#but it’d be really weird if she like. also refuses to acknowledge me outside of class? or anything like that..

[therosevest]

sorry bitterness consumes the soul etc etc <33 i will say though. depending on what is going through her head this could all be really fucking cruel lmfao

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 8: Rinkah’s Burning Loins

My Castle

After fully dedicating ourselves to Hoshido, the game finally really begins. We’re given access to a customizable castle in the Astral Plane where our army waits between battles. We can talk to our units, giving them minor stat boosts or new weapons. Right off the bat, we have a farm and spring to give us resources, rooms for Corrin and Lilith, and a Hall of Records.

In Lilith’s spring, we can feed her to make her level up. Different foods affect her stats in different ways. Note that, although Lilith now has stats, she isn’t usable in battle. Other players can invade our Castle through spotpass, which I’ll discuss in a later entry, and Lilith is only usable in those battles.

Lilith

Lilith is a weird squirrel dragon thing that floats around clutching a random ball. She used to be our stable girl and is now our pet. I think she has a crush on Corrin. Her design is unique and cute, I like it. Gameplay wise, she can only use a modified Physic staff. I don’t dislike her personality, but she feels like a throwaway character added at the last minute. She raises a ton of questions that I doubt will ever be answered.

In the Hall of Records, we can see descriptions of all the units we’ll ever recruit, rewatch cutscenes, read unreadable poems, and play around with a relationship tester. The relationship tester is randomized, by the way, which kinda makes it pointless. That said, it told me that Corrin expects betrayal from Rinkah, while Rinkah’s loins are set afire by Corrin. This is now canon, I have decided.

In Corrin’s room, we can change their hairstyle and invite an ally over to chill. I chose Kaze. He complimented Corrin’s piano skills, which she apparently has, then stared at us, blushing, while thanking us for saving him from Garon.

So, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. In the Japanese version you get to rub units while in close up mode. Like Pokemon Amie except...with people. This was removed in the English version. A lot of Fire Emblem fans were pissed, crying about censorship because Nintendo of America had the gall to remove the minigame where you rub Camila’s tiddies while she moans. And I’m going to say a hot take right now: they made the right call. That stuff was weird and indulgent. It was the living embodiment of the fanservice focussed design that plagues modern Fire Emblem games. Good riddance.

Inviting allies to Corrin’s cool sex treehouse boosts our support levels. I suppose it's time I mentioned that. In Fire Emblem games, units form bonds from fighting next to each other, unlocking short conversations that flesh them out as characters. Units also fight together better when they have high supports. Now, here’s the fun thing about supports:

There are more than 600 supports in this game. Not support conversations, support lines, each of which is made up of three or four conversations. And, because God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished, I’m going to read all of them.

Admittedly, I’m not going to unlock all of them. S-Rank conversations result in marriages and each unit only gets one. It’d take a few dozen playthroughs to get all of Corrin’s S-Rank conversations and I don’t hate myself that much, so I’m reading the transcripts from the wiki. I think I’m going to do four supports per Entry; that’ll leave me with a few extra by the time we reach the end, but I’ll just do a support grab bag entry or something.

Before we do supports, let’s finish up improving the castle. I built a weapon shop and a statue of Corrin that boosts her max speed. We are limited on the number of buildings we can build, but that isn’t a big deal yet because the only other option was to build a stave shop.

Support: Corrin/Rinkah

C: Corrin attempts to discuss battle tactics with Rinkah, but Rinkah blows her off and tells her to stop trying to be friends. Rinkah does acknowledge that Corrin’s authority and that Corrin saved her life, but tells the princess leave her alone.

B: Corrin pesters Rinkah until she explains why she’s so aloof. Rinkah explains that, the Flame Tribe keeps a great flame burning in the center of the village to honor the God of Fire. In the past, outsiders have extinguished the fire. One such instance was followed by a volcanic eruption that decimated the tribe. As a rule, the people of the Flame Tribe are wary of outsiders. Rinkah also explains that she’s working for Hoshido because her father commanded her to, much to her chagrin.

A: Rinkah explains that she would have preferred to die an honorable warrior’s death than be captured and resents Corrin for sparing her. Corrin says that she’s glad Rinkah is still alive, because it means Rinkah and her can be friends. Corrin also says that, despite the chaos of war, she believes in fate and its ability to bring people together. Corrin encourages Rinkah to use this opportunity to learn more about the outside world and bring that knowledge home with her. Rinkah begrudgingly agrees.

This is how the conversation will end on my playthrough, but if Corrin has a penis, you can get an S-Rank proposal conversation. I’ll be listing all of these off along with the normal conversations.

S: Rinkah comes to Corrin, blushing, and tells him that he has been a constant reminder of her shame and regret over being captured. But, over time, these feelings were replaced with love. Love that she hated, because Corrin is an outsider. Corrin says that he’s loved Rinkah since the day they met and only told her to be friendly to other people as an excuse to spend time with her. Rinkah states that, from now on, she will remember her capture as the happiest day of her life and the two get married.

Review: I really like this support line. It expands Rinkah’s backstory and culture, ties it into Corrin’s own isolation and belief in fate, and deals with the tumultuous meeting they had in Chapter 2. The confession comes out of nowhere, admittedly, but I do like Rinkah grappling with her mixed feelings of hate and love. Solid support.

Support: Corrin/Jakob

C: Corrin comes to Jakob to ask for a favor. Jakob interrupts her by humorously listing off the things he would do for Corrin. Things like slay dragons for her, which is actually kinda offensive now that I think about it. Corrin begs Jakob to allow her to be independent and Jakob refuses. Corrin explains that she’s his boss and he tells her that servitude is his reason for living. Jakob explains that, when he started working for Corrin, he was incompetent, and her kindness towards him made him indebted to her. The two compromise on the agreement that Jakob will teach Corrin how to make tea. After Corrin leaves, Jakob mumbles to himself that things might get apocalyptic.

B: Corrin repeatedly tries and fails to make a decent cup of tea. Both of them get some funny lines in, with Corrin telling Jakob that she can’t hear him because she’s ignoring him and Jakob saying that, saying that they’ll run out of leaves before Corrin makes decent tea. They meaning the nation in this case. Corrin eventually makes a passable cup, after Jakob secretly adds in sugar.

A: Jakob admits to Corrin that he messed with her tea and she laughs it off, admitting that she knew all along. She apologizes for being stubborn and accepts that she still needs Jakob’s help sometimes. Jakob says that he falls apart without Corrin. Corrin says that the two of them are alike in that way and Jakob literally faints from joy.

S: Jakob is acting more distant than normal. When Corrin asks him about this, he admits that he’s fallen for her and resigns from his duties as butler, because it is improper for him to have feelings for his mistress. Corrin begs him to say because she needs him and admits that she loves him too. The two of them get embarrassed and Corrin fires Jakob, giving him the new job of husband.

Review: This was a hilarious support that really made me appreciate Jakob’s snarky yet loyal personality. He is the perfect butler. The conflict of Corrin wanting to be independent and Jakob wanting to take care of her is a good dynamic that made me appreciate the relationship between these two characters. I do like them more as a platonic couple than a romantic one, but Jakob quitting his job because falling in love with Corrin is improper is a nice character moment.

Support: Corrin/Kaze

C: A villager gives Kaze a bunch of radishes because he’s super hot. And I mean, he is. Kaze apparently doesn’t realize that he’s hot until Corrin explains it to him. Kaze mentions that he dislikes the attention because he isn’t a good person before running off.

B: Corrin asks Kaze to follow her around so she can figure out what’s bothering him. Kaze says no, so Corrin annoys him until he agrees to hang out with him. Then he runs away again.

A: Kaze admits to Corrin that it was his fault that Garon kidnapped her, because when he was a child, he noticed the Nohrian soldiers that killed Sumeragi were in the city but said nothing about it. I don’t know how that makes Corrin’s kidnapping his fault, you’d expect there to be soldiers guarding a king. And the fact that Kaze was there means that there were also Hoshido soldiers, which means there was no reason to be suspicious of the Nohrians. Also, Kaze was a teenager at the oldest, so he should probably get some leeway. Whatever. Kaze apologizes to Corrin and Corrin, in turn, apologizes for making him live with guilt for fifteen years. Corrin also points out that Kaze led her home, meaning that they’re even now. Kaze compares Corrin to Mikoto because of her kindness and pledges to serve Corrin as her loyal retainer.

S: Corrin and Kaze joke around about Corrin’s kidnapping. It’s cute. Corrin mentions that, now that she’s spent so much time offscreen with Kaze, she likes him even more. Kaze blurts out that he loves Corrin, despite being her bodyguard, and the two propose.

Review: I found this chain a bit lacking, to be honest. The first two conversations were filler and the origin for Kaze’s guilt complex is kinda dumb. Kaze’s relationship with Corrin defines him as a character. He is so guilt ridden over her kidnapping that he would betray his country and his family to protect her. Later parts of the game hinge on this relationship. But, three of their four conversations are dull. I do like Kaze’s guilt complex as a concept, and think becoming Corrin’s retainer alongside Jakob and/or Felicia and a way to repent, but it isn’t enough to save this support line.

Support: Kaze/Rinkah

C: Kaze gets a bunch of candy for being hot and shares it with Rinkah, who secretly loves candy.

B: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

A: Kaze continues to give Rinkah candy.

S: Kaze reveals that he’s been giving Rinkah candy because he’s in love with her.

Review: This one was a big let down. The fact that Kaze and Rinkah are introduced together made me think it would be about their capture, but no. It’s just Kaze giving Rinkah candy for four conversations straight. And it’s cute fluff, but it’s nothing more than that. There is something interesting below the surface with Rinkah hiding her love of candy to protect her image, but it’s never really explored.

So, off to a mixed start with the support conversations.

Birthright Chapter 7: A Vow Upheld

Team Corrin heads to a Hoshidan fort where Sakura is tending to wounded soldiers. We are introduced to Sakura’s retainers, Subaki and Hana. Suddenly, the fort is attacked by Nohrian forces. Corrin and Azura point out the ridiculousness of them attacking immediately after they arrived. Sakura freaks out because the fort is being used as a hospital and has no military value. So apparently Nohr is now being evil just to be evil.

Subaki and Hana agree to help Corrin defend the fort and argue over who’s more important to Sakura, much to her annoyance. Subaki and Hana give me a good opportunity to discuss a few interesting things about classes in this game. First off, unlike in most Fire Emblem games, classes are NOT gender-specific, as demonstrated by Subaki being the first male Pegasus Knight in the series. Secondly, the classic Fire Emblem classes were divided between the two nations. Nohr got Mercenaries, Hoshido got Myrmidons. Nohr got Wyvern Riders, Hoshido got Pegasus Knights. Etc. I really like this, it gives the two countries different feels in combat both aesthetically and mechanically. Finally, a lot of Hoshidan classes were renamed to be more Eastern, shown by Hana being a Samurai instead of a Myrmidon, or by Sakura being a Shrine Maiden instead of a Cleric.

Subaki

Subaki is a Sky Knight, this game’s equivalent of a Pegasus Knight. He can fly over terrain and has good speed and resistance, but is decimated by arrows. His personal skill buffs his hit and avoid when he has full health. Design wise, I like how ridiculously smug he looks. Personality wise, he seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Hana

Hana is a Samurai with high speed and skill. Her personal skill damaged nearby enemies when she scores a kill. Her design is fine, if a little bland. Personality wise, she seems over-competitive yet fiercely loyal to Sakura.

Starting with this chapter, we have a prep menu, where we can choose which units to use and rearrange them on the map. We can bring our whole team in with us, so it’s a little pointless, but it's nice. Worth noting that you can have units start in pair up via this menu, unlike in Awakening where you had to pair them up after the battle started.

At the start of the battle, the chapter’s boss, a Cavalier named Silas, shouts out to Corrin that he’s her childhood best friend. She does not remember him even slightly. Okie dokie.

This map is decent. It’s a bit short, but it features a lot of good bottlenecks. The Dragon Veins can be used to open heal tiles, which is a bit pointless because you have two healers. When Silas and Corrin fight, he reiterates that they used to be friends. Corrin says that she can’t remember her past. And that confuses me, because I was under the impression that she got amnesia when she was taken to Nohr, which would have been before she met Silas. Unless he’s lying.

After the battle, Corrin refuses to kill Silas. She interrogates him about why he was so hesitant to attack them and he explains that, when they were children, he helped Corrin sneak out of the walls to have a picnic. The guards tried to execute Silas for this, but Corrin stopped them, because apparently guards listen to small children. Because of this, Silas feels he owes a debt to Corrin.

Question. Why was this random child allowed to play with the super secret hostage princess? Whatever.

Corrin eventually recovers a vague memory of Silas and asks him to join the gang. She explains that Garon is crazy and evil and that’s enough to make him swap sides. Silas is now officially the most sane character in the game. I mean, he should have probably realized this stuff before being sent to destroy a hospital for shits and giggles, but still.

Also, Silas mentions that Corrin’s favorite food is surf and turf. Perhaps this symbolizes how Corrin is stuck between both kingdoms? Or maybe it’s a random throwaway line. You be the judge!

At the end of the chapter, Saizo and a new character named Orochi show up, wounded, and report that Takumi and Ryoma have gone missing. Uh oh.

Team Corrin decide to help search for the missing princes. Sakura decides to come along, despite Corrin and Kaze’s objections. Silas also decides to come along and Saizo points out that he totally could be a spy or traitor. He’s a dick, but he is infinitely smarter than Kaze.

[cupcakemolotov]

New York, New York

So I finally finished a thing, and its not what I thought I was going to wrap up first but that is life! It is completely SFW, and very much “Canon, what Canon?” And its been more years than I willing to admin since I applied for colleges, I just glossed over those details. :)

Also, formatting, why are you like this.

-

Caroline rolled her eyes. “Bon. I don’t want to say I told you so but…”

The groan was loud in her ear. “I know, I know. But who would have thought it would be this bad?”

“Me. I thought it would be that bad,” Caroline said with a laugh. “And then I told you about it so you could avoid it. And then you didn’t.”

Bonnie muttered something so low, even Caroline’s vampire gearing couldn’t quite catch it. “Well, we're going to put down rules. As I’ve already told Elena, I might not be a vampire but I have a perfectly good set of ears and there are some things I do not need to hear.” Bonnie huffed out the last sentence. “And I refuse to have to spell my own bedroom to sleep.���

Caroline bit down on the side of her tongue to keep from commenting, knowing it would do little good. Somehow Damon and Bonnie had become friends, and while she would never understand it, she and Bonnie had come to an agreement. Caroline wouldn’t be automatically negative about Damon as long as Bonnie managed to do the same for some of Caroline’s friendships. 

It was a work in progress. 

“Well, if you need some breathing space, you are welcome to come hang out with me for a weekend. I’ve been melting my credit card, and I might as well use those points for something instead of shoes.” She glanced towards her bedroom and grudgingly admitted the next sentence. “I really don’t have the closet space for more shoes.”

Bonnie seemed to consider that. “Shoe collection aside, it can’t be that small…”

Caroline laughed. The apartment was a small one bedroom and technically outside of her budget, her dad’s insurance money only went so far, but she hadn’t felt a lot of guilt over her teeny tiny use of compulsion. Not when the renting market was so high and her textbooks were so expensive. And while hardly microscopic, her bed barely fit into the space designated as her bedroom. She did have walls that separate her bedroom from their living room, her couch, TV, and small table were tucked pretty close to her tiny kitchenette. The big selling point had been the claw-foot bathtub. She’d given up having a real shower, the  shower-head had been rigged above the tub and the shower curtain she’d bought was super cute but if she’d still been human the breeziness of the space would have been murder. Overall, the space she had carved out for herself was cute but cramped. 

And she wouldn’t change it for the world.

“It really can be. You should have seen Mom’s face when she agreed to co-sign, which is another really weird thing about this city. My credit check was stellar, I had the cash for the down payments and still they wanted a co-sign, but whatever. The good news is my obsession with HGTV has taught me plenty about hiding organizers, and thankfully, I don’t really need the kitchen.” She wrinkled her nose and looked down. “Though carpet is new but seriously ugly, so I am going to have to invest in a rug, I think.”

“The lack of needing a kitchen thing is kind of ideal for New York, but I personally am going to miss your stress brownies, though my hips wont,” Bonnie said with a sigh. “And your note taking. I already miss you in Physical Science, and why are Gen Eds so terrible?”

Caroline rolled her eyes. “It cannot be that bad.”

“Says you,” Bonnie retorted. “And anyway, Elena just stuck her head in to remind me that I promised to go to some Freshman Orientation event, so I guess I gotta go. Stay out of trouble, will you?”

“You first,” Caroline retorted. Bonnie laughed and disconnected the call. For a moment, she held onto her phone before sighing and setting it on the coffee table and flopping onto her couch. If she closed her eyes and listened she could hear everyone in her apartment building, which was something she hadn’t really thought about when deciding on an apartment.

Not that she’d had much time to figure things out. Weeks instead of months, but Forbes women were nothing but resourceful. And very, very determined.

Caroline just hadn’t expected her mom to get stubborn about her college experience. She’d expected Liz to be fine with Caroline going to Whitemore and sticking close to home, and it’s been a shock when things had gone sideways. When Caroline had marked down NYU on her SAT application form, it’d been on a whim. She’d been required to pick three schools and some part of her just couldn’t stick to the local community colleges. 

And later, when her counselor had handed her the application packets, she’d stared at them for hours, considering. She had never thought she’d get in or that she’d get enough of a scholarship that living in the city would be manageable if she was careful. Very, very careful with a bit of compulsion thrown in at least. She’s considered it for all of thirty seconds before tucking the acceptance letter away. 

There was just too much going on that she could walk away. Even with the Originals packing up and moving on, there was still her mom to worry about. One of the perks of being a vampire was that she could always pick up those dreams later. 

Her mom had disagreed. Loudly. It’s taken three days before Caroline has finally cracked, and admitted why she had refused. And she’d learned a lot about her mom that morning that she hadn’t expected, and hadn’t had much time to contemplate with the scramble of getting into NYU. Her mom hadn’t even argued when Caroline had dragged her to NYC to check things out and to smooth over the issues her late application had caused. 

Compulsion really was quite handy if she was careful with it. But more importantly, NYU was totally close enough that if she had to she could get on a plane for an emergency, but her mom, in a bit of underhanded maneuvering that Caroline had admired, had made a very specific list of what could be considered an emergency. And then she’d invited Elena and Bonnie over for dinner, and her mom had also explained it to them too. It’d been weird to have someone else fight that battle, but good. 

Above her, something crashed and there was muted swearing and Caroline sighed heavily. She was really going to have to make a point to stay well fed. Going on a rampage because Courtney in 4A couldn’t keep her dog from yapping at all hours of the night was not ideal. She had been prepared to listen to her neighbors have noisy sex, well, at least until she could get Bonnie here to do some proper spell work, but the rest of it was a learning curve. So far, eating had been going okay. 

She’d been getting tips. 

And boy, would her friends freak out as soon as they learned who she’d been texting. But Caroline had always considered herself pragmatic, and her options had been limited. Stefan would rather light himself on fire than give her any kind of 101 Guide To Eating People Without Killing Them, and she would rather light herself on fire than talk to Damon. 

Klaus…

She blew out a breath. Klaus was her friend, even if her graduation ceremony had made his position on… things… perfectly clear. But weirdly, she’d found his words strangely boundary defining and a relief. Last love was definitely not now, not anytime soon in fact, and his acknowledgement of that had eased the knot she always seemed to carry around in her chest. And so when she stood in the middle of the hustle and bustle of more people than she could remember really seeing in one place, like ever, she’d let herself text a number she’d refused to admit to anyone she had memorized ages ago. 

And he had responded. 

And Klaus had kept replying, no matter when she sent him a question. In between organizing her life and schedule, he’d been extremely helpful without any sort of judgement. If anything, he seemed more resigned to her lack of knowledge than anything else, providing her with Vampire Basics she’d never thought to ask Damon or Stefan about, and the knowledge had helped. Accepting the monster under her skin was not something that was going to be easy, but Klaus providing actual information about the whys and the hows helped far more than she thought she’d ever tell him. 

And his faith in her control was not something she’d ever expected to need. But he’d offered it with no prompting and the truth was she made an excellent vampire. She was good at it, thrived with the challenges of it, and she thought the next few years would be good for her. And it was nice, knowing that if she screwed it up she’d have people who’d help her fix it. Even if  some of them were just  a tiny bit more dangerous than others. 

Head tipping to the ceiling, she chewed on her lip and sighed. Putting Klaus in one category had never been easy, even when he’d been firmly in the villian bucket. She didn’t doubt he would continue to refuse any easy labels, and she thought she might be okay with that. 

For now. 

Pushing to her feet, she stretched and sighed. Classes started in two days, and while she’d already organized her books and started doing some pre-class reading, there was no harm in double checking her planners and reorganizing her books. And after, maybe she’d go for a walk. Check out some of the all night places near her place to plan for future all nighters. The kind of places you’d take broke friends to for pie.

The sudden knock on the door startled her, because she hadn’t noticed any unusual footsteps. For a moment, her pulse slammed in her ears as she recognized the slow thump of a dead heartbeat. A familiar barely their heartbeat that promised something old was outside her door, and one that should not be in New York City. Reaching for the phone she tossed on her coffee table she picked it up and typed out a quick text. No point in guessing who was there; not when it was pretty easy to check without moving any closer to the door. 

Caroline [8:30pm]: Seriously, tell me you are not standing outside my apartment. Like, right this second. 

A soft vibration, a low noise of amusement was all the confirmation she needed and Caroline stomped towards the door and yanked it open. “Are you serious right now? How do you even know where I live? I didn’t tell you that.”

Eyes gleaming, a hint of dimple curving in his cheek as he looked up from his phone, Klaus smiled at her. “Hello, Caroline.”

Arms crossed, she leaned against the door and huffed to cover the way her pulse skipped at the sight of him. He looked the same, same clothes and same hair, but she felt his presence with an awareness that did not bode well for her intentions of thinking of him as only a friend. Klaus had always straddled that line but here, outside of Mystic Falls, it somehow felt different. Better. And that was not something she could allow with her plans laid out in front of her. Plans that did not suit him. “Yeah yeah, hi. Why are you here?”

He slipped his phone back into his pocket, lips tugging upwards. “I was in town, and I thought I would stop by. See how you are settling in, perhaps come up with an idea for a house warming present, since it seems you will no longer need that mini-fridge, hmm?”

“In town,” she repeated, ignoring the rest of his words. “Doing what? Because I am attempting to avoid vampire shenanigans for the next four years, Klaus. I promised my mom.”

“Nothing like that,” he assured her. “Just a quick errand, and I head back to New Orleans tomorrow. I am quite invested in you having the experiences of your choice, sweetheart. No one will bother you while you are here.”

Caroline paused. “No one...  as in no one? Are you threatening people again? People I haven’t even met?”

“Not yet,” Klaus said mildly. 

She bit the tip of her tongue to stop the barrage of words that wanted to spill out. Slowly exhaling, she forced herself to let it go. There was a time and place for this discussion and she wasn’t sure right then was it, not when she was so surprised to see him, and she could hear some of her neighbors coming up the stairs. “Don’t think we won’t discuss this later but I suppose you can come in?”

“Thank you, and I don’t doubt it,” he murmured as he took her invitation and stepped into her home. His gaze swept her space and for a moment, she had to stop herself from fidgeting. This was her first space that was hers and Klaus was the only person besides her mom who had seen it. He walked slowly through her public space, and his words were sincere when he spoke. “You’ve done a lovely job with your home, love. “

For some reason, she had to fight down a blush. “Thanks. The carpet sucks though.”

He slid her a laughing glance. “An entirely fixable state of affairs.”

“You will not compel my landlord,” she warned him, exasperation almost hiding the hint of her own smile. “About carpet or anything else, Klaus.”

He made a low noise but no promises. “And how are you liking New York?”

She did smile then. “I love it. But we’ll see if that sticks when I have to deal with the snow this winter and pushy people and an overheated subway. I’ve been warned.”

His laugh was soft. “I think you’ll manage. And while it's a bit late in the evening, could I interest you in dinner? My treat.”

Caroline eyed him carefully. “Taking me to dinner will not get you out of explaining how you have my address or any potential yelling about it.”

Klaus slid his hands into his pockets and dimpled. “I would expect nothing else. But I do hope that’s not the only topic you wish to discuss tonight.”

Curious, she tipped her head. “Oh?”

He lifted a shoulder, gaze intent. “I assume you’ve picked out your classes? Have your semester organized down to the hour? And while I am certain you more than have the knack of feeding down, sweetheart, I’m happy to answer any remaining questions you have or even provide a demonstration or two.”

The idea of hunting with Klaus did something funny to her stomach, and she turned towards her room to cover it. “I’ll think about it. Give me ten minutes to change and then yes, you can take me to dinner. But not something fancy, I am not in the mood for multiple forks. But wine would be great.”

His laughter followed her into her bedroom and she shut the door. Taking a deep breath, she forced down her tangle of emotions. One night out with Klaus wouldn’t hurt anything, she reminded herself, and he was right. She did have questions, and lists, and she should probably take the opportunity to go over everything while he was here in person. Plus she’d be willing to bet he had an opinion or two he’d be willing to share about rugs. 

Squaring her shoulders, Caroline headed for her closet to slap together a friendly dinner date outfit that would be suitable even if he did take her somewhere with too many forks. But they were definitely going to be chatting about his business in the city, and how he would not be dropping by without warning whenever he wanted to.

No matter how nice it was to see him. 

[raguna-blade]

So carrying on the shared symbol thing with persona games, here’s a fun one that probably needs more time in the oven but hey, can come back later with later revelations

So, here’s one that technically shows up in the first game but doesn’t really become a thing until (I am assuming, i still need to actually play the first few and finish most of them but whatever) Persona 3

Evokers! Also known as guns. Specifically hand guns, but I think that’s the least important detail when one of the big symbols of your game is shooting yourself in the head to summon mythic figures.

So Evokers. In game, and as per the wiki, they are supposed to function by more or less...making you face mortality and the fact that you’re going to die for real.

By simulating shooting yourself in the face. It’s a good thing that the Kirijo group already got their mad science comeuppance because man, that’s kinda...

But hey, the logic and rules at play here do seem to be consistent across the games. To Summon a persona requires, apparently, a huge amount of stress and or trauma to activate properly, and the Evokers are a fast way to do that that isn’t, comparatively anyway, super duper traumatic. It’s free artificial trauma for everyone that is comparatively less permanent.

Which...Well I don’t believe that for a second considering SEES is one big trauma center. I don’t think there is a single person in that group who is trauma free really. Nobody is free of it, even the dog.

I mean maybe the protag, but they come off as super depressed to me.

But for the moment let’s accept that as true. If i’m wrong i’m wrong, but I think i’m right and i want to get to the juicy stuff.

So given evokers function by applying trauma directly to the soul to summon yon persona, I think it’s obvious then what guns are SUPPOSED to represent right?

Trauma. But not just any kind of trauma no. Remember, Evokers are supposed to basically be going Hey Trauma But For A REASON. To Summon a Persona. A persona which is used to protect yourself from something (Shadows technically, but A persona is a mask used to face life’s struggles as the games are so fond of reminding us.)

So, Guns are Trauma Turned Towards Protecting Yourself from...something. My understanding of psych stuff is you know, layman, but basically it’s an active self defense mechanism. Or at least turning that pain on outside hurty things.

So if this holds true as a consistent and shared symbol going forward, we should expect that everyone who uses a gun is both

A: Traumatized in some manner.

2: Actively Defending themselves possibly by literally using that trauma against things.

Which i’m sure is totally a healthy thing to be doing. Has to be. Can’t not be right?

I can see no possible way in which using your trauma like a club against the world can possibly backfire on you.

SO!

Who uses guns in the series going forward.

In Persona 4, We have two for sure, maybe a third. That is Naoto, Adachi, and Maybe Dojima (I assume he HAS a gun, but I don’t think he’s ever shown using it. I’m going to assume for the moment this is true as fits the analysis, cause it fits well enough, but if he actually pulls it out ehh)

Persona 5 has uh...literally all of the phantom thieves. Technically not morganna, but if you think a slingshot isn’t basically a fire arm, well sure technically but also you can absolutely kill someone with a slingshot don’t get it twisted. But yeah, all of the phantom thieves and ESPECIALLY Akechi, since he uses a real one. Well, sans Futaba, but we’ll get there.

And do these individuals demonstrate being both traumatized AND using that as some kind of defense mechanism...?

yeh.

So start with P4. Now compare the other persona users in 3-5, the group in 4 is actually really well adjusted. Like yeah, you have some elements of stress and being an outcast and elements of weird harrowing stuff happening to them sure. I mean if nothing else they’re in the middle of a murder mystery with a serial killer in town, that’s stressful for anyone, let alone the weird supernatural shit on top of it, and then there’s the more mundane stressors.

But...Uh...Largely, they’re handling it pretty well actually. Protag was pretty alright moving to town and seems to get along with people well. Yosuke had the dislike of being in town but he had friends, he wasn’t really hated or anything. Chie is pretty alright, Yukiko is stressed but not exactly freaking out, Kanji has some shame going on however you want to frame that i’m told it reads different for japanese audiences though it’s not mutually exclusive, Teddie DID in fact have an existential crisis but that’s not really the same thing i think, Rise is hella stressed, and then there’s naoto who uh.

Kid’s got some problems. They’re also the only one who uses a gun So Hey First stop.

So depending on how you want to read it, Naoto is either dealing with some trans issues or just aggressive and unending misogyny given their profession. Personally while i can see the naoto is trans reading, the game doesn’t explicitly come out with that as the issue, while it DOES with the misogyny so I’m going with that. If you do think it’s more that than what i’m going with, you can easily sub it in I think since from what i’ve heard on the subject suggests it very much CAN be traumatizing dealing with that in society....And also because it’d still feed back into the misogyny thing so it comes back to that anyway.

Regardless. This is a thorny enough issue really, so i’ll strive to not fuck up but please forgive me if I do cause it’s not intentional.

What do we see with Naoto? They’re a genuinely skilled, talented and experienced detective, and at a really young age. Their skills are undeniable really, and they’ve got acclaim and real accomplishments under their belt.

They are also, apparently, belittled constantly because they’re read as female and that is apparently far far more important than their skill. Because of that they’re belittled, talked down to and dismissed purely because of that.

And Naoto is fucking tired of it. So much so that they do everything in their power to present as male and believe they should straight up just...cut out whatever lady aspects are there and just go full dude.

Which here you get two really radically(?) different readings depending on if you fall on the Naoto is Trans and so fucking tired of the misogyny vs Naoto Is fucking Tired of the misogyny and so damn desperate.

In case A, Naoto genuinely believes they’re a dude, and genuinely believes duding it up will solve their problem....But they’re rejecting that part of themselves actively, and refusing to acknowledge it at all. That’s a problem for him, if only because actively rejecting a part of yourself is by no means a healthy thing, especially when it keeps getting brought up constantly in your line of work (I can only imagine how much this would suck to be dismissed because people think you’re a girl when you’re a guy but also you’re denying that you’re a guy and recognize that even if you were outwardly a guy they would STILL dismiss you as a girl even though you’re not. Just typing that out is...yech.)

In Case B, you have a still tired of the dismissal, but also they think they radically need to change their body and gender just to get anywhere in the world which is egregiously fucked up because you know. She’s good at her job! Why should she HAVE to be a dude to get anything done? It’s fucked up.

But they’re a gunman! So...i mean i guess it’s obvious what the trauma at play here is, it’s gender related regardless of how you slice it and how is it used...? Naoto disguises (or “disguises”) themselves as a guy, actively using the thing that they’re being traumatized by to fight back against the world in some way.

I mean as thorny as the issue is in the reading it, the outcome is at least simple enough under the shared symbols thing.

Ok, but what about Adachi...? Welllllllllllllllllll

Adachi is definitely traumatized I think but it's not in the kind of way that's sharp and specific. I'm cribbing a bit off of [https://youtu.be/8qG8Mqe_1v8] with their description of how Adachi reacts to the Scoobies calling him out.

To summarize and or paraphrase, it's not that there's a specific thing that broke Adachi down. It's that he's trapped in a job he hates, or at least without the possibility of improvement. He's shoved in a backwater town when he's a city boy. He feels ignored, he doesn't like the people around him very much, he's got basically no money, he has no significant other, he has to just keep going and existing day in and day out and it's...

God it's so fucking soul killing.

It's not like his childhood was better apparently, in that it basically was a prelude to adult hood but also unlike then, he didn't have the supposed promise of do well in school and get cool shit that was summarily broken.

So what's a guy who's made to feel worthless, made to feel like a nobody, made to feel utterly disenfranchised, and has actual evidence to support some of this (keep in mind the reason he got reassigned did involve him screwing up somehow, though I don't think it's explained what or how) going to react when given the ability to act out with no consequences, or seemingly?

Well, I imagine that you would see them do some fucked up shit really. We've seen people in real life do things just as bad if not worse, and the exact way he wields his trauma is well...sadly understandable to anyone.

Though another interesting shared thing, which I neglected earlier and MAY share into the Gun Imagery is a sense of isolation. Which...Actually. Actually may track. Evokers are used by well...ritualistically killing yourself, which is for all the harm it throws out to everyone connected to you, is also a very solitary act. And in both cases here, the characters are in a very real way killing their true selves in order to deal with the world (In adachis case by presenting a fake version of himself and in Naoto's case by actively rejecting a part of themselves however you want to spin that one)

This does raise a question of the SEES gang having elements of isolation which off hand I want to say yes that's the case across the board, and only by coming together do they win but I also legitimately cannot recall how it plays out beyond the minimal We're The Only Ones Capable of Dealing With This thing which isn't quite the same thing. The ritualized killing yourself still stands so that's still in play really, and i'll keep an eye on it going forward.

I should probably ALSO keep an eye on the uh...Suicide aspects. Even looking back at Naoto and Adachi they have elements of it, although more figurative than literal. Both very much have a life is over thing related to their careers and where they end up when first introduced, so it's not an unreasonable call though the strict actual read of suicide suicide is...Hmmm...

Well I suppose Adachi's chunk of the world is accessed through the noose room if I recall, so that might not be quite as empty a connection, while Naoto's secret lab thing may not be quite as on the nose it does focus on a destruction of self in some way given the way a lot of those secret labs go about doing things in those shows.

That is, there's generally one of two outcomes. Either the Evil Org creates a mindless/corrupted pawn to use whatever their powers/abilities are for the organization (see every monster of the week) OR they create a hero/renegade warrior that uses those very same powers they were imbued with against them....Which suddenly makes me wonder if the the ambiguity of if Naoto's transness vs woman in male spaces thing is intentional in regards to how to read that section. If so that's actually clever as hell because then either way you want to read it the literal what's going on with their shadow (body modification either to become their true self and the rejection of that or to be able to actually be respected for their work and the implied destruction of self that's going on there) it reads as this is bad so...Kudos.

Anyway, off topic, maybe another day.

All this said, this leads to Dojima who SHOULD have a gun and probably does, but...never uses it that I can recall, not once. Doesn't even show up with a gun if memory serves.

It's not that he's not traumatized. He most definitely does have some shit kicking around what with the dead wife, disconnect from his daughter and all that, but he never really...weaponizes it does he? He never turns it on others, never uses it to isolate, none of that. Which is interesting because as a Cop I think we can safely say he SHOULD have a gun of some flavor right? That does seem to be the vibe, and yet he doesn't freak out. The reason why is heartfully straightforward though.

Nanako. He can't exactly revel in his hurt and lash out at folks with it. Like yes, he's not winning parent of the year at the start of the game by a long shot, but frankly emotionally distant and neglectful after your wife died but still trying (failing but trying, critically, the trying) is not the worst spot to be in, no way. And he takes to reorienting things quite well once he get's the additional stability in his life Yu and (at least in part) Adachi.

Which, really, is what also ended up saving the SEES members. Not Yu, but the fact that they managed to form genuine connections with each other that let them get past the hurt and not be taken up and swallowed by it. It's why Adachi ended up going the way he did because he really DIDN'T forge those connections, and because of the whole everything he couldn't really get out of that loop and fix himself up.

I mean Izanami's game basically threw two whole ass people into the deep end of their problems but this ain't about her right now.

So ok, that's the group from 4 and right now this is feeling pretty consistent.

So let's get to the group that has literally every party member carrying with The Phantom Thieves.

So...again, to bring it back, Guns symbolically here are weaponized trauma right? They're using that to strike back against what's threatening you, often by using it against them.

Now, there are variances with the phantom thieves for sure, and the most relevant and DIRECT one is that all of them, every last one, is an outcast of some flavor from the social norms, and this has screwed with them something fierce. Now it's not as apparent or visible in all cases, but I'll get into specifics as we go down the list, but I want to say this at the top because it fundamentally comes down to Because Of this outcast status, this particular form of trauma, they became the Phantom Thieves, and in doing so struck back against the society that hurt them, with the intent to inspire those like them.

Well not Akechi, but his specific issues at least nominally align I guess.

Anyway. I won't go into as much detail here, but I feel it's worth pointing out that their Phantom Thieves Personas are probably the cleanest way to point out how they go about weaponizing their various more personalized traumas to protect themselves and fight back.

Joker: Accused of a crime he didn't commit, sent to a city away from his family and friends, said to be a violent felon...Like it's not exactly brought up in the game in part because he's a silent protag but Joker absolutely had his life ruined. Like full stop, his world fell apart over night, not because he did something wrong but because he tried to do the right thing. And then Kamoshida happened which basically took boyo from being merely fucked over to losing what little he had left (where what he had left was a friend of a friend of his folks taking him in and shoving him in a drafty attic)

And then from said trauma he created the well...Joker Persona. Someone who emphatically is a criminal, the kind of guy who is actually pretty ominous when you consider the knife,gun and dark outfit combo making him look like some kind of assassin. That he helps people is probably a small miracle really.

But by the same token, it's blatantly clear the persona that he pretends at school is not his true self either. He has to hide himself, make himself look small and innocent and as unthreatening as humanly possible. He's not, by any means but...

Morgana: Imagine you wake up one day and you remember maybe your name, a few random bits of information, and nothing else except that you were (probably) a human and now decidedly are not. That's...Rough man. It's just rough to deal with and it's awful, and then you just keep getting hit with that fact over and over and over again. Mona's pretty straightforward, but it tracks that they would make themselves out to be the cool collected sort that they do (even though they botch it nigh constantly). If you can't remember anything about yourself, make yourself out to be the coolest smartest most talented type right?

Ryuji: He literally had an authority figure not only mock his family situation, he straight up broke his leg, killed his dream of running track, ostracized him from his friends and peers, put more pressure on his mom. He was reduced to a thug and his response to that was, apparently, let me be a (diet) delinquent then. It's not like he did anything bad really but he certainly stopped giving any kind of a shit to the world. His attitude got turned up for sure. This got more emphasized with the Actual Skull persona as a phantom thief, where he's far more intimidating, outright hostile and violent (A bat and a shotgun? yee)

Ann: I mean there's the obvious sexual assault, her friend attempting suicide, etc, but i've seen it pointed out that a good chunk of Ann's problems are also based in the fact that she's white in japan, so basically she straight up has to deal with racism too. It's why she's considered the sexy one for example (girls like her are easy you understand) so it's...well. How the game handles (or doesn't) that aside, the persona she ends up developing first off a very blithe sort of vibe to how the world views her (seen in her confidant arc) before ultimately gravitating to having more active control over her image and consciously choosing how the world will view her instead of them making the choice themselves.

Yusuke: Abusive parents (which is damn near a theme with the phantom thieves. Families being broken or Abusive which is hm) who actively stole his work, and he knew about it. It very clearly messes with his art and his relationship to this thing that he loves, and even after knowing how his adoptive dad was abusing him and other students and making a mockery of art...To which he actively throws himself into Art EVEN HARDER than before, as a dedicated fuck you on the subject. Actually straightforward, which is perhaps weird for Yusuke, but hey they can't all require deeper reading.

Makoto: Makoto's deal is a bit more complicated but boils down to She's tired of having all these expectations pushed onto her and dictating the exact kind of person she should be. Always the good girl, always kind and elegant, soft spoken, I mean she knows aikido and is supposed to be good with it. Which is why she turns that around is basically Lord Humongous, albeit less jacked dude in bondage gear and more Badass Violence Biker. Just let it all out and take no shit from anyone ever. Again straightforward enough.

Futaba: Now...Here's a weird one to say because it's...She doesn't have a gun. I mean we could probably make a fair enough statement, if an absolutely buckwild one, that she does not at this point have a trauma. Or at least, not one that is weaponized. Because well...Her issues were very self focused. She thought her mom killed herself because of her, and that almost made her (futaba) kill herself. That's not a great place to be, but it's not like she ever takes her dead mom issues out on the world. She doesn't even really take her extreme social issues out on the world. If anything she pretty much...Has them and kind of deals with them quietly.

I suppose you could say that her weapon of choice is the computer. It's no gun, obviously, but unlike everyone else up til this point she also doesn't really...hide herself. There's no fake persona (in the not summoned beings of myth and story) that she presents to the world. She's decisively genuine about everything, and pretty much the only difference between her and her Oracle persona is neat goggles yeah? Which makes her an interesting pair with Maruki who we'll get to later as another gun not haver.

Haru: Kind of a complicated one, though also kinda straightforward. She's ostracized from her father and finds the abuse that he's laying down on the people who work for them abhorent, which is bad enough, that kind of realization that your life is built on the suffering of others. There's also the uh...It's not strictly this because arranged marriages are very much business affairs more than romance, but the way it's portrayed definitely reads as her dad selling her which is you know. Not...ideal, though her specific reservations there seemed less the arranged marriage (it's business she get's it) but more the dude was an creep and also again the abuse. The family motto being betray anyone to get ahead (paraphrased to hell and back) also suggests some not so great things really, though her bond with her dad did seem to be genuinely strong, which is why her reaction is tada heroine of justice.

Which, I just realized this and I gotta point it out, actually lines up MARVELOUSLY with Morgana and Zorro. Wealthy Individual who see's the crimes and evil deeds of the world and decides to mask up and fight the crime they cannot contest with their unmasked face, warring against the system that enriched them at presumable cost to themselves because it's the right thing to do? Beautiful. Probably should look into that more. But yeah.

Sumire: I mean...I mean she basically straight up says I think I was second best to my sister in everyway and then I got her killed and her reaction to that was Let Me Be My Sister and well...yeah that's exactly how she dealt with her trauma, albeit with a little bit of magic help. And Perhaps most notably, this is almost the most explicit demonstration of Evoker Gun Antics because She Creates a Persona (“Kasumi”) To Protect Herself (alldattrauma.exe) by using that trauma (dead sister) against the world (Literally everyone else) it's...Actually a really clean example I think?

Akechi: Last but not least of the gun havers, Akechi who uh...Outcast because of family reasons (single mom, Dad's a creep) in a way that just...We don't actually ever get the details I don't think, but the way he reacts to it I think makes it clear that his whole life was basically a string of kick this kid while he's down, keep him outside the system, and of course the persona he ends up creating, both of them, end up being one the charming charismatic prince who seeks justice and a bloodthirsty lunatic, neither of which accurately reflect his true self I don't think. Aspects of it sure, but not completely. If pressed, I would say that the Akechi we see in the Third Semester is probably the closest even though he's probably a dream Akechi, being someone who does have a distinct judgement for what is right and wrong but also, critically, can and will shoot you in the face cackling as his plans come together. Rather like Joker actually, which is appropriate given their mirrored trickster roles, and the general shape of their outcomes (both get their smuggery on when things go to plan)

Anyway, the way he reacts to being forced to live an outcast is as mentioned, let me get back into that system, let me be part of it and all that.

And last but not least

Maruki: Now...He doesn't have a gun. It doesn't quite match up with the symbol thing which I think at this point is established enough that it's probably some kind of thing, but what I find interesting is that...he fits MOST of the criteria right? Definitely has a trauma that shaped how he reacted to the world and yet, it's not weaponized right? It doesn't well...evoke a different persona from him. It's not weaponized to protect him and that seems odd right? He ends up with a Palace right?

Sure. But I want to go back to what i'm proposing the Evokers Represent.

Trauma, A Destruction of the Self (Suicide literal or figurative), Isolation, and weaponizing your trauma to protect against the world...And he only actually tracks to the Trauma part of that. He IS hurt for sure, no question. He is fighting back against the world in his own way for sure, what with Azathoth and his mind whammy, and I would say that the nature of it is directing how he's doing things (no more pain for anyone yeah sure)

But where it falls apart, and actually DOES line up with the guns as metaphor for those things mentioned, is that he doesn't really Isolate. He doesn't present a fake self to protect himself. He doesn't destroy an aspect of himself to protect himself. No, he's extremely upfront that “No this is bullshit, it should change, fuck this noise, I'll do what I can with what I can and oh hey godlike power now I can help everyone”

Which cool, except that apparently in the Stay in Maruki's world ending he kinda fades into the background, which suggests the self destruction but no, not even then really. Like I know I made a bit of meta about him obscuring himself and kinda fading away as a person, but I don't think it's strictly meant to be get rid of yourself so much focus on the message and not the messenger. You can throw your mask away. No more pretending. You don't have to hurt anymore. As the song goes.

And it's worth pointing out that, in comparison to literally everyone else on this list, Maruki is unambiguously a healthier person mentally by a long shot. Shady antics with Sumire aside, He genuinely wants to help people, he want's them to be better the right way ideally but if he had the means to do it of course he'd just hot delete those deeply traumatic and life shattering pains that they couldn't overcome. Then he does get that ability. And Then he does do that.

Anyway, the ramblings on long enough, and I kinda feel i'm drifting, but yeah. Think this is another symbol that tracks (I probably wanna check out Persona Q and Q2, but what I know on those does have it break down a bit but they're also not mainline games so I'm not sure how to square that so....)

[edgydepressedchoicesthot]

Act of Courage (Noah/MC, Lucas/MC)

Summary: It shouldn’t feel like this, after all this time. We won, didn’t we?

No, Josh realized. We didn’t.

In which a survivor contemplates what was, what is, and what could have been.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24061654

@ladyseaheart1668, @marmolady, @it-lives-in-westchester

A/N: Between work, college, and my f*cked up head, finishing this up took a lot longer than it should have. I'm trying to make writing into my coping mechanism, so that I'll do it more, lol ;D

I have one more fic I promised on tumblr, an AME one I'm gonna work on. I'm also gonna try to go back to my ES novelization, so stay tuned for that for its continuation.

————————

The two of them were at Josh’s place, waiting for Ava, Andy, Dan, and Lucas. Lily was sick in bed and Stacy was visiting her grandma out of town, leaving Noah and Josh waiting for the four others while they drew figures in the dirt in the yard with sticks and talking about anything their minds jumped to.

“Hey, Noah?”

The boy turned towards his friend.

“Yeah?”

For a moment, Josh, who was as lively as ever seconds ago, was being uncharacteristically quiet.

“Do you…like anyone?”

“‘Like’,” Noah repeated. “Like I like you and Jane and the others? Or you mean like-like?”

“Um, yeah” Josh nodded, blushing. “Like-like.”

“Then no,” the other boy shrugged. “Stacy, Lily, and Ava are fun to hang around, but I don’t like-like anyone.”

“What about,” Josh began hurriedly, but slowed down. “What about boys…?”

“Huh?”

“Do you like-like any boys?”

Josh was beet red. Noah was just confused.

“No,” he shrugged. “I’m a boy. It’d be weird if I liked-liked a boy. That’s what my mom says though.”

“Right…” Josh looked hurt. “Right, forget it.”

Noah wanted to ask why his friend looked so sad.

He hated it when Josh got upset. Unlike Jane, who’d get mad, Josh would be quiet, pouty, and would go off by himself, refusing to ever acknowledge what made him upset in the first place.

But before Noah can say anything, the doorbell rang and their friends poured inside.

Noah forgot that Josh even asked him any question about who he liked.

It was something they’d both forget in the years to come, a memory of the conversation fading into a small feeling.

————————

After reading Lucas’s texts, Josh shoved his phone into his pocket. His smile started to fade as he continued down the road, focusing on his surroundings.

It really is a beautiful day, Josh mused.

And he hated it.

The sun shone through the trees in a way that reminded him of an image you’d find on a tourist pamphlet.

It made Josh think about how the only thing this town is good for is being fake.

Like how the town somehow fooled themselves into thinking everything was just a freak animal attack.

But the more he thought about it, Josh guessed he couldn’t blame the town for that. Having to deal with the truth might actually be more of a clusterfuck than it all happening.

It was all a question of why.

Why did this all happen to them? Why was he the one who had to find Redfield’s shack?

All he had to do was keep his goddamn mouth shut about some stupid fucking rock floating all those years ago…

It’s my fault.

Josh scoffed.

Like that’s big news.

And when it was time to pay the piper, Josh was too much of a coward to do anything…

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Josh forced himself to think about something, anything else.

His mind wandered from the date Lucas promised they’d have before he went back to his university, to that new video game Lily’s been raving about, Stacy’s latest Pictagram post about celebrating another perfect score on an exam, Ava’s latest binge on occult books in the library, Andy whining about how he just wants to be free of high school already, Dan’s updates on his new art blog…

…Noah crying, apologizing…

Josh wiped tears from his eyes as he kept walking.

————————

Noah always envied Josh.

He was a charismatic go-getter where Noah was shy and bookish. Josh always got stickers that came with having a perfect score on spelling tests, ones that Noah just passed by never more than five points. Josh was brave enough to make the first move in befriending him and Jane, and began their circle of friends the same way.

Noah not only hated how he was too wimpy to ever say any of this out loud, but also that he held this kind of resentment towards one of the best friends he’s ever had.

Noah hated how nervous he feels around Josh too. How he can’t help but constantly compare himself to him.

Josh was like the sun; radiant and bright and impossible to miss, and Noah had felt like the grimy earth beneath it.

But everything changed after Jane died.

Their whole group of friends changed. They started to see each other less and less, and eventually, they never saw each other outside of school.

Having different classes in middle school widened the gap between them, leaving silent nods as the last bit of interaction they had.

Soon, even those were gone.

Even after they all fell apart, Noah couldn’t help but notice Josh.

Before, Noah had always seen Josh happily chatting with at least one person.

Now, Noah never saw him hang out with anyone ever again. He was like the dusty remains of a star that went out.

There were times Noah wanted to reach out, to see if they could be friends again, to hang out, laugh together, be together-

-and Noah would stop himself when he came short of any reason Josh would want to talk to him.

————————

“You look like shit.”

“Hello to you too, Ava.”

Josh was semi-thankful that his shift at one of the town’s few fast food places started early in the morning. Only a handful of people stepped in here for breakfast, and none of them were impossible to deal with. So, for a few hours, Josh could enjoy a bit of peace before the lunch rush.

And it was always good to see a friendly face.

“Alright, fuck the pleasantries then.”

Usually.

Ava stretched her hand at Josh and waved it dramatically.

“In the name of the Dread Goddess Hekate, get me my usual.”

Josh punched in the register an order for an apple pie and a milkshake.

“That’ll be $2.78.”

Wordlessly, Ava hands him money and Josh went in the back to get her order.

“Talked to Tom today,” Ava said. “He looked really interested in the stuff I found in Cora’s shack. Maybe he can be my apprentice or some shit.”

“A witch’s apprentice?”

“Turned him down. Teaching is a rock bottom I’ll never hit.”

“Cuz the teacher’s at school we sooo great.”

“You get it.”

Josh finished up, pie in a paper bag and milk in hand.

“So, you talk to people,” she asked before he held out her order. “You’re social like that. Everyone’s gonna be at the memorial tonight, right?”

“Yup,” Josh nodded. “All seven of-”

Josh stops himself, remembering what happened to the seventh.

Ava’s face went steely, and for a moment it looked like she had a lot to say.

“Hand me my order,” she sighed. Josh obliged.

Before Ava walked out, she stopped and did a half turn. Josh sees several shifts to and from anger and sympathy.

“Tale care,” she said before leaving.

————————

Noah couldn’t remember the last time he and Josh talked.

So, when Josh sat next to him at the pep rally, he hoped his quietness came off as indifference, and hid his anxiety about the whole situation.

Josh didn’t seem to mind, since he started talking semi-comfortably. He was mellower and less gloomy than he used to be, and Noah felt the familiar jealously that was always the third companion amongst the two.

The pep rally ended after the blackout, Josh called everyone to meet after school, and four of them were stocking up on makeshift weapons.

When Josh told Noah that he won’t leave him again, he let himself believe it.

Noah halfheartedly thanked Josh, and for a second was afraid his sort-of-friend would take offense.

But instead, Josh smiled at him, and Noah felt like he was looking at sunshine.

A warm feeling bloomed in Noah’s chest, and it stuck around even when they were done talking and gone back to looking for weapons.

Noah remembered the warm feeling later on, when he noticed how Josh’s face was red when he was close enough to Lucas, how he stammered a bit more when the two were talking.

Noah wasn’t as dumb as he was as a kid. He knew that Josh liked Lucas. He also didn’t want to believe he was feeling jealousy, because of what it implied.

It wasn’t until during Britney’s party that Noah started to ask himself where these feelings for Josh came from. Was it sometime after everyone drifted apart, and their absence leaving an ache in his heart? Or was it before, when they were younger, innocent, and still friends?

After the party and after Josh revived his hope for the future (something he’d been doing well the past few days), his own personal devil reared its shadowy head, and signaled the end.

In the near future, while they were all forced to play the game again, Noah would wonder if anything could have happened to keep this whole mess from happening.

If he just told Redfield to fuck off, or just ignored him (no, her).

————————

“In school,” Andy said with a mouth full of pizza. “You froze up every time you had to present something. And up there, you didn’t break a sweat.”

Josh was taken by surprise when Stacy’s mom called him up to say a few words (he didn’t even think the town’s mayor even remembered his name). Surprisingly, where there was usually quick breath and sweating, there was just emptiness.

His mind flashed to Cora when he was up, about how she risked her life to help them and went to warn them while she was injured and dying.

And then it went to Noah.

He kept his part about Noah as brief as possible, and stepped down the second he gave his last “thank you”.

Josh would like to say that Lucas’s hug and quick kiss after the memorial made him feel better, but after talking about Noah, he couldn’t shake the feeling like he was betraying him.

“I get a lot of speech practice when dealing with customers from hell,” Josh finally answered, shrugging.

“You mean Ava?” Andy snarked.

“Andy, don’t be mean,” Lily scolded

“You think I take offense to that?” Ava grinned evilly. “I go there on the weekends.”

Josh finished his Graveyard, and turned to Lucas, right next to him.

“Bartender, one more.”

“One for me too,” Stacy smirked, wiggling her empty cup.

“I think you’ve both had enough,” Lucas said in mock seriousness.

“How can you stand to drink those?” Tom asked. “I almost hurled taking a sip!”

“That’s it, you’re dead to me,” Stacy pouted theatrically.

“Aw, come on,” Lily nudged Stacy with her shoulder. “We all just pledged our eternal devotion to each other five minutes ago!”

And just managed to avoid talking about Noah…

Noah could be here. Right now.

Maybe not here though. The others might still hate him, maybe not, but at least he’d be alive. Maybe everyone would even slowly come to stop hating him.

He could find a way to pay for culinary school. He could open up the diner he talked about…

And I wish I could just stop thinking about those last moments…

Josh has vague memories of blushing and being embarrassed around Noah when they were younger, but he didn’t think it had meant anything.

Every time Josh started thinking about his...crush, if he could call it that, he’d just start thinking of Lucas, and guilt of betrayal would stab at his gut.

Josh’s eyes drift over to Dan, who’s been silent the whole time, aside from giving halfhearted laughs and accepting Graveyard refills…

…along with bringing up the one who’s been on Josh’s mind for a while.

“Well…not the whole group.”

Josh remembered that this night would end, and that everyone would go back to dealing with their trauma.

Not alone. Please for the love of god not alone.

He felt like some kind of traitor again, for feeling this awful around people with whom he should be happy.

It shouldn’t feel like this, after all this time. We won, didn’t we?

He remembered the panic attack he talked Lily through by phone after Britney called him, begging for help. He remembered Ava’s blank face as the signs of a flashback started to show. He remembered the bags under Stacy’s eyes as she drank more coffee than was healthy. He remembered the late night texts from Andy faking small talk when he couldn’t sleep and needed some anchor to reality. He remembered the way Dan finally admitted with tears that he wasn’t fine, was anything but fine.

And he remembered seeing the thing that used to be Noah in the ruins, looking back at him with those white eyes before vanishing.

No, Josh realized. We didn’t.

————————

Seconds ago, Josh had gotten Noah out of Redfield’s (no, Jane’s) control as he was seconds away from being stabbed.

He goaded and taunted the monster they all feared since childhood, and fended it off with a whistle.

So this should be easy, right?

Taking Jane’s place so she could finally be free of the hell she spent nearly a decade in.

“I’m sorry, Josh,” Noah sobbed. “Please…please tell my mom-”

“Wait!” Josh said shakily. “It doesn’t have to be you!”

“Josh, please, it had to be me,” Noah begged. “Let me do this. Let me fix my mistakes.”

“NO!” he screamed. “Don’t you dare! Let me do this! Let me take her place instead!”

Except…

Josh didn’t say any of that.

He wanted to stop Noah, he wanted to so much, but no matter what, his throat wouldn’t obey.

When it mattered the most, all he could give is silence.

If the two of them were any closer, their faces would touch. Unfallen tears pooled in Noah’s eyes, filled with regret

Josh didn’t know what to do. He wanted to scream at Noah. He wanted to hug him and never let go. He wanted to punch him.

But Noah acted before Josh could.

His lips weren’t soft, but warm and gentle, and soon turn salty when tears hit their lips. Neither of them knew whose.

“I’m sorry,” Josh lost count of the number of times Noah’s apologized today. “I just…I needed to do that. Just once…”

Those are the last words Noah ever said as a human.

————————

The night ended with everyone promising to see each other tomorrow, and soon after that.

And so, here were Josh and Lucas, waiting together on a bench on the sidewalk for Josh’s mom to come pick them up and give Lucas a ride to his house.

Despite everyone parting with the unspoken promise of this goodbye isn’t for good, Josh couldn’t help that irrational fear that the opposite would be true, and they’d all fall apart over again.

“You good?” Lucas pulled Josh out of his thoughts.

“Huh?” he mumbled dumbly.

“You’re squeezing my hand pretty hard there,” Lucas shakes his hand holding Josh’s, and he finds out he’s right; Josh is squeezing Lucas’s hand like some kind of lifeline.

“Sorry,” Josh says sheepishly as he eases his grip, but Lucas gives a gentle squeeze, keeping him from pulling away.

“Hey, you’re alright,” Lucas says before Josh can apologize any more.

Josh smiled at him, not trusting himself to speak right now. Unfortunately, it just gave way to an awkward silence.

“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Lucas asks.

“What…” do you mean, Josh wanted to say, but he just didn’t have the heart to lie to his boyfriend’s face.

“I know,” Josh sighed.

And he did. But that was a different story than being able to do it.

“I’m here for you. So is everyone else. And if something’s been on your mind, we’d all listen if you wanted to talk.”

Josh wanted to.

He probably needed to.

Josh remembered Dan, how he desperately needed someone to talk to, how he needed help, and what happened after he didn’t get it (it wasn’t his fault, it was mine).

But what could he possibly say?

Is it okay for me to have lingering feelings for someone else? Someone who betrayed us and led us to a monster? Someone who’s a monster now himself? Someone almost all of you understandably hate?

There’s no way he can bring that up. Not to his friends, not to his boyfriend.

“I don’t wanna talk,” Josh sighs. “Could we just…be here…? If that makes any sense?”

“It doesn’t,” Lucas jokes. “But it’s a good thing I’m a mind reader.”

Lucas put an arm around Josh, pulling him closer.

Josh rested his head on Lucas’s shoulder and closed his eyes, enjoying his boyfriend’s presence.

In the future, when Josh finally found it in him to talk, he’d be able to go back to the cabin. Against all advice, he’d look for Noah in the shadowy figure that haunted the woods. And he’d find him. And soon after, Josh would be able to help more people who were forced into a world of monsters like he and his friends were.

[love-takes-work]

Steven Universe Graphic Novel Camp Pining Play (2019) - Outline & Review

The fourth original graphic novel for Steven Universe, Camp Pining Play, is a new story for the Lapis and Peridot fans, presented as a theatre project but focusing on relationships and emotional resolution more than anything. It’s new content–unlike some of the trade paperbacks that collect previously released individual issues of the comics. It is written by Nicole Mannino, with illustrations by Lisa Sterle and a cover by Francesca Perrone.

This graphic novel involves Peridot and Lapis falling in love with a piece of Camp Pining Hearts fanfiction--which turns out to have been secretly written by Lars--and after they get permission and have auditions, they put on a play that becomes ever more loosely based on the original fan work. Everyone involved seems to have input that takes the story farther from its origins, but they're determined to still present its heart . . . which becomes difficult when Lapis is uncomfortable with a central facet in the finale--a pretend fusion--but doesn't feel empowered to speak up about it even though Peridot keeps checking in with her. It's actually pretty nuanced throughout despite also having a lot of pretty superficial gags, and every character works pretty well as themselves on more than one level despite this being written by people outside the show team. As usual with my reviews, I'll discuss the story and then present a list of notable items.

(I’ve got to cut for length, sorry. Please look at the amazing sample panels under the cut even if you don’t want to read all my rambles about it.) 

 [SU Book and Comic Reviews]

The story:

Peridot and Lapis are reading and enjoying Camp Pining Hearts fanfiction, relishing the author's faithfulness to the show while featuring their favorite non-canon ship (Percy x Pierre). Lapis indulges Peridot's desire to hear her "Percy voice," and they praise the fanfiction while kicking around ideas of how it could become more real--like maybe it could be made into a real episode or an animated adaptation. Soon, though, they decide a play would be a great idea, though they would have to find the author and get their permission.

Using her homemade app Find-A-Clod, Peridot discovers the identity of the fanfic author, and who should it be but good old Lars Barriga--the local "Donut Butler," as Peridot calls him. Predictably, Lars first denies his authorship, then requests secrecy while admitting it. Sadie, it turns out, also knew of his hobby, and she's edited his work tirelessly all along. Lars gives his permission for them to put on a play (as long as he gets to critique it from the shadows and not have his name attached in any way), but now they have another problem: How do you even put on a play?

Sadie jumps into the organizing chair, giving suggestions worthy of Peridot's title "Donut Master." She comes up with a series of steps, manages to get Mayor Dewey's permission, and receives a one-week planning timeframe. They jump into auditions next, and though everyone's enthusiastic, no one seems too fixated on what roles they want to play (besides Amethyst, who really wants to be a shell necklace used as a prop). Steven, as the most handsome human Peridot knows, gets propositioned to play Pierre, and Pearl becomes Paulette. Lapis is elected to play Percy even though she doesn't think she's actually as cool as the character is.

After the auditions, it's time for props. Lapis and Peridot make the actors create the props, though they soon find they need to give more direction or they'll get a bunch of junk they can't use. The sets and props become amalgams of what people can make and bring from home.

Finally, the rehearsals start. Everyone's struggling a little, from people who can't get their lines right to actors trying to destroy the props (well, Onion trying to destroy the props). But most of all, everyone seems to be awkwardly going through the motions, and Lars keeps shrieking "BOO!" because of how unlike his original story everything's going. Soon they come up with some ideas about making the presentation more their own so their characters won't be so awkward, and to help with the lack of chemistry between Percy (Lapis) and Pierre (Steven), Connie comes up with a unique idea. . . . 

She suggests Lapis and Steven should fuse!

Well, that's a controversial statement. Peridot's against it because she thinks their actions are enough to show their affection and they don't need fusion, and Garnet is opposed to fusion as a stage trick. But Connie isn't suggesting it willy-nilly; she thinks they'll need something big to really emphasize the characters' connection, and Amethyst thinks it'd make them seem "strong." But then everyone has ideas on how to change the story or characters, and the core creators of the production are split on how to feel about it.

The blessing is given to include more personal interpretation into the characters. Most importantly, though, Peridot decrees that the fusion at the end needs to be a fake fusion. Lapis isn't up for fusion, though she refuses to say so and ruin everyone else's time. Peridot believes this is a good compromise, but Lapis is still nervous. She keeps it to herself and the rehearsals continue.

The day before opening night, Peridot and Lapis have a heart-to-heart, because Peridot can tell Lapis is holding back a bit. She finds herself unwilling to be specific about her issue, while Peridot goes on a bit about how fun it's been to find a good balance between following rules and enjoying some flexibility. Lapis claims she's just a little shy, and pretends she is okay with the fake fusion scene. She clearly feels like she doesn't have any business objecting since it's not real, and Peridot simply takes her word for it. They distract themselves by fooling around doing voices of the characters.

Opening Night arrives and the audience is full of Beach City residents as well as some visitors. Peridot makes a speech backstage thanking everyone for helping (even the people who don't want to be acknowledged, like Lars), and she emphasizes that she appreciates Lapis's partnership. It's a very sweet moment.

But as soon as everyone scurries off to their places, Lapis gets nervous. The beginning scenes go on as planned, but then Lapis stalls with her entrance because she's freezing. She can't think about anything except how she'll have to fake a fusion. Sadie, as a background tree, gives Lapis a pep talk, and then Onion shoves her onstage and she tries her best. 

There are a few minor mishaps, but everyone mostly relaxes and carries out their roles. But then the climax occurs--Lapis's character Percy saves Steven's character Pierre from a dangerous lake after he's jumped in there to get Percy's special lost necklace. This is where they're supposed to have a moment and fake-fuse, but Lapis can't go through with even pretending. She lets loose what she's been feeling while on stage, forgetting about the play.

Peridot acknowledges that she knew about Lapis's discomfort with fusion, and she blames herself for approving the scene. But Lapis doesn't want Peridot to blame herself. She told Peridot that she was okay with it because she WANTED to be. It still didn't make her okay with it, though. And now she feels that she ruined the play through the very act of trying so hard not to ruin it for everyone else. But Peridot and Steven help Lapis understand that her feelings aren't irrational even though the fusion was "fake." Peridot only wants her to do it if she wants to do it.

With that, Peridot and Lapis embrace on the stage and exchange kind words, and then a smoke effect surrounds them. Some of the other actors get Steven, Peridot, and Lapis off the stage quickly and a pyramid of other actors assembles. Mr. Smiley and Greg begin playing a "Pierre and Percy Fusion" song, and the audience watches it blankly with little understanding, but Lars is emotional and clapping.

Finally the audience applauds, Lapis takes her bows, and everyone is grateful for the lessons learned and the wonderful experience. The End.

Notable:

1. The only Camp Pining Hearts characters whose faces have been shown on the TV show are Percy and Paulette. Pierre is mentioned frequently--since Peridot ships him with Percy--but we never see what he looks like. So it's pretty cool that the artists chose not to take artistic license with his appearance and drew depictions of him in shadow.

2. Peridot's analysis of why some fanfiction is better than other fanfiction--notably, that they fulfill the desires of the readers to see ships completed while still feeling like an episode of the show--was pretty spot on!

3. The fanfiction author--Lars--uses the handle xx54d4nd10ne1yxx. Even if it's private, I'm surprised Lars would use something that translates to "sad and lonely."

4. This graphic novel probably spends the most time outside Steven's perspective that I've ever seen; Steven is only marginally in the story, and we're used to seeing things from his perspective. This is quite a departure.

5. Peridot's app, "Find-A-Clod," was so unexpectedly funny to me that I almost choked on my sandwich.

6. As Dewey is still Mayor, Lars is not pink, and Sadie is still working at the Big Donut, we can assume this takes place before the episode "The Good Lars." That feels a little weird now, considering this book is fourth in the series of graphic novels and the one that came before it (The Ultimate Dough-Down) used Sadie's departure and Lars's space adventure as a plot point.

7. Lapis's negativity manifests in this comic as insecurity and frequent naysaying/pessimism. I thought it was really well done because it wasn't obnoxiously presented--as in, it felt genuine and appropriate for someone with her past and personality, not tacked on as her defining personality trait. You could really see her trying to have fun and not be the group's spoilsport, and you could tell she really felt those things.

8. Sadie says she's happy as a background character and that's kind of meta.

9. The shipping is strong in this thing. Peridot encouraging Lapis, the two of them solidifying their relationship, and the adorable compliments are so much fun. The Lapidot shippers have received their piece of heaven.

10. I couldn't get enough of Sadie obliquely insulting Lars when he acted like it was obvious he would take the "handsome guy" role if he didn't want to stay in the shadows. Sadie's like, "Oh, I vote for Steven."

11. Mr. Smiley and Greg are musicians for the play. I think that's cute, because we've seen Mr. Smiley as an out-of-work actor/R&B singer in the show. (And obviously Greg's an old rock star.)

12. New characters for Camp Pining Hearts have been invented: namely, Penelope and Parker, played by Connie and Onion, respectively.

13. Peridot is weirdly mean and disrespectful to Amethyst in this story? It seems to really come from nowhere. First she reluctantly lets Amethyst audition and grants her that she guesses she does have some talent after all, and then later when Amethyst comes in to impersonate a prop and "save the day," Peridot first voices her suspicion that Amethyst will not actually make anything better. It's weird; if you didn't watch the show, you'd think they had an ongoing rivalry or hated each other (or at least that Peridot disliked Amethyst). Hmm. 

14. The central conflict of the book's story is impossible to understand or interpret without a very good understanding of the show. The book does not explain what fusion is at all (though obviously in a stage play as a symbol for a fraught scene for an actor, it represents having to kiss on stage). It also gives absolutely no mention of why Lapis has trauma surrounding fusion. If someone were trying to read this without the show's context, they might think there was some kind of awkward past or bad feeling between Lapis and Steven, since she's acting reluctant to pretend to carry out a gesture of affection with him. And even though Lapis's past with Jasper is mentioned--by name!--on the back cover, Jasper is literally not mentioned in the book anywhere. As a fan I had no trouble understanding the source of her angst, but because of this pretty important detail, the book can't be enjoyed on its own without seeing several specific episodes of the show.

15. There are some fun Easter Eggs in the crowd scenes. Play attendees include Mr. Frowney, Mr. and Mrs. Barriga, Dr. and Mr. Maheswaran, Mayor Dewey, Yellowtail and Vidalia, Nanefua and Kofi and Kiki Pizza, Barb, Mr. Fryman, and what look look some extras. All the known characters are family or the actors . . . except Mr. Frowney. Does that imply what I think it does about Mr. Frowney and Mr. Smiley? Hey, maybe they’re married now. :) 

16. Lapis's speech where she emphasizes that she consented to the scene was powerful. She WANTED to be okay with pretending to fuse, but in the end, she wasn't. There are so many real-life scenarios that parallel this--when someone tries to downplay their own feelings because they feel like they're the odd person out and they will wreck others' good time if they express how they feel. But, as said in the comic, nobody there wants you to do that, and you not enjoying yourself makes it a worse time for everyone else too. Your real friends won't make you pretend.

17. You probably never thought you’d see Garnet in a squirrel costume. You thought wrong.

18. These two are too precious for words when they hug at the end of the play.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

[rmg91]

The Woes and Antics of Living Together-5

This chapter behaved much better than 4 and I'm really happy with it as this is just one of the many scenes I've been wanting to write. Also I still love writing Branch when he starts to freak out XD

Enjoy! And A big huge Thank you! to all who’s read so far! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me~

Previous Chapter/Next Chapter; AO3/FF.net

@writerofberk Chapter 5 is here!! And I’m nice to Branch for once! And to answer your question from last time, Creek is currently just an annoyance but we both know he’s a creep and that will come out later.

                                                        ~*~*~*~*~*~

It was another dreary and overcast day in Bergenville and the last few weeks had a been a test for Branch's patience. He had found out that Poppy loved to sing or just play music late at night while she stayed up studying or scrapbooking. And, sure, Branch could admit he loved her voice to himself, but he really disliked being unable to sleep because she couldn't keep it quiet enough. He even threatened to throw her radio out the window! It had worked...until the next time it happened and she got caught up in the music as she claimed. He had made a mental note to invest in some ear plugs.

Then there was the 'Laundry Incident' where somehow some of her...unmentionables had somehow wound up in his hamper. Branch hadn't known how to react to seeing the lacy scraps of fabric settled among his clothes so he had turned around and walked out of the laundry room. He had returned a few minutes later, a confused Poppy in tow and gestured to his basket as he told her to remove the offending articles. She had at least looked a little embarrassed as she picked them out and claimed she had no idea how they got in there but Branch had already been ignoring her excuse and trying to forget it even happened. He later found out it had all been some sort of weird prank by Smidge and Cooper as he returned to the apartment.

Mix in the normal stress of university and trying to find a new job and you'd get a very irritable Branch who was going just the tiniest bit stir-crazy. Gristle had managed to tempt him out of the apartment a few times to hang out and play video games but Branch needed something to do besides the chores around the apartment. Something to keep him from letting all his pent up feelings for Poppy flow out into poem after poem or even the grey thoughts that circled around in his head somehow finding their way onto paper and making him feel worse for having acknowledged them. And having the means to pay his half of the rent that was coming up would be nice too.

Branch felt himself bring the knife down on the carrots he was chopping with a little more force then was necessary before he focused once more on the task at hand. Right, dinner. He was making stew and needed to concentrate so he didn't cut himself and have to be sent to the hospital. Finishing up cutting the root vegetable, he threw the pieces into the pot alongside the onions and celery, giving everything a little stir afterwards. Branch then started to prep the rest of the ingredients just as the door opened and the pink haired party girl flounced in.

"Oh, Roomie~! I'm home!" Poppy sang as she dropped her purse on the foyer table before skipping into the kitchen, bracelets jingling, "And guess what?!"

Branch rolled his eyes and continued with his food prep, "What?"

Poppy giggled before slapping down a piece of paper on the counter, "I picked you up an application for a job I think you'll like!"

Branch paused and looked at her before glancing down at the application, at a loss for words, "...You, uh...didn't have to do that."

"I know." She chirped, "But I was heading home after getting some more streamers for Biggie's big photo exhibit and I saw this sale at this cute boutique on the way home." Branch rolled his eyes as she started to ramble. "Anyway, on my way back to my car I noticed a place advertising for some help wanted and I thought it'd be perfect for you! Guess what sort of place it is?!"

"I'd really rather not," Branch sighed, "Just tell me."

"No fun." The pinkette mumbled before she continued, "It's a camping-outdoorsy sort of store! Sells all that equipment and stuff and I figured what was the harm of picking up an application for you, cause you always liked camping when we were kids and being in the garden and such!"

"That..." Branch was once again at a semi-loss for words, impressed she remembered that, "I'll...give it shot. ...Thank you."

Poppy smiled happily at him, "No prob, my dude. So!" She then clapped her hands together, looking at the unassembled ingredients, "What's for dinner?"

Branch shrugged as he stirred the vegetables, "Nothing fancy. Just some stew."

"Still sounds great. Can I help with anything?"

"No!" He vehemently refused, "I'm not letting you anywhere near real food again! Not after last time!" Said last time being when she decided to experiment by adding too many spices to the sauce for a lasagna he was making. He swore never to let her near his cooking again.

"It was a mistake! I didn't mean to add that much!" Poppy cried in her defense, hands flying to her hips.

"Don't care."

Poppy huffed and crossed her arms, "Not fair..." She then hummed as a thought hit her and Branch suddenly felt fear as she went to grab her camera.

She fiddled with it for a moment as she turned it on before she started talking to it, "Guys! Branch is being so unfair! He won't let me help with dinner because of one little mistake!" She brought the piece of equipment over and almost thrusted it in his face, "Tell them, Branch! Tell them how mean you are to your precious roommate!"

Branch ignored her as much as he could as he started to cut up the meat, "Poppy, we've been over this. I'm not talking into a camera to people over the internet. Now turn that thing off and get it out of my face. I'm trying to cook."

"Rude!" She exclaimed before pouting into the camera, "Guys, comment below and tell Branch how rude he is."

"Quit involving me in your internet shenanigans! I want no part of it!"

"Too bad~ As my roommate you are contractually obligated to appear in my vlogs."

Branch gave her a flat look, "I remember nothing about that in our deal. No where did we talk about you trying to film me!"

"It's one of the many unwritten rules of friendship, Branch, duh. And no where did we talk about you being such a sour puss all the time and yet..." She trailed off with a shrug.

Branch rolled his eyes, exasperated, "Go do something that's not bothering me."

She grinned cheekily, "Aww, but it's my favorite hobby! The 'Bother Branch' game is fun for all ages."

"Poppy..." He groaned.

She giggled as she turned off her camera, "Fine, fine but only because I don't want you to cut yourself."

"Gee, thanks so much."

Giggling, the pink haired whirlwind skipped away to her room and Branch thought maybe he'd get to finish cooking in semi-peace until she came back out, arms laden with scrapbooking materials. She dumped all of it on the coffee table before turning the stereo on and bouncing in her seat to the pop song playing. Branch heaved a sigh and tried his best ignore the overly preppy music, reminding himself to invest in a pair of earplugs as soon as he could.

                                            ~*~*~*~*~*~

The next day found Branch standing in front of the store Poppy had told him about, application in hand. He had to admit as he looked though the windows it definitely looked like a place he would have loved to explore when he was younger. He had always loved the outdoors and the sense of accomplishment whenever he managed to succeed in a task that would aid him if he ever had to face the wild alone. He also remembered spending almost all of summer camped out in the backyard and begging his grandma to let him stay there just one more night whenever the new school year started to approach. But that had all stopped when-No. He wasn't going to think about that or any other time before else he'd never get this over with and right now, finding a job was more important than thinking back on times that were never going to happen again.

Steeling himself up with a deep breath, Branch entered the store and took it in. A display for a tent sale sat in the front with aisles of supplies stretching toward the back, all manner of camping items in stock. Tents, sleeping bags, lanterns, chairs, portable stoves and just about anything else one could possible need was there, which was just a little impressive for how small the shop appeared on the outside. Off to the side was a single check-out counter and a cashier wearing a green and brown vest, playing on his phone. He glanced up and put it away before addressing Branch.

"Hey. Welcome to Clever Camping. How may I help you?"

It was now or never. Branch cleared his throat, "Uh, yeah. I saw you were hiring so I filled out an application." He hoped that didn't sound as awkward as it felt as he handed over the piece of paper.

"Great!" The blonde exclaimed, "I'll give this to the manager. He's actually in the back right now if you want to wait a few minutes. He may be able to give you an interview today."

Branch sure wasn't expecting that but nodded anyway, "Sure. No problem."

"Nice. Be right back!"

As the employee scampered off to the back of the store, Branch let out a slightly panicked sigh. Okay, sure, he could do this, it's not like interviews were nerve wracking already! He just had less time to prepare that was all! He quickly brushed off his shirt and tried to make himself look somewhat presentable as he paced around. He could do this, it was fine, this could be good! Or bad, very, very bad.

As Branch continued to try a fight off the impending urge to run and hide, he failed to hear the little bell above the door chiming. He was completely unaware of no longer being alone until the other person spoke up.

"Excuse me, young man?"

Branch tried very hard not to yelp as he turned to face an elderly woman. She had grey haired wrapped up in a bun, a crocheted shawl around her shoulders and was holding a cane. She smiled at him, wrinkles crinkling as she did so before adjusting her glasses. She had a very grandmotherly aura about her and Branch tried very hard not to think of his own at that moment.

"Um, yes?"

"Do you think you could me?" She asked before pulling out a list from her purse, "You see, my grandson is going on a camping trip with his scouting group and I'm afraid we don't have much of anything that he'll need. Could you help me find them?"

Wait...Did she think he worked there?! He had to tell her she was mistaken! But then another traitorous thought of his own grandmother slipped though and he knew she would be very disappointed in him if he refused to help this lady. She had raised him to be a gentleman after all. Sighing, he nodded and walked closer so he could take the list from her.

"I can try."

"Oh, thank you so much~" She grinned at him.

Branch nodded awkwardly and unfolded the piece of paper she had handed to him. Tent, extra tarp or canopy, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, repair kit, pillows, extra blankets, headlamp or flashlight, lantern with appropriate energy source and a plethora of other items. Branch was impressed by how thorough this list was, it was almost as if he'd written it. Glancing around the store to figure out where to start first, he grabbed one of the hand baskets and began leading the woman around.

The first aisle they went down had portable stoves and the like, making Branch wonder if maybe he should have chosen a different aisle as there didn't seem to be anything they needed down this way. However just when he was going to suggest they try a different row, he spotted the lanterns and flashlights. He had a brief thought about how it would be more efficient if perhaps these items were put toward the front of the row but pushed it back as he looked at the different items, wondering which would be best to suggest.

"So, uh...How old is your grandson?" Maybe knowing the age of the kid would help him determine the item.

"Oh, he's nine going on ten." The old woman gushed, "He's so excited for this trip. The first time he's ever been camping."

Branch tired to flash a smile at her before nodding toward one of the better battery powered lanterns, "This one would probably be best then. It runs on batteries but it's a good sturdy plastic and waterproof, so no one would have to worry about fuel or rusting. It's also in a good modest price range, in case you're wondering."

"Well then that sounds just perfect." She grinned brightly, "I truly appreciate you helping me."

"It's..uh...it's no problem."

They continued like this up and down the aisles, Branch pointing out the products he thought would be best, remembering more of his own experiences with camping. He suggested an extra raincoat. insect repellant and a small first aid kit, stating that it never hurt to have some back-up in case something happened to whatever the scout leaders brought. Branch was just double checking everything so far before they went to look at the tents and wondered where the employee that had greeted him was and if he was going to come back anytime soon.

"Ok, so it looks like all that's left is a tent and maybe a sleeping bag? Was this already checked off?"

"Oh, I thought we had one, so yes it was but it turns out it was horribly moldy after getting wet somehow. So yes, we do need a new one."

"Alright, this way."

He was perusing the different styles of tents, trying to find the best one for a kid when a tall, broad shoulder man came around the corner from the back. He had chestnut hair, brown eyes and wore a grin and vest like the other employee, the only difference was he also had a pin that dubbed him the manager.

"Hello, there!" He greeted warmly, "So sorry for the lack of greeting when you came in. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Oh, no. Your employee here has been so helpful and has given so much advice for my grandson's upcoming trip."

The manager smiled down at the woman, "I'm afraid he doesn't work here...yet." He then turned his grin on Branch, "Tell me, son, are you the one who turned in the application Denis brought me a little while ago?"

"Uh, yes?" Stupid! Don't sound so unsure!

"Reed Langley!" The man proclaimed, offering his hand to Branch.

Shocked for a second, Branch startled before shaking his hand, "...Uh! Branch Hawthorn, sir."

"Well, Branch, you're hired!"

"Huh? But, uh...What about an interview?" Was this really happening?

Reed laughed, "I think helping this lovely lady here when you didn't have to speaks volumes more than me asking you some questions. So what do you say?"

What did he say? Oh right! "Um, sure. Yeah! Of course! Thank you?"

"Not a problem!" Reed laughed again, "Denis! Go take the sign out of the window!" There was brief 'yes, sir' from the other worker before Reed continued, "So, Branch, why don't I let you finish helping our customer here and then while Denis is ringing her up, we can talk and set up your schedule. Alright?"

"Yeah, sure. Okay." There was no way that just happened, right?

                                            ~*~*~*~*~*~

A few hours later, Branch had wandered back to the apartment, still somewhat in a state of a shock. He just couldn't believe he was hired right on the spot like that just for helping someone! That just didn't happen! Of course he wasn't going to kick a gift horse in the mouth, it..felt kind of nice to have a job again and the store really wasn't the worse place to be in. Still, Branch couldn't help but be wary of the universe and wonder what it would do to him this time to knock him down again.

Sighing to himself, he was grateful Poppy was gone as he needed a few moments to gather himself and to work out a new plan. He wandered over to the couch, flopped on it, and flinging an arm over his head went over what had happened after he helped the old woman find a tent and new sleeping bag. His new boss didn't mind that he would be working part-time, said Branch going to school was great thing and that if he ever needed to take an extra day off to study for a test or midterm to just let him know ahead of time. He would start his new job in two days and he'd have a twenty percent store discount, which would be nice if Branch ever decided to go camping again. However that meant he'd have to work out some sort of chore chart with Poppy as he wouldn't be around as often, even if that would mean trying to trust her in the kitchen with actual food now.

Making a few mental notes to himself, Branch yawned and shifted on the couch, finding a comfortable spot. He felt himself grow drowsy and knew he probably shouldn't fall asleep on the couch, he didn't want to temp Poppy into pulling some sort of prank. But as sleep claimed him, he decided he just didn't feel like caring if she drew on his face or covered him in glitter.

                                                      ~*~*~*~*~*~

Yay! Branch has a job again! And at a much nicer environment! I can't tell you guys how much I've been wanting to write Reed (even if he didn't have a name until I started writing that part XD) and that whole scene. And to be fair, Poppy can cook, she's just better at baking and accidents with overly large holes in spice containers happen.

I hope you enjoyed! Stayed tuned for the next installment!

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Captain Cold and Me (Ch. 4 of 6)

Sara Lance, unbeknownst to her high school classmates, has connections to some of Star City’s most popular super-powered heroes–but no powers of her own. Then the mysterious Captain Cold saves her from an attack…and does his best to convince her that he’s not the bad guy everyone seems to think he is. And maybe not all of the “good guys” should be trusted…

Chapter 4! Can also be read here at AO3 or here at FF.net.

Sara and Felicity found themselves minor celebrities the next day, thanks to their presence on the monorail car. Felicity was probably more rattled by the revelation about two of her heroes than by the narrow escape, but she was quite amenable to telling everyone about the experience regardless. Sara, amused, let her handle it. She had other things on her mind.

She looked for Len all morning with no luck, finally accepting that he was out that day—an oddity, given that he was generally the most punctual and responsible of students. (“I have to be,” he’d told her cynically once. “Everyone’s waiting for me to screw up and prove myself ...his... son.”) Disappointed—and more than a little thoughtful—she'd tried looking up his address with no luck, then sat and stared out the windows so long in the rest of her classes that her teachers presumed she’d been more rattled by the accident than she’d seemed.

After school, she blew off the Creators Club and made her way to the suite of offices being used by the city higher-ups who’d once been located in City Hall. The secretary, who’d known her since childhood, waved her in with a smile, but once Sara was out of sight, she purposefully wandered past her father’s temporary office and toward the corner office, which Malcolm Merlyn would definitely have taken for himself.

Merlyn was a handsome, apparently affable man, although Sara knew well enough that much of that affability was a front. He’d been Moira Queen’s deputy mayor until she’d resigned after the destruction of the first City Hall, taking over and pushing for a platform of increased law and order with the help of Quentin Lance. Sara’s father hadn’t been all that fond of the other man up until then, but they seemed thick as thieves now, bonded over the loss of wife and son.

Sara still didn’t like Merlyn. At all.

She rapped on the door and waited, then tried the doorknob with little hope. When it turned, though, she pushed the door open slowly, an excuse on her lips about looking for her father. But no one was inside and, surprised at her luck, she stepped in carefully, looking around.

Malcolm Merlyn liked the finer things in life, and even though this space was a temporary situation, that was clear in the décor and furnishings. Sara, wondering idly how much taxpayer money had been spent on the leather chairs and immense mahogany desk, drifted farther in, scanning the room, wishing she had a better idea what she was looking for.

Only one errant sheet of paper marred that immaculate desk, and Sara another step closer to see. It wasn’t a sheet, actually, she realized. It was an envelope, with what seemed to be a word scrawled on it. Sara squinted. Tempest?

“Ms. Lance.”

Sara started, then worked hard to keep any sign of guilt from her face as she turned to face Malcolm Merlyn. “Mr. Mayor,” she exclaimed with a smile. “I’m sorry. I was looking for my dad and I thought he had a meeting with you today.”

“Ah.” Merlyn’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “That’s true. However, that meeting has been done a while now.” Turning, he extended an arm to usher Sara out of the office, and she went with alacrity, careful to show no sign of regret.

“Still,” the mayor said as they walked down the hallway toward Sara’s father’s office, “it’s a pleasure to see you again. It’s been a while.” He paused outside the door. “You’re a senior now? At Kanigher-Broome?”

“Yes,” Sara acknowledged, uneasy with the question for some reason. Why shouldn’t the mayor know that? It would be easy enough to find out anyway. “I am.”

“Hmm.” Another one of those not-really-a-smiles. “I probably still know some of your classmates, from when...Tommy...” A shadow passed his eyes, then was gone. “Although he was a few years older. Let’s see...Felicity Smoak? Raymond Palmer? Nathaniel Heywood?” He nodded as Sara murmured agreement. “Anyone else?”

“Yes? It’s a big class. Or no?” Sara blinked up at him innocently. At least, she tried to look innocent. She wasn’t really sure how well she pulled it off. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“Mal...oh, Sara!” Quentin Lance, heading back to his office from parts unknown, looked a combination of pleased and discomfited to see Sara there, and she prepared herself for a lecture about being out without some sort of protection or escort. It would be worth it to get herself out from under Malcolm Merlyn’s reptilian gaze for now. She politely bade the mayor farewell as her dad fetched his keys, ready to drive her home, and turned away despite her better judgment.

Her shoulder blades itched all the way home.

Sara left a note attached to her window that night: “What is Tempest? Saw note in MM office.”

The response, in metallic blue ink the next morning, was: “Working on that. Thanks for looking.” It made Sara smile, to realize he’d checked in on her, but frown, to realize he’d stopped by and not bothered to actually speak to her. Good enough to do his dirty work, not enough to let in on the problem a little more, she thought with irritation.

“So I’m bad ass, but not enough to help you more with this?” was the response she’d left. There’d been no response to that.

Supers. Ugh.

There continued to be an array of crises around Star City, more than the usual crimes the city was sadly known for—suspicious accidents, vandalism, at least one arson. Oliver and Laurel were kept hopping, and Sara’s father was even more distracted than usual. Everyone assumed Captain Cold was causing the incidents. Everyone, it seemed, but Sara.

“But why?” she asked while sitting in Creator Clubs one afternoon with Felicity, Ray, Barry, Iris, and…slightly on their periphery, a very quiet Len. “Why would he do all this and not take credit for it? And most of it has nothing to do with ice. Why not use his powers if he’s really committed to causing chaos?”

“Well, no one knows his full power set,” Iris pointed out. “Most supers have a few, in addition to the healing factor and other stuff.” She nibbled the end of her pencil, looking thoughtful. Iris was interning at the Star City Citizen newspaper. It’d been far more even-handed than the city’s tabloid paper and all of the bloggers, making no assumptions about the cause of all the incidents, but that didn’t mean the opinion pages weren’t full of letters calling for Captain Cold’s head.

“You’re right,” Iris said finally, looking at Sara. “It’s weird. But if it’s not him…”

“That’s what people are afraid of.” They all looked at Ray, who shrugged. “If it’s not him, they don’t know who it is. And people would rather know. Or think they do.” He frowned at his physics book, open in front of him. “Or they have to realize that everyday crime in Star is really that bad. Or start wondering about another new supervillain…or a hero going bad. Like Green Arrow. Or the Flash.”

Felicity and Barry spoke up at once, defending the heroes, and the conversation went way off track. Sara shook her head (she wasn’t going to defend Ollie, he didn’t need it) and looked over at Len, who’d simply been listening while working on something on his battered laptop.

“What do you think?” she asked him, recklessly, curious to see what he’d say—and not just because of the tiny germ of a suspicion she’d entertained once or twice. They’d talked about a lot, but never this. “About Captain Cold?”

Len propped his chin on his fist and regarded her with those remarkable pale blue eyes. Then he shrugged and glanced back down at his laptop.

“I think he’s an idiot,” he said quietly.

“What? Why?” Sara frowned at him, annoyed both at her impulse to defend the infuriating super and at Leonard’s surprising response. Len was fond of logic, and Sara thought her take on the issue was completely logical. (Well. Mostly.) She also figured he’d be there to defend someone else who might be…unfairly painted with the wrong brush, so to speak.

Len shrugged again. “If he’s innocent,” he said, speaking to his computer and not to her, which was odd, “why doesn’t he say something? Why all this cloak-and-dagger garbage?” He looked up at her, eyes intent. “He’s trouble.”

And to that, Sara wasn’t sure what to say.

But when trouble came, it came from a direction that surprised her—and targeted someone she didn’t expect.

“They actually let that…that man’s spawn into your school?” Quentin Lance’s voice was sharp and angry when he stalked into the kitchen one morning about a week later, and while Sara could tell it wasn’t really directed at her, she still paused in the act of cutting up a banana for her cereal to stare at him. What...

Oh.

How had he heard about Len’s return to Star City? Len kept to himself, refusing to do anything that might put his name out there. Sara knew he’d even asked the school guidance counselors to keep his name off the honor roll listings sent to the local newspapers.

“Dad!” she said, holding up her hands and sending a helpless glance toward Laurel, who was sitting at the kitchen table and eating her own breakfast. Her sister was staring at their father in surprise. “He’s fine. It’s fine. Really! He’s a good guy, and he hates...”

But her father wasn’t even listening to her, instead shaking his head and staring off into space. Seeing, perhaps, the memory of his wife, or the hateful face of Lewis Snart as he’d refused to speak at his own trial.

“It’s OK, honey,” Quentin said, absently, taking out his phone. “I’m going to get that... delinquent...transferred somewhere else. Somewhere away from you.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s even back in Star City. He made some…well, some accusations back…after...” His mouth worked briefly, like he’d tasted something bad. “It’s one of the reasons Malcolm made sure anyone who’d take them in wasn’t in Star,” he continued quietly. “After everything he went through…with Tommy…to hear that...garbage...”

“Dad!”

As much as Sara appreciated Laurel cutting in to back her up, she really would have preferred her sister wait a few more moments. What garbage? Was he referring to Leonard? Something he’d said? He’d only been 15.

Their father looked up in surprise, frowning at the looks on his daughters’ faces. Laurel looked over at Sara, studying her expression, then nodded and looked back.

“Dad,” she said quietly. “Listen to Sara. She’s OK with it. And so am I. It’s not this kid’s fault.” She took a deep breath. “We’re all just trying to...to put our lives back together. You know?”

Quentin stared at her, then looked back at Sara. She licked her lips and nodded in agreement, unwilling to admit yet just how close she and Leonard had grown, but knowing that she didn’t want his life to be upended again just for the “crime” of being someone’s son.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” her father said quietly. “But...all right.” He turned his phone off and tucked it away again. Sara breathed a sigh of relief. But he wasn’t done quite yet, pointing at his younger daughter, his eyes full of grief and a degree of anger that Sara didn’t understand.

“You stay away from him, though,” he commanded. “You can’t trust that family. Liars and crooks.” He shook his head, then repeated it. “Liars and crooks...”

That didn’t sound like her father, and Sara frowned at him, then at Laurel as he turned away. Her sister gave her a helpless shrug, but she was frowning too.

Well. Her father didn’t seem to realize that Sara had made no promises. And Sara wasn’t going to point that out.

Sara didn’t have the heart to tell Leonard about her father’s near-attempt to get him tossed out of school, although she knew she probably should, just to warn him. She enjoyed his company, a lot, and she was pretty sure they were working their way toward something more.

A few days later, Len confirmed that.

It was the sort of sunny autumn Monday when no one wanted to be in school, and they were no exception. Most of seniors flexed their upperclassmen’s privileges at every opportunity, leaving the building to grab lunch or just sit outside talking during breaks. Len had developed a fondness for perching on the top of one of the stone platforms that flanked the stairs leading up to the school and watching everything around him, and Sara often joined him, enjoying the warmth of the sun-warmed stone and, she’d admit, his closeness.

That particular day, he was leaning backward, propped on his hands, which had the effect of placing one of his arms across Sara’s back, almost as if he had an arm around her. She paused, then leaned into it, and he didn’t move, the physical affection accepted. It was a delicate dance—but it was becoming theirs.

“So,” he said, staring out across the lawn, and reached up with his other hand to rub absently at his shoulder. Even during the warm late fall weather, he always wore long sleeves, and Sara was pretty sure she knew why. But she wasn’t going to bring it up if he didn’t. “Spirit Week, huh? Can’t say I’ve ever taken part in one of those.”

Sara snorted. Yeah, she could really see him taking part in today’s Crazy Hair Monday, or ‘80s Day, any one of the other days during the run-up to the homecoming football game. She studied him a moment, getting a smirk as if he’d read her mind, then shook her head.

“You going to the homecoming game?” he asked after another moment.

“Nah. Football isn’t my thing.”

“Same. Or the dance?”

Hmm. Sara gave him a considering glance. “I wasn’t planning on it,” she said slowly. “Why?”

Len was looking anywhere but her. “Just wondered if you’d like to do something else. Hm. Grab dinner? Maybe?”

Sara tilted her head. Well, well.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.” She cast him a sideways glance, smiling a little, then elbowed him. “Hey. Just to be clear. You’re talking about a date?”

That got another smirk. “Well. Yeah.” He turned his head toward her a little more, just as Sara leaned toward him a little more, too, and their noses brushed...

“Awww!”

Len sighed, then turned his head and regarded Felicity with weary amusement. Sara’s friend was standing next to them on the stairs, giving them puppy eyes.

“Really?” he asked. Len and Felicity were developing an odd, resigned affection for each other, one based on their mutual fondness for Sara. But that didn’t mean they didn’t give each other shit all the time.

“What?” Felicity beamed up at him, then bumped Sara’s hip with her shoulder. Sara rolled her eyes, then bumped her back. Such was life.

No matter how distracting the notion of going on an actual date with Leonard Snart was, it wasn’t enough to distract Sara from the knowledge that there was more going on with her handsome classmate than met the eye. And she couldn’t get away from the sense of paranoia the whole situation instilled in her, enough that she decided not to search for more information at home or at school.

The library, however, she decided to dare. She could wipe her search history, and she knew the librarians did it again after closing.

The most any of the newspaper reports of the time had mentioned was that Lewis Snart had two children, a son in high school and an elementary-aged daughter. There was no mention anywhere that Sara could find of any accusations by one of those children. She frowned, running her fingers along the edge of the keyboard and glancing around to make sure no one was looking over her shoulder.

So, they must have been made in private. And based on what her father had said, they’d involved the mayor. Well…the current mayor. If Len had made a serious accusation about Malcolm Merlyn to someone after the City Hall quake, it probably would have been Moira Queen.

And the police commissioner.

“Ollie? Can I come down there?”

“Sure,” came the call up the stairs from the basement. “Just…ah, heck. Watch your step, OK?”

Sara shook her head as she stepped over the quiver, arrows spilling out of it, that had been dumped onto one of the stairs, as if it’d just gotten too heavy for its owner. Maybe it had, for all she knew. Oliver and Laurel had been really weary, lately, with everything that was going on.

Oliver’s “ArrowCave” wasn’t really too disreputable, though. Laurel spent enough time down here that it wouldn’t be. And Ollie had come a long way from the irresponsible playboy in the making that he’d been once. But all the fancy furniture Sara remembered seeing in the Queen mansion once was replaced here by comfortable, overstuffed furniture, the expensive paintings replaced by movie posters and photographs of the city. Sara looked around, smiling a little. No wonder Oliver didn’t mind his allowance from his mom. Sara was pretty sure he spent most of it on junk food and weaponry anyway.

The man in question was walking out of his bedroom, a basket of laundry in hand. Yeah, Oliver had come a long way. His blond hair was mussed, he was wearing a pair of ripped sweatpants and a Star City Rockets T-shirt, and he grinned when he saw her.

“Hey, kid,” he greeted her, from the lofty height of two years of advanced age. “To what do I owe the visit? Your sister’s at the college library doing some studying.”

Laurel was doing preliminary law studies online, but sometimes she liked to be out on campus. And Sara knew perfectly well where her sister was. She’d planned it that way.

She took a deep breath, then took a seat on the sofa. “I wanted to ask you a question. About…after the quake.”

Ollie tilted his head, then sat down, watching her. “Go on.”

This had been a lot easier when Sara had rehearsed it upstairs in her room. “Your mom,” she said carefully. “Did she ever say if…if there was any doubt? What caused it? Or…who?” The time was a bit of a blur for Sara, for obvious reasons, but all the news stories she’d found in hindsight hadn’t put blame on anyone but the only person who’d been arrested for it.

Oliver looked started, but not angry at her question. He hesitated, then reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Sara,” he said gently. “It was Lewis Snart. They caught him on video, carrying the device into the tunnels under City Hall, setting it up and then fleeing. Red handed.”

Sara shook her head. “I know that,” she said. “But…” She took a deep breath. “Was he working alone? Was there ever any question? And, I mean, where did he get it?”

She partly expected Oliver to just shoot the questions down, but instead he looked thoughtful.

“Mom said once that there was something,” he said slowly. “But…why wouldn’t Snart have said something? Why wouldn’t he implicate any co-conspirators?” He shook his head. “He didn’t say anything. At his trial. Refused to even speak.”

“I remember.” Sara looked down at her hands, then back up. “But did someone else? Say something?”

Oliver frowned. “Y’know,” he said slowly, leaning back against his chair. “I think maybe someone did? I don’t know who.” He shook his head again. “But I know my mom was really upset by it.” He glanced at Sara. “Turned out it was completely without value. She was really relieved. That’s when she decided to leave the city, get away from the memories.”

Sara bit her lip in frustration. But she didn’t think there was any good way to continue the line of questioning, and she was pretty Oliver had told her all he knew, anyway.

“Don’t say anything to my dad,” she said suddenly. “About me asking. Please? He’s got enough on his mind. And he still hates talking about it.”

Oliver nodded, getting to his face and picking up his laundry basket.

“I promise,” he said solemnly, holding up one hand and balancing the basket on his hip. “Scout’s honor.”

Sara laughed despite herself. “Oliver Queen, you were never a Boy Scout.”

“Still.”

The day of the homecoming game and dance came without incident. Sara threaded her way through the crowds of chattering students at school, smiling to herself at all the green and black for School Spirit Day. Her one concession to the week and the day had been to wear a green sweater and small black hoop earrings, but others went all out—face paint even at school, entire ensembles, and over-the-top headgear.

Leonard was on his usual perch outside, looking around at the gleeful ridiculousness surrounded him with an air of amusement. His eyes lit as he saw her, and Sara grinned, hopping up next to him. She leaned against his shoulder, and he let her, and it was as good as a kiss, nearly, for them.

“So,” she asked as they watched the excited throng, “what are the plans for tonight?” She glanced at Len as he hummed thoughtfully. “C’mon, I let you keep it a secret until now, but I need to have some idea.”

Blue eyes sparkled at her. A corner of his mouth twitched up, and she wondered what he was thinking.

“Well,” he said, “I thought I’d pick you up at home, if that’s OK? Um.” He glanced away, and the mischief in his eyes faded a little. “You probably don’t want your dad to meet me…yet…but I sort of feel like I should meet some member of your family. Your sister, maybe?”

Her dad would almost certainly be at the game as part of the police detail and as a leading public servant. Laurel might be home…or she might be out, being Black Canary. Sara nibbled at her lip, appreciating his gesture even as she pondered the best way to handle this.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “About Laurel. I think maybe she’d sort of like to meet you. Although she doesn’t know that…um. That we’re…”

Dating? Could she say that before they’d actually gone on a date? What were they, anyway? Sara sighed, hating the uncertainty that came with these sorts of things, even without the whole “my father hates you” mess.

Leonard nodded. He had an odd expression too, almost conflicted, presumably for the same reason.

“Well,” he said, seeming to choose his words carefully, “let’s say 6:30, if that’s OK. I have…something to check on…first.” He paused. “So. If your sister can be there…?”

“I’ll try.” She smiled, trying to lighten the mood a little. “But…what should I wear?”

Oh, that was definitely mischief. Len eyed her a moment, that smirk of his hovering around his lips.

“Something you can move in,” he said. “Sneakers, or shoes you can…run in.”

Hmmm. The tiny germ of suspicion unfolded a tiny bit more.  “Oh, you don’t want me in that sexy dress I bought, then?” Sara asked lightly, pretty sure there was a good deal of mischief in her own eyes.

He coughed. “Well, now, I didn’t say that. But maybe another time?”

“Deal.”

Sara’s father accepted her demurral about being uninterested in the homecoming game without comment. Sara watched him leave with regret. She really didn’t like hiding something from him but given that he was so uninterested in her life anyway…well, that was how it had to be. Oliver had departed too, planning to perch somewhere he could watch the game and be present in case of trouble,

Laurel had departed for the library, planning to get some studying in, and Sara couldn’t think of a good way to stop her without confessing that she was hiding something from their dad. She waved goodbye, sighed, then went to get ready.

She dressed in good jeans, the ones with a hidden side gusset for greater movement and high kicks, and a form-fitting dark gray top, one that had come inexplicably with a hood. Then she did her makeup with a little more care than usual. Well, just because this wasn’t a conventional date didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do something special.

She was contemplating what to do with her hair, though, when there was a scratch at her window. And as she whirled, it opened, and Captain Cold leaned through.

He pushed back his outer hood and goggles, taking a deep breath and staring at her with those overly blue eyes.

Then, “I need your help,” he said.

Sara stared at him then looked at her phone. Ten minutes to 6:30.

“I have plans,” she said, hoping this wasn’t what she thought it was. “I haven’t seen…you…since you passed out in my room, and now this? No.”

Cold shook his head roughly and let out a noise that was part a sigh, part a curse.

“Damn it, I didn’t want…” he muttered, then buried his head in his gloved hands. But after only a moment, he looked back up, seeing her still standing there, watching him, and apparently noticed the hesitation in her demeanor.

“Something is going down, tonight, now, and the only other person who could back me up isn’t in the city today,” he said, voice catching, slipping out of the habitual low drawl. “You’re right that I said you were bad ass, that…that first night we met. And I need your help. Please?”

Sara closed her eyes, and Cold continued, still in that intense tone. “ I promise…I promise I’ll explain, as much as I can, but I need to go now and I need someone to watch my back.”

She opened her eyes again and studied him, the tense body language, the conflict in his voice. Thought about pale blue eyes and leaning against each other in the fall sunshine, about mystery dates and scarred shoulders and the scent of mint. And tempests.

“OK,” she said finally, hearing him actually sigh in relief. “Just a moment.”

Then she turned away, pulling out her phone and starting a text.

And then she stopped and stared at it a moment. Thinking. Remembering. Putting things together.

And then she put it away, in her pocket, zipping it up securely.

Leap of faith.

Sara quickly braided her hair and coiled it up against her head, pinning it securely. She tucked a knife (another knife) up her sleeve, and grabbed her batons from her weapons rack. And then she turned back to the tall, parka-clad figure who was watching her with such a conflicted expression on what was visible of his face.

“OK,” she told him firmly. “Let’s go.”

[chariflare]

end of work week so No Brain Energy for a “full post” so here’s just like. a brain dump of stuff i liked and disliked about 7 deadly sins (s1). pretty spoiler-y

dislikes (so that we end the post on the most tasty part of the meal)

they give melio.das a flaw of “repeated sexual offender” with the same level of gravitas and plot-irrelevance that ya authors make their self-insert protagonists “clumsy” (i.e. it’s written as a “flaw” but doesn’t affect the plot and is often used for ““comedic effect””). unlike clumsiness though, repeatedly groping women should get a person arrested. thanks

elizabeth is still a damsel

jericho. not the feminist take that the author thinks she is. awful

ultimately the cool female villains turn out to be not that strong or important, and also get love interest’d with members of the main heroic cast (& both’s motives depend on a man)

depending on how her character arc ends up diane’s obsession with wishing she wasn’t a giant is kinda uncomfortable

i don’t mind that elaine looks young-ish but i find it uncomfortable that she has an anime kid voice to top it all off (in jp...?)

gil.thunder’s side-switch wasn’t appropriately established and his og character sucks. years of acting as a moustache-twirling bishie villain don’t appear to have affected his psyche in a meaningful way, and it’s impossible to come away knowing what he’s supposed to act like now

final villains of the first arc are BORING (i think they get more characterisation after they come back to life lmao)

usual shonen bullshit that is both a draw to the show and also makes threat levels kind of ridiculous and non-existent after a certain point (getting bogged down in endless fights, people coming back to life, refusal to acknowledge that maybe their society’s awful power structures are the problem, rapidly changing definition of “the most powerful villain EVER”, etc.)... all encompassed in one pig death fakeout

the weird fatphobic king thing

tiddy outfits. (though i don’t mind didane’s actually?)

more generalised misogyny

the most important hetero ships this season are mediocre

if you know king arthur shit you will know that everyone’s loosely based off of characters from arthurian myth. if you don’t know you will be so pissed when king arthur the 16yo sports anime character shows up to be like “YOUR NEXT ARC IS HERE”

holy SHIT the second opening song is so bad. it’s so bad y’all (the the first op for comparison)

likes

all the characters are adult colleagues (above everything else) and they act like it. (they’re... kind of found family nakama but there’s a bit more there.) they’re all unique, respected, practiced masters of their craft from the beginning of the story

gula & jericho for the when they were threatening were REALLY cool. i am so psyched at the thought of a random minor young female villain who is so badass & dedicated to the evil cause she’s willing to enter a near-death state to chase some random losers into hell. gula’s outfit slaps

(cw: suicide) ban is a really neat character. he’s like... an interpretation of a “vampire curse”. he was never really happy before he achieved immortality (seeking it only because ”if you live long enough, something good might happen to you eventually, i guess”), and getting it (by accident) only made him Worse - more self-destructive and more isolated from the people around him. he often can’t bring himself to care about much of anything, other people don’t care about him, and ultimately his existence is so fucked up and he’s laden with so much guilt that he doesn’t care about himself either. but he’s also a fun guy! incredibly powerful! will help you beat up your abusive dad! probably bi! also he has his tits out at all times and who am i to say no 2 that

personality: part of the reason that he’s isolated from other people (and othered) is his social class... but a main part of it is how his childhood kind of, created his personality. he doesn’t really connect to social norms (or laws), has niche interests, and has a “weird”, disconnected personality (again, made way worse by living 100 years past his lifetime). that being said, he’s not emotionally unintelligent, has interests outside of fighting, and is ultimately a good person

(maybe don’t read this one if you’re interested in watching? it’s all spoilers) Depression: ban willingly runs head-first into danger not just bc it’s a valid fighting technique for someone who can’t die but bc he’s... too ready to give up. but this reveal is only interesting bc it comes after like. a period of getting along with the group, being friends and having fun. ultimately hanging out with them hasn’t solved his problems - it’s just made him able to put them aside for a little while... until his trauma gets brought up, at which point he’s willing to take the first hint of an easy exit, despite how unlikely it is that it’d achieve his supposed goal, if it just lets him relieve himself of his guilt and existential suffering by letting him believe for just one second that he can fix all of the things that he “broke” with his own death (note: killing melio.das would have broken his heart and probably have been suicide by proxy). (this causes a lot of trouble and is not framed as positive, but it’s also not framed as all his fault. and he has to deal with the consequences of this? he realises in retrospect that it was an incredibly unsound idea? and lEAVES THE GROUP BC HE REALISES HE HAS TO TAKE A BREAK???)

comparing ban to a traditional vampire arc: unlike with vampires (who are often an allegory for a group of people, e.g. rich people or oppressed groups) there’s only one ban. and therefore instead of having a group with the same trauma he just suffers alone

meaningful conflict between the main characters. i don’t think i’ve ever really gotten this in a shonen show? there’s a LOT of unresolved trauma. the characters still work together bc they’re Adults... but it’s simmering

ban <-> meli: meli is the only person besides elaine who ever really understood ban... but that doesn’t mean that ban’s ok, now (in fact, the resentment about only being understood by one person kind of makes him... worse). (e: meli also has connections to the rare fantasy creature which started ban’s life hell). ban has too much damage to the point that he becomes a liability

ban <-> king: resolved early, but still good. king is convinced that ban is the cause of all of his suffering partly bc he’s too jealous to admit that smo else got close to his sister when he couldn’t; ban has enough guilt that he just Takes It. even afterwards their personalities are kind of incompatible so it’s fun to see them hang out

meli <-> (king <-> diane): relationship drama but it’s not a frustrating bc it’s relevant to each character’s flaws and Baggage (and the plot doesn’t bother to pretend that diane will end up with melio). king has a lot of guilt over accidentally (?) ghosting his family and SOME of it’s valid (but not all). king is jealous of meli for being the target of diane’s affection but also kind of lowkey thinks he doesn’t deserve her bc of the pain he’s caused her

meli <-> elizabeth <-> diane: diane KNOWS she’s not going to be in a relationship with meli but she still desperately holds onto hope. diane’s fears about being unlovable feed into her lack of self esteem as an oppressed (or at minimum, villanized) minority

elizabeth (the princess) is firmly a member of the team and her determination and character improvement is taken seriously. she DOES get badass moments BEFORE she’s revealed to be a reincarnated angel child or whatever

diane (the only female member of the 7 sins who has a big role this season) is consistently taken seriously (by the writers & other characters)

elizabeth & diane get to INTERACT!! and BE FRIENDS!!

i love elaine. first show i’ve seen that (unintentionally? & through fantasy tropes??) nails Older Sister Disease, i.e. the oldest female sibling being left to deal with all the family business, emotional and physical baggage, while all the male/younger siblings just fuck off. caring for your family members but also lowkey resenting them. they don’t invalidate her feelings even after relieving king of a little of the responsibility for her suffering. (i liked the romance prequel manga a lot - i p much only picked up the anime bc i bought into the romance b/w her and ban)

(despite everything) meli.odas acts like a proper leader for his squad. he takes his responsibilities seriously and treats his colleagues as his equals

ngl the twist with gowther disguising himself and his protagonist hair as a disposable marked-for-death npc was really funny

aesthetic is unique and distinct from the overdone isekai dnd fantasy that’s popular atm

the first ed song by flow & granr.odeo cheers me up every time

the feeling of going on an adventure with your buddies. it’s fun!

[pariswrites-blog]

So I decided to make a large list of plots / faces / ships that I want, which you can find below the cut. It’s long. Check it out and message me/like this if you’re interested in any of them!

MOST WANTED

So I’ve got 3 ships that I want most of all: Niels Schneider x Xavier Dolan, Daniel Sharman x Frank Dillane, and Niels Schneider x Daniel Sharman. I’m completely open plot wise for any of these though for the Niels x Daniel one, I did make this post earlier and still 100% stand by it. I will love you forever if you do one of these with me.

CANONS

TEEN WOLF

I love this show too much and am so sad to see it go so why not do some 1x1s for it? 

I love playing Isaac tbh and would love to have some ships for him. Allison x Isaac is like my OTP so if someone did that with me I would scream? I’ve also always been intrigued with the idea of Lydia x Isaac so I would totally love it if someone did that one too (and I’m cool with changing Holland’s face if you’re uncomfortable with her). Scott x Isaac, Stiles x Isaac, Jackson x Isaac are all some other suggestions. I’m intrigued with Boyd x Isaac as well so that’s a suggestion there too.

Also, sorry Thiam shippers, but I’m 100% forever on the Briam train so if someone would play Liam against my Brett, I’d be in heaven.

IN THE FLESH

Okay so, fun fact, this blog was re-purposed from an rp blog for a group that sadly died. It was an ITF inspired rp and I loved the character I played there and would love to bring him back. There was also a wanted connection I had for him that never got filled but that would be really great as a 1x1. You can read about my character Apollo Bellerose (Niels Schneider fc) here but here’s also a summary of the idea.

(Muse A is Apollo, Muse B would be your character.)

M/M -- Muse A was a wild child, a feral animal of fire and rule-breaking. Hopes for him were dashed at an early age as he set himself up as the trouble-maker. Muse B was the opposite -- tempered and popular. The only reason their paths crossed was because they grew up in the same small town, in the same class. But that should’ve been it. It was a surprise to everyone when Muse B and Muse A started hanging out together, soon becoming inseparable. They were just children but they were attached at the hip, growing into adolescence and teenagers. Muse A was still wild, Muse B was still calm -- fire and water, red and blue. When they were sixteen, their friendship evolved into something more intimate. Though the relationship could be fraught at time -- Muse A to blame in almost every case -- their bond ran deep. Or it did, until Muse B died suddenly. It was an accident or heart failure or something similar, sudden and unexpected. Too soon. One might’ve expected Muse A to go off the deep-end but, rather, he was numb, going through the motions. That was until the Rising happened and the dead came back. The world ground to a halt but with the PDS sufferers in treatment centers, the world is returning to normal and Muse A is getting back on his self-destructive track. He refuses to acknowledge that overwhelming possibility that Muse B would be one of those PDS sufferers, going so far as to avoid Muse B’s grave. With the PDS sufferers returning to Roarton though, it’s only a matter of time before Muse A wouldn’t be able to deny to it. But will an apocalypse be enough to sever their bond? Probably not.

My main suggestion for B was Xavier Dolan though I also originally suggested Daniel Sharman and Keith Powers. Matt Daddario, Bob Morley, and Dominic Sherwood would also work though Xavier and Daniel would be preferred. This is, like, one I really, really want to do still.

XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS

Campy 90s shows for the win (oh, and fuck you Looper -- it’s still perfectly watchable now). Anyways. I really want a Xena x Gabrielle plot, two bad-ass women travelling through the ancient world, kicking godly asses. As much as I love Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor, I realize that they’re not really usable so I’m totally down for changing the faces. Just... Please. Badass women and a canon that totally allows for AUs in all time periods -- it’d be awesome.

THE ORIGINALS

So um... I don’t want like a really super canon 1x1 here but like, after Koleb died, I got in my head this idea of what if, when Davina brought back Kol, Kaleb hitched a ride back. Kaleb’s bitter af but he was always kind of the way in my mind. The pairing would be Davina x Kaleb and we could also make this an OT3 if there was someone who’d like to play Kol as well but that’s not necessary for me.

LES AMOURS IMAGINAIRES

Uh... Indie French cinema for the win? Yeah, I know this won’t get any bites but I’m gonna try anyways. Basically a few years after the end of the movie, Francis and Nicolas meet again. There’s been some maturing, maybe Francis isn’t as close to Marie anymore (or maybe she got married or something). It’s slow-burn reconnecting and falling in love.

FEAR THE WALKING DEAD

So... I know Troy’s a POS person but I think there was potential for evolution in his character. He was isolated from a young age with an abusive father and alcoholic mother which didn’t give him much of a fighting chance in becoming a better person. Off the ranch though, I think he could have evolved. He also had a ton of useful information about walkers. Anyways, I’d like to give him that arc. Also I want to explore that mad chemistry between Nick and Troy so yeah. This masterlist might be good for some general plot ideas and tbh the “Who’s baby is this?” one just screams Trick to me.

GREEK MYTH

This can be like modern or actual myth -- either’s cool. 

Zeus x Ganymede. Either historical like Zeus kidnaps him to be the wine-pourer and Zeus wants him but Ganymede is just perpetually pissed with him for KIDNAPPING him and Zeus has to win him over. Or maybe something modern that’s more sugary daddy/baby-ish?

Telemachus. I really love my baby Telemachus? Or Telemaque as the French would say. But, basically, there’s this suitor and he’s one of the younger ones, probably 25 or less, and not really in the running to win Penelope’s hand but eh. He doesn’t really care. He likes to tease Telemachus but as things get worse in Ithaca, he realizes he’s worried about Telemachus and starts teaching him how to fight and defending him and they start falling in love. He be all like ‘I’ll go with you’ when Telemachus goes to find his father (even though he doesn’t) and, when Odysseus returns, Telemachus has to defend him because he was technically one of the suitors and just... Please. (I’d play Telemachus.)

Odysseus x Penelope. Clever Odysseus and clever Penelope, dominating and tricking the world with their superior minds. A modern!AU.

HARRY POTTER

I love this universe so I’m super down for anything. I won’t do anything set at Hogwarts because I can never remain interested in that tbh but other stuff is cool. I highkey ship Remus x Sirius and would love to write them as long as the faces aren’t Andrew Garfield or Ben Barnes. I also love all the potential in the fucked up dynamic between Fenrir and Remus. I usually end up playing Fenrir but if someone wanted to let me play Remus in that, I’d adore you forever. A Regulus x Remus one would be awesome too. A Nymphadora x Remus ship would be cool too, as would a James x Lily or Lily x Marlene. Outside the Marauders era, someone needs to give me a Ginny x Cho ship. I also wrote a next gen son of Greyback (Lycus Greyback) once that I’d love to bring back. Maybe with Teddy? Or OCs -- OCs in the HP universe are totally okay with me.

PLOTS

So this tag has the plots I want but some I particularly want.

X. I’d like to be Muse B and maybe like have Tom Ellis as A? Or Jason Momoa? Idk. I’m open but I think it’d be super fun.

X. I’d be cool with playing either in this plot; I’d love to see Troye Sivan as A but again open but fun sounding.

“you’re supposed to be on a blind date with someone but you sat down at the wrong table and i haven’t been able to get a word in edgewise to tell you that and it’s been thirty minutes” from this post. I’ve no preferences on genders or faces just I think this could be cool.

Yo I’ve mentioned this multiple times not but THIS PLOT with Daniel Sharman as A and Niels Schneider as B -- let me play B and love. me.

“what is the ONE thing i asked you NOT to do tonight?” “raise the dead…” “AND WHAT DID YOU DO?!” “…raised the dead…” from this post. I really want to play a necromancer? Maybe we could do a Trick!AU where the walkers are because of necromancers and Troy has had to repress the fact he’s one his entire life and then Jeremiah and Jake are dead and yeah. But we could also do this as entirely OC. I’d still love it be necromancer-caused zombie apocalypse but I’m cool with other stuff.

“i’m a ghost and i’m trapped in the graveyard and i don’t normally talk to mortals but bro i have to ask wtf are you doing hanging around a graveyard is your life really this sad” from this post. open and fun again!

X. PLEASE. Any sort of serial killer plot would be awesome. Which is a weird fucking thing to say but okay.

“you and your friend always sit at the table a couple down from mine and gossip in [insert language here], which happens to be a language i’m currently learning. i’ve been eavesdropping to try and improve my listening comprehension and oh my god are you actually talking about how hot i am???” -- this please, from this post. maybe like a daniel sharman x tyler posey? or idk.

literally anything from this post but like i mention “who’s baby is this? au” for Trick in a canon divergent plot (ie. after they leave the ranch, before they get to the dam)

also this could also work for xavier dolan x niels schneider.

SHIPS

So how about a Xavier Dolan x Daniel Sharman? Or Jenna Thiam x Niels Schneider? Also Jack Falahee, Crystal Reed, Kat McNamara, Conrad Ricamora x Daniel Sharman. Other ones that don’t include Daniel, Xavier, or Niels: Eva Green x Caitlin Stasey (I’d also be cool with playing Eva if we used them for Xena and Gabrielle), Riz Ahmed x Fawad Khan (Fawad as a multi-billionaire playboy and Riz as a devoted grad student, maybe?), Charlie Hunnam x Jason Momoa, Marlon Teixeira x Willy Cartier, Andreja Pejic x Hari Nef, Andrew Garfield x Ben Barnes (but not as Remus and Sirius), Sofia Boutella x Charlize Theron.

FACES

It’s very clear that I love Daniel Sharman and Niels Schneider so they will always be most wanted, with Xavier Dolan as a close third. I feel most comfortable with them tbh and have the most muse for them (also I’ve made like 400 gifs of Niels). If you want to make me happy, let me play one of them and play one of the others against me. I would like to branch out at some point though so some others. There are honestly too many for me to list in their entirety so I’ll list only ones I have mentioned already. Bold are ones I want to play, italics I want used against me, plain are the ones I have no preference about (though I’d be open on most of the bold ones too).

Alycia Debnam-Carey, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Samuel Larsen, Adrianne Palicki, Laith Ashley, Elliot Fletcher, Iskra Lawrence, Lisa Teige, Iman Meskini, Hale Appleman, Tarjei Sandvik Moe, Adelaide Kane, Alexandra Daddario, Amber Heard, Josh Holloway, Angelina Jolie, Arden Cho, Barbara Palvin, Alex Saxon, Alexander Koch, Bianca Santos, Caity Lotz, Camila Quieroz, Cara Delevigne, Blake Michael, Avan Jogia, Austin Butler, Diego Barrueco, Bill Skarsgard, Booboo Stewart, Chloe Bridges, Byun Baek-Hyun, Diane Guerrero, Carlos Valdes, Josh Thomas, Dichen Lachman, Christopher Larkin, Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller, Gaspard Ulliel, Emeraude Toubia, Emilia Clarke, Famke Janssen, Gabriella Wilde, Halston Sage, Dev Patel, Douglas Booth, Godfrey Gao, Harry Shum Jr., Karen Fukuhara, Kiowa Gordon, Landon Liboiron, Matt Hitt, Matthew Gray Gubler, Keira Knightley, Kiana Lede, Lana Condor, Liza Soberano, Maira Walsh, Jamie Blackley, Jordan Fisher, Jamie Campbell-Bower, Megan Fox, Naomi Scott, Max Irons, Reece King, Richard Harmon, Natalia Dyer, Phoebe Tonkin, Priyanka Chopra, Madelaine Petsch, Seo Kang-Joon, Steven R. McQueen, Steven Yeun, Seychelle Gabriel, Shelley Hennig, Skyler Samuels, Haruma Miura, Lee Hyun-Jae, Thomas McDonell, Toby Regbo, Tom Holland, Tyler Blackburn, Joe Manganiello, Tyler Hoechlin, Cengiz Al, Froy Gutierrez, Tanya Beatty, Victoria Moroles, Zoe Kravtiz, Yoon Jeonghan.

This is not all-encompassing. There are plenty more faces. In fact, I’d love to use model faces without any resources -- just some old-fashioned writing, maybe some static icons if we feel like it.

[ganymedesclock]

So okay hey y’know what’s a thing that bugs me about Shadow’s arc throughout the games?

The Biolizard and the Black Arms.

Because... two times, there’s the person that Shadow has the actual, justified beef with, and then a second party who is connected pretty directly to Shadow. A peer. 

The Biolizard is Shadow’s prototype, which, considering Gerald, at least before the massacre, was as far from a cold uncaring researcher as possible- this is Shadow’s older sibling. And, yeah, as a prototype organisms, she has some serious health concerns- her tendency to hyperventilate definitely being one of them- but it doesn’t seem like she’s suffering.

And, yeah, she doesn’t vocalize, isn’t small and Mobian-like but there is clearly someone home. A mindless animal ruled only by instinct would not be taken as the vehicle for Gerald’s revenge. A mindless animal couldn’t operate the ARK’s systems, much less by projecting them, or use the sophisticated, complex attack pattern that the Biolizard does- comparable to Eggman’s boss robots. Hell, one of the hardest things to do fighting Biolizard is dodge. She’s a really good shot, and the one exploitable opening in her combat is where she needs to stop and hyperventilate with her life support, which, she can’t exactly do anything about.

Hell, you’d argue considering the whole repetition of “power enriched by the heart” that whatever nebulous sources we have in Sonic would state that Biolizard has a soul. She has to have a will and “heart” or how would she be able to use Chaos Control?

Biolizard is smart. And what’s the other thing we see about Biolizard? That video left behind by Gerald- repeating over and over and over again.

The video left behind by Gerald- who tampered with Shadow’s memories and otherwise twisted a quiet, sensitive, traumatized individual into his vehicle for revenge.

This is the one thing we “hear” from Biolizard who is absolutely smart enough to communicate somehow. Who, if we assume she, like Shadow, is synthesized from Arms DNA, would probably have been on some level communicating with Shadow the entire time- considering Shadow’s the one utterly unsurprised when Biolizard warps in to mess them up.

The Biolizard was manipulated and exploited by Gerald just like Shadow was. Much like Shadow, we have no reason to believe she is inherently violent or hateful. There is no good reason to carefully and lovingly deliver Shadow from Gerald’s machinations and kill Biolizard.

“But Clockie, she would’ve killed everyone with the ARK!”

So would Shadow, given he was instrumental in delivering the emeralds to Biolizard in the first place, and literally in the scene leading up to the Biolizard fight he’s calmly looking out the window waiting for the impact.

Literally- Shadow’s realization that this was wrong was a last second incident.

What did the Biolizard believe? What was her perspective on the ARK? She’s so large and heavy- unable to move through most of the facility except by teleporting- did she hide and avoid GUN? Was she captured? We have no idea. But Gerald clearly tampered with her- the presence of the video aligns directly with her appearance.

Just like Shadow, she was acting on his orders. And we don’t know how easy it is for Biolizard to communicate or understand- it might be hard for her to get a grasp on her situation just through eavesdropping on the united Hero & Dark teams.

I could write this entire post on the ambiguity of “Supporting Me” and how much it sounds like a conversation more than a soliloquy. “I know you were supporting me,” and the repetitions/variations on that- who is he talking to, or, rather, who is talking to him? A lot of the lyrical SA2 themes are very straightforwards- almost comically so at times- but Shadow’s themes for that game are... weird. Ambiguous. Distorted. I’m honestly kind of sad they dropped that for his later games, but that’s getting off topic.

Biolizard, in every way, is just like Shadow, and we watch her rip herself apart trying to fulfill Gerald’s revenge with no idea if this was ever what she really wanted. The finalhazard form looks incredibly painful. This is someone who has a body that does not lend itself well to stress-free movement and the tendency to hyperventilate when overexerting herself and she never hesitates to protect herself.

And, for all that? For all of her sharing Shadow’s tragedy? We get nothing. No sympathy. Not even a second thought except “wow wasn’t that a cool boss fight” in Sonic Generations. Shadow calls her an ugly prototype. Her downfall is treated as synonymous to Gerald’s downfall- she’s treated as a mere symptom or face of his revenge.

And this is, quite frankly, so much of how the Black Arms are handled. Shadow finds another messed up branch of his family tree in Black Doom, who is all too eager to do exactly what Gerald did- gaslight Shadow and use him for Doom’s personal vendetta. Only unlike Gerald, Doom isn’t a desperate specter from the past, he’s the patriarch of an entire species. What he’s trying to do to Shadow, he’s already done to all of the other Arms.

The Black Arms- who are, seemingly, hypersocial, mentally linked on an incredibly intimate level, and who would be, thus, incredibly vulnerable to exactly the kind of manipulations and attacks Doom lavishes on Shadow.

Once again- the only reason Shadow is our hero, the only reason he’s spared, is because of the people who reach out to him, in past and present. And this is framed as a very narrow thing- sure, most of the routes, especially the dark routes, are noncanon, but it’s still emphasized as a very real possibility that Doom is able to break Shadow entirely to his will.

But again- for the Arms? There is no sympathy. They’re in exactly the same boat as Shadow, as far as carrying out Doom’s orders against Earth, the angle of the True Ending tells us that the Pure Hero route is as noncanon as the Pure Dark route- that at bare minimum, Shadow gave Doom the Chaos Emeralds and put Earth in danger. Hell, even more than Biolizard, you can argue the Arms may have actually had no awareness or control of what they were doing- Gerald’s manipulations just convinces the person that this is what they need to do in a guise they’re least likely to refuse, but consider how incredibly off Shadow acts in the scenes where he’s heavily under Doom’s influence.

And this is infuriating to me not only because Biolizard and the Black Arms are written off, but because- a significant plot thread for Shadow going onward from his decision to turn his back on his history and try to use his power for good is that he has like two friends and is in an incredibly difficult situation to relate to people.

What I’ve seen of Archie’s plot exploring Eclipse and the Dark Arms... also, honestly does not encourage me, because Shadow’s sibling seems to be presented overwhelmingly as a corrupting force, and the heroic course of action is for Shadow to once again fight off his extended family.

Which... if Shadow’s a Black Arm, and the Arms are a hypersocial colony species... is it really any wonder Shadow’s not doing so hot, or why the familial ties of Gerald and Maria meant so, so much to him? Sure, genetic influences only do so much in the realm of the psychological but if Arms aren’t even supposed to be completely alone in their own heads, outside of the freaky subjugation that Doom gets up to- there have been studies that babies will die from insufficient contact. 

I could write an entire different post on the beautiful, beautiful found family feelings I have over Team Dark’s relationship, and how wonderful Rouge and Omega are as stabilizing forces in Shadow’s life (I mean, heck, look at the fact that in some of the worse routes in ShTH they’re there for him- Rouge in particular is your lone ‘get out of jail’ card to help you away from the worst ending)...

...but that’s not to say that he’s fine, and it doesn’t matter if he’s alone.

Nobody’s going to argue they should’ve blown up Earth with ARK, or that Doom was anything but an abusive, tyrannical person who needed to get his miscellaneous appendages out of Shadow’s brain. And I’m not trying to spin this at all to suggest leaving his biological family means Shadow’s Never Going To Be Happy- that’s an awful message to send because sometimes, people really do just need to cut ties with their blood relatives.

What aggravates me is that there’s no satisfactory explanation or even acknowledgement for why Shadow is the one redeemed and not his siblings, when it seems like the only thing that separates them is once again, that people reached out to Shadow.

Which is ridiculous because our supporting cast is packed with people who care! 

Rouge paints herself as only in it for personal gain in contrast to the selfless, duty-bound Knuckles, her rival- and yet even her debut game framed her repeatedly as someone who ultimately is kind, trustworthy, who says things like “Even if the world turns against you, I won’t,” and means it. Hell, in SA2, she was the one who was actively an undercover agent for the forces of good.

Eggman wants to take over the world but god dammit he has standards, he deplores senseless destruction- we see him angrily decry both Gerald and Doom, the former rather personally since Gerald was his hero.

And Sonic? It’s pretty solidly established Sonic will take under his wing and give an affectionate nickname to anything that’s around him for more than ten minutes.

This is not an arrangement of people who don’t care. There’s no actual good in-universe justification for the Biolizard and the Black Arms being met so coldly when none of the amounts of violence they enacted or attempted exceeded Shadow’s.

Also there are so many incredible ways to explore the idea that Shadow is related to a freaking space dinosaur. Literally whatever character you ascribe to the Biolizard, it’d be amazing. 

[sadlittlenerdking]

Project Seduce Quentin Coldwater and So Lift His Spirits

The Magicians, Quentin x Eliot

Chapter 1 / ?

Word count: 3,618

Summary: Post brain wipe, Eliot’s been spending a lot of time with Quentin, claiming it’s to keep his promise of seducing him to lift his spirits. Of course, nothing ever goes the way Eliot plans it to, and he’s six months deep, and definitely not falling for Quentin. 

Also on AO3

The thing is, Eliot knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s not necessarily the best, nor moral, thing for him to be doing, but he knows what it is and he’s (not) entirely unashamed. He’d even made this exact offer right before Quentin was wiped, and Quentin said it’d be amazing. So, clearly had Quentin not been wiped, Eliot would still be entirely in the right. Even if  Quentin’s answer had been lacking the enthusiasm Eliot would have liked.

So what if Margo thinks he’s being presumptuous and lacking a general moral compass? What the fuck does she know anyways? She’s off in Ibiza with Todd; talk about lacking a moral compass. Ibiza’s going to eat the poor kid and spit him back out without any mercy or morality.

Morality. Eliot scoffs, pulling his flask out of his jacket pocket and spilling a fair amount of this weeks alcohol into his coffee.  Who the fuck needs morality? He’s happy with general debauchery and a mild case of alcoholism. Who wouldn’t be? Just a week ago, Margo had been on the same boat as him, planning to float off into an actual universe of nothing but sex, drugs, and alcohol. But then she found out he’s been kind of, maybe, definitely, stalking Quentin, and practically kicked him off of the Ibiza trip.

She’s going to regret that decision when she comes back and finds all her clothes are cursed to make her look fat.

And, honestly, he’s not stalking Quentin Coldwater, because he’s talking to him, and getting coffee with him - even if Quentin is perpetually late - and just generally making sure he’s okay. Mostly because he’s working his way up to the promised seduction, which Quentin, in all his nerdy fanboy ridiculousness, seems completely oblivious to.

Okay so that’s not entirely true, because, not that Margo the Traitor needs to know, he does genuinely want to make sure Quentin’s okay. Though, he does really, desperately, want to get laid.

It’s really just a double edged sword that nobody needs to understand.

The coffeeshop door slams open, and the man of the hour stares at it in a wide eyed horror as everyone else in the cafe looks up at him, mildly annoyed. Eliot forces down a laugh, and waves at him, “Quentin!” He calls, and those wide eyes flit across the room until they land on him, and a small relieved smile accompanies them as Quentin ducks his head and makes his way across the room. As he drops his messenger bag on the floor next to the table and takes a seat, Eliot admonishes, “You really know how to make an entrance, don’t you?”

Quentin’s cheeks flush, though they’re already red from the brisk winter air brewing outside, “Shut up,” He mutters, as he rests his hands on top of the table and shakes the snow out of his hair. “It wasn’t me, it was the wind.”

Eliot nods, “Mhm, right.” Grinning as Quentin narrows his eyes at him, “Totally the wind.”

“It was!”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

Quentin sighs, shaking his head, though there’s a little smile quirking at the corners of his lips that makes Eliot’s stomach do a little flip - one that he refuses to acknowledge as anything other than the temporary warming spell waring off - and starts taking off his gloves. “You weren’t waiting long, were you? I had to go see my dad, and there was a ton of traffic on the way back.”

He’s been waiting a little over an hour, actually, but he’s not about to acknowledge that. “Not at all. I just got here. How is your dad, anyways? Still have brain cancer?” He flinches as Quentin’s hands still for a moment. He really needs to work on the whole actual empathy thing. Though, if he’s being honest, he’s gotten a lot better in the past few months.

And no, mental Margo nagging him from wherever she is in Ibiza, it’s not because of these little outings with Quentin. So. There.

Quentin’s eyes fall to the three coffee cups on the table, one by one before he looks back up at Eliot’s face. “Just got here, huh?” He asks, a small grin worming it’s way across his face, that makes his eyes crunch up adorably, not that Eliot’s taking much notice. “And he’s . . . he’s refusing to take his medicine?” His eyebrows furrow as he shucks out of his jacket and drapes it over his chair, “He’s just waiting to die, I guess.”

Eliot’s smile falls, and he reaches forward, placing a hand over Quentin’s. “It’ll be okay,” He murmurs, squeezing his hand, “And if you need anything, I’m just a phone call away.”

Genuinely. He’d actually purchased a fucking phone just so they could keep in contact. Of course, he has to head to the tech available areas on campus before he can actually use it, but with a little spelling, and a heavy does of his telekinesis, he now gets alerts when somebodies calling or texting and he can rush across campus so he can reply accordingly and efficiently. Because if there is one thing Eliot is - it’s efficient.

It’s actually the reason Margo found out about this whole mission of his. Honestly, it’s not like he puts a large amount of effort into the whole thing. Just a few hours in the labs working up a spell, about a week testing it and perfecting it, and an almost constant use of his telekinesis. Hardly any work at all.

If there’s one thing Margo is - it’s Queen of Overreacting.

“I know,” Quentin smiles softly at him, though his eyes flicker down to their hands like he’s confused, and Eliot almost pulls his hand away, but then Quentin’s turning his upwards so he can hold his hand, and holy shit this is the most progress Eliot’s made on Project Seduce Quentin Coldwater and So Lift His Spirits, in six months. Quentin’s hand squeezes his, and Eliot is so, totally, completely fine. “Thank you, Eliot. I don’t know what I’d do without you right now, to be completely honest.” He frowns, “Is that weird to say to someone you barely know?”

“We’ve been over this, -,”

“Yes, I know, you bond quickly because time is an illusion or whatever, but -,”

“It’s not weird. I mean, you are weird, but that’s not a weird thing to say.”

Quentin laughs, loud and full, and Eliot smiles as well, as Quentin goes on completely oblivious to everyone around them turning around to see who’s laughing so boisterously. “You’re a dick.”

Eliot grins, “I know. That’s why you like me.” Quentin’s cheeks go pink again and Eliot has to fight the urge to lean across the table and - nothing. Nothing at all, mental Margo. Eliot is just doing his yearly community service. That’s all. He absolutely does not have feelings for Quentin. Nor does he want to lean across the table and kiss him until he’s pink everywhere. Not even a little bit.

“I mean,” Quentin shrugs, pulling his hand out of Eliot’s, and turning in his chair like he’s going to get up. Eliot frowns. “You’re not so bad, overall? So, that, uhm. That could have something to do with it?”

“Where are you going?” Eliot sits up straight, pulling his hands into his lap.

Quentin looks down at him as he stands up, and motions with a thumb at the coffee counter. “To go get some coffee. I’m freezing.”

Eliot casts a quick spell, catching the barista stopping what she’s doing behind them so she can make Quentin’s usual. “Oh, I already ordered it for you,” He says, “Your usual.”

“What?”

He shrugs, grinning, “I saw you through the window, and asked for your usual. It’s not a big deal.”

Even if it is a lie.

Quentin slowly lowers himself back into his chair and stares at Eliot blankly for a few confusing moments before shaking his head, and looking down at the table top.

“What?” Eliot finds himself asking.

Quentin makes a noise and looks back up at him. “Why are -,” He pauses, licks his lips, which doesn’t distract Eliot at all, and tries, “I don’t - this is. I have good friends.” He looks confused at his own statement as he shakes his head, waving a hand in front of him, “Julia is great, for one.”

Fuck Julia. Fucking Hedge Bitch choosing magic over her own friend who has blatantly been suffering over the past few months. Quentin deserves better. Not that Eliot is any better. After all, he’s just trying to fulfill his promise to seduce him. Quentin’s just oblivious to any and all sexual, or romantic - for that matter, advances.

Quentin seems stumped for a moment, like he can’t think of anyone past Julia to consider a friend, but then he barrels on. “But you - you’re, really, you know,” He moves his head and shoulders in a way that makes Eliot think of a turtle trying to crawl back into it’s shell, but is too lazy to actually go through with it - which is an annoyingly cute motion, “You’re in - you’re way too nice to me,” He rolls his eyes, “And I’m not sure why?” He looks up at Eliot, biting down on his lower lip.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

He’s not sure what else to say. He’s pretty sure ‘I’ve come to fulfill a promise I made to you in a life you’ve forgotten about. What’s the promise? Nothing much, just to seduce you,’ isn’t exactly an appropriate response. Especially if he wants to keep from getting expelled from Brakebills for revealing magic.

He also see’s a familiar look forming at the edge of Quentin’s face, one that says he thinks he’s broken, and couldn’t understand anyone caring about him, and look, Eliot’s not the greatest person, but even he has the overwhelming urge to punch every single person who ever made Quentin think he’s not worthwhile.

“I mean. I’m -,”

“Kind and courteous? A hilarious smart ass?”

Quentin shakes his head. “Fairly broken.”

Eliot’s hand flies across the table and grabs Quentin’s again, squeezing his fingers around his palm, “Listen to me,” He murmurs, pausing as the barista sets Quentin’s coffee on the table with a smile, “You aren’t broken. You’re missing some pieces. But so is everybody else,” He shrugs, leaning back, though keeping a firm grasp on Quentin’s hand, “Let’s not be so dramatic, Quentin.”

“I’m not being dramatic. I’m being serious.”

“Hm,” Eliot murmurs, “I didn’t take you for a Harry Potter fan.”

Quentin stares at him for a long moment, before sighing, and slumping into his own chair, “You know what I meant.”

“I did,” He nods, running his thumb over Quentin’s knuckles, “But I’m choosing to ignore it, because you’re wrong.”

“You don’t even know me.”

Eliot laughs, “We’ve been getting coffee together twice  a week for nearly six months, Quentin. I think it’s safe to say we know each other fairly well at this point.”

Then Quentin does something so unlike him, and rips his hand away from Eliot’s, forcefully and angrily and leans forward, until his hair is just inches from dipping into his coffee. “But why?” And he looks genuinely confused and furious all at once.

He’s almost pouting.

And Eliot wants to kiss him. Which is, obviously, all part of his grand scheme.

“Why do we know each other? I just told you.”

Quentin huffs, glaring at him, though Eliot can’t possibly be expected to take it too seriously, and then he’s crossing his arms across his chest, watching him from over the table. “Why do we get coffee twice a week? Why did you approach me six months ago like it was nothing, and then sit there all smug, and. Just - ” He waves a hand around, motioning at all of Eliot, “So - you. Why is this - how - when did having a lunch with a hot guy twice a week become my life?” And Eliot should probably focus on how frustrated and confused Quentin sounds, but he’s a bit busy preening over being called a hot guy.

Eliot forces the smile that wants to bloom down, and just tilts his head at Quentin, “You think I’m hot?”

Which is enough to make Quentin stop nearly hyperventilating, “How do you always miss the point?!” He exclaims, eyes going wide as a couple a few tables away stop talking to turn and look at them. He huffs a big breath, leaning in closer to the table. “You know what I meant, Eliot.”

Look, Quentin’s frustrated, maybe a little angry, definitely confused, but Eliot can’t help but enjoy him like this. Back at Brakebills, the last time he saw him before he was wiped, he’d been beaten down and frightened. Worried about what his life would be after Brakebills - after magic. He was afraid he’d go back to the life of depression, and doing things he didn’t want to because he thought it was what he had to. But he hadn’t, and he’s still depressed - by God, if Eliot could get rid of that, he would - but he’s so much stronger than the man that Eliot met on the Brakebills lawn, that first day.

Magical Quentin didn’t give himself enough credit for what he was capable of. He’s awkward, but he’s strong and more demanding of the world now, and it’s, as bluntly as Eliot can possibly put it, hot as hell. Encouraging, too. This is that man that broke down after making a mistake, but at the same time, he’s somebody else entirely.

Eliot licks his lips, leans forward as well. “Is it so hard to believe I saw an entirely too attractive, geeky guy sitting by himself and wanted to join him?”

“Yes,” He takes a moment to look partially offended, “And I’m not a geek. If anything, I’m a nerd.”

Eliot laughs. “Okay, Quentin. You’re a nerd. Do you feel better now?”

Quentin deflates a bit. “No, not really.”

“What’s the problem, here?”

“I just,” He pauses, and looks up at the ceiling, eyes ticking back and forth over the tiles and lights, as if he’s trying to find the words to articulate what he’s feeling. “I’m confused.” He turns his gaze back on Eliot, then. “You’re insanely attractive - but you know that. And, you’re kind, and you care - why do you care?”

Why does he care?

There’s a loaded question he can’t actually answer.

He chews on his lip for a moment, watching Quentin, who seems to be trying to make himself smaller and smaller by each passing second. There’s a brief moment Eliot worries that he’ll tap into his magic and wham! Turn himself into a small animal or insect in front of everyone in the cafe. But he just keeps curling in on himself, watching Eliot with those big, worried eyes. “Have you ever,” Eliot starts, pursing his lips, “Seen someone and felt yourself kind of pulled towards them? It’s kind of intrinsic? You see them and you know that you’re supposed to talk to them, get to know them?”

He’d felt that way, when Quentin came tumbling through the trees and slowly, so fucking slowly, made his way across the Brakebills lawn towards him.  Yeah, he’d been assigned to get him to the test, but wanting to get to know him afterwards? He can’t exactly deny that he’d wanted to do that.

Mostly because Margo would shoot him dead for lying.

Quentin looks down at the table for just a moment, fingers reaching out and twisting the cup with his coffee around, until the logo is facing him, and the handle of the cup is pointed at the window. “Maybe.”

Eliot’s eyebrows shoot up. “Maybe? With who? Should I be jealous?” And maybe he feels a little jealous. Or maybe he messed up the temporary warming spell and it’s gradually getting hotter. Since Eliot isn’t the jealous type, it must be the spell.

Lithe fingers run over the top of the coffee cup, as Quentin’s thumb nail scratches at the logo. “No,” He murmurs, looking up at Eliot through his eyelashes. “I - uh,” he swallows, looks back down at the cup, “I saw you. Before? You introduced yourself.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah,” He swallows again, looking back up at Eliot. “A few times. That’s why I was so surprised when you asked to sit with me.”

Eliot grins. “Is that so?” He’s both impressed and surprised. He had tried to use a spell that made him - not invisible, but harder to notice. So he could stalk - ahem, check on - Quentin without seeming like a complete creep. So it is strange that Quentin, devoid of any knowledge of magic, had been able to see him. But also fairly impressive, because it means the magic is stronger in him than even Brakebills realized.

A little pang of pride shoots down Eliot’s spine, but he passes it off as a cold shiver. Because, obviously the spell is fluctuating between extreme heat and extreme cold. Not so strange - it’s never personally happened to him, but he doesn’t doubt it’s happened to other, less experienced Magicians. He’d been distracted this morning, he could have easily flubbed a part of the spell.

“I - Yeah.” Quentin shrugs, looking slightly guilty, his fingers continuing their assault on the poor coffee mug, “You were always in the corner,” He nods to the back of the cafe, where Eliot had definitely spent many a morning over his vodka coffee watching him, “And, I don’t know. It kind of felt like I knew you. And then you sat with me, and I didn’t know a single fucking thing,” He chuckles, more to himself, and looks back up, “You look all intense and scary and hot, but you’re -,” He stopped.

“I’m what?”

“Kind and, intense and - and hot.”

Eliot laughs, the sound roaring out of him in a shocking exhale. “Thanks, Q.” He reaches forward and stops Quentin’s thumb from actually somehow peeling off the logo, and wraps his fingers around Quentin’s, which are warm from the resonating heat of the coffee. “And, I care because you make me care.”

Something inside him pulls at his arm, attempts to wiggle free, but he glares down at his hand, and holds tight. Quentin needs someone to care, and Eliot can be, has been for months, that person, damn it. He can still keep his promise.

“I make you care?”

Eliot nods. “Besides the whole kicked puppy thing - no, it’s not bad, stop trying to pull your fucking hand away,” He squeezes his fingers tighter around Quentin’s, “Because you’re, I don’t know. Easy to care about, I guess.”

And maybe it’s the truth.

“I have clinical depression, a best friend off who knows where drugged up on only god knows what -,” Well, Eliot had a pretty good idea of what she’s drugged up on, and it’s not even remotely close to actual narcotics, “And a dad with brain cancer. How the fuck does that make me easy to care about?”

Eliot’s brow furrows. “You think because your life is fucked up people shouldn’t find it easy to care about you?”

“I’m saying it should be pretty near impossible to give a fuck.” He shrugs, looking down at their hands. “I know if I had the choice to not care about any of this, I’d walk away in a heart beat.”

“Your dad really got to you today, didn’t he?” Eliot murmurs. “That’s what this is, isn’t it?”

“No!” Then, “Maybe? . . . Yes? Yes.”

Sighing, Eliot, pulls away and reaches for his jacket. Quentin’s eyes go wide, and just as Eliot see’s the flash of hurt, it’s gone, but Eliot’s frantically leaning down, “No, no,” He says, pointing at Quentin, “I’m not - no. That’s not what’s happening, jesus. Stop being a sad sack and put your jacket on.”

“I - I,” He looks between Eliot’s pointing finger and the full cup of coffee on the table. “But I haven’t had my coffee.”

“And you’re too distracted to drink it. So, come on. We’re going to go do something exciting to get your mind off your shitty life.” He expects Quentin to be offended, but instead his chairs being pushed back, and Eliot almost gets smacked in the face as Quentin pulls on the jacket.

“Promise?” Quentin asks as he leans down and picks up his gloves, barely bothering to break eye contact with Eliot.

Eliot tilts his head. “Now that is not the response I would’ve predicted.”

Quentin at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed before saying, “I’ve wanted to see you outside of the cafe for a while, anyways.” Which makes them both laugh as Eliot rolls his eyes, and heads towards the entrance, grabbing Quentin’s hand as he does so.

What? His hands are warm and soft, and Eliot has a fucked up temp spell messing with his temperatures, and Quentin’s hands are right there for the taking. It’s not like he wants to hold his hands for anything other than safety purposes.

Even if they really are ridiculously soft.

[ashapon]

Pretty Girl Rock

Summary: Part 1. Honestly, they’ve known each other for so long. Chris shouldn’t just be figuring this out now.

Tags: Climbing Class, Chris/Josh, Until Dawn AU, Cheerleader!Josh

Word Count: 2,733

“Hey, nerd.”

Chris swiveled around in his seat to face a beaming Jessica, her hands clutching her cellphone close to the fabric of her baby blue cami. He’d long since learned that her way of referring to him was more of an endearment than anything else; Jessica was shockingly sweet in spite that her position as head of the cheerleading squad also carried the baggage of the ‘bitch’ stereotype.

“What’s up?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s up’?” Jessica rolled her eyes playfully. “You comin’ to tonight’s game or what?”

Chris furrowed his eyebrows, actually considered she was joking for a moment. She didn’t wait for his answer and instead plowed through his confusion.

“We’ve got this phenomenal routine, right?” Jessica wiggled her fingers excitedly. “Oh my gosh, you have to come! It’s Friday night, we’ll all hang out afterward.”

“I don’t know,” he chuckled, glancing to the clock. Three minutes until the chemistry quiz. “Josh goes on about how boring I’ll find it. All games are the same, right?”

“Don’t do it for the football, duh,” she joked, leaning down to pull her book out. “Do it for us! Do it for the cheer. It’d totally mean a lot.”

“Yeah,” Chris offered her a quick smile before swiveling around in his seat just as the bell rang. “Okay. I guess I could drop by if it means so much to you.”

Jessica giggled, typing out a brief message.

“I thought you’d wanna do it for Josh, but whatever.”

Chris turned the upper half of his body, raising an eyebrow in Jessica’s direction.

“Why would Josh care if I watched you guys cheer?”

Jessica gave him a look that very much conveyed he was an idiot and, honestly, Chris had no idea why. He didn’t get the chance to inquire further, not when their teacher was calling their attention to the front as she started passing out the quiz.

Josh Washington was his best friend; they’d known each other since the 3rd grade - and sometimes they were completely different people and they worked. They shared plenty of common interest, and would truthfully do anything for each other, but Chris wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he wouldn’t know half the people he did without Josh.

The way that Josh was, he didn’t care how he came off to other people, he socialized with anyone, didn’t actually try to compromise on who he was. Chris respected him more than he could put into words. Josh was someone Chris could goof around with who wouldn’t pretend it didn’t happen the next day.

That in mind, Chris realized he hadn’t ever gone to see his friend play a game. Josh was on the football team and he’d never bothered to drop in? Maybe he didn’t care about that kind of obligation, maybe he knew that wasn’t the kind of environment Chris thrived in?

He hadn’t bothered to consider it until now; and he thought about it the entire day, tossed multiple scenarios around in his head that varied from Josh being completely ashamed of him to, was it even possible, Josh being a terrible football player. Neither seemed likely, no matter which direction Chris’ anxieties tried to push him in.

In the end, Chris convinced himself not to worry about it. He met up with two of their friends, Sam and Ashley, after school and they followed the crowd to the bleachers.

“Is this really your first time seeing a game?”

Chris shrunk under Sam’s gaze a bit and she immediately appeared apologetic. He stared down at his phone, biting his lip, and tapped a swift ‘good luck, I’ll be here after’ message to Josh. He wanted to tell Josh he’d be here sooner, but he knew his friend would try to talk him out of it.

Why was that?

“You know Josh,” Chris managed a smile. “He always says it’s not a big deal.”

Sam hummed in a way that suggested she was only half-satisfied with that answer before the three of them were interrupted by an enthusiastic shout.

“You made it!”

Jessica reached over the railing to snag Chris’ hands, shaking them with vigor. She was wearing the tri-colored cheerleading uniform, her hair twisted in dual braids.

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“This is so great,” Jessica fists went up in the air before she extended her index fingers toward Chris. “He’s gonna be so happy. He always gets a little nervous about every game.”

Well, Chris supposed that did make sense. The school put a lot of pressure on its athletes.

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” he replied, supportive. “Where is he, anyway?”

Jessica opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly the crowd was roaring and instead she took a few steps back. She mouthed something that looked like ‘Show time’ and lifted her hands in the air again.

The crowd quieted some and she spoke over the din.

“What’s up, Titans?”

The crowd roared in response and Chris reached up to cover his ears, wincing.

“You guys ready to see a win tonight?”

Again, the crowd screamed the affirmative and Jessica clapped her hands together.

“First thing’s first...” a coy smile tugged at her pink lips. “Are you excited for some Titan cheer?”

Jessica’s smile was infectious, Chris found, exchanging a small grin with Sam and Ashley before clapping along with everyone else. Music started blaring from the speakers around them and the hype reached its peak with the appearance of the Los Angeles Titans’ cheering squad.

Roughly a half a dozen male and female cheerleaders stood just outside of the football field, gathering in their formation. Chris spared half of them a look before the cheer began.

It really was impressive; Chris flinched because, half the time, it seemed as if someone was in danger of breaking their spine, but definitely impressive. Jessica was a star, obviously, but he knew that going in.

Halfway through the cheer Sam jostled his shoulder and pointed at a particular member of the squad. He followed her gaze, listening as she spoke directly into his ear.

“There’s our boy,” she sounded like she was imitating a proud mother. “Cool, right?”

Chris squinted. Honestly, he hadn’t been paying attention to any of the others aside from Jessica. The instant his eyes landed on the man in question, they widened and his mouth hung open.

He felt numb for the remainder of the performance, like he switched bodies with someone who was him but not quite. As though he’d ended up in a completely different universe in the span of a few minutes.

In this universe, Josh Washington - his best friend in the entire world - just so happened to be a cheerleader. One of the few male cheerleaders and, by all appearances, the most out-fucking-standing of them.

Josh was worrying his lip beneath a small and entirely wholehearted grin as he pulled off moves and flips and things that had Chris gasping behind his hands.

This was real. He knew that grin. He knew it because it was exactly like the one Josh sent his way whenever Chris insisted he’d be the next big thing in Hollywood.

By the end of the routine, Chris was positive his eardrums had shattered, his hands shaking while the crowd chanted for more. The cheer squad convened in front of them and Josh, beaming, had an arm around Jessica as he whooped and the football players began to file out onto the field. Ashley’s friend Matt among them.

Chris, however, couldn’t help that he was still gaping in his best friend’s direction. He barely registered that Josh and a few of the other cheerleaders were setting up to do a final toss, twist, catch except that Josh didn’t catch and someone else had to when Chris stood up and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“What?”

The crowd around him died down substantially, Sam and Ashley were giving him weird looks and Josh...

Josh met his gaze, instantly mortified regardless of any attempts to conceal it. He recovered faster than Chris, largely because he was being ushered away by the squad, by a Jessica who was shooting him odds glances. Josh dropped his gaze, physically moved behind Jessica and refused to even acknowledge Chris until he was out of sight.

Everyone seemed to forget it happened; a student announced the arrival of the opponents over an intercom system and Chris remained rooted to the spot.

“Uh, Chris,” Ashley nudged his arm cautiously. “Why are you acting like that?”

Chris opened his mouth, closed it and took a deep breath.

“Like what?”

“Like you didn’t know Josh was on the cheer squad,” Sam elaborated, pausing. “You didn’t know Josh was on the cheer squad.”

He pressed his lips together in a thin line, unsure whether he felt angry, betrayed, whatever. Either way, he didn’t trust himself to speak any further.

“How could you not know?” Ashley asked. “Didn’t he mention it?”

It was a sincere and perfectly justified question, but Chris found himself hissing out a put off “I don’t know” before he was making his way down from the bleachers.

The cheer squad was taking a break near the refreshments, Chris heard Josh’s voice above the surrounding conversational tones.

“Are you kidding me, Jess?”

“Don’t get mad at me, Josh,” Jessica huffed, sipping her water. “How is this my fault? You’re telling me you never said anything? Not once?”

“It...” Chris heard Josh struggle for a moment only to come up with a feeble, “It never came up.”

“Don’t play that game with me.”

When Chris peered around the corner, Jessica was shoving her cup of water in Josh’s chest accusingly.

“I’m serious,” Josh frowned. “What am I gonna do? Say ‘Hey, Chris, guess what’.”

“That’s exactly what someone who isn’t embarrassed to be a part of an awesome cheer squad would say.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” Josh groaned, lowering his voice. “Why would I be embarrassed to be a part of a kick-ass cheer squad?”

“I don’t know,” she crossed her arms and shot him a pointed look. “Why wouldn’t you tell your best friend?”

“Maybe you need to cool off a bit, Jess-”

“-actually,” Chris cleared his throat and stepped forward through a crowd, scuffing his shoes across the asphalt. “I was wondering the same thing.”

The other two fell silent and when Chris braved the chance to meet Josh’s eyes, he found his friend averting his gaze to the ground.

“Josh,” he tried, struggling to keep an even tone. “Can we talk for a second?”

Josh hummed in thought, a careless noise that set Chris’ nerves on edge. He gazed over at the field and shrugged.

“We’ll probably have to go out any minute -- Jess, ow, what the hell?”

Jessica snatched the water out of Josh’s hands and took a few steps closer to Chris.

“We don’t actually need you out on the field until half-time, genius,” she tossed her hair over her shoulders and nodded to Chris. “Take your time alright? Really, just, nail into him. Throw a punch if you have to.”

Behind her, Josh was shaking his head, hands on his hips. Jessica gestured for the others to follow her out to the bleachers, calling over her shoulder.

“If you do punch him,” she added sweetly. “Make sure it’s not in the face, okay?”

Josh turned around to the refreshment stand when they were left alone, ordering a complimentary water. Chris wanted to give him credit for the fact that he legitimately acknowledged Chris’ presence and asked if he wanted anything.

Instead, he declined and watched Josh nervously tug at his straw. It was obvious to Chris that his friend felt trapped by the situation - and he never responded well to that kind of environment. He’d have to be the one to extend the olive branch.

“Wanna sit down somewhere?”

Something in Chris’ tone likely prevented what would have been a typical childish response by Josh. The other only nodded slowly and followed after him.

They ended up a way out from the field, which was still visible from where they’d hopped up on the tailgate of Mike Munroe’s truck. Josh insisted that Mike wouldn’t know - or hell, care - considering he was in the middle of an incredibly important football game.

Chris shrugged in response and they sat in a silence that was very occasionally interrupted by the excitement of said football match.

“’It’s not just good to be different,’” Chris recited after several minutes, gritting his teeth. “’it’s better to be different’. You know who says that?”

“I do,” Josh answered without hesitation, the corner of his mouth tugging up a little. “Gotta be honest, though, it’s lame as hell. Plus I got it off a speech by a guy from some prime time award show.”

“Whatever,” he sighed, forcing Josh’s to meet his gaze for one goddamn second. “You’re always the one going on about how I should be my nerdy old self, right?”

“I never lied to you, man-”

“-but you never told me,” Chris interrupted. “Which, I gotta admit, is a shitty thing to do. And it means you already decided how I would react.”

Josh didn’t respond, resumed staring down into the straw of his untouched drink. In the background, the home crowd screamed and the digital number adjacent to the ‘Titans’ rose a few points.

“How long?” Chris watched Josh slump out of the corner of his eye. “Josh, how long?”

Josh shook his head again, cursed to himself as he pulled the lid off of his drink and downed it.

“Six years,” he picked at the lip of the Styrofoam cup. “Give or take.”

“Six years,” Chris repeated, closing his eyes. “And everybody but me knows?”

“My, uh, my dad doesn’t,” Josh laughed, a hollow, humorless sound. “Not too keen on having that conversation with him anytime soon.”

“Senior year,” Chris felt exhausted at this point, not even angry. “I don’t get to know until our senior year because you thought - what? - that I’d react like your dad would? That you’d lose my respect or something?”

“I don’t know, man,” he could tell Josh was steeling himself for something. “People have their own opinions about that kind of thing. Stereotypes or whatever.”

“Really?” Chris’ furrowed his eyebrows. “You have got to be shitting me. You thought I would assume you were gay and drop you like a damn hot potato?”

Josh flinched, there was no disguising it. Chris wanted to pursue what that meant, but his friend was nudging his shoulder and grinning like it hadn’t happened.

“You wish,” he winked, but the usual impish glee wasn’t there. “Bro, I’m sorry, but you’ll be competing with me for the lovely ladies of the world’s attention for the rest of your miserable life.”

Chris had to let it go, because whatever there was left to learn about wasn’t worth the suffocating silence, because he felt inexplicably tired and Josh...

Behind the grin, Chris thought he saw it there, desperation peeking through the cracks, an entreaty for momentary peace. Even though he wanted to call his friend out on it, even though he wanted to press it further, he laughed instead.

“Sure,” he patted Josh’s knee, feigning consolation. “Say what you want, but once they find out Josh Washington, my best bro, is a cheerleader, they’ll all come running to me.”

Josh snorted.

“You don’t even know,” the grin back in full force, Josh ran his tongue across his top row of teeth. “Guy or girl, people dig cheerleaders. I’ll be the one hooking you up.”

“I do know, actually,” Chris knocked his shoulder against the other’s. “You looked really fucking cool out there.”

“Thanks, man.”

“I mean it.”

Josh ducked his head, palm pressed to the back of his neck. He didn’t look at Chris when he spoke next, his face turned toward the field.

“Come to practice sometime, okay? If you want.”

The game had gotten off to a late start and with autumn approaching, dusk descended upon them long before any clocks chimed eight. Because of this, Chris couldn’t be sure that Josh’s skin seemed suddenly a little darker around his ears.

He couldn’t exactly deny it either.

“Definitely,” Chris pulled his knees up to his chest, buried a grin in the denim of his jeans. “Got a lot of time to make up for, after all.”

[tysonrunningfox]

Eret III: Chiefly Upsets

I am READY to post this guys, a lot of this has existed for like literal years.  Like some of this I had to update from word 2013.  I am STOKED.  And it’s 7400 words, I’m sorry.  

Previous Parts (Updating right now I promise)

“Is that new?”  The chief asked Mom over breakfast one morning, a few days after Johann leaves, and Mom paused, staring at him blankly and weirdly. “The dress.  I mean.”  

“No,” Mom shook her head and turned back to Stoick, who was trying to sneak his breakfast into his pockets for extra treats at dragon training.  

“Oh, it looks new.”  

“It’s not,” she shrugged, glancing at him in this weird, almost embarrassed way I didn’t notice until I was looking back at the bizarre encounter.  

“Ok…”  The chief stared for another creepy second until I cleared my throat and brought his attention back to the treaty on the table, the same one he’s still trying to respond to.  

I wouldn’t have thought about it at all if it weren’t for the even weirder moment a couple days later when the chief like, completely derailed our official business at the lumberyard because Mom walked by and he started asking about her day and offering to deal with dinner.  

Then, then, I really started watching and it got weirder.  My mom’s axe has a shiny, newly sharpened edge and she didn’t ask me to do it and there’s a stack of new quilts on her bed the one time I go in there to ask her something.  

And today?  Today takes the cake for weird and uncomfortable as soon as the chief and I get home to Mom and Aurelia out front, stringing a small bow together.  

“You’ll get it,” Mom’s telling her, that same sort of stern refusal to acknowledge failure that kept me learning and keeping up with Ingrid and Arvid all those years, and she smiles when she hands an arrow to Aurelia and directs her at a makeshift target on a bale of straw outside of the barn.  

The chief grins when he sees it and when Mom notices him she shrugs, “she was curious.”  

“Thank you,” the chief laughs, “I’ve been saying for years if she’s not going to have a dragon with her she should really learn something.”  

“I’m holding a weapon, maybe don’t do that right now,” Aurelia gripes, voice straining as she pulls the bowstring back and lets go.  The arrow doesn’t go far, something about her release making it float harmlessly to the ground halfway between her and the target.  She sighs and Mom pats her on the shoulder.  

“Try again, you’ll get it.”

The chief is looking at her like…like he doesn’t even look at Toothless.  Like…

“Do you need any help?” He asks, walking up too close to Mom for her to not shift or move away.  Aurelia rolls her eyes at me, like she’s asking for help and wanting me to watch the disaster unfold all at once.  

Her next arrow falls out of her hands onto her feet and she sighs.  

“I think we’ve got it,” Mom tells the chief, and her blank confusion is less blank confusion and more mild interest.  Like she halfway wants to know what he has to say.  

“Aurelia,” he holds his hand out for the bow, “can I show you something?”  

“I bet Mom showed me how do it right, Dad.”  

“No, this is a trick for those of us not so…muscularly inclined,” he laughs.  Mom laughs.  Aurelia stares at me like she can’t believe what she’s hearing and no one else is going to understand.  

“Is that a dig at me?” I ask and the chief doesn’t appear, because he’s glancing at Mom every two seconds and tinkering with either end of the bow string.  

“It can’t possibly be about me so…” Aurelia flexes her arm and holds her hand out for the bow.  

“Just a second…there.” He takes a second to show her how to hold the arrow differently and when she tries a third time the arrow goes far enough to broadside the target before dropping to the ground.  

“Not a bad trick,” Mom takes the bow back, looking at the knots at the ends of the strings and then staring at the chief with a weird, halfway impressed expression.  “Where’d you learn that?”  

“Gobber.  It’s a one handed trick, I guess, but it also works for those of us who have one hand worth of strength spread across two.”

Mom scoffs and punches the chief in the arm, like he’s annoying, which is true, but also like she’s not wholly annoyed by it.  

Today.  Yep.  Today is the weirdest day.  The weirdest one of all.  

“I think I’m done for the day,” Aurelia excuses herself from between them, leaving the bow and walking over to me.  

“Yeah.  Good.”  The chief waves his arm at the two of us, his focus still on Mom who’s still standing there. Not avoiding him.  “You’re done too, Eret, it’s getting late.”  

“And they’re getting rid of us,” Aurelia hisses under her breath as we turn and start walking back towards the village.  “It’s like he’s remembering how to be human.  To her.”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  I look back over my shoulder at them and they’re still just standing there.  Mom shoots an arrow and hits a little off center and the chief holds his hands out to ask for the bow and give it a try.  

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”  

“How’s chiefing?”  She asks, “I haven’t heard much this week.”  

“It’s…” I don’t want to tell the truth, that it’s good but not enough but I know someday it will be, that’s the kind of thing that makes it sound like at some level I’m benefitting from these bizarre circumstances, the ones shoving Mom and the chief into a conversation that’s not yelling.  “It’s whatever.”  

“It’s…I…” She looks back like she doesn’t want to be heard and I elbow her in the side, urging her to spit it out, “it’s not like…dragon training day in and day out, is it?”  

“What?  No, we’ve only been by the academy once and that was because of some structural damage.”  

“Hmm.”  She tucks her hands into her pockets and kicks a pebble out of the path.  “And you made an ass of yourself last week.  With Johann.”  

“Yes, thanks for reminding me how well that went, I always know I can count on you.”  

“I’m just saying.” She shrugs.  

“What are you saying?”

“Mom keeps asking me why I don’t go chiefing with you guys, and I mean, barring Toothless stalking me like prey all day, I don’t…I guess I don’t really have a good answer for her.”

“You don’t need to, it’s—you’d think it was boring.”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  

“Why are you saying any of this?  You don’t want to be chief, you never have.”  

“Maybe I’m just a little bitter that it was cooler for him to hunt down some crazy love child than to, I don’t know, I don’t know,” she kicks another pebble out of the way.  “It’s not like I was a bow and arrow prodigy, I don’t have anything to talk about.”  

“No, please, continue, you…are you thinking you have some…interest in being chief?”  

“I just said I don’t know.” She stops short and tentatively reaches out to touch Bang’s nose, tracing the edge of his scales with a gentle finger.  He puffs on her hand and she jerks back slightly before taking a step forward and setting her hand on his head.  “I just…you’re new.  That’s why you’re doing it.  It’s not…merit, I guess, and I’m just realizing that and it’s not really your problem but you’re supposed to be my brother so…”

“It’s not like it’s…I mean, the job isn’t just acting like your dad all the time, it’s—”

“I think I’ve seen him doing it longer than you have.”  It’s not so much her snapping at me as her telling me I’m wrong and that makes me madder.

And it puts me in this awkward position where I’m supposed to argue for why I’m enjoying this, which makes it seem so ok that I’m barely talking to my Dad anymore and that Mom is…back there practically enjoying herself in the chief’s company.  I…

There’s this interesting dead space between saying what I mean and avoiding fights and it seems like silence but really it’s too many words, all disagreeing with each other and flying at once.  

I nod.  

“Yeah, that’s true.”  

“Maybe I’ll come along sometime.”  

“You’d be bored.”  I say again and she rolls her eyes.  

“You don’t know what I’d be.”  

00000

The chief is cleaning off the table, stacking documents on a shelf and muttering to himself. Aurelia and I are looking over a wrinkled Fuse Original Design on the floor next to the fire and the chief is trying his damndest to eavesdrop, smiling weirdly at us when Aurelia bumps her shoulder against mine and mutters under her breath that he’s being creepy.  Stoick is already asleep, exhausted from his special, pre-snowstorm, morning lesson with Mom and Stormfly.

Tonight’s finally the night to meet at the forge, we’re just waiting until it’s late enough that the chief won’t ask.  But he’s being weird as he has been all week and I don’t think I’ve been monitored this closely since that time I got grounded for a month for following Dad on a weeklong fishing trip.  

Arvid’s probably already there.  So’s Fuse.  We’ll probably get there and find no forge at all, just Fuse down a few inches of singed hair and Arvid terrified and trying to pick a fight he’s going to lose.  

It’s funny, in my head, but somewhere beneath that humor lies the precarious balance of this stupid, probably doomed plan.  

Sometimes I wish it were just me and Fuse, honestly. It’d be less complicated, but I look at Aurelia out of the corner of my eye, fixated and eager, and I can’t take this away from her.  She didn’t grow up getting grounded for stupid sibling shenanigans and it’s not like her brain is hurting the operation.  

Arvid is the wild card.  

This is almost absolutely the only way he’s ever going to talk to me again and maybe I’m selfish and maybe I don’t care.  

The door swings open and the chief freezes, smiling in that creepy please like me way as Mom strides in from the cold, shaking snow out of her hair and glaring at the weather behind her before shutting the door tight and tucking the blanket back underneath it with her foot to stop the breeze.  The chief’s door is a tighter seal than ours used to be and she hasn’t adopted to this level of mandatory luxury any better than I have.  

“Hey Mom,” Aurelia folds the sketch in front of us, because she knows Mom’s more likely to ask what it is.

Not to mention the horrible truth that the chief’s about to be distracted enough for us to slip out. Which is…you know, gross and uncomfortable, but I was already being selfish so I might as well continue to capitalize on that.  

“What did you get up to, milady?” The chief blurts, and I almost gag, and he looks scared as Mom turns to him, wet boot squeaking on the wood floor.  Her mouth falls open and he flinches, waiting for her to rightfully clock him in the face for assuming he gets to use stupid endearments around her.  

She doesn’t punch him.  She deflates, unwrapping the scarf from around her neck like it’s better to pretend she didn’t hear him.  

Or she doesn’t mind it as much as I want her to mind it, but that’s impossibly gross and—what would that even mean?  Is she just lonely after Dad and—Gods, that’s all gross.  I’m never going to eat again and that’s the last thing I need.  

“I—nothing.  I was just at Ruff’s.”  

It comes out perfectly pleasant and the chief freezes, holding a plate he’s drying with an old cloth.  He laughs before he can stop himself, and she blinks slowly and barks out a weird, bizarre laugh I’ve sure never heard before, and I’m the one who used to make her laugh.  The chief smiles and swallows hard and it sounds like he’s a terror choking on a chicken wing.  

Mom’s staring at him like she expects him to sprout a tail.  

“How was the flight home?”  The chief asks.  

“Cold,” she laughs again, brushing a hunk of ice off of her shoulder.  “Cold and wet.”  

“Uh good…well, not good, but—I’m glad you’re home.”

She pauses for a second and I recognize that face and it makes me wish I’d eaten less.  It’s the face she makes when I’m lying and she knows I’m lying but she’s waiting to call me out on it until she hears whatever ridiculous thing I’m going to say next.  

“M too.  It’s warm,” she says like that’s not dumb and obvious and Aurelia kicks me in the shin like there’s a chance in Hel I might not be paying perfectly close attention to this.   

The chief laughs again and Mom’s struggling not to smile, picking a charcoal stick off of the table and handing it to him.  Their hands glance across each other when he takes it and she jolts away, giving him some soft, hardly scary at all, glare and what the Odin fearing fuck is going on?  

“Close your mouth,” Aurelia hisses, like my reaction is going to ruin her show, and they both look at us at once like they forgot we were here.  

“That was weird.”  I announce, tucking the sketch into my pocket and standing before offering Aurelia my hand and helping her to her feet.  “We’re going to the forge to finish this.”  

“In this weather?”  The chief asks and I shrug, grabbing my and off of the hook by the door and handing Aurelia’s to hers.    

“We’re going to the forge where it’s definitionally warm,” Aurelia rolls her eyes and laughs, grabbing a too big fur hat from the shelf and tugging it down over my head like it’ll make me forget what I just say.  Or what I didn’t see.  Or what doesn’t exist because how could it possibly be anything other than a sunless winter enabled hallucination.  

I smile and Mom doesn’t buy it and the chief is just staring at Mom, barely looking at me, and wow, this is a textbook level of distraction to sneak out but my feet are rooted to the ground like if I move something will change again.  

“We’ll be back.  Thanks for the hat,” I adjust it on my head and reach for the doorknob, trusting Aurelia to drag me outside.  She comes through and hooks her arm through my elbow, saying something about staying warm.

As soon as the door shuts behind us I duck down, pulling her with me and crouching below the nearby window. I can’t see, but I can hear a muffled version of the conversation inside and I press my ear to the crack at the bottom of the shutters.  

“What are you doing?” Aurelia shivers, looking peeved.  

“Shh,” I hold my finger to my lips and press closer to the wall, wood siding cutting into my shoulder.  

I hear Mom, wedging the blanket back underneath the door with a series of quiet thuds.  The chief makes some awkward hemming and hawing sound that I don’t think is Norse and I want Mom to just…disappear into the bedroom and end this.    

“Is Stoick asleep?”  Mom asks.  

“Yeah, he was exhausted.  Conked out right after dinner.”  

“Right,” she pauses.  “I’m going to go to bed.  Still sort of freezing.”  

“I’ll put a few extra logs on the fire.”  

“You don’t have to do that,” she sounds irritated but not louder or harsher and I know at some level that it’s false.  It’s a Mom voice I wouldn’t worry about.  

“I want to.”  

I can hear what I think she should say in my mind.  Just one solid fuck you.  She sighs.    

“Thanks, Hiccup.”  

I grab Aurelia’s hand and pull her to her feet and around the corner of the house right as the chief opens the door to get to the wood pile.  She jogs to keep up as Bang slips out of the barn and trots to our side, nosing his way under my hand.  

“What was all that about?” She huffs, stealing my hat and tugging it down over her own ears.  The wind whips through my hair and I scratch my head.  

“I have no idea.  It doesn’t make any Thor-damned sense.”  

“How did you go sixteen years without learning anything if you’re that good at eavesdropping?  I couldn’t hear shit.”  

“Good for you.”  I snap my fingers, guiding Bang to our other side to block the wind as we turn towards the forge.  

“What on Midgard did you hear?”  

“Nothing,” I shrug, “everything.  I don’t know. He’s still being all…nice.”  

“What did he say?”  

“She was like ‘I’m cold’ and he was like ‘I’ll build up the fire’ and she was like ‘you don’t have to do that’ and he said he wanted to and she didn’t stop him.  And...it was in their tone.”  

“Even the great you can’t hear tone through a closed shutter.”

“Since when are you Olga Optimism?”  I see the wisp of smoke from the forge’s chimney cutting through the thick falling snow just ahead and speed up slightly, trudging a trail through the quick drifting snow as Aurelia falls into step behind me.  

“Mom doesn’t seem so miserable anymore.”  

“Hmm.”  

She’s never seen Mom happy. She didn’t see the truth in the easy lie, the way that Mom got excited when she knew Dad was coming home, the way she used to hum when she didn’t think we could hear her.  I don’t really trust Aurelia as any sort of happy family metric, honestly, but that’s not worth mentioning when we walk up to the forge to see Wingspark and Hotgut huddling together outside, like they don’t share their owners’ mutual loathing.  

“Do you think Fuse has blown him up yet?”  Aurelia scoffs, stepping ahead of me and pulling off the hat, fixing her hair before opening the door.  

I roll my eyes.  

“Royalty has decided to join us,” Arvid pushes himself away from the counter when we walk in, chewing on a fingernail and staring at Aurelia.  She scoffs and walks over to Fuse, who’s leaning over another counter covered in little metal spheres that look like Smitelout’s and dusting them with pinkish powder that matches her hair.  

She looks up at me and raises a singed eyebrow in greeting, mumbling under her breath, “they’re only royalty if you insist on bringing it up.”  

“And you two were getting along so well,” I wipe my forehead and walk across the room to the fire, stoking it and pumping the billows a couple of times until the coals glow bright orange and yellow and my fingers come back to life.  “How goes it, Fuse?”  

“I’m miniaturizing three core bomb cells that should work wet or dry, we should use that baffle you made a couple months ago and test them out.  The chief wants me blowing out the wood pile next week, I figure that’s a good time…”  She trails off, exhaling slowly and closing off the sphere.  It doesn’t line up quite how I would have made it and I’d offer to fix it for her if she didn’t look so sure it’s about to blow.  

Aurelia is nonplussed, sitting down next to her and kicking her boots onto the counter.  Fuse doesn’t look at her, setting the shell aside and finally making eye contact.  

“Sounds good.”  

“Took you long enough to get here.”  Everything about Arvid’s voice is antagonistic in every syllable and I know I could get him to bitch about the chief with me.  

I don’t know if he cares if Mom’s happy.  Or not miserable, at least.  

“It’s a little harder to slip out of the palace than your house,” Aurelia rolls her eyes.  She’s smiling, her face pink like she’s far closer to the fire than she is.  

Arvid looks her up and down, frowning slightly before going back to glaring at me.  

Fuse gives me an impatient, sympathetic look and waves me over, “I’ve got cobalt salt, and…well, honestly I’m not quite sure this is but when I lit it on fire with black powder, I blew half the roof off my shed, so I think it’ll pack a more even punch in solid solution with the salt.”  

“And you want me to drop these things?”  Arvid’s flexing like it’s not obvious that his chest is all puffed up.  I don’t check if Aurelia’s looking because I don’t want to know, because I need to learn when to eavesdrop.  

“Yes, this is all an impractically elaborate assassination attempt.”  Fuse assembles the next bomb more quickly, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.  I rarely hear her hostile and I can’t say if it’s intimidating or deadly.  

“Is that a threat—”

“No, it’s not.” Aurelia picks up a jar of Fuse’s powder, holding it to her nose and sniffing it with a grimace.  

Arvid’s mouth moves wordlessly, twice, and he goes quiet, crossing his arms more tightly.  He glares at me when he catches me looking at him and Gods, this is bizarre.

Fuse hands another shell to Aurelia and starts showing her how to load it and I start sifting through a pile of scrap metal in the back corner, because even if Gobber notices someone was here during the storm he’ll be glad they did something practical. There’s a dagger that doesn’t look half bad and I idly pop it into the fire, finding my old favorite hammer in Smitelout’s fantastic mess and swinging it.  

I don’t feel like I’m in charge.  I don’t know what being in charge is supposed to feel like.  

“I’m shocked you’re here,” Arvid’s directing it at Aurelia but Fuse answers first.  

“Why?  Think I’d avoid you?”  

“I’m not talking to you—”

“We’re all here for the same reason,” I raise my voice just enough that everyone goes quiet and looks at me, even Arvid, for half a second.  “Because it’s the only thing we can think of the help the dragons.  Well, the only thing we can think of that also makes sense.”  I ruin that upstanding, halfway chiefly statement and everyone’s quiet for a second.

“Heard you told half the tribe about the dragons being sick,” Arvid clears his throat, “heard the chief shut you down, hard.”  

“Yeah, I’m still here though, aren’t I?”  

“Not helping much,” he points at the dagger I’m pulling out of the furnace and I set it on the anvil, giving it a couple of anger reducing hits before answering.  

“You’re the one doing nothing.”  

“Thorston won’t let me touch anything,” he shrugs, “I tried—”

“So hard, he grunted at what I was doing and then walked away.”  Fuse looks at me like she wants me to laugh, glancing at the red hot dagger like she’s not sure I’m going to hurt myself or not.  

“You want me to fix that?” I ask, pointing at the not quite circular shell she’s holding.  

“What?”  She cocks her head, braid dragging through the powder on the table and turning some odd shade of purple in the soot and orange light.  

“I can fix that shell, it’s not going together right,” I swing the hammer, because it feels like something I’m doing right, “I’m all warmed up.”  

“Oh my gods,” Aurelia sits forward, feet thunking to the floor as she looks at me with some weird, cryptic expression and then at Fuse, “I don’t think I’m doing this right.”  

“It’s perfect,��� Fuse inspects her work, “and these are fitting fine, don’t worry about it.”  

“Looks fine to me,” Arvid mumbles.  He’s looking at Aurelia.  

“They’re looking good. Actually, as soon as we get these together, I’ve probably got to head home, the storm isn’t looking good.” Fuse helps Aurelia get the shell closed and sets it gently in a leather bag, “I got here early, I ran into Gobber actually, I told him I was locked out and he said to lock up before I left so…”

“Yeah, no, I got that.” I look at the door, shuddering slightly with the storm outside.  “No problem, thanks for getting started early.”  

“It wasn’t early, I could just get away first,” she glares at Arvid as she stands, “I’ll let you know when the chief wants to blow the woodpile out.  He said earlier he wants it done before the snow freezes too hard so…” She shrugs and for a second I have the weird compulsion to ask her if she needs a ride home.  

Obviously, she doesn’t. Hotgut is outside.  She frowns at me like she notices I’m not saying something and I wave.  

“Fly safe.  It’s getting pretty bad out there.”  

She waves back as she slips outside and Arvid gives an exaggerated, obnoxious sigh of relief.  

“I might even let you fly me home,” Aurelia mutters, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel like walking through this.”  

“Flying would be quicker, but colder,” I keep working on the dagger, “that’s sort of making me think, we should have a final plan in place by spring.  You know, because we need to do this soon but we also can’t do it while a storm like this could mess us up.”  

Arvid grunts.  Aurelia starts cleaning the counter.  She’s looking at Arvid.  I feel like I need to say something to bring this back on track.

Someone knocks on the door but doesn’t wait for me to open it.  

It’s the chief, windblown, snow-covered and deeply disappointed like I should care.  

“What’s up, dad?” Aurelia asks, unconvincingly bored.

“I ran into Fuse,” he looks at me and only me and I realize that being chief in training means I’m going to get blamed for everything.  “She said you called a meeting at the forge. What could that possibly be about?”

“I can’t believe Thorston ratted us out,” Arvid huffs, “oh wait, yes I can.”  

“She didn’t rat us out,” I snap at him and the chief is still just staring at me.  

“No, she didn’t,” the chief crosses his arms, “I put this together myself thanks.”  He takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and I see red.

It’s a sketch, Fuse’s wrinkled sketch of the island, the one I had tucked into my clean laundry.  

“You went through my things?”  

“You’re still investigating the dragon island?  More than that, you’re planning to do something about it?  Using tribe resources and—”

“No one’s going to starve because I repurposed some scrap metal—”

“That’s not what matters, what matters is that we agreed!” The chief makes it sound like I mortally offended his deep trust in me and I clench my fists, standing up straight like if I make my stature chiefly enough then he’ll have to listen.  

“You declared, we never agreed.”  

Because even now it’s like he thinks he can make my voice disappear if he’s loud enough or official enough or calls me young and stupid enough.  Like if he acts like he trusts me I’ll have to behave.  

Aurelia steps up beside me and I think of our conversation the other day, how she’s at some level jealous that I’m the one with all the chiefly pressure.  I still think she doesn’t know what she’s talking about and I almost wished I’d pressed that further.  

“It’s funny, dad, just because he’s your precious, long-lost son doesn’t mean he’s going to follow everything you say!”  

“No,” I snap, “I don’t need you fighting for me, I—”  I look back at the chief and force myself to deflate like Bang pulling a punch, “No. This isn’t a fight at all, I’m doing it, you can’t stop me.”  It feels chiefly when I shove past him and through the door in that it feels bratty and absolute and that’s what I’m supposed to be, isn’t it?  

That’s what he wants from me, that’s what Aurelia wants him to want from her.  

And beyond all that, it doesn’t seem to matter who’s right or wrong, only who’s older and more famous and more willing to compromise themselves.  

“Eret!”  The chief follows me out and I walk faster, towards Bang, “Eret, stop.  Now.”  

“Is that an order from the chief?”  I whirl around, pushing snow soggy hair out of my face.  

“Yes.”  

I stop, clapping my hands against my sides.  

“So you’ll stop before treason, then, that’s the line?”  He looks hurt.  I don’t care. It’s not victory like it used to be but I’m not sad about it either.  

“Right, because me knowing something you don’t has to be treason.”  

“I’m taking you home,” he stalks past me, towards Toothless, and Bang grumbles.  

“I don’t have to go with you.”

“Even if I say it’s an order from the chief?”  He swings onto Toothless and points at Bang, snow falling thick on his head.  It’s almost to my knees now, drifting against the wall of the forge in the wind.  

“I’ll just leave again.”

“I’m still taking you home.”

“Fine.”  I get onto Bang and he grudgingly follows Toothless, flying low for shelter in the trees and gliding to land in front of the chief’s house.  Toothless slumps to the barn, giving Bang one last dirty look for being the current house dragon, like he couldn’t come inside too if he knew how to share.  

Mom’s still awake, blanket around her shoulders in front of the fire as she sips a cup of tea.  

She knows.  I know that face, she knows because the chief told her and she…

She doesn’t disagree with him.  I’m in trouble with her.  

“He was at the forge,” the chief tells Mom because they were colluding behind my back like…

Like I don’t know. Like they’re partners in crime or they’re attempting to parent me together like that’s going to make me anything but furious because the chief has no Odin damned right to play doting dad.

“Why haven’t you told me about this?”  She asks, that exhausted brand of stern that makes me want to give her a break.  

I shrug.  

“He wants to figure it all out himself.” The chief crosses his arms, “like that makes it mean more.”

“Neither of you care if the dragons are suffering.  It’s just some stupid—you just…”  

I can’t believe Mom is standing there beside the chief, arms crossed at me like I’m the problem.  Like…like this entire time we’ve been a united front in the face of this shit and now we’re not and she’s shoulder to shoulder with the chief.  

They used to be engaged.

There was a ‘the chief and my mom’ before there was a ‘Mom and me’ and maybe age is all that matters, sometimes.  

“Of course I care about the dragons, Eret,” Mom sighs, “but I care more about you lying and scheming and—”

“Right, he’s the only one that’s allowed to do that,” I point at the chief, “it’s practically a damn myth that he hid Toothless from everyone and—”

“Yeah?”  Mom shakes her head, “well, he wasn’t my son.”  

“Let’s talk about this in the morning,” the chief steps between us like he’s trying to calm down the situation.  Like it’s not his fault.  Like he’s not the fucking flint who keeps lighting everyone else’s emotional kindling in the square.  

“I don’t have to talk about anything—”

“You know what, Eret? That’s right, you don’t have to talk about anything,” Mom pours the rest of her tea out into the fireplace, a corner of the bed of coals smoking and steaming.  “You just have to listen.”  

She turns and walks back in the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.  

“Get some sleep,” the chief sighs, “I—”

“That’s not an order.”

“It’s a suggestion,” he stares at me for a moment before his eyes widen, “I’m going to go back out and get Aurelia before this gets any worse.”  

“Fine.”  

The chief doesn’t get it. He just…he’s stuck in some other time, when wild dragons are as common as ants on apples in summer.  He won’t listen, and everything’s suddenly worse because Mom appears to be siding with him.  That she won’t go after him for me because he’s annoying because he’s making her laugh and so insidiously worming his way into my life like if he gets close enough I’ll have to lie down and let him walk all over me.  

I’m curled up on my stack of furs in front of the fire, leaning back against Bang’s broad side when the door opens and slams shut and Aurelia walks in, conspicuously wrapped in an almost familiar scarf and dusted with powdery snow.  

“The chief’s a real dick, you know that?” I scoot, expecting her to come and sit by me like she almost always does.  She prefers Bang’s tail, a little further from the teeth, and she hogs the furs as she grouses about the chief and Mom and the general injustices of the day. Aurelia makes me feel like a sunny personality, and I need that sometimes.  Especially now.  After…that.  

She lingers by the door, hands stuffed in her pockets as she glances towards the stairs.  

“What?  Did you expect me to magic myself home from the forge?”

“Oh,” I stand halfway, arms held out towards her like she needs a hug or a ride.  “I left you at the forge without a ride, didn’t I?  We didn’t talk about that, I just…stormed out.  Shit, I’m sorry, I just—”

“Threw a tantrum because I tried to defend you?”  She simplifies, “and then my dad left and chased after you and I was stuck with Arvid—”

“Did he leave you there too?”  It’s easier to be angrier at Arvid than to be mad at myself and I cross my arms and step over Bang’s tail towards her.  “Because I’ll—”

“Shut up, you’re going to wake everyone up.  Arvid gave me a ride home.”  

That stops me short.  

“You rode Wingspark?”

“She’s sort of sweet,” Aurelia smiles, one of those little sideways smiles, and Bang lifts his head, an offended whuff ghosting against the back of my legs.  

“The chief is still out looking for you.”  

“Oh,” she shrugs, eyes narrowing.  “At least he didn’t forget me—”

“I didn’t forget you!”  I cut her off, wracking my brain for the moment she fell out of it.  “The chief wasn’t listening about the dragons, there’s less of them every day —”

“I didn’t ask you about the dragons.  You forgot me.”  

I pause.  

“Not on purpose.”  

“It…I guess that’s what families do, they forget people,” she says it with a sigh, like it exhausts her to cut so deep, and I think of her riding Wingspark with Arvid and gossiping about me.  About how I don’t fit in anywhere.  

I did storm out.  I stormed out like the fucking chief, and I let him chase me, and I didn’t think about what I was leaving behind.  

My heart pounds a little too hard, making me nauseous as I realize the million fights between my parents that I’ve come to understand over the past few months.  How Mom would yell and the chief would run and here I am, doing both.  In one night. And forgetting people on top of it.

“Eret, I’m sorry, that was mean—”  Aurelia steps forward and puts her hand on my arm, and I wonder just how shitty I must look for her to back down from the fight.  My hands are shaking when I shrug her off and fumble for the fur on top of my stack, holding it numbly in her direction.  

“Here, it’s my warmest one, but I have the fire.  Are you ok? I—” Thor, why the Hel do I even exist? All of this dysfunction in one human should be impossible.  “And Arvid wasn’t too much of an asshole?  Odin, I’m the asshole, I’m sorry—”

“What did I say to get such a rise out of you?”  She laughs nervously but accepts the fur, unwrapping the thick scarf halfway around her neck and I recognize it as one of Arvid’s that Nana knit him back when we were kids.  “Go to bed, you can fight Dad about dragons in the morning.”  

“He’s still out looking for you.”  I repeat, because none of what she’s saying makes sense and maybe she didn’t hear me. This is Aurelia, she should be yelling and screaming and making me grovel, but she’s just staring at me like I’m one of Fuse’s experiments left willy nilly on the table.  

“Then it’ll be a cold night,” she smiles, and there’s a bit of her in there, tempered by the cold and probably the fact that I abandoned her at the forge in the middle of a blizzard. “He’s got Toothless, I’m sure he’s fine. Why don’t you get some sleep and we can fight about this in the morning when you’re acting less like a crazy person? Thanks for the extra blanket.”  

“No.  No, someone should let him know you’re home safe.”  

“I wouldn’t be too upset if he came home short a couple more toes.”  

“No, just because he’s an asshole doesn’t mean I have to be.”  I clap my hand over her shoulder and narrow my eyes at the thick scarf still wound halfway around her.  “Let me guess, I can’t borrow the scarf.”  

“I told Arvid I’d get it back to him tomorrow.”  She shrugs, another uncharacteristically demure smile tugging at her cheeks.  

“I…ok,” I wrinkle my nose. I know, I know, I told her to go for it. I told her it was something I’d have to cope with, and it’s still true but...it hits me again, repeatedly, off and on like a Nightmare’s skin that I’m both of their blood relatives and my ick-factor is the only reasonable stumbling block besides like, taste.  

They’re something else that would work perfectly if I didn’t exist.

“Ok, do you have any idea where he’d look for you?”  I start pulling on my coat and patting my leg, coaxing a grumpy Bang towards the door. He looks awfully cozy, curled up in front of the fire, but I point towards the door anyway.  I’m not going to be like the chief, not like this.  

“The dragon barns, probably.”  She rolls her eyes and looks towards the stairs again, hugging the blanket closer to her chest.  “Nowhere I’d actually be.”  

“Thanks for all the help,” I roll my eyes at her and soften one last time, “I’m sorry.  I owe you one, but—but don’t make me cover for you and Arvid, alright?  I’ve spent sixteen years covering for that asshole.”

“Nothing happened,” she shakes her head and slumps towards the stairs, “goodnight, Eret.”  

“Yeah, nothing happened my ass,” I mutter under my breath as I slip into my boots.  I don’t want to think of it the way I don’t want to think about Mom and the chief.  

It’s colder than when I got home, one of the few times I curse Bang’s cool core and broad, quickly cooling back, but I tuck myself close to his neck and try and scan the snow for the now familiar night fury smudge.  

There’s a flurry of fresher footprints outside of the forge and a strange peg-shaped puncture in the snow catches my attention.  Not as inventive as the legends would say he is, it looks like the chief stopped at the forge.  I land Bang on the roof and slide into a snow drift with a quiet crunch before yanking the unlocked door open.  The chief is inside with Toothless, staring at my anvil, a few long, straight rods in front of him.  

He turns to look at me, so different from the raging would be father figure he impersonated earlier and I speak before he can ruin the quiet.  

“Aurelia is home. Arvid gave her a ride after we both left her here,” I glare at him and he pushes his snowmelt wet hair away from his face.  

“Arvid did?”

“Thank the gods, look outside,” I gesture back towards the snow and pause, “I’m going to go home and sleep now, unless—”

“Can…can you step in here for a moment?”  

“Why?”  I freeze, “I’m not changing my mind—”

“I just want to talk for a minute,” he points towards the door.  “And you’re letting all the snow in.”  

I could run.  I could go get on Bang and fly to some cave over on East Beach and make a fire.  It’d be cold. I would be fine, probably.  I grit my teeth and step into the forge, slamming it shut behind me with a little too much force.  Bang coughs on the roof above us, a snow drift clomping onto the ground outside with a soft thud.  

“What do you want to talk about?”  

“I—there’s something weird going on with the dragons, you’re right.”  He starts and I roll my eyes.  

“Oh, and you can only say that in private, of course—”

“It’s the middle of winter, we don’t have resources to look into it right now.  I—I want to figure out some way for us to smooth out a bit, I know that you don’t like—”

“I don’t like you sucking up to all of us like it matters.”  I snap, and he purses his lips.  

“I’m sorry that’s what you think I’m doing.”  

“You’re not supposed to apologize, you’re supposed to be a dick.”  

“I’ll re-read the script when I get home,” he smiles like he knows it’s funny and he knows I think it’s funny.  

I don’t want it to be ok that the chief shattered my family because he felt like it.  I don’t want anyone convincing me I’m part of some weird, important family.  I bite my tongue.  

“How are things going with you and Arvid?”  He asks in that quiet, careful voice like he wants to care without me yelling at him.

I shrug and almost tell him that Aurelia talks to Arvid all the time now, apparently, that they’re best friends.  I don’t think I’ve ever almost said this many things without anything slipping out.  

“I…It’s at least partially my fault that you two aren’t talking.”  

“Wow, so you aren’t actually stupid.”  I snip because it’s easier than accepting the statement.  The chief smiles.  

“And you’re sort of funny sometimes.  Wow, who knew?”  

I scoff and shake my head, glancing up at him through my overgrown hair.  It’s almost long enough to tie back, and still not gray, thank gods.

I hate it when he does that. I hate that I had to accept him as a person and I hate that he keeps shoving it in my face like it’s a trick I should reward him for.  I hate how it makes me feel, like I’m the stubborn one when it really feels like I’m the best chance of maintaining logic against this…onslaught of stupid, decent little gestures.  

I look at him and I see the worst of myself all rolled up in a sense of humor and master dragon trainer and…

And there’s got to be another way.  

“I don’t have to be like you,” I stare at my feet, “I look like you and somehow—somehow without ever knowing you, I fucking act like you, but I don’t have to be like you.  It was…Aurelia and I both thought it was hilarious, the idea of you wandering around all night in a blizzard looking for her but—”  I clear my throat, probably too loud, and Bang shifts on the roof, like he’s worried about me.  I’m worried about me.  “But that’s what you’d do.  You leave people, you left my mom, you left…when I was a baby, you left me.  You left her here and I’m not going to be like that.”  

“Eret,” he holds his hand out towards me and I shake my head.  

“Can you make it home alright?  Or do you want me to hold your hand?” I curl my lip and turn towards the door, “consider yourself found.”  

[disneydreamlights]

Nicole (4, 6, 19, 20, 22, 24) Sky (2, 6, 10, 11, 16, 17) Annalee (3, 15, 22, 23, 24, 25) Marina, totally didn't only come to mind because i'm listening to marina and the diamonds. nnnnope. (3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 20) Landon (4, 5, 16, 10, 12, 24)

Nicole: 

4: their insecurities

Well for one let’s start with her ears, she’s super insecure about those and never really will be comfortable about them. Her overprotective tendencies can also be cause for her to believe she might be too overbearing to friends, especially since she can get extremely angry with them to a point that terrifies her a bit.

6: how they deal with grief

What’s dealing with grief well? Nicole literally shuts down. She blames herself, even if it seems like she’s shifted that blame to somebody else, and then she throws caution to the wind and becomes insanely violent for no reason other than to try to get herself hurt. Like she won’t break her moral code, but she’ll take incredibly stupid risks in hopes that she’ll get really hurt in some kind of revenge driven plot, which gets worse when there really is nobody to blame.

19: their reaction to betrayal

Distrust and anger, but beyond that I actually also think she’s one of my ocs that handles this stuff better. Of course she’s hurt and angry at the betrayer, or outright distrusting if they come back to the team, but unlike several of my other ocs she’ll also still try to manage the situation and try to focus on helping the people who were hurt by the betrayal more than she will on her own recovery, so outside of avoiding the person, she doesn’t actually go murder happy on the traitor so long as nobody was hurt.

20: their reaction to a mystery love letter

Immediate reaction is to try to find who wrote it, but the longer she goes the less interested she becomes. Nicole’s interest in romance is honestly not very high, and in any universe she can count the amount of crushes she’s had on one hand. Unless the person meant a lot to her, she probably would turn them down anyways after learning who wrote it, so after her initial “Holy shit love letter!?” reaction she just eventually stops caring.

22: what they're like on two hours of sleep

Nicole is dead on less than two hours of sleep, she doesn’t know how to function on so little sleep unfortunately. 

24: what motivates them

Her love for her friends, and her willingness to do anything for them. Even before presenting a positive icon for Faunus, her first and foremost stuff comes from being there to support the people she cares about.

Sky:

2: their smile

Sky has one of those nice truly happy big smiles you see on people, like it reaches her eyes and when she’s smiling you just know she’s actually and I just imagine Sky has a really nice smile. 

6: how they deal with grief

Flat out denial. If she can’t deny she at first feels kinda numb until the loss actually sets in and then she literally falls apart into a broken sobbing mess who can’t even really function on her own, so when she loses somebody she loves and there’s even a small chance they survived, she refuses to acknowledge it as even a possibility. It’d take seeing the body for herself to truly break down and lose it.

10: their fashion sense

Casual and comfortable. She doesn’t go out of her way for anything special, she just dresses in what’s easiest for her to fight in most days, and on the rare days where she has no missions and there are no Heartless popping up, she won’t wear anything more dressy than jeans and a t-shirt. It’d honestly take Sera’s wedding or something to make her do more than that.

11: their family life

Sky doesn’t visit home a lot due to the frequency of her missions and how long she spends training. That being said, Sera tends to come in to visit a lot, so she sees her sister a lot anyways. Despite never being home, her relationship with her family is pretty good. They love her, she loves them, and tries to keep in touch whenever possible.

16: their dreams

Sky dreams to be the greatest Keyblade Master and to protect the worlds at all costs. She knows it’s a difficult goal, but she wants to do the best she can for friends and family.

17: their ambitions

Her greatest ambition was to get through her training. After all the shit that happened to Landon she kinda struggled with believing that she’d be able to for a while, but her goals pulled through. Besides that, she just wants to keep the people she loves safe. Watching Sera go blind in one eye and struggle through the consequences was something she never wanted to do again.

Annalee

3: their greatest achievement

This is such a weird thing to say, but to Annalee her opinion of her greatest achievement was just making a friend. She’s painfully awkward and to find somebody who could tolerate her awkwardness and not even mind was one of the things that made her happiest.

15: how they react to a brainfreeze

She literally immediately puts her hand to the top of her head in hopes of getting it to stop hurting and her face scrunches up. Depending on how hungry she is, she might drop the ice cream almost immediately.

22: what they're like on two hours of sleep

Not a lot different from how she normally acts tbh, Annalee has her own way of replenishing her own energy that allows her to function when she’s got no sleep...and I hate that she has this.

23: how they act when they're sick

Oh my god she’s probably working so hard on not letting onto the fact that she’s sick even though she’s dying inside so Andrew and Emmett basically have to tie her to the bed so she’ll rest and get better from whatever she has. Like she could be running a 105 degree fever and the flu and she’d still be trying to beat up some Heartless.

24: what motivates them

She’s motivated by wanting to do her dad proud. She wants to prove that birth isn’t everything and that just because she’s not entirely human doesn’t mean she can’t fight for the light and do what she’s supposed to do.

25: why you enjoy them

Annalee was honestly part experiment, part theory, part Vaniqua trash, and the fact that she still managed to to be a surprisingly good oc in spite of that makes me love her, not to mention rping her interacting with Emmett is always a good time. XD

Marina:

3: their greatest achievement

You’d think it’d be being a Keyblade Master, but the truth is Marina has this one painting she did back when she was first learning to channel her anger into her art, and it’s a picture of her, Sky, and Landon and she’s so proud of the fact that she managed to keep them all still enough to draw a picture of the three of them without them being pains and moving a ton.

5: their shortcomings

We joke about Nicole having a hair trigger temper but honestly that’s Marina’s biggest short coming, she will literally fly off the handle for literally no good reason, like somebody could just breathe on her and she might blow up in their face.

8: what they like to eat

Lots of junk food, specifically salty stuff, while most of my ocs have sweet tooths, Marina would much rather have a bag of chips and munch on them for a few hours rather than a tub of ice cream.

10: their fashion sense

Marina is about as casual as Sky in terms of “You’ll never find her getting dressed up ever” but when hanging out with friends, she tends to dress down moreso than Sky does, and it’s common for her to head out in sweats or leggings or whatever comfortable things she can find floating around.

12: their romantic life

Absolutely awful. As in she’s only ever had one sided crushes and any crush that might’ve been returned has fallen for somebody else first. I think the one she’s most embarrassed about falling for somebody else is Sky, and that’s because Sky fell in love with Yuuya of all people in at least one verse, and well...as much as I love Yuuya I don’t think I need to elaborate. XD

20: their reaction to a mystery love letter

“Somebody actually likes me for once, what the fuck?” Marina is actually confused by this letter coming in because she’s never been a recipient, then she looks for the letter’s sender and hopes for the best.

Landon:

4: their insecurities

You know how he accidentally murdered his Keyblade Master when he lost control of his darkness one time??? Anything to do with that instance is an incredibly, incredibly sore spot after everything that happened.

5: their shortcomings

A lot of them come from fear. Fear of himself, fear of causing people’s death, fear in general. It causes him to hesitate in a lot of decisions, and of course when that hesitation causes things to get worse he blames himself. So basically self doubt and being indecisive are pretty good shortcomings.

10: their fashion sense

He’s the only one of my keybearers who actually bothers to try to be less casual than jeans and t-shirts when not training, and by that I mean he’s that asshole who’s always in a jacket and you can’t figure out how they’re not dying. When training or on a mission he’s always in more combat oriented gear so he can fight well.

12: their romantic life

Also unsuccessful, but it doesn’t help that at best he pushed away any and all childhood crushes and most friends for a good three or four years, and at worst he actually dies so I mean...

16: their dreams

He’d like to rid himself of his darkness and find some way to move on from it, and of course bring his Keyblade Master back from the dead, that’d be a really nice goal for him if he could have it. It’s not exactly likely, but that’s besides the point.

24: what motivates them

Landon is motivated by a desire to keep others safe from darkness and prevent what happened to him from happening ever again. He’s really good at trying to help out other Keybearers with darkness issues to the point that when they start to seem powerful he does whatever he can to help So I guess in a twisted way he’s motivated by his own darkness to not be what it wants, even if for a while it doesn’t work out.

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Time & Tide, Ch. 2 (”Come and Turn the Tide”)

In 1985, a Time Master grabs young Lisa Snart for the Refuge…but there’s no way she’s going anywhere without her brother.

And years later, when Miranda and Jonas die and the Time Council refuses to do anything, Rip Hunter turns to his oldest friend…

(Based on what was originally meant to be a throwaway line in “Secret Santa.” There will be CaptainCanary. Because it’s me.)

Can also be read here at AO3 and here at FF.net. (As can Chapter 1 and the prologue.) Many thanks to @larielromeniel!

What you gonna do when things go wrong? What you gonna do when it all cracks up? What you gonna do when the love burns down? What you gonna do when the flames go up?

(Simple Minds, "Alive and Kicking," 1985)

"You know this is a bad idea." Lisa's voice isn't disapproving. She knows better. Instead, it's resigned. And that's a tone she's become very used to taking with her older brother over the years.

"It's Miranda and Jonas, Lis." Len watches her intently through the viewscreen on his ship. He'd rather see her in person, but the Solace is actually keeping an eye on an untimely outbreak of typhoid fever in 2022. "You know them. You helped deliver Jonas! I can't let Rip deal with this on his own."

"Yes, but…" The professional time ship captain nibbles her lip like the little girl he remembers, then sighs. "This is why we're not supposed to have attachments," she tells him with resignation. "You know that."

"I think the Time Council would be better if they did." Len holds up his hands when she starts to retort. "Yeah, yeah, I know." It's an old argument. "But I'm helping. I'll do my best to keep my nose clean. Clean-ish. I just wanted to update you."

That gets him a smile. "Thank you," Lisa tells him. "Now…don't tell me more. What I don't know, I can't tell."

She might act like she's a rule-follower, these days, but that's the sister he remembers. Len grins.

"That's it," he tells her, leaning back in his chair, "be a rebel. Fight the evil Empire."

Lisa smiles again, but the expression is a little torn, and Len's already regretting his quip. When she starts to speak again, there's something sad and regretful in her tone.

"Len," she says, using his real name, which she rarely does, "someone needs to protect time. And they saved us."

Yeah, to do their bidding and their dirty work, he thinks. But all he says is, "I'll be careful."

They both know he probably won't.

He keeps his stop at the Refuge brief. Mary is enigmatic as always, but Len continues to think she knows more than she's letting on, both about Rip's quest and the Time Council's decision to ignore Vandal Savage's actions. Still, she's one of the very few people he trusts. He gives her a few new time-travel books he's found; they chat about the newest children added to her flock.

When he leaves, she doesn't ask where he's going.

"Welcome back onboard, Captain Tyler. It is good to see you."

"Good to hear you, Gideon." Len pauses in the bigger ship's hatch. He always considers it only polite to interact with the AIs, and Gideon has quite the personality. They get each other. "How's he doing?"

A pause. "As well as can be expected," the AI finally says, quietly. "This…plan, it is letting him maintain hope. I'm not quite sure of the wisdom of it, but there is that."

"Hope's a powerful thing," Len acknowledges.

"Indeed."

The much smaller Falcon is parked next to the Waverider in this deserted lot in Central City, both ships cloaked and waiting. Len knows that Rip issued his invitation to eight people, all from this time, presumably chosen from the dossiers he'd assembled, but the other man has done some of his own research, too. There could be additions.

"Ah! There you are." Rip is striding down the hall, and the energy about the man convinces Len that Gideon is precisely correct in her assessment. He's using the hope of this gambit to keep himself going. "They should be here soon. If they're coming, but I think they will." He nods at Len. "You were right…"

"There are those words again."

Rip ignores him. "… I think it was the correct call to tell them the true nature of the mission. None of them liked the notion that time would forget them."

"Not surprised. These hero-y types generally…"

"Captain Hunter, Captain Tyler," Gideon cuts in, "there is a group of eight people outside. They're rather obviously wondering if they're in the right place. It's time."

Eight. So all of them had agreed to come. The two men exchange a glance, then start for the hatch.

Once they're there, Rip waits more or less patiently for it to open, but Len leans out just a little, still concealed by the Waverider's cloak, and studies them. The inventor, the hawks, the…

"Aaahh," he breathes, watching. "You did invite the assassin. And she agreed."

"Of course. You recommended her mostly highly…" Rip cuts his gaze to his friend, then sighs. "Oh lord," he mutters. "This is part of your…fetish...for dangerous people, isn't it?"

"No. Yes…maybe." He tilts his head to consider the group. "Wait. Who's the…"

But Rip's heading down now, lifting his voice to greet the people he's promised to make legends, and Len's left standing in the ship. He's pretty sure the Waverider's captain means him to stay and watch, rather than putting himself out there and confusing the matter.

He shrugs, and follows anyway.

"…you imagine what a time ship would look like in, say, Victorian England?" he hears Rip explain, just as he uncloaks the Waverider. "Holographic indigenous camouflage protection."

"Just call it a cloak, Rip. Makes more sense and is a lot less bombastic." Len stops just behind him, eyeing the group with interest. "Well, isn't this an interesting lot."

He hears Rip sigh, but the other man doesn't even bother scolding.

"Stop looking at my crew like you're trying to decide who to seduce," he mutters, under his breath.

"Nah, I figured I'd just seduce all of 'em." Len tilts his head, trying to see if any of the group heard them. From their expressions, probably not. "Introduce me?"

Rip pinches his nose, but sighs and accedes.

"Ladies and gentleman, Time Master Captain Jack Tyler," he says with resignation, raising his voice and waving a hand. "A friend of mine."

"I thought you said they wouldn't help you." The assassin is staring at him. He grins at her. She rolls her eyes.

Rip catches the byplay and rolls his eyes too. "He's..."

"He's not they," Len interrupts. "I might sortof work for them, but I don't like the Time Council much. And the feeling's mutual." He shrugs. "Can't be here for everything, but I'll help when I can."

Another in the group—the inventor—opens his mouth to comment or ask a question, but Rip's already herding them toward the ship, and they go willingly enough. Well, Len can't blame them. He still remembers the first time he saw a time ship. (Granted, it'd been memorable, in part due to the abduction and nearly freezing-to-death part of it.)

He waits for the others to proceed onboard—lifting an eyebrow at how the professor has to get help with the unconscious kid-and then follows, smirking as he realizes that he's only a few paces behind the assassin. Sara Lance, he should use her name. He admires the view for a few moments, then catches up to walk beside her.

"Even if you're a broad-minded individual, this is a lot to take in," he drawls. "How are you doing?"

Suspicious blue eyes glance at him. She doesn't stop walking. "Why are you asking me?"

"You seem to be the only person on this boat who doesn't…" He pauses, choosing his words with a little more care than he'd originally planned. "…have powers or a dozen doctorate degrees."

Sara snorts, pausing to watch him. "Actually, I was dead for a year."

He knows that, actually—and it doesn't really contradict his observation. "Hey, I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Yeah, I can tell by the way you're staring at my ass." But there's a faint flash of humor in her eyes as she turns away-and granted, he had been staring at her ass. Len grins as he follows her, enjoying the view, but enjoying the banter even more.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

When they've all filtered onto the bridge area, though, he wanders away, needing to study the others in this so-called team they've created. The inventor is wide eyed, as is the professor. The kid is still unconscious, deposited in a jump seat, and, oh, there's certainly a story there. The hawks are inspecting the ship, too, and Len studies them, intrigued at this chance to see two of the characters in the nearly 4,000-year-old story he's been researching.

"Tyler, hmmm?"

At the amused voice, he turns, finally face to face with one of the few people he hadn't recommended for this team—someone he knows nothing about.

The third woman in the group is probably more striking than the other two, in purely aesthetic terms, a tall redhead with velvety, shrewd brown eyes and a lovely complexion that's a good bit darker than most redheads he's known. She's older, too, probably around his own chronological age, and damn if it doesn't look fine on her.

She's gorgeous, actually, and she exudes confidence, something that's usually an attraction for him. But Len dislikes her on sight, a feeling he doesn't even have a name for running down his spine, distrust and an odd recognition, and he has to force himself to give her a cool smile.

"Alexa Azeri," she says, smiling back at him, something just a touch predatory in that smile. "I'm a…shall we say, I'm an acquisitions expert."

Len nods to her, murmuring something vague. So, this is the criminal element that Rip had mentioned being uncertain of.

"And you?" he asks, looking at the big, scarred man next to Alexa, a man who hasn't uttered a word, the only other person here he knows nothing of. There's a weird pull there, too. Not an attraction—bruisers aren't his type—but a feeling like he should recognize the other man.

"He's just hired muscle," the woman interrupts, putting a hand on Len's arm. "My…bodyguard."

Len can't handle the familiarity. Or the attitude. He pointedly pulls his arm away and continues to focus on the big man.

"And you?" he asks the…bodyguard…again, pointedly.

The guy blinks, then glances at Alexa, whose face is now carefully blank. Then he looks back at Len.

"Mick," he says shortly, his voice a gravelly rumble. "Mick Rory. I…like she said. Bodyguard."

Len accepts it…for now. "Pleased to meet you, Mick," he says, pleasantly, ignoring Alexa's attempt to talk to him again as he turns away.

It's probably a mistake. But he hasn't survived this long as a Time Master by ignoring his instincts. And those instincts are screaming at him to stay the hell away from Alexa Azeri.

Rip's been holding forth, as he tends to do, and introducing most of the team to Gideon. Now, he's explaining how Savage's movements have been hidden in time, and detailing their first destination. Len, listening, nods at the mention of St. Roch.

"I'll meet you there," he cuts in as his friend pauses. "I need to check…stuff. I'll put the ship down near wherever I detect the Waverider."

"You have another ship?" the professor queries, interest in his tone. "Like this one?"

Well, Len can never resist a chance to brag about his ship. Not matter how much Rip laughs at him about it.

"Yes," he says, just a tad proudly as the other Time Master rolls his eyes, then decides to make a small verbal jab. "Well, faster. Smaller. Sleeker. Name's The Falcon."

"Falcon?" The inventor, Ray Palmer, perks up. "You mean like…?"

Len points at him. "Someone on this ship with some culture! Yes, just like." He looks pointedly at Rip. "See. Some people get it."

His friend gives him a weary look. "Are you quite done?"

"For now."

It's not that he doesn't trust Rip. He does, with his very life. But sometimes the man just doesn't…think.

(He conveniently ignores any number of ironies in that thought.)

It doesn't take long for Gabby to pull up information on both Alexa Azeri and Mick (Michael, actually) Rory. Len leans back and drums his fingers on the console, reading.

Aside from the very basics of family and origin, all of it unremarkable, almost all the information about the former involves her line of work. Alexa doesn't seem to have a set base of operations, although she's been associated with jobs in both Central and Star cities. Jewels seem to be her favorite, but technology is a very strong second. Her MO is all over the place, too…classic scams and cons, heists that rely on teamwork and skill, even the odd smash and grab.

One thing there's a steady string of, though, are fall guys, and girls. Oh, she has a rap sheet, an extensive one, and she's done time in fine institutions from juvenile hall right up to Iron Heights. But almost every time, there's someone else involved, someone on whom Alexa has promptly given evidence—in return for other considerations, of course. And at least a few times, her partners have wound up with a bad case of dead as she made off with the loot.

You'd think she'd have a hard time finding partners, after all this, but it seems there's always someone in line to buy her story, and promises of an easy payoff—and the assurance that she sees something in them, for whatever reason.

A user. He knows the type.

Lewis' face rises in his conscious memory for the first time in ages, and Len shakes his head roughly, willing the image away. His father is long since dead, having mouthed off to the wrong boss in Iron Heights after yet another heist gone wrong, and neither Len nor Lisa mourned him when they found out.

Oh, yes, he'll keep an eye on Alexa Azeri. If only because she brings up some bad memories.

Mick Rory is from Central City, and only a few years older than his own chronological age. Len sits forward, reading the file with interest. The few notes on speculated abuse raise the hairs on the backs of his arms—too many reminders of the past, too quickly—but he continues, taking in the tale of arson and juvie and all sorts of potential gone, the descent from petty theft into robbery and murder.

Because what else was there left, in a world that couldn't forgive a scared kid for one horrible, irreversible mistake?

Could have been him. Could have been him, so easily.

And if he's not wrong, reading between all these lines, Rory has a bit of a death wish, so much so that he's not sure how the man has stayed alive all these years.

There doesn't seem to be much connection to Azeri there, but Len's practiced eye notes a few instances where they've been in roughly the same place at the same time. Not long-time partners or anything like that. Perhaps it is as the woman says…he's hired muscle.

He's pretty sure it's not that simple.

Or innocent…at last on Azeri's part.

By the time he does this, follows the Waverider to 1975 St. Roch, and saunters back onto the bigger ship, the newbies have worked through their assorted issues with time-travel effects and are more or less sorted. The kid, Jefferson "call me Jax" Jackson, is awake and not happy with his Firestorm counterpart, and while Len can't really blame him, he knows they needed both halves of the superhero for the greatest effect.

He's not going to say that, though.

There's more friction between Rip and the team, too.

"You're benching us?

"This mission doesn't require your particular skill set."

"Meanin' you don't need anyone killed, maimed or robbed," Rory rumbles, then glances at Alexa as if worried she'll be annoyed he's speaking out of turn.

But the woman is focusing more on Len, now that she's noticed she's back on board, and he's just not sure he has it in him to be charming. He sidles, instead, toward Sara, who looks faintly amused.

"Sure it's a good idea to leave these two unsurprised on a time machine?" questions the inventor, Palmer, just a touch too loudly.

"Hey, haircut. Deafness wasn't one of the side effects," the big man rumbles, but he does it under his breath, and Len snorts in amusement. The other man glances at him, the corner of his mouth quirking up just a little. There's a moment, just a flicker, of connection.

Then Alexa's at Rory's side, whispering something in his ear, and the man's face goes blank again. Len fights back a moment of rage (he doesn't know what's being said, and his imagination might be overly active given what he's read of them), but before he can say anything, Rip's grabbing the sleeve of his jacket and dragging him over to a corner of the bridge, looking harried.

Granted, that's pretty normal for Rip.

"You'll stay?" his friend hisses, eyes pleading in a way that belies the almost aggressive tone of the words. "While we head for the university?"

Len blinks at him. "You mean, will I babysit them? Me? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No, actually, but…" The other man sighs. "You're going to say you told me so."

"I told you so. OK, now it's done with." He narrows his eyes. "What are you regretting already?"

"Ms. Azeri and her compatriot. I…" Rip sighs again as Len smirks at him. "OK, yes, yes, I should have stuck with your recommendations. But none of them with this…skill set…were as easily findable, and…"

Something about that seems off, but Len lets it go. "What about them? It's not like Gideon's going to let her get away with anything."

"I know." Rip eyes him. "Just see if you can find out a little more about them. And not just her. I didn't want the other man—Mr. Rory—on board at all, but she insisted she needed to bring 'muscle' and, frankly, the team could use that too. But I haven't been well pleased with what I've been able to learn."

Len shrugs, although he has every intention of learning more about them too. "Give the guy a break," he tells his friend. "Gotta feeling."

"The arsonist?" Rip blinks at him. "Are you serious?"

Len claps him on the shoulder as they turn back to the others. "Brother, we both entered the Refuge as petty thieves. Arson's the least of what we could have gotten up to if things had been different." He lowers his voice. "I'm more concerned about her."

Rip starts to retort, but then stops as Alexa moves toward them, interest sparking in her eyes at their quiet conversation.

"I'm more than happy to stay behind on this fascinating ship," she purrs, eyeing them both. "Could I, perhaps, get a tour? I'd really like to learn more...about your ship, too..."

Now she's looking right at Len—his brush-off from earlier apparently not having registered. He stares back at her, nonplussed, even as he senses Rip making a rapid escape with the hawks, Professor Stein and Palmer.

He's always erred on the side of charming everyone and letting things sort themselves out later, but apparently bluntness is the order of the day.

"Not interested in what you're selling," he tells her flatly, folding his arms, eyes cold. "You ain't my type."

Startled for just a moment, the redhead raises her eyebrows. Then she glances over at Rory and smiles before glancing back at him.

"Ah," she says knowingly. "You like men."

"Some men," Len agrees. "Some women. Not you. So, stop wasting your time and maybe we can manage a decent working dynamic."

Her eyes widen at his bluntness, a flash of something that might almost be hurt in them before they narrow again.

"Got it," she snaps back. "You don't know what you're missing. And you just might regret it at some point."

Len lets her have her comeback, watching as she turns on her heel and heads off. Then he sighs, leaning back against the wall and watching the kid—Jax—and Rory mess around with the viewscreen. (Although Rory's clearly wondering if he should follow his...whatever...)

"Think you might have irritated her."

He glances to the side, sees that Sara has wandered over to lean against the wall next to him. Her gaze is considering, and he bites back innuendo. Not the time. Unfortunately.

"You saw that, huh?" Len says instead, turning toward her a little. "Yeah, probably. But I don't like it when people treat other people like property," he says shortly, meeting her eyes. "I just…don't."

(The kids at the marketplace were screaming, crying, and he was supposed to just turn and walk back to his ship, leave the timeline as it was meant to be, ignore the cries...)

He ruthlessly pushes the memory of that mission back down again. There's a flash of understanding in Sara's eyes, though, and she merely nods, watching the other woman, who's moved to inspect the captain's console. After a moment, she sighs ruefully, muttering quietly, "I don't like this."

"Hmm?"

The gaze she darts at him has a hint of humor. "Oh, you know. The old trope that when there's more than one woman in a group, they always get all catty with each other and fight instead of backing each other up. I hate that. And she's gorgeous, so I sort of wish I felt differently, but…"

"Ah." Len considers. "Well, she's tripping every alarm bell I have, too. I don't know why." He shrugs it off, and grins at her. "If it makes you feel better, fight the trope. Make friends with bird girl."

Sara snorts, but nods. "I plan to. Although her boyfriend's an ass."

"He kinda is, isn't he?" He can't help but lean toward her, draw to her as much as…more than…he's repulsed by Alexa. "I've been looking into the whole Savage thing and everything else for Rip since…well…and not every incarnation's that bad. It seems to depend on…"

But Sara's eyes are considering again. Maybe a little wary. "So, you know all our backgrounds?"

Len considers prevarication, then goes with honesty. "Yeah. I recommended most of you." He tilts his head and gives her a look through his lashes, attempting to distract her. "Especially you. You're badass."

His admiring tone gets a smirk, quickly concealed. "And you're a flirt," she counters, watching him. "But…most of us?"

"Aaaaand you pay attention," he adds, not missing a beat. "I like that too." He sighs as she levels a glare at him. "I'm not sure where Rip got the idea for Redheaded Trouble over there, but not from me."

"And the 'hired muscle?'"

Something in her tone says she's sensed something off there, too. "I don't know him either." Len makes a quick decision. "But Rip wants me to find out more. And I don't get a good vibe out of whatever she's got on him."

"Hmmmm. And what do you have in mind?" Sara whispers back. But even as she asks the question, though, Len sees a flicker in her eyes, and leans forward, intrigued.

"What are you thinking?" he asks in a low tone.

She tells him. And Len leans back and stares at her.

"I like you," he tells her, utterly seriously. "I mean, I really like you."

Sara's lips twitch again. "I can't imagine Captain Hunter will be very happy about it."

"Well, Rip's not here." He smirks. "And I am. I say we do it. Gideon?"

The AI's tone is low and localized to the corner they're standing in, making Sara startle, just a tiny bit. "Yes, Captain Tyler?"

"Rip's got all his protocols with you locked down tight, right?"

"Of course. But I don't know that this is a good idea. Captain Hunter would probably not approve."

Eavesdropper, he mouths to Sara, then speaks aloud again. "As I said, Rip's not here. I am. We are." He nods to Sara, winking, and starts sauntering into the room, hands behind his back, thoroughly ignoring her, or appearing to.

After a few moments, he hears Sara speak.

"Am I the only one who could really use a drink?" she says, raising her voice just a little and sounding the perfect mix of bored and slightly exasperated.

Len hesitates a bare second, then spins on his heel theatrically and grins at her.

"Ex-cellent idea."

Who is gonna come and turn the tide? What's it gonna take to make a dream survive? Who's got the touch to calm the storm inside? Who's gonna save you?