put your head in the arm hole-” Virgil said, cutting himself off with his own laughter.

“Papa stop laughing at me!” Aeneas pouted, crossing his arms and pouting.

“No buddy, I’m not laughing at you! It happens a lot but you’ll get the hang of it eventually, I promise you,” Virgil explained, signaling Aeneas to raise his arms. As soon as the young boys arms were raised, Virgil slipped the shirt on with ease. “Now follow me, okay? We’re got time to play!”

Aeneas laughed and followed Virgil to the living room.

“Can we make a fort!?” Aeneas asked, jumping up and down.

“Sure buddy! We’ll need some blankets and pillows first!” Virgil said, racing after Aeneas who had already ran to his room and grabbed the blanket from his bed.

Virgil did most of the work in creating the fort which was difficult because they really did not have many chairs or other things to keep the blankets up. It took him longer than he’d like to admit but it was worth it to see Aeneas’s smile.

“Alright bud.” Virgil said, putting his laptop under the blanket and pulling up the kids section of netflix “you can choose anything you want to watch.”

Aeneas chose Mulan so, together, they sat under their fort and watched. They had watched Mulan so many times it was a miracle that Aeneas didn’t already know all the songs by heart.

———

As soon as the movie ended, Virgil escorted Aeneas out of the fort and they broke it down together. Sure, there was about an hour until Virgil had to show up to his shift but he had to drop Aeneas off at daycare and wanted to make sure he got there on time.

The trip was relatively short with minimal traffic but nonetheless Virgil was in a rush to get to work.

“Hey Patton, I should be here to pick Aeneas up around five. If not, you know what to do. Thanks,” Virgil rushed out, hugging Patton and giving Aeneas a short hug as well before rushing off to his car. He took a deep breath and placed his head on the steering wheel for a second before he turned on the car and buckled up to make his way to work.

#Virgil Sanders #Anxiety Sanders #Patton Sanders #Morality Sanders #Sanders Sides #TS sides #Big Bang #ts big bang #ss big bang #ts-storytime #evans work #evan writes

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teamfreewill-imagine · 7 years ago

Text

I Know Your Wife (She Wouldn’t Mind) - Part Thirty-Three

Summary: Jared finds out about your quickfire answers at your panel, leading to an uncomfortable discussion Words: 3.4k Jared x Reader x Gen, Jensen, Jeff, Sam, Dallas (OC) Warnings: mild angst Beta: @blacksiren

I Know Your Wife - Masterpost

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When you finally got back up to your room on Saturday evening, Jared was in almost the exact same position he was in when you’d left that morning.

He was sat on your bed, his phone in his hand, scrolling through emails when you entered.

“Have you actually left this room today?” you questioned, and he shrugged.

“Went out for food with Jensen,” he explained. “Plus we had some press photos to do. Oh, and we got a chance to read through the next episode.”

“Oh, yeah?” you asked, kicking off your shoes and putting Dallas down in her travel cot. “Any more major character developments that weren’t even hinted at for all of last season?”

“Nothing as crazy as yours,” he relented, getting to his feet as you started to undress, walking over to check on his daughter.

“That’s good to hear,” you murmured, stepping out of your jeans and wrapping a towel around yourself.

Jared looked across at you as you unclasped your bra, keeping the bath towel around yourself as you did so.

“Why are you hiding?” he asked, and you laughed softly.

“Because I have a gross post-baby bod and I don’t want my hot hunk of a man to see me like this,” you reasoned, pulling the towel tighter around your chest.

“Babe, I think you’re gorgeous anyway,” he assured you, picking up Dallas and kissing the top of her head. “Your body gave birth to this little angel, there’s no shame in that.”

“Sure,” you rolled your eyes, leaning up to kiss him softly. “Can you change her while I’m taking a shower?”

“Of course,” he agreed as you walked towards the bathroom, “But I’m serious, Y/N. You’re gorgeous.”

“Mhm, yeah,” you hummed, humouring him as you started to close the door behind you, “Love you, too.”

Dallas hated the sound of a hairdryer.

The second you switched one on, she would start to cry.

Over the past few weeks, you’d realised that it was just easier if you let your hair air dry than to try and calm your daughter down after blow drying.

You were sat on the couch in your hotel room, Dateline providing background entertainment as you fed Dallas in your pyjamas, your damp hair brushed straight down your back.

“Anything interesting on tonight?” Jared asked, leaving the bathroom in nothing but boxer shorts.

“Not really,” you sighed, “Some unsolved mystery disappearance.”

“The right kind of entertainment for a four week old,” he teased, and you laughed softly as you helped Dallas to change sides. “Do you want me to braid your hair? It’d look cute if it dries wavy for tomorrow.”

You looked over your shoulder at him as he picked up your hairbrush, frowning at him.

“You know how to braid?” you asked, surprised that you hadn’t discovered that before.

“Gen taught me when she was pregnant with Tom,” he told you, walking behind you and starting to brush through your hair. “She wanted me to be prepared if I had a daughter. Which, now I do.”

You hummed contentedly as he dragged the brush through your hair, loving the sensation.

“Dal’s a lucky girl, having a daddy like you,” you told him, closing your eyes.

“She’s got a pretty great mama, too,” he replied, putting down the brush. “One, or two?”

“Braids?” you questioned, and he hummed in confirmation. “Two.”

“French or Dutch?”

“Are you serious?” you asked, laughing slightly.

“Yeah, Gen doesn’t mess around with her teaching,” he told you, and you could hear his smile. “I’m better at Dutch, though, if that sways you?”

“Let’s go with that, then,” you agreed, rubbing your daughter’s back as she continued to feed.

Jared’s fingers made quick, neat work of your hair, the sensation making you lethargic.

“I had to bring Dallas on stage today,” you told him, finally opening your eyes again. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind you taking her on stage,” he confirmed, tying the first braid as he reached the end. “I do mind you telling the fans that I’m bad in bed.”

“Hey, I never said you were bad,” you defended as he tugged lightly on your braid. “How did you find out about that?”

“News travels fast,” he murmured, starting on the second braid. “Do you really think I’m worse than Gen?”

“I never said worse,” you reminded him. “I said you were great.”

“But Gen is better.”

“Jared-”

“No, really,” he sighed. “Is… is there something she does that I don’t?”

“Jared, it was a stupid-ass answer to a stupid-ass question,” you told him, trying to turn your head and face him but he kept it in place to finish your braid. “You’re great in bed.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” he told you, tying the second braid and walking away.

Dallas stopped feeding, and you rearranged your shirt as you stood, holding her against your chest and patting her back as you watched her father run his fingers through his hair.

“C’mon, babe,” you sighed, switching off the TV and walking towards him. “It was a joke.”

“But there’s some truth to it, right?” he questioned. “I can tell by how you’re acting. Avoiding what I’m asking.”

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” you murmured, wiping Dallas’ mouth with a muslin before laying her down in her cot and sitting beside Jared. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“She’s better than me.”

“Can you honestly say that me and Gen are both the same in bed?” you questioned, and he frowned at you.

“You’re different,” he answered, and you nodded.

“Exactly,” you agreed.

“But I wouldn’t say either of you were ‘better’,” he told you, getting under the covers.

“For fuck’s sake,” you grumbled, getting into bed beside him and making him face you when he tried to roll away.

“Jared, you’re not worse than Gen in bed,” you told him, “There are just some things that only another woman would think to do.”

“What if you showed me?” he asked, blinking slowly. “I want to make it good for you.”

“You do,” you insisted, cupping his cheek. “You really do.”

“But you and Gen could show me what it is,” he pressed. “There’s two of you. You could teach me how to make it better.”

The sincerity in his eyes made you lean forward and kiss him, wishing you could take back your stupid, flippant answer earlier.

“Alright,” you agreed, kissing him once more before pulling back. “But we’ll have to wait until I’m all healed up before we start any lessons.”

He nodded, biting his lip.

“Or, we could practice on Gen back home,” you offered, making him laugh lowly.

Jared pulled you closer and wrapped his arms around you, kissing your temple.

“Her reciprocation rule wouldn’t really agree with that,” he reminded you, and you smiled softly.

“Yeah, maybe we can convince her,” you suggested, glad that he was in a better mood. “Sorry if I upset you. It really was just a joke earlier.”

He shrugged, playing with one of your braids where it rested against your pillow.

“I know,” he sighed. “But if it’s gonna improve our sex life, I’m glad I got pissy about it.”

You laughed, regretting it instantly when Dallas started to fuss.

“It’s your turn,” Jared told you. “I had her last night.”

“I had her all day,” you argued, putting your cold feet on his legs and pushing.

“Hey, no fair,” he laughed, scrambling out of bed to get away from your feet. “Underhand tactic.”

“You love me,” you smiled, closing your eyes and burrowing into the pillows as you heard him pick up your daughter.

“Yeah,” he relented, shushing Dallas. “You and your freezing toes.”

Sunday at the convention was hectic.

Your line for duo ops with Jared was almost twice as long as usual, meaning you had to rush through some of them so Jared could get his solo’s done in time before the panel.

The final panel was weird, too.

This time, you were prepared to take Dallas on stage with you.

You had her in a baby wrap attached to your front so that you could easily carry her around, and the audience noises didn’t seem to be bothering her.

“She’s already a seasoned con baby and she’s only been to one panel,” Jensen commented, pride evident in his tone.

“It’s almost like her parents and grandparents are all actors that have been in the public eye for years,” Jared teased, and Jensen rolled his eyes.

“Less of that ‘grandparents’ crap,” he argued. “Dee would kill you.”

“She’s not here,” Jared shrugged, a glint in his eye, “I can say what I want.”

“Anyway,” you interrupted, not wanting the grandparents argument to start up again, “Technically Dal went to a bunch of conventions in my belly.”

“That’s true,” Jared agreed. “Babies can get used to voices in the womb, maybe she got used to con noise.”

“I sure hope she wasn’t listening in all the time, if y’know what I mean,” Jensen murmured, and Jared punched his shoulder.

“Dude!” he complained. “That’s your daughter!”

“I’m just sayin’, trailer walls are thin,” Jensen replied, arms up in surrender.

You could feel your cheeks heating up as you covered Dallas’ ears with your hands.

“We’ve talked way too much about my sex life at this convention,” you grumbled. “Dal doesn’t need to be hearing this.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Jensen allowed, peeling your hands away from your daughter. “I’m sorry, baby girl.”

“This is… the weirdest panel I’ve ever been in,” you announced, grateful for the laughter in the crowd. “All of this is going to end up online. There’ll be evidence of this when our kids are old enough to search for it.”

“Babe, there’s so much worse online for my kids to find of me,” Jared laughed, his strong hand resting on your shoulder. “They’re all gonna be scarred for life.”

You tried not to react to the endearment, but it was hard.

Jared seemed to have settled into the fans knowing about your relationship a lot quicker than you had, unashamed to use pet names or look at you a little too long or a little too fondly.

He frowned down at you and you realised that you’d been staring.

“Something on my face?” he asked and you blushed as you laughed, wrapping your arms underneath Dallas despite your daughter being held up by the sling wrap.

“Just a couple weird moles,” you answered, “But all the girls seem to love you anyway.”

The crowd laughed and Jared threw his arm around your shoulders, leaning down to place a kiss to your temple.

“Alright, enough of your gross flirting,” Jensen interrupted. “I believe we have some questions to answer.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Jared grinned, gently pinching Dallas’ cheek before pulling away from the two of you. “This is a Q&A panel.”

“It is,” you smiled, nodding to the line of fans waiting patiently. “That’s what all these people are waiting for.”

“Let’s not keep them,” Jensen laughed. “Who’s up first? Make it a good one.”

“I’ll try,” the fan smiled. “My name’s Mollie.”

“Hey, I’m Jared,” Jensen replied.

“I’m Jensen, this is Y/N,” you continued, motioning to your daughter.

“I guess that makes me Dallas,” Jared finished, the crowd laughing along with the three of you.

“Sorry,” you apologised to the fan. “What was your question?”

“I was wondering what the hardest scene to film was,” she told you, “From all of season twelve.”

“I have a couple different answers,” Jensen spoke up, and you looked at him as you waited for him to continue. “A lot of the scenes in Regarding Dean were quite hard for me.”

The crowd cheered at the mention of a fan favourite episode.

“I’ve said before that I loved shooting that episode, and I stand by that,” Jensen continued, “But it was tough. A lot of emotions brought to the surface that I haven’t had to call upon for a few years on this show.”

“If it makes it any easier, it was an Emmy-worthy performance,” Mollie told him, and he smiled.

“Thanks, that means a lot,” he told her.

“And the other?” you asked. “You said you had a couple answers?”

“The other was watching you get beaten up in the finale,” Jensen told you, averting his gaze to the audience as he did. “It’s… obviously we know it’s fake, but Y/N is an incredible actor. She made it seem so real that it was so hard to watch. I actually didn’t watch that scene in the final cut.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Jared agreed, and you frowned.

“Wait, for real?” you asked, and they both nodded. “Guys… it was fake.”

“But it looked real,” Jensen insisted. “We didn’t want to see you get beaten up.”

“That’s… really sweet,” Mollie spoke up, and you laughed softly.

“I guess it is,” you agreed,

“Thank you for your question,” Jared told her.

“And thanks for coming out,” Jensen added, making her blush as she went to go find her seat.

The next fan stepped up to ask her question as Jared took a drink from his water bottle before handing it to you.

You took a sip, not realising you were thirsty until it was offered.

“Hi, I had a question about your- about your relationships,” the fan told you, and you put the lid back on your bottle and tossed it behind you. “If that’s okay?”

Jensen shrugged.

“Depends what it is,” he answered honestly. “If it’s too much, we’ll let you know.”

“That’s fair,” she agreed. “I was just wondering, what came first? Like, from our perspective, we’ve known Jensen as Y/N’s father for longer than we’ve known Jared as your… lover? Partner?”

“We have no idea what word to use, either,” Jared assured her. “We’ll go with partner.”

“Right,” she laughed softly. “So, is that the order it really happened, or…?”

“It’s… no,” you answered, starting to bounce Dallas slightly to keep her entertained. “I kinda talked about this in my panel yesterday, but I always saw Jensen as family. But the thing with Jared started before I started living with the Ackles’. So, really that was first.”

“I saw Dits as a daughter as soon as she moved in, but we didn’t make it official until… some stuff went down,” Jensen added, “So, yeah. Officially, they were together before I became her dad.”

“Okay, thanks for clearing it up,” she smiled, and you nodded.

“Thanks for not judging us,” you told her, earning another smile in response.

“This isn’t so bad,” Jared murmured away from his mic as he picked up the water bottle again.

“We’re getting through it,” you agreed, smiling when Jensen lightly stroked your daughter’s hair. “Our first panel that they know we’re all family.”

Your Padackles family panel turned into a Winchester family panel when Sam and Jeff crashed for the last ten minutes.

Dallas had started to get fussy, getting a little hungry and probably bored, and the noises had drawn the attention of the gatecrashers.

“Is that the sound of our granddaughter we hear?” Jeff asked, the two of them coming up on stage to generous applause. “Or, would that be great-grandaughter?”

He looked between Jared and Jensen, laughing at himself as Sam kissed your cheek.

Jeff pulled the boys into hugs before grinning down at you.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he smiled, pulling you into a hug being careful of your daughter.

“Hey,” you smiled back as he kissed the top of your head.

“Mind if I…?” he trailed off, nodding to Dallas.

You grinned, keeping an arm around your daughter as you began to unwrap the sling.

“You want the sling or just the baby?” you asked, and he rolled his eyes.

“Just the baby, I think I can manage not dropping her,” he told you, making Jensen laugh.

“You hoping to get your practice in for your new baby girl?” he asked, making Sam gasp as her memory was jogged.

“Of course!” she laughed. “I never said congratulations!”

“Well, thank you,” Jeff grinned as you lifted Dallas free.

“Alright, take the baby,” you offered, handing her over.

Jeff smiled down at your daughter as he took her into his arms, lifting her up to kiss her temple.

“If you’re the great-grandparents, does that make your unborn child a great-aunt?” Jared asked, making Sam laugh.

“Gusy is already a great-uncle, by that logic,” she reminded Jeff, who was too interested in entertaining your daughter to care.

“I don’t like this logic,” Jensen argued. “I’m too young to be a grandpa.”

You looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m your daughter, and I have a daughter,” you reminded him. “You’re literally her grandpa, not just in this Winchester line. Your denial is getting ridiculous.”

Jensen opened his mouth with a counterpoint but Jeff got there first.

“Why are we arguing?” he questioned. “There’s a beautiful baby here that’s part of our Supernatural family. It doesn’t matter how we’re all fake related because she’s gorgeous and healthy.”

“I agree,” Sam smiled, nudging Jensen playfully. “Cheer up, grumps.”

Dallas was getting even more fussy despite Jeff’s attempts to calm her, and you took her back with an apologetic smile.

“She’s hungry,” you explained as her fussing turned to crying, earning ‘aww’s from the crowd. “This is gonna keep up until I whip a boob out, so I hope you don’t mind if I get out of here early and leave the last five minutes as a real Winchester special.”

Jared laughed, kissing your cheek as you waved to the cheering crowd.

You left the stage, asking for somewhere private enough to feed your crying daughter.

“Shh, calm down baby girl,” you soothed, giving her your knuckle to suck on in the meantime. “We nearly made it all the way through.”

Your handler led you back through to the green room where there were less spectators.

Rich and Rob were just leaving to finish the convention at the end of your panel, giving you almost complete privacy to feed your baby.

“How was your first con with a baby?” your handler asked as you sat down.

“Better than I thought it would be,” you admitted, smiling softly down at your daughter. “She’s been an angel, really, considering how crazy this must have been for her.”

“She has,” she agreed. “I’ll give you some peace. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

You smiled in appreciation, unbuttoning the top of your shirt to feed Dallas as she left the room.

You arrived back at your Vancouver home on Monday afternoon, following a slightly less restful flight with Dallas.

It was more how you’d imagined the first flight to go - a few more tears, a lot more distractions needed.

You fed her, burped her, carried her through the aisle, but in the end the only thing that seemed to relax her was the shark plushie.

“She loves that thing,” Jared had commented when she was finally calm. “She’s gonna grow up a huge shark fan.”

“With us as parents, she doesn’t stand a chance,” you had joked.

You posted a picture to instagram as soon as you got home, thanking the fan that had given you the shark in the first place.

Danneel took Dallas from you, claiming that she’d missed her too much and needed some bonding time, giving you a chance to make yourself a cup of coffee.

“I missed coffee so much when I was pregnant,” you murmured as you took the first sip, making Jared laugh.

“I know you did,” he teased, “You’d always demand a kiss after I’d finished a cup.”

You grinned over the rim of your cup.

“You noticed that?” you asked, and he laughed.

“I noticed that,” he confirmed, smiling.

Gen entered the kitchen, leaning up to kiss Jared hello as she wrapped an arm around his waist.

She looked across at you as she pulled back, her expression difficult to read.

“How are you feeling?” she asked you, and you shrugged.

“A bit tired but good,” you told her.

She nodded, worrying her bottom lip slightly as she did.

“Are you alright?” you questioned, putting down your coffee.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she promised, pulling away from Jared and nodding towards the door. “Can I talk to you? Upstairs?”

You frowned, walking towards her and taking her outstretched hand.

“Are you sure you’re good?” you murmured as she lead you out of the room, Jared watching the two of you with the same confusion that you knew your face was showing.

“Yeah,” she insisted, keeping ahold of your hand as you reached the stairs. “Please don’t freak out.”

tags are closed because this always takes me forever

@purgatoan, @thelittleredwhocould, @sammylynne321, @ariannalikescake, @writergirl909, @tlb-kylie, @allinhishands, @winchester-gospels-67, @supernatural0826, @mija-novella, @nerdysandwichqueen, @gemini75eeyore, @imaginespnr5er, @green-love-red-fantasyhearts, @kelsey-spn, @lafayettrash, @emoryhemsworth, @dearnoonethisisurlovesong, @spnolivia, @remybosslika, @ruined-by-destiel, @kickasscas67, @theplaidshirtmadness, @quilliamfears, @charity-elizabeth, @haleyhay96, @latinenglishfandomblog, @smoothdogsgirl, @chelseypaigeake, @katymacsupernatural, @plaidstiel-wormstache, @prideandprejudiceandbrendonurie, @tiffanycaruso, @breakthesociety, @jpadjackles, @abbirae99, @hiddenwritingsintheworld, @karrington7, @leyhikawinchester, @youcanhavit, @faegal04, @ellen-reincarnated1967, @avengersgirllorianna, @mint-and-pastel-pink, @feelmyroarrrr, @kitchenwitchsuperwhovian, @aprofoundbondwithdean, @clueless-gold, @trashforwinchesters, @raeeismee, @supernaturalsuperfreakfan, @blacktithe7, @supernaturalstarbug, @pinkbunnies2001, @danijimenezv, @missbabyfae, @impalaimagining, @im-super-potter-locked, @samcentric-fics, @oriona75, @samsexualdeancurious, @butiaintgonnaloveem, @atc74, @too-much-winchester, @aquabrie, @taylorlaurenthomas, @missvengeance93, @flawsweirdo, @a-queen-and-her-throne, @maxwellthemajestickoala, @castielsgrace-idjits, @typicalweirdbookworm, @relationshipyard, @aeryntheofficial, @summerbee53, @cfordwrites, @im-beautifully-sewn, @xlarryisreallovex, @archer-whovian-violinist, @asgardianvamp21, @shadowpriestess6, @l8nitl0vr, @wificrazymisfit, @buckybarnesisalittleshit

#ikyw #i know your wife #spn rpf #jared x reader x gen #supernatural #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #we made a hell of a queue back there

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h-styles-babes · 7 years ago

Text

No Control | Chapter Thirty-Nine

Summary:

Micky Bennett: college student, loyal friend, aspiring nurse, One Direction fan, Harry Styles enthusiast. Her best friend, Trevor, wins tickets to a show in New Jersey with meet and greet passes. Micky expects a quick photo op with the boys and a great night at the concert with her best friend. What she gets a whole lot more than she bargained for.

To read precious chapters, you can go here.

*Please feel free to reblog and send feedback. It’s much appreciated :)*

*Gif is not mine.*

THIRTY-NINE

I’m not sure how long it’s been, but when I wake up, it’s to the sound of hospital monitors and some quiet muttering at the edge of my consciousness. My eyelids feel heavy as I blink them open, and my throat is really dry. I clear my throat and swallow to try to alleviate the scratch, and that causes someone to enter my field of vision in a flash, though I can’t really tell who it is right away.

“Girl, you gave all of us quite the scare,” a familiar voice chastises as a bright light flashes in my eyes. I squeeze them shut and she tuts at me. “Gotta let me see your pupils, Micky.”

“Joy?” I ask, my voice a little rough. I clear my throat, desperate for some water or ice chips or something. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, but it feels like it’s been forever.

“What other beautiful Southern black woman do you know?”

I feel my lips pull up into a small smile at her sass. “That I work with? Just you.” “Exactly. Now open those eyes, or else I’ll pry them open.”

Not really wanting her to follow through on that threat, I peel my eyes open, happy to see that my vision’s cleared and there’s no longer a bright light shining into them. I can make out Joy’s face now, a small smile pulling on her lips, though there’s concern evident in her eyes.

“There we are,” she tuts happily. “How’re you feeling?”

“Can I get some water?”

She turns to a small table and pours me a cup, setting a straw in it. I realize for the first time that I’m lying in a hospital bed, a heart rate monitor attached to my finger and an IV stuck in my arm. I turn to look at the monitor beside my bed and read my stats. Everything’s normal, though my blood pressure is very slightly elevated, but that’s normal for how late into my pregnancy that I am.

“What happened?” I ask once I’ve taken a few sips. My throat feels better and when I clear it it doesn’t feel like sandpaper rubbing together anymore.

“You passed out when you stood up. We got you into a room and took your stats. Your blood pressure was really elevated. Harry got on the phone with your OB as soon as we made sure you were stable.”

“Where is he?” I ask, realizing he’s not in the room with me. I figured he’d be here, but maybe he’s still on the phone? “How long have I been out?”

“Just about ten minutes,” she assures. “And he’s out in the hall making a few phone calls. Your OB wants you transferred to another hospital so he can run some tests to determine what’s going on. Harry’s freaking out.”

I snicker. “The only time I’ve ever seen that man have a proper freak out is when it concerns the pregnancy.”

“Can you blame him?” she asks, flipping through my charts. “He’s got you and his baby to worry about. Two most important people in the world to him.”

Harry comes into the room, then, looking at his phone with a puzzled expression, before realising I’m awake. When he sees me conscious and speaking with Joy, a relieved sigh sags his shoulders and makes a small smile quirk at the corners of his lips. “Micky,” he breathes, rushing to my side. “How’re you feeling, love?”

“I’m alright,” I nod. “Heard you spoke to the doctor?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna take you over to the hospital his office is associated with as soon as you’re up for it.”

I turn to look at Joy for her input. She’s my caregiver right now. She just raises her eyebrows at me. “You’re technically not admitted. I think you’re good to go any time. I just wanted to get some fluids in you and make sure your vitals stayed steady.”

“Alright, get me unhooked from these things, then. Time to get this show on the road,” I announce, motioning to the IV poked into my arm. Joy goes about getting me unhooked with ease, slapping a plaster on my arm for the IV prick, even though I feel it’s unnecessary. She rolls her eyes at me, though, making me chuckle.

“Take care of her,” Joy tells Harry, lightly patting at his stomach. “We like her around here, and that baby of yours needs her mama healthy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Harry answers with a succinct nod, which I snicker at before heading to my locker to gather my things. The hospital’s already been made aware of my need to leave and go to the hospital to get myself and Waverly checked out, so I walk out with Harry’s hand in my own with ease. We still haven’t talked about what happened in the days previous, but I think my little health crisis takes center stage at the moment. Plus, I’m just glad to have his support with me and know he’s going to be here, even if I have been a bit of a bitch recently. But a bitch with a good reason, at least.

Harry keeps his hand on my bump on the way over, smiling every time Waverly gives a little nudge. I rest my own hand over his, lacing our fingers together. I think he’s comforted by her movements, a sign that she’s doing well, even though she’s running out of room, slowly but surely. I can’t imagine she’s too comfy in there anymore, so I’m anticipating her arrival more than I ever have before.

“Gave me quite a scare, love,” he admits, looking over at me at a red light. “Glad I was there, though. Would’ve hit your head if I wasn’t. Feeling alright?”

“Still a little woozy,” I admit. Whenever we hit a bump in the road, I feel my head swim a bit, and it’s making me a little nauseas. “And thank you for making sure I didn’t crack my skull on anything.”

“I’ll always be there to catch you,” he offers nonchalantly while watching the road, though I can hear the underlying seriousness of his statement. “You know that.”

When we get to the hospital, it looks like the reception desk is waiting for us, and the man standing there smiles when I give him my name. Harry’s pulled a beanie on over his head and pushed his hair up into it to try and prevent anyone recognizing him, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s looking at him anyway. We’re told to go straight to the OB unit where my doctor should be with me pretty much as soon as I arrive.

Sure thing, Dr. Lorenz is there at the nurse station when we step out of the lift. He smiles when he sees me and grabs a nurse’s attention. I still feel a little woozy as I walk over to him, and Harry notices, wrapping an arm around my waist to keep me steady and shooting me a concerned look.

“Micky, how are you doing? Feeling okay?” Dr. Lorenz asks.

“I’m alright,” I shrug.

He frowns as he sees Harry’s tight hold on me. “Let’s get you in a bed and I’ll start running some tests, okay?”

Harry helps me change into a gown, doing up the ties in the back for me after Dr. Lorenz leaves the room to give me a bit of privacy. We’re alone for the first time since I was at his house a few days ago. Once he’s done tying the little strings, hr places his hands on my hips and gently pulls me back into his chest. He’s warm and comforting, and his scent washes over me. I let my eyes fall closed as he presses chaste kisses to my shoulder.

“I’ve missed you, princess. Don’t like not speaking to or seeing you. I understand why, though.” He nuzzles his nose into my neck and runs his hands to my stomach. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t know she’d show up. And I know you probably overheard our conversation while you were in the loo. I never wanted you to hear any of that. It’s the past. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It was quite a slap in the face,” I agree, remembering her words about her and Harry’s sex life before we reconnected. While it’s not necessarily any of my business, since Harry and I weren’t together, it’s still not something that I ever wanted to hear.

“I know. I never meant for a discussion about her to come about like this. I’d honestly forgotten about it until she showed up at my home.” Harry turns me so we’re face to face, his eyes holding a sincerity and anguish that I’ve never seen before in him. My not seeing him or properly speaking to him seems to have a bigger effect on him than I was anticipating.

“I had, too,” I admit. “Everything was going so well, I had pushed that information from my mind. Her showing up when I was with you was just a harsh reality, and I wasn’t prepared for it.”

“She’s sorry, by the way,” he adds, pushing back a piece of my hair that’s fallen from my ponytail. “Right after you left, she was kinda panicking and apologized before she left. She didn’t mean to stir anything up. She didn’t know we were together.”

I sigh, realising that I trust Harry if he trusts her word. She was right when she said she couldn’t believe what gossip rags post about her mates. How was she to know that Harry and I are really together and having a baby when she’s only seen it splashed across TMZ? Especially if she hasn’t actually been speaking to Harry in recent months? I wanted so badly to make her out as the bad guy, but all she really is is the catalyst for something that Harry and I have never talked about and really need to talk about.

“It’s alright,” I nod. “I still want to have a conversation with you, but I don’t think my hospital room is the best place to have it.”

Harry nods. “I agree. But you’re not gonna shut me out anymore, right?” His brows furrow together, giving him that wounded puppy look that absolutely guts me. I never like seeing Harry downtrodden.

“No, H, I promise.” I raise my hand to cup his jaw, pulling him gently towards me. I place a soft kiss to his pouty lips, something I’ve missed greatly in the days that I haven’t seen him. I only got to see him shortly after his weeks away, and I’d already been missing touching him and kissing him. Our little tiff had only further put a wedge in that.

“Good.” He presses another, slightly harder kiss to my lips, holding me by the waist. The belly definitely gets in the way of how close we can be, but it doesn’t stop him from pressing against me as much as he can. “Now lets get you on the bed. Reckon the doctor will be back soon.”

No sooner than he says that, there’s a tap on the door before it slowly creaks open, Dr. Lorenz poking his head in. Harry’s helping to sit me on the edge of the bed at this point, so the doctor smiles and fully enters into the room, a nurse trailing behind him with a cart full of medical supplies that I recognize. I’m in for another IV and some urine samples, it looks like.

Sure enough, Dr. Lorenz explains that he wants to take a blood sample, as well as a urine sample, and get me set up on an IV to keep me hydrated. I got to the loo to get the urine sample before they hook me up to the IV and their monitors. Harry’ on the phone in the corner as they do this, talking in hushed voices to whoever’s on the other end. I can only imagine it’s Jeff or something, working out schedules. He’s getting back into the swing of working, so I’m sure there’s lots of details to work out.

“Alright,” Dr. Lorenz starts once he’s finished getting everything he needs. “We’ll get these to the labs and see what’s going on. We should have results back in about an hour or so, so just hang tight for now. Watch some TV, call your parents, call some friends. Shouldn’t be too long before we have some answers.”

“I’m thinking a nap is a good idea,” I suggest, feeling drowsy from laying on the bed. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but I haven’t been sleeping well in recent days, so any time I’m laying down is prime time for a nap, in my eyes. “I’m knackered.”

“Nap,” Harry suggests, reentering the conversation. “I’ll call Trev and tell him what’s going on.” He turns to the doctor. “Can she eat?”

“Yeah, she’s okay. I don’t foresee her needing to fast for anything,” he confirms. “Then I’ll get some lunch for when you wake up,” Harry addresses me.

“Sounds good,” I agree, already letting my eyes drift closed.

I hear the doctor chuckle and I feel Harry’s lips on my forehead just before I let myself slip into sleep.

Trev is in the room when I wake up, talking with Harry quietly. My heartbeat being reflected by the monitor sounds steady and normal, so I’m relieved that nothing else has happened while I’ve been out. I stretch my limbs, wincing a bit at the tug of my IV that I forgot about momentarily. Trev notices that I’m awake first, and smiles softly at me before coming closer.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he greets, grabbing my hand. “Doctor should be in soon. Nurse just came in a few minutes ago to say your labs were back.”

“What time is it?” I ask, pushing myself to sit up. I’ve got a headache, I notice, but it’s only dull, so I don’t pay it much mind.

“Just after two,” Harry answers, pocketing his phone. He moves to sit in the chair next to my bed, grabbing my other hand. “Had Trev pick up some sandwiches on his way over so you can eat if you’re hungry.”

“I’m fucking starving,” I admit, spying the bag on the little wheel-y table beside me. Trev pushes it over for me, helping me open the wrapping so I don’t pull on my IV too much. Harry doles out a few napkins and pours me a cup of water. I thank them before shoving the sandwich in my mouth, humming at the food. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, and I’m proper hungry. A sub has never tasted so good.

Trev and Harry chat away about Trev’s finals while I eat my food. It seems that they’ve already eaten, two crumpled up wrappers in the bag that my sub came from. I’m nearly finished by the time there’s a knock on my door, Dr. Lorenz entering immediately after.

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” he smiles, closing the door behind him. “Trevor, haven’t seen you in awhile.”

“Yeah, well, I got replaced by Harry at appointments recently,” he shrugs, shooting a mock glare at the man. Harry sticks his tongue out at him, making me grin. They may be adults, supporting themselves and getting things done, but they still act like they’re ten.

“I think the dad trumps the best friend, unfortunately,” Dr. Lorenz teases. He turns to me then, waving my chart at me. “I’ve got your results.”

I swallow the bite I’ve been chewing. “How’s it looking?” I have a feeling I know what’s wrong with me, just from my knowledge and the information I’ve been given at my past doctor’s appointments, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions without all the details. I’m sure he won’t beat around the bush, knowing that I’m in the medical field, as well.

“Given your elevated blood pressure, the fainting spell, and protein in your urine…” he trails off, looking through my chart.

“I’ve got preeclampsia, haven’t I?” I answer, posing it more as a statement than a question. I hadn’t really noticed the signs before, but given all that’s happened in the last few hours, I’ve been able to deduce the answer on my own.

“I’m afraid so,” he nods, pursing his lips at me.

“What’s that mean? Like, I know what preeclampsia is, but what’s that mean for the rest of the pregnancy?” Harry asks, looking back and forth between the doctor and me. His hand that’s holding mine tightens it’s grip slightly, and the strokes his thumb has been making against the back of my hand speed up. I can tell that he’s a bit stressed and nervous, so I give him a squeeze back to try to reassure him that everything’s going to be fine.

“It means she’ll have to be on mild bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy, which, thankfully, isn’t long. Nothing too stressful, no heavy lifting, no exercise. Basically, anything that can raise her heart rate is out of the question.”

“So no work?” Harry asks.

“No work. I know you were planning your leave already, but it just came early,” the doctor tells me.

“That’s alright,” I shrug. “Don’t mind leaving work as long as it means Waverly will be alright.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Dr. Lorenz smiles. “Now, in the case that your condition worsens, I’m alright with doing a C-section pretty much from this point onward. Luckily, you’re far enough along in our pregnancy that I don’t foresee any complications where the baby’s concerned. If we have to deliver her in the next week, she’ll probably be kept in the NICU for a few days, just to make sure she’s doing well on her own. But any later than the coming week, you should be able to take her home as soon as your well enough.”

“Is a vaginal birth still an option?” Harry asks. We both don’t want to have a C-section if it can be helped.

“Definitely. I’m just giving you the C-section scenario in case it comes to that. I think Micky knows how to take care of herself, though. I don’t see why she wouldn’t be able to have a vaginal birth when she goes into labor naturally.”

Harry’s shoulders sag with relief at the news, though he’s still stroking my hand pretty obsessively. I can tell he’s still nervous about these turn of events, but I know we’re going to be okay.

“As long as you’re feeling okay, you can be discharged now, Micky,” Dr. Lorenz tells me. You know the protocol for bed rest?”

“Mild bed rest,” I remind him. “I can still go about my daily life, just take it easy, basically.”

“Good, and don’t stress yourself out too much.”

“My boyfriend is an international pop star,” I deadpan. “I can’t avoid stress.”

“Just no run-ins with a horde of paparazzi, alright?”

“No promises.”

The next day, I’m holed up in Harry’s house on the couch, watching endless hours of Chopped while Harry does basically everything for me. He even got Jeff to bring us lunch on his way over, since him and Harry needed to sit and talk about business stuff anyway. Apparently Harry’s got some things planned for April and May that need to be nailed down sooner rather than later, and it’s all kind of colliding with the impending arrival of Baby Styles, which seems to be stressing Jeff out a little bit. Harry’s had these things lined up since the beginning of the year, so it’s not like he can back out—not that I’d ever want him to—and they’re trying to get everything worked out as best as they can. Harry still hasn’t told me exactly what’s going on, but he’s promised that he definitely will soon, once he’s able to, legally.

We also haven’t talked anymore about the Kendall thing, but I’m alright with that for now. I’m just sort of coming to grips with the fact that I’m to be on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy, and while it’s no more than a few weeks, I’m still not all that pleased about it. I don’t like just sitting around, but there’s not much else I can do that won’t put stress on my body.

It’s just at the end of an episode, when the house sounds with that chime that I’ve come to learn means someone’s pulling up to the driveway. It doesn’t seem that Harry’s heard it, since I can still hear him talking with Jeff in the kitchen, so I call out for him.

“Yes, love?” he calls back, his conversation pausing.

“Someone’s at the gate,” I tell him.

I hear his socked footsteps coming toward me, pattering against the hardwood floor. He’s got his phone open, and I’m assuming he’s checking his app to look at the cameras at the front gate. His face lights with a smile before he looks up at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Got a surprise for you,” he tells me before walking toward the front door. “C’mon, pet.”

“Wait, Harry!” I huff, pushing myself up from the couch. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll see,” he calls, opening the door just as a black Range Rover pulls up, the windows tinted dark. It looks like Harry’s own car, but since he’s not the one driving it, I realize it must be the driving service he uses.

I’m just waddling into the foyer when the doors of the Range open and two women step out.

“Micky, darling!”

“Mum?”

FORTY

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #No Control #one direction #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfic #dad!harry

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moonbrianna96 · 4 years ago

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Types Of Grape Trellis Sublime Cool Tips

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Sable Grape Plant

Fruits such as houses or buildings, trees, and bushes.This usually takes place during cell enlargement.Next thing you should be well considered.These wines however are not trimming your vines to preparing the soil to grow strong and durable trellis where the pollination and fertilization takes place; grapevines are of top quality.If you want everything to be done more often.

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A lot of places, and some are for ornaments and beautification of the plant's growth in order to find an area where they will last until harvest.The trellis should be cut back 85 - 90% once each year, you will need love and attention though to truly become one with a humid and fair climate.Remember, the best tips for home grape grower, always be ready for grape growing can take nearly 3 years before the vine in each container.Now it's time for you personally, because you can finally go on with growing these fruit more, won't you?Now, if you are now considered suitable for grape growing tips will surely be as the ancient tradition of grape varieties are used for various fertilizers available in either climate or environment.

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Atlas Of Suitable Grape Growing Locations

In the maintenance part, you need to take some years if their leaves are dark green color after a heavy rainfall.There is no assurance that the area that can only be used for wine making but grapes are going to place it is a bit higher.When adding nutrients can have them strategically placed in the diet to strengthen its root system and always see to the trellis.Table grapes and its suitability to the perfect location for your new grape vines.This usually takes place during cell enlargement.

Seeing any of your soil is very well during the fall.This operation is underway, you may need rootstock suitable for a short growing season.There are a lot of grape clusters can be grown.Before you begin, you should know that several factors affect the growth of your soil's pH falls below 5.0 for example, are more than eager to give us.Also avoid excess soaking of roots in dry open areas for more than two years, but these plots of land may still affect the yield, including weather, soil and weather conditions but there is little sun or almost no sunshine at all to not take enough time to plant and grow well and they bring the right location, preparing support for them to maximize space.

#Types Of Grape Trellis Sublime Cool Tips #Vise Grape Trellis

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valkyrie-echo · 7 years ago

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Project Echo, Part 3: Chapter 16 (The Collector, Part 2)

Part 3 Summary: Seven years after the events of “Part 2”, Avengers Tower explodes, fulfilling Bucky’s vision. All evidence points to Avengers Shadow-Ops leader Inessa Ryker, who is forced to seek out Bucky in hiding. Together they must determine who the traitor is in their ranks and if their friends are still alive- all while trying to survive deadly ambushes orchestrated by Sam Wilson and his hand-picked army.

Chapter 16: The Collector, Part 2

"Heads up, we'll be at the Collector's Vault soon," Peter's warning was more for his own crew than Inessa and Bucky, they were on the bridge with him.

"Last chance," Inessa looked to Bucky as she double checked the edges of the scythes, "figure out a better plan yet?"

Bucky shook his head, "Ask his price, and figure out if we can pay it. If not, then you do it your way." He glanced over at her and sheathed his own blades, "Are you alright?"

"Am I alright?" Inessa put her scythes down and picked up her arm guards. Bucky held out a hand. She eyed him wearily, then hesitantly passed him an upper guard.

"I haven't seen you refill the anti-venom," he nodded to the silver disk on her wrist and pulled her arm out slightly so he could help fix the armor properly. There were leather straps and buckles, but the primary attachment on the bands appeared to be a magnetic lock. His left hand momentarily stuck in the clams and in freeing it he sent a shower of sparks onto her exposed shoulder, "I'm sorry!" Bucky quickly checked the skin for singes. The only time his metal arm set off sparks like that was when it hit-

"Vibranium," she explained in response to his look, "after you left we came across a cache of it. Enough that most of the Leaders have some sort of vibranium armor. Vision? He's roughly 70% of the stuff." Inessa glanced at Bucky's hand, still on her forearm, "and don't worry. It's not the first time that arm's been burned. I can handle a few sparks."

"I know," Bucky released her shoulder and concentrated on attaching the secondary straps. Inessa slid her forearm guards on.

"You know, you were my mission for the last three years."

He was surprised at that, "Wait, what?"

Inessa nodded, "We started hearing whispers in rural Asia about a one-armed monk helping people out. We didn't know it was you- Steve asked me to keep an eye on it for potential recruitment. It was around two years ago- when you inspired that drug lord to relocate I started to suspect you might be the Nomad. We could never predict where you were going, but we could usually figure out where you'd been. I kept that from Steve, and from my team."

"I appreciate that. I needed time to get my head on straight."

"And?"

Bucky nodded, "And it wasn't so bad. I thought I'd be bored out of my mind at first, but- I was a hero without having to hurt anyone. Pierce- my Hydra taskmaster- he used to give these little speeches before every mission- tell me I was doing good work, the work of a hero, helping shape the world for the better," he shuddered slightly at the memories, "being an Avenger reminded me of that too much. At least back then."

She picked up on his tone, "You were thinking about coming back?"

He shrugged, "Maybe. On and off. I would have probably resisted another few years but eventually? Yeah, I think I'd have come back."

"Steve would have made you a leader in a heartbeat," she promised, "he's always worrying about having only one Black-Ops team."

"If we get through this, if we find them and bring them back, maybe I'll come to the Tower for a bit. Try it out again."

"They'll love that," she cleared her throat and changed the subject. "It goes without saying, but for my own peace of mind- I only kill enemies. Things are going to get ugly- between us and the Avengers, between the Collector and I- I don't kill friends, and I don't kill for the sake of a threat. The Collector doesn't know that, but you need to. If- if..."

Bucky understood, "If Sam's team got there first I promise I have no intention of hurting any of them... Permanently."

"Thank you."

"Aw, look at the two of you, not biting each other's heads off." Peter smiled slyly, "World peace." Bucky and Inessa both gave him the look.

"When we get there," she turned back towards Bucky and hesitated, "I don't know who Sam's brought with him, but I know he'll have a member of my team with him, maybe two," a shiver ran through him. The traitor, it's a member of my team, "Your priority will be Marie, and I'll try to ID her for you. Most Avengers have defensive powers and offensive weapons, Marie's one of the few exceptions. She's the one who gave you those burns. You'll need to take her out of play first while I try to identify as many members of Sam's team as possible."

"Marie bad, got it." he had the feeling this was her enemy- Inessa seemed very fond of the other one, Amadeus?

"Don't kill her," Inessa reminded him once again, "if I'm every going to convince Sam I'm not the enemy then I need to keep anything permanent from happening to his Avengers."

"He's only going to keep attacking."

"It's his job. He thinks what he's doing is the right thing. I won't fault him for that."

Bucky sighed and moved to attach Inessa's other guard, "I spend 70 years as Hydra and come back to fight for the Avengers. I go away for five more and now I'm fighting for and against them at the same time."

Inessa chuckled, "Now you know what the Civil War felt like. Fighting for and against your friends... I've never had a harder time making decisions in my life than then. Who to listen to, when to ignore them. Being stuck in the middle is hard work. And that's where we are now- between the Avengers and some new baddie."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to help," he had a feeling a good portion of Inessa's initial hostility came from that, "and if I'd known Steve went that far off the rails you know I'd have high-tailed it back, right?"

Inessa nodded and stepped away from him to finish tying the guard herself, "I know."

"It can't have been easy on you either. You were still getting yourself put back together," he prompted.

"I spent six weeks at Camp Hammond- it's where we send kids or people who don't want to fight. You learn to control your abilities. The head of the camp is this shrink, Trauma- he helped a lot. I'd spend my days there and my nights working with the others as the Shadow." She was smiling at the memories. It was the first time he'd seen such a genuine expression on her face- other than rage and pain that is.

Peter chuckled, "Should I leave you two alone?" if he only had popcorn he'd be totally ready to watch them for a while more.

"Go to hell," Inessa's voice held no venom, but she went over and lightly punched Peter's arm," When we get to the Collector's Vault, I'd appreciate it if you would find a ship for Bucky and I and program in Berny's coordinates."

"You cutting us loose? The deal was we take you as far as Berny's."

"And Asgard knows you helped us," Inessa countered, "I'm not willing to risk your team getting on the wrong side of the Counsel of Yggdrasil. Got it? Up to now you can say you didn't know- you answered an S.O.S. from me saying Sam went dark, came to meet me, then when you found out the truth I held your crew hostage. You waited until we got off the ship at the Collector's Vault, managed to free yourselves, and high-tailed it out of there. Hell Peter, tell them we're going to Berny's next. Offer to help Sam hunt me- do whatever it takes to get out of this cleanly."

Peter shook his head, but he couldn't form his argument. He barely knew Inessa- he barely knew most Avengers, honestly. That didn't change the fact that she was still a friend. He wanted to help, but he didn't want to risk Groot, Rocket, Drax, or Gamora getting caught up in something either. They'd need to decide their next move as a team.

"I've got payment for the job," Inessa pulled out two black drives from her cargo pants, "I'll give it to Rocket."

"How much is it?" They'd never discussed payment.

"Everything."

Peter's jaw dropped- literally, "Are you kidding me?"

"You've risked a lot, you all deserve it. Besides- if you'd just asked Tony would have given it all to you anyways." She walked off the bridge without another word.

"The Avengers pay you for your help?" Bucky was starting to think of the Guardians as less of an Avengers unit and more along the lines of mercenary squad. He wasn't up-to-date much on currency forms, but those looked like hard drives, not money. Unless there was some galactic form they used that he didn't know.

Peter nodded, still stunned, "Movies and music. They pay us in movies and music…"

Bucky understood then- they were hard drives, "The Avengers media library."

He nodded, "Every movie, television show, and album ever digitized," his voice was reverent.

"You look like you're going to cry."

"I might."

"OK everyone, buckle up for landing," Rocket cradled the hard drives lovingly as they all took their seats on the bridge. Bucky glanced over at Inessa as she sat down. It took a bit, but eventually he realized that when he'd asked her if she was alright on anti-venom her immediate response was to change the topic- and just keep changing it.

She buckled the safety belt on the fourth try. Inessa flexed her right hand and held it flat just above the arm rest. If he wasn't looking for it he wouldn't have noticed her hand wasn't touching the chair. It shook and twitched slightly. Inessa immediately set it on the rest and flexed it a few more times. Had she lied to Peter? How much trouble was she in really? Her reluctance to scout with Nadya suddenly made sense- it was possible using her powers would speed up the effects of the venom.

His heart hammered uncomfortably. On the one hand, he knew from experience the venom wouldn't kill her (at least it hadn't in the several months she'd been poisoned before Simmons created the cure), on the other hand he still had nightmares once in a blue moon of running through the fields on Clint's farm carrying her as they phased in and out of the Valley. Fear had brought them back when he thought they'd be trapped for good. This Inessa didn't look like she frightened as easily.

"Sam's here," she said suddenly. Bucky felt like he'd been doused with icy water. He was going to have to fight again- really fight. Would the Winter Soldier stay dead?

"How can you tell?"

Inessa pointed out the windshield at the massive silver space station- a city floating among the stars. A central hanger was open and inviting near the base of the station, but it looked mostly empty. Few lights shone in the structure, but it seemed to emit its own glow, "Remember when I told you space is bright?"

"Yes?"

"I can feel the shadow that thing is casting. It goes on for millions of miles- absolute darkness." Inessa pointed at a seemingly random point to the far right, "There's another shadow there. Someone's cloaked, I'm willing to be that's Sam because that's the kind of luck I've been having."

"Shit."

"I am Groot."

"What he said," Rocket was his usual over-confident self, "you focus on getting the intel, we'll make sure you've got your escape."

"And then high-tail it out of here," Bucky reminded Peter.

"And then you high-tail it outta here."

"You too, in the opposite direction," Inessa's tone was stern.

"Avengers Leaders can't command one another," Gamora reminded her, "our team will make its own decisions."

"I paid you to go."

"We will," Peter ended the dispute, "we're just saying if you let us, we're willing to follow."

"Look, I'm touched, really. I'm just not willing to let anyone else disappear or die because of me. Got it?" She'd lost too many friends already, and the reality of the situation was that it was more likely she'd arrive at the lair of whoever took the Avengers only to find their corpses. The Guardians were barely Avengers, it was more an honorary title, and she wasn't willing to let them put themselves on the line when this was an Earth-Avengers matter.

"We'll go to Earth," Gamora leaned forward and put a hand on Peter's shoulder to stop his protest. "Is that agreeable? We will help our allies there."

"Thank you," Inessa relaxed in her seat as they angled towards the landing strip.

Peter glanced back at her and in a look conveyed what the Guardians all thought: They're not going to survive what's coming.

In the end Inessa stood by her position and did not call Nadya. Any kind of interference with one of those frequency-emitters would stun her and risk their chances of surviving whatever ambush Sam had planned. I know you were only trying to help Fandrel, but I really needed to be awake when we left Asgard. She couldn't easily plan a fight without knowing which Avengers- or even how many- he'd brought. There were some who were more vocal in their distrust of her in the last weeks before the Tower exploded, Castor, Ellie, and of course Geoff, but who else would he round his team out with? Amadeus could predict every move she'd make and advise Sam around that, but his loyalty couldn't even come within a mile of being questionable. He'd follow her into the mouth of Hell itself- and had come near enough. Steve had to put Noelle on her team to have someone whose reports he could trust to tell the whole story, Amadeus wouldn't turn against her so quickly, not when there was any chance it was a set up.

Marie on the other hand…

"As soon as we walk out of that hatch Sam will attack," Inessa warned Bucky, "remember, your priority is taking Marie out of play. I'll ID her for you."

"Got it. After Marie should I focus on Sam?"

"I can't say yet. There are Avengers of more immediate concern than him, but I don't know if he brought them or not. Go with your gut."

Inessa looked over at Peter, just out of sight of the main hatch, "Find a ship to program for us, something easy to fly in an emergency," he and Rocket both nodded their understanding.

"Good luck."

"Good bye," Inessa hit the button to open the back of the ship.

The hanger was empty of life, but Inessa didn't put much stock in what her eyes told her. Every Avenger was marked with Nadya's venom, it was for their own security. While most Avengers removed their marks (just as Bucky had) before the Tower even exploded, not all of them could be removed- unless the Avenger was killed. Inessa felt Amadeus on the hidden ship, but she also felt Geoff nearby. His religion forbade tattoos, but he'd consented to have his sternum marked- right into the bone. It was rare enough that an Avenger chose that particular route, but she was grateful for it now. If Geoff was on the platform the others might be as well…

Bucky held one Asgardian blade, but he kept the other sheathed, hopeful he wouldn't need to draw it. He took up the rear as they made their way towards the center of the hanger floor. Inessa stopped abruptly and immediately began to scan the hulking ships around them for signs of motion. It was the perfect spot for an ambush.

"We both know I can see Geoff, there's no point in hiding!"

"Yeah, I know," Sam's voice echoed around them, "but do you know who else is here? No? Uh-oh, that makes this difficult for you. What about how many of us there are? Don't know that either? Oh Nessie, I think you might be in trouble…"

"Marie?" Inessa ignored him and called out, "I've got something to say to you! Are you listening?"

"What's that, an apology?" Marie snapped from behind a jet on their right, "It's a bit late for apologies you little bitch!"

Inessa glanced to the side, "I know what you are!"

Marie jumped up onto the wing of one of the ships, guns out, "CALL ME A TRAITOR ONE MORE TIME, I DARE YOU!"

She smiled, "Bucky, you got that?"

"Oh yeah."

"Training time everyone! I've got a few lessons for you all!" Inessa called out, "One: Don't corner a wolf. Two: Don't give your prey time to speak. Three: Don't give away your presence before the attack, Marie," Bucky spun and flung his blade straight at the girl's head. Before she could react the hilt slammed her between the eyes and sent her flying off the wing of plane and into the hanger wall behind. He'd hit her a bit too hard. "And finally, four," Inessa grabbed the air a foot in front of her eye, but her hand didn't close all the way. She lashed out with her other hand, striking at something just under her other fist. There was a choking cough and suddenly an Indian man was in front of her holding his throat and struggling to breathe. Inessa had his wrist locked in her grip and a long knife was an inch from her eye, "four is that you shouldn't have trusted me to not water down the anti-venom." Inessa wrenched his arm to the side and pulled Raj closer, using him as a shield against Sam somewhere ahead of her. She landed a kick to his stomach and when the man folded Inessa brought her knee up into his nose, breaking it. With one solid punch she knocked him out.

"Two down. Your move next." Bucky was still behind her, still waiting for anything that gave away Sam's location or the other Avengers. He felt a soft shudder on the floor behind him and ducked as Maya fired. The bullet barely nicked Inessa's shoulder. She dove to the side, towards Marie's unconscious body, and dove behind the jet for cover. Inessa retrieved the dagger and closed her eyes, concentrating with all her might.

She'd felt Raj only because of his proximity, it was the real reason she stopped. She closed her eyes and threw every ounce of energy she had behind detecting the marks on each Avenger. Geoff and Bucky were lit up like blinding pillars of light behind her eyelids, but she could only just see a low fog over the entire hanger. It wasn't helpful, she had to know.

Inessa didn't notice Travis sneaking up behind her until it was too late. He jammed a needle into her chest and delivered an overdose of caffeine straight into her heart, "From Amadeus," he whispered softly in her ear, then chuckled and stood up straight, "Oh wait. He told me to give you anti-venom. Ha! Silly me, I must have grabbed the wrong vial." He glanced at the empty syringe in his hand, "Hum, a dose this size… Last time I gave you one of those you were on dialysis for a month and almost pulled yourself out of that body. I wonder how well you'll do out here, where there's no one to save you?"

"Don't forget," Inessa planted her palms on the deck and kicked up with her back legs. She slammed both of them into Travis' knees behind her and suppressed her guilt when she heard twin pops as the kneecaps shattered, "it makes me stronger first."

Travis screamed and dropped. Inessa suddenly saw the Avengers marks too clearly. Her heart hammered and her pulse raced. Every shadow cried out to her mind and for a brief second she could see from every corner of the building at once. Each room, each vault, even Amadeus locked in the brig of the ship above. He looked up to meet the silver eyes gaping from the shadows in each corner, "INESSA NO!"

Bucky felt like he'd been thrown into a freezer. He dodged a swing from Maya only to step into the path of some kind of beam of fiery light. His arm shattered the beam and three ships exploded around them. The metal glowed with a golden light and he punched Maya hard in the thigh. His caution was rewarded- her leg nearly blew off. If he'd aimed for her head or chest… Bucky sincerely hoped Sam brought a healer or two with him.

He dropped Maya and turned towards the source of the light. The way his vibranium arm absorbed the force and split it- it behaved like Mjolnir. He saw a blond woman hovering in the air above him holding a golden great sword- a claymore. She was glowing with energy. He couldn't reach her at that height, so he turned away and busied himself finding Inessa and dodging the swings of the blade.

Bucky skid behind the remains of the jet Inessa had run to and found her gasping for air. Travis was behind her, still screaming, and Bucky knocked him out with a savage punch. In Inessa's hands were his knife and the same kind of long metallic object Loki had used to lock Inessa's powers away. He took the knife from her hand quickly as she began to convulse and put a hand on her back. She was bleeding shadows, as she always had when using her powers for anything too big. The shadows around her arms were a bit too dense though.

"Nessie? NESSIE!" He grabbed the metallic object and turned Inessa's face towards him. A section of pitch-black shadow snaked up the back of her neck and touched his hand. It was like grabbing dry-ice. He screamed and pulled away, then twisted the device to activate it, "Please let this work!"

A spray of bullets almost took both of them out. He barely got his arm up in time to block most of them. Inessa's shadow-armor vanished as soon as the device activated and she spun around. Her eyes were wild- and entirely silver. It was no longer just the iris. Inessa stood slowly and looked up at Kelsey and Sam above them. He quickly reloaded and aimed straight for her face, snarling.

"There are three more. Three o'clock, four o'clock, nine o'clock. The ship third on the right, second level, from Peter's- Rocket is there. We have to hurry. We have to leave." Her voice was soft, emotionless. She didn't blink.

"What about the Collector?" he wasn't entirely sure she was in her right mind at the moment- or in her mind at all.

"He's dead." She could see his corpse in one of the vaults, rotting away, "He's been dead since before they were taken. We have to hurry, now. Bring the device."

Bucky dove out from under the jet and rolled to avoid any of Sam's bullets. Inessa stood and held a hand in front of her. Something hard and black formed from her hand. Every bullet Sam fired at her vanished into the shadow. He hesitated, the device was on. He saw Bucky turn it on. How was she still using her powers? Travis fired two doses of pure caffeine straight into her heart. She should have died. She shouldn't-

Inessa lowered her hand as Kelsey swung. Another shield of dark energy formed between then and absorbed the magic of the Lionheart's blade. Inessa held up another hand and clenched it into a fist. Sam's wing unit crackled, then abruptly died as she crushed the internal mechanics. He dropped from the sky and hit the deck hard. Kelsey's ability to fly was innate- she wasn't afraid of Inessa. She dove straight for her, twisting around the block of dense shadows beside her. Whatever was going on with her former ally didn't matter- only that she appeared to be moving a hell of a lot slower, and Kelsey was prepared to push that advantage.

Another wave of darkness flared up and Kelsey narrowly missed skewering Amadeus with the sword- or releasing a blast of energy that could have torn the ship apart and killed both of them. She screamed her frustration and tried to dive back into the shadow she'd come out of, but it was closed behind her. Just in case, Amadeus tackled her and used the blanket Sam had given him to snare her sword while he wrapped his arms and legs around her, pinning her arms back and her legs down. He couldn't knock her out, and he couldn't hold her for long, but it gave Inessa more time. He knew what it meant- the ice burning in his mark, the silver eyes in no less than three shadows of his room- he knew what Travis did, and it scared him to death.

Bucky liked Castor's style, personally. He was a fighter almost equal to Natasha, almost. Luckily he wasn't a super soldier and therefore wasn't anywhere near as fast as Bucky. He slammed a fist into the Avenger's stomach, winding him as well as breaking a rib. Castor responded by bruising one of Bucky's. He wrapped an arm around the boy's neck and spun him into the side of a ship hard enough to break several bones in his face and knock him out.

Sam's team was good, but they'd never fought together like this. Sparring yes, fighting an army of bad guys- probably. But they didn't know how to fight against one enemy. They were waiting their turns, not attacking en masse as they were supposed to. Of course, they wouldn't have to if not for Inessa. How long had she been planning the abduction of the Avengers? How many innocent people died while she pretended to be hunting Hydra agents? What was he even doing helping someone like that? Someone so cruel, so heartless. She said it herself- the Winter Soldier was the one who tortured her, not Bucky Barnes. So what did he owe her that he didn't owe to Steve's memory? Killing his killer was the way to honor him, it was the only way to-

Bucky picked up a metal bar- something from one of the exploded ships, and swung it hard at Ellie's head. She went down easily, "Fucking psychics," he threw the bar at her body and dodged. He didn't notice anyone on his left side, but it was turning out to be one of those days- dodge and someone will appear who makes you glad you moved first.

This time it was Geoff. The boy fired, then vanished and reappeared behind Bucky to fire again. He moved faster than Bucky could follow and it took all of his concentration to keep the fight moving and avoid getting shot anywhere other than his protected metal arm. Bucky and Geoff danced around the platform (at one point passing close enough to a dazed Sam that Bucky kicked him in the nose) in their fight. Inessa was headed for the ship and he needed to get there before she left without him.

He remembered something as he twisted away from another attack- on Clint's farm, when Inessa was sparring with Natasha for the first time- she'd spun around Natasha, just as Geoff was doing to him now. Natasha said it was a move she'd learned to use in time with her abilities (again, just as Geoff was doing), but without them it was slow going. If Geoff's abilities lined up so closely with Inessa's then maybe-

Bucky spun in a circle abruptly, using the device as a rod to extend his range and whip around him. Geoff didn't appear in its path as Bucky had hoped- it was even better. He appeared in the same space the device occupied. Geoff vanished before Bucky could register the stop, but when he reappeared a few feet away he swayed and looked down. There was a large hole in his lower abdomen. Geoff stared at the blood for a long time, then fell to his knees.

Instead of finishing off the boy, Bucky turned and ran for Inessa. She was already stepping into the back of the ship, but her count of the opponents was off. Another one, a man, had Rocket by the throat and was slamming his face into the floor of the ship. There was an eruption of shadows and Rocket vanished. Bucky dove around Inessa and crushed the man's hand in his metal one. Eoin shouted, enraged. Bucky pulled back to knock him out but a second later Eoin vanished. His scream of rage and pain echoed up from the platform.

The door to the ship closed and Inessa headed further in, towards the control panel. Hopefully Rocket had time to program the damn thing. There was a sticky note on a massive array of buttons with a simple arrow drawn to a green one. Inessa gently pushed it and the ship lurched to life. Bucky was thrown back against a wall as they took off. He still had the device in his hand, but Inessa's powers were still working. He had a feeling it wasn't another case of the frequency being miss-handled. Whatever happened between her and the man behind the jet, she was very off.

Inessa sat down and let her head hang for a moment. The bridge of the ship grew bright and brighter as she absorbed more and more of the shadows. She opened her mouth in a small gasp and without warning Bucky was on the other side of the wall, just outside of the threshold. He scrambled to his knees and crawled forward as the doors closed. Just before they sealed off the bridge there was a violent howling of wind and groaning of metal, then Inessa exploded in a wave of shadows.

"FUCK!" Sam screamed as the ship launched. The ambush was a disaster, and what's more- Inessa seemed to be surviving Travis' overdose- the only offensive move the man knew. He wasn't there to help kill Inessa, he was there to keep them alive, but still- he should have brought poison at least, not Banner's old medical bag! "He told Amadeus he intended Inessa to get away, he didn't actually mean it though! Sam wiped the blood and tears out of his eyes- an involuntary side effect of having his nose shattered but that fucking asshole Barnes. He saw Eoin nearby, already working on Maya and Geoff. At least someone knew their place.

CALDER, CALL AHEAD TO BERNY AND TELL HIM TO HAVE TONY'S WEAPON READY!" he snapped into his comms. They kept the Asgardians on the ship in case Bucky and Inessa tried to take that, but now he was regretting the move.

"Next time we fight too." Calder's voice was cold, furious.

They'd stopped Inessa from getting whatever the hell it was she wanted from the Collector- though Sam had expected the man to make an appearance by now. Now it was going to be up to Berny to kill the bitch.

"Tony, this machine is incredible! Why haven't you shown it to the others yet?" he remembered asking long ago.

"Because it doesn't work," Tony had been in the process of packing it up for storage when Sam had seen it. He nailed the door to the crate shut and signaled JARVIS to lock it down. It would be transferred to his remote facility, the most secure of all Avengers buildings, "I made it to help Inessa."

"So what's it do instead?"

Tony had sighed and steered him out of the room to give JARVIS and the suits room to work, "It corrects the photon anomaly that the Shadows give off."

"What does that mean for Inessa?"

"It means it'll rip her out of that body and pull her apart. No more Shadows. No more Loch Nessa. No more Valley. I wanted to help, but instead I made an execution block. She can't know this exists, and neither can the others."

"Why not just destroy it?"

At his question Tony had hesitated long enough to be concerning, "Because I'm not sure we won't need it one day."

Chapter 17: 1,143 Days Before the Explosion

#marvel #avengers #my writing

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winterverses · 6 years ago

Text

Walking Wounded - Chapter Sixty-Two

Things settled once they were en route back to Yorktown. The rest of the loading and distribution of the prisoners had gone as smoothly as could be expected; there had been only one or two scuffles, and those had been quickly broken up. The other transports had been up to his standards, the Captains well-informed and willing to take direction, and while his own crew was eager to leave, it hadn’t made them any less careful.

Kirk had walked through the asteroid base once before they’d left. It was strange to see it empty after all the training they’d done to take it. He’d half expected to meet some contingent of combatants they’d missed, to round a corner and find himself face to face with a phaser. Of course, none of that happened. The base had its own methods of scanning for life signs, and there were none.

All the contraband had been removed. All the people had been evacuated. He wondered what Starfleet would do with it, whether they would use it as an outpost or whether they would load it up with explosives and detonate it so that it couldn’t be used by another criminal organization. He knew what he would choose.

The splashes of gore in Loche’s room were still there, Anne’s blood on the bed, his own and Loche’s on the floor. Older bloodstains lurked in odd places. The room had been left completely untouched, despite the obvious value of some of the items inside. None of it was contraband or stolen that he knew of. Starfleet could decide what to do with it.

He’d found his phaser under one of the armoires. That was the only thing he took. Anne wouldn’t have wanted anything from this room, even if he’d told her he was going.

What a house of horrors. He briefly wondered if he should depressurize the rest of it the way they’d done with Section Three to discourage anyone trying to dock, but decided against it. Starfleet could do what they liked with it.

The voyage back to Yorktown settled into a pleasant routine, the long days he’d put in during the evacuation giving way to more regular hours on the bridge. That didn’t mean that he didn’t let Anne spoil him a bit, though. And she was doing fine, her work in engineering resumed, her sessions with Claudia continuing, seeming more constructive than before. There were a few more panic attacks, but that first rage that had gripped her hadn’t made a reappearance, and he knew they were both relieved that it stayed under her control.

He wondered if it was odd that he sort of enjoyed helping pick their furniture. Having that kind of control over his surroundings was a novelty after years of dorms and shipboard life. If it had just been him, he wouldn’t have cared-- his old apartment had come furnished in the sort of bland modern style that barely made an impression. Even the walls were neutral colors. It hadn’t looked bad or felt uncomfortable, but it was a far cry from the sort of thing Anne kept tossing at the decorator she’d hired, with blues and silvers and golds and the two major factors of every piece of furniture being whether it looked good and whether it would be fun to have sex on. They were in agreement on most of the key points, or at least close enough that one of them didn’t mind bending. And she didn’t need her surroundings to be picture perfect, which was a relief. He preferred to be able to put his feet up on the table without knocking over knicknacks.

The only thing she insisted on having completely her way was the kitchen, which of course he didn’t argue, any more than she had argued against that huge bath. The upsides were evident.

He wondered if it would feel like home to him. The Enterprise was home, but there could be more than one, couldn’t there?

Anne handled packing any of the things that needed to leave the ship with them. She left her things for the day they docked; he thought he knew why, but didn’t want to ask. It would feel different in his quarters without her things scattered around, and it was too soon to think about that.

Kirk reflected later that he should have known everything was going too smoothly. The first indication of trouble he had was that the docking bay entry was more crowded than it should have been. It hadn’t been that way when they’d first docked; it was only when he was getting ready to leave the ship that something seemed amiss, but it was off enough that Spock contacted him on the way out, warning him that there was a crowd gathering outside.

“What the hell…?” Kirk muttered to himself, flipping the communicator shut. They were already on their way out, among the last to leave aside from the skeleton crew, and Kirk was more than ready to get settled in their new place and put this business behind them, make arrangements to get his motorcycle transported to the garage, find someplace to go out for dinner, drinks, something that wasn’t shipboard life.

Worried, Anne shifted her little valise from hand to hand. “Should we stay here?” she asked.

“Let me just call Ops and see if they know what’s going on,” Kirk said, escorting her over to a nearby common area that had some viewscreens in it. “Actually, let me call Carol. I have to talk to her anyway.” Punching in the comm code, he wasn’t surprised to catch her in the back of one of the aircabs. “Hey, Carol.”

Carol’s expression brightened when she saw that it was him, and she brushed her wheat-blonde hair out of her face. Huh. She’d let it grow out a little. He hadn’t noticed that last time they’d talked. “Good to see you. I was just on my way over to start inspections,” she said.

She should have been off the clock by then, but she’d always been so driven. “Working late as usual, I see. Can I get you to do something for me, though?”

“Of course,” she said, watching him curiously. He saw her eyes dart to the side, where Anne was in the background.

“Spock said there’s a crowd outside the docking passage, but he couldn’t stay to find out why. Know anything about it?”

Surprise flitted across Carol’s face. “No. That’s unofficial as well as official. I can investigate if you want. I’m almost there.”

“I’d appreciate that. I’m just tying up some loose ends here on the ship. Let me know what you find.” It would be better to find out what was going on before he left, in case his presence was necessary aboard ship.

She nodded, and while she shot another curious glance in Anne’s direction, she didn’t ask. “Marcus out.”

When Kirk turned, he saw that Anne was curled up on one of the couches, chewing her lip the way she did when she was upset and nervous. “We should stay here until she contacts us.”

Anne only nodded, her knuckles whitening around the grip of her valise.

It didn’t take long for his screen to chirp at him. “Reporters,” Carol said without preamble. “Something to do with that author you rescued.” She didn’t look toward Anne.

Kirk swore softly. “Well that’s inconvenient.” He glanced up at Anne. “Would you go check with your agent and see if you can’t figure out what this is about?” Anne nodded, and he spoke to Carol again. “I’m in 29FP-CA right now. Why don’t you come by? We’ll figure out when we can go for drinks.”

“Be right there,” Carol said, and then signed off.

By that time, Anne was already speaking softly to a handsome, grumpy-looking older man. The guy must have been waiting by the viewer or something to have answered so fast. “You can’t be serious. Not a single one has contacted you?”

“No one. Not a one of them. I’ll do what I can, of course.” Mason, Kirk assumed, looked up over Anne’s shoulder at him and then dismissed him. “In the meantime, I can have an aircar sent, or we can arrange for a transporter--”

“Are you sure it’s not better to just face the music?” Anne asked. Kirk heard her American accent slipping away, the British getting stronger the more she heard Mason speak.

“It might very well be. At this point, some publicity is unavoidable, and if you face them head-on you’ll find out what this is about far faster than I.” He grimaced, running a hand through his dark hair. Kirk noticed that his arm was bare, then realized that Anne must have woken him up. Odd that the call had gone through. Did he prioritize his clients that much?

“Call me the car,” Anne said abruptly. “I don’t want to spend half my night hiding from them and wondering what this is about.”

Mason nodded. “It should be there within fifteen minutes.” After a moment, he added, “Puis-je m’introduire?”

“Fine,” Anne said, rolling her eyes. “Mason, Jim. Jim, Mason. There. Now if your sense of propriety has been satisfied, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Pleased to finally meet you, Captain,” Mason said, looking over at Kirk, who nodded in answer, and then looking back to Anne. “If you don’t hear from me by the time you reach your apartment, call me. I’ll want to know you’ve arrived safely.”

“I will. Thank you, Mason.” Anne cleared the screen and looked up at Kirk, trying to cover her worry with humor. “Sorry about him. He’s been trying to convince me to let him grill you since I first spoke to him.”

“Why?” Kirk asked. It’s not like Anne wasn’t an adult. Was he an ex or something?

“It’s his job to be suspicious,” Anne said, shrugging. “He’s feeling a little overprotective, considering the circumstances. It wasn’t his fault, but I don’t want him bothering you either. You don’t deserve his scrutiny.”

Kirk sat down on the couch beside her, putting his feet up on his case and slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Not exactly a what you’d expect from a literary agent,” he said mildly. Come to think of it, there had always been a bit of oddness about Mason, hadn’t there? Nothing that was outright said, but just an implication that perhaps Anne’s sense of right and wrong was a little more internally determined than the actual law, and the air that Mason might facilitate things like that. Or maybe he was just reading things into an avoidance of the subject. “Did he get you that birth certificate from South Africa?” Kirk asked, curious as to how she would answer. He’d never dug any further because he could easily see Anne having reasons to want something like that, and he couldn’t imagine her doing anything actually harmful with it. Still, her records from the Starfleet aptitude test didn't match the history she'd given him.

“What birth certificate?” Anne asked, confused. Too confused?

“Jim, there you are,” Carol Marcus said, her eyes flicking between him and Anne as she strode purposefully up to them. Better to shelve the issue of Anne’s history for now. “And you must be Ms. Hardesty. So pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Anne said. “Jim speaks very highly of you and your work.”

It was interesting to watch Anne suddenly become reserved, and to realize just how much she had learned to relax around him. Kirk sat up, gesturing to a nearby seat. “Carol. How come you’re stuck at work at this hour? Don’t they let you have any time off?”

Brushing her bobbed hair away from her face, Carol seated herself. “I could ask you the same thing, and you would give me the exact same answer. This time, though, it’s because you have Command all in an uproar. Again. They expected a smuggling ship, not three hundred trials and extraditions and people in need of rehabilitation and rehoming and such. I hear they’re quite sore about it.”

“What can I say? I’m an overachiever. Command should know that by now.” He knew not to take that seriously. Command would always gripe. He liked to think it was affectionate griping.

Carol smiled and shook her head, but didn’t laugh. “The talk is that they’re not giving you any more special assignments until the five year mission is over.”

Laughing softly, Anne said, “To be fair, I would worry that you might accidentally have to save the universe if you were sent out to get coffee and doughnuts.”

“I’m not that bad. I just have a talent for finding trouble,” Kirk scoffed, looking fondly over at Anne.

Carol drew Kirk’s attention back to her almost immediately. “Yes, well. Command thinks you’ve had enough shakedown time with the new ship. That’s why I was so insistent that you contact me. I didn’t want them to put the Enterprise at the back of the list and then send you off before it could get done. Of course, that’s not the excuse I gave them, but you know how they are. You need an official reason for everything.” Carol sighed heavily. That impatience with Command was one of the things they’d had in common. They both liked to set their own terms.

“Thanks, Carol. I’m glad you’re looking out for my ship.”

“She was my ship too, Jim. You can’t think how upset I was when I heard about Altamid.” A soft frown came to rest between her brows. “Especially since my design would have been far more effective in the initial encounter. The spread--” Her eyes flicked over to Anne. “Well, it’s confidential. We can talk about it some other time.”

Why was she being such a stickler? General terms weren’t confidential, and he doubted they were going to get into a long discussion of chemical masses. Before he could answer, Anne laughed again. “It’s all right. I doubt I would know a torpedo from a painted baguette anyway.”

It suddenly occurred to Kirk that as polite as the conversation seemed on the surface, it might not be the greatest idea to let it continue much longer. “We can talk about it over drinks. Say Thursday after this one, 1900 hours, that little bar with the view of the dock?”

Carol glanced at Anne again, as if she expected some kind of objection, but Anne only looked on with polite interest. “Sounds lovely,” Carol finally said.

“Good. I’ll be looking forward to it. Now, we should all probably get going; our car has got to be here by now--”

“--and I’ve got to get to work.” Carol looked at Anne as she stood. “It was good to meet you. If I ever run into one of your books, I’ll let you know what I think.”

“I’ve been told they’re enjoyable,” Anne said vaguely. “Have a lovely evening.”

Once Carol was gone, Kirk gave Anne a sidelong look. “That was not just me. That was getting uncomfortable, and I’m not sure which one of you it was.”

Anne sighed, watching the hall Carol had disappeared down. “Well at least I’m in the correct mood to deal with the press now.” When his silence drew out, she looked over at him. “What did you expect? It was very civil for an ex-girlfriend who’s carrying a torch being introduced to a new girlfriend.”

“Fair enough,” Kirk said, standing up and grabbing his case. He hadn’t expected Carol to still be hung up on him; nothing in their correspondence over the intervening years had suggested it. Still, if Anne said it, there was probably something there. Thinking about it was pointless. “Let’s go see what all that fuss outside is about.”

“Oh yes, let’s. Please.” Despite her sarcasm, Anne rose, picking up her valise.

The size of the crowd outside surprised him. It wasn’t the few journalists that had waited before-- this was an actual crowd, one that made Kirk worry about the logistics of getting through. “Stay close to me,” he murmured as they walked, offering Anne his arm. Without slowing, they plunged into the crowd, walking purposefully toward the aircar stands.

“Ms. Hardesty--”

“--reports that you--”

“--court case sealed--”

“--haven’t responded to interview requests--”

“--joined Starfleet?”

Anne’s expression stayed neutral, although Kirk felt himself becoming annoyed.

“What do you have to say about the allegations that you were involved in the murder of several young women--”

Kirk felt Anne slow. “What?”

He would have pulled her along, but that felt unwise. Instead, he let himself pause with her, and the crowd began to quiet down around them, recorders thrust forward.

“How do you answer the allegations?” the reporter asked.

“You know more about it than I do,” Anne said.

“So you have no opinion on the charges that have been filed against you?” the reporter asked, watching Anne carefully while others took holograms.

It took a moment for Anne to find her voice. Kirk squeezed her arm comfortingly. “Again, you know more about this than I do, although at least now it won’t take me by surprise if I’m contacted by Justice.”

“Captain Kirk, what do you have to say about this development? And what is your personal connection to Ms. Hardesty?”

He should have known they’d turn on him when they realized she didn’t know anything. “I personally have the greatest respect and esteem for Ms. Hardesty, and several of my crew owe their lives to her bravery. She has been a key part of the success of our recent mission. Beyond that, my only opinion is that the UFPJ will address whatever needs to be addressed in a fair and evenhanded way.”

That kept them busy for a moment. Kirk looked down at Anne, hearing the holorecorders chirp. She held his gaze for a moment, then looked back to the crowd and spoke up. “It would be foolish for me to attempt to address issues that are only hearsay to me at this time. With that in mind, I wish you all a good evening.”

This time, the reporters were far more aggressive, following them to the aircar stands, still calling out questions. As Mason had said, however, a car was there awaiting them, the driver approaching Anne and speaking in rapid French that Kirk didn’t quite catch. Before the crowd could reform itself, they were in the car and pulling away from the stand. Kirk couldn’t stop himself from glancing around, wondering if someone would have the tenacity to follow them.

“Murder charges,” Anne said. She sounded stunned. He couldn’t blame her. “Several of them.”

“We don’t know that for sure. Actually, we don’t know anything right now. Starfleet isn’t behind it-- they never said a damn thing about that profile, and this is not how they operate.” Kirk caught a glimpse of another aircar that seemed to be heading along their route, but it turned off. Maybe the press wasn’t aggressive enough to follow. Maybe they would be in the future. Shaking his head, Kirk looked back at Anne. “Even if the charges are real, there won’t be any validity to them. That much we do know. I’ll tell Spock and the rest of them what’s going on, and after that... let’s not let it ruin our night. Whatever happens, we can handle it.”

That teased a reluctant grin from Anne. “All right. Let’s stay in tonight, though. I’m not sure I want to go through that again today.”

“You got it.” Kirk sighed, settling back in his seat and slinging his arm around Anne’s shoulders. “Did I ever tell you I had to pretend I was hospitalized on a starbase to get away from the press after the Vengeance incident?”

“Why am I not surprised?” Anne asked, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’ve got some experience with evading them, though. Maybe it’s jumping the gun, but I should probably check out some of my old bolt-holes.”

“Or just give all your interviews in ancient slang,” Kirk laughed. “They’ll get sick of it eventually.”

“Reckon that’d be beatin’ the devil round the stump,” Anne said, and he could hear the tentative laughter in her voice.

It seemed to take forever to get to the apartment building, although eventually Kirk realized that was because the driver was purposely taking a circuitous route. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had wondered whether anyone would follow them. Anne didn’t comment on it, so Kirk wasn’t sure if she noticed. Eventually they arrived, though, the car heading directly into the underground garage. No one was there to greet them, no codes had been exchanged, so Kirk wasn’t exactly sure how this would work, but Anne didn’t seem to worry about it. She just thanked the driver, asked him if she could contact him again, and then waved goodbye as he drove off. Afterward, she turned to Kirk with a bemused little smile. “This is incredibly strange,” she said as he fell in beside her, walking to the door. “I’m so used to being alone.”

“We both are. I just got over the weirdness all up front.” He watched her palm the door lock. The computer didn’t question it; apparently it already knew she lived there. “Is that going to work for me?” he asked as they walked to the elevator.

“Don’t you remember me asking for your palm scan?” Anne asked, then immediately corrected herself. “Never mind. I think you were half asleep that night. Anyway, yes, of course.”

“I know you might have noticed this, but there’s not a lot of ‘of course’ about this situation,” Kirk said.

“True. Well, then, just to be clear, I treated permissions and such the same way I treated my own permissions. It’s our place. I probably won’t stay here after… after.” He gave her a questioning look, but didn’t want to ask. She answered anyway. “It’s not that odd. Like I said, this is our place.”

“Then I guess we’d better make the most of it,” Kirk said as the elevator slid open. What greeted them was less a hallway than a small parlor, complete with fussy-looking armchairs and a flower arrangement on a marble-topped table at the side. There were two doors, one on each side of the room, each embossed with a number. Kirk looked down at Anne. “This is a little more upscale than I thought.”

“Hush. I told you I wanted to splurge.” Anne set off towards one of the doors, and Kirk followed.

As she slapped the palm-reader, Kirk suddenly found himself grinning. “Wait, wait. I know how this is supposed to go.” Before she could do more than look questioningly at him, he bent down and scooped her up into his arms. Anne made a soft, surprised noise, her eyes wide, and then laughed, settling against him. Booting the suitcases through the door, he strode in after them. “There. Now we’re officially in our place.”

Anne laughed again, her dimple making its first appearance since they’d heard about the reporters. The door slid closed behind them. “You know that’s supposed to be proof of my chastity and unwillingness to sleep with you, right?”

“You’re doing it wrong,” he answered smugly, setting her on her feet.

“And gladly,” she replied, tugging him down into a kiss.

He was thoroughly distracted by the time they broke it off, wondering whether a tour of the place might not wait. There was that huge bed they’d picked, though… and the bath… It sort of made floor sex a bit less of a priority.

“Come on,” Anne said, picking up her valise. “Let’s just get everything set up so we can spend the rest of the night doing whatever we like. I’ve got to call Mason and let him know I’m safe, we’ve got to find somewhere to get food from, and we’ll have to unpack a few clothes and toiletries.”

“All right,” Kirk said. “But before any of that--” he ordered the voice control to put on some music. It didn’t make him search for it or authorize any sort of account; it just played the song he’d asked for. “Got that all set up too, huh?” he asked as he kicked off his boots.

“Of course,” Anne said. Approaching the nearest wall, she waved at it, and a panel slid aside to reveal a viewscreen. “Give me a moment.”

Kirk decided to take a look around while she spoke to her agent. Despite being new to him, the place felt familiar; maybe it was all of the furniture they’d picked out, or the views from the windows that he’d seen in the virtual tour. One wall of the living room was entirely made of glass, the apartment looking out over a pleasant cityscape of buildings and terraces and parks. Command Centre was just visible, looming overhead. The living room itself was a wash of deep blues with touches of gold here and there. Anne had hired the decorator to make the sort of random choices they’d made look good, and it did. Huge, overstuffed couches dominated the room, with enough space to seat several people, and a table with a holoprojector sat between them. It felt a little like his suite on the Enterprise, not in colors, but in composition. Some of Anne’s paintings hung on the royal blue walls, bits of her art scattered around the room. There was also a beautiful little statue of the Enterprise sitting on one of the tables. Kirk walked over to it, smiling. She hadn’t told him about that.

This place was plush. His feet sank into the carpet when he walked. Everything looked comfortable, but at the same time classy. Kirk decided he liked it. Running his hand over the Enterprise model in a farewell, he went to explore the rest of it.

The dining area was just as luxurious, with high-backed chairs and a floor that looked like actual wood. Same with the table. Warm, dark mahogany and cream colors. Those carried into the kitchen, which was a whole room of its own, with a small table and two chairs in one corner and loads of workspace. Instead of the one synthesizer and small cooker he was used to, there was a small synthesizer tucked out of the way and three or four different machines for cooking things and storing them, not to mention a sink. There were windows that could be opened all along the back wall, looking out on a little terrace. Anne’s garden was already out there, trees in pots and fronds and even vines that had glints of red hidden between the leaves. Though she’d lamented that she couldn’t start things from seed, she’d still chosen a raft of different types of greenery, all things she claimed she could use in the kitchen. On the terrace a little table and chairs sat under a gauzy-looking canopy obviously meant to keep them dry when the weather system determined it was time to rain. That would be nice. He could imagine himself and Anne sitting under the canopy, watching the rain fall. Kirk knew from the layout that there were two accesses to the balcony-- one from the kitchen, and one from the bedroom. He briefly considered taking that route, but decided against it.

Anne was still talking to Mason when he approached. The agent looked him over but didn’t speak to him; Kirk grabbed their cases, meaning to bring them into the bedroom, and Anne brushed a hand down his arm as he passed. Mason did not react.

The bedroom was blue and silver, the openwork headboard and footboard done in more rich mahogany. Kirk set the cases down on the bed, glancing around the room. Not bad. A little sitting area near the door outside, plenty of space… more than he was used to, for sure. It felt pretty damn luxurious after being aboard ship so long.

On the long, old-fashioned dresser at the side of the room, someone had placed a small bush with white pinwheel flowers. Kirk recognized it from the scent; it was Anne’s favorite. He wondered if that had been Mason’s doing. Well, even if it was, it was because Mason had presumably done this many times before and knew what Anne liked. The implication had always been that he’d been with her for years, maybe since her first novel. That much time would mean he knew her pretty intimately.

Deciding that was a fruitless line of thought, Kirk walked into the bathroom. There was the bathtub he’d been looking forward to, a sunken affair that was big enough to hold them both with room to spare. Aboard the ship there was nothing like this; it would take up too much room, too much water, for very little reason. It was an indulgence he didn’t usually have access to. The black marble bath and countertop gleamed in the low light, faint gold accents warming the room. Kirk decided that this was going to be his first stop once he could relax. Maybe he could get Anne to rub his shoulders.

Heading back to the foyer, he found Anne finishing up her conversation with Mason. “Well, contact the UFPJ then. They should have spoken to us by now anyway. In the meantime, I’m going to relax. If we really must discuss finances, you can spend a little effort to dictate a message.” Anne looked over at Kirk. “How is everything?”

“It’s great,” he said. “Damn near perfect. Thank you,” he said directly to Mason, who only nodded, watching him cautiously.

Anne smiled brilliantly, and then looked back to Mason. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow afternoon. That should give the UFPJ plenty of time to get back to you.”

“I would be far happier if you would only accept a live-in assistant,” Mason said, frowning.

Anne’s smile disappeared. “No. Absolutely not. I am not going to have a nanny checking up on me.” She visibly tried to smooth her frown. “I’ll be fine. Besides, Jim is here. You can’t tell me a Starfleet Captain who’s been decorated multiple times isn’t capable enough to suit you.”

Mason looked at Kirk then, eyeing him critically in a way that felt deliberately insulting. “True,” he said dubiously. “I suppose I shall have to be satisfied with that.”

Kirk frowned and began to speak, but Anne laid a hand on his chest, stopping him, her voice shocked. “Rude, Mason! I don’t want to see that again. You know what you need to do, you know where I’ll be, you know who I’m with-- I’ll check in tomorrow afternoon.”

The agent showed the first spark of humor that Kirk had seen, a disdainful little smirk. “You are correct. I apologize. À demain, madame, monsieur.”

Anne nodded and signed off, then sighed. “I would be lying to say he didn’t usually act like that, but he usually has the decency not to do it to anyone’s face.” The British accent still lingered in her voice.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Kirk said, slipping his arms around her as she drew close. Forget Mason, they didn’t need to be thinking about him. “What else needs to be done?”

Anne’s words were muffled against his chest. “Unpacking things. Food.”

“I only saw our cases. Nothing else looked like it needed to be unpacked.”

“Good. We can just dump them in a drawer and sort it out later.” Anne lifted her head, looking up at him. “Would you mind doing that while I check out the kitchen?”

“Not at all,” Kirk said. “I’ll start running that bath. It’s huge, it’ll take a while to fill.”

“Oh, good idea,” Anne said. Rising on her toes, she stole a kiss, and then slipped away from him, heading toward the kitchen.

While in the bedroom, he heard a cry and his heart kicked into high gear, sudden fear that he’d overlooked something, or someone, dangerous seizing him. The suitcase he’d been holding thudded to the floor and he cut through the terrace to the kitchen, only to find Anne alone in the kitchen, the door of one of the food storage units open and her head buried inside. Kirk approached slowly, letting himself calm down. His reflexes were maybe a bit too sensitive. “Everything all right?”

Anne stood straight, narrowly missing banging her head. If he thought her smile was brilliant before, he’d been mistaken. “The fridge is stocked. Mostly. Mason must have made someone haunt the markets and use some of my old contacts.” Looking back into the storage, she pulled out a bowl of beautifully red berries. “Real strawberries!” she said. “And carrots, and lettuce, suey choy, aubergines… There are several crabs, I don’t know how they even got them here, they’re still alive, and shrimp and fish in the frozen section…” She pulled away from the storage again. “Mason had someone stock what I liked. There’s even a couple of steaks for the grill outside.”

“There’s a grill?” Kirk asked, surprised. He hadn’t seen one.

“I’ll show you later. Anyway, what are you hungry for?” Anne asked, that smile still lighting her face.

Kirk stepped close and slid his arm around her waist, pulling that slim, muscular body against his side. “You, of course. I’m all right for another couple hours. Figure out what you want to make, and if you want me to help, and then come join me in the bath.”

Anne’s smile turned shy. “That sounds like an excellent plan. Although, I’d like to raise the issue now-- how would you feel about inviting our friends over here for a party? I mean, we have a barbecue, and the bar over there is fully stocked… Not a dinner party, a party where people can do whatever they like. Encourage Uhura to bring her, um, what’s it called again--

“--joyeuse--”

“Thank you, joyeuse. If I want to, I can dance while she plays. We’ll do the classic American barbecue thing, have enough fresh, real meat to grill for everyone. I might have to teach you that.”

Kirk scoffed. “I can cook meat over an open fire. I’m sure grilling can’t be that much more complicated.”

“Well, I won’t be able to supervise it if I’m making anything à la minute. I’d love it if you would help me.” Anne looked innocently up at him.

Kirk shook his head, pulling her tight to him. “Of course I’ll help you.” The image of the apartment full of his friends stood vivid in his mind. “We should do it. Set up invitations for a day we’re all free. The others would think it was amazing.” He laughed abruptly. “They usually see me hanging out in bars, not throwing parties.”

Anne giggled and pressed closer to his side. “I don’t doubt it. Well, we should make a list of people we want to invite. I’ll source the food if you contact people.”

“Sounds good.” Kirk laughed, running his fingers up through her hair and half-undoing that rolled hairstyle she usually wore in the process. “All right, now that I know you’re not being killed, I’ll go run us that bath.”

She stood away from him, grinning, and messily re-pinned her hair just enough to keep it out of her eyes. “And I’ll make something to snack on in the bath.” She turned and began to pull items from the cupboard.

Kirk shook his head as he left. Anne was so excited over the kitchen. It had definitely been worth it. He reached the bath and turned it on, setting the temperature exactly as he liked, then left to start putting their things in drawers.

Anne had just said to dump them, but he found he couldn’t. Might as well do it right the first time. Without realizing it, he’d already decided which side of the bed was his-- the same one as on the Enterprise-- and then wondered whether Anne had specified that along with wall colors and furniture when he found all the drawers on that side empty. Well, she was detail oriented, and she’d presumably had a lot of practice at moving into new places, as well as a lot of time alone while he’d overseen the exodus from the asteroid base. He put everything away roughly where he expected to find it on the Enterprise and then went to empty Anne’s valise into the other, smaller set of drawers.

He had a strange moment, then, as he realized that someone would have had to pick out all of the filmy, lacy, embroidered stockings and things he found already inside the drawers, and that someone was either Mason or someone he’d directed. At the very least the man probably knew more about Anne’s taste in underwear than Kirk himself did; he couldn’t picture Anne getting quite so detail-oriented as to specifically order each and every little scrap of lace he saw. And some of it definitely qualified as scraps. One drawer, just one of the four, held more sedate and sensible articles like socks.

That seemed a bit like overkill… until Kirk realized he was thinking of it in the context of Mason picking out things Anne would look good in rather than Anne parading around this apartment, his and hers, wearing the stuff. And there was no discernible attraction between Anne and Mason, or at least not that he’d noticed from Anne’s end. She seemed to think of Mason as irritating. Kirk could relate-- he was starting to feel the same way already.

Well, there was definitely enough lace and flourish there to please her. Starfleet had bigger concerns than making sure their members were dressed to the nines, and mass allowances meant that even Kirk himself had only run into a couple of women who placed a high enough priority on lingerie to bring it along. Then again, he’d seen enough women wearing the fleet-issue stuff that he had a major soft spot for someone who looked really, really good in it, and Anne did. She didn’t really need flattering lingerie…

...but it would be fun and it would make her happy, so Kirk put Mason out of his mind and put away her things wherever they seemed like they should go. In the closet, mostly. There wasn’t much room elsewhere.

Even after stowing the suitcases, the bath was only halfway full. Kirk wandered back into the kitchen. “Anything I can do?”

Anne glanced over to him, busily kneading something or other, looking as content as he’d ever seen her. “I feel like I’ll be putting the fox in the henhouse if I let you take care of the strawberries.”

“I promise, I won’t eat a thing unless you say so,” Kirk said, radiating as much virtue as he knew how. “Besides, I’m not the fox. I have it on good authority that you’re the fox.”

He didn’t fool her for a second, but she gave in anyway, snickering at his reference to the nickname. “I guess I have no choice but to let you slice them, then.” She gestured toward one of the storage compartments with her chin. “The knives are in there, and the strawberries are in the fridge. Cutting boards are stacked against the wall there.”

Kirk gathered the items, popping a strawberry into his mouth when she wasn’t looking. If possible, these were even better than the synthetic ones she’d programmed. “Goddamn,” he murmured, then shot Anne a charming grin. It only earned him a tolerant laugh and a mock-warning glance from her.

Under her direction he hulled the strawberries and diced them, careful not to underestimate the razor-sharp knife he was using. That knife was just as pretty as it was sharp, marked with wavering fold-lines and etched with a pattern of cherry blossoms. It looked too worn to be new; when he asked, she confirmed that it had been hers before she’d been taken, a set that she’d purchased on Earth and one of the few things that travelled with her. “Not many things have lasted as long as those knives,” she said, laughing, as she dropped the dough she’d been kneading into a bowl. “Plants and clothes and all of those things come and go, but some things are too necessary to let go of.” Her smile faded and her hands stilled. “I lost one of the set when I was taken.” Without waiting for him to answer, her hands started up again, brushing each other clean, and she continued, “I’m having another sent from Earth, but it takes time to make a replacement. The man who makes them does it extremely traditionally, with actual open flame and everything. There are some recordings of his work floating around.” Running water over a piece of cloth, she draped it over the bowl and placed the whole thing in the refrigerator.

Judging it best to let painful subjects lie, Kirk pretended a frown. “Hey, I thought you were making us a snack.”

Anne laughed, washing her hands. “No, cher, that’s for breakfast tomorrow. It needs to ferment overnight. I promise it’ll be worth it.” Extracting a couple of eggs from one of the various cupboards, she carefully cracked them into a bowl, setting the yolks aside. “This will only take a few moments.”

As Kirk watched, she added little bits of this and that, sugar, half the diced strawberries, and finally ended up with glossy little strawberry-studded swirls that she put in the oven to bake. The other half of the strawberries got mashed and various things put in them, including, inexplicably, salt and a dark vinegar. “Are you sure you didn’t just ruin all those strawberries?” he teased, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her close. Her mouth was sweet and sticky with strawberries and sugar from when she’d tasted the mixtures. He hadn’t seen her measure anything. The whole thing was odd and sort of magical.

When the kiss broke, her cheeks were a little pink. “I am not that bad a pâtissière,” she said, smacking his chest gently.

“I wouldn’t know. You’re probably fantastic,” Kirk chuckled. “I should probably go check that bath, though.”

“You do that, and I’ll check on the garden,” Anne said, flashing that dimple at him. “That should just give us time for the meringues to dehydrate enough. I like them a bit chewier anyway.”

“I’m going to take your word for that,” Kirk said, releasing her.

The bath had finished running and shut off on its own. Handy, that. It would take Anne a little longer in the garden, he thought, so he recorded a quick message for his mother in the meantime. Commodore Paris had left him a message, requesting him to check in with her in person the day after next. Wondering how long he could put it off, he hesitated, then counter-offered a date in a week or so. Technically he was on shore leave, otherwise he wouldn’t have had any say in it.

The Commodore would get it. Probably. He had a pretty good relationship with her, and he’d kept her updated on all the official aspects of this mission. And he knew, though he pretended not to, that she kept an eye on his personal activities, insofar as they were relevant to Starfleet. It was what he did aboard ship; keep tabs and mostly turn a blind eye, unless it looked like something might spill over into time that belonged to the Enterprise.

Some sort of alarm interrupted his thoughts, and he made his way back to the kitchen to see that the cooker had shut itself off. Anne would have taken the meringues out and put them on a plate or something, so that was what he did. She came back in while he was in the middle of it, laughing sheepishly as she rinsed dirt from her hands. “I’m sorry. I got a bit carried away outside.”

“Relax. We’re not on a schedule. Anyway, I would have just started without you.” He watched as she set the bowl of mashed strawberries on a tray with the cookies or whatever, then picked up the tray before she could lift it. “If I don’t have my hands occupied, I’ll just eat them all on the way to the bath,” he teased.

Anne giggled. “All right. You take care of that, then, and I’ll take care of this.” As she spoke, she turned and started from the room, her hands busy on the fastenings of her dress.

“This really feels like home all of a sudden,” Kirk said, watching and following as her dress hit the floor. There was definitely something to be said for a clear schedule. Aboard ship, he still had to remember that he could be tapped at any moment. Here, now, the next thing he had to worry about was Commodore Paris, whenever their meeting ended up being. Which meant, of course, that if he liked, he could just spend all the time in between satisfying various appetites.

Anne’s fingers moved to undo her brassiere, and it landed on the bed as she passed. “It is starting to feel familiar, isn’t it?” Instead of removing her panties, she walked past the bath. Kirk set the tray down on the side, watching her with interest as he skimmed out of his clothes. She opened one of the cupboards, making a satisfied little purring noise that gave him goosebumps, and pulled out a frosty bottle of what looked like champagne, as well as two iced-over glasses. “I won’t pretend the luxury isn’t a bit heady,” she said.

“I could get used to it,” he said appreciatively, stepping into the bath. It was heavenly, the water feeling at once reminiscent of and completely different from zero gravity. He ducked his head, running his hands over his hair to smooth it back, and then seated himself on the little underwater bench at the side.

As Anne cracked open the bottle, pouring for each of them, she said, “I was at a party once where someone sabered bottles of champagne. I’ve always wondered if I could figure out how to do it. I’ve heard you can do it with a spoon if you hit it at the right angle.”

“We could always get a case of cheap champagne and give it a shot,” he said, accepting his glass. She laughed, shaking her head as she stripped her panties, and he decided to press the point. “Why not? We have to do something in between sex and eating.”

“That’s the most frivolous thing I’ve ever heard of. And then we would have to drink cheap champagne.” She stepped into the water, toes perfectly pointed.

“So we’ll get better champagne,” he countered, picking up one of the meringues and examining it critically.

“They explode when you do it wrong.” Anne said, trying to stifle a smile, though her eyes crinkled at the corners.

Kirk dipped the meringue in the strawberry mixture and took a bite, groaning softly at the taste. Light and crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, sticky-sweet meringue contrasting richer, deeper strawberry dip… perfect. As Anne slid down beside him, he offered her the other half. He could afford to be generous. There was a whole plate of them. “Seem fine to me,” he teased.

“No, you ass.” Anne snickered and bit off an edge of the meringue, continuing around a sweet mouthful. “The champagne bottles.”

“Oh.” He pretended to think about this while he ate the rest of that meringue and picked up another, which admittedly didn’t take long at all. “I jumped off the top of one of those buildings near Starfleet Command once,” he said blandly.

“Oh my god. Fine,” Anne laughed. “You like to live dangerously, I get it. We can try sabrage, but we’re doing it on a night when Claudia or Dr. McCoy isn’t busy.”

“What about Spock instead? I bet he’d go along with it if I told him it was a physics experiment.” Anne shook her head, and Kirk laughed. “All right, fine. Anyway, I can’t think of anything Bones would find more ominous than asking whether he was free one night and not telling him why.”

That caught Anne with a mouthful of champagne, which only made him laugh harder. This was turning out to be a great plan so far. Even talking about it was great. Once Anne’s laughter had died down into giggles, she said, “All right. But you have to let me listen when you call him.”

He wasn’t sure if it was because he’d interrupted Bones’ dinner out, or if it was the request, or maybe if it was the splash-fight Anne started with him when he dragged her into his lap, but Bones hung up on him. It wasn’t even a videocall or anything. Afterward he’d set his comm code to refuse calls, knowing that Bones would call him back to chew him out. “You are the most unbearable friend,” Anne murmured, having stopped pretending to try to get away, and kissed his jaw. “I don’t know why anyone talks to you.”

Convenient of her to ignore her own responsibility for that debacle. Might be counter to his best interests to say anything about it, though. “So why are you still hanging around?” he asked instead, letting his head fall back as her lips trailed down his neck.

He felt her smile against his throat. “Because you’re also irresistible, of course. And because I have several options for shutting you up that others don’t.”

That was definitely a fair answer, Kirk decided as he pulled the pins out of her hair, feeling her lips wander down toward the waterline. “I think I need a demonstration,” he said softly, feeling incredibly self-satisfied.

#James T. Kirk/OC #Jim Kirk/OC #Star Trek #Star Trek Fanfiction #dark romance #fanfic #ST:WW #Star Trek: Walking Wounded

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footballleague0 · 7 years ago

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Real or not? Brewers blow golden opportunity to catch Rockies – SweetSpot

The Rockies had already lost, shut out 4-0 in an afternoon game in San Francisco. With a win, the Brewers would tie the Rockies for the second wild card.

Milwaukee’s starter in this crucial game with 12 days left in the season: Aaron Wilkerson.

Who?

Baseball in September can be a strange thing as even playoff contenders scramble to fill holes on pitching staffs worn down by injuries and fatigue. In Milwaukee’s cause, the Brewers needed somebody to start for Jimmy Nelson, their best pitcher who went down for the season — and part of 2018 — when he partially tore a labrum diving back into first base after a base hit on Sept. 8.

Wilkerson had gone undrafted out of Cumberland University, played independent ball in 2013 and part of 2014, then signed with the Red Sox and was traded to the Brewers last summer in the Aaron Hill deal. He spent the season at Double-A with good numbers (3.16 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 143 K’s in 142⅓ IP), made a start for Colorado Springs in the Pacific Coast League playoffs and tossed seven no-hit innings. Still, he’s not even included in MLB.com’s top 30 Brewers prospects, a nod to his age (he’s 28) and lack of pedigree.

But here he was, making his first major league start.

“We’ll just see how far he can get,” manager Craig Counsell had said before the game. “Obviously, it’s his first big league start and it’s a big spot, but we feel like he’s been pitching in a way that we think he can have success out there.”

Closer Corey Knebel leaves the field after surrendering the walk-off blast that cost his Brewers a shot at catching the Rockies in the National League wild-card race. Justin Berl/Getty Images

Wilkerson would last just 2⅓ innings on Wednesday, giving up three runs in the third, but it was All-Star closer Corey Knebel who would fail in the end. The Brewers had taken a 4-3 lead over the Pirates in the seventh. In the eighth, Andrew McCutchen doubled off Anthony Swarzak and Counsell brought in Knebel for a four-out save. David Freese hit a little dribbler down the third-base line, a do-or-die play for Knebel. He had a chance with a perfect throw, but he also could have just eaten the ball and gone after the next batter. Instead, his throw sailed wide and McCutchen scored the tying run. Then in the ninth, Adam Frazier won it with a two-out homer off a 98 mph heater:

That’ll do it. Out goes Frazier! #Walkoff #RaiseIt http://pic.twitter.com/MJqiUuSMC8

— Pirates (@Pirates) September 21, 2017

So, tough one for the Brewers. Now comes their biggest test of the season: A four-game series at home against the Cubs. Hey, sweep them again and the Brewers move into first place. (The Cubs lead the National League Central by 3½ games.) You wonder who’s going to available in the Milwaukee bullpen in that first game, however. Knebel has pitched three days in a row. Swarzak has pitched three days in a row. Josh Hader has pitched twice in three days and thrown 42 pitches.

Counsell and pitching coach Derek Johnson have done a terrific job with the Brewers’ staff. They’ve had to churn through 13 different starting pitchers. They’re still in it. They have 10 games left in 11 days, and they can still catch the Cubs. Who’s available? Everyone.

We love our round numbers in baseball. Chris Sale needed 13 strikeouts to get to 300, and he got 13 in a 9-0 victory over the Orioles:

Chris Sale had 300 on his mind tonight. #LightsOut http://pic.twitter.com/cOJ1EoFXlA

— MLB (@MLB) September 21, 2017

Sale became the first American League pitcher to get 300 K’s since Pedro Martinez in 1999 — and joined Pedro as the only Red Sox hurler to get there. He’s the seventh lefty in AL history to do so, joining Rube Waddell (look him up!) and Sam McDowell (“Sudden Sam” — one of the best nicknames ever), who each did it twice, plus Randy Johnson, Vida Blue and Mickey Lolich. Five NL lefties have done it: Clayton Kershaw, Johnson (four times), Sandy Koufax (three times), Steve Carlton and Lady Baldwin back in 1886. (More on Sale’s 300 strikeouts from ESPN Stats & Information here.)

Anyway, awesome milestone, but the important number from this game was that zero runs allowed. The Yankees had won earlier, so the Red Sox kept the margin in the AL East at three games. Since Sept. 5, the Yankees have gone 11-3 — but the Red Sox have gone 11-3. Boston’s magic number to clinch the division drops to eight, but they clinched a playoff berth with the Angels’ loss to the Indians on the West Coast.

Wild-card winner of the night. Well, we just told you the Rockies and Brewers lost. But the Cardinals won! They’re 2½ back of the Rockies. My man Tommy Pham had three hits, while Matt Carpenter, Dexter Fowler and Paul DeJong all homered in a 9-2 victory over the Reds. The Cardinals get the Reds again on Thursday, with a decisive advantage in the pitching matchup — Carlos Martinez versus Homer Bailey. Does it feel like the final mile of a marathon and the Cardinals might still have their legs for that final sprint?

Wild-card loser of the night. The Rockies have held a playoff position since April 14, and they’re safe for at least another couple of days. Despite these two road losses to the Giants, the Rockies could still finish with the best road record in franchise history. They’re 39-38, and they have finished above .500 on the road just once, going 41-40 in 2009, which was the year of their last playoff appearance. Their home winning percentage, however, is just 10th best in franchise history.

The Rockies have hit reasonably well on the road (for them) with a .706 OPS, the highest since 2009. But they haven’t hit as well at home as they have in some years. Their home/road OPS differential:

Rockies home-road OPS differentialYearCoors OPS advantage2017+1482016+1852015+1892014+2662013+1362012+2052011+1132010+2122009+132

If the Rockies end up missing the postseason, most will blame the pitching staff. And yes, the young starters and the bullpen haven’t been as good in the second half. But another reason to think about: They haven’t scored enough runs at home.

If you can mention Bye Bye Balboni, you have to do it. One of the most cherished records in team sports was finally broken on Wednesday. Steve Balboni’s Royals record of 36 home runs had stood since 1985, but Mike Moustakas finally broke it with this homer:

There’s a new home run king in Kansas City. #RaisedRoyal http://pic.twitter.com/2LHh0Lahfk

— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) September 21, 2017

Moustakas had been in a huge home run slump. He hit his 35th way back on Aug. 15. Since then, he had homered just once in 28 games and 91 at-bats. Some Royals fans wondered if Balboni had placed a curse on Moustakas. Apparently not the case. Remember a couple of years ago when Moustakas tried to focus more on hitting the ball to the opposite field? He went back to pull-heavy Moustakas this season. He has hit 15 more home runs than his previous career high.

He’s also the owner of my favorite oddballs stats of the season. Moustakas has struck out looking once all season — on a pitch low and away off the plate. Baltimore’s Chris Davis has fanned looking 72 times. That seems incredible, but Davis did it 79 times last season. Aaron Judge and Wil Myers are tied for second at 60.

Anyway, there were five team home run records older than Balboni’s:

Hank Greenberg, Tigers — 1938 (58)

Ralph Kiner, Pirates — 1949 (54)

Roger Maris, Yankees — 1961 (61)

Harmon Killebrew, Twins — 1964, 1969 (49)

George Foster, Reds — 1977 (52)

Big boys go yard. Giancarlo Stanton hit No. 56 and Aaron Judge hit No. 45. Judge also joined an exclusive club with Ted Williams and Al Rosen as rookies to reach 100 RBIs and 100 runs scored. There is some dispute over whether Rosen should be a considered a rookie: He wasn’t at the time (1950), but he would be under today’s standards, as he had just 65 plate appearances before that season.

Oh, J.D. Martinez hit another one as well:

No lead is safe with @JDMartinez14 at the plate. #JustDingers http://pic.twitter.com/xg9xWSO6bf

— MLB (@MLB) September 21, 2017

That’s 41 in 111 games for Martinez. That’s a pace of 59 homers over 160 games, but he missed time with an injury. His slugging percentage with Arizona is over .700 and it’s .672 overall — and 38 points higher than Stanton’s. Incredible.

Disaster strikes Puerto Rico. There have been 28 major leaguers to play in 2017 who born in Puerto Rico, including Francisco Lindor, Yadier Molina, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Correa and Jose Berrios. There are other players of Puerto Rican descent born in the States. Hurricane Maria — the first Category 4 hurricane to make a direct hit on the island since 1928 — has devastated the country. The entire island is without power. It could take months to repair the aging power grid, depending on the damage discovered, the governor said.

You can check the Twitter handles as many players sent out their thoughts. It couldn’t have been easy to play as they waited for news. As ESPN’s Marly Rivera reported, “I have talked or texted with a lot of the Puerto Rican players in MLB, and a lot of them have not heard from their families regarding the impact of Hurricane Maria.” Without power, communication is limited.

As the Houston area sets out on the long recovery from Hurricane Harvey and Florida from Hurricane Irma, don’t forget Puerto Rico, if you can afford a financial donation. Remember, these are our fellow U.S. citizens.

Then there was the earthquake in Mexico City that already has left more than 200 dead, as workers continue to dig through the rubble. These are our neighbors to the south. There are 15 major leaguers this season who were born in Mexico — interestingly, 14 of them pitchers — and, of course, many others of Mexican descent.

So, as we enjoy these final days of this little diversion called baseball, I think of those not as fortunate.

I think of a quote from Carl Sagan: “This is where we live, on a blue dot. … On that blue dot, that’s where everyone you know, and everyone you ever heard of, and every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives — it’s a very small stage in a great cosmic arena. I think this perspective underscores our responsibility to preserve and cherish that blue dot, the only home we have.”

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giantsfootball0 · 7 years ago

Text

Real or not? Brewers blow golden opportunity to catch Rockies – SweetSpot

The Rockies had already lost, shut out 4-0 in an afternoon game in San Francisco. With a win, the Brewers would tie the Rockies for the second wild card.

Milwaukee’s starter in this crucial game with 12 days left in the season: Aaron Wilkerson.

Who?

But here he was, making his first major league start.

Closer Corey Knebel leaves the field after surrendering the walk-off blast that cost his Brewers a shot at catching the Rockies in the National League wild-card race. Justin Berl/Getty Images

That’ll do it. Out goes Frazier! #Walkoff #RaiseIt pic.twitter.com/MJqiUuSMC8

— Pirates (@Pirates) September 21, 2017

We love our round numbers in baseball. Chris Sale needed 13 strikeouts to get to 300, and he got 13 in a 9-0 victory over the Orioles:

Chris Sale had 300 on his mind tonight. #LightsOut pic.twitter.com/cOJ1EoFXlA

— MLB (@MLB) September 21, 2017

Rockies home-road OPS differentialYearCoors OPS advantage2017+1482016+1852015+1892014+2662013+1362012+2052011+1132010+2122009+132

There’s a new home run king in Kansas City. #RaisedRoyal pic.twitter.com/2LHh0Lahfk

— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) September 21, 2017

Anyway, there were five team home run records older than Balboni’s:

Hank Greenberg, Tigers — 1938 (58)

Ralph Kiner, Pirates — 1949 (54)

Roger Maris, Yankees — 1961 (61)

Harmon Killebrew, Twins — 1964, 1969 (49)

George Foster, Reds — 1977 (52)

Oh, J.D. Martinez hit another one as well:

No lead is safe with @JDMartinez14 at the plate. #JustDingers pic.twitter.com/xg9xWSO6bf

— MLB (@MLB) September 21, 2017

So, as we enjoy these final days of this little diversion called baseball, I think of those not as fortunate.

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