#but like. sweet move right? he could destroy someone at 50 feet away with this if he lands a hit

[holopossums]

i was talking in my server yesterday about a new Casey Jr. battle move i thought up of.

and i just had to illustrate it because this is honest-to-god one of the most fun ideas i've ever had.

this move might appear in Radiant Souls, and rather soon, too!

[sinner-as-saint]

Questions

Run-through: While on a mission, you’re stuck in an area of a building with your fellow Avenger, Bucky Barnes with whom you may or may not have a love/hate relationship. And while waiting for someone to come rescue you, you both find quite an interesting way to keep yourselves occupied.

Themes: language, dirty talk, smut

   “Ah, fuck this shit!” you exclaimed, kicking the old, rusty metal door one last time before sitting down on the dusty ground, panting and leaning your back against the same door the was shut. You had been trying to get that door to open for the past 15 minutes, with no success. So you gave up, hoping that the team would be able to track you down and come and get you out of this stuffy room.

“You’re trying in vain, doll. Save your energy, trust me,” your mission partner said. And God knows how much you hated the sickly sweet tone he used on you.

“Funny you say that, Barnes. You’re not even trying to get us out of here,” you replied, sarcasm dripping from your words as you leaned your head back, closing your eyes as you were exhausted.

 You and the team set out on a mission earlier. The plan was simple; get off the Jet, sneak into this hauntingly old, gigantic abandoned building, take down whoever was in there, search the place for anyone held captive, destroy the remains of whatever barbaric transactions were taking place there and leave. But when you all decided to split just so you could search the place better and faster because the place was huge. HUGE. And, that’s when everything went to shit.

Steve, Nat and Clint were searching the east wing while you and Bucky were assigned to search the west wing, and the others explored the massive dungeons.

You and Bucky, despite sometimes being each other’s nightmare, were a very high-powered duo. Nothing could go wrong when you both worked together because your strength and skills complimented each other’s extremely well. But that was until the floor above you decided to collapse; trapping you in what seemed like an emergency panic room. Honestly, you only went in there because it seemed a little absurd when you thought about why someone would think of having a panic room in such a place.

So long story short, the floor above you collapsed for whatever reason and trapped you inside with Bucky and his annoying self. And you figured that the rest of the team were really far away because you could only hear static noises through the comms. You prayed to God that they found you as soon as possible.

“Guys? Anyone? Sam? Seriously, come and get me out of here. I don’t wanna die in this horrible place, with Bucky of all people. God, come on, where are the Avengers when you need them?” you tried reaching out to anyone who would hear but all you got was more static noises and you let out a long, dramatic sigh. Then you heard Bucky who let out a chuckle.

“You’re really dramatic you know that?” he asked, sitting down as well, his back against the wall facing you. The room was quite small so you were only approximately 10 feet away from each other.

“Is it dramatic to not wanna die in this awful place b-“you got cut off by a broken voice coming through the ear piece you had on.

“Hang on kid…heavy….we don’t-….coming…in...couple-…hours,” was all it said. And you soon realized that the voice was Tony’s.

“Tony? Tony can you hear me? Hello?” but you got no reply back. This time, even the static noise was gone.

Your face lit up when you heard that they were coming to get you, but did he just say a couple of hours? What the hell?

“At least now we know that they’re coming. Looks like all that whining finally paid off, huh, doll?” Bucky said, looking at you dead in the eyes.

“Yeah, what are we gonna do for another couple of more hours?” you sighed, leaning tour head back against the door, once again making a little thud sound.

He smirked.

“You know, I might have some things in mind,” he suggested, and even though you couldn’t see him, you knew he must have had that damned, cocky smile on his face.

You opened your eyes, grabbed your gun and aimed it at him.

“I will not sleep with you, ever. I wouldn’t fuck you even if you were the last man on Earth, Barnes,” you said, slowly lowering down you gun and placed it beside you again.

He laughed.

“I never said anything about sleeping with me. I was merely suggesting that, uh, game you and Nat were playing the other day. What is it, 50, 30 questions?” he asked and you shook your head weakly.

“We’re currently trapped in an old building, under a floor that just collapsed with our friends looking for us without any idea of where we could be because they can’t track us. And you wanna play 20 questions?” you couldn’t believe he just said that.

You knew he was quite a weird person but you never thought it’d come to this.

He shrugged. That damned, cocky smile still on his perfect face.

“I mean, we can’t just sit here and look at each other for hours. Might as well get to know each other better, and as Steve said, you and I need to work on our issues. So, 20 questions it is!” he sat up straight, still facing you.

He did have a point though.

“Okay, fine. I’ll go first. Barnes, how do you manage to reach such a soaring level of stupidity?” you sassed and he bit his lip.

Damn… wait what?

“Skills, doll. I’m next, what’s the one thing you’ve always wanted in life?” he asked, looking at you attentively.

You thought over it for a moment.

“Control. My turn, would you like to go in the future or the past?” you were beginning to notice an odd light in his eyes and you didn’t know why.

“The future. My turn, did you sleep with Thor the night you were both drunk, flirting shamelessly during the New Year’s party?” he asked, and your jaw was about to hit the floor.

Damn it, you knew this asshole would ask some dumb shit like this to make you uncomfortable. Why did you even agree to play this game?

“I, I can’t answer that. That’s private,” you simply said and he moved closer to you, to a point where he sat directly in front of you. Your boots touched his and his eyes stared into yours, unmoving.

“I supposed you’re forgetting a dirty little rule you made, doll. An unanswered question equals discarding an article of clothing. Now, answer me, or take something off,” he spoke calmly as he reminded you of the stupid rule you made the last time you played with Nat. You mentally kicked yourself for making such an immature rule in the first place.

“You’re such a pig! Okay, fine.” You zipped down your jacket and took it off. Leaving you in your leather pants, a tight, white tank top, under which was your red, lacy bra – the outline of which was very visible.

And suddenly, your skin felt very hot as Bucky took in your appearance. You were still very clothed but something about the way he was looking at you made you feel, naked. Very naked.

You avoided eye contact as much as possible while asking him your question.

“Okay, who do you think about when you masturbate at night?” you asked, keeping a straight face as one of his eyebrow raised.

He tilted his head to the side slightly and smirked again.

“What makes you think I think about someone? What if I say I watch porn like any other guy?” he asked, smirking.

You laughed.

“Because, you are not like other guys. Bucky, you can barely use Google. Now just answer my question, or take something off,” and it was your turn to smirk.

He let out a frustrated breath and took of his jacket. Under which he wore nothing. So within seconds, Bucky sat facing you, shirtless. And for the first time, you weren’t complaining.

“Like what you see, doll?” he asked, again with that damned, cocky smile on.

“Screw you Barnes, it’s your turn,” you said, eyeing him shamelessly.

His skin was so smooth. He barely had any scars except for many healed cuts around the point where his shoulder met his metal arm. And you suddenly felt bad for all the horrible things he had to go through alone.

“Hello? Y/N?” he waved his other arm in front of your face, dragging you back you reality.

“Yeah, sorry,” you said sheepishly.

“I asked, were you scared of me the first time we met?” his words weren’t laced with sarcasm anymore, but they did have a hint of mischief coating them.

“Absolutely not. My turn, do you ever take our bickering at heart? I mean, have I ever hurt you by saying something really harsh?” you asked, surprising yourself because you didn’t know where this question came from.

Did you really care about what he thought?

He smiled.

“Nah. Cause I know deep down, you’re a good person with a good heart. And really nice boobs too,” he answered, and a very smug expression displayed all across his face while his eyes stared at your cleavage.

You threw your jacket at his face, making him laugh as you shook your head.

“I’m sorry, but they’re there and you expect me not to look? Whatever, my turn, have you hooked up with Thor before?” he asked again, smirking.

He inched closer to you, placing his leg in between your ankles. And his eyes never left yours.

“I said I can’t answer that! Plus, you can’t repeat a question,” you argued but he wouldn’t listen.

“Rules are rules, sugar. Take it off,” he said, and tugged at your tank top.

Something took over you and without thinking, you got rid of the tank top. So you sat there, in front of him, only in a lacy, red bra and leather pants. Your hair did cover parts of your chest but it didn’t help the growing hard on in Bucky’s pants.

He didn’t think you did, but you noticed. And a devious, really, really unholy thought went through your head.

You folded your legs under your thighs and sat down on them again. This caused him to have to look up to you slightly.

“My turn, are you hard right now?” you asked, nonchalantly and you saw how his jaw almost dropped.

“I, uh, what?” he asked, as if unable to believe what he just heard.

“Oh you heard me, do you have a hard on right now, soldier?” you asked again, inching closer and closer to his lap until you straddled him.

His eyes rolled back when you moved your core against his hard length slightly. When he opened them again, you were smiling down at him.

“Yeah, yes I do,” he answered, smirking again. Why was he being so smug? You thought you had the upper hand in this situation.

“My turn, have you ever thought about me while using that little light pink vibrator on yourself, doll? And don’t lie, I heard you once or twice,” he cooed, kissing the side of your neck with certainty as he knew you could never answer that.

Your eyes widened in shock as you let out a little moan while Bucky left a trail of love bites along your throat.

His hands grabbed your ass and he pushed you into him slightly. You whimpered at the friction.

“I’d rather not answer that,” you simply said, getting off his lap abruptly.

You stood in front of him and unbuckled your pants, slowly taking them off. You watched how his chest rose and fell quickly as you took your time in slipping out of your tight pants.

You were turning him on and you liked it.

Once you got out of your pants, you dropped them on the floor and that’s when Bucky stood up as well.

“Oh wait. Are we done playing?” you asked innocently, as if unaware that your matching set of deep red lacy underwear wasn’t driving him crazy with desire.

He nearly moaned just at the mere sight of you.

“Don’t tease me, doll,” he said sternly, slightly grabbing your jaw with his metal arm. You giggled, grabbing him by the back of his neck, pulling him down so your lips hovered over his ear.

“You wanna know a secret? I always, always think about your metal fingers every time I use my vibrator,” you whispered innocently, placing a little kiss on his jaw line. And he let out a growl.

“Fucking shit! Do you have any idea of what I wanna do to you right now, doll?” he sounded like he was clearly frustrated. And you liked that.

He pushed your body backwards until you were trapped between him and the wall. His hand was at your waist and one was around your neck, causing your head to slightly lean backwards. His cold fingers wrapped around your warm neck made a certain wetness pool in your underwear.

“No, actually, care to enlighten me Barnes?” your wrists wrapped around his arm, giving him the hint that you liked it there.

He leaned in, his lips hovering over yours as you felt your heart beat insanely fast in your chest. A fiery, desire filled warmth filled your entire body as his dirty words filled your head.

“I want nothing more than to strip you naked and have my way with you, doll. And I know you want the same. I know you think of me when you get yourself off at night, but I assure you, I’ll make you feel better than your toys ever could babygirl. I wanna hear you scream my name as I make you come multiple times until you forget your own name, you want that, doll?” as he spoke, you felt a warm liquid dripping down your thigh. When you realized what it was, your blood rushed to your face. Bucky literally had you dripping wet with only his words.

“Fuck…” your voice trailed off as his hand caressed your inner thigh.

You let out a moan as his hand gripped your throat a little tighter. You smiled, looking up at him while slightly grinding your lower abdomen to his.

“You’re into choking, huh? And very needy too I see. Tell me, doll, what do you want?” he asked, pressing his entire body against your so you could feel all of him.

His skin on yours felt just right.

“I want you, Buck. Right now!” you said, loud and clear but he wasn’t done yet. He planned on teasing you even more.

“Watch that tone with me doll! Now tell me, where do you want me?” his words sent shivers throughout your entire body.

His hands traveled up and down your skin, causing goose bumps along the way.

“Down there,” you replied, pointing your finger downwards your body, smirking at him as he sank to his knees.

His hands ran up and down your things, causing your body to shake as he chuckled.

“You’re so responsive, baby, I’ll make you feel so good I promise,” he whispered while kissing your inner thighs. Licking the droplet of lust which oozed out of you earlier. The whole of it was so vulgar that your eyes rolled back.

Your hands tangled into his hair as he slowly slipped your underwear down your legs, causing you to shiver at his bare touch.

Once you stepped out of the red underwear, his mouth latched on to your core. His tongue moving back and forth from your entrance to your clit, while his eyes looked up at you. Having his head in the middle of your shaky legs was spine-tingling.

His hands wrapped around your hips, spreading you slightly while nuzzling his mouth deeper into your core as you let out multiple moans and groans.

“You taste amazing baby,” he said, detaching his mouth from you for a brief moment as he slipped two metal fingers deep inside you, slowly. He watched you frown in pleasure as you tugged on the roots of his dark hair.

“Bucky… oh my god” you moaned shamelessly. And he smirked again.

He kept his fingers buried in you, constantly rotating them or slipping them in and out of you as he stood up once again, claiming your lips.

His mouth was wet, and you could see your wetness all across his beard.

His tongue slipped past your lips and gently stroked the top of your mouth. His fingers worked relentlessly between your folds and you felt a warm pressure forming in between your hips just as his metal fingers curled up inside you, brushing against a weak spot you barely knew you had.

You moaned into his mouth, your hands still tangled into his hair.

“You like my fingers in your cunt, huh, doll? You like it when I touch you like this, don’t you?” he asked, panting against your mouth as he felt his pants grow tighter and tighter.

But when you didn’t answer, his frustration got the best of him.

He slipped his hands out of your heat, making you whimper. He harshly grabbed your jaw, forcing you to look up at him.

“Answer me when I talk to you baby, don’t be a brat, yeah?” but you could barely form a proper sentence to reply back so when you said nothing, he messily grabbed a chunk of your hair, tugging at it lightly and brought you to your knees.

You knelt in front of him, your core still dripping and throbbing because he didn’t grant you your release yet.

“Bucky, I –,” he cut you off immediately.

“Shh princess, now get to work,” he held your head gently as you unbuckled his pants quickly, almost desperate to please him.

You pulled down his pants and underwear and almost immediately took him into your mouth. You swirled your tongue around his tip for a little while, making him grunt in pleasure.

“You look so good on your knees, doll, with my cock in your mouth,” he moaned out loud, pushing himself into your mouth slightly.

You bobbed your head around his tip, taking him inch by inch until he hit the back of your throat. You repeated the same thing over and over again until he quickened the pace at which he moved in and out of you, which notified you that he was really close to coming undone.

But since he didn’t let you cum, you weren’t gonna let him cum either.

You removed him from your mouth and slowly licked the slit on the top of his tip, tasting his pre cum as your hands toyed with his balls, earning a moan out of him. You smiled in satisfaction as you rose up to your feet.

His eyes widened when he realized what you just did.

“But -, but baby, I –,”

“Shh, just fuck me, soldier. I want you so bad, Bucky, it hurts. Please,” you pleaded, unhooking your bra and letting it fall on the ground, leaving you both completely bare.

“Come here, doll,” he whispered, smashing his lips to yours. Kissing and biting your mouth as his lined himself at your still dripping entrance.  

He brushed his tip up and down your entrance, not fully entering you and it drove you crazy.

“Bucky, please, n-no more teasing,” you moaned, and he chuckled.

His hand at your throat held your neck a little tighter, choking you slightly.

“Else what, huh, doll?” he saw how needy you were for him and it filled him with a sense of pride.

As response, you just moaned when he slowly entered you. Allowing you to feel every vein on his length and feel yourself stretch to your maximum so he could fill you up completely.

“Ah fuck! Bucky!” you moaned as he slipped out of you and slipped in you once more.

He groaned as he filled you to the brim, slowly moving in and out of you.

“You feel so good, doll. All wet and warm for me, damn it!” he grunted out as you rotated your hips against him, adding more the sensation.

His filthy words and his movements around your body caused an assortment of swear words to leave your mouth. A mouth which he soon started to nibble on.

His teeth tugged at your bottom lip while he moved in and out of you at an increased pace. His metal arm was still gripping your throat while the other one held your hip, probably leaving a deep purple bruise as a memoir – adding to those around your tits and along your neck.

The momentum he created with his length at your core further increased the tightening pressure in between your hips and you desperately needed to come undone. With each passing second and each stroke of Bucky’s length, you felt you orgasm building up quickly and you knew immediately that you wouldn’t last longer.

Your quiet screams only encouraged Bucky to move quicker. You felt your legs starting to shake as you knees felt weak, unable to hold your body weight.

“Bucky, baby, I’m gonna cum,” you moaned against his cheek as ragged breaths left his sinful lips.

“Not yet! Look at me,” he gripped your jaw, forcing your eyes to stare into his, “Who is making you feel this good, huh, doll? Tell me, who?” he grunted, sweat dripping from his forehead to his sharp jawline.

He applied more pressure at your throat and he fucked you until you could no longer form a complete sentence. He somehow managed to hit all the right spots.

“Y-you are, Buck…” your words turned into a moan as you could no longer hold it back. So, you came hard, with a quiet scream. Mumbling how good he made you feel against his cheek.

 You felt his length pulsating inside of you as you rode out your orgasm, and you knew he was close. With a couple more strokes, Bucky came undone as well, his warm liquid hitting your walls which made you squirm against his bare body.

“Fuck, baby, you were so good,” he whispered, his hand leaving your neck and caressing your cheek as he slowly slipped out of you.

“You too, Buck,” you giggled, and kissed his lips one more time.

He broke the kiss and spoke up again.

“You didn’t fuck Thor though, did you?” he asked, making you laugh as he pressed your body against his once more.

“No, but why does that bother you?” you grabbed his face in both your hands and kissed his nose, making him smile down at you.

“Good, because I don’t want anyone else touching what’s mine,” he nuzzled his face into your neck and kissed his way up to your lips again before whispering a quick, “you’re mine.”

 The two of you hurried to get dressed and as soon as you zipped your jacket back up, somebody pushed down the door.

Dust particles flew around for a bit, making your vision blurry for a while before you could focus again on who was in front of you.

“There you guys are! Are you okay? We’re so sorry we took so long, the entire west wing collapsed and we didn’t know where you guys were,” Nat explained, pulling you in for a wind pipe crushing hug.

“Its okay, Nat. Actually, that gave Bucky and I plenty of time to, uh, work on our issues,” you explained, briefly looking at Bucky who had the same cocky smile on his face and Steve beamed.

“That’s great! Now let’s go home,” Steve said, ushering you and Bucky out of the room. But that was until you heard Tony’s voice.

“Uh, are we just gonna collectively ignore the bright red bra that’s on the floor?” he asked, pointing towards it a few feet away from where you stood and everybody’s gaze fell on your forgotten bra on the floor.

Shit!

[horrorslashergirl]

Chromeskull blackmailing the reader after he sees her kill her abusive father. Her father use to let Jesse use his funeral parlor and such so now the reader has to as well It's tense at first but Jesse ends up gaining feelings for and readers unsure what she feels about him until he saves her life from home invader. Sorry for the word vomit. 😊

Not exactly what you wanted, but I hope it turned out right at last 50%

Chromeskull x Reader- Farewell Job

There were a few things that Jesse Cromeans disliked, down from having his car scratched to a wrinkled suit, the most were when someone was in debt to him and the fucker had the audacity to play dumb and not answer his texts, especially the threatening ones. Normally, he would let his co-workers deal with such insignificant concerns, but none ignored Jesse Chromeskull Cromeans and got away without at last a broken wrist.

That's why he was driving at midnight full-on speed down the road to the funeral house where the old geezer was doing his business, and where Jesse sometimes decapitated his piggies. He couldn't wait to sink his knife into the man's back, maybe skin his legs off? He will have time to think about it once he has him bound to a chair begging for his life.

After one hour of speeding down and ignoring red lights, he managed to get to the said funeral house, parking the Bentley as the engine's sound died down into the silence of the night. Getting out of the car, he put on the chromed skull mask, smirking at the familiar coldness of it. He took the silver suitcase and waltzed to the front entrance which was surprisingly open.

No wonder...The disgusting bastard had a habit of drinking and always forgot to lock it. Not the first time.

Jesse expected to see the old scumbag passed down on a chair or better yet on the floor, blackout drunk, but imagine the surprised behind the silver mask when he saw the man on the floor with his head bashed in, brains spilling out.

Well, that is surely unexpected.

The old and rusty skin close by with pieces of the brain was probably the primary weapon.

Someone got here first.

Jesse took one step towards the corpse and he heard a door open and felt something sharp slash the black material of his coat along with a slightly deep wound of his biceps.

Brown eye locked on a feral face twisted into a deadly scowl that promised murder. The culprit was a female, young, and was ready to aim another hit, but Jesse was quicker and he knocked what looked like a scalpel from the tiny hand. His hand fisted her shirt and slammed her against the wall, pinning her there.

Despite the position she was in, no fear was in her eyes that were bloodshot, probably from lack of sleep. She was still snarling like she wanted to bite his head off.

"Let me go or I will cut your balls off!" You screamed at him, nails digging into the sleeves of his coat, trying to inflict some type of pain.

Jesse waisted little no time and after some struggling and an almost painful hit to his manhood, he had you bound to a chair, glaring at him with acidic eyes.

For someone so small you sure were a feisty one. He smirked behind the mask at your immobilized form. He couldn't recall the last time he was faced with such a dangerous piggy.

His usual piggies were always begging, pleading for their lives, or just running away, but fighting back was a low occurrence. To say the least, he was impressed, not many had hurt him and you did it so well, the stinging in his biceps hurt like a bitch, but Jesse was used to being stabbed and shot, all the tattoos of covering up his scars were proof to that.

He was looming over you, debating what he should do. He was so tempted to rip your jaw off, but that wasn't the primary reason why he was here. He needed some information because the fucker that was in debt to him was dead.

Jesse pulled out his phone and quickly typed in.

'Who are you, piggy?'

You arched an eyebrow at the tall man.

"Why should I answer you?"

WITTY PIGGY.

'Because I can do worse than what happened to that corpse over there.'

"The fucker had it coming." You found yourself muttering under your breath.

That piqued Jesse's interest. You seemed to speak with venom when mentioned about the old male.

'Related?'

"Father....But why the fuck do you even care?!" Your aggressive demeanor quickly came back and Jesse had to admit the way your brows were furrowing and eyes blazing with fury were kind of cute.

'Because your DEAR father owns me a lot of money.'

"Not my fucking problem." You snarled and in the dim light, Jesse could see the old purple bruises around your left eye, along with deep fingerprints on your neck.

Not done by him. It didn't take a genius to figure out what your father did to you. No wonder you were like a tiger that came out of a circus cage, ready to destroy everything in your path.

'I must admit, you put on a good show. I'm impressed.'

"Flattery won't get you anywhere, jerk." You snorted.

Jesse licked his lips behind the mask, so tempted to use that mouth of yours for other things that cursing him out.

Yes, killing you won't get him any benefice, although he was tempted to cut your tongue off.

'You own me.'

You spat on his silver mask, making his chest rumble like he was ready to pounce you, but Jesse composed himself.

"I don't own you shit." You muttered in a murderous tone and if Jesse could talk he sure would laugh.

'You have no idea in what deepness you are, little girl.'

You internally groaned at the use of his words, always been treated like you were some hopeless child that couldn't stand up for themselves.

Well, tonight you proved everyone wrong by your masterpiece a few feet away from you two.

"Care to enlighten me why?" you asked, curious about what he was implying.

The skull masked man's broad shoulders moved up and down, silently chuckling at your blind eyes of what was happening. He began to type, this time taking a little longer.

'Tell me if I am wrong, but you just killed someone and you will most likely go to jail, despite that you will say that it was in pure defense. Judges these days aren't so merciful, doll. You wouldn't want to rot between four walls of concrete, would you now?'

You swallowed down at the electronic voice, nibbling on your lower lip in thought. As much as you hated it, he was right and by your expression, his body language spoke of satisfaction.

Egocentric jerk.

Here goes the typing again.

'But I am willing to make you a sweet deal that will assure you freedom. Your father owned me cash that you couldn't make even if you sucked on old men cocks all your life.'

You felt disgusted and if your hands were free you would have shown that phone down the man's throat.

"You're saying that...."

'Work for me and you will be safe.'

"Doesn't sound like freedom to me."

'Better than jail, no?'

Winning asshole.

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

Your opinion on Jesse Cromeans was that he was a man which you would love go gauge his remaining brown eye out, that was the first month, but in time you learned to live with him being your 'boss'.

Nothing screamed dream job than cleaning the mess after the killings of your boss.

If you looked that over you could say that your life was at last perfect. He always made sure you had everything you needed and you couldn't be happier; down from expensive clothing to delicious rich food, you were spoiled, so different from your past life.

You were currently scrubbing down the tiles of a bathroom after a 'piggy' as your boss liked to call them had her guts spilled out. You whipped the sweat from your forehead with the back of your hand, then you heard footsteps approach.

When you turned around you were meet with the scarred face of Jesse, the black eyepatch covering the empty socket of his eye, the remaining brown one observing your work.

'You get better and better.' he signed.

The first thing that Jesse did when you agreed to work for him was to take you to ASL lessons because typing over again on his phone was irritating.

"I take that was a compliment." you muttered, throwing the rags into a black bag to be burned.

'Are you free tonight?' he signed.

"Another murder scene that needs to be cleaned?" you asked, disposing of your gloves.

Jesse chuckled silently and stepped to your form, taking your chin between his fingers, your eyes moving from his face to his full inked forearms. His hand left your chin to sign.

'No. Dinner tonight. I've got you a nice dress and shoes.' he signed, making you look at him dumbfounded.

"B-But you're my boss and-" you tried to reason, but a finger pressed to your lips.

You wanted to yell at him that this was forbidden, not to mention the age gap between the two of you.

'Taboo? You know I am notorious for being a nonconformist.' he signed with a smug smirk.

You rolled your eyes and stepped away from him, exiting the warehouse and walking outside.

"You are contemptible." you mused and Jesse followed after you.

'So? Tonight? At 7?' he insisted, ignoring your insults.

You couldn't deny that it was tempting. He wasn't like any other man, always sybaritic, fast-living, and exorbitant luxurious vibes.

You could swear that he was the perfect incarnation of pride, not that you minded, because it was attractive, just like the forbidden fruit. You knew how poisonous he was, but the sweetest taste was mind-blowing.

"Do I have to wear heels?" you asked, making him grin, his arms wrapping around your waist, a squeak leaving your lips at the sudden touch.

His expression spoke more: 'What do you think?'

You groaned, resting your forehead against his chest.

"You own me big time for this."

[spaceskam]

I’m Not Afraid of Anything

Summary: 6 times Alex is strong and 1 time Michael has to be strong for him

warnings: violence, anxiety, homophobic language

ao3

.1.

Michael couldn’t help but smile as Alex moaned into his mouth.

He wasn’t used to this just yet, it still felt surreal. One day Alex was asking him to tutor him in biology, the next he was being kissed senseless against the wall in the shed behind his house. He’d never even kissed a human before Alex. Now he couldn’t get enough.

“What time did you tell your mom you’d be home?” Alex asked softly, his nose bumping Michael’s before he kissed his cheek and moved to his jaw.

“Um,” Michael whispered, his eyes fluttering closed to the feeling of Alex’s lips on his skin, “F-five, I think. Could probably, uh, um, push it to five-thirty.”

“Mmm, good,” Alex said, a lazy smirk on his face as he flipped them over so Michael was on top. Heat rose to his cheeks. Alex usually took the lead, usually stayed on top. But, when Alex’s hands pressed against his ass and pulled his hips impossibly close, he got the memo. 

It was so weird. His entire life he’d been told to be careful with humans. When the Antarians had fled their wartorn planet in the 40s, they’d landed on Earth to a different kind of chaos. Michael didn’t know too much about how it got to a safe-ish integration, but he’d seen enough 50s and 60s propaganda films on ‘How to Treat Our Antar Friends’. It was enough to know it wasn’t an entirely positive transition.

While there was no longer forced segregation, it still seemed to happen on its own. Michael’s neighborhood didn’t have a single human‒Alex’s didn’t have a single Antarian. Workplaces were hell. Antarians got paid less, they got passed on promotions, they had to fight their way to the top. Michael’s mother, as high as her position was being deputy city manager, had warned him of that. In the schools, most classes conveniently didn’t mix if they didn’t have to and most of the time they didn’t even communicate with their species. Well, unless it was to be rude. Michael understood that better than anyone.

It was virtually impossible to keep what species you were a secret. It was displayed on every legal document, including your license. Antarian children in elementary and middle school had “special time” where they would be taken for two hours a day and given what could only be described as group therapy. No matter how their powers manifested, no matter if they had never been violent a day in their life, they were still given group lectures about why they shouldn’t hurt people and how they should treat humans. Once they were in high school, that transformed into a required four years of Ability Training instead of normal electives in high school.

Michael was lucky. His mother started training him the minute his powers started to manifest as a baby. After she bitched at the school for unfair treatment, he was able to test out after freshman year, leaving him able to take actual electives like music.

Which is how he met Alex.

“Alex?” Michael whispered, melting into the feather-light kisses fluttering across his jaw and his neck and his shoulder. Alex’s hand mindlessly slipped between them and unbuttoned Michael’s jeans.

“Yeah, baby?” Alex asked, his hand dipping into Michael’s boxers. It may or may not have completely destroyed his train of thought, his head bowing against Alex’s collarbone.

Eventually, he got his thoughts back, though it took much more effort than he wanted to admit.

“Are you sure you don’t mind that I’m an alien?” he breathed out and Alex froze beneath him.  He very quickly pulled his head back to see Alex staring at him with nothing short of amusement.

“Michael.” His tone was so sweet and so soft that Michael almost missed how condescending it was. “My hand literally down your pants right now. Do you think it would be there if I had a problem?”

Michael felt his cheeks flush and he shifted a little bit which was genuinely a horrible idea due to the fact that Alex’s hand was still wrapped around him.

“I just don’t want you to get trouble,” he whispered. While it wasn’t illegal for aliens and humans to be together, it was relatively frowned upon and it also wasn’t exactly fun to be openly queer either. They’d have double targets on their backs. Alex didn’t deserve that.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” Alex said, completely ignoring his words as he went to kiss his neck. Michael reluctantly pulled away.

“But what about your dad?” Michael asked. He knew Alex’s dad was the worst. He was an outspoken advocate for Antarians not being allowed in the same school as humans or even on TV. He didn’t want his children to be exposed to them. Yet, Alex didn’t seem to share that sentiment.

Alex pulled away, looking at him with those penetrating eyes that made his stomach swoop and tie in a million knots. They were eyes that could kill, but eyes that made him feel more welcome and adored than anything else in the world.

“You’re worth the risk,” Alex said like it was easy. Michael let out a slow breath of air, taking in his words. His sweet, adoring words. You’re worth the risk.

Michael tried to move in for a kiss, but Alex’s hand grabbed his jaw and stopped him.

“Am I?” Alex demanded, his voice deep and hushed and making Michael’s head spin. The grip on his jaw got a little gentler, his calloused thumb rubbing across his cheek.

“Yes.”

He couldn’t say no if he wanted to.

.2.

“Is there a reason you’re hitting someone who is too nice to hit back?”

Michael had never been more thankful to see Alex than he was at that moment. Wyatt Long had him pinned to the locker, his forearm wedged beneath his chin. His lip was already split after the rude welcoming of a fist to the face the moment he, Max, and Isobel went their separate ways.

“What? And you are?” Wyatt asked, pulling away and letting Michael crumple to the ground. He watched up with a new kind of fear as Wyatt neared Alex. Though this happened relatively regularly and Alex had swooped in to save not only him but a handful of other Antarians from human assholes, it always made Michael nervous. He knew Alex didn’t care, but he had enough scars and bruises that doused his skin. He didn’t like seeing more.

“Oh, c’mon, you know I am. How many times do I have to send you to the nurse before you learn your lesson? It’s honestly pretty sad,” Alex said, smirking as his shoulders squared. Michael wanted to get to his feet, to stand up for himself, but he didn’t have it in him. Alex was brave and he wasn’t. The end.

“Are you gay or somethin’?” Wyatt accused. Alex licked his bottom lip as he took a step closer.

“Why, you interested?”

Michael watched in horror as Wyatt shoved Alex away and Alex responded by decking him in the face.  He scrambled to his feet and out of the way just in time for Alex to slam Wyatt into the lockers, a carbon copy of how Wyatt had just had him.

“Learn your fuckin’ place, Long,” Alex said in a sweet tone, shaking his head before he offered one last push and stepped away. Wyatt kept glaring but never tried anything as Alex picked up Michael’s bag off the ground and led the way.

“Alex, he could’ve hurt you,” Michael grumbled as he followed him to the music room. A few people gave them glances, but none stayed too long. The moment Alex glared their way, they’d look away. Michael had a lot of feelings about that.

“I’d like to see him try. I grew up with three brothers who regularly beat the shit out of me. I’m not gonna stop ‘til I win, especially when it’s that asshole. You should’ve heard what he said to Maria the other day. Like, he’s, like, a next-level racist and homophobe and xenophobe. Let me hit him a couple of times,” Alex insisted, closing the door to the music room after him.

“I just… I don’t want you doing that stuff because of me,” Michael said, crossing his arms over his chest. Alex smiled, nearing him and gently touching the cut on Michael’s lip.

“I know you don’t like it, but I don’t like seeing you hurt. I know you, I know you just take what he gives. And that’s so fucking strong of you to do, it’s ballsy, but… he deserves to get hit. You don’t,” Alex explained, moving to give him a kiss that stung a little but still felt nice. Alex’s kisses were always nice. “But, hey, look, if you want me to stop, then I will. Seriously. As much as I hate it, I will.”

“No, you don’t have to completely stop helping me. Just… just don’t instigate him more, please?” Michael asked, letting his hands rest against Alex’s chest. They’d be alone in the room for at least 5 more minutes, he could touch for just a second.

“Done,” Alex agreed, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek before pulling him into a hug. Michael melted into his grasp. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“You’re telekinetic. I’ve seen you in action. You could literally crush him. Why don’t you do anything?” Alex asked, twirling a curl around his finger. Michael breathed slowly, hugging him a little tighter.

“And give them a reason to hate me even more? No thanks,” he grumbled. Alex laughed and squeezed him.

In some ways, Alex felt a little like his idol. He was so strong and didn’t care about what anyone said. He didn’t have many friends, but Michael knew all the Antarians in the school liked him. He took everything in stride. He was amazing. He was a hero.

And somehow he wanted Michael.

.3.

“What’s wrong with you?” Isobel asked, swatting Michael’s hand away from his mouth so he’d stop chewing on his nails. He barely even looked at her.

Instead, his eyes were trained on Alex’s locker which had the words ‘alien fag’ written across it in bright red paint.

Alex hadn’t gotten to school yet, but Michael was dreading it. He couldn’t predict how he would react to it. Maybe he would laugh or maybe he’d be pissed. It was just something that a little too close to home. No one was supposed to know about them, but this…

“Oh, yeah, his locker. It’s so stupid how people think being nice is some big crime,” she scoffed, shaking her head. Michael curled into himself even more.

“But… but what if‒” Michael cut himself off, groaning as his head tilted back against the lockers. Isobel slammed hers closed, turning to him with a smirk.

“Why? You think that’s about you?” she laughed. Michael felt his cheeks flush and he was instantly reminded of the night before when Alex had snuck in through his window after his parents had gone to sleep. It was definitely about him even if they didn’t know it was about him. He didn’t know how he was supposed to continue keeping it a secret when everyone would be giving him glances. “No offense, Michael, but Alex wouldn’t go after someone like you. He’s, like, a badass. He would only go after badasses and, I love you, but you’re a baby.”

“Yeah, no, you’re right. Definitely. He-he definitely would never, ever hook up with me. Ever. Absolutely. And, and I would never even want to. I mean, he’s so, like, not my type?” Michael fumbled out, his cheeks burning hotter with each word. Isobel’s eyebrows pulled together, but then her lips parted slowly as her eyes widened.

”No,” she gasped, swatting at his arm all over again, “Oh my God! Michael!”

“He’s here,” Michael said once he spotted Alex, hoping to drop the conversation. Maybe she’d forget it. He hoped so.

Alex walked down the hall with Liz and Maria, the trio laughing until they weren’t. It died down when the locker came into view. Michael tried his best to become one with the lockers when Alex took a step closer, touching the paint. He couldn’t see his face and he was slightly more than terrified to see it.  Especially when his friends looked at each other with nervous eyes.

“Michael, come on, what the fuck have you been hiding?” Isobel urged, pulling on his sleeve like a toddler. His eyes were on Alex.

Alex who opened the locker and got his books like it wasn’t a big deal.

“Alex, are you okay?” Maria asked him, reaching out to touch his arm. He turned around with an amused smile on his face.

“I’m fine. They have no creativity, it’s honestly sad,” he said simply, linking arms with them and proudly making his way down the hall. He gave Michael a wink when he passed. Jesus Christ.

“Michael,” Isobel whined.

“I-I gotta go to class,” he said, slipping away from her. He couldn’t understand why Alex took it that easy. Shouldn’t he have been insulted? Or at least scared? What would happen if someone found out about them because of this? He seemed to not be taking it seriously.

Michael pulled out his phone and quickly sent a text his way.

M: are you actually okay? What if someone finds out?

A: I'm fine dont worry no ones gonna know. See you after school? ;) xx

.4.

Michael knew Alex well. They spent most of their time together and Michael had learned just how ballsy he could be. Alex was bold and unapologetically himself. He existed somewhere between “I don’t care what you think of me” and “well if you’re going to talk, I might as well give you something to talk about”. He was an instigator at his core. So Michael really shouldn’t have been surprised when, after a weekend of barely hearing from him, Alex strolled into school sporting t-shirt with alien fag written across it in the colors of the rainbow.

“Holy shit,” Isobel gasped and Michael instantly used her as a shield as the halls parted like the Red Sea to make way for Alex Manes. For the first time since Alex approached him the first time, Michael was scared of him.

Alex didn’t deserve the ostracization that came with being with him, but Michael didn’t deserve to be forced into it either. It was one thing if it was a mutual decision or if it was an accident. This was neither. This was Alex parading proudly what people already suspected when people knew how many times he’d come to Michael’s rescue. This was too close.

Panic built in his chest.

“Izzy, Izzy, get me out of here,” he begged, squeezing her shoulder desperately. She barely had to give him a second glance before she gripped his hand and swept him away.

It seemed to get harder and harder to breathe, even when they exited the building and fast-walked to make it to the back of the gym before he got too bad. The moment they made it there, he sat on the ground and put his hands on his head. Isobel sat in front of him, holding his knees as they breathed in and out in time together.

“I take it he did not consult you before doing that?” she asked quietly once he regulated his breathing again. Michael shook his head.

“No. I don’t know why he does stuff like that. I-I get that he doesn’t care and that’s cool and all, I like that about him, but that… that affects me. I’m not ready to tell anyone yet,” he murmured, pulling his knees close.

“So you admit that you’re banging Alex Manes?” Isobel teased. Michael glared her way. “Sorry, sorry. Maybe you should talk to him about it.”

“And say what? ‘Hey, you’re really confident and, while that makes me want to fuck you, when you’re overconfident about me, it makes me want to die in a hole’?” Michael scoffed, but from her lack of reaction, she expected him to say just that. “I can’t say that!”

“Why not? It’s honest.”

“Honesty is just gonna get me dumped,” he grumbled. Isobel gave him a sad little smile, squeezing his knee gently.

They were only able to get a few extra seconds of silence before Alex rounded the corner, smiling easily when he caught Michael’s eyes. He spared Isobel a hesitant look before nearing them with that confident swagger that was making Michael feel nauseous.

“There you are,” he grinned, sitting beside him. Michael closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Everything okay?”

“I’m gonna leave you two to talk,” Isobel said, patting his leg and kissing the top of his head before she stood and left. He stupidly wished she hadn’t.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Alex asked softly once Isobel was gone, wrapping his arm around Michael’s shoulders. What was he supposed to say? He wasn’t Alex, he wasn’t confident. How was he supposed to tell him that he wanted him to stop being so much of himself? “You… you don’t like the shirt, right? I’m sorry, I’ll change.”

How did he say that’s not all?

“Okay, thank you,” Michael whispered instead, still not lifting his head.

Alex waited a minute before grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at him. It made it that much harder. Alex was beautiful and had a demanding presence. How was he supposed to hurt his feelings when he looked like that?

“Alright, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, so we’re lying now? I thought we were all about honesty,” Alex scoffed, narrowing his eyes at him.  Michael gulped, familiar tears welling up in his eyes. He was such a baby. Alex was so cool and he was… “Michael, talk to me, seriously.”

“I don’t like when you do stuff like that without talking to me. I-It’s gonna make people start finding out about us and I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready for people to know. At least not people who are going to make it their goal to hate me more. You-you scare me sometimes, when you do stuff like that. I like when you’re confident. I just… don’t like it when it puts me in a bad situation,” Michael grumbled, looking everywhere except for his face. Alex’s grip loosened before it dropped.

Michael hesitantly looked at him to see him looking almost confused. Go figure the one time he actually admits when something bothers him, it goes bad. It’ll always go bad, that’s how life works. Everything goes bad.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like that,” Alex said softly, mirroring Michael’s position against the wall. Again, his breathing started to pick up and his bottom lip quivered involuntarily.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, I just-”

“No, no, hey, I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you more before I do shit. That’s what a relationship is, right? Talking it out, talking before we do things. And I know that we aren’t public and we don’t plan to be widely open until, like, way later, so I shouldn’t have done this. It just pisses me off when people think it’s wrong to be anything other than what they are. I mean, I love you, Michael. You’re not an insult. I wanted to throw it in their face,” Alex explained.

Michael sniffled, “You love me?” Alex rolled his eyes, but gave a sweet smile.

“You’re getting off-topic. We’re gonna talk more, right?”

“Right,” Michael agreed, nodding and feeling a little bit lighter than he had when the day started. The two stared at each other for a moment before meeting halfway in a hug.

Alex gave great hugs and it was easy to melt into it. He considered asking to skip class for the day, but decided it against it. His mom would never let him live that down if she found out he skipped. So, instead, Michael hugged him tighter and then let him go so he could take his shirt off and replace it with the jacket tucked in his bag.

“I love you too, by the way,” Michael said as they stood up. Alex grinned and leaned in for a kiss.

“I’m glad.”

.5.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

Michael looked over to Alex’s innocent little smile. He had his feet in Michael’s lap which usually wouldn’t be a problem, but he was doing a lot more than just innocently using him as a footrest.

“I have a biology test tomorrow and you are distracting me,” Michael said, watching Alex furrow his eyebrows in confusion even as he pressed his foot harder between Michael’s thighs. He worked hard to keep silent, dropping his book to move his hands to Alex’s foot. “Also, my parents are downstairs.”

“Sounds like a whole flight of stairs between them and us,” Alex said, moving his foot to pull the chair towards his place on the bed.

“Alex,” he breathed slowly, finding it harder and harder to resist. Why did he have to be so hot? “Seriously, I have a test. And so do you. We… you came over to study.” Michael tried, he really did, but the closer Alex came, the more his excuses seemed shitty in comparison to him.

“I mean,” Alex breathed, leaning forward and placing a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth, “I can leave. I just wanted to spend some… special time with my boyfriend.”

“Alex,” Michael whined, helplessly gravitating from the chair and to the bed. Alex wasted no time, pulling him into the little twin-sized bed and moving him so he was trapped between the wall and Alex’s body. He couldn’t say he could complain.

Alex’s kisses had quickly become some of Michael’s favorites. He’d had a few kisses here and there, one of them being with Isobel which was actually revolting, but he had never had anything like Alex. All of his were deep and slow and used tongue which was fun. Alex was the first person he’d ever really wanted to touch and be touched by‒and it always felt like a blessing when it actually happened.  He couldn’t think of a nicer, gentler, or prettier person to lose his virginity to.

“Did you lock the door?” Alex whispered, his leg hooking over Michael’s hip and his fingers sliding lower.

“Um, no,” Michael breathed, his whole body heating up as he chose to be confident for once and slid his hand down Alex’s jeans first. He immediately checked to make sure it was okay and saw Alex smirking, so he grabbed him.

“You should probably lock the door if you’re gonna do that, baby,” he said hotly, a shaky breath following immediately after. He was making a whole lot of eye contact and it was making Michael’s head spin.

“You want me to get up?”

“I was thinking my telekinetic boyfriend could, uh, lock the door with his mind,” Alex suggested. Michael smiled, giving him a slow kiss as he tilted his head to secure the lock.

Except it didn’t budge.

He tried it a couple more times and when it still seemed to be fighting him, he pulled away from Alex to look over at it. He used the hand that wasn’t in Alex’s jeans to give it a little more concentration to flip the lock and it did. But immediately unlocked again.

“What the‒”

“Here’s your clean clothes, Michael, and I told you to keep the door unlocked.”

Michael nearly pushed Alex off the bed when his mother, Mara, let herself into the room. She stood in the doorway, a far too motherly look on her face and her hand firmly on her hip. Michael sat up, trying to make himself look presentable while Alex mainly focused on catching his breath even though he was clearly about two seconds away from laughing. Michael thought about actually pushing him off the bed this time.

“Looks like a lot of studying going on here,” she said, gesturing between the two of them before the books that were on the floor floated neatly to his dresser.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Guerin,” Alex said, lifting himself off the bed and walking over to her with his hand outstretched. Michael’s head hit the wall and he considered jumping out the window. “I’m Alex, Alex Manes.”

Mara blinked a few times before sharply turning her gaze to Michael. “Manes? As in Jesse Manes?” Michael sunk back to the bed with a groan.

“Uh, yes, ma’am.”

“And you’re dating my son? An Antarian?”

“Mom!” Michael begged, looking to her in desperation. Still, Alex was all smiles.

“Yes, ma’am. But, you know, I can assure you I don’t exactly subscribe to my father’s politics. Not even just with the ‘no alien’ rule, but, you know, the ‘no queer’ rule. He’s actually kind of the worst, so,” he laughed, turning his stupidly beautiful smile on Michael.

“Well, Alex, would you like to stay for dinner? That is, if my son can understand what an unlocked door means,” Mara said, giving him a tight smile. Alex had the audacity to laugh.

“I would love to stay for dinner, thank you. And we’ll even leave the door open instead, if you’d like,” he said and it took a lot not to pelt him with pillows. She smiled.

“I like you. I like this one, Michael,” Mara said, opening the door wide before walking out and leaving the boys alone. Michael immediately shoved his face into the pillow, groaning loudly. Not only did she ruin a really great moment, but Alex was just way too okay with it.

“Why are you freaking out? It’s not like we were naked. And I think we covered up what was happening pretty elegantly,” Alex teased, not-so-sweetly swatting him on the stomach. Michael moved the pillow to glare at him. “What?”

“Remember when I said sometimes your ballsy-ness is annoying? This is one of those times,” Michael grumbled, letting Alex laugh and pull his head into his lap.

“Michael, baby, have you looked at me?” Alex asked and he nodded slowly, “Your mother just came in on you not only making out with a guy, but one who has piercings and makeup and a lot of black. On top of the fact that I’m human. And I’m my father’s son. So it was either that or let your mother hate me for the rest of our relationship.”

“Why do you have to be right all the damn time?”

.6.

“Tell your mom thanks for lunch because holy shit.”

Michael watched with a smile as Alex shoveled his mother’s leftovers into his mouth as they sat behind the gym. He was a little too aware of Alex’s food situation. His father would get so much and it was first come first serve with five grown-ass men in the house. He’d gotten into a habit of food hoarding, but even then, sometimes he didn’t get enough. Ever since dinner where Michael had to begrudgingly explain to his parents that he was bisexual, he’d been asking his mother to make lunch for two.

“She will probably say you’re welcome.”

After the whole coming out scene, they told him that he didn’t have to, that they put it together which made it even more embarrassing. He was endlessly reassured that no one cared about that, but that they did care about his safety. Michael’s parents gave them both a long talk about being careful because they were dealing with a couple of different layers of stupidity. It was over an hour of discussing how they planned to handle it if people found out and, if the time came, how they planned to make it public. There was even a lot of reassuring that they cared about not only Michael’s safety but Alex’s as well. It was long and weird, but oddly cathartic and while Michael came out of it feeling a little flustered, Alex was very visibly in one of the best moods he’d ever seen. He had at least 30 texts of Alex gushing over how much he loved his parents. He came over nearly every day now.

“Did I tell you I got an interview?” Alex said, smiling even with a mouthful of food. “Get this, it’s at the UFO Emporium.” Michael snorted.

“Alex, that place is such bullshit. They’ve tried to get it shut down like seven times,” he chuckled. The place opened the year after the crash and started out as a place for humans to learn about Antar. However, it really wasn’t accurate and it became the subject of controversy from the moment Antarians started becoming a permanent fixture on Earth. That being said, it still hadn’t closed. Michael went there with Isobel and Max a few times purely for the laughs. “Why do you want to work there?”

“It’ll get my dad off my dick about getting a job. Might as well get a job at a place that literally has, like, no customers,” Alex shrugged, wiggling his eyebrows at Michael, “You can hang out all the time.”

“Alex!”

Both boys whipped their heads around to see Liz Ortecho headed their way with a smile. Michael could feel the panic in him rising at the sight of her. He knew she was nice and that Max had the world’s biggest crush on her, but he didn’t know what she knew about him and Alex. He still wasn’t ready for everyone in the world to know, but it would be fair for one of Alex’s friends to know since Isobel knew. It was a mess. He was a mess.

“Hey, Liz,” Alex said. She plopped down in front of them in a weirdly graceful way. Michael remembered Max mentioning she was a dancer. “You stalking me or something?”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “No, but Maria isn’t here today and I didn’t want to eat lunch alone and I know you come back here to eat for some reason, so I came to find you,” Liz paused, eyeing Michael with intrigue, “Well, now I know the reason, but can I still stay?”

Alex turned to Michael and asked him silently if she could as if Michael could ever be rude enough to say no. Even if he wanted to say no, he wouldn’t have been able to.

“I don’t mind,” Michael said. She grinned so bright that it became exceptionally clear why Max was so infatuated with her.

“Yay! Hi, I’m Liz,” she introduced, holding her hand out to him. Michael hesitantly shook it. Alex snorted.

“Michael.”

“I know, Alex talks about you,” she said. Michael felt his face flush and turned to Alex who didn’t look embarrassed at all. Did he ever get embarrassed? Did he ever get scared?

“Nothing to worry about,” Alex chuckled, reaching out to wipe a crumb off the corner of Michael’s lips. Michael’s eyes widened. “Relax.”

When Michael looked back towards Liz, she was still smiling as she ate her food. She didn’t seem to think any of this was weird, but she didn’t seem to be curious either. She took it as if this was just a thing that happened.

“Max talks about you too,” Michael said softly. Her eyebrows raised at that and her cheeks got a little red.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t anything to be scared of.

.+1.

“I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Michael’s giggle rippled through the air as Alex smothered him in kisses. While Alex usually came over to his house now, it was basically impossible to do anything other than the most G-rated kisses because of his mother always being around. They wanted something more than that and their options had been either driving out to the desert or coming to the shed. They’d chosen the shed because they didn’t want to suffer the 30-minute drive.

Alex let his hand slide down the front of Michael’s bare chest, breathing heavily with the biggest smile against Michael’s neck. It was heavenly. Even when he pulled away and they had to get dressed so Michael wouldn’t miss curfew, they couldn’t stop smiling. They hadn’t properly hooked up in a few weeks and, fuck, it felt good to just feel Alex again. He was so ready for a lifetime of that.

Or maybe that wouldn’t happen.

The door flew open right after Michael buttoned up his jeans. He was still standing shirtless as Jesse Manes stood in the doorway. When he looked at Alex, he was frozen. There was fear in his eyes and all over his face. It was something Michael had never seen before and, honestly, it was the most terrifying thing in the world. Alex was always strong and calm. Alex wasn’t ever scared.

Except Alex was scared now and Michael didn’t know how to help him.

“I can’t believe this,” Mr. Manes said, taking a step into the shed, “Under my roof.”

Michael kept looking between Mr. Manes and Alex. He was waiting for Alex to say something, to argue, to fight back like he always did. Alex didn’t budge.

It happened fast. Mr. Manes had Alex pinned to the wall by his throat. Alex was crying and shaking his head and begging him to stop. Michael was overwhelmed with hearing Alex so upset, hearing Alex cry a ’Dad, please’ with no sign of it actually working. None of this made sense.

But Michael had a decision to make. He could either be the coward he always was and just let this happen, or he could finally be confident and strong. He’d seen Alex do it a million times when he needed him and now Alex needed him. Alex needed him to be strong.

So he would be.

“Don’t touch him!” Michael shouted, moving forward and pushing Mr. Manes off of Alex. Except, what could that do, really?

He grabbed Michael by the arm and, in one fell swoop, grabbed a hammer and swung it back. The claw end buried into Michael’s bones, pinning him to the table he was leaning against. His scream mixed with the sound of Alex’s, blurring into nothingness. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, he just hurt.

“I don’t want to see this in my house again, do you understand me?” Mr. Manes said. Alex was sobbing.

“Yes, sir.”

Michael was trying to breathe, trying not to focus on the fact his entire left arm was going numb from pain. He needed acetone. No, he needed his mom.

“Oh my God,” Alex choked when he got closer. Michael was taking in shallow breaths as he lifted his head enough to get a look at his hand. The claw was buried in his hand, hooking just enough to the table beneath it. Holy fuck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Michael, oh my God.”

“Can you call my mom?” Michael whispered out, unable to take his eyes off his hand. How is that possible? How can one man have enough strength to break through all his bones and muscles? How could someone do that?

“I-I need to get you out of here first, your mom can’t come onto my dad’s property,” Alex sniffled, still crying so hard that it was hard to understand him. Michael wanted to be annoyed that he was the one keeping calm when he was pinned to a table, but he kept reminding himself that Alex had done it for him a ton of times. He could do it for Alex.

He could be strong for Alex.

“Okay,” Michael whispered out, closing his eyes and thought hard about his mom. He called to her, telling her that he needed her. It would take her 15 minutes to get to him, he just needed to get to the curb.

“Michael, I’m so sorry,” Alex cried. He wasn’t touching him, he was staying away. Michael tried to look at him.

“I’m okay,” he said and Alex let out a whine, covering his face. This was hard. How did Alex stay so strong all the time? Michael gulped, taking another heavy breath before he looked at his hand again.

Slowly, he worked the tip of the claw out of the table. It hurt like a bitch and he wanted to scream, but he figured that would just scare Alex and he didn’t want that. Once he got it out, he stood up with the hammer still buried in his hand. He brought it to his chest, hoping to minimize the blood and the pain.

“Alex,” he said calmly. It had to be the adrenaline. “Alex, c’mon, let’s go.”

When Alex moved his hands, his face was dotted with Michael’s blood. He focused on his breath and grabbed the back of Alex’s neck, pressing his forehead to his. Alex choked out another sob.

“C’mon. It’s gonna be okay. My mom’s coming.”

They went to the curb and waited. Michael managed to keep up his confidence for Alex until his mom arrived and the full force of the pain really hit. It suddenly made a little more sense of how Alex was able to keep his cool all the other times he’d seen him do it. He could handle anything that wasn’t his father.

So that just meant that Michael could handle that part for him.

[annelixa]

Trust Chapter 20

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Can also be read on AO3

Summary: Cassandra seeks Varian shortly after she stole the Moonstone so that she can use his intellectual gifts. Lucky for her, no one seems to be telling him what happened at the Dark Kingdom and he still sees her as the wise and trusted person he always knew. Utilizing that image of herself, she takes him for herself while under the guise of protection.

Fandom: Tangled the Series

Before the Sun had risen, the Saporians had joined the strange girl in the large automaton. Once again the large blue stone was shown to the group.

“This will give you control of the Brotherhood of the Dark Kingdom,” she explained, handing it to Andrew. “They will fight tirelessly for you, turning against previous alliances or relationships. Not even family will be spared from their wrath. Take care of it. If it is broken, the influence will be lost.” She started for the machine’s controls but paused and turned back. “Oh, and your dear alchemist’s father is in that Brotherhood.” She walked away. “Do with that information as you will.”

A dark smile spread across Andrew’s face and he glanced at the boy who was still asleep in the corner. He would deal with him later. Right now, he had a coup to start.

Joining the girl at the front of the machine, he sat beside her. Following his directions, she steered the monstrosity to a nearby village. Weeks before, Andrew had sent word to the other disgruntled residents of Corona and those sympathetic to the Saporian cause. His letters had told them of the coming attack and that, if they should want to join the revolt, to gather in the small village. The previous night, Clementine had been sent to alert the people that the time had come and if they still wanted to take part, they needed to gather in the town square at daybreak.

The machine stopped and the hatch in the back opened to let those inside jump out. Landing in the square, Andrew was pleased to see that a small crowd was waiting for them. About 50 people were standing quietly, waiting for him to speak.

“Friends!” he called, taking a few steps closer. “I’m thrilled to see that you all want to join us in our noble crusade! We have plenty of supplies for you, crafted by Corona’s own little alchemist. He has generously prepared them so that our uprising will be unstoppable.” Behind him, the other Saporians dragged out the crates that Varian had carefully packaged. “Come forward and receive your armaments.” The group lined up and received plenty of weapons from the supply. Letting the others handle the dispersal, he hopped back into the automaton. He had already taken his share of the supply, a fully stocked alchemy belt over his shoulder while a sword and a coiled whip were strapped to his hips. “Things are going better than I expected,” he told the girl as he rejoined her.

“Did you believe your plan would fail?”

“Of course not.” Once again, he turned to look at the alchemist. “What are we going to do with him?”

Rising to her feet gracefully, the girl approached the sleeping boy.

“Don’t worry,” she replied, gently reaching out to the touch him. “I shall keep him here so he can’t escape.” Focusing on the Moonstone she had hidden on her wrist, she created black rock manacles around his wrists that attached to the pipe running along the wall that he was leaning against. Grinning at her success, she also attached a black rock chain to the collar Cassandra had stupidly forgotten to remove. Satisfied that he would be unable to move for that spot, she draped two strips of cloth on the collar around his neck. If he tried to get loud, he wouldn’t be for long. She faced the Saporian again. “You will lead the invasion and I will control this machine, following your orders.”

Crossing his arms, Andrew frowned.

“Why does the kid stay with you?” he demanded. “What if I want my old buddy with me?”

Trying not to lose her patience, the girl took a deep breath.

“If you believe having him at your side would be for the best, then by all means go ahead. However, who will repair this machine if it starts to malfunction?”

“I will command the machine,” he argued back.

The man was stubborn, too dedicated to his cause. That wasn’t the worst quality though. It was the trait that she could control, similar to how Cassandra’s wish for recognition was her folly.

Stepping closer, she kept her voice calm.

“That would be a fine choice. I must ask though, do you know how to operate this machine?” His face flushed at her words. Realizing something, he opened his mouth but she continued. “The alchemist cannot operate it for you. If he was allowed to be in charge, he would sabotage your attack. Even if it killed him, he would do so. You know this to be true.” Placing her hand on his arm to soothe him, she smiled. “And if you are in here, who will lead your troops?”

She knew she had him cornered, the frustrated realization crossing his face.

“Fine.” He stomped out of the hatch. “You control the machine and follow my orders.”

Smirking, she replied, “Of course.” Once he was back in the square, she closed the hatch. The sounds of the alchemist waking reached her ears and she stepped in front of him. “And now for you.”

Drowsy, Varian yawned and blinked slowly. The room was dark and fuzzy so he reached his hand up to rub his eyes. After a moment, he noticed that his hand couldn’t reach. Confused, he looked around and noticed the unfamiliar surroundings. This wasn’t the cottage or the tower. Had he escaped? No. That couldn’t be it. He had never seen this place before. As he pondered, he tried to reach his eyes again and finally realized the problem; his wrists were chained to something behind him.

“What the…?” he muttered, pulling against his bonds.

“Good morning, dear alchemist,” the girl called warmly, moving into his line of sight.

“What? Who are you?” The girl seemed oddly familiar but he couldn’t figure out where he had seen her. Suddenly it hit him. He reached out, trying to point at her, but only succeeded in bruising his wrists as the manacles firmly held him in place. “You! You were in my dream! Why are you here?! Where am I?!”

Patting his head, she smiled brightly.

“Very good, sweet boy.” He jerked his head away from her. He wasn’t a dog and he wasn’t going to let this odd girl treat him like one. “Cassandra has decided to forgo her destiny but I found a group more than willing to follow the path. I believe they are old friends of yours?”

Feeling dread growing in his stomach, he quietly asked, “The Saporians…?”

Again, the girl patted his head, Varian glaring at her.

“You truly are clever, aren’t you, child? It’s quite impressive for someone of your young age.” The compliment did nothing to quell the unease the alchemist was feeling. “Yes, the Saporians. They are rather eager to destroy Corona.” She leaned forward, only inches away from his face. Uncomfortable with the sudden closeness, Varian tried to slide away but his back was already flush with the pipe behind him. “From what I understand, you were once more than willing to help them with that goal. Isn’t that correct, dear alchemist?”

Ashamed of his past, he turned away.

“That…that was a different time,” he tried to defend. “I’ve done better since then. I’ve been better!”

Seizing the opening, the girl tsked sadly and sat beside him. Varian scooted as far away as he could but she wasn’t dissuaded. Instead, she reached out and cupped his cheek, gently turning his face back to her with a sympathetic look.

“I know how hard you’ve been trying to do better but are you truly? All those weapons you made for Cassandra are now in the hands of dozens of angry people. Can you honestly say that is the success you were aiming for?” Unable to pull out of her grasp, he settled for simply glaring at her and trying not to let her words phase him. “You allowed Cassandra to steal you away, holding you prisoner and manipulating you into creating such dangerous items.” Varian tried to defend himself, indignant that she would even think to say something like that, but she just shushed him and rubbed his cheek with her thumb. “There there. I know it’s difficult to look back on your actions but can you truly believe that you had no idea what she was doing? That you didn’t follow her because you still wish harm and vengeance on Corona?”

“I…I…”

Did he want to do that? His mind screamed obviously not but his heart was wavering. He never asked for proof of the war she had spoken of so frequently. He had been content for so long to just continue creating. Had his previous friendship blinded him to what he was doing or had he known all along and tried to suppress it? He thought he wanted to be better, to make up for his mistakes, but did he actually want Corona to fall?

Noticing his distress, the girl pulled away.

“I will let you consider. I apologize for troubling you.”

She returned to the machine’s controls and grinned. He was just as easy to manipulate as all the others. Out of the glass in front of her, she noticed that all the people had been armed and were waiting on horses or in carts. Andrew was motioning for them to move out from his place in a balloon. Quickly starting the machine, she followed. The beast could easily overtake them all but she kept it moving slowly, wanting to let them reach the capital first. Behind her, she could hear the boy muttering to himself but she tuned it out.

Within an hour, the group could see the many buildings of the island city. Those riding in the carts jumped out, drawing their weapons and charged forward with those on horseback. Again she followed slowly until the machine was on the other side of the bridge. Once there, she could see how the people were already closing in on the palace. With a wide grin, the girl moved the arm of the automaton to crash into the nearest building. That would surely alert someone to the invasion. Stalking forward, she kept smashing the arms into buildings as the machine approached the palace. Guards scurried out, trying to fend off the attackers but were slowly being overpowered by the angry crowd. Some were slashing at them with swords or maces while others were using Varian’s various chemical compounds. Yells of surprise reached her ears as Adira and Hector blocked the castle’s entrance, preventing any from entering or escaping.

“Yes,” she whispered, full of a savage happiness.

Corona would fall.

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

WhatsApp? Part 6. (Steve Rogers x reader)

Description: You’ve never been lucky with guys. You just wanted to catch someone’s eye, to be loved. One day, that’s about to turn completely - with one fake, completely imagined number a guy gave you

A/N: Sending a nod to Starlord’s direction with this one. ;) Also I am so sorry about the voice attributes rant, I studied special pedagogics and in here, voice, its attributes and the speech itself is a huge part of ENT studies centering around ears, throat, and neck...

A/N: THANK YOU FOR 200 FOLLOWERS. OMG.

A/N: I am sorry, @missdictatorme for no phone s*x. Ily by the way.

A song which I want to highlight for this chapter: Fallingforyou by the 1975.

Warnings: none really?

Tagging: @missdictatorme @songforhema

Read more here, babe ;):   Part One  Part Two  Part three  Part four  Part five

If you like things in one place, you might like the series master list: H E R E

The time had tendencies to stop when Steve so far, far away from you. 

You hadn't got a single clue where could be or what's he doing but you hoped he's safe and well. Sometimes you looked out of the window for ten minutes straight just thinking about where he could be. You checked your phone every morning and evening - nothing. He wasn't really messing around when he told you it can take a whole month before he comes back to you.

Deena, who was a self-proclaimed dancing teacher volunteered to lead the choreo. And she wasn't really bad at it.

At least you had your head all Steve-cleared off do could actually focus on your choreography for the big evening itself. It was somehow borderline racy but still PG-13 friendly as you thought it will be. May made sure it will be. You were dancing in sync, and you were grouped to trios for this one. You were basically repeating actions of the trio which went before you, it was simple yet good, or so you thought. You felt good about it at least.

You were in the last trio along with Deena and Marzia, another girl from your office so it would be double insured that you can't actually fuck up.

The girls made sure you acted all bossy - at some point, you started to use chairs to make it even more clear. That you were the ones being on the top during your dance. Before you could even dance in slight sync, it took you two weeks of every of your working day afternoon. Every one of you worked on it hard and it was paying off. Even you, probably the least talented person, or so you felt, could incredibly sway your hips. You didn't think that you can actually look that deductive yet you did.

Val told you that you were a killer - you took her only partially seriously because she was always friendly flirting with you.

Sometimes Peter came along. He was the sound tech guy every time. And then made fun of you when you accidentally fucked up. You loved that clueless boy so much.

"Okay. What do you think?" - You asked Peter, drinking from a water bottle. It was week three of you almost destroying your legs on those a bit too much tall high heels. You didn't want to wear them - your feet were swollen and hurt after every afternoon, but Deena shushed you off. It should look sexier than you dancing in Canada shoes and that Deena considered a pure fact.

"That you will kill yourself during that turn around with the chair in your hands." - He answered honestly with a childish smile, winging his feet in old Converse shoes from side to side. - “But there is a chance you will kill somebody else, so it's 50-50.”

"How gentle of you, Parker. You must be a real hit with the ladies, am I right?" - You nudged his shoulder, taking those devilish shoes off your feet, massaging them. He grinned at you.

"I can say obscene things like actually liking it out loud here, Y/N. And you know that!" - Peter laughed out loud, showing the gentle wrinkles around his hazelnut eyes. - "And since I ripped your tee off? May would have killed me if she actually heard me saying something nice about you!"

You had to laugh at his remark. You both were poking fun out that event since the next day Pete actually came to visit you, only May didn't find it as amusing as you two. Poor boy never got his free Oreo milkshake. And to be fair - Val actually started the beef with some pretty explicit jokes. And because you two were who you two were, it didn't take so long before you put that beef on fully.

"So continue calling me dumb. That will do. That's basically every girl's dream." - You nudged his head and left to a small cab to change your clothes. Your eyes just checked your phone as they were used to do all along those three weeks.

And your heart performed a fucking parkour jump at the sight of the green diode beeping at your eyes. The breath was caught in your throat when you gulped. Your hands shook by their will when you took the phone in your hands. It was a text from him. Steve was actually back.

As you opened the conversation, his promise popped directly in your head. A call. He promised you a fucking call. Steve willingly offered you to hear his voice. Three weeks ago. And now he was back. You were on cloud fucking nine. That was an offer you couldn't pass on.

Steve: I was so looking forward to texting you from the moment we took off. I'm back and well, Y/N.

Dear lord, you thought to himself, your eyes were firmly closed and you could feel a smile creeping on your lips. Thank you for keeping that man safe and well. Thank you for letting him come back.

Y/N: I missed you so much and I have so much thing to tell you! How was your little work trip?

You couldn't care less about being eager or too obvious with being excited about him being back. It was just natural for you to be excited. You had to tell Peter, so you changed your clothes the quickest way. You ran away from the cab looking like a mess with your bag over your shoulder with your smile looking better than a five-star hotel.

"Pete, Pete, Pete!" - You quirked in a high pitch. Peter wasn't sure if you hadn't got mad, looking at you with his puppy eyes in a horrified manner.

"Tell me that you have won a million dollars and I don't have to go to school anymore. I beg you." - Peter mumbled with a side smile. You shoved your phone right into his eyes and smiled widely. - "You're shitting me!" - He fangirled as hard as you had and performed your typical victory dance.

"Peter! Have you just cussed? We've talked about that!" - May shouted into your direction and you both freeze. Then you giggled.

"That means..." - Peter wiggled his eyebrows. Of course, you've told him about that call promise. He knew everything that happened with Steve. Not because he wanted to know, but because you rambled about Steve as much as he has rambled about Liz Toomes.

"You bet your favorite Lego puzzle!" - You hummed a tune and Peter laughed again.

"It isn't called a puzzle, to be honest..." - Peter trailed off the topic again, but you were leaving at that point, so you didn't take him too seriously.

"I don't caa-are." - You sang playfully and left the studio you rented for your choreography training, hoping you would get home as soon as possible.

---

The European job didn't go as bad as they were warned about but it didn't go exactly as smooth as Steve hope it will. He really got his hopes set high to be earlier at home. Sometimes he wanted to just take his phone off his bag, turn it on and text you that he and his friends are ok. But Natasha almost knifed him with her eyes every time that thought crossed his mind.

In the end, they were tired, really dirty, sleepy like 24/7. Even Sam, who usually tried to talk a big hole into others heads, layed in total silence. Now he was most likely dead on the back seats, covering his face with his forearm. 

Of course, you were the first thing on his mind when he got to his phone - after having a long-ass sleep, a great warm shower and a bunch of unhealthy food ordered from a near China restaurant. 

You texted back almost immediately, which made him smile and relax on the bed. He had a feeling that maybe you would be pretty pissed about his sudden, unexcusable need to disappear to a different continent because of a work a don't make me remind him that you still didn't even know what in the hell he's doing. But the better he got to know you, the more difficult and surreal saying his true identity to you was.

Almost unthinkable even. 

Y/N: So that promise, can I still count on it? 

You asked after he told you a little about his three weeks in Europe. He didn't lie but he definitely didn't tell you anything that could give you an actual image of what happened there - a lot of counterespionage from Nat, a lot of fighting and a lot of bad guy's blood spilling. He was giving you a gentle, sweet, careful silver linings to keep you safe. Those were his intentions - protecting you at all costs before knowing the truth. 

Steve: Of course. I am a man of my word. Today at seven p.m.? 

It was already five p.m. so two hours were remaining but he was sure it will be a terror for him. Maybe you'll just refuse to move this far behind the formal line today? He knew he's shitting himself at the moment.

Y/N: Okay. I'll be waiting, handsome.

---

Your hands literally shook as you panicked. 

You needed to calm down asap. It wasn't an eye-to-eye meeting with him nor it was an actual FaceTime. It was just a fucking call which got you so off-rail. This got you even more intensely than when you were waiting for a call from some office lady whether you got that job or you did not. 

It was Steve for god's sake. Not just someone. Steve. You felt like Lykke Li in one of those videos Peter showed you. She was extremely obsessing about a man, having his pictures all over her apartment, just wished he would take notice of her. 

You would do the same at that point if you actually got some of his photos. You were just one hundred percent sure. 

That one call was everything you could actually think about - you showered beforehand even tho he couldn't smell you through the phone just to feel pretty. You also did have a proper dinner so your liver would not do anything unplanned. You even tried some dumb yoga bullshit Marzia and Suzie thought you to calm yourself down. 

You felt so, so, so stupid for overreacting that strongly but then you reminded yourself that it is mysterious, funny and gentle Steve. And you panicked again, trying to imagine his voice. Would it be high-pitched or too deep? Would it be raspy or smooth? There were too many options - too many tembers, too many speed rates, and too many articulation options.

Maybe he stutters? Which would be kinda cool you hoped. Or maybe he has a problem with saying out loud some letters? Wow, you were overwhelmed for a slight bit at that moment. But no matter ho Steves speech will be, you told to yourself, you will not give up on him because of that. 

And let me say that you almost jumped off your bed when the phone rang in your hand with his name in the fucking middle of that, suddenly too small, screen. This was it. This was the moment.

You tried to breathe until the lowerest part of your lungs wasn't filled with air and then you quickly answered. That feeling of nervousness was all over your body, you felt partially numb and all you could say was that you marched around your room with your cheeks burning on fire. 

“H-Hey, hey.” - You mumbled out, which was a big win-win for you. You didn't stutter that much, just maybe breathing a bit too heavily. All you could hear was a chuckle from the other side of the phone. 

It almost sent you right to fainting. That was a sound of gods - you would bet your whole lego set on that. Holy goddamn shit. You jumped at the bed, feeling really quirky and cheese. You just fangirled over his chuckle. Great. You were going crazy. That was a fact. If Pete saw you acting around this clingy and cheesy, he would be laughing so hard.

“Hey.” - He answered with a chuckle under his breath, he sounded so calm and smooth, to begin with. (It wasn't the truth at all. But he was trying his actual best to appear cool in front of you.) - "Is everything alright out there? Am I interrupting you from something? I didn't mean to..." - And there he was. His usual nervousness got a hold on him eventually. That wasn't as smooth as he anticipated, but exactly make you like him more.

He was just as nervous as you were. You weren't acting like a total idiot after all.

"No. Of course, you're not... Interrupting anything. Don't be silly." - You laughed with a high, nervous tone, sounding like a boy in puberty. Well, damn. This was going so off rails so fast.

You analyzed his voice precisely. It wasn't super deep nor rough for that matter. He had actually really smooth voice which was just really nice to listen to. And he had to think you're an idiot.

"I can't believe I've done it." - Steve said all of a sudden stopping you in the middle of marching up to your bed again. One of your feet was on the mattress and the second one was still on the ground. You looked like a stretching ballerina.

"It feels so surreal, am I right?" - You chuckled, finally taking a hold of your own voice. You finally sounded like a grown woman.

"Exactly. It's... Wow. I don't know what it didn't cross my mind earlier. You could told me a lot of your stories so quicker and it would be much more fun."

"So you don't find reading my miserable life stories interesting. Okay, noted." - You teased him slightly. Steve laughed, saying a loud 'nooo!'. God, this man was just something.

"I didn't mean that at all!" - That was the first time you heard him actually giggled. He was doing it all the time because of your texts. But this was for the first time in real life you've heard it. The sight of you was messy - your eyes shone, your cheeks were rosy and your hair was not in the slightest order at all because your subconsciousness made you play with it. But you looked so happy and your smile way so relaxed.

"Why are you yelling so loud here, man?" - A completely different voice cut through the conversation. It was a bit higher than Steve's and it was way smooth with a seriously strong accent. - "Is that, oh damn." - The man laughed while you smiled at the ways Steve demanded the man leaving his room.

"I'm Sam! Nice to meet you, Steve's girl!" - He yelled before the door shut. Steve grunted out loud. That was so sweet.

"So you're telling them about me, I suppose? Was that Sam or James?" - You giggled, making Steve grunt again. Sam knew which moments to choose.

"That was Sam. I told them about you, however, the girlfriend thing is something Sam had made up." - Steve choked in defeated voice.

"Don't worry. It's fine. It made me laugh." - You calmed Steve down about Sam's behaviour. It was pretty funny and sweet for you. Sam to Steve was definitely like Pete to you. Best cheering up fangirling friend you could ask for.

"That was nice." - Steve commented at your laugh so smoothly without a single doubt in his voice.

"Thank you." - A dazzled sight came out of your lips.

---

You two talked for what seemed like forever. It was a conversation about nothing - just a constant back and forward with a lot of nervousness, thank yous and sweet voices.

Steve was dazzled by your voice. He could listen to it before sleeping, with his eyes closed. Let me, as the narrator, tell you - you were such sweet dorks. Both nervous, out of your minds basically. This one phone call actually meant something to both of you. It was your first form of actual contact, just hearing the other side and being so breathless and speechless because both of you actually existed.

The texting was fine, sure. But it didn't feel like this. It wasn't as real as this.

Nothing could tell him how you laughed when his dorky ass made you chuckle somehow. The way you spoke was so calm, relaxing him to death. Or texting couldn't reveal your voice raising up when you got excited about remembering something.

When Sam peeked into Steve's room, he stood there in silence for a moment or two. Steve was standing up in from of a window, looking down on the street, telling that Y/N something in a quiet, humming tone.

"I don't want to interrupt you." - Sam spoke quietly, freaking Steve he hell out. The tall blonde turned to Sam, covering the phone with his hand. - "But we're about to watch Footloose."

"I'll be there in a minute." - Steve nodded sadly. He didn't want this to end even if it was as dorky and cheesy as it was. But a movie night with his fellas after Europe was a thing Steve was looking forward to.

"I need to go, Y/N." - Steve started slowly and he would swear that his heart hurt at those words. - "We're about to watch something called Footloose?"

"Oh, my dear lord. You've never ever seen Footloose? Are you serious?" - You asked in an unbelieving voice. - "THE Footloose with Kevin Bacon? Steve, you really make me feel like you're not from today's world. Deena told me she hoped that her prom would look like the ending scene, but you know, Kevin Bacon never came." - You giggled.

His stomach shrank at that remark. He's not from today's world. He's the man out of time. And you have no idea, you just joked.

"I think it's exactly the one with Kevin Bacon, yeah." - Steve circled his hand around his waist, sounding nervously all of the sudden. What was he thinking about? Of course that his true identity would hunt him eventually down, even in his little personal bubble he created with you.

"Yeah..." - You sighed and shut up for a second. - "Let's call it a night today, what do you say?"

"You're right, I should go or Sam and James would start without me." - Steve tried to sound as relaxed as he could. You couldn't recognize he hides something - you've heard him for the first time. You haven't got any idea that something's off.

"Would you call me tomorrow? It's your turn." - He teased you, but you grunted a little, giving the answer away.

"I can't tomorrow, I'm at work, then we have a choreography training and we have a ladies night... I won't be at home at all. I'm sorry." - You said sadly.

"Don't be sad about that, Y/N. I'm not little. Just tell me when and I'll take some time for you, alright?" - Steve asked to make you feel better.

He slowly realized that this will be like a drug to him. Once he tasted it, he would need more and more of it to even survive. There was no turning back now. Phone calls were something new, exciting, something he wanted to do until the dawn comes. Just to feel that he haves you closer than normally.

"Hope that will be soon. Now, I'll go to sleep and you'll go and enjoy Kevin Bacon's amazing rebel-ish and dancing method acting, ok? And enjoy Footloose, like that song. It's amazing. Bye, handsome." - You said with a happy voice.

"Goodnight, Y/N. I'll text you in the morning." - Steve sighed with a soft smile on his lips, ending the call. Yeah, maybe it would be really difficult to tell you who he is and maybe you'll freak out at hell - but at that moment? He felt like a pretty attractive school girl realizing that she is falling for a nerd from her Chemistry class.

Beautifully numb and so glad he couldn't even express it.

[aceofwhump]

poison/venom + remy?

I’M SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG I HAVE NO EXCUSES!!!!

Character: Remy (my oc)

Tropes: poison/venom

for my @badthingshappenbingo card. See original post here)

When Remy woke up that morning he didn’t imagine his day would turn into a battle in an abandoned warehouse with a group of organized thugs who had been causing trouble for a local neighborhood. They’d normally kept to pretty tame tactics but the team had learned that they had recently upgraded their terror and had built a bomb capable of destroying the whole city. So here they were, dodging projectiles and trying to get close enough to a bomb in order to deactivate it before it killed everyone.

Remy ducked as another crossbow bolt shot past him, narrowly missing his head, and embedding in the wall behind him. “What sort of mercenary group uses crossbows!?” Remy shouted.

“Would you prefer it if they used guns?” Loch shouted back from behind the pillar he was currently hiding behind.

“Okay, yeah, good point. Crossbows are fine.”

Loch leaned a bit away from his hiding spot to try and catch sight of the bomb but another bolt had him quickly ducking back behind it. “We need to get to the bomb. Does anyone have a visual on the shooters?”

Arya’s called out first. “I’ve got a visual on one of them but I can’t get to him. Second floor, behind the big slab of concrete, about 50 feet behind you Remy,”

“There’s another two to your right Loch. Through the double doors,” Wyatt said.

“And I see one on your left Wyatt. Next to the boxes,” Remy said.

“Alright I can get to the one on the second floor. Wyatt take the one to your left. Remy can you take the two to my right?”

Remy nodded. Of course he could. It’d be easy. Fun even.

“Good. That will free up Arya to get the bomb and turn it off. Everyone good to go?” A chorus of yes’s responded. “Alright. On three. One. Two. Three!”

On Loch’s count Remy took off. Speed was his best asset in this situation. If he could get to them quickly enough, they wouldn’t be able to fire a shot before he took them out. Unfortunately, the two shooters saw him come barrelling towards them and began to frantically fire straight at him. He dodged one crossbow bolt but felt the sting from the second shooter’s arrow slice through his side. He ignored the burn and crashed through the double doors, taking out one of the guys with a quick punch to the jaw.

Remy blocked an attack from the second shooter who stupidly tried to use his crossbow as a blunt object. Remy used his own momentum to loosen the crossbow from his hands and turned around in one swift movement to knock him over the head with it. Both guys were one the ground in seconds. And he didn’t even have to use his fire. Amateurs.

Running back out to check on his friends he found Wyatt had taken care of his guy and was heading up to where Arya was desperately trying to get the bomb to stop ticking down.

Remy looked around for Loch and found him struggling with the bad guy he had been assigned. Remy quickly ran up and blasted him away with some fire. The guy went flying across the room, hit the wall hard and stayed down.

Loch rounded on him with a scowl on his face. “I had him!”

“You’re welcome.”

Loch rolled his eyes and headed towards Arya and Wyatt. “Arya, how’s it going!?”

“Almost there! Just a few more...and...done! That should do it!”

The timer stopped and everyone relaxed. Remy stretched his arms above his head but winced as pain cut through him. Wyatt noticed the wince. His fell on Remy’s now bloody hip and he blanched. “Shit! Remy you’re bleeding!”

“Huh? Oh. It’s nothing. Just a scratch. I’m fine. Let’s get the hell out of here yeah?”

“Let me see” Loch reached out to forcibly lift Remy’s shirt up in order to take a look at the skin underneath but Remy dodged his hands and pressed an arm against the wound so no one could look.

“It’s fine. Really. Can we go now?” Remy didn’t wait for an answer and just turned around and started heading down the stairs unaware of the worried glances his friends exchanged with each other before they followed Remy out of the warehouse.

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

Remy began feeling poorly a few hours later.

The ache in his side seemed to keep growing, he alternated between shivering and sweating, and he’s been getting dizzier with each passing moment. He managed to completely avoid the post mission check up as per usual although he was going to get an earful out of Loch for that later. He really did hate medics. And hospitals. Instead he snuck away as soon as the returned to his room and patched himself up before heading to the briefing. The wound wasn’t bad so he thought he’d be fine without medical attention.

He was wrong.

The briefing is when he really began to feel poorly. Every moment that ticked by he grew worse. Every shift made the ache in his side scream and he kept surreptitiously wiping sweat off his brow hoping the others didn’t notice; that they didn’t see how badly he felt. He was sure it would get better and if the others noticed they’d insist he go to the hospital and well, that wasn’t going to happen.

Loch wrapped up the briefing. Remy only noticed it was over because everyone started standing up. He had busy trying not to throw up all over the table as nausea rolled over him. Arya and Wyatt were out of the room before Remy worked up enough energy to pull himself out of the chair. Loch lingered behind, glancing back Remy, his eyebrows scrunched together making that face he always made when he worried about him.

“You alright Remy?” he asked.

Remy straightened up taller and tried to look normal, “Yeah I’m fine. Just tired.”

“I really wish you would get that cut looked at by a professional.”

“It’s just a scratch. It’s not necessary.”

Before Loch could argue against him or worse, physically take him down to medical, Remy waved goodbye and left to return to his room.

Once he was safely hidden away in his room, his legs suddenly turned into jelly and he fell against the wall, sliding to the floor in a heap. Wincing against the pain and wheezing slightly he pulled his shirt up and peeled away his bandage covering the scratch.

It looked much much worse than it had a few hours ago. The cut was red and raw and it seemed like it had grown in size. No longer “just a scratch” this was now much deeper and more akin to a large knife slice rather than the small crossbow bolt cut. On top of that there were now black zigzagging lines coming out from the cut and cutting across his torso.

This wasn't just an infection. This was poison. The crossbow bolt had to been tipped in poison.

He felt sick, nausea hitting him hard and fast. He slapped a hand over his mouth and lunged towards the bathroom. He made it just in time to collapse in front of the toilet before he vomited violently into the bowl.

His stomach clenched as it expelled everything Remy had eaten in the last day and continued to do until Remy was throwing up bile and then just dry heaves.

When his stomach finally settled his body sagged in relief. He rested his head against the toilet seat, utterly exhausted and focused on breathing normally again. He was shaky, covered in sweet, and pain pulsed through his body to the rhythm of his heartbeat. His muscles ached due to the stress of so much throwing up.

Remy groaned loudly and pushed himself away from the toilet. He settled himself against the wall and closed his eyes.

Help. I need help. Should call Loch.

Remy reached for his phone in his pocket with shaky hands but he came up empty. His phone wasn’t in his pocket.

Swearing softly under his breath he remembered that he’d left his phone on his bed when they received the call to head out. WIth great effort he forced himself back up on unsteady legs. Dizziness and pain hit him hard enough that he had to close his eyes and put a hand against the wall to prevent himself from falling back down to the ground in a heap.

The moment passed and he managed to shuffle to his bed and grab the phone.He hit Loch’s name and put it on speaker. The phone rang three times before Loch’s voice came through.

“Hey Remy. What’s up?”

“Loch..” he said hoarsely. The wound on his side was radiating pain and only growing stronger with every second.

“Are you okay?”

“Something’s ...wrong. Don’t feel good.” Suddenly the room tilted around him and he felt himself crashing to the floor.

“Remy? Remy!”

Loch’s voice desperately shouting his name was the last thing he heard before blackness claimed him

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

Pain.

That was the first thing his body registered when he woke up. It crashed over him like a tidal wave and he bit his lip to prevent himself from crying out. He couldn’t make a noise. They’d know he was awake if he made noise. Don’t let them know how much it hurts. Don’t give them the satisfaction. That was the first thing he learned here in the cage.

“-something we can do!”

“-working on an antidote.”

“-my? Remy it’s gonna be okay. Just hang in there. Stay with us.”

Remy felt himself falling back into the darkness and the voices faded away.

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

He faded in out.

“-dangerous! I’m not risking anyone else getting hurt!”

“-our friend too. We’re-”

Unsure of how much time passed by him.

“-be okay. Hang in there.”

“-back soon.”

All there was, was pain. Blinding, burning pain. He struggled to escape it but something pinned him down which only made him struggle more. They were hurting him. They were hurting him!

“-op! Remy stop moving! You’re gonna-------worse!------lp! Someone!”

Awareness floated in and out.

“-got it!”

“Thank god!”

“How is he?”

“He’s been better. You got here just in time.”

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

Remy’s skin was as pale as the sheets he lay on, his cheeks flushed with fever, and his hair was plastered to his skin with sweat. He writhed on the bed, desperately trying to find a position that quelled the heat and pain coursing through his veins. His breaths came out rough and every now and then a moan found its way out of him. He gripped the sheets tightly in his hands, his back arching slightly off the bed as a wave of fresh, harsh pain shot through him.

“It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay. Just hang on. The doctor is here with the antidote. You just gotta hang on,” Wyatt whispered to him. The same sentiment over and over. Remy wasn’t sure who he was trying make feel better at this point, Remy or himself.

Remy moaned and writhed on the bed. Wyatt pried his fingers from his vice-like grip of the sheets and held his hand in his own. “Squeeze my hand, Rem. I can take it.” Remy complied as another wave of pain cut through him.

“Ungh, please,” he begged. “Please make it stop. It hurts. It hurts so much.”

“I know, I know. Just breathe. It’s okay.”

Remy felt a needle slip into skin.

A few minutes later, the pain began to fade and Remy’s body finally, blissfully relaxed into the sheets. He heard Loch whispering to him as the world faded around him and exhaustion took him into oblivion.

“It’s all okay now Remy. This will get rid of the poison. You can rest now. We got you. We got you.”

[victoria-hyde]

A Horror of The Spirit

"A horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

 Pre-Valkyrie. This is the story of Skulduggery's first partner. 

Detective Robert Warlow squinted, his eyes straining against the merciless sun's attacks. He supposed it was all part of the desert day. Robert was really beginning to regret wearing his smart vermillion vest. Small crimson clouds danced around his feet, ruining his perfectly good shoes. A slight crunch was heard with each apprehensive footstep. He was supposed to meet up with his assigned mentor; Skulduggery Pleasant. He was told that Skulduggery was not allowed to interfere with his actions -no matter what-, only guide him. This was a sort of test, to see if he had what it takes to become a proper Sanctuary detective. The same rules stopped him from using magic, as well as a binding bracelet, so he relied solely on his ken. In theory he was able to solve this case and deal with the details like a professional, but he was faintly aware that the cold indifference that was present during study would not come easily upon seeing an expired body. Robert disregarded his emotions and fear, as he objectively approached the vehicle. He was curious about this case. After all, he knew that it is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it. He gazed inside and faltered. The sight that greeted him was a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. The insensate, emerald eyes gazed into his soul, glazed over and full of an extreme foreign panic. Limp limbs yielded to gravity, gently resting next to an inflated chest as if their owner was merely asleep, though Robert knew that was not the case. However, it was the smell that did it for him. It was a cold and heavy scent, smelling of rotting meat with a few drops of cheap perfume. It was pungent mixed with sickening sweetness. It crept up his nostrils making him feel as if he had swallowed acid. He could taste it. He could taste the cadaver. It appeared the corpse was just as repulsed due to the slightly pink foam dripping from his mouth. Robert ran away from the car trying not to gag, tears of shock and disgust involuntarily streaming down his face. Even then the smell still lingered, not quite going away. It was caught in his nose, on his tongue, at the back of his throat. Suddenly the background noise flooded back in with the blaring noise of the police sirens, snapping him back to reality. He took a deep breath to calm his farrago of thoughts and ate one of the mints to disperse the horrid taste in his mouth. Robert desperately began to distract himself by analysing what he had just seen and comparing it with his prior knowledge of Varian's file. He recalled Rose's panicked eyes, his bloated chest and the salmon froth leaking from his lips. He was so focused, that he didn't notice the cloaked man approaching him.

"Vile, isn't it," the clinical voice of the sanctuary official stated. Warlow jolted in surprise and quickly read the man's name tag: Skulduggery Pleasant. "I take it you're my newly assigned partner?" Pleasant's pause was scanty and his tone indifferent, only allowing time for Robert to nod before he continued. "I have been charged with informing you of the details of this investigation. The victim's name was Varian Rose. He recently received a large inheritance from his late father; roughly $50 000 000. We are currently uncertain of how he perished since I'm not allowed to try and solve the case-"

Robert cut him off, "He was drowned. You can tell by the foam coming out of his mouth from the water in the lungs, his lungs expanded to try and hold more air therefore swelling his chest, and the look of panic in his eyes, signalling he was aware he was being murdered."

Skulduggery seemed to glare at the detective. "Impressive deduction, but I would greatly appreciate if you could take the liberty to refrain from interrupting me with your monotonous discourse," he floridly reprimanded Warlow, quite clearly unimpressed with his behaviour. "Now, if you will allow me to continue, I can inform you of our suspicions," he paused and gave the detective a testing head tilt. "The other amateur detectives believe his sister, Avia Rose, drowned him to claim the inheritance. If you'll wait here, I can fetch the objects the others found from my car, so you can inspect them." This time, Skulduggery didn't even await an answer as he promptly found and handed over the objects in clear plastic bags. Pleasant waited impatiently, irregularly tapping his foot, as Robert studied the contents of the bag. The bags contained a book on alchemy, matches, a pen, car keys and a driver's licence. Warlow looked up.

"You're wrong," he said. "Avia did not kill Varian."

"Excuse me? I'm not allowed to solve the case. The other people being tested are wrong. Not me." he offendedly corrected, but even his offense lacked emotion. Detective Warlow saw now that Skulduggery Pleasant was about as emotional as a bagpipe. Robert rolled his eyes.

"You see this pen here?" he questioned, pointing at the sleek pen in the plastic bag. Skulduggery wearily nodded and the detective pushed the bag into Pleasant's grasp. "The other students missed the obvious. The name on the pen says 'Artemis Pendragon'. That is the name of Varian's ex. They were engaged before she dumped him. Therefore, Artemis murdered Varian Rose. Now, there's her work address on the pen, would you do me the courtesy of accompanying me to the arrest?"

"I am legally obligated to come with you."

Detective Robert Warlow waited in the reception of Artemis's workplace, Detective Pleasant and various armed sanctuary officials positioned at different intervals throughout the room. He took a moment to relish the cool feel of the smooth desk against his back. Earlier that day, they had notified everyone on this level to evacuate for their own safety. All they had to do now was await Ms Pendragon's arrival. The door was suddenly opened, and the gravelly crunch of guns being readied snapped at the air, said weapons immediately being pointed at the woman who had just entered. She looked to be in her late twenties, with piercing grey eyes and glinting brown hair. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were rumoured to be excellent. She exactly matched the image of a Pendragon. Skulduggery approached Artemis and promptly handcuffed her.

"Miss Artemis Pendragon, you are under arrest for the murder of Mr Varian Rose. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do may be used against you in court," Pleasant monologued with the routine weariness of children greeting a teacher; lacking passion.

"Wow, what a genius. How could you have ever figured it out?" Artemis smirked, extremely sarcastically, her Australian accent prominent.

"That was a rather silly thing to say," Warlow observed. "You just confessed."

"Who are you supposed to be anyway? I've heard of Captain Jack Marrow over there but didn't know he provided babysitting services." she spat out, having recovered her bearings.

"I am Detective Warlow. Tell you what, I'll answer your questions if you answer mine," he announced before eagerly leaning forwards, obviously not picking up on her sarcasm. "Why did you do it? Did you really think that it would bring you joy?"

"The secret to a happiness is a small ego," at this, she gave a smug glance towards Skulduggery. "And a big wallet. Good books help, too. But that's not really a secret, is it?"

"Don't avoid the question. Why did you drown Varian Rose?" interrogated Robert. His curiosity was eating him inside out, like bone-termites.

Artemis's expression darkened; her countenance grim. "He destroyed my books."

"Is that it? You really killed someone because they merely destroyed your books?"

This comment sent Artemis into a maniacal laughing fit. She pretended to wipe away a tear of laughter before rolling her eyes at the junior detective. "Oh sure. I killed someone just because they destroyed my books. Please, that was one time."

"What?" Warlow blurted, worried.

"No, no. I have other reasons that I'm not going to share."

"Why not?"

"I'm hoping the curiosity will kill you, just like it killed the cat."

"Actually," Skulduggery interjected. "The original phrase was, 'Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.'"

"Well, the cat died again since there was still some curiosity left in it." She shrugged. "It was a slow acting disease."

Detective Warlow's countenance began to look a little unimpressed. "What are you hoping to achieve with all this banter?" he asked. "Sure, it's scintillating but it isn't going to stop you getting arrested."

Something in Artemis's eye twinkled that made it evident she knew something they did not. "There's no chance that I was perhaps," a metallic chink sounded from behind her and Robert took a step back as her hands reached up and unsheathed her swords. "stalling you." The armed sanctuary officials tried to open fire at her, but nothing came out of their guns. By the time they checked their ammunition, realized Artemis had emptied it with air manipulation and spotted their bullets on the floor, it was too late. In fact, it all happened so fast that Robert barely saw it. A flash of silver, a few sickening damp crunches and the wall had a new coat of paint. Warlow tried to move away from her but slipped in the rapidly growing puddles of blood. He felt the warm, sticky liquid seep into his clothes as his face connected with the floor. He was suddenly gasping for breath as Artemis's foot found a place on his ribs. Where was Skulduggery? Why wasn't he helping? He turned his head away, not wanting to see the sword's slow-motion descent. This was a mistake. He came face to face with a lifeless and blood pooled into his mouth. He suddenly felt a cool sharpness dig into his throat with a final sickly crunch. Detective Robert Warlow spent what felt like an eternity choking on his own blood and agony before everything began to fade and go cold...

 Artemis turned away from the corpse of that amateur detective and faced the infamous Skeleton Detective. He hadn't moved an inch, leaning against the wall, arms crossed. She grinned at him.

"So, what? Are you going to try and arrest me too Albert Spinestein? Are you going to tattle on me Vincent Van Bone?" she teased.

The way Skulduggery held himself indicated he was extremely unimpressed. He then replied, his voice devoid of any human emotion; the definition of deadpan, "I am not allowed to interfere with the testing under any circumstances." She waltzed over and pat the top of his head.

"Good skeleton." And on that remark, she left the building. Skulduggery sighed and left the office to inform the sanctuary that everyone was killed.

 Detective Rachel Pidgely was overflowing with excitement. She was approaching the crime scene for her case. If she solved it and apprehended the murderer -if there was a murderer, she didn't know-, then she would become a real Sanctuary detective! A tall man cloaked in beige was waiting for her outside the doors to the crime scene.

"Hello! I'm Rachel," she gushed. "Who are you!?"

The man barely shifted. "My name is irrelevant. Once you pass through these doors you will meet your partner and guide for the testing. After they have explained the situation to you, you can then begin to solve the murder of Robert Warlow."

 I packed so many quotes and Easter eggs into this it isn't funny. Can you find all the quotes and Easter eggs?

[deadlybeautydbz]

“Behind Enemy Lines” - Sneak Peek!

The other week, I mentioned my long-fic I’m working on. Set in a future universe that is being destroyed by the androids, Goku has died from the heart virus and there are no dragon-balls to help. This will be a K/18 story like no other and with a twist that you wont see coming.

In this scene, Krillin finds himself coming face to face with 17 and 18 for the first time. Let me know what you think and if you’d like to see more! This scene is about 3000 words, and so far I’ve written about 30,000 (which is maybe 1/3 of the intended total length) so there’s plenty more where this came from!

Read below the cut. And please ignore any spelling/formatting errors, this is still very much a WIP

Another explosion, closer this time. More frantic screaming.

“No. Those people need my help. You go. Now!”

With that, Krillin turned around and ran. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel for Yamcha, he did, honestly, but right now, there were people who were in more serious need of his attention. He ran as fast as he could, feet pounding against the broken pavement, quickly covering the few blocks between himself and the Androids. His heartbeat quickened as he approached, not from exertion, but from fear. So far Krillin had managed to avoid a face to face confrontation with these monsters and he’d been hoping to keep it that was for as long as possible. There was literally nothing he could do to stop them. When it came to his power level verse theirs, he was as useless as any ordinary human. Hell, even Vegeta couldn’t put up a fight against the two of them, so what hope did he have?

Standing idly by wasn’t an option though. He knew he couldn’t take the Androids on, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people there he could help. Rounding the final corner, Krillin came to a screeching halt and felt his heart lurch up into his throat.

‘Okay,’ he surveyed the scene. There they were, right there, no more than 50 meters away. The Androids. Gohan and Vegeta had described them to him, but to see them here, 17 and 18, in the flesh – so to speak… it felt surreal. They looked like, well, like normal people. Krillin didn’t know what he had been expecting, something straight out of The Terminator maybe? Maybe that they would sound or move like the robots of bad 1950’s sci-fi? But here they were, standing right in front of him – they hadn’t noticed, or at least acknowledged his presence yet, and so Krillin was able to observe them for a tiny moment. Everything about them seemed, from this distance at least, unremarkable. If he hadn’t of known what to look out for, these two could have easily been mistaken for average survivors. A shiver ran down Krillin’s spine at the thought.

The girl, 18, stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed over her body, scuffing the tip of her boot into the ground. She looked bored. And 17, he was… oh no! He was holding a poor woman, who was too petrified to even call out for help, by the scruff of her shirt; a bright blue ball of energy sat in 17’s other hand. His crazy laughter echoed down the otherwise silent street.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as what happened next unfolded.

“Noooooooo…” Krillin cried, alerting the Androids to his presence. Both twins turned to look directly at him. Two pairs of icy blue eyes piercing right through to his soul. He tried to run, to save that woman, but Krillin could only move at a snails’ pace. Everything around him happened in an instant, and it was taking hours for his brain to even make the connections. The woman was dead before he had even taken a single step towards her. Her lifeless body slumped to a heap at 17’s feet.

Time sped back up.

“Shit.” Krillin was a sitting duck, standing right here in the middle of the road, two killer Androids staring him down. Beside him, was the burnt out husk of a car, and without much more of a thought beyond surviving the next five seconds, he tucked and barrel rolled behind it, out of the line of sight of his predators.

 “Where did he go?” A male voice, dripping with sarcasm asked, making Krillin’s face blush a shade of red so bright, he was probably creating a glow. What a fucking idiot he was. These weren’t toddlers he was dealing with, they understood the concept of object permanence. All Krillin had managed to do was make himself look like an incompetent moron in front of them. Great. Classic Krillin.

Krillin took a long, deep breath, trying desperately to calm his racing heart. “Okay,” he said to himself, “okay.” Beads of nervous sweat trickled down his neck as he willed his mind to come up with a plan. Something, anything would do at this point. The Androids were closing in on him, the sound of their footsteps grew louder with every inch of ground they covered.

 “Come out, come out where ever you are,” 17 taunted Krillin, as he slammed his fist down into the hood of the car the small human was cowering behind. Krillin yelped in surprised fear, the pathetic sound that came out of his mouth was not one that he was proud of. Yet another thing to add to the list of stupid things to do on the last day of your life. The twins cackled with laughter as he leapt up from his ‘hiding’ place and tumbled out onto the road where he narrowly avoided crashing right into the pair.

“Found you!” 17 exclaimed with delight and clapped his hands. Krillin was bemused by the display to say the least, a reaction that he hoped wasn’t too evident on his face. Maybe he was dealing with a toddler after all.

18 was done, she’d had enough of 17’s moronic behaviour for one day. It was time to get down to business. “Knock it off,” she elbowed her brother in the ribs, and shot him a nasty glare, not so subtly reminding him that they were supposed to be intimidating and scary.

Receiving his sister’s message loud and clear, 17 cleared his throat, straightened his posture and put on his best detached, murderous psychopath look of nonchalance. It worked, Krillin was about ready to soil himself.

 “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” 18 turned her focus away from her immature brother and towards the man she had been stalking for a large chunk of the afternoon. “18,” she introduced herself with a coy smile.

“K…Kr… Krillin”

“I know who you are!” 18 snapped, silencing Krillin’s pathetic attempt at verbal communication. She would never stop enjoying the thrill of luring men into her trap with her sweet and innocent act before revealing her true, cold self and demolishing them. With looks like hers, it wasn’t hard. She fully intended to murder every living being on this planet, and still, men fell in love with her every day.

Krillin strained his neck to look beyond the pair, trying to spot any survivors further down the road, despite his better judgement and years of martial arts training screaming at him that now was the time to focus. Never take your eyes off your opponent. That was combat 101 right there. What would Goku say if he ever found out about Krillin’s lack of discipline? What would Vegeta say? They weren’t too far from Capsule Corporation and Krillin could feel the Ki signature of the Sayian superpower closing in on them; he must have sensed the sudden influx of Krillin’s power. He’d be here any minute.

‘Ok, great!’ Krillin thought, pepping up. All he needed to do was not die for a few more minutes, and then Vegeta would be here and he would be able to sneak away to find somewhere to hide – and cry, there would most certainly be crying. For a brief second, a relieved smile wormed its way onto Krillin’s face. It vanished as quickly as it appeared though, when the tall blonde standing before him cleared her throat and locked her dangerous eyes onto him, commanding his full attention.

 Who the fuck did this guy think he was? Ignoring them? Ignoring her? No man had ever dared look past her, and she wasn’t about to let them start now.

“Hey,” 18 bent over at her hips, bringing herself to eye level with Krillin. She was well aware of the fact that the scoop neck of her teeshirt was hanging in such a way that it allowed a perfect, unimpeded view of her perky, and very ample breasts - which were barely contained as they strained against a silky red bra. “I’m talking to you. It’s rude not to look at someone when they’re talking you know?”

‘Please,’ Krillin said a quick prayer to himself, eyes darting frantically up, down, left, right, anywhere but straight ahead. Of course he’d known the Androids were ruthless, but he was only human and this was just cruel! Why was 18 doing this? Obviously the second he looked it was lights out for him. But 18 was waiting, and he didn’t really see any other choice. Oh well. Krillin surrendered. He was most certainly going to die, and really, as far as final images went, this one was pretty good. With a loud, nervous swallow, Krillin looked directly ahead, copping an absolute eyeful of undeniably spectacular cleavage, before moving his gaze up a few inches and meeting a pair of the iciest blue eyes he had ever come across.

“Enjoy the show?” 18 asked, as she stood back up, a big victory smirk sitting smugly on her face.

“Uh, sis, I think he’s about to be sick,” 17 took a curious step forward, apparently not at all phased by the threat of vomit. “Looking a bit green there, short stuff.”

“Really?” “Definitely.” “Ugh. Gross.”

18 let out a sound that was half groan, half sigh and all frustration as she took a step towards the queasy looking Krillin and in one swift movement, kicked him square in the gut. Not too hard, she didn’t want to kill him yet, but with just enough force to knock him a block or so down the street. Not even 17, who was usually pretty good at reading his crazy sister, had seen it coming and he couldn’t help but laugh as he watched the small bald warrior fly through the air, a stream of literal projectile vomit following behind him.

They watched until he landed with an unceremonious thud in the middle of an empty intersection. Show over, 17 was finally able to turn away from the spectacle, and towards his sister. His one arched eyebrow said more than any words he could produce would be able to.

“I didn’t want him to get it on my boots,” 18 answered his question before he had even asked it. She shrugged her shoulders as she turned her back on the messy scene. “I like these boots.”

 Krillin pushed himself up onto his elbows, pain shooting through every fibre of his body as he tried to piece together what in the hell had just happened. His brain was still cowering behind that car 50 meters up ahead, it needed a few seconds to catch up. That was okay, Krillin had time to wait. It wasn’t like he was completely helpless and alone with two sociopathic killers or anything. What the hell was taking Vegeta so long? If he showed up with a Slurpee or something, Krillin would be so pissed!

“Hey!” apparently his brain had also detoured for an icy treat, because Krillin did not remember standing up, or shouting out to the Androids, who had already lost interest in him and were walking away. Yet here he was, doing exactly that. What was wrong with him? Why was he so hell bent on dying today? “Hey, stop!”

Krillin could feel that vomit coming back up as the twins stopped in their tracks and spun back to face him. He was a good distance away from them now, too far to hear what they were saying to each other, but close enough to know he was still in big trouble.

“Or what?” 17 called, his voice echoing down the empty road. Even from here, Krillin could see the sadistic grin on the Androids face. He swallowed nervously.

 “Or I’ll blast you into the next dimension!”

‘Oh thank god.’ The sound of Vegeta’s voice made Krillin weak at the knees. Relief flooded through him and he may have felt a few tears stinging at the corners of his tired eyes, not that he would ever admit it.

 “Oh, great,” 18 rolled her eyes. Vegeta was a cocky piece of shit who had no right to swan around acting as high and mighty as he did. Sure, he might have been the most technically accomplished fighter this planet had to offer, but he was still no match for her.

“Vegeta,” she spat out his name like it was a bad taste in her mouth. Honestly, she wasn’t in the mood for a real fight today, she just wanted to pick off weaklings like Krillin without ruining her outfit. “You take him,” 18 said to her brother, “I can’t be bothered with that buffoon today.”

“With pleasure!” 17 was like a kid in a candy store as he leapt off the ground and charged up into the sky towards Vegeta. A fierce battle broke out between them immediately. It was a flurry of lighting quick kicks and punches, much too fast for the normal eye to keep track of. 18 held up hands up above her eyes, as a sort of make-shift sun visor, it was a bright day and she wanted the best view possible, it was always fun watching Vegeta get his arse kicked.

 What was happening up above was of very little concern to Krillin right now. He could hear the sonic boom like crashes as arms and legs collided, the familiar crackle of a charging Ki beam and more than a healthy amount of swearing, but he was much more interested in what was happening on the ground.

18 had all but forgotten than he existed as she watched her brother clash with the only person on this planet who was any sort of real threat to them. This was his chance to escape.

Carefully, with the stealthiness of a ninja, Krillin tiptoed his way out of the intersection. 18 either hadn’t noticed his departure, or she didn’t care that he was running away, but he was able to slip around the corner of a building and out of her immediate sight with relative ease. For the first time since he’d offered to go on this stupid mission for Bulma – lesson learned there - Krillin let out a sigh of relief. He felt his muscles starting to relax as he rested his back against the cool brickwork and closed his eyes, he hadn’t realised how tensed up he was. Thank god the Androids didn’t actually engage him in a fight, he was not prepared.

“Help!”

What was that? Krillin’s eyes shot open and he instinctively dropped his body into a battle position. “Help!” he heard it again, a loud whisper. Normally, Krillin would have raced blindly towards the cry, ready to help whoever it was who needed him. Now though, after the cruel encounter he had just had with 18, he wouldn’t put it past her to play mind tricks on him, and so he preceded slowly with weary caution.

Following the sound of frightened whimpering, Krillin ventured into the guts of the building he was hiding behind. Like most every other structure in the city, and the whole world probably, it was mostly collapsed and in no way a safe place to seek refuge, but when the Androids showed up, you hid where you hid and worried about structural integrity later.

“Hello?” Krillin whispered into the darkness, carefully stepping over broken office furniture and collapsed cubical walls. As his eyes adjusted to their new dark surroundings, he was able to make out a figure huddled behind a makeshift forte of old desks which had been pushed onto their sides. Two figures actually.

“Please, sir, help us.”

A woman, maybe in her early twenties popped out from behind the desks, she had a small child, who looked to be about three or four with her, clinging tightly to her leg. She was wearing tattered clothes which were covered in a thick layer of grime, but that wasn’t what caught Krillin’s attention at first. It was her eyes. They were wild with fear. “What’s wrong? Are you alone?”

“Yes,” the woman nodded, seemingly grateful to have found someone kind in this cruel world. “Yes, it’s just me and my son, please, we need supplies. Food, water, anything. Can you help?” She wrung her hands together nervously, already preparing for a no.

Instinctively, Krillin went to reach for his backpack before remembering he’d given it to Yumcha. He had nothing. But he couldn’t do nothing. Not with that woman’s scared eyes burning right into him, begging for help.

A sound interrupted Krillin just as he was about to reply to the woman’s heart wrenching plea. A sizzling noise he knew all too well. “Watch out!” he yelped and lunged towards the woman and her child, knocking them both to the floor. He managed to reach out and scoop the boy into his grip as he was falling, pulling all three of them into a tight huddle, and as he did, a stray energy ball came careening into the building, missing them only by meters. By using his own body as a shield, Krillin was able to protect the pair from the danger of the flaming debris that was falling all around them. It burned through the thin jumper he was wearing as it hit him, scolding his skin, but he had been through worse before, and knew  worse would be coming after, so he grit his teeth and took it, knowing that he was capable of surviving much more than this.

“Are you okay?” he asked, lifting himself up off the pair as he did, and trying not to wince at the long forgotten, yet intimately familiar pain of fresh burns.

The poor woman wrapped her arms around her wailing son and pulled him close into her, she stroked his dark hair and kissed the side of his head over and over, fully aware of how close to losing him she had just been. “Thank you” she said through tears, “Thank you, thank you. You saved us. I’m Nora, this is my son, Ronin.”

“My name is Krillin,” he smiled a warm, honest smile at the pair, but it was short lived. They were still in very real danger. “We need to get out of here. We’re not safe.”

Carefully, Krillin lead the mother and son towards the exit of the dark building. The explosion had blocked their original path, but with some careful rearranging of obstacles, they were able to make it back out into the bright sunlight. Up above Vegeta and 17 were still trading blows, it was hard to tell who had the upper hand from down here, but Krillin had a feeling it wasn’t Vegeta. This whole area could be nothing more than a smoking hole in the ground any second, they needed to get away.

Where the hell was 18? Krillin’s eyes darted around frantically, he had no idea which way to go. Not that it made much difference really, it wasn’t like they were going to outrun her if she decided to toy with them. “This way,” he arbitrarily picked a direction and began to run.

[kuroverawrites]

Chapter One - Household Collateral

Jiang Ming Yue woke to drunken cursing from the courtyard, too loud for how late it was but, as usual, his father did not care who he woke. A drunkard of a man, whose success came from connections and not merit, fortune in marriage furthered him more than any effort he put in. He continued this lucky trend by not pursuing personal merit and instead, like many of those given riches without difficulty, saw no issue in drinking and gambling it away, more nights spent among flower girls than his own family. If not for the tight hold the Official Wife held over the household finances, Ming Yue was quite sure that they would have been destitute years ago and even then, he expects it to happen soon.

The cracking of stone hitting wood startled him into getting out of bed and moving to the side room. It would not be the first time his father had come and destroyed things in his room and he didn’t want to be around for it. His shoulder had only scarred over recently and throbbed on cold days.

“You useless brat, come out here before I come in there.” The door rattled but thankfully was jammed shut. Thankfully before the door was forced open someone interrupted.

“Husband. We only repaired that building last week, how about you come spend time with Mistress Qiu, she hasn’t seen you in more than a week.” The voice was winter cold, an undercurrent of venom tainting the otherwise sweet voice. Ming Yue moved to look through the open courtyard window.

Lady Jiang, Zhou Wen Ling, the first daughter of a high-ranking judge was crafted from sword-steel and as cold as the dead of winter. Her face was carved from ice and he couldn’t remember ever seeing her smile. But with a husband like this, he wasn’t surprised.

“Hah, what need to I have of a woman beyond her years. Her makeup cannot hide it nor can her body.” The words slurred, which made them even more appalling. Mistress Qiu was his father’s new concubine, only together for a year before he grew bored. She turned 25 last week.

“You-“ Gravel moving and cursing interrupted her and the sound of retching carried across the sudden silence. Two sharp claps summoned the household maids.

“Carry him to his room and clean him up. Then wash down the pathways, I don’t want to see anything in the morning.” The contrast of two small girls, petite in size, dragging a man in his 50s to hid bed covered in his own mess made him cringe, but the dark look Lady Jiang gave him before going inside brought winter early to his room.

As the 3rd son and the child of a lower concubine, he was just another mouth to feed and a strain on household resources. His sister, a year younger, at least could be married off or given as a maid, but as a son, there was no way of getting rid of him easily. So, they just hid him from the world, never mentioned, rarely visited.

A life of living indoors and a lack of exercise made him paler and more delicate than his sister, thinner than bamboo and appearing lofty when wearing light layers. If he worked in the flower district, he would have been very popular. Often, he wondered if his sister was more manly than him, especially as he watches her climb back over the house wall and drop noiselessly into the garden. He rose to set a teapot of water upon the table with two cups and waited for padded feet to climb through the window and drop a cotton bag on the table.

“The night market was beautiful brother, lanterns and food everywhere. I brought back some to share. There’s grass jelly and tanghulu, and even pumpkin pancakes.” She unpacked each as she spoke, pushing them towards Ming Yue.

“Did you save any money or did you eat everything I gave you?” A smile accompanied the criticism, light-hearted and well worn. “I brought you food, that should be enough. You’ll fade into the morning mist at this rate and then who can I complain to. Our elder brothers are busy studying and our older sister is getting married. The baby is a baby and boring.” “The baby is eight years old now.” “But he’s looked after by Old Han and she hates us, can’t play when she’s watching.“ She frowned as she pushed one of the pumpkin pancakes into his mouth. “Eat, you're too thin. What would mother say.”

Pumpkin cakes were delicious, especially while still warm. He gestured for her to take one. “She’d say that you’ve lost all your ladylike charms and are going to die unmarried.” “That’s because you stole them all, if you wore some of my dresses no-one would be able to tell us apart. They would even think that I was the brother.” “Hah.” He shook his head and asked, “Anything else interesting happen while you were out?”

“Right! One of the new buildings collapsed before it was complete, something about building standards not being followed. It killed three of the workers and took out the restaurant wall next to it. There was angry gossip everywhere. Some were even thinking about petitioning the magistrate court to enforce charges on the guilty party.” The words contained an unpleasant prediction.

“Do you know which one it was? Father came back completely drunk and unhappy.” “It should be the one near the market so it probably is father’s building. Which means he’s going to have to pay for damages. Brother, we can’t afford to pay that.” The pastries in front of him no longer looked as tasty, the sugar sticking to his teeth.

The family budget was getting worse each year, from a reasonably wealthy family to one mending clothes by hand and rationing weekly food. The house heads spending was one problem, the other is the numerous concubines that keep being brought into the family. And keep dying. Ming Yue can think of seven off the top of his head, his mother being one of them. Li Mei Xing was a maid of his grandmother that his father took a liking to but as she grew older she was pushed into the furthest house in the estate and abandoned, growing colder and wearier until she died when he was 12 years old. That same year his father brought home two separate women and moved Ming Yue and Yu Hua into their mother's old house and gave their rooms to the new concubines.

There were three living concubines, three dead and one returned to her family in disgrace for sleeping with one of the guards. Ming Yue approved, it was a good plan to leave the household alive and sane. The other two that died, one drunk poison on their wedding night, and the other was beaten in a drunken rage that left her permanently damaged. Both came from lower-class families and as such their deaths were easily paid for and covered up.

The fact that all his children were alive was a surprise, six in total and none willingly living at the estate. His two oldest brothers were studying and attending schooling, very rarely returning to their mother. His older sister was lucky to find a match and will be leaving within the week, along with her personal funds already given.

“No we can’t, so he’s probably going to have to sell things.” “But Brother, there’s nothing left of value. Madam Jiang already struggles to make enough.” True that there was nothing left of the household items but that was not the only thing possible to be sold.

“There’s always your service. Or mine.”

[mechagalaxy]

John T. Mainer Smurf’s and arrows of outrageous fortune…

Smurf’s and arrows of outrageous fortune…..

Sometimes in Mecha Galaxy you have to take a long hard look at the numbers, and then a long hard pull on your mead, because only one of them has an answer you want to listen to. The Avengers of Bunny were facing the Smurf Heavy Cavalry. Granted, the Avengers had a much tighter range and expected to carry the bulk of the battle, but the reason they had a tighter range is that there were some Smurfs at the top who put the Heavy in Cavalry.

One of them was rampaging through the front lines now, and someone had to stop him. Sucks to be someone.

Bolverk Borson took a look at the scouting report and ran it against the contact report coming in from the Bunny currently being stomped. Yep. That’s the Smurf all right. Mike Ehmann, 102 levels higher than me, about 1200 tons heavier than me, and about a klick and a half away. Taking a long hard pull at his mead horn, Bolverk thought, I can do this! Taking a deep look at the tactical computer’s predictions he sighed deeply, I can’t do this. Taking another pull on the horn he mused, someone has got to do this, and I am the only uncommitted reserve. Misquoting Shakespear, he asked himself “whether twas nobler to suffer the smurfs and arrows of outrageous fortune, or go get my bunny ass shot off?”

Throwing back his head, he gulped the mead down in a rush, sweet honey liquor running down his throat and igniting a fire in his belly that reached his eyes and burned forth as he blanked his tactical computer and fired up his communication system. The Smurfs and Bunnies were long time allies from Faction War, and he reached out on the Bouncing Blue Brotherhood frequencies to give his challenge.

“Avengers Actual to Smurf Sunray Minor, how they hangin blue boy? I’m headed your way, fangs out”

Mike’s answering growl sounded over the stomping sounds 90+tonners made as they literally walked over the fallen, crushing their hulls beneath the big metal feet of the armoured titans,

“Gonna freeze those ears right off you Bunny” Mike growled

“Burn you down Smurf” Bolverk answered, as the two formations came together with a crash that registered on seismic sensors half a continent away.

The front lines crashed together, six Smurfs, all Slates save the middle Yallan against four Bunnies, twin Fext outriders, Boreas and Humbaba. The edge in niodes was with Bolverk, the edge in armour and weapons was with Mike, and the two sides showed what happened when advantages offset exactly, as they suffered almost total mutual annihilation in a few punishing exchanges.

The solid wall of Balrog behind obscured what else Mike possessed, but Bolverk held hard to the controls of his Fext (Svartalf) and gave himself to the battle fury. Balrog 4 cut loose with an Incinerator and caught Bolverk’s wing Humbaba square on the hull. He felt the splash shields catch most of the explosion on his left, but knew that meant he was alone now. Moving to close the distance, he squeezed off a snap shot from his Twin Grazer to critical kill Balrog 2. Dodging between a wave of missiles and lance of ice, he cut loose with a long rolling barrage from his Chaos Blaster and the extended burst tore through the engine housing on Balrog 3 for another kill. Hammering Balrog 4 with a Prism Beam, he had to duck between Pyrenado and Incinerators that blasted right and left of his dodging machine, before he could lance a Flavian Spear through Balrog 4 to avenge his wingman with another critical kill. Daring to stop dodging altogether, he targeted his Twin Grazer left, and Malice right, to shatter Balrog’s 5 and 6 in quick succession.

How long could he keep up? How much luck did he have left? Charging forward he caught a Tower with his Trislager just as it unmasked its missile batteries, and set off a massive explosion to gut the machine. Spinning through the hail of fragments, he targeted the spiky Optio with his Twin Grazer and hammered a pulse through shields destabilized by the wash of Tower fragments for another kill. His own hull rang with impacts from the Corsair’s cannon and he felt his machine slow as it staggered from the impact. No, no no no. Can’t slow or they will catch me! The scream of his point defense cannons blazing filled the cockpit, but the Slate had chosen its time well, and just as the fragments had served his own attack, now they served his enemy as Bolverk’s missile defenses split between Sniper Rack rounds and armour fragments, and the bulk of the Sniper Rack salvo punched home in a tight grouping that brought his mad rush to an end.

As he hit the ground, he looked what was behind the rank he was fighting, he had one rank of niode heavy hitters left, then crystal machines and lighter ones behind. Ahead were six shining Glaccus, the last thing his other Bunny saw before getting blasted to scrap, but Bolverk’s sensors could see past them. The next rank was Kami, Humbaba, Justicar, Revenant, Charon, and Apatotron. How truly awesome.

He radioed his second rank, “Hey boys, lets see you beat that!” They would have to if he was going to have a chance. Mike had too much left for his rear ranks to face. His second rank would have to hit like the hammer of Thor or they were going to lose.

Fatman, the waddling Apatotron in his second rank disappeared behind a cloud of exhaust as he Wide Forked and shut down half the rank ahead in a single wave of Sniper Rack. Not to be out done, both Regis and Notas ignored the fire tearing at their own hulls and punched kill shots on their opposite number, clearing the rank in a single salvo.

Bolverk laughed, now that was more like it! He shouted into his comm system with a laughing challenge.

“Is that the best you can do boys?”

Fafnir, the left flank Notas stepped forward and the night split with a scream of pure Hellfire. Bolverk’s own cockpit rocked in the backblast as what looked like a nuke went off on the Glaccus. His scanners reported the numbers and Bolverk had to check them twice to see if he was reading them right.

Fafnir fires a Helios Forge at Glac 2

509% damage 2X DAMAGE 3X DAMAGE Hit for 16776 Glac 2 Destroyed! Shield absorbs 12 damage Splash Damage Glac 1 takes 2454 damage Shield Blocks 55% Burn Damage Glac 6 burns for 105 damage Fork Glac 1 takes 5706 damage Shield Blocks 50% MECH SHUTDOWN

Bolverk’s comm crackeled with the bleed from the plasma in the air, and the scream of burning metal made the relaxed voice of Fafnir’s pilot sound otherworldly as he drawled casually.

“That good enough for you boss?”

Bolverk laughed, and replied honestly

“Aye lad, it will do”

Against all odds, he was going to win this one.

[kaedekayano]

53 + nakamura/a female character of your choice ?? (yeah i couldn't decide but i wanna see nakamura content)

ah yes, my chance to finally write nakamura/myself. jk i chose nakamura/kataoka because i really love kataoka but she never gets the appreciation she deserves. i know they don’t really interact canonically but they are my two of my favourites so w/e

i wrote this in past tense, didn’t realise until two paragraphs in, and just decided to roll with it. takes places sometime shortly before the second finals arc.

53. “Who crawls through someone’s window at 4am to go for ice cream?!”

send me a ship and a prompt numbered 50-100 [prompt list]

Rio’s eyes were already strained after hours of studying earlier that day, so scanning the street for the number that denoted Kataoka’s house was a bit of ordeal, considering the late hour. After a minute, she just gave up and counted the houses. If the address Isogai gave her wasn’t right, she was going to kill him. Or at least stab him with one of the rubber knives.

The assassination training had done a lot of good for Rio, who had enjoyed PE enough before but hadn’t been particularly talented. It was easy enough to scale the walls of Kataoka’s house and give two short raps on the window. When there was no answer, Rio pulled herself up onto the ledge and straightened, standing up. She dialled Kataoka’s number. As she’d hoped for, the girl’s ringtone went off, filling up the bedroom until it could be heard through the window.

The sound of the bed creaking filtered outside. “Nakamura?” Kataoka murmured, her voice heavy with sleep. “Why are you—”

“I had a surprise for you delivered to your house just now. Open the window.”

“Uh, okay? There better be a good reason for this.”

Kataoka shuffled over to the window, pulling apart the curtains — thank God Rio had gotten the room right — and her eyes immediately widened at the sight of the blonde on her windowsill, teetering on the ledge. She yanked the window open immediately. “What are you doing?”

Rio came through with as much grace as she could, which was to say she scooted over the windowsill and into the room on her butt, gripping the wall for support. She landed on Kataoka’s rug with a cheerful grin, never mind the circles beneath her eyes, and beamed up at her. “Surprise! I’m not just good, I’m better than good, don’t you think? Come on, put on your shoes. Let’s go get ice cream.”

Kataoka’s jaw was practically on the floor. “Who crawls through someone’s window at 4am to go for ice cream?!”

“Me, because I’m amazing and have excellent taste, and I found out you have an ice cream parlour open twenty-four-seven just down the street. You live in the best neighbourhood. Oh, and pull on a coat, it’s chilly outside.”

Kataoka crossed her arms. “No way. That’s ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously brilliant, you mean,” Rio said, her smile losing none of its exaggerated radiance. “Seriously, let’s do it. I was up studying until half an hour ago, and I really need a break. I’m sick of worrying over finals, and I haven’t eaten anything that’s either disgustingly healthy or instant noodles for the past week in the interest of getting enough energy.”

The scowl on the other girl’s face wavered. “Then why don’t you just get ice cream by yourself?”

Rio shrugged. “Because you’re one of the smartest girls in the class, and you’ve probably been studying way too much on top of worrying yourself sick about all of us with your noble class rep duties? Also, like I said, ice cream parlour down the street.” If there was an ice cream parlour on Rio’s street, she wouldn’t even go to school. She cocked her head and added, “Also-also, I haven’t looked at anything that isn’t a math equation in two hours, and I want to look at something a little prettier, like your face.”

Kataoka paused, her lips pressed together. “Fine.”

“A wise decision, dutiful class leader,” Rio said, clapping her hands together. “Now. Coat. Sneakers. Money. Can we get downstairs without waking up your family?”

“Avoid the third step. It squeaks.” Kataoka gathered her things, still scowling, but the lines in her face — seriously, what middle schooler already had graying hair? — softened a bit. “Please tell me you brought your own money. I won’t pay for you.”

“Of course I did. Now, let’s go.” Rio snapped her a salute.

There were about twenty different flavours at the parlour. It was 4 AM and Rio wasn’t sure she even knew how to feel any emotions besides stress anymore, but if she was still capable of feeling delight, this would be it. She practically danced down the selection of ice creams, light on her feet in true assassin’s fashion, and ordered three scoops — the most expensive option, sure, but ask her if she cared — with each being a different flavour and five toppings.

Kataoka pulled a face and ordered a single strawberry-flavoured scoop, topped with chocolate chips.

“Just enjoy yourself,” Rio said, frowning at her as she paid the cashier. “This should be fun.”

“You know what else is fun, Nakamura? Resting. Sleeping.”

Almost every girl in the school who was even slightly approaching something other than straight or aromantic had had a crush on Kataoka at one point, but Rio wouldn’t count herself among them. Kataoka was pretty to look at, sure, but also way too uptight sometimes. Grades and rules and formalities — that was too much for Rio.

Well, maybe not grades. She couldn’t even look at her ice cream without trying to calculate its volume right now. What’s the formula for the volume of a sphere again?

“This is more fun,” Rio said unrepentantly. She plopped down at one of the tables and motioned for Kataoka to join her. “There’s more to life than doing the bare necessities required to stay alive.”

Kataoka sighed, rubbing at her eyes. “I suppose so. You’re overworking yourself if you’re staying up until 4 AM to study, though.”

Rio poked at her ice cream with a spoon. “Well, I mean, I just really want to do well.”

“You’ll do well regardless. You’re one of the smartest girls in the class too, you know.”

“That’s not quite it.” Rio swallowed a spoonful of triple chocolate chunk cookie ice cream. The brain freeze felt good for once, considering how overheated her brain was, like a laptop during a meltdown. “Not just well. Prove everyone wrong, you know? That I can be better. That I’m not just some silly girl who can’t take anything seriously, I can be smart and work hard and — you know what, this is just the late night delirium talking.”

“I think this is early morning, not late night,” Kataoka said wryly. “But no, I understand what you mean.”

“Yeah.” Rio popped a blueberry into her mouth. “So what about you? What’s your motivation? I know not everyone in our class is doing this just to disprove the stereotypes about 3-E.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I want to be better than the boys, I guess.”

Rio whistled.

“I mean, I’ll never be better than like, Karma or anything—”

“Good,” Rio said. “You shouldn’t aspire to be like Karma. He’s smart and all, but being that smart will mess you up.”

“Yeah? In Karma’s case, that’s probably true.” Kataoka laughed, stealing a scoopful of Rio’s chocolate sprinkles.

“Hey!” Rio made as it to grab Kataoka’s bowl in retaliation, but Kataoka reacted too quickly, grabbing her wrist. Rio tried to pull away, but the other girl was as strong as she looked, if not stronger. “Give those back!”

With her other hand, Kataoka lifted her spoon to her mouth and swallowed the sprinkles, meeting Rio’s eyes as she did so. Rio glared at her even as a smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and snagged one of Kataoka’s chocolate chips.

“Don’t you dare—” Kataoka started, making to snatch it back, but to do that, she either had to drop her spoon or free Rio’s ensnared wrist. She did the latter, the spoon hitting her bowl with a clatter, and Rio found Kataoka’s fingers on her cheek, just as the blonde downed the chocolate chip, their eyes fixed on each other’s.

Oh. This was a bit awkward.

“I’m blaming this on the sleep deprivation,” Rio said. “It’s destroyed my impulse control.”

Kataoka backed off. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Why are you apologising?” Rio asked, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. Here, take some of my ice cream.”

Kataoka looked at the new scoop of green tea ice cream in her bowl, her face uncertain. “Um, thanks.”

“Seriously.” Rio rested her palm on top of Kataoka’s. “No big deal, okay? I promise you I don’t carry diseases or cooties or whatever else it is you’re worried about.”

This time, Kataoka didn’t move away, at least. “Thanks,” she said, smiling again. She scooped up a bit of the green tea and raised it to her mouth. Her face scrunched up. “Nakamura, this tastes terrible.”

“It’s one of my favourite flavours!” Rio said, unable to hold back how offended she felt. “I even gave you some more of my chocolate sprinkles with it!”

“I appreciate the sentiment, but this is awful.” Kataoka’s face was still scrunched up, and the expression was kind of adorable.

Since it was 4 AM, and again, her impulse control was destroyed, Rio made a snap decision. “I’ll get rid of the taste for you, then,” she promised, and leaned across the table, capturing Kataoka’s lips in a kiss.

“I—mm.” Kataoka, to Rio’s delight, kissed her back, her lips soft and sweet and, well, tasting of one of Rio’s favourite ice cream flavours, so it was pretty great. Exams were terrifyingly close and both of them wanted desperately to prove themselves and soon they would need to kill the best teacher they’d ever had, but fuck it all if Rio didn’t get to kiss a pretty girl before then. The chair squeaked as it was dragged across the floor when Rio moved closer, letting all the exhaustion and stress she felt into the kiss, and then letting go.

They separated after a moment, both of them out of breath and cheeks pink.

Rio failed to keep a straight face. “You’re my new favourite flavour.”

“I’ve heard better from Maehara,” Kataoka said, but her cheeks turned even pinker.

[pjclendenning-blog]

Another Night

It was a cold and windy night on October 15th. The trees howled with the wind if that makes sense to you. Otherwise just know that it was very windy. The stream nearby toiled and turned, sending ice-cold water downstream at an alarming pace. Really alarming. Like, this wasn’t normal. If you stepped into it you’d most likely be dragged off your feet. It wouldn’t carry you anywhere, unless you float like a duck, in which case you’d be found in Lake Kellow about 30 miles away the next morning.

This night was focused on a house. Not just any old house. A certain house. A house in the countryside of Minnesota. I won’t tell you any more than that, can’t be giving away too much personal information. Next thing you know you’re on the doorstep of that house asking for autographs and selfies and who knows what else weird people such as that do.

Now in the house lay a Mr. Howard Tartinstrum. He was laid out on his couch that he acquired from the local Goodwill about 10 years ago. It wasn’t a particularly special couch; a simple dark brown with a design that looks like your grandmother had quilted it. He had a mess getting it home, he didn’t own a truck or know anyone who did. So he had to go through the effort of renting one from a moving company for eighty-five dollars per day. Per day! The couch itself was only worth $25 in the eyes of the Goodwill management, but to Mr. Tartinstrum it was apparently worth the $110 that it cost to buy it and rent the truck to move it.

He did have some nice memories on it. Over the years he had watched plenty a game of the Minnesota Vikings with his friends (though why anyone would watch them is a mystery not even Sherlock Holmes could solve), and he had read plenty of books on it, delving into the stories of whatever happened to be on sale at the time. One of his most fond memories on that couch involved a book actually. It was an old favorite of his, given to him on his 23rd birthday by his mother, called The Giver. He had read it multiple times throughout his life and was thoroughly miffed after he saw the movie adaptation. He had been reading it on the couch before he felt the need for a snack and got up to get a bag of chips from the kitchen. His doctor told him that he probably should stop eating chips, but what did he know? So he left the book on the couch when he got up, and who should come along but his pal Witchy, who decided that the book would look much better as a sort of confetti decoration.

Now, of course, Mr. Tartinstrum was not the happiest of campers when he came back. The Great Pyrenees had just destroyed his favorite book! He yelled and shouted and exploded with foul words that would make a sailor raise an eyebrow at him. Witchy tucked tail and ran at this while Mr. Tartinstrum stood next to the couch fuming. As he stood there with cartoon smoke coming out his ears, examining the pieces of book that could have formed an interesting collage if you’re an artsy person, he decided that it must be cleaned promptly. So he started gathering the pieces up, putting them in as a nice a pile as he could. Once he had gathered all the pieces he could see, he checked under the couch in case some pieces had gotten under it. Can’t have trash possibly flying around the house at the next gust of wind to come into the house, no sir.

It was when he was looking under the couch that he saw it. The glint of light reflecting off something shiny. A solid gold coin! If it had been out on the street during the day, a bird would surely have picked it up and brought it to its nest, where it would sit until a storm hit and knocked the nest from the tree. From there, it would have careened down the hill the tree had stood on and fallen into the hands of a young boy named Darren Duse. He would have taken it to his parents who would have invested it into his college funds and given him a full ride at his college of choice, leading to a happy and fulfilling career as a stockbroker in New York. A bird did not pick up this gold coin though, and so Darren Duse worked at a copy store for $10.65 an hour instead.

Mr. Tartinstrum picked up the gold coin with glee. What a stroke of luck! He called to his dog, “Witchy! Come look! We’re rich!” Witchy ran into the room expecting kibble, doggy treats, and tennis balls to be falling from the sky, filling the room with wonder and excitement. What he found was his master standing next to a pile of book confetti and holding a bright rock, looking ever so delighted. It wasn’t the sight a dog expected when they heard the term ‘rich’, but Mr. Tartinstrum had yelled at him with such enthusiasm that Witchy couldn’t help but be excited too, even if he didn’t understand why. They jumped around together in happiness, both for different reasons, but together. Mr. Tartinstrum took his gold coin to the bank the next day and found it worth $500. This wasn’t enough to retire on, but it helped with the bills nonetheless.

It wasn’t his finest memory, but it was still a good and fitting one to have on that couch. Mr. Tartinstrum had many memories of course, not just of ones on that couch. He was 67 years old. His life had been filled with twists and turns, tragedies and laughter, like every life is. He had been married, divorced, married again, and then became a widower about five years ago. His first wife, Penelope, was a girl he met in a coffee shop when he was 21 and she was 19. They dated a couple years, he introduced her to her first drink, and she introduced him to his first dooby. And while she was drunk and he was high, they had a shotgun wedding a year later. There wasn’t a child involved like there is in most shotgun weddings. There wasn’t a child at all. Two months after the wedding they filed for divorce, mutually deciding that maybe it wasn’t their best idea.

It was 20 years later when Mr. Tartinstrum was 44 years old that he met Vanessa. Vanessa was 50 years old and pulling along what looked like two hairless apes in toddler clothing screaming for toys and candy through the supermarket. Mr. Tartinstrum stood holding his laundry detergent in one hand and a bag of apples in the other, not noticing the children, only the blue eyes that had ensnared him like many men before him. Of course, at this time Vanessa was not in the mood for games with the opposite sex right that moment; she was busy watching her good-for-nothing daughter’s children that had gotten dumped on her while she “worked”.

Vanessa knew her daughter was actually off somewhere trading drugs for money, money for drugs or something along those lines that led her to looking like someone had dropped her from a plane with no parachute and a bowl of peanut butter to finish before she made it back to earth. Vanessa loved the children though. She hoped she could have a good influence on them so they didn’t make the choices their mother made.

It was while she was loathing her daughter that Vanessa noticed Mr. Tartinstrum, staring at her with the same stare that every man before him had decided was a decent set of eyes to wear when looking in her direction, and gave him a great, “Hmph!” as she turned away toward the checkout line, dragging the children behind her so they made claw marks on the floor. He made no great effort to follow. She was beautiful yes, but with an attitude like that he wasn’t too interested. They came to blows about this first encounter a week later when they literally bumped into each other at the gas station. They both fell to the ground, and after collecting themselves had a shouting match that rivaled two geese arguing about who was watching the goslings when one was missing. Of course, this led to him asking her out for dinner, and about a year and three months later they were happily married.

Mr. Tartinstrum recalled all these things on that cold and windy night on October 15th, lying on his couch. The gold coin, his dog Witchy, who was gone now, his first wife Penelope, his second wife Vanessa, and for some reason the smell of a cooked goose dinner. Then he thought of everything that needed to be done tomorrow. The lawn should be mowed, leaves raked, he was almost out of milk so he would have to run to the store. What else did he need from the store? No sense in going to the store for just milk, that’s just wasteful. Bread? No, he had plenty. Sugar? Maybe, he didn’t bake often but Mrs. Fedster always came around asking for a cup of sugar, the old hag, and would complain if he didn’t have any. “Oh well you should always have sugar in the house.” she would say in an almost annoyingly sweet tone, “Never know when you might need to bake some cookies!” If it’s so important to have around then why don’t you ever have any? Buy your own sugar and quit stealing mine! What else did he need? I really should write a list, he thought, but I can make it tomorrow. Getting up would be too much effort.

Mr. Tartinstrum was feeling the effects of sleep take hold on his limbs, so he let himself drift off to sleep, listening to the wind howl and to the stream push water downhill as darkness closed in around him. Mr. Tartinstrum was dead.

[newstfionline]

The trouble with living in a swamp: Houston floods explained

By Dylan Baddour, Houston Chronicle, May 31, 2016

Things get bad when Houston floods. Water swamps homes, takes lives and shuts down the city. But it should be so much worse. There shouldn’t even be a city here.

But there is, and most Houstonians casually accept the enormous drainage system--the bayous, creeks and gullies--that keep it precariously dry in a former wetland.

Early settlers drained marshes to build Houston town in a muddy bog. Fast forward less than 200 years and the city stands above water, mostly, thanks mostly to 2,500 miles of managed waterways--the flying distance from Houston to Quito, Ecuador--that whisk the floods out to sea.

“If those channels didn’t exist, this area would be flooding from every rain, not just the big ones,” said Mike Talbott, executive director of the Harris County Flood Control District. “A very large percentage of the systems have not been made larger to meet current criteria.”

Therein lies the problem. Tremendous rains this year and last pushed the limits, forcing gullies and bayous over their banks into neighborhoods that brim them. The only solution is to widen the waterways, which means buying up adjacent buildings and tearing them down. Talbott puts the price tag on a total upgrade at $26 billion, which will not happen soon.

The weather is outpacing Harris County’s effort to tame, and according to scientists it’s not going to stop. Citing his own research, state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said extreme rainfall events have increased in Texas over the past century, with a particularly large increase in Houston.

When the rains hit, they often hit harder than they used to. And the trend isn’t expected to abate.

Nature is ignoring the occupation that Talbott is tasked with preserving. It’s an old game for Houston. The city’s past was built on drainage and its future will be too. It’s just hard to imagine how.

Inundation is nothing new here. Right from the start, it took tremendous effort and loss of life to claim the Houston area from the prevailing floods.

O.F. Allen, an early settler and nephew of a Houston founder, wrote of his experience in the infant city:

“One could hardly picture the jungle and swampy woods that a good portion of the city is built upon. These swampy grounds had to be cleared and drained. The writer himself quite clearly remembers that the southwestern portion of the city was a green scum lake, studded with giant sweet gum trees, and water from one to two and a half feet deep... The labor of clearing the great space was done by negro slaves and Mexicans, as no white man could have worked and endured the insect bites and malaria, snake bites, impure water, and other hardships. Many of the blacks died before their work was done.”

That was just the beginning, and the labor by no means left the city dry. When famed naturalist John Audubon visited in 1837, he marveled that he approached President Sam Houston’s cabin “wading in water above our ankles.”

Where there wasn’t water there was mud--mud that early settlers joked you could lose a horse in, that swallowed any attempt to build a road and bred clouds of disease-bearing mosquitoes. It was so bad that lawmakers primarily cited the mud in their decision to move the capital to Austin.

But occasionally Houston went from saturated to inundated. William Taylor, born in Houston in 1863, wrote of driving a ferry “from the foot of Main Street to Fifth Ward during the worst of the flood” of 1879, which lasted several days.

Floods were so common they merit only casual mentions in Houston’s early history. Like how the Houston Electric Company built a dam and artificial lake on Little White Oak Bayou in 1904, but rains later that year washed it away.

If the region would ever host a metropolis, the floods would clearly have to be tamed.

In Houston, the notion of large-scale publicly funded drainage infrastructure emerged in a 1908 plan by engineer George Horton. Citizens successfully petitioned the county to fund the plan and “render habitable” a small portion of southwest Harris County.

“I have seen several hundred acres underwater for days after large rains,” Horton wrote. “A complete system of drainage will do away with such cases as this... It will be the making of this section of the country.”

Crews widened bayous, straightened their paths, eased their curves and ripped away logs that resisted their flow. Where there was a lack of natural waterways, they dug 44 miles of new channels.

In the decades since, similar endeavors appeared across the county, but they weren’t nearly enough.

The worst rain the city remembered fell in 1929, and a worse one struck in 1935. Buffalo Bayou rose up to the second story in parts of downtown. Buildings collapsed. Swaths of city were destroyed.

So in 1937 a coalition of local authorities petitioned the state to commission a flood authority that could work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to orchestrate large-scale upgrades in Houston, and the Harris County Flood Control District was born of dire need.

Through the ‘40s and ‘50s, the USACE and HCFCD modernized Houston drainage. They drastically widened Brays and Buffalo bayous and concrete-lined some waterways. They built the Addicks and Barker reservoirs to catch rains that fell on the Katy Prairie and keep them from downtown.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s other dramatic upgrades were made.

As the city expanded, canals were built to drain new neighborhoods, and homes soon lined the banks of every gully, creek and stream. Much of the system was locked in without room to grow, though it was already massively expansive.

“It was unbridled urban sprawl without a whole lot of attention to what they should have been doing for correct urban drainage. There were a lot of mistakes made in those years,” said Phil Bedient, a veteran professor of civil engineering and urban flood control at Rice University. “Now we find ourselves in a situation where we inherited this problem.”

Houston got stuck with a huge but outdated system. Mid-century engineers didn’t anticipate two important things: how bad the rains could get and how much urbanization would exacerbate the floods.

Later in the 20th century, understanding evolved with science. Federal floodplain mapping in the 1970s provided the first insight to where the water actually pools during torrential downpours.

Then computer models in the 1980s began to describe just how big those torrential downpours could get. That’s when Talbott got involved. He got an engineering degree from Texas A&M University, an MBA from the University of Houston then joined the district in 1982 and never left.

Harris County flood control, he said, is his “one and only career.”

He had an early hand in computer models of the flood threat at a time when scientists were awakening to a notion: weather runs in massive cycles, and every so often a monster storm hits.

The old system was built to drain the city’s common floods, not to save it from the once-in-century deluge that could fall in any year.

“A lot of engineering was done before people understood the risks,” Talbott said.

From the start, Talbott realized the enormous amount of work that remained to prepare for the big one. That, he said, is why he stayed around so long.

During his 35 years with the district he’s labored on the colossal effort that may save the city when the great flood comes. They’ve widened some bayous, built dozens of new reservoirs and enacted policies requiring new subdivisions to build their own.

It amounts to solid progress. But today, Talbott said, the challenges facing the district seem as steep as ever.

Urban saturation put tremendous unanticipated strain on the drainage system. Where water used to sift slowly through thick grass and gullies, it tumbled off rooftops, into gutters, onto driveways then down the street to the waterway, which can receive the full fury of the storm condensed in its banks within an hour of the storm.

The surge comes too quickly for the waterways to handle, and they overflow, even during rains of a magnitude they were built to handle. The only solution is to build them bigger, but it can’t easily be done.

Beneath a bridge on Mangum Road in northwest Houston, Talbott pointed out an approximately 100-foot wide concrete-lined Brick House Gully that drains about 10 square miles of cityscape into White Oak Bayou. It’s no wider than it was in 1950, and it won’t be expanded any time soon, even in spite of floods.

Back yards of homes and apartment complexes abut right up against the concrete lining of the waterway.

“They’re pretty much all like that,” Talbott said. “There’s always a last row of lots that shouldn’t have been built.

“I wish someone would have told us that 100 years ago,” he said.

The system is already stressed, it can’t easily grow, and it gets worse: the rains are getting harder.

“We’ve confirmed that there’s an overall increase in extreme rainfall in Texas over the past century,” said state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, citing his own unpublished research. “Specifically for Houston the increase has been particularly large.”

Counties surrounding Houston don’t exhibit the same trend, Nielsen-Gammon said, but the phenomenon has long been predicted by climate models and has been observed in the nation as a whole.

An independent review of more than 100 years’ of Houston rainfall records showed the same--that the heaviest rains are skewed towards recent decades.

Jeff Lindner, chief meteorologist for the HCFCD, pointed out three statistical anomalies in local rainfall: Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979, Allison in 2001 and the Tax Day flood in 2016.

“These would all be considered once-in-a-lifetime, off-the-charts rainfall and we’ve had it thrice in 37 years,” he said.

In a region straddling Harris and Waller counties, the Tax Day storms approached a scale of rainfall that Lindner said the region should expect once in a thousand years.

“We’re starting to get into a lot of estimation in those numbers, but clearly anything in that region would exceed the targets of our [flood drainage system] design,” he said.

“In modern times, as long as we’ve been keeping rainfall records, we never had close to this amount of rain out there [in Brays Bayou],” Lindner said.

There is no single cause for the increase in torrential downpours, but long before the trend was observed, scientists theorized it would accompany a warming climate because warm air holds more water that plummets to Earth when pressure systems yield a storm. Houston seems poised for a dry spell ahead (barring tropical storms), but the long term shift towards intensified rains is expected to continue.

So what can Houston do to contain them?

Talbott has a simple solution: allocate $26 billion, more than a fifth of the state’s 2015 budget, mostly to buy property adjacent to the waterways, bulldoze and expand the canals. That amount of money, he said, could get all of Houston prepared to weather a city-wide, once-in-a-century storm.

“I’m surprised we haven’t dug new bayous,” said Ron Sass, a veteran climate researcher at Rice University. “You know, tear down some houses. We build freeways. I would think that a bayou would be as important to our infrastructure as a freeway.”

But Houston is already stuck with tremendous debt, such that Moody’s Investors Service downgraded its bond rating in March. Issuing more debt would be a very tough sell.

“We’ve seen amazing engineering solutions throughout history,” Talbott said. “We have a lot of bright minds in Houston. I do think that there are engineering solutions to this problem.”

It will probably just be extremely expensive.

[bugbattalion]

6 Horrific Realities of Living With a Bedbug Infestation

But throwing out your belongings is harder than you think -- particularly if your goal is not to infect a bunch of strangers' houses with biting insects. Although we took precautions (wrapping our rugs and sheets in garbage bags, sealing them with duct tape, and labeling them with the word "bedbugs" and a cartoon picture of a mean-looking insect with frowny eyes), the dumpster scavengers were undeterred. In fact, while depositing our second load of plagued goods, we found some unwitting schlub collecting our very first load. He ignored our protests, threw the bag of bug-infested goods over his shoulder, and sauntered off, whistling a little tune like some kind of Johnny Fucking Appleseed of bedbugs.From then on, we knew the only way to avoid spreading our curse to others was to destroy everything we owned. We disassembled our futon and then smashed it with a hammer. I threw our TV into the dumpster hard enough to shatter its screen. My desk was cathartically splintered by my renfair ax.As far as personal catastrophes go, a bedbug infestation sounds fairly minor. You might even wonder why it pops up in the headlines so often, alongside all of the real problems people have. Until, that is, it happens to you.Then you find out it's a fucking nightmare.I did, when bedbugs infested my apartment. If your experience with bedbugs (which I sincerely hope you never have) is anything like mine and my wife's, here's what you have to look forward to ...

6. You Will Cover Yourself in Vaseline

Bedbugs are drawn inexorably toward any warm bodies, but since they can't jump or fly, their mobility is actually pretty low. Vaseline may as well be quicksand for them, so a common survival tactic for the afflicted is to create isolated beds, using Vaseline the way you'd use garlic as a vampire repellent. You smear the stuff on the bed frame and the legs of the bed to create an impassible barrier (you can also try nesting the legs of your bed in bowls of baby powder -- the little bastards get stuck in it). But what if the bedbugs are already in your bed, or places that can't be roped off with rings of Vaseline?

You smear it on yourself, that's what. And if you think you have too much dignity and self-respect to turn your body into a greasy insect trap, well, try living with bedbugs for a few months.

That's because getting bedbugs is like being a fan of the Chicago Cubs: Even though you know the days ahead are going to be filled with suffering and misery, you still have to get up every day and live your life. For instance, I had an active nightlife (that is, I did frequent late-night World of Warcraft raids), and bedbugs love their midnight munchies. So any time I looked down, I'd see a platoon of bloodsuckers sprinting across my desk. And I don't much like being bitten -- the distraction was seriously hurting my damage per second.

So, I slathered my ankles, wrists, and arms with coating after coating of Vaseline until I resembled a glazed doughnut. And yes, it worked -- the bugs would crawl up to me, try to feast on my delicious blood, and immediately get stuck. At the end of the night, I'd retire to the bathroom to scrape off the glaze -- which was by now covered in bedbug sprinkles. I was the doughnut Satan would give as ironic punishment to a glutton.

And if you're sitting out there judging my disgusting, insect-encrusted lifestyle, that's also part of the delightful bedbug experience. Because ...

5. You Will Be Unfairly Judged

Before we go any further, let's debunk some rumors:

First of all, bedbug infestations have nothing to do with how clean you are. Everything from my yuppie apartment building to the flagship Nike Store to the NYC Department of Health has had an outbreak -- even multimillionaires like Howard Stern aren't immune. Despite the best attempts to blame the bedbug problem on hippies, science has shown us that bedbugs are actually immune to DDT, so getting rid of it in the '50s had nothing to do with their current resurgence. Hell, they don't even really live in beds: They can infest everything from train seats to wallpaper to baseboards to your fucking alarm clock.

And no, getting rid of an infestation isn't just a matter of calling your landlord to have somebody come over and spray -- living with the little monsters doesn't mean the person is lazy or OK with it (who the hell would be?). These things haven't survived natural selection by being stupid -- after we sprayed, the bedbugs just followed us to other rooms, indulging in the sweet smorgasbord of our shed flesh that littered the floors of our living room and kitchen. All the bugs had to do was cross a few trivial feet of hardwood, a simple task for a creature that can scale electrical wire like a crazy parasitic Spider-Man.

Oh, and despite the fact that in Massachusetts my landlord was legally responsible for exterminating my bedbugs, he still tried to con me into paying for them, dodged summons to court, and in general acted like an all-around douche -- if there was a housing law for him to violate, he did it with panache. We escaped (sans our security deposit), and as far as we know he never got any comeuppance.

For support, I found myself reaching out to the only group who could truly sympathize: other people living with infestations. They are clustered on a little island of sanity in the middle of the Internet called BedBugger.com. As a source of news, information, commiseration, and (somehow) rationality, I can confidently say that they are totally responsible for what tattered shreds remain of my sanity (shortly after I joined, one long-term member actually let me call them in the middle of the night and panic). Just knowing other folks are going through the same thing makes you feel less alone. Not that I ever really felt "alone" with the 7 million other inhabitants in my apartment.

4. You Will Be Driven to Dangerous Measures

So you've sprayed your place and slathered yourself in petroleum jelly. Now you have to clear out your clothes. Short of spraying your stuff with horrifying pesticides, the easiest way to kill off bedbugs is to help them reach their "thermal death point," which is exactly what it sounds like: We crammed every piece of clothing we owned into the dryer for two hours, letting those bastards burn in there for $2.50 a load. By the end, it probably would've been cheaper to bribe the bugs out of our home with a whirlwind Vegas weekend of hookers and blow, but sadly, they're only insects with tiny brains and lack the physiology to properly enjoy cocaine or human genitals.

You're supposed to put everything that isn't laundry into an oven, and since I was working as a teacher, it was very important that anything I gave to my students (like their homework) be bug-free, lest I become the Typhoid Mary of bedbugs. But I ran into a problem: Stuff like paper, shoes, and sex toys can't go in an oven. Conventional wisdom says to heat them up with a sealable container and PackTite (a specialized heating system for situations just like this), but I'm not a big fan of conventional wisdom (that is, I was too broke to afford PackTite), so I put a bunch of non-clothing stuff in the dryer in the basement, wedged it closed with bricks so the heavier items wouldn't knock the door open, and left the machine running to scorch away my sorrows.

There was logic to my actions, of course -- the type of logic that rises like a misty aroma from a brain soaking in a cocktail of fear and madness. "I have too many things to put in the oven," I sang to myself, sweetly, "so I will put them in the dryer. The bugs will burn and I will be free." One of my neighbors failed to appreciate the beauty of my logic. His naive, bugless eyes saw not the key to sweet relief through death, but a gas dryer (which used an open flame) packed with flammable shit and wedged shut. He responded by dragging my ass into the basement and calling the cops.

I was let off with a warning and learned exactly nothing from this, because the fiery death of me and my neighbors was a trifle compared to the threat of bedbugs. I continued to cleanse my students' homework in the oven, which amounted to stuffing large amounts of paper near an open goddamn flame, right up until the end of the ordeal. At this point, I've used up so much residual good luck that I'm liable to die from someone else's game of Russian roulette.

But this, amazingly, was still just the beginning ...

3. You Will Have to Destroy Your Belongings

With our clothes scourged like LV-426 at the end of Aliens, we realized it was time to nuke our furniture from orbit as well -- which meant throwing out everything we owned.

But throwing out your belongings is harder than you think -- particularly if your goal is not to infect a bunch of strangers' houses with biting insects. Although we took precautions (wrapping our rugs and sheets in garbage bags, sealing them with duct tape, and labeling them with the word "bedbugs" and a cartoon picture of a mean-looking insect with frowny eyes), the dumpster scavengers were undeterred. In fact, while depositing our second load of plagued goods, we found some unwitting schlub collecting our very first load. He ignored our protests, threw the bag of bug-infested goods over his shoulder, and sauntered off, whistling a little tune like some kind of Johnny Fucking Appleseed of bedbugs.

From then on, we knew the only way to avoid spreading our curse to others was to destroy everything we owned. We disassembled our futon and then smashed it with a hammer. I threw our TV into the dumpster hard enough to shatter its screen. My desk was cathartically splintered by my renfair ax.

And no, we weren't just being paranoid -- the infection of others' homes through casually repossessed furniture is a bigger problem than you might hope. Boston, for example, is home to something called Allston Christmas, in which students from its roughly 7 billion colleges move out and leave most of their furniture on the curb. Guess what happens when you take that furniture home. Bedbugs. Bedbugs happen.

2. After Everything, You May Still Have to Flee Your Own Home

After two months of sealing our clothes in plastic bags the size of Godzilla condoms, scrubbing our bodies with buckets of isopropyl alcohol, and three failed pesticide treatments, we finally found the solution to our problems: retreat. That's right. We moved out of our apartment. The bedbugs won.

But our ordeal wasn't over: To make sure we didn't bring any of the vermin with us, we had to conduct a "truck-based treatment," which means we rented a U-Haul and turned it into an insect abattoir -- and, somehow, "loading everything you own into a truck and then baking it" is even more complicated than it seems.

First, we needed a propane permit, which meant we had to explain to a bunch of skeptical firefighters that this process wouldn't combust our crap. Second, we couldn't just throw our stuff in the U-Haul and be on our way -- we had to pack the truck carefully, making sure the air would be circulating and there would be no cool pockets for the flesh-eating bastards to hide in. And finally, we had to park a truck on a busy Boston street and hope no curious Sox fan wandered in and died of stupidity next to our mattress.

It looks crazy, and it worked. The guys hooked up the machine, we all took turns watching it heat, and then we got a pizza and just hung around for eight hours. Once we finished, we let our newest best friends drive off in their pickup and moved into our new apartment.

The infestation had cost us something close to $5,000 once all was said and done. Take a moment to imagine all of those people who A) don't have the money to do this and B) don't have the option to move. Oh, and it also cost my sanity.

That's because here is where I hit rock bottom. After weeks of torment, a hard day of moving, and the sweet relief of finally roasting every bug left on my personal belongings, I stripped off all my clothing to discover two massive bites on my leg. I panicked. The idea of all this expense and inconvenience being pointless sent me into a downward spiral, knowing that it all might have been for nothing.

1. You Will Be Scarred Forever

My new place, as it turned out, was bedbug-free. I didn't believe it until they brought in a bedbug-sniffing dog (yes, those exist, and they are the most wonderful things in the world) to convince me.

It turns out my psyche has been irrevocably warped by this experience. I'd call it PTSD, but that insults everyone who has experienced worse shit than mere bedbugs. Instead, I'll draw on my years of psychological training (seriously) to bullshit a new name: PBI, or post-bedbug insanity.

To get an idea of how my brain works now, take a look at the chaos around your computer. Check out that little black dot near the mouse. Is it lint? A food particle? A stray dingleberry? Or is it a bedbug? Now take off your pants and contemplate all the random red spots that have sprouted since you last inspected your legs. Is that new splotch an ingrown hair? A wildly inaccurate crotch piercing? Or is it a bedbug bite?

This is how I think now. Any stray speck of dust creates an instant rush of fear. Whenever I see a yard sale, it's all I can do to stop myself from screaming inane warnings and dousing each piece of furniture with gasoline. I've spent more time on my knees in hotel rooms than the average congressional aide, but I'm searching the mattress for evidence of an infestation instead of angling for a promotion.

And I'm not alone. People who experience bedbug infestations can end up depressed or socially anxious, start hallucinating, or other things that are way too depressing for a comedy article to get into. You might be thinking, "Oh, it's just insects," but that's because you don't understand how this problem gets under your skin and inside your brain and festers. Hold on -- I have an itchy lump near my elbow right now, and I was recently on an airplane. These must be bedbugs.

Excuse me, I need to go take a bath in isopropyl alcohol.

This article was first published on Cracked.com.

[junker-town]

Is Giancarlo Stanton just an ordinary baseball player now?

Don’t let this happen. He’s still amazing. You’ll see.

Aaron Judge, our sweet pituitary powerboy, is the sports sensation of the year. There was a chance that he was going to start the season in the minor leagues, and he’s putting up Barry Bonds home run totals instead. When Judge destroys the moon with a home run, he will be legally obligated to move the tides himself for the rest of his life, but do not blame him, for he knows not what he does. We have never seen anything like this.

I mean if you can think of another extremely large homer man who hits home runs 440 feet with alarming frequency, someone who towers over all of his peers, you’re welcome to chime in.

This is certainly the first time I’ve ever seen it. Unless ... wait ...

It sort of feels like we’ve forgotten about Giancarlo Stanton, everyone.

It’s both unfair and fair at the same time. It’s unfair because Stanton is still just two years older than Judge, still a youngster of sorts. He can still be a first-ballot Hall of Famer before he turns 32 or 33.

But it’s fair, in a way, because Stanton has been mostly unremarkable in a baseball sense over the last two seasons. He hit 27 homers last season, which is a fine total, except it tied him with Marcus Semien and Yasmani Grandal for 49th in baseball. And over the last calendar year, Stanton has hit .233/.309/.461 in 476 plate appearances, which is more like Pedro Feliz in his best seasons than the homer obelisk we grew used to.

Is this the Giancarlo Stanton we should get used to?

Before we answer that, take a step back and remember that Stanton isn’t just a dinger-besotted curiosity. He’s been one of the very best players in the game. When he was 22, he hit .290/.361/.608 with 37 home runs. Only five players had hit more home runs before turning 23, including Mel Ott, Frank Robinson, Eddie Mathews, and Alex Rodriguez. Tony Conigliaro snuck in there, which was an uncomfortable association after Stanton’s beaning in 2014, and Mike Trout and Bryce Harper later joined the club. That was it, though. It was a list that included some of the best baseball talents in the history of the sport.

When someone is that good, that young, they don’t have to get better and better and better until they’re 30, but it’s not unreasonable to hope that they will. And if they don’t, well, that’s a pretty sweet baseline they’ve established. If you change the search to 21-year-olds with 50 career homers, you get ...

Nine Hall of Famers (including Alex Rodriguez because, come on)

One of the saddest injury-related what-ifs in baseball history

Stanton, Trout, and Harper

Andruw Jones

Bob Horner

The Hall of Famers you expect. Tony Conigliaro still breaks my heart, even though I know about him only through books. The two active players who aren’t the subject of this article are amazing, generational talents. A case certainly could be made for Jones in the Hall of Fame, and you’ll hear a lot of those cases stated over the next year.

And then there’s Bob Horner, who is the real collar-tugging comparison on the list. A first-overall pick who won the Rookie of the Year when he was 20, Horner was on a Hall of Fame pace. By the time he was Aaron Judge’s age, he had hit 158 homers, but shoulder, wrist, and leg injuries hampered him shortly after, and after a quick, collusion-inspired season in Japan, he retired when he was 30.

This is the fear with Stanton, of course, who has missed 25 games or more in four out of his last five seasons. So it goes for exceptionally large baseball players. When you’re 13 different smaller men stacked up in an oversized trench coat, that just means there are 13 times as many muscles to pull. The only thing that can bring him down is an uncooperative body. So far, the returns are less than inspiring.

Back to that original question, though, about if this is the Giancarlo Stanton we should get used to. The only logical answer right now is “I don’t know, but I will protect my fanboy hopes with a switchblade if needed.” Stanton is one of my favorite all-time players to watch, so if he descends into the murky waters of Horner — while making $30 million or more deep into his 30s — it would be unfathomably depressing.

The good news is that great players can have subpar seasons, too. Of the players from that earlier list, Al Kaline was merely okay in an injury-marred season when he was 25. Eddie Mathews’ 1958 season was the kind of low-average, high-dinger season Stanton had last year, but he shook it off and had some of the best seasons of his career. Orlando Cepeda and Ken Griffey, Jr. both had injuries and less-than-stellar seasons in their mid-20s, only to rebound shortly after.

That’s where we are now, then. We’re in the middle of the story, and there’s an ending that goes down the Bob Horner path, and there’s an ending that leads to Cooperstown. It’s still just May, after all, and a month from now, Stanton might be hitting .290 with 20 homers, laughing at concern-trolling like this. I’d say the likeliest scenario is him rebounding to the player he was. We have 3,000 plate appearances that suggest Stanton is one of the best power hitters of all time, and about 600 that suggest he’s not the same player. It’s always wise to pay atention to the bigger sample.

I hope that’s the case, because all of the attention that’s rightfully going to Aaron Judge is making me miss the Giancarlo Stanton who excited the world in the same way. It wasn’t that long ago. And it doesn’t have to go away. The further away Stanton gets from his pre-2016 success, though, I’ll fidget and worry just a little bit more. The new flavor of the month is thrilling as all heck, but I’m not ready to toss the flavor of the last few years aside after 13 months of disappointing-if-solid numbers. He deserves better.