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indianamoonshine · 3 years ago

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Strawberry | Chapter 12 | Flames

Summary: Will joins the family dinner. The night can hide many things.

Rating: (+18) for…situations.

A/N: I'm SO SORRY for the long hiatus. Please accept this peace offering (jealous!Din) as a token of my gratitude.

TAG LIST: @t3a-bag @lumimon47 @dodgerandevans @hallway5 @dancingwiththeplanets @steeevienicks @orneryscandallousandevil @ficthots @gaiusfrakkinbaltar @reginagina-blog1 @loveme-tenderly @lastphoenixrising @rattlemyb0nes @rebellou @alljusthumans @gaiuswrites @lovecatsnotpeople

The symposium of a midwestern dinner sounds a lot like Bach's work.

Difficult notes with high to reach places and then very low caverns just a moment later. The cicadas in the background are a nice touch; it's something Tchaikovsky might have wished he could capture. Silverware - old enough to be considered vintage now - clank against the porcelain dinner plates. Charlotte lets out her fae-like laughter and Rhea listens intently, eyes gazing dreamily upon Tommy as he carries on conversation. The house is full tonight.

You suppose it was out of the kindness of your father's heart to invite Will to this dinner. Everyone within a two mile radius usually came to these spur-of-the-moment things. Will was an old family friend and his father supplied yours with fresh goat's milk and chicken eggs, so it wasn't all that strange he came along. Still, it made the meal a bit more difficult to swallow. Quite literally.

Din is sitting directly across from you. You think it might have been intentional because Will chose to plop his happy ass right beside you, grinning that lopsided smile and charming his way out of the discomfort with a joke. You play the part by laughing when he tries to outwit everyone in the room or by asking him how the farm manages these days. Will isn't a cocky person by nature, but something about the rigidness of his composure when Din asks for the green beans makes you all too suspicious.

It doesn't make any sense. Will broke things off with you. If he were to be jealous, it wouldn't be for anything but pride and show. A year ago it would've bothered you that Will was cajoling the room for the sake of his vanity, but now it was just embarrassing for everyone involved.

"Din, do you remember the summer of '90?" your father asks across the table, clearly involved in another conversation that pertains to this anecdote.

The man across you hums and shakes his head with a reluctant grin. "I try not to," he fibs, cutting at his steak.

Your father chuckles. "I was nineteen and Din was..." he pauses. "Jeez, Din. How old were ya?"

"Seventeen."

"Ah, right! Rhea hadn't been born yet but Scarlett was pregnant with her by the end of the summer. That was our last free year, wasn't it? Well, mine anyway." You dad points his fork in Rhea's direction, a bit of steak dangling from its end. "And then you came along."

Rhea scoffs. "Well, geez. My bad for existing."

There's no darkness in either of their words so the exchange makes everyone at the table chuckle in good humor. Your father and Din go back and forth about the irresponsible and, well, illegal things that had been done that summer. Underage drinking. Trespassing. And somehow Din always got away with it.

"He never got us caught. Ever. I still don't know how you did it." Your father says to his friend, eyes wrinkling with a genuine smile. "Damn good thing too considering how much pot we smoked. It's a good thing my girls didn't get that rebellious streak."

A witty response is formed upon your lips but only until Will cuts you off.

"I don't know about that," he pipes in.

You're taken aback, quite literally tossing your head to gauge his interjection. "What?"

An indifferent silence hushes the dinner party. Your sisters chew their food carefully, eyes glued upon the scene before them like it was one of their soap operas. Your father awaits an explanation with a rather scandalized look upon his face, but Will's father - Clarence - doesn't seem at all fazed by any probability of illegal activity.

Will rolls his chin to serve you an exasperated look. "Oh, come on. We're adults now; we can come clean." He drenches his steak in more A1 sauce before revealing: "Your daughter was the one to egg the sheriff's house."

The entire room initially goes as silent as a graveyard before everyone chokes on a snort and begins to roar with laughter. Clarence slaps your father on the back as the two of them snicker like a pair of hyenas.

"Will!" you growl. "You said you'd take that to your deathbed!"

The pain in the ass beside you howls with laughter, holding his stomach, and having to pause from drinking his beer. "Daffi, it's fine. They can't do anything about it now."

"That's not the point!" you scowl.

Din is grinning from ear to ear, obviously amused by your humiliation. It was a childish thing to do but the sheriff was a dick in the worst way and you wanted him to know it. That was a hot summer - record breaking, actually - and by the time he'd woken, the egg had dried upon his lawn and across the face of his home. Ole' Sheriff Winslow scoured the town for weeks before finally abandoning his quest altogether.

"You got something to say, Mister Djarin?" you inquire playfully, scolding him with a fire in your eyes.

Din clears his throat and furrows his brows. "No, no. I wouldn't dare."

The two of you exchange a glance that was far too intimate for this dining room. His eyes softened upon meeting yours and his smirk was silly, drunk on something other than the beer in his hand. If it weren't for dear Will's additional reminiscence, you might've fallen under the spell lingering in the space between you.

"Yeah, that was a great summer. We had our first kiss that year, remember?"

You blink, all thoughts of Din's mouth upon yours fizzling away like steam. Instead, it is replaced with the frayed-edged memory of Will's rusted pick-up parked in the darkest corner of the local McDonalds. It was hardly a first kiss worth mentioning if it hadn't been for how good he was at it and how bad you were. Still: what the fuck?

You wanted to say just that but refrained from doing so. Instead you say, "Lots of awkward fumbling if I recall." It comes out sharp - petty. If he wanted to behave like a child, you could do it too.

Din's trying so desperately hard not to glare at Will. You can see it in the deliberate chug of his beer.

“What. The. Hell.”

“I know.”

“Wait,” Charlotte holds up a hand, expression dumbstruck. “I’m not done.”

You roll your eyes and scrub at a particularly stubborn dish, waiting for her dramatics to be over.

“…was that?” she finishes.

Rather anti-climactic.

“It’s Will,” you tell her, voice bored but teetering on the edge of fury. “It’s fucking Will. What do you expect?”

Charlotte shakes her head, eyes bulging with disbelief as she blinks over and over again as though trying to compute. She takes a dish from you, sopping wet, and begins to dry it with a rag. You know Charlotte is eager to gossip because she never - never - offers to help clean after supper.

Everyone else is carrying on from the awkward conversation by sitting at the bonfire and making pudgy-pies. It’s the kind of snack one eats when they need to forget about anything other than the impending weight gain. You watch from the window as Rhea slathers Nutella upon a piece of white bread and then some cut strawberries. Honestly, you could really go for one, but the idea of being anywhere near Will makes your skin crawl.

“Did he say anything to you? Before dinner? Or after? Like…why would he say something like that?” Charlotte carefully stacks the delicate plates atop each other. They clank against one another noisily.

Like cymbals within the symphony.

“Nope,” you tell her. “Not a word. I have no idea what’s gotten into him.”

Charlotte goes silent, rubbing at the plates until they’re dry as a bone, and then whispers, “He obviously knows.”

You square your jaw, glancing around to make sure no one is in the vicinity, and then let out a great sigh. “Yeah, I’m sure he does. I was all over Din at the bar.”

Your dear sister brightens at the mention of the night prior. She stops her drying and places her hands upon your shoulders so that you may look her in the eyes. You see mahogany. Deep. Rich. Full of life and excitement. In her eyes, it is proof that she’s a good spirit and in good health. (And…well, maybe a little tipsy, but that’s besides the point.)

“I like him. For you.” Is what she confesses. She places her hands upon your cheeks and squishes them together. You protest, taking her wrists and wrestling her, but giggling all the while. “I mean it. I think he adores you. And so do I.”

You nod in her grasp. “Okay, okay! I know, yes. I know!” you chuckle, breathless from the lack of air supply. She still has you in a chokehold. “Can you please let me go now?!”

Charlotte releases you from her trap and you gasp a throat-full of air, belly aching from laughter. The two of you embrace one another in a hug, attempting to lift the other, and then falling upon the linoleum - sore with serenity.

There is something stirring in Din.

It is a fire that has just been fanned from embers he sought to snuff out. But they hadn’t perished, despite how hard he had tried. The coals burned. He burned.

For you.

At the bar, Din ignored Will to the best of his ability; sort of like how one ignores an irritating bumblebee. Leave him be, Din had chanted. He’s harmless. After all, Din had years stacked against Will. How was it possible to be so insecure by this kid?

Because that’s essentially what he is, right? He’s so goddamned young; he looks as though he’s never taken a hit in his life. He’s too pretty, too put together. He’s firm skin and tight abs. And Din, well…

Din was not.

Din was old. He was well past forty years of age now, playing house with a woman over twenty years his senior. No matter how well he managed to keep the façade so believable, it would one day end in disaster - embarrassment. Heartache. And defeat. He can’t bear the thought.

It wasn’t like him. He’s never given a shit about anyone’s perception of him before, nevertheless mulled over the ex of a romantic interest. Not to say that Din’s ever felt the way he did with you; no one has even come close. Xian was his longest “situationship” and when it inevitably burst into flames, he didn’t bat an eye. (He wonders if that makes him a terrible person.) If his toxicity with Xian was worth anything, it was just a testament of his endurance.

But you. The world fucking blurs when you’re near.

So when Will - cocky as Din once was - utters unsolicited bullshit, it takes every ounce of dignity he has left to remain silent.

We had our first kiss that year, remember?

There is a primal urge to reach across the table and wring the smug expression from Will’s face, to grab you with an unfamiliar hunger, carry you across the acre, and toss you onto his bed and just…

No. That was brutish. He wasn’t like that. He couldn’t allow himself to feel possessive over you because you couldn’t be owned. He knew that. But that fire licked at his inner conscious until he had to excuse himself from dinner altogether.

The darkest parts of him pace during the bonfire, though he manages to sit still and interpret Will’s behavior. His youth glows betwixt the crazed flames, an ombré of red and orange dancing across everyone’s skin. Din watches, he listens, he notes every little thing like hunters do. Because for some reason - some ungodly, twisted reason - Din felt as though Will were a bounty now. It’s the only way he could feel superior.

“Daffodil!” Will calls out suddenly. “Get over here!”

The hinges in Din’s jaw pop as he clenches his teeth, grinding them so forcefully he thinks Rhea - who sits beside him - might hear. When you arrive from the house (he guessed you were cleaning up, just as you always do), he notes the skimpy length of your cotton shorts and…

Wait. Is that his shirt?

It is. It’s the very same shirt Din offered you after the rain debacle after the bar. It was one of his favorites despite how plain it was; just a grey t-shirt that fit snugly on him but dwarfed you entirely. It skimmed the top of your knees and pressed against the swell of your chest. That something within him growled once more.

“Come sit,” Will instructs, patting at his lap.

You hesitate. “I…”

Will chuckles, urging you with waggling fingers. “We’ve been like this since we were kids, Daffi. Come on.”

There’s a pathetic attempt to steady himself as Din watches you perch upon Will’s lap.

You’re wearing his shirt. You’re wearing his shirt. You’re wearing his shirt. You’re wearing his shirt…

The group chats a while longer, exchanging stories Din’s never heard, but none of it matters. You’re on another man’s lap. And despite Mark’s very obvious presence, he wants so badly to grip your wrist and run.

“I’ve seen you before,” Will says suddenly. He points a finger in Din’s direction, eyes a little hooded from drink. “Weren’t you at the bar a couple of nights ago?”

Those who partook in the rendezvous go silent. Rhea freezes and Charlotte blanches, looking towards their dear sister who’s pale in the face now. Mark, in his sheer oblivion, raises a brow. Din’s been in every intense situation imaginable, but something about now makes his gut churn.

He could loose you. Right now.

He’s about to lie, to make up some bullshit excuse about having ‘one of those faces’, but Rhea pipes in.

Her voice is strong and firm when she says, “What the hell are you talking about? He wasn’t there.”

Effortless. Shoulders sag, the tension subsiding thanks to Rhea’s impeccable skill.

“Strange. Swore I saw you with…” he shakes his head and shrugs. “Never mind.”

An artificial laugh - so sickly sweet that it’s almost impossible to digest - escapes your lips. “You must’ve drank too much. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

His kiss takes you by surprise.

You’re walking back to the house after the men have soiled the fire and everyone’s said their good nights when he just does it.

It’s covertly enough, but it’s shocking. A massive hand encircles your wrist and pulls you behind the shed out back, pressing you against the mossy wood and stealing the breath from your lungs. It’s the biggest risk the two of you have taken. For God’s sake, your father is just now walking inside the main house and Din’s mouth is attached to the hollow of your neck.

You’re dizzy, gripping his shoulders so tightly that the fabric of his shirt warps beneath your fingers. “Din,” you breathe out. He kisses you speechless again and you break for air. “Din, what’s the matter?”

He curses under his breath. It’s sharp. Fuck. It’s not angry, per say, but it is damaged. You weave your fingers through his hair as he settles his breathing, concentrating on the strings of your shorts that he fiddles with.

“I…” He sighs, pressing his nose against your cheek. His breath is warm and you shiver. “He touched you.”

He sounds ashamed. Embarrassed. You can’t imagine how difficult it must be to vocalize your self-doubt as someone who relishes in secrecy. He had a wall built around him and it was made of iron.

“Not like you,” you whisper shyly.

You had some walls of your own. He was tearing them down like that of Jericho.

There’s softness in the air. The two of you are silent, eyes closed, and mouths inches apart. Exchanging of breath. It’s an ancient form of intimacy.

You trust him. You trust him with your life.

His hand feels natural in your own as you lift it to your breast. The trembling of his fingers is almost endearing; the man was far older than you and he still shook at the mere touch of a woman.

“No one can touch me like you.” Your hands glide south, pressing underneath the fabric covering the raw parts of you, until you stop at the band of your panties. “No one can.”

It’s all he needs to hear.

Soon after, he kisses you fiercely, but not without nodding in agreement. And that very hand, which grazes so deliciously at your belly, finally dips.

Sparks.

#strawberryfic #din djarin x reader #mando x reader #din x you #din x reader #din x y/n #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian x you

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darlingpetao3 · 4 years ago

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House of W (Multiple!Wells x Reader, Chapter 4)

Rating: T

Summary: After having to deal with the deaths of an infinite number of Harrison Wells in the Multiverse, you, a magic-wielding meta, have a breakdown and unwittingly create a happy, fictitious sitcom life with some of your favourite men. In a world of comedy and cameos, can Team Flash and an out-of-town magician break through your powers to save you? And what if you don’t want to be saved...?

A/N: Alright! Here’s where we continue from where Team Flash left off. We’ll see Chapter 3 from their perspective, and somethings might make a bit more sense as well as raise more questions!

Tag List: @fandomdancer @bluesclues-1234 @pinkdiamond1016 @crissymadlock @firstofficer-tilly @disneyoncerlover815 @marvel-lady10 @thecaptainsgingersnap @noctvrnalmoth @alexxlynn @dontbedumb3 @heyl0lwhatsup @ryou-cosmos @arianalilyblack @sonnensplitter @imagine-yourself-happy

PROLOGUE | CHAPTER 1 | CHAPTER 2 | CHAPTER 3

Barry is the first to sprint out of the Cortex, leaving everyone else in the dust and papers flying.

The rest of Team Flash and Zatanna rush after the Speedster down the halls of S.T.A.R. Labs as fast as they can to the elevator. Only when they reach it are they met by Barry to inform them of your discovered whereabouts.

“She’s in the basement,” he tells them. “You have to see this.”

Indeed, they all take a ride down to the building’s lowermost level—an enormous concrete space and incredibly high ceilings. But there is one thing very much out of the ordinary here.

“Holy Forcefield, Batman…” Cisco says at the sight before them all.

A glowing, translucent purple sphere surrounds what looks to be an empty set—the set of your magical sitcom everyone had been watching for the past two episodes. It’s eerily dark and quiet. Chester can’t seem to resist its beauty and mystery as he walks even closer toward it and reaches out a hand.

“Careful Chester-!” Caitlin warns him a little too late. Chester yanks his arm back after touching the forcefield with a yelp. He looks at everyone.

“Are you hurt?” a concerned Barry asks.

“I…” Chester shakes his head in disbelief. “I saw something awful. It was, uh… from my childhood. I thought I’d forgotten it…”

“Why don’t you go sit down for a bit?” Caitlin ushers the poor traumatized man to a seat by the wall.

Meanwhile, Zatanna utters a few backwards phrases and moves her hands in the direction of the purple sphere. The gang waits to hear of what she’s learning.

“Just as I thought,” she says at last. “This forcefield (Y/N) has put up is embedded with Anarchy Magic. And it seems she’s made it so that whoever touches or tries to break through her magic will experience trauma and heartbreak from the trespasser’s life.”

“How tragically fitting,” Caitlin comments sadly as she thinks of you and all you’ve been through. Barry takes this information in and stares into the darkened sitcom set.

“What are we going to do?” Cisco wonders out loud.

“This could be our chance,” Barry says, already churning out the beginnings of a plan. “Zatanna, do you think you could breach through (Y/N)’s forcefield with your magic?”

“I’ll need a little more time to study it, but yeah,” Zatanna assures, “I think I can.”

“Great. We’ll prepare ourselves while we wait.”

“Wait for what?” Caitlin asks. Barry turns to her.

“For Episode Three.”

~ ~ ~ ~

The part of the S.T.A.R. Labs basement which Team Flash has access to has now been essentially transformed into half campground/half studio audience seating. The latter was Cisco’s idea, naturally.

Everyone had stayed the night on mats and foldable tents found in the Starchives. A certain longhaired engineer even made the correlation that this felt a lot like camping out in line in front of a theater for a much-anticipated movie release.

After staying up too late theorizing and plotting your safe return, the campers are rudely awakened by a jingle—a very groovy disco-sounding theme.

“Iiiiit’s startiiiing!” Cisco shouts, making sure to grab his pillow and a bag of pre-popped popcorn

The others—Caitlin, Allegra, and Chester grumble and mozy out of their sleeping bags, whereas Barry and Zatanna burst out of theirs with a raring purpose.

Through the forcefield, they can see a flurry of Wells men running around the house doing various tasks in preparation for your impending baby. It all feels very real to the onlookers, not fake or acting on any of the doppelgangers’ parts. They really do believe you’re having a baby.

Barry doesn’t want to fully believe it. Part of him still wants to believe this is all for show—a fictional world with pre-planned plots and storylines. It would be so much easier for him if that were the truth.

Because the other option was a lot more painful to deal with.

Even as everyone watches and laughs along at the antics, none of the ‘stars’ on the other side of the magic forcefield can hear them.

“She looks like she’s gonna burst,” Barry notes at your exponentially growing size. “At this rate, she’ll have the baby by the end of the episode. We need to help her. Zatanna, Caitlin, are you ready for what we talked about last night?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Caitlin says.

“Let’s do this,” Zatanna replies.

“Great.” Barry sighs a worried breath. “Caitlin, I’m giving you this comms so that we can keep in contact even on the inside. Zatanna has bewitched it to look like an earring. And I’m going to let Cisco take the reins on walking you through what to say since he is apparently this show’s number one fan.”

“Gotcha, boss.”

“Uh, guys?” Allegra pipes up. “Her water just broke!”

“It’s now or never,” Barry exhales.

Zatanna holds out her palms toward Caitlin, then speaks in a clear voice, “Mlaer moctis eht edisni ylefas niltiaC dnes.”

At this, Caitlin vanishes before the team’s very eyes. Everyone can only hope she is safely on the other side of the forcefield.

“And now we wait,” Zatanna confirms.

“Popcorn?” Cisco proffers his bag to everyone.

“Shhhhh!”

With Caitlin now officially in the sitcom realm—clad in a white doctor’s coat and a stethoscope hanging around her neck—the door whisks open in front of her to reveal Nash Wells. Even for her, seeing his face again is a shock. While she and Frost were away with Doctor Tannhauser for a time, she had received word from Barry saying that Nash and the other Wells had sacrificed themselves.

And yet, here they all are, standing in the doorway with panicked eyes about the fact that you’re having their baby.

Oh, right! This is my cue, she thinks.

“Uh, hi,” Nash says, a little confused. “Who are you?”

~~“Remember, you can’t give your real name in case (Y/N) catches on. You have to play along,”~~ Cisco advises in her ear. She remembers that he, along with the rest of Team Flash, can see her on the other side of the forcefield. To her, however, she merely sees a plain wall.

“Yes, hi! My name is C… uhh...”

~~“Say Elsa, say Elsa, say El-”~~

“Elsa?”

Dammit, Caitlin curses mentally. Frost laughs in the back of her head while Cisco cackles in her comms. The doctor, now thoroughly annoyed, plays with her earring to turn off communication with the outside world. Cisco’s prank could have cost them big time. She’s going to do this herself. No distractions.

“I’m a doctor,” Caitlin continues. “I was making the rounds in the neighbourhood and heard some yelling coming from your home. Are you in need of a doctor?”

“Actually, yes,” Harry confirms. It’s so strange. He’s looking right at Caitlin—they all are—but they truly do not recognize her. It makes your friend realize just how powerful you really are.

Meanwhile on the outside, Team Flash is having mixed emotions about the birth of your baby. Barry is still in disbelief that he is becoming an uncle before his eyes. Cisco, Chester, and Allegra are fanboying and fangirling over the moment. And then there is Zatanna, watching with a neutral expression.

They watch Caitlin help deliver baby Liberty, although entirely and conveniently out of view from the “camera” and the transparent forcefield.

But when the surprise of Belle arrives, well, that earns literal applause from Cisco.

“Do you think they’re real?” Barry quietly asks Zatanna away from everyone else.

“I’m still unsure,” she answers. “They sure all look happy, though.”

Barry doesn’t respond to this.

Once the babies are safe with their cooing fathers and you’ve magically seemed to have cleaned up from the ordeal of birthing twins, you approach Caitlin.

“Doctor Elsa, I can’t thank you enough for your help today,” you say to Caitlin. For a moment, she forgets you’re referring to her with the accidental alias. “What a coincidence that you showed up at my door just as I was going into labour! You must have a sixth sense about these things.”

“It’s a gift!” she says pleasantly. “But really, how have you been doing? Are you well?”

You give her a curious look. “Yes, of course I’m well. I have two beautiful daughters and four wonderful husbands. A house full of love. I couldn’t be happier.”

Caitlin knows she shouldn’t press on anything about the ‘behind the scenes’ of your sitcom reality, but this is all so confusing and mysterious that her scientific mind can’t help but form a myriad of questions.

“What is it?” you ask.

Caity, I’m not sure… Frost begins to voice her worry in her head.

“It’s just…” Caitlin drops to a whisper so as to not let the Wells men hear, “how are they here?”

Your face drops. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Your husbands. They… died. Vanished. How did you do all of this?”

Your entire body glows with a purple aura, and Caitlin half-wonders if you’re starting to levitate slightly.

You look like a vengeful and magical angel of death.

“Get out,” you tell her.

“(Y/N), no, please, listen,” she tries, but it’s too late. A powerful blast of energy hits Caitlin in the gut, knocking the wind from her lungs and backwards. Her body comes in contact with something hard, then squishy, and…

“Ronnie?” she says. “No, please…”

What she sees is all around her as she’s pushed back through the forcefield—the death of her husband, Ronnie Raymond. It’s like it’s happening all over again, watching as he flies up into the windy vortex above the city as Firestorm. The last time she’ll ever see him alive again.

“Caitlin? Caitlin!” Barry worries over his friend. She looks totally out of it as she lays on the concrete floor, safely back in reality once more. “Are you okay?”

Caitlin grunts, her brow furrowed. She’s trying to keep everything she saw inside. For a second time.

“Yup, I’m good,” she claims. Allegra and Cisco help her up and over to their makeshift audience seats.

Barry sighs and soon becomes lost in thought. “You know what I still don’t get?”

“What’s that?” Zatanna replies.

“What about in the last episode where they were working at S.T.A.R. Toy Manufacturing? Those were our hallways upstairs. And I don’t see any extra sets. Do you think the forcefield, I dunno, moved with them?”

“If that’s the case, it would be as if (Y/N)’s magic is writing and rewriting itself. And if so, as she moves, everything around her gets recreated. Like the era-changing set. That’s what we see on screen. It’s like a battery that was left on.”

“So what, does that mean eventually she’s going to run out of power? Or short circuit?”

“That, I still don’t know. This kind of magic she wields is unlike anything I’ve seen before. I’m learning about it as much as you are.”

Cisco does a little jog over the two conversing theorists.

“How is she?” Zatanna asks the engineer.

“Not physically hurt… but I can see that she is inside. Emotionally.”

Barry’s lips press into a thin line.

“Hey, so, do you think the Wells can… get out of her forcefield radius?” Cisco asks the magician. Instead, Barry answers first.

“Knowing (Y/N), she wouldn’t have made that an option.”

#reader insert #harrison wells x reader #harrison wells imagine #harrison wells fanfiction #harry wells x reader #harry wells imagine #nash wells x reader #nash wells imagine #sherloque wells x reader #sherloque wells imagine #hr wells x reader #hr wells imagine #the flash imagine #the flash fanfiction

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heyzagman · 4 years ago

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SO! I’ve been thinking about how Zagreus, a literal god, trained fighter under Achilles, has to fight through each region of the underworld, powered by the Olympians and ancient Titan-slaying weapons, dying multiple times, before he is able to reach the surface. And Orpheus, dude who has never held a sword in his life, just walked right in and out with only his lyre and his falsetto. I’ve been thinking about that so here’s a fic from the prospective of Thanatos about it:

disclaimer: I have no idea what the underworld timeline looks like so we are shooting pinball with the ages of the gods here

Thanatos was but a godling when the Orpheus debacle happened. Queen Persephone was with child, attempting to grow a new plant in the garden, when they all heard the singing. This was the first Thanatos himself had heard of it, although Mother Nyx and Lord Hades did not seem alarmed. Specifically, Mother Nyx did not look surprised, but instead, impressed. Lord Hades was enraged. He stood up dramatically, slamming his hands on his desk. Thanatos had been speaking to Mother Nyx about his future duties, the young god had recently found his calling and would soon be working among his older brother Charon and the young Olympian Hermes helping souls to their final resting home.

Speaking of, Lord Hades was working on attempting to gain communication with the god of messengers.

An orange orb appeared in the air, as a quick voice emerged, echoing around the house.

“Hey there, boss, you called?”

Lord Hades’ voice bellowed, trying to be heard over the distant plucking of a lyre. “Have you yet found out who exactly has infiltrated my realm?”

“About that, you see, that’s gonna be Orpheus, son of a Muse, you know those.”

“Why is he here? How did he get so far? I can hear that obnoxious lyre from my desk.”

Hermes tsked. “Well, that’s not a question for me, boss. That’s a question for your security system.”

“My security system is in ORDER! I would have heard if he had killed even one of my wretches.”

“Guess he’s not killing them then, huh? Anyway, good luck, keep me updated, gotta dash.”

The orange orb zapped out and the presence of Olympus left the chamber.

“Agh!” Hades pressed his fingers on his forehead. In a low voice, he called for Nyx.

Mother Nyx carted a hand through Thanatos’s hair to calm him before she rose to speak to Lord Hades.

Thanatos stood up and began walking towards the garden. Hypnos was standing at the doorway of the garden, peering out.

“What are you doing?” Thanatos asked.

“You know, just waiting for the Muse’s kid to get here.”

“He cannot. No one alive can enter the underworld, much less the House. The wretches will stop him.”

Hypnos grinned. “He’s gotten through both Elysium and Asphodel. Tartarus is probably a cakewalk, who knows when’s the last time those shades have heard music?”

“You think he is getting through just with his singing?” Thanatos looked through the doorway. Queen Persephone was no longer tending her garden. Instead, she was simply standing and looking, waiting.

“I can tell that some of the shades out there--they’re sleeping.” Hypnos wrapped himself in his blanket. He said it nonchalantly, as if sleeping shades was a common incident when, on the contrary, it should have been impossible.

Thanatos hovered closer to his twin, whispering harshly: “Don’t you think you should do something about that? Can’t you wake them up or something?”

Hypnos yawned. “I’m Sleep Incarnate, brother. ‘Waking up’ isn’t really my domain.”

Even if it had been, it would have been for naught. A melody erupted from the garden and the twins barely moved out of the way as all the shades in the House burst out the door in a green river of souls. The eruption, followed by a shout of anger from Lord Hades himself, was matched with the appearance of a young man, surrounded adoringly by shades, walking into the garden.

In his short trips to and from the surface, he had heard music but nothing quite like this. This was a melody that seemed to be aimed directly to his heart, his heart, as if it was sung just for him. Hypnos beside him seemed as close to wide awake as he’d ever been, as the two godlings peered out to the garden.

The musician, Orpheus, continued his descent through the garden. Queen Persephone held a dark purple plant to her chest and stepped aside, allowing him entry. She stood still for a moment, and then threw down her flower and ran ahead of Orpheus, past the twins, and to the desk of Lord Hades.

As Orpheus and his parade of shades entered the House, Thanatos watched Queen Persephone take Lord Hades’ hands in hers and whisper a plea.

The professional plucking of the lyre echoed and bounced around the chambers, drawing out shades. The House had never felt like this before, everyone kept to themselves and milled in silence. Even the announcement of the pregnancy of the Queen hadn’t held such a communicable celebration. The arrival of Orpheus drew in everyone. Thanatos could see even Sir Achilles swaying on his feet, debating to leave his post to get closer to the music.

Mother Nyx appeared behind her sons, resting a hand on each of their heads.

“Mother, what will happen to him?” Thanatos asked.

“I believe the Queen is attempting to sway Lord Hades’ anger of the musician’s trespassing, my son.”

“But he must be punished,” Thanatos said, finding sorrow in his tone.

“Yes, my child. But we do not yet know the extent of his crime. The Queen wishes for him to, at the least, be heard.”

Thanatos believed Orpheus was already, clearly, being heard. Mother Nyx remained with the twins as the scene unfolded before them.

As bold as his actions had been and as long as his journey, Orpheus seemed nervous. He arrived before Lord Hades’ desk. The God of the Dead was standing tall, one hand curled in a large fist, slammed down on a pile of parchment-work. The other was gentle, as Queen Persephone was clutching it.

Instead of immediately striking down, sending the man’s soul flailing hopelessly towards Tartarus, Lord Hades said: “Do tell, what has prompted you to defy my power and waltz into my home?”

Orpheus’s song stopped and Thanatos could have wept due to the sudden silence (some shades did). His hands shook as he held his lyre close. “My lord, I-I did not mean disrespect to you and your House, or-or, to the Queen. Quite simply, my muse, my love, my Eurydice, had fallen to unkindly fate which led her here. And, well, I do intend to be taking her home with me.”

Lord Hades laughed starkly at that. “Ah, I see. Not only do you break into my home but you expect to leave with another soul? A soul that rightfully belongs here? Have you any idea who you speak to?”

“Uh, I believe you are Lord Hades?”

“That--why you--”

Lord Hades paused and leaned down to the Queen Persephone, who spoke quickly and quietly. A hand rested on her stomach and the god’s expression softened.

A heavy sigh blew around the chamber. Lord Hades sat down in his chair. The Queen found a seat as well. He said, “Well then. Go on.”

“I’m sorry, my lord?” Orpheus, as well as Thanatos, seemed surprised.

“If your intentions are of that--of love--well, I will need you to convince me. How do I know this is not a ploy? How do I know you did not come here in malice against me and my family?”

Orpheus brought a smile to his face. “I-I see, my lord. I have a song, if you’d be willing, that will assure you my true intentions.”

Lord Hades nodded. Queen Persephone smiled and leaned forward, as if she was preparing to soak in the moment, savoring every note of the lyre and utterance of the man.

Orpheus began to sing a love song. It began light and happy and adoring. Thanatos did not need to process the words for the feeling of it was enough to be understood. Mother Nyx gently pushed on his back and allowed them to move forward.

Thanatos and Hypnos didn’t need more encouragement. Without much thought, the twins broke their endless hover and walked, feet on cold tile, to sit at Orpheus’s feet and listen. Amongst them were all of the shades, gathered around, emerging out of the lounge and administration chamber. Cerberus rested all three heads on the ground, puppy eyes pondering Orpheus. Achilles did not give breaking his post a second thought, and walked over to be closer, leaning with his head against the wall, closing his eyes tightly, as if trying to imagine himself somewhere different.

The end of the song came too quickly and too sorrowfully. Contrary to the beginning, the ending was of grief and mourning, of loss and the extent one will go to lay eyes on their lover again.

At the last note, it seemed like a spell had been broken, releasing the House from the song. Thanatos did not realize how much time had passed, but felt in renewed spirits. He wished to thank Orpheus, but instead rose again, grabbing the hand of his twin, who had curled in his quilt, yawning.

Thanatos returned to Mother Nyx who was watching Lord Hades at his desk, wiping his eyes and furrowing his brow. Thinking of what would come next.

But they all remembered how it went.

Time later, the Queen left and returned, both times due to her son, Zagreus. Orpheus was back and singing once again. Zagreus found Thanatos peering over the River Styx.

“Hey, Than!” Zagreus had just returned from another run, ransacking the underworld. Of course, Thanatos had lent a hand, but that wasn’t something that needed to be announced. It had taken Thanatos time to justify his actions. Especially before it was Zagreus’s duty to do so, back when Thanatos thought that everytime he helped, he was only assisting in Zagreus leaving him.

“Hello, Zagreus.”

“Did you hear? I was able to lift Orpheus’s punishment, he can visit Asophel to see his muse whenever he’d like.”

“That’s great, Zag. I’m sure he appreciated that very much.”

“I sure hope so, it cost me a couple diamonds. I suppose I’ll just get more from Lernie. Actually, I came to ask, weren’t you there? When Orpheus first came through?”

“Yes, I was,” the song Orpheus had sang was a low hum in the back of his mind ever since, “but I was quite young.”

“I see. I can’t stop thinking about it, you know? Everyday or night, I nearly die trying to get out of here, and that’s with help from a lot of gods. And he just walked through. I doubt he fought.”

“No, he did not. He just sang.”

“I’ll have to give it to him. He made it look easy--the getting in part, at least,” Zagreus smiled. The song, that damn song, seemed to play louder Thanatos’s head. What were the words of it? Did it matter? Why was it louder now, but less clear?

Zagreus was talking, asking him a question: “So, do you think you would?”

“What?”

“Look back. If you had been Orpheus, would you have looked back?”

“Oh, well. I don’t know.”

“Me neither. Seems like a pretty simple task with a high reward, don’t you think?”

Thanatos nodded. Seemed so. Then again, sometimes things that seem so simple prove to be the most difficult.

“Alright, I need to trade in some fish, thanks for the help back there?”

“Of course,” Thanatos said as he watched Zagreus trot off, waving to Achilles on the way.

He, he thinks, understands. He knows, actually. If it was Zagreus behind him, he would have to turn back.

He would have to know. Could he be faulted for that?

#thanzag #fic #orpheus #eurydice #thanatos #zagreus #hades game #hades #hades supergiant #nyx #mother nyx #hypnos hades #achilles #im sorry if there are typos grammar issues #i wrote this quickly #fanfiction

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onisiondrama · 4 years ago

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(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“The New Onision Conspiracy” prev. “Hitting Your Loved Ones Is Never Ok” Speaks, September 29?, 2020 (deleted)

- Says he got 6,000 - 7,000 new followers on Twitch during one stream. Allegedly, it’s from a streamer who was trying to say Onision beats his s/o. He thought it was about Shiloh (called the cops on Shiloh stories). - He found out over stream it was actually about a record or report from November 16, 2019 where someone said it sounded like there was domestic violence in his home. He says people don’t factor in that the police are often called on streamers and Youtubers. Internet people like to waste the money of tax payers and get Youtubers and streamers swatted or call animal control all the time. - Says he was told by a police officer someone called. At the time he thought it was about his pets because it happened so often. People from the internet called and would say they’re a neighbor to get the cops to come. - Anti-o is one of the most criminal and toxic community out there because they waste tax payer money and waste the time of the police, animal control, and CPS. - Someone tried to get him swatted, but it didn’t work. They released the audio. He never listened to it, but he was told it was really bad and embarrassing for the person who called. The person who picked up the call was intelligent and saw through that person right away. Emergency receptionists deal with a lot of imbeciles, like people asking for directions to Pizza Hut. - The pizza companies don’t like anti-o’s because they were pranked so many times. He asked them to put down his number and call him to confirm if he actually ordered a pizza because people would order meat lovers pizzas to his home. They tried to pointlessly kill animals and waste the pizza company’s time and money. The prank never worked because he would never take the pizza. - Lying is the go-to for people who want to be evil online. Sarah was reported as murdered and she answered the door. Kai was reported missing and Kai answered the door. - (He was reported to animal control for farting / muffin) - People create villainous legends about him online. If you watch his Twitch you’ll know he’s boring. He’s only entertaining in videos because he’s one of the best villainous actors out there. A director tried to put him in a loving role. The director asked him why he was so awkward and weird when he was brilliant in the other roles he gave him. He says it’s because he’ll the villain. He’s Loki, not Thor. He’s the guy that plays American Psycho, not Romeo from Romeo and Juliet. - Says people created a fictional universe where he’s a super manipulative intellectual who’s playing everyone. It’s an elaborate, nonsensical concept of him. You’d think the people who he kicked out of his life would say that’s ridiculous but they were kicked out for being liars. He’s actually quite virtuous. He has morals, standards, an overwhelming respect for the truth and justice. - He can be cold like L. He’d fit in the role of L. He hates playing Light Yagami. He always depicts L (I think he meant to say Light) as an idiot in his Death Note sketches because his motivations are stupid, he’s a criminal. He acts like a hero yet he’s killing people for disagreeing with him. - Says Thanos was an idiot too. [goes into detail about Thanos’ motivations] He should have doubled the size of the planets so he doesn’t have to kill everyone. He murdered countless individuals. - People tried to use a Leafy video as evidence against him to the police. Leafy recently wrote to him and said this was all r-worded. Keemstar also pointed out how stupid this all is. Neither of them like him, but they both had to deal with crazy anti-o. You’re all conspiracy theorists whack jobs. - (Hansen trespassed, Mike went to court) - Someone on twitter said he belongs in prison, but there was no crime. - All these people’s stories don’t line up. One person says he thinks he’s a god, another person says he’s a jerk, someone said he was rude to his husband. The consistency is he’s rude to people and you guys think that concludes a prison sentence. - People jumped to conclusions with Johnny Depp, but they flipped when they saw evidence of his girlfriend being awful. - He filmed himself walking in on Shiloh in the shower with a Go Pro. (He describes the sketch.) Says she was 18 or 19. He says it was a pretend prank. They also made a Taco Bell prank where they pretended to order in a drive thru when it was closed. He pretended to shave half of her head when she was sleeping. She told them to shave her head before the video. There was another prank where he said things like she’s not good enough at the end of the video. It’s what Youtubers do, it was fake drama. At the time you guys got it. The videos got 2,000 likes and 200 dislikes. Later on it’s out of context and people don’t understand the vibe. He threw candy corn at her and she pretended to be upset. They were dating and it was part of the joke. (He dumped Shiloh for cheating and getting pregnant story.) - If someone calls the cops on you, that doesn’t mean what they said is true. The person that called was not even a verified neighbor. - He has a hater that lives across the water. He filmed him bulldozing his weeds and made a huge thing online about it. [No. That guy worked for the fish and wildlife department in their county. He was literally doing his job. He saw a violation and reported it. He sent the video to the county when he reported it. People online got a hold of the video online because it was with the public reports on the site.] Says it was primarily blackberry bushes, nettles, and devil’s club that he cleared. Things that significantly hurt adults and children. Anti-os freaked out about it and his yard is literally better now than it’s ever been. People say he destroyed his land. What a bunch of numbskulls. - He recently did a poll on twitter and asked if he made a poll for legal expenses and after he collects it he says the majority will go to fixing his car, if that’s fraud. 80% said yes. An anti-o did that and it’s not fraud? He did another poll asking if he told someone he could destroy their life and they later asked him to sign an NDA and he told them only if they sleep with him, would that be rape? People voted 8/10 yes. Says that’s what Sarah did to him. - People used to show up to their debates and after would say they never really hated him. They were just being an entertainer or liking the attention he was getting them. You’re dealing with a bunch of liars. - He’s never found someone who talked about honesty as much as him and wound up being a liar. He swears on his own life that he’s an honest person. - He says he doesn’t need to talk about things like how he was crying when his daughter fell out of a window, but he’s trying to be transparent. - Says the domestic violence call thing obviously never happened. He and Kai are not violent. Shiloh was violent. She was hauled away for threatening to frame him for murder. Her ex said she threatened to put a bowie knife in him. (Shiloh stole his money story.) You guys hail that person a hero because you don’t care about reality. - He thinks possibly someone heard him making a meltdown video, but the only neighbor he’s near is cool with him. They text every few months about bears they saw. They invited him once to a BBQ. The hater across the water watched his with their camcorder zoomed in like a peeping Tom. 🙄 - Anti-os love breaking the law. You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain. [I swear if I got $1 every time I listened to him saying that quote I’d be rich.] They think they’re heroes, but they hurt people like villains. If you’re self righteous and you hurt others because you think you’re above other people, you’re a villain. - He’s hurt a lot of people’s feeling and made people cry because he rejected them or said what was true. A lot of people don’t like that. - He talked to Kai about all this today and he was amused. Kai was upstairs smiling and chuckling about it. - Comment section is still closed because he doesn’t want people to talk about conspiracy theories. He’s thinking about making a forum so his fans can talk about his videos.

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yandere-daydreams · 6 years ago

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Since requests are open, can you write some more for your Alice in wonderland au?? Anything you want really, bc I love surprises and your writing

I need to just,,, write out the whole system for the Kingdom of Hearts. Here are the other two posts (the original concept and the first drabble with Bakugo & Toga), and I genuinely hope there will be more to come.

“Pretty little thing, right, Todoroki?”

You could hear the black-haired guard laugh, the flat of her blade pressed against your jaw, her free hand embedded in your hair and forcing you to look at the man in front of you. Exhaustion washed over you, the chains on your wrists making it difficult to do anything but stare and drink. Hunger pains still kept you awake when you desperately wished to sleep, dehydration starting to affect your vision. The guard didn’t make it easier, mocking you with a sweet voice that may’ve been pleasant in any other context. The hearts tattooed into her cheeks didn’t help, only mocking something you used to think was cute, comforting, safe.

“Found it going through one of the kitchens,” She continued, Todoroki looking at her skeptically. He wasn’t armed, much to your relief, but the floor-length cape clipped to his dress shirt and the two-tone hair didn’t ease your nerves. He looked… unnatural, like everything else here. “It’s an Alice, isn’t it? They’re always getting into placed they don’t belong.”

“Get out.” The boy’s voice wasn’t harsh, or cold, or much of anything. Her grip on your hair tightened, clearly annoyed. She opened her mouth, ready to argue, but he just glared in your direction. “I said, get out. You know how much I hate repeating myself, Yaoyorozu.”

Automatically, ‘Yaoyorozu’ released you, stalking out of the room while biting back something that surely couldn’t have improved his mood. When the door slammed behind her, Todoroki let out a sigh, kneeling in front of you. “Where did she actually find you? Be honest. Momo has a habit of… hunting in other kingdoms.”

When you spoke, your voice was softer than you would’ve liked. “…A pantry, like she said,” You admitted, surprised by how hoarse your voice was. It made sense, though. After leaving your ‘guide’ and realizing that talking to people really wasn’t a good idea, you tended to stay silent. But, Todoroki frowned, and you leaned back defensively, the stone walls of your cell suddenly seeming much more welcoming. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, I promise! I just… I was starving, and someone left the door unlocked. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Shoto.”

You didn’t respond, just looking at him questioningly. He shook his head, closing his eyes for a moment. “King of Hearts, His Royal Todoroki Shoto, technically, but you won’t be calling me that.” He reached out slowly, taking your cheek in his palm despite the way you flinched. “You trespassed on my territory, a crime I could easily have you beheaded for. Momo would be more than happy to do the job if I called her back in here. And you don’t have any friends, do you? No connections, no guardians, no help.”

“I don’t.” The confession came quickly, something Todoroki seemed thankful for. The ghost of a smile played at his lips, his thumb coming up to rub circles in your cheekbone. You didn’t object, leaning into the touch. You’d been wandering through that never-ending, maddening forest for weeks now… all you wanted to do was feel another person’s warmth.

“And do you know what that means?” His tone was patronizing, but you’d gotten used to it. You shook your head hastily, and Todoroki eye’s seemed to brighten. “You’re alone, completely helpless and in my control. I decide what happens to you, from here-on. You’re mine.”

You should’ve bitten your tongue, tried your luck and just nodded along until you weren’t chained up in a literal dungeon. But, the question still burnt into you, something you asked to nearly everyone you’d come across. “Are you going to hurt me?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Todoroki purred, eyes glazing over. You made an attempt to pull back, knowing better than to trust someone who answered that openly, but Todoroki just tightened his hold, digging sharpened nails into your jaw. “I’m going to make you bleed and cry and beg for me to stop, and you’re going to look lovely while doing it.” He paused, undoing the clasps that kept his cape strapped to his shoulders. You cringed, shutting your eyes, but the fabric was only wrapped around your shaking form, replacing the ragged remains of clothes you had left. “But, I’m not going to do anything tonight. I haven’t had a pet in a long, long time… so, why don’t we get you cleaned up? You’re wonderfully pathetic covered in dirt, but I’m sure you’d be better-off well-rested. I don’t like it when my toys break before I get a chance to use them.”

You should’ve known better, you really should’ve known better. But, you were desperate. Already, your vision was starting to blur, the temptation to just collapse and sleep where you were ever-growing. And here was this King, willing to be kind, if only for a moment, and not presently trying to kill you.

Your eyes drifted to the floor as you thought, quickly darting back towards Todoroki. Eat, sleep, then get away. Running wasn’t hard, but in the sorry state you were in, everything was impossible. “Will there be tarts?”

Todoroki grinned, almost making you regret your surrender. “More than you can count.”

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dustinhendrsn · 6 years ago

Text

i’ll stop the world and melt with you

dustin henderson/lucas sinclair 3.6k - read on ao3 requested by anonymous from this list: 24. ‘are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ ‘probably not.’

Dustin can’t think. His mind is nothing but electric blue water and Lucas’ deep brown eyes trying to get him to understand. God, his hand is so wonderful when it’s right there in Dustin’s. It fits so perfectly. “What are you saying, Lucas?” he chokes out, and he’s surprised it’s audible at all.

“I think I love you,” Lucas whispers, and the world stops.

full story below!

The humid nighttime air hangs over Hawkins like a cloak as Dustin and Lucas walk through the empty neighborhood, kicking a pebble back and forth across the asphalt between them as they go. Silver moonlight dapples the concrete in leaf-shaped patches and their silhouettes stretch tall and thin across the pavement in the glow of the dim yellow streetlights. Dustin exhales up to the sky, shoving his hands into his shorts pockets.

“So has your eighteenth birthday lived up to your expectations?” he asks, nudging Lucas’ side. Lucas looks down at his feet with a smile. Dustin loves that smile – it’s the one that means he’s unexpectedly pleased or happy about something that he’s too shy to admit. It makes Dustin’s heart do somersaults. All of Lucas’ smiles do, really, but this one in particular.

“I’ve eaten more cake than I can handle, demolished you at the arcade, and spent the entire day with my most favorite people in the entire universe. So, yeah,” Lucas concludes, looking over at Dustin with a grin, “I’d say I’m pretty happy.”

Dustin beams. “Good. Glad I’ve done my job well.”

They’ve been walking for what has to be at least an hour by now; the rest of the party went home after they messed around with some fireworks from Hopper’s garage on Hawkins Hill to round out Lucas’ birthday celebration. It’s just he and Dustin now, whiling away the night in each other’s company until they decide to stop. There’s honestly no place or time that Dustin would rather be.

They round the corner of Seventh Street and the public pool comes into view, its chain-link fence reflecting the streetlamps and the underwater lights turning the water to a glowing aquamarine. Dustin slows as they near it, his gears starting to spin, and he can tell Lucas immediately knows something is up.

“What?” Lucas says warily when they stop at the corner of Seventh and Ross Street.

Dustin looks over at him with a mischievous grin. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Lucas grimaces. “Probably not.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you don’t want to.”

“Dustin, we’d be breaking and entering.”

Dustin shrugs. “Not really. It’s a public pool, it says so right there on the sign.”

“The gate’s locked,” Lucas points out, but Dustin won’t be deterred.

“You really think it’s that hard to scale a chain-link fence? The thing’s barely taller than you.”

“It’s at least three feet taller than me.”

“Whatever,” he groans. “Come on. It’s hot, it’s your birthday, it’s one in the morning. Who’s ever gonna know?”

Lucas eyes the fence hesitantly, teetering on the edge of agreement, and Dustin grabs his hand to make the decision for him. Lucas lets out something between a sigh and a laugh and Dustin is met with no resistance as he pulls them across the street.

A heady thrill runs through him, saturating his nerves with excitement. He knows that despite Lucas’ halfhearted protests, he let Dustin convince him to do it, and it’s obvious in the way his hand holds tight to Dustin’s. It’s not the trespassing part of it that’s exhilarating; it’s being out here in the middle of the sticky summer night with his best friend, completely alone and drenched in all the freedom they could ask for, no eyes on them or expectations on their shoulders. It’s the very real possibility that anything could happen, anything at all, and it lights up Dustin’s spirit and sends his pulse fluttering, making him hyperaware of every little thing Lucas does. He loves these nights; he lives for the promise and potential of these nights. There’s no limit to what you can think and feel and want when the sun isn’t around to shine on the truth of reality.

They hop the curb on the other side of the street and gaze up at the fence. “You realize that if literally anyone in this neighborhood looks out their window, we’re dead,” Lucas says casually. Dustin rolls his eyes.

“Better climb fast, then.”

He hooks his fingers into the links and starts climbing. It’s arduous and takes a long minute for his not-particularly-athletic body to get all the way over, but finally he leaps down to the concrete on the other side. Lucas follows more easily behind him, his shoes slapping onto the pavement as he jumps down.

“I never should have skipped the rock climbing classes at camp,” Dustin says a little breathlessly, wiping his hands off on his shorts. Lucas snorts, striding up to him without looking even remotely strained. It’s bullshit, honestly.

“It was your idea, dipshit. Also, you’re wrong.”

Dustin frowns at him. “Wrong about what?”

“You said it was one in the morning, right?”

“Um, yeah? It’s like ten past.”

A smug smile finds its way onto Lucas’ face. “So technically it isn’t my birthday anymore.”

Dustin groans, letting his head fall back. “Oh my God, what does it matter?”

“I’m just saying,” Lucas snickers. He’s obviously pleased that he’s gotten under Dustin’s skin. Stay there, Dustin thinks, his heartstrings pulling tight. Stay under my skin. Don’t go anywhere, ever.

They’re standing at the edge of the glowing blue pool now, so close their shoulders are brushing. It’s hard to ignore but Dustin tries to, for his own sake. It starts hurting when he lets his mind dwell too long on Lucas. It stings when he thinks about who he loves with every beat of his heart, who he would die for without a second thought, who he would follow to the ends of the earth without question, who he can’t have.

“Now what?” Lucas asks flatly, looking out at the water. Dustin side-eyes him, shoving down his own pity party.

“We jump in? What did you think we were gonna do?”

Lucas throws his hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know! I’m not even wearing a swimsuit, dude.”

“Neither am I, but I did not climb that fence just to stand here and stare into the water like some kind of fucking oracle trying to divine the fate of the world. We have to go in.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

Lucas raises an eyebrow, a spark of challenge in his eyes. “Make me, Henderson.”

Dustin’s stomach flips over. Lucas is so rarely like this and he has no idea what it does to Dustin. Which is the for the best, Dustin supposes. He’s terrified that one day he’s going to slip up and Lucas is going to find out just how in love with him Dustin is, and then everything between them – the years, the memories, the friendship – would all collapse. There’s not a single thing in the world Dustin wouldn’t do to stop that from happening. Lucas and his friendship both mean far too much to him.

He swallows back his feelings and forces himself to give a nonchalant shrug, feigning disinterest in the challenge. “I don’t think I can.” They’re already at the edge – all it’ll take is a little bit of force.

“Finally,” Lucas says, nodding his head sagely, “you’re seeing sense. I was wondering when you’d sprout some brain cells –“

Dustin snatches his hand and Lucas lets out a yelp; he tries to yank his hand back but it’s far too late. Dustin drags them both over the edge and they go tumbling into the cool water with a mighty splash, all tangled up in each other. Dustin breaks through the surface and takes a deep breath, laughter bubbling up from his throat, and he shakes his hair out like a dog. Water droplets go flying onto Lucas’ face and Lucas just laughs and laughs and laughs, soaked and breathless and alive.

“Shithead,” he gasps.

“Happy birthday,” Dustin says with a wild grin, and he gets a splash to his face for it.

“God, I don’t know why I put up with you,” Lucas laughs. He’s still smiling and it’s making Dustin’s heart stutter because he’s such a lovesick fool. After a moment, he realizes that the warmth of Lucas’ hand is still loosely set in his own. Neither of them has let go yet. Dustin knows why hehasn’t, but as for Lucas…

“It’s because you wouldn’t survive a day without me,” he quips, fighting to get his mind off the hand-holding. “Can you imagine if I didn’t exist? The world would stop spinning.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “You think you’re such hot shit.”

“I know I am,” Dustin says confidently.

“Yeah, well,” Lucas pulls his hand out of Dustin’s to wipe water away from his eyes, much to Dustin’s disappointment, “You’re not. Trust me.” And then without warning he bounces up out of the water and pushes Dustin under by his shoulders. The water closes over his head and he laughs, yet all it comes out as are bubbles. He blindly reaches out and when his hands find Lucas’ ankle, he yanks his feet out from under him. They chase each other around the pool in a splash fight for a while, and then they’re back to where they started near the middle and Lucas grabs his wrists just as he moves to splash him again.

“Truce, truce!” he yells. Dustin stops struggling against his grip and eyes him apprehensively.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, even though I shouldn’t trust you farther than I can spit because of what you pulled earlier,” Lucas says. Dustin snorts.

“You’re right. But, yeah, truce.”

Lucas releases his wrists and, honestly, he’s almost sad about it. Chlorine paints his tongue and going by the way Lucas absently licks his lips, it’s all over him too. A peaceful quiet slowly descends on them, wrapping them up in their own little bubble of nighttime. Chest-deep in the pool, surrounded by turquoise water and dark trees and empty streets, Dustin truly doesn’t know if he’s ever been more content. They throw their sopping wet shoes onto the concrete and then Dustin floats around on his back, watching the stars twinkle high above while Lucas hovers in the water next to him, doing whatever it is he’s doing, and time starts blurring. They occasionally drift in and out of conversation, mentioning whatever comes to mind, and other than that it’s just them and their halcyon night.

After a while, maybe minutes or moments or days, Lucas speaks with a new tinge of uncertainty in his voice. “Do you ever think…”

He trails off, absently dragging his finger around in the water between them. Dustin reorients himself from floating to standing and they’re so close that if he bows his head the way Lucas is doing, they’ll be just a hairsbreadth away from touching.

“Do I ever think what?” he asks, mesmerized by the swirls Lucas is drawing.

“I don’t know.”

“Dude, what?”

They look up at each other at the same time. Dustin doesn’t have the first idea what the hell his friend is thinking about, which is an extremely rare occurrence.

Lucas just gently shakes his head and his gaze moves up to Dustin’s short, loose curls. “I like your hair like this,” he says thoughtfully, lifting a hand. Dustin’s breath hitches as he takes one of the curls between his fingers, his expression calm and contemplative. Does he even know what he’s doing? Obviously he’s totally unaware of the effect it’s having on Dustin, who is standing as still as a statue, his heart slamming against his ribcage, unable to move because holy shit what is Lucas doing? It lasts the longest moment of his life, but finally Lucas’ gaze flicks back down to him guiltily and he lowers his hand. “Sorry, that was, um –“

“You’re good,” Dustin says far too quickly, almost tripping over his own words in his haste to reassure Lucas. There’s never been any boundaries between them, no lines or walls, especially not on Dustin’s part. He is Lucas’, completely and without question, and Lucas doesn’t even know it.

Lucas’ eyes are bright and serene, illuminated by the pool lights. He’s so close that Dustin can see the water droplets in his eyelashes and feel his warm breath across his cheek. It hurts so much to look at him. It’s all Dustin ever wants to do.

“What were you asking me?” he says, his voice hoarse all of a sudden. Whether it’s from their proximity or from the desire not to shatter the tranquility of the night, he can’t bring himself to speak any louder.

Lucas furrows his eyebrows. “What?”

“Just a minute ago. You asked me if I ever thought about something. What were you asking?”

Lucas is silent for a moment, holding Dustin’s gaze, and then finally, “Do you ever think things could be different?”

Dustin’s heart skitters past several beats and he immediately wants to kick himself. He’s jumping to conclusions and getting his hopes up, as per usual. “Like – like what?”

“Things,” Lucas says emphatically, an edge of frustration in his voice. “Us.”

This isn’t happening, Dustin thinks. This isn’t real. He’s talking about something else.

“Sometimes,” he whispers. It’s too big of a confession to say all the time, to admit that far too often he lets himself fall into the painful trap of imagining what life would be like if Lucas loved him too. It’s a trap because inevitably, there comes the time when he has to remember it isn’t real.

Lucas exhales, and if Dustin isn’t mistaken, it’s clear relief painted on his face. This can’t be happening.

“I just – sometimes, I think – you know, you and me, it’s just – we could – what if we – “ Lucas shakes his head, giving up on words. He grabs Dustin’s hand under the water and holds up their laced fingers between them. “This, Dustin.”

“I think I love you,” Lucas whispers, and the world stops. Dustin forgets how to draw breath, how to move his limbs, how to do anything. This is real. This can’t be real. Lucas is still talking. “I just – I want you to know that, because it seems like this town is death central station and if one day something happens to me, or – or to you, I need you to know –“

And then somehow, Dustin breaks out of his trance. The love of his life is right there, he’s just said that he loves Dustin, he feels the same, so as he stands there trying to string the right words together, Dustin surges forward and kisses him.

Dustin loses all concept of everything the instant that he feels Lucas on his lips and his heart bursts into a blinding supernova. There’s no hesitation from either of them, just an intense years-old need to be closer, closer, as close as physically possible. Lucas pulls their hands apart so that he can cup Dustin’s face with both, holding him steady, kissing him so hard you’d think it was the last minutes of their lives. Dustin still isn’t sure it’s not – but then, maybe their lives are just beginning all over again. He fumbles for something to hold onto and ends up with one hand fisted in the front of Lucas’ shirt and the other on the back of his neck, his fingers grasping up into Lucas’ hair. A small, desperate noise comes from Lucas that sounds like Dustin’s name and Dustin pulls him closer, holds him tighter, feels himself falling deeper and deeper in love. He didn’t even think that was possible. His skin is on fire at every point of contact between them and all he sees behind his eyelids is gold. The entire universe is right here between their lips. They’re slipping on the bottom of the pool as they try to stay upright, completely enraptured with each other and oblivious to anything else. It’s just Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, that’s all Dustin knows for sure. He’s the only thing Dustin can make sense of right now, his warm body pressing against him and chasing away the chill of the night. Dustin pushes back, pours his heart and soul into this first kiss between them and God, what is this? Is he even awake? Who decided he was worthy of this?

“Do you mean it?” he manages to say against Lucas’ lips, struggling for air. Who even cares about oxygen anymore? He’s breathing Lucas.

“Of course I mean it,” Lucas rasps. Their foreheads are pressed together and Dustin can feel Lucas’ chest rising and falling against his own – he doesn’t know whose heartbeat is whose. He opens his eyes to see Lucas staring wide-eyed at him, just as flustered and blushing and amazed as he is. “I love you, Dustin. I really do.”

The truth of it makes Dustin’s knees go weak and he’s praying Lucas can hold him up. “Okay. Okay – that’s – that’s good,“ he stammers, and finally, finally, after so long of keeping it in, “I love you too.” It’s a confession three years in the making but it feels so good to hear it said aloud, and to know that Lucas will accept it and reciprocate it. “I love you,” he repeats, stronger this time. He can’t help the incredulous laugh that escapes him – he can’t believe any of this is real. His blood is running backwards and there’s sunbursts in Lucas’ eyes, actual sunbursts despite the fact that there’s currently no sun in the sky. How is this real? “Holy shit, I love you, Lucas. Do you know how much I love you?”

“Tell me,” Lucas says, his expression somewhere between shock and abundant glee.

“So much,” Dustin laughs, sliding his arm around Lucas’ neck. Their noses keep brushing and it’s the most breathtaking thing Dustin has ever felt. “You don’t even – it would take so long to give you all the reasons why I love you, Lucas.”

Lucas grins wide. “How long?”

“Years, because – because that’s how long I’ve loved you.”

Lucas stares at him in awe and Dustin, his heart floating somewhere that certainly isn’t his body, decides to go back to kissing him. He’s so warm and beautiful and Dustin doesn’t ever want to let go. He tries to imprint every single thing about it into his memory – the feel of Lucas’ fingertips pressing into the small of his back, the taste of chlorine on his lips, the way he leans into Dustin’s touch like he’s been waiting for it all his life. How, how can Dustin ever let go now that he has this?

“Dustin – mmf, Dustmm – “ Lucas mumbles, his voice completely smothered by their kisses. He moves a hand from Dustin’s jaw to his chest, his palm burning a scar into Dustin’s skin right through his soaked shirt, and it’s like he wants to pull away but every time he tries, he falls back in, unable to help himself. Dustin understands the feeling immensely. “Anyone can – mmf – see us –“

Dustin leans back. He couldn’t care less about anyone that isn’t Lucas right now, but if Lucas isn’t happy about it, neither is he. “We can stop.” He doesn’t know how he’ll stop but he will if that’s what Lucas wants, of course he will.

Lucas chews on his kiss-bitten bottom lip, a puzzled look on his face. “That’s the stupidest idea you’ve had all night.”

Dustin gapes at him. “You brought it up –“ And then Lucas is kissing him again and all of his thoughts scatter like dandelion fluff in a summer breeze.

They stay there for an eternity. When the water becomes too cold for them to stand it anymore, they push two of the pool loungers together and lie next to each other as the night wears on. They drift from one conversation to another and kiss the hours away and marvel at what is suddenly real and how foolish they were for holding out for so long. When the sky shifts from a deep starry blue to pastel pink and orange, they finally stumble home hand-in-hand. The first golden rays of sunshine dry their clothes and illuminate Lucas’ eyes, his cheeks, his smile as they walk, and Dustin still can’t believe it. He can have this; he does have this. They have this.

“I can’t imagine it,” Lucas says abruptly as they walk down the middle of a quiet, morning-lit street, birds chirping in the trees and the aroma of summer heavy in the air. Dustin frowns at him.

“What?”

“Last night, when you said can you imagine if I didn’t exist? I can’t imagine it.”

Dustin gapes at him, speechless, and he can see the faint blush rising in Lucas’ cheeks. “You fucking sap,” he teases, as if he’s not completely melting from the inside out.

“Hey, I can think of some incredibly sappy things that you were saying last –“

“Okay, okay, I get it! I get it, geez. You know, if you ever tell anyone about those things I said, this,” Dustin waves their linked hands in the air to demonstrate, “is terminated immediately. Over. Done. I have a reputation to maintain.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

Dustin knows there’s not a single thing Lucas could say or do that would make him want to end their newfound relationship, so even though he doesn’t say it out loud (he does not need that self-satisfaction from Lucas), he squeezes Lucas’ hand just to make sure he knows.

Lucas clearly gets the message. “Idiot,” he says as his smile grows.

“I love you,” Dustin says by way of reply, grinning. His heart is so full of light and euphoria it’s going to burst. This is real. All of it, just because of the illimitable possibilities of an everlasting night.

“I love you too.”

They walk on.

@fatechica @calpurnias @mikewheeler @formerlyjannafaye @ericasinclairs @elshopper @elhoppers @summer-in-hawkins @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @wheelrs

#st fanfic #henclair #the title to this got changed last minute bc the premiere afterparty music had me WEAK #the song fit so perfectly with this #it's such a coming of age song and it's like the story of the party's lives #god i'm going to start crying again #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #st #anna puts words together

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let-it-raines · 6 years ago

Text

Betting on the Bullseye (Part 8)

Summary: Emma Swan loses a bet that means she has to ask her celebrity crush to be her date to her office's annual fundraising gala. Killian Jones is that celebrity crush. She expects all kinds of humiliation and for her dignity to be completely lost. What she doesn't expect is for him to say yes.

Rating: Mature

A/N: It’s one of those rare times when I finish a chapter super quickly. It’s basically like seeing a unicorn, right?

Found on AO3: Beginning | Current

Tag list: @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @wellhellotragic @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi@teamhook @skyewardolicitycloisdelena91 @branlovesouat @dreadpirateemma @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @galaxyzxstark @lifeinahole27 @andiirivera @ultimiflos

His legs burn as he runs up and down the sand, stopping and squatting each time he reaches a marker that he set out nearly an hour ago. He’s covered in sweat, the unexpected heat of Santa Monica in early April not helping matters, but even as his shorts cling to his thighs and his body feels like it’s not his own from the way his heart is thumping in his chest, he can’t stop until he’s finished. He needs the physical exertion to work out his frustrations, to clear his mind of anything and everything and just exist as someone who can do the things his workout asks of him.

Even when everything else in his life is frustrating and seems impossible, he knows that he can rely on pushing his body to its limits and controlling exactly what he does. It brings him a sense of comfort he didn’t always feel while exercising, but as his feet sink into damp sand only to be released and sink into soft, uneven ground that make his legs burn, he’s thankful for this. He’ll feel it later and regret pushing himself like this, but right now, he can’t imagine doing anything else.

When he’s finished with his reps, his body screaming in protest of moving more, he jogs into the depths of the ocean, letting the salty spray coat him in water and wipe away the sweat and cover him in salt while cooling him down. The water is still bloody cold compared to the heat of the day, but he doesn’t mind too much at this moment. He will if he stays too long, but he’s letting himself breathe and pretend that he’s alone like he has been for the past hour.

There’s a photographer hiding out in some sea grass up by the fences, something that has pissed him off beyond belief. This is all a private beach, and the man is trespassing. But it’s not worth it to confront him and risk the consequences of how the man will interpret his complaint when he calls into his seedy office with what he found, so he accepts that there will be photos of him online before he even manages to get inside and shower. It’s part of his life, no matter how much he hates it, and Robin did tell him he needed to be out in public more so things like this didn’t happen. But how fucking ridiculous is that? He shouldn’t have to go out a certain amount of times so paparazzi don’t invade his home to get pictures of him.

That’s just…it’s ludicrous.

It doesn’t help that he’s right pissed over a lot of his life right now. He hasn’t spoken to his brother in the week and a half since Emma left, and Elsa texted him earlier saying she’s coming over for lunch, which means he’s about to get a talking to from his brother’s wife. It’s not that he doesn’t love Elsa. He does. She’s one of his best mates, but much like his brother, she often treats him as a child despite them being the same age. He’s not sure if it’s the motherly figure in her or the fact that she spends her life with Liam, but sometimes he can’t take the way they talk down to him even if they are trying to help.

So he’s anxious and angry and so not feeling like being told to go apologize to Liam. It doesn’t help that the only time he’s really talked to Emma this week is when he caught her on her office phone yesterday and with random, inconsistent texts throughout the past few days. Last week was better, but their schedules and the time difference are mucking a lot up.

He wades out of the ocean, running his hands through his hair and trying to get some of the water out before he trudges inside, the uneven sand making his legs burn even more as the adrenaline wears down and he’s left feeling like weighed-down jelly. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the photographer walk away, likely on his way to collect his paycheck for the pictures, and he sighs, resolving himself to this. It is what it is, as unfortunate as that saying is.

He bypasses going to get something to eat to head upstairs to shower, turning the knob for more hot water than cold and stripping down into nothing before stepping into the stone walls. Growing up, he remembers the apartment he and Liam shared having a shower that was barely large enough to breathe in, so the moment he was able to, he found a house with a shower large enough to move around in without hitting elbows or knocking his head against a glass door. So maybe he loves his shower a little too much, but he can feel himself relaxing as the steamed water hits his skin, washing away the sand, salt, and sweat.

As he washes himself, his mind begins to wander. And as it has for the past four months, it wanders to Emma. God, he misses her. He got so used to talking to her through a phone for nearly three months that he foolishly thought when she left that he’d be able to go back to that without too much issue. But that hasn’t happened in the slightest. There’s nothing that compares to seeing the way her mouth gapes open and her eyes crinkle when she laughs and watching how animated she gets when telling a story or eating dinner after not having eaten in hours. And there’s definitely nothing that compares to the softness of her lips or the feel of her skin moving against him.

It’s that thought that has his cock twitching to attention under the spray of the water, and he knows that he either has to take a cold shower or take care of this problem before Elsa comes over. They may be close, but his sister-in-law doesn’t need to see him with a constant bulge in his pants while he suffers through blue balls. So he takes himself in hand while thinking of his love, wishing it were her here in the shower with him, no matter how uncomfortable or unfortunately slippery that may be. It doesn’t take long, his body more keyed up than he thought, and as the pressure builds at the base of his spine, he attempts to block everything out but Emma and his memories of their one night together, coming on a stuttered gasp that makes his legs shaky and uneven in a way that his work out didn’t.

After he’s cleaned himself up from all of his morning’s activities, slathering himself down with body wash, he gets out of the shower and dresses in sweatpants and a t-shirt, not bothering when all he’s got to do today is meet Elsa here and then go to set tonight for filming. They’re so close to the finish line, only three more weeks, and as amazing as this project has been, he’s nearly ready for it to be over so he can take a break from working until promotions for the show to begin and before he has to start seriously looking for a new project. He has a few feelers out, knowing he can never really stop and that he never really wants to stop, but he thinks he may need a bit of a break.

He can also go see Emma when it’s over, and if anything, that’s making it seem like filming is lasting an eternity and some. How something lasts more than an eternity, he doesn’t know, but he’s apparently going to find out.

When he makes it downstairs, his phone buzzes from where he left it on the coffee table in the living room, so he grabs it and flops down on the couch, letting his muscles relax from all of their exertion. Yeah, he’s definitely already feeling it. Work is going to be bloody torture tonight.

Emma: Update. I still have hands, and I only have 18 boxes of files to go!

Emma: My job is really fun sometimes.

Emma: And I’m totally treating myself to a giant milkshake after the gym today. So wrong and yet so right.

He chuckles under his breath, smiling at her messages and thinking about how good a milkshake would taste right now, strawberry topped with whipped cream and maraschino cherries. Yeah, he definitely isn’t supposed to eat something like that, but maybe he’ll get one at the end of the week too.

Killian: Do your milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard?

Emma: Damn right. It’s better than yours.

Killian: Don’t I know it?

Emma: Now I want the milkshake even more.

Emma: The literal milkshake. Not whatever euphemism that song is about.

He hears his garage door opening as he’s texting back, and in his distraction, he puts his phone back down on the coffee table, hoping up and going to meet Elsa at the door. When he opens his side door, he sees her getting Aiden out of his car seat, and a smile breaks out across his face seeing his nephew when he assumed Elsa was coming alone.

“Hey, love,” he greets Elsa, stepping down into the garage and kissing her cheek before doing the same to Aiden. “And hey, my bud,” he whispers, realizing he’s asleep. “I didn’t know you were bringing him today.”

“Liam’s at the office,” Elsa explains, handing a snoozing Aiden to Killian, the baby snuggling under Killian’s chin while he supports him and Elsa gets her purse and diaper bag out of her SUV, “and I figured you wouldn’t mind. He’ll probably sleep for the next hour. Car rides do that to him.”

“I used to be the same way. That’s what mum always said from what I can remember.”

“Well, Aiden does favor you more than Liam, so we’re going to get in trouble if the similarities keep going.”

Elsa pats him on the shoulder before stepping inside, a smirk on her face. The woman jokes in the same way that his brother does, and he’s glad they have that with each other, even if they are both a little suggestive sometimes. Not that he can claim any differently. He’s likely worse than the two of them combined.

He follows Elsa inside, closing the door softly so as not to wake Aiden, and finds her already in the kitchen taking food out of his refrigerator and grabbing mixing bowls from their cabinets.

“What are you doing, lass?”

“Making fajitas. I saw that you had the stuff, I want them, and they’re easy enough.”

“We can just order in, El. You don’t have to make something.”

“I want fajitas, and we’re having fajitas while I talk to you about your brother because this is getting ridiculous. So will you please go put Aiden down in his crib upstairs? And don’t forget the baby monitor.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he laughs, heading toward the staircase and carefully walking to Aiden’s room, placing him in the crib and switching the monitor on before grabbing the corresponding device, heading back downstairs for what he’s sure will be an entirely unpleasant conversation no matter how soothing Elsa’s voice can be.

Elsa’s already got chicken on his stove, the sizzling meat heating up as he grabs them both glasses of water, cutting up the rest of the lemon Elsa was using and squeezing it into their glasses before propping himself up on the counter and waiting with an anxious knot in his stomach for Elsa to speak.

“So my husband was an asshole to you and your girlfriend.”

“That is an accurate statement.”

Elsa looks at him and rolls her eyes before focusing back on the stove. “Killian, Liam was wrong. I’ve only gotten his side of the story but even from what he’s said, I know he’s the one who messed up.”

“That is also an accurate statement.”

“Killian,” she admonishes, raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow at him, “seriously. I know you’re pissed. You deserve to be pissed, but you can’t stay mad at Liam forever.”

“He fucking came into my house and threatened to call the police on my girlfriend, El. And then he acted all high and mighty, telling me that he knew best and that being with Emma isn’t a good idea. How the hell would he know what’s best for me?”

Fire burns in his belly as that morning comes back into his mind. It’s never really gone away, but standing here in the same place that he and Liam fought, flashes of words said and the arrogant look on Liam’s face come back to him. And then he remembers how despondent Emma looked, and how fucking pissed he is at his brother even if Emma and Elsa are trying to convince him to forgive Liam.

“It was a misunderstanding. He thought Emma was a fan who’d broken into your house. And I know he should have realized his mistake once you came down and explained everything, but can’t you understand where he was coming from?”

He huffs, putting his water down and crossing his arms over his chest. “I know he’s your husband and all, but I feel like you could try to see my side a little bit.”

“I do see your side, Killian. I’m trying to let you see his. Milah took advantage of you and destroyed you. You were barely yourself after her. You’ve had other women all take advantage of you and use you by saying they weren’t and weaseling their way into your life when really they were using you the entire time. You’re so trusting, Killian, and Liam and I don’t want you to get hurt like that again. He was trying to protect you.”

“But he doesn’t know Emma, and he shouldn’t be talking to anyone like that.” He runs his hand through his hair, making it stand up as it dries from his shower. He knows Elsa’s right, but it doesn’t excuse what Liam did. He should be the one to be here explaining things. He knows that he told Liam not to talk to him until he was ready, but Liam usually does what he wants. He’s surprised Liam hasn’t barged into his house again and forced him to listen. “Do you know how badly he almost screwed things up for us? Emma has been burned by people before, badly El, and we had just gotten together. The fact that she didn’t break up with me that morning still surprises me. Hell, if I were her, I would have gotten on that plane and never looked back. She might still do that.”

Elsa turns off the stove and scrapes the chicken and vegetables into a bowl before coming over and standing next to him, looking up at him with her kind blue eyes and a genuine, soft smile that he’s come to associate with her. “Hey,” she soothes, placing her hand on his shoulder and squeezing, “you’re selling yourself short. If Emma is as wonderful as you think she is, she’s not going to give up on you. You’re sure about this one, aren’t you?”

“God help me, but I am. I love her, El,” he quietly admits, closing his eyes and trying to contain all of the emotions threatening to spill out of his eyes. “I’ve got no clue when or how this happened because she’sso not there yet, but I love her so damn much.”

“Then it’s going to be okay. Things between you and her are going to be okay. I think things between you and Liam will be okay when you’re ready for it. He’s waiting on you, surprisingly enough. I love him, but all of his huffing around the house is damn annoying. So feel free to yell at him for what he did sometimes soon.” Elsa squeezes his shoulder again before clapping her hands together. “Life has a funny way of working itself out. Now let’s eat and you can tell me all about this girl of yours since she apparently lives across the country, and I can’t go meet her.”

Elsa and Aiden leave when he goes to set, pulling out of the driveway at the same time that he does. He feels infinitely better about everything after talking to Elsa. She really is like a sister to him, maybe a bit like a mother, and as annoyed with his brother as he still is (even if it’s significantly less annoyed than he was a few hours ago), he knows that Liam deserves to have a partner as wonderful as Elsa to ground him and be there for him. He and Liam have been through a hell of a lot in life, but so far, they’ve always come out better on the other side.

He still feels like yelling at the wanker, but he knows he’s not going to be pissed at him forever.

He finishes filming the second to last episode of Highland Waters Monday morning around three, and as thrilled as he is to be close to finished with filming, he’s mostly thankful that they get a day and a half off. All he wants to do is sleep and stay burrowed away in his bedroom for thirty-six hours without any interruptions, but knowing his life, it’s not going to happen, especially since Robin and Will are coming over to watch the United match tomorrow afternoon.

Why the hell did he agree to that?

“Because you need to spend time with your bloody mates,” he murmurs to himself as he walks in his garage door, dropping his keys in their dish and disabling his alarm system. “And now you’re talking to yourself because you’ve gone mad.”

He chuckles under his breath, fully accepting the hysteria and sleep deprived delusion before making his way upstairs and to his bedroom. His legs feel like lead, weighing him down as he walks, and he doesn’t bother changing before plopping down on the mattress and pulling his comforter up over his body while trying to find something to watch on his TV since he’s sure it’ll take him awhile to fall asleep tonight.

His phone buzzes on his lap, and he knows the only person who could possibly be texting at three in the morning is Emma who must be up getting ready to go to work.

Emma: Facetime tonight?

Killian: Yeah. Everything good?

Emma: I’m fine. Just want to see your face.

He snickers to himself before lifting his phone in the air and snapping a picture of himself, the flash makes his eyes squint closed, and when he looks at the picture, he has one eye blown open while the other is entirely closed, the lines around his face prominent as the light washes him out. His hair is another story. He looks ridiculous, but he sends the picture to her anyways.

Emma: Woah, you’re looking nice this morning.

Killian: I prefer devilishly handsome.

Killian: I just got home from work. I haven’t had my beauty sleep yet.

Emma: Well, you need it KJ. It’s rough.

Killian: Minx.

Emma: You know it.

When he opens that text there’s a picture of Emma with half of her hair curled, the other half pinned to the top of her head, and her blouse unbuttoned to show her bra. She’s got a piece of toast in her mouth, and he smiles getting a little bit of a glimpse into her morning routine.

Killian: Are you sure you got your beauty sleep there, Swan?

He waits for his phone to buzz, continuously checking to see if the bubbles showing Emma’s texting back pop up, but they never do. He figures she just got distracted getting ready for work, so he doesn’t think too much about it, tossing his phone onto the mattress and settling himself in to watch Jessica Jones. It’s really a dumb choice for him to watch because he’ll get caught up in it, but as time passes, the fatigue begins to catch up with him and he falls asleep.

He wakes to his doorbell ringing, and as he groggily rolls over and fumbles for his phone. In his dreary state, it takes him a moment to find his security app, but when he does he can very clearly see Liam standing on his front porch and swaying back and forth while he messes with the hem of his t-shirt. Groaning, he throws his covers off of him and stumbles out of bed, nearly tripping on his pants as he makes his way downstairs and to his front door, swinging it open and standing face to face with his brother for the first time in over two weeks.

“You have a key,” he huffs, wiping away at the sleep in his eyes before stepping back and silently telling Liam to come inside.

Liam shrugs, his face completely neutral as he steps inside and closes the door behind him. “Didn’t exactly go well the last time I used it, so I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to have to call the police on you for being somewhere where you’re allowed access.” Liam grimaces, the words obviously having their intended effect. If he wanted a better reaction, he shouldn’t have come when Killian was just waking up from getting to sleep. He’s much kinder when he’s slept. “Why are you here, Liam?”

“Can we sit down?”

“Aye.” He walks toward the living room and settles down in his recliner, crossing his arms over his chest and quirking an eyebrow at the way Liam can’t seem to settle on a spot to sit. He finally does, taking the end of the couch furthest away from Killian. “So, why are you here?”

“I’m heading to New York for a conference tonight, and I didn’t want to go while we were still fighting. It’s been two weeks, little brother. It’s time we talk.”

“Younger,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose while trying to calm himself down and prepare himself for this. He calmed about it after Elsa’s visit, but he’s still pissed. “I’m younger, and you know that. But fine. Talk Liam.”

“I fucked up Killian, and I’m sorry.”

“Is that it?”

Letting out his breath, he sighs, running his hand through his hair and causing the curls to stick up on the right side. “I fucked up. I treated you like you were a kid when you’re not, haven’t been in years. I was wrong to treat Emma that way. I was wrong to treat you that way. It’s inexcusable.”

“Well, just…Liam, you can’t do shit like that anymore. I’m not the kid I used to be. I know what I’m doing. I love you so damn much, and I love that you’re trying to protect me – ”

“But?”

“But what happened isn’t okay. I told El this already, but you could have screwed up one of the best things to happen to me before it even really began. Emma isn’t taking advantage of me. She’s not a psycho fan. She’s someone who understands me, which is not something I get a lot.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I obviously wasn’t. I was a right wanker, and I’m really hoping you won’t think that about me forever.”

“Liam, I’m always going to think that about you.”

“Shut it, Killian.”

“No,” he laughs, the tightness in his chest loosening a bit as Liam’s apology begins to sink in, “You fucked up my life for a few days and made my girlfriend nearly end it all, so I fully plan on making you earn your forgiveness.”

“So your girlfriend, huh? That’s official now?”

God, he can’t believe how quickly the conversation changed, the emotional charge changing into brotherly teasing, but that’s always been how the two of them are. They say what they need to say, see if they can accept it, and then try to move on.

“Well, I believe we decided to call each other lovers, but yes.”

Liam groans and his face scrunches up in disgust that causes Killian to chuckle. “Should I even ask?”

“Probably better if you didn’t. Wouldn’t want you choking on your own saliva.”

Liam laughs a bit, closing his eyes and shaking his head back and forth in amusement. His shoulders are less tense than when he walked in, and Killian notices that his are too. “So are we good, Killian? Do you need to punch me? Knock out my teeth? Tell me to fuck off about ten more times? I’m willing to suffer through all of it.”

“We’re good,” he promises, really and truly meaning it. He had begun to forgive Liam before he even showed up today, but hearing the words solidifies it for him. “But if you ever do something like that again, it’s not going to be this simple, Liam. And if Emma ever comes back here, you owe her one hell of an apology after she tells you to fuck off ten times and possibly knocks out your teeth. She deserves at least that.”

“Aye, I know. I deserve at least that too.”

“Great,” Killian sighs, rubbing his hands up and down his face. “When’s your flight? Do you need a ride to the airport?”

“In three hours, and I’ve got my car.”

“Cutting it kind of close there. What would have happened if I hadn’t been the best man in the world and forgiven you so easily?”

“I’d have missed the bloody flight until you did.”

Liam leaves after they talk a bit more, the normalcy of their relationship returning and causing him to feel much better about everything. He knows that forgiveness doesn’t happen in a day and there will be times when their relationship is stilted, but that’s the thing with his family. He’s only got Liam. He’s always had Liam. Through the years they’ve gotten into more arguments than he can count, but at the end of the day they have each other’s backs despite the fact that they can both royally fuck things up.

He wants to fall back asleep now that he has the house to himself, but he finds himself full of energy. So he fixes himself a cup of coffee, waking his body up more, before deciding to clean the house. It’s been a long time since he deep cleaned everything. He’s usually tidy, his house never really a mess, but he needs to clean the bathrooms and wipe down his kitchen counters. He should probably change all of the sheets in the bedrooms too.

So that’s exactly what he does, turning on the speaker system in his house and blaring music while cleaning absolutely everything that he can. He’s covered in sweat and his back hurts by the time he’s halfway finished that evening, and he’s determined to power through the master bath. That’s when his phone rings and he remembers Emma and her request to facetime.

He scrambles to his phone, missing her first call, so he plops down on his sheet free bed and calls her back, the screen showing his face until she picks up. She looks…exhausted. Her hair is pushed back into a bun, tendrils falling from where she’s probably scratched at her scalp all day, and she’s removed her makeup. He wouldn’t usually notice, but she has a black streak across her eyebrow where she very obviously wiped her mascara off and accidentally marked through her brow.

“Hey, love,” he smiles, pushing some of his hair to the side in an attempt to make himself not so…disheveled. He’s been disinfecting the house, but really, he needs a shower to make himself clean. “How was your day?”

Emma huffs and rolls her eyes in what he’s decided is her signature move when annoyed, so it obviously wasn’t good. “In a word, awful. You?”

“I talked to Liam today, sorted through our whole mess, and he’s very graciously agreed to let you knock his teeth out and tell him to fuck off next time you’re here.”

Her lips twitch the slightest bit, like she wants to smile but can’t. “That’s so good, KJ. I’m happy for you.”

Her voice isn’t…it’s not Emma.

“Emma, what’s going on with you?

Her lips go from twitching to quivering, and she wipes at the tears slowly spilling from her eyes. His heart plummets at the sight even if he knows that’s physically impossible, and he’d give anything to not be three thousand miles away from Boston. But he is, and there’s nothing he can do to change that right now.

Emma has said time and time again that she’s not a crier, so seeing her break down like this concerns him on more levels than one.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he coos, whispering into the phone in the most soothing voice he can muster while he watches her sniffle on the other end of the line, “Emma darling, it’s fine. You’re fine. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It w-was…it was just a bad day. It’s stupid.”

“Never, Swan.”

She laughs, but it’s a watery chuckle that gets caught in her throat and somehow manages to travel to Santa Monica and land in his stomach.

“I miss you,” she sighs, looking into the camera with bright green eyes and wet lashes.

“Now, love, how could you missing me ever be stupid?”

“Because I’ve only ever seen you in person twice. Shouldn’t there be some kind of rule about that? You can’t miss someone you barely know.”

That stings, but he tries not to grimace or say something harsh in retaliation. He should have figured that Emma being so openly vulnerable would come with complications and hesitation. He just didn’t prepare himself for it. But this is how she deals with things, and letting her do that is something he has to do. He can’t expect her to handle things in the same way he does. They’re different people, and that would be ridiculous.

“Hey,” he soothes instead of saying all of the words piling up in his mind, “we do know each other.”

“But do we? I just…I feel lost today.”

“I know that your favorite color is red, you say your favorite food is grilled cheese but you actually prefer cheeseburgers with no toppings, your favorite movie is the Princess Diaries because you always hoped that you’d find a long lost family, especially one with a grandmother as cool as Julie Andrews. Um, let’s see, let’s see. What else? You wear a size seven shoe, but you go half a size bigger with your heels for swelling. You have trouble sleeping at night if you have coffee past six in the evening. You can sing bloody brilliantly, but you only sing in the shower because you don’t think you’re very good.”

“Killian, those are all – ”

“No, no, darling. Let me finish. I have a lot of stored Emma Swan information up in this brain of mine, and I intend on using it if only to prove a damn point to you.”

She sniffles again before hiccupping, and that’s a little better than before. Especially when she smiles.

“Your feet are ice cold at all times, so that’s why you’re always in socks. You have a dot tattoo on your wrist because you freaked out about the needle, which is one of my favorite things about you. When you get playfully irritated, you scrunch up your nose in the most adorable little position. When you’re actually irritated, your lips form into a straight line and you may as well be able to shoot a laser beam with your eyes. You’ve got a bloody brilliant smile that makes me happy simply looking at it, even happier to be on the receiving end of it. Your kiss usually tastes like a mixture of your peppermint toothpaste and those bloody pop tarts, but sometimes it tastes like peppermint and the hot chocolate you love, with cinnamon of course.”

“Killian,” she pleads, her voice breaking in ways that he didn’t expect it to. He hopes he didn’t take it too far, make her too uncomfortable, but the words spewed off of his tongue without him thinking of more than letting her know that he does know her. “I…thank you. I know it was dumb to suggest we don’t know each other. We’ve talked to each other for, like, five months, but I feel like I’m failing at this. And the long distance doesn’t help. Ruby and Mary Margaret…I, well, I finally opened up to them about everything with us, but today has been so damn hard. I wish you were here.”

“Me too, love.” He softly smiles into the phone while he hears his washing machine ding downstairs, the small tune playing to indicate he needs to move the sheets to the dryer. “I bloody miss you. God, it’s insane how much, but in two weeks I’m coming to Boston, yeah?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just…”

“It’s just what, Swan?”

She sighs, her eyes fluttering closed before opening back up. “So at work I haven’t always been in fundraising and relationships. When I first started, I worked with the kids. I’m not qualified to be a counselor or anything, but I’d talk to them, you know? I know what it’s like to be alone, and I like to think they found comfort in it.”

“They had to have, Emma. It’s so different listening to someone who’s experienced the things you have, who understands.”

“Yeah, but, um, there was this kid a few years ago. Her name was Alex, and I kind of took her under my wing. She was in between foster homes and staying at one of the facilities. The kid was brilliant, could do math like no one I’d ever seen, and we found her a good home. But I just found out she’s been arrested for theft, and the cops ended up finding out she’d been a dealer. That’s at least what David said. So I don’t know. I know a lot of kids fall down those roads because they don’t see any other option, but this one just hit me hard today, or yesterday really because that’s when I found out.”

He sighs, nodding in understanding. Emma’s obviously had a rough few days, and he wishes that he had the words to comfort her. There’s no preparing for things like that, and situations that hit you out of nowhere can often knock the breath out of you. She looks so small, broken, and that’s not Emma. She’s strong in her vulnerability. Not weak in it. Never.

“You’ve got a big heart, Emma Swan. You may not realize it, but you do. You help others every damn day, and while I wish Alex hadn’t gone through all of this, it doesn’t mean you didn’t help. Or that one day her life might turn around.”

“I just wish I could have done more.”

“You did everything you can.”

“How do you know that?”

“Like I said earlier, darling, I know you.”

“Oi, why don’t you have any beer, mate?”

“Because you were supposed to bring it, Will.”

“Bloody hell, no I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, you were, mate,” Robin adds in as he plops down in Killian’s favorite recliner, seemingly not at all bothered with the way he’s taking the spot Killian always sits in. “You bring beer. I bring food. Killian provides the telly because he makes a hell of a lot more money than all of us.”

“You make a portion of what I make, Rob,” he laughs, yanking the blanket off of Robin’s feet and sitting down on the couch with Will, “so I know that you can afford a nice television.”

“Yeah, but then we wouldn’t have an excuse to come over here and bother you.”

“Which isn’t anyway entertaining without beer.”

“Bloody hell, Will,” Killian sighs, throwing his head back against the couch while he finds the United game online, “I have rum, whiskey, wine, tequila. I just don’t have beer, and that is one hundred percent your fault. Just go find something if you can’t watch a noon match sober.”

“Geez,” Will whistles, staring at him with his eyebrows practically in his shaved hairline, “I was messing with you. You okay there, Jones?”

“I’m fine. Honestly.” He shrugs, smiling at his mates before looking back at the TV. “I guess I’m still a bit exhausted. These hours have been killing me, and I was up late last night.”

“Why?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he lies, not wanting to tell them about last night simply because he doesn’t want to share Emma’s private emotions with them. She’s trusting him with so much, and he doesn’t want to be the man who lets her down. He doesn’t want to be like all of the others. “So how badly do you think we’re going to kick Arsenal’s arse? Or do you think we’ll have our arses handed to us?”

“Not a chance.”

“Oh, there’s a little bit of a chance.”

Will eventually settles on a glass of rum, bringing the bottle with him to the living room as well as the bowl of burned popcorn that’s making his entire house smell. Will is a bit of an eclectic taste, the two of them really only friends because of Robin, but his life would be a hell of a lot less entertaining without him.

He’d have more rum, but his life would have one less sarcastic Brit.

There’s only so many of them in Southern California, but he’s obviously hoarding them all to watch football matches with him. United kicks Arsenal’s arse, and his house is likely louder than any in the neighborhood.

“Fucking ref,” Will hollers, getting up from the couch and standing in front of the TV as if the ref will be able to hear him back in England. “You can’t make calls like that.”

“Oi, William, sit down.”

Will shoots Robin a look, his eyes becoming slits while his lips purse. “My name isn’t William, Robin, and I am not Roland. You can’t put me in time out.”

“You’re standing in front of the bloody screen, mate. Even Roland knows not to do that.”

Will huffs before collapsing back against the couch, the pillows falling to the floor as the sofa is knocked back a few inches, and crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s okay,” Killian teases him, reaching over and patting his knee. “Robin tells me what to do all of the time. It’s because he’s so much older than us and thinks he’s a father figure when really he’s just old.”

“I am four years older than you.”

“That’s a lot of years, mate.”

“Just shut up and watch the game.”

Killian snickers at his friends before pulling his phone out of his back pocket. It’s been buzzing for the past few minutes, but he’s been too entertained by his friends to check.

Emma: Do you like baseball or is that too American for you?

Emma: Also, how drunk are you and the guys over this game?

Killian: Will is tipsy. Robin and I are fine. I’ve got work and all. And I love baseball. Why?

Emma: I’d say it’s a surprise, but I’m obviously taking you to a baseball game when you’re here.

Killian: Are you sure we’re going to want to leave the bedroom?

Emma: …

Emma: Calm it down, Casanova. We can knock each other’s socks off and still watch the Sox.

He snorts underneath his breath, somehow amused and aroused at the same time, and when he looks up from his phone, both Will and Robin are staring at him.

“Is that Emma?”

“Dude, you’re blushing.”

“Oi, shut it, Will. And it is. We’re working on plans for when I go to Boston in two weeks.”

“So you’re sexting?”

“Will,” Robin groans, throwing a pillow across the room, “just because you have no filter doesn’t mean Killian doesn’t.”

“What? I’m just curious. I’m the only one who hasn’t met the girl, and I want to meet the woman who makes Killian blush.”

“You will. I promise. We’re going to map out our schedules when I’m there, so she’ll come back here eventually.”

“Sounds serious, mate.”

He shrugs, not really sure how else to answer but with the truth. “It is.”

Killian: I like the way you think, love. I’m all for rounding the bases.

Emma: Impressive double entendre.

Killian: You could say it’s a home run.

Emma: Hitting it out of the ballpark, KJ.

“Yeah,” Will sighs, “you’ve got it bad, dude.”

#betting on the bullseye #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic

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eluvianarts · 6 years ago

Text

My Solavellan Isn’t Hell - Here’s Why

It would first be important for me to note that I was late to the Dragon Age party, & started with Inquisition in 2017. Since then I have, of course, picked up & played all three titles multiple times, but my first playthrough with Inquisition introduced me to the world of Thedas, thus my understanding of terms like “the Fade”, “Grey Wardens”, & “the Rite of Tranquility” were shaped by this game first. It may also be noteworthy to mention that I always play my OCs as my own self - I design them to look like I do, react like I do, make decisions that I would make, etc. (So if I say “I” instead of “Lavellan”, this is the reason).

The first time I first heard the term “Solavellan Hell” I thought it was such a negative sounding reference to such a powerful romance. “Hell?”, I thought, though I had indeed finished the game & all DLCs. “Hell produces pain, suffering, & anguish. None of which I experienced in a concentrated enough amount to be considered hell.” But scrolling through tags I quickly understood where my experience differed from others, & I intended for quite some time to share my thoughts. Let me explain...

[This is the part where I warn the reader that spoilers are bound to follow under the cut]

[[Short version - Just read the last two paragraphs.]]

My inquisitor, Visériel Lavellan, was immediately enamored with Solas from the start. (I literally flung my arms in the air & said to my husband “I don’t even care that he’s bald!”). The way he described his journeys in the fade, (remember, I had no prior experience of the fade from the other games). To Visériel, the fade was a wonder just as Solas described; “It is the fade. They are all real.” ... Also that iambic pentameter. But I digress...

Visériel had eyes for no one else, & her flirting was saved only for Solas. When she stole a kiss in the fade, & it was returned with such passion, she knew they were bound to be a powerful couple, feeding off each other’s strengths, building up each other’s weaknesses, all while maintaining an air of dignity. This bond is important because she believes they are on equal grounds even if one or the other has strengths or weaknesses the other does not, (this feeling doesn’t change after Trespasser either - see below for reasons why Visériel feels she is meant for more).

She was not the big, brave, leader that the Inquisition seemed to position her as, but she took the role seriously, (albeit casually with her friends,) judged with mercy & forgiveness, made responsible tactical moves, (including going the long way about saving the Montilyet name in Orlais), & stood as it’s face even when she denied knowing whether or not the Maker had sent her, (she sees that knowledge has been tainted over the years, & believes that all peoples may be partially correct & partially incorrect). This is important because as more known “truths” concerning the Maker, the Divine, the Dalish gods, & the history of the Chantry are uncovered & found to be inaccurate, or flat out lies, she is not shocked, nor her faith rattled. (However, Sera greatly irritated Visériel because of her disrespectful attitude toward others’ beliefs).

Later on the balcony, when Solas mentions that she is not what he expected, asking if he had misjudged the Dalish, she replies with, “The Dalish didn’t make me like this. The decisions were mine”, because though she loves her family, she is her own person. Visériel had always thought of herself as not-quite-an-outsider, but not-quite-an-insider. Besides her wariness to believe another’s theory without any sort of analysis, she always felt she was meant for something higher. Becoming Inquisitor had partially given her what she felt she was missing, but it also sometimes felt wrong for her to be the face of those who had previously looked so far down their noses at her. This is important because when more is revealed about how the Elvhen used to be, she sees it as how she was always meant to be, especially in Trespasser when she travels the Eluvians, she is amazed at how wonderful it all is & the knowledge to be gained! (Also, Abelas, don’t you point your finger at me “You are not my people!”. Rude!) This is also important because when she discovers that Solas is Fen’Harel, she doesn’t bat an eye, because it only makes sense that she, having always felt she was meant for more, would fall for someone who was in fact “more”.

When Cole panics about his possible possession, & begs Solas to bind him, Visériel listens to the kid & reasons with him. Though she sees Varric’s side of the argument that Cole is also “strangely like a person”, she cannot ignore the fact that he is also like a spirit, & she would rather see him safe than sorry, & give him the protection he needs. She also generally leads with compassion & peace, so when confronting the Templar who killed Cole, she encourages him to forgive the man. One of the biggest reasons Cole is one of her best friends is because of his desire to help others, & she encourages him to look for many resolves to a situation, & not to take lives. This is important because she believes spirits can learn & that coexisting is possible & desirable.

When learning of Inquisitor Ameridan & his tragic romance with Telana, Visériel couldn’t help but wonder why Telana seemingly gave up on him. She spent the rest of her life searching for him in the fade when Visériel & her companions only had to find the metal spikes that Telana knew about & free him. Even if she knew it would release the dragon, she then should’ve spent her years learning how to kill it, or to release the spell’s hold on Ameridan, not simply dreaming & waiting for nothing to happen! This is important because when Solas leaves her, she is determined to do something useful, not just wait around for him to return on his own.

Discoveries at the Temple of Mythal, differing from what the Dalish currently believe, didn’t shock Visériel, but instead excited her! She loved finding the truth! Especially when it answered questions that she had been debating. Wanting to keep the peace, & to gain favor with the ancient elves, Visériel made the deal with Abelas even after his uppity behavior, (”You are not my people” Rude!). Honestly, Visériel wanted to destroy the well rather than let anyone have it, which seems contrary to her usual quest for the truth, but everyone was uncomfortable with the well, & if Solas was so adamant about himself not drinking from it, she surely wouldn’t risk it, so Morrigan drinks. When he asks what she will do with the power after the war she replies, “I’ll try to help this world move forward”, & when he responds angrily asking what she would do if it ends up worsening things, she says, “I’ll take a breath, see where things went wrong, and then try again”. This is important because Visériel keeps her head high, & is a beacon of hope even when the world is, (quite literally), falling apart. She prides herself on taking a breath, & moving forward.

During the Crestwood vallaslin scene, Visériel chooses to remove the markings since she trusts Solas’ word & knowledge. She would rather move forward without the vallaslin, now knowing the truth behind what they stand for, rather than keep them as some form of sentiment. No matter if she originally got them for another reason, the truth is more important, & “my people vowed never to submit to slavery”, though she does express remorse that the Dalish were wrong once again. Her emotional responses are often either hope, agreement, or sadness.

On the breakup part, I thought the dialogue choice, “I don’t want to lose you” would be more hopeful than a sad cry of “Solas!”. Then given that the dialogue choices were either a hopeful, “I believe in us”, or a sad, “I love you”, she really just wanted those three words said out loud, so I chose the sad dialogue, but a cross between the two choices would’ve been more accurate.

And this is where Visériel’s unshakable faith & fierce tenacity come in. Solas won’t explain to her about the breakup right away, but promises “everything will be made clear” after the defeat of Corypheus. So she is patient, waiting to get her answer, because she trusts him to keep his word. But of course, we know that he doesn’t follow through. When his orb breaks he is lost again, unsure of how to next move forward, & so he runs, to rethink, to replan, & Lavellan is left confused & troubled. Visériel believed something very important must’ve altered his course especially after his somber words of “it was not supposed to happen this way” & “what we had was real”, especially since they had been a force of power together. At Leliana’s gentle words that, “Perhaps he had no choice? He might return at any moment”, Visériel gave a shy smile, hopeful again.

She then used her resources to search for Solas, & as they years passed she grew less certain that he was even alive. Her time as Inquisitor was less appealing without him around, but she continued to try to better the lives of everyone she met. When the Exalted Council had to meet she was embittered at the resounding lack of thanks she was getting for all her hard work. But seeing her friends again brought back good memories, & when Cassandra lets slip that she thinks Lavellan is going to propose, she responds with, “I might get married. I’ve thought about it.”, because even after all these years she hasn’t lost hope that perhaps he may return.

Discovering new knowledge through the Eluvians excited her once more, made her feel part of something real again, but as her arm begins greatly paining her, she cries that she doesn’t want to die, followed by “not knowing the world still needed me”, but what she kept to herself was, “not knowing if Solas is still alive”. Venturing further through the Eluvians she pieces together that Solas is the Dread Wolf, & even more, she realizes he’s the one who’s been fighting the Qunari, which quickens her pace further, now knowing that he is alive & more powerful than she had ever imagined. (I should also mention that I 100% games, so I search every nook & cranny for every shred of information, dialogue, & quest). She wants to find him as soon as possible, to ask him about everything, only hoping that he’ll still look at her like he did on the balcony. Nothing else matters anymore - she is dying, Solas is alive, & the Inquisition is no longer of any use.

“We have to save him!”

Hearing his voice again, & seeing him look at her with even more care & kindness than he had before, all Visériel wanted to do was wrap her arms around him, so thankful that she hadn’t given up on him, nor he on her. (I wish the dialogue option for “You’re the Dread Wolf” wasn’t so accusatory sounding).

“What is the old Dalish curse? ‘May the Dread Wolf take you’?”, he says, afraid she now sees him as all the others do, with disdain, distrust, & disgust.

“Our legends about you are wrong. I saw the truth as we traveled the crossroads.”, she exclaims, filled with the revelation that what once seemed questionable to her now made so much more sense!

“If you had just told me... Ma ghilana, vhenan!”

Visériel, having always believed she could analyze & interpret quite well, tosses aside what others may think of her, fully understanding that the world had been a marvel & could see it’s former glory again if the veil returned magic as it once was, & though it would take a long time for them to first stop mindlessly fighting one another, she believed men & spirits can coexist, as seen with her relationship with Colr. Ready to follow Solas as he had once followed her, & add her strengths to his, she believed that the world would be better in the end if his plan succeeded.

He tells her everything, letting her gain all the knowledge & all the explanation that she was due.

“Let me help you, Solas!”

“I cannot do that to you, vhenan.”

“But you would do it to yourself? I cannot bear to think of you alone.”

But when time runs out, & her mark flares up again, Solas chooses to save her, but leave her again, hoping it would in fact save her life.

“Solas, var lath vir suledin!”, she confidently declares.

“I wish it could, vhenan. My love...” he whispers, resigned to go against her wishes. “I will never forget you.”. Then he disappears through the Eluvian.

The end of Trespasser is the second time he leaves her, but what has now taken place changes everything to her! The first time he left without a word, without explanation. She had no idea how he felt, why he left, what he was doing, or if she would ever see him again. Now she knows exactly how he feels, the reason he’s left, what he is up to, & she is fully determined to see him again! Last time she took deep breaths to keep her hope intact, searching for any sign of him, but now her hope is in full force, because she knows that he loves her, & she loves him, & she’s going to show him once again that they are stronger together than apart. Visériel disbands the Inquisition, not to sift out the agents of Fen’Harel (as the screen indicates), but because clearly the Inquisition is no longer needed, & she would rather have a handful of reliable friends at her side than an army of possible turncoats, especially when she knows she will be greatly opposed when she announces to her companions that she intends to help Solas against his enemies.

All in all, what I’ve taken away from why I didn’t consider my experience to be Solavellan “Hell”, is that I was always so skeptical of the information given to me, (be it about beliefs, persons, or history), hopeful in what could be, & persistent in going after the truth, & what I wanted. I have heard that Solas takes from Lavellan her beliefs in her gods, (which to my Lavellan only confirmed what she guessed at previously), her connection to her clan via the vallaslin, (if you remove it, which my Lavellan did, because she believes the truth is more important than some heritage marking), & her physical arm, (how can this one be bad? Either remove her arm to save her life or let her die? How about take my arm!). Needless to say, I’m very excited for the next installation of Dragon Age, even if it doesn’t bear the fruit that I hope for. Here’s to possibilities! *and to all Solasmancers*

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age Inquisition #Spoilers #Trespasser #Lavellan #Solavellan #Inquisitor Lavellan #Solas #Dread Wolf #Fen'Harel #Visériel #Visériel Lavellan #Solavellan Hell #Viseriel Lavellan #Viseriel

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enbouton · 7 years ago

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Better Call Saul Rewatch, Part 1/30: They Called Him Slippin’ Jimmy

Late last month, I decided to rewatch all of BCS and post about it, one episode at a time, every day during the 30 days leading up to the premiere. The elements of this plan that proved problematic were “post” and “one episode at a time”, but we’ve still got three weeks, so let’s do this. I’m not much of a critic; this is going to be mostly just a bundle of thoughts and observations. There will also be a key to references in the dialogue, notes on locations and the timeline, and probably a lot of gushing over beautiful frames, because there are many (see above! look at that! look at it!!!). The tag will be #bcs rewatch, for your following/blocking needs.

Uno (Season 1, Episode 1)

Written by Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould / Directed by Vince Gilligan

If the Cinnabon sequence constitutes fanservice, I don’t care, because it’s brilliant.

BCS uses a lot of intense chiaroscuro, and it starts in the scene at Gene’s apartment. Details— the ice in the glass, the white label on the bottle of Scotch— are highlighted, the rest of the picture is subdued. There’s also a gorgeous softness to the black-and-white images. Overheard on the TV as Gene pours: a woman cheerily saying “Well, from time to time, people make mistakes, that’s okay!”

There’s a bit of Breaking Bad-style handheld camera here, which stands out because it’s mostly absent from the rest of the show. In Gene’s living room we have the first appearance of glass block windows, about which blogger Marc Valdez wrote an excellent piece (Streamline Moderne and Jimmy McGill).

“No charge is too big for me!” says Saul, on the tape that Gene is watching in hiding with his blinds closed. :(

(In this episode, Jimmy’s personae are introduced in reverse chronological order: first Gene, then Saul Goodman, then James M. McGill Esquire, then Slippin’ Jimmy.)

It’s May 13, 2002, and the courtroom scene— beautifully paced, by the way— is one of the most distinctly Vince Gilligan scenes that ever Vince Gilliganed. The stenographer loudly slurping on her Big Gulp, the attorney using her legal pad to draw a shirtless man on a unicorn, the prosecutor silently wheeling in the TV in response to Jimmy’s argument, and most of all, the horrifying punchline.

When we first encounter Jimmy— as opposed to Gene or Saul— he’s pacing in the men’s room, muttering about how people shouldn’t be punished for whatever stupid things they did when they were young. Hmm. The three defendants sit there, chastened and nervous in ill-fitting ties, as Jimmy does an excellent job of talking around what it is they actually did. No one got hurt! It wasn’t trespassing, the business was open day and night! “I don’t think they deserve to have their bright futures ruined by a momentary, minute, never-to-be-repeated lapse in judgment,” he tells the jury.

I’m jumping ahead here, but where do you think Jimmy would have ended up if the whole Chicago sunroof incident never happened? I mean, he wouldn’t have gone to Albuquerque, he wouldn’t have become a lawyer… do you think he was happy just running small-time cons and smoking weed at age c. 30?

Anyway, as soon as we see the boys in the mortuary, let alone hear the sawing, we know the case is unwinnable. Jimmy collects his meagre paycheck and stalks out to his car. The show teases us a bit by putting a white pearlescent Cadillac front and centre in the frame before panning across to a battered 1998 Suzuki Esteem (aside: that car is awfully beat up for being only four years old). I love the car, by the way. The colour and the mismatched door are perfect.

The Kettlemans, who could have stepped straight out of an episode of Fargo (as Julie Ann Emery in fact did!), introduce the theme of denial of reality. They’re the innocent victims of a misunderstanding, you see. Craig’s business practices are “beyond reproach”. The missing money is a “discrepancy”. While Craig is amenable to hiring Jimmy, Betsy won’t have it; needing a lawyer would imply guilt, after all. Bob Odenkirk plays Jimmy’s barely-hidden desperation very well. He looks literally and figuratively hungry as Craig prepares to sign.

I want to take a moment to comment on Dave Porter’s score, which helps set Better Call Saul apart from Breaking Bad. The two scores are similar enough to provide continuity, but where Breaking Bad’s music is full of mechanical sounds, drones, saws and reverberations, the music of Better Call Saul has a much warmer timbre, more traditional instrumentation and a more naturalistic sound. (The best side-by-side comparison I can think of is “Dead Freight” versus “Border Crossing”— similar themes, similar rhythm and tempo, completely different feels.) The use of flute and harp stands out in particular— you’d never hear those instruments used in the same way in an episode of Breaking Bad.

One of this episode’s most effective individual beats is Cal coming out of nowhere and hitting Jimmy’s windshield, which manages to be startling even when you know it’s coming. It’s the distraction factor: preoccupy the audience with new information (Jimmy’s card was declined) and then fling a skateboarder into the frame. Jimmy, his windshield broken (can we call that a Breaking Bad reference?), limps home.

The lighting in Jimmy’s office is just gorgeous. This show unreasonably romanticises broke lawyers living in salon backrooms. We learn that Jimmy has a host of “past due” bills— wireless, Visa, library, Diner’s Club, phone— and then get a brilliant hook in the form of a check for $26,000 (dated May 9, 2002, for those of us tracking this stuff) that he promptly rips up, scowling.

Everything about the offices of Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill is so composed, right down to the five-note elevator chime. Blue and wood panelling predominate. I’ll have more to say about colours later on.

The boardroom scene is a beautiful piece of exposition, establishing characters and relationships bit by bit without spelling anything out. Chuck is someone close to Jimmy, and Hamlin, a senior partner at HHM, is giving Chuck money. He’s paying it into Jimmy’s account because Chuck isn’t capable of going to the bank, for some reason. Chuck helped build the firm, but he doesn’t work there any more and Jimmy thinks he never will again. Hamlin, on the other hand, believes Chuck can overcome his situation, and Jimmy dodges the question when asked whether Chuck really wants to be cashed out. The words “brother” and “illness” aren’t even used.

“If Chuck can call this an extended sabbatical, so can we”, Hamlin says— it’s not just Betsy Kettleman who’s engaging in a degree of denial (though the whole situation with Hamlin and Chuck’s illness becomes much more shaded and more complicated later on).

Let’s take another look at this incredible frame:

Kim and Jimmy share a cigarette. Seven words are spoken. Thus, their relationship is sketched out. See above re: exposition. We also see Kim literally clearing up after Jimmy after he takes his frustration out on the trash can, illustrating how they respectively deal with unfairness; he lashes out, she sets things straight.

Again in darkness, Jimmy arrives at Chuck’s house, stashes his phone and keys in the mailbox, and grounds himself on a piece of metal. (The air in Albuquerque is so dry that it’s very easy to build up a static charge. I was constantly getting zapped by door handles.) Chuck, noticing Jimmy’s discontent, instinctively asks him if he’s “in trouble”, which must sting.

Good Lord the lighting is beautiful.

Chuck does have a point about what would happen if he were to cash out of HHM. Jimmy doesn’t seem to see past the initial payout. What they’re really arguing about, beyond money, is whether or not Chuck is ever going to recover from his unspecified illness. The way his voice breaks on “I’m going to get better!” is rough.

“Your friend Kim— a promising career, over and done with.” Not to read too much into this phrasing, but it sounds almost like Chuck thinks that if Kim lost her job at HHM it would be the end of her entire career. As if the firm is only keeping her there out of charity.

“But Jimmy, wouldn’t you rather build your own identity?” Oh, Chuck, if you only knew.

The next scene plunges us into sunlight. Jimmy has tracked down the skateboarders and we get a foundational piece of his backstory: he used to make money running slip-and-fall scams on the icy sidewalks of his hometown, and now he wants the boys to take a hit from Betsy Kettleman so that he can parachute into her good graces. Jimmy, apparently, has been observing Betsy closely enough that he knows where her kids go to school, what time she leaves to pick them up, and what route she takes. I mean, okay.

The hit-and-run happens at 7th Street and Tijeras Avenue, very close to the school where Jimmy & crew film the flag in season 2, and a short distance west of the courthouse district and the Civic Plaza. This whole sequence is such a glorious comedy of errors, and it showcases perfectly Jimmy’s ability to think on his feet. I mean, it’s also true that if he’d aborted the plan when “Betsy Kettleman” had driven off, he never would have ended up hog-tied in the desert pleading for his life, but those are unknown unknowns, I suppose.

“You felonied my brother!" is possibly one of my favourite lines of the season.

Who among us saw Tuco coming? None. None of us. I gasped. It was very considerate of the show to release the next episode immediately.

Miscellaneous

While most of the addresses shown on screen in BCS are fictionalised, the address shown on Jimmy’s mail—160 Juan Tabo Boulevard NE— is the actual IRL location of the nail salon.

Items in Gene’s shoebox: the videotape, an old Band-Aid container, various photos including one of a man standing in front of a 1940s-style car, and a photo packet from a film lab in Portland, Maine

Broken windshields: 2

New Mexico Statutes violated: 3— § 30-28-2, conspiracy to commit felony fraud (Jimmy, Cal and Lars); § 66-7-202, failing to stop after an accident causing damage to a vehicle (Mrs. Salamanca); § 30-3-2, aggravated assault (Tuco)

Timeframe: May 13 to May 25, 2002 (see next post)

Music

“Address Unknown” by the Ink Spots (1939), during the Cinnabon sequence

“Milestones” by Shook (2014), as the twins attempt to scam Betsy

References

Network: a 1976 film about a news anchor who begins ranting about the state of the world during a broadcast. The character whom Jimmy quotes (”You have meddled with the primal forces of nature...!”) is a man who berates the protagonist for speaking out against his network’s corporate owners. Bryan Cranston starred in the 2017 stage adaptation.

Peter Minuit: a Dutch trader who purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape people for a sum equalling about $1,000 in today’s money

“Ergo, a falsis principiis proficisci”: “therefore, you proceed from false principles"

Trichinosis: a parasitic disease most often spread via undercooked pork

Starlight Express: an Andrew Lloyd Webber rock musical performed on rollerskates

> NEXT EPISODE: MIJO

#bcs rewatch #better call saul

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thehuggamugcafe · 7 years ago

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The Charlatan: Transfer Student II

OOC: So, like the idiot that I can be on occasion, I forgot to extend my heartfelt gratitude toward the anon who suggested this to begin with. The anon who “planted the seed” in this Barista’s brain, if you will.

Fear not, dear anon. I didn’t forget you, not for a second. Thus, I will wholeheartedly thank you now for suggesting this to begin with. Without your ingenious thought, this wouldn’t have been at all possible. So, again, this Barista thanks you from the bottom of her heart, dear anon!

Also, I was watching NicoB’s playthrough of Persona 5, watching the first episode of the animation, and reading the Persona 5 manga while writing this. I wasn’t sure which one to stick with, so I went with a mixture of the three. I hope that that’s fine with everybody.

Well, that’s enough rambling from me. Let us start the game, shall we? ☕

Part I is here: https://thehuggamugcafe.tumblr.com/post/174565496827/the-charlatan-transfer-student-i

Your eyes narrowed, a frown pursed your lips as your brows pinched the slant of your glaring gaze. Your hands curled to fists that shook, trembled with thinly contained anger in your lap as you breathed a sigh. You always got a bit fired up whenever you thought back to what transpired on that day...

Suddenly, the giggles of two teenagers caught your attention, their laughter breaking you from your gloomy thoughts. You blinked as you raised your head, pointing your glasses-framed (e/c) irises on the two teenagers. They were female, a year or two younger than you, and dressed in school uniforms.

“Huh? Are you for real? A mental shutdown?”

“It’s the truth!”

“To a person, though? That’s gotta be a joke,” one girl said, rolling her soft brown eyes heavenward as she added, “You really love all that occult stuff, don’t you?”

Typical. Don’t they have anything better to do but gossip? you muttered silently, distaste worming its way through every word, every syllable you quietly hissed.

You pursed your lips to a thin line, swallowing a particularly snarky comment as the girls shared one last giggle, resisting the temptation to roll your eyes. You settled for voicing a soft “tsk” as you rode the train to your destination.

Finally, the subway pulled to one of the stops you had to make on the way to your destination: Yongen-Jaya.

In what felt like no time at all, you found yourself surrounded by a literal pond of people: men, women, teenagers, and children. Advertisements for a variety of products, TV shows, movies, and news reports were displayed on large screens. Their comments and laughter rose up into the sunny atmosphere in a collective chorus, and you felt your eyes widening slightly.

“S-So many people,” you muttered, blinking owlishly.

“Ah!” you breathed, bringing your (e/c) gaze back down on your phone.

The GPS menu was displayed, having already put in directions to the café of your caretaker for the next year: Sojiro Sakura.

“Oh yeah... Um... It’s in Yongen-Jaya, right? ...Transfer from Shibuya Station to the... Denentoshi Line... Where is that? Is it around here...?”

Your gaze fell on an uniformed officer—and almost immediately, a chill danced up and down your spine.

Ever since that day, you felt somewhat anxious around police officers, whether they were in uniform or off-duty. In the here and now, whenever a cop’s stern glare fell on you, you’d always wonder to yourself...

If you’d wake up one morning, and find yourself surrounded by four walls.

If you’d wake up one morning, and feel the sensation of icy steel clamped around your wrists.

If you’d wake up one day and find yourself stared, pointed at, sneered at, and mocked for the rest of your days.

Tch! you seethed quietly, furrowing your brows slightly.

I should’ve known that my so-called “friends” wouldn’t associate with me anymore, either!

It was true. None of your friends, friends who had sworn to stick by your side through thick and thin, through the good times and the bad times, had shown up at the station to see you off. The only ones who even bothered to show up to see you off, to wish you well, and to promise to keep in touch with you at all through your probation period were your father and little brother.

“Don’t talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t hang out with you.”

“It’s been fun, (Y/n), but...”

“I’m sorry, but...”

“We can’t be friends anymore.”

“We just can’t, okay? Please understand.”

“You’ve been a great friend, but...”

For a moment, and only a moment, your posture stiffened, becoming as rigid and straight as a board, feeling your shoulders stiffening as a wave of strong irritation washed over you. Finally, you breathed in, slowly and deeply, releasing the breath in a whoosh of an exhale.

Suck it up, (Y/n)! you chided yourself, your heels clicking on the asphalt as you approached the officer.

Honestly, what’s the worst he could do? Tell you to get lost, nothing else.

“Excuse me, officer?”

The cop’s eyes fell on you, narrowing slightly as he gave you a quick once-over look out of suspicion before grunting out a, “Yeah?” in response to you addressing him.

“Where is the Denentoshi Line...?” you asked, holding up your cellphone as you voiced your question.

“Denentoshi Line...?” The officer glanced up from your phone, pointing on your left. “Go that way.”

“Thank you very much,” you said, lingering long enough to bow respectfully.

You took no more than a few steps before you paused, sparing a quick glance behind the stationary officer, spotting the caution tape that was stretched, connected to two poles.

A no trespassing line, huh?

Once again the heels of your shoes clicked over the street as you walked away from the officer, flicking a stare around you, over your shoulder. Your (e/c) irises silently ogled the occasional group of civilians here and there, usually with a uniformed officer in their midst, gesturing or asking them to move along.

Here too? you mused quietly, pursing your lips.

You breathed a hum as you exited the station, stepping out into the open streets of Tokyo.

Is Shibuya really that dangerous?

Your quiet curiosity remained as you blinked, standing in the midst of clusters upon clusters of people. The pond of citizens you stood in mere moments ago was a foreshadowing of being amongst an ocean of civilians. Your eyes widened as your mouth fell open, astounded by how many chattering men, women, teenagers, and children surrounded you.

“There’s... There’s so many people,” you muttered, realizing just how out-of-place you were.

You shook your head, shaking yourself free of the stupefied stupor that possessed you. You raised your phone to eye-level, your (e/c) gaze pointed straight at the illuminated screen.

“Oh yeah! The Denentoshi Line... Ah!”

Unexpectedly, you stumbled forward a few steps as someone’s shoulder bumped into yours. Luckily, you steadied yourself before you were sent to the ground. That didn’t stop a fresh wave of irritation to hit you. It didn’t stop you from pointing a glare on the offending person.

It certainly didn’t stop you from snapping an irate, “hey!” to the young man as he walked by you.

The young man, a year or two younger than you, simply returned your annoyed scowl. He looked as though you had bumped into him, not the other way around.

For the second time in the time-frame of a few minutes, your lips pursed to a thin line as you frowned.

He bumped into me, and he didn’t say anything? Not even offered me an apology?

Your hand clutched the cellphone, furrowing your brows as you voiced a soft “tch!” of annoyance.

“Oh, so yesterday...”

“Really? Yikes. That’s tough. I feel bad for you, man.”

“I feel so sluggish. Tomorrow’s Sunday too. Monday’s going to be a pain in the ass.”

“Mom! You want a bite?”

“Hm?” you murmured, blinking owlishly as you stared at the screen of your phone as a notification tune played.

“What is this? It’s so creepy.”

“Ah!”

The surprised gasp of a child as her ice cream cone fell from her hand went unnoticed by you, too absorbed in what blinked back at you on your phone. An unusual app was displayed, bolstering of a red and black colour scheme, but what you found to be most unsettling about the app’s appearance was what appeared to be an eye in the middle, seeming to almost stare back at you.

“Weird... Did that bump make me press something I shouldn’t have?”

A bubble of confusion rose up inside you, a frown pursed your lips as you pressed a finger on the glowing screen. Frustrated, you pressed it a few more times, but it did nothing; the end result was a sore thumb and fresh annoyance.

“Seriously... What the hell is this...?” you asked, breathing a sigh.

“I have the feeling that’s what’s going on...”

The voice of a businessman caught your attention—or rather, his voice droning to a complete stop caught your attention.

“Tomorrow’s test is so...”

The voice of a high school student complaining to her friend also slowed to a halt.

Startled, you looked over your shoulder, watching as the girls’ steps became sluggish, as though they’d suddenly become mired in mud. Looking around, you realized that it wasn’t just the businessman or the high school girls who’d slowed to a stop, freezing altogether. In fact...

Everyone had stopped.

Awash in surprise and confusion, you looked around, but it didn’t matter. Everywhere you looked you saw life-like statues of what had been people chatting, laughing, and walking mere seconds ago.

“Huh?!” you breathed, shocked, confused, and...

Honestly, a bit terrified at what you were seeing.

“T-They all stopped...?” you stuttered, your face paling in surprise.

And yet... And yet...

The hairs rose on the back of your neck, and your forearms quivered with a similar feeling of gooseflesh.

You were being watched.

You turned on your heels, locking a stare on what appeared to be... flames. The fire was bluish-white in hue, flickering sporadically before it burst to life. It touched concrete, shone against glass, and yet whatever it touched, it remained unaffected. The fire took on an unidentifiable form, flaring out at the edges as reddish-orange appeared in what could pass for a face, grinning fiendishly.

“That’s...”

Only for it to become your face.

“Me...?”

Indeed, your visage stared back at you amidst the blue-white fire, a fiendish smile curling lips that were very similar to your own, but... You would never grin, smile, or smirk so dangerously, and... More importantly, above everything else...

In place of (e/c) irises were eyes that shone with a golden hue, strangely complimenting the devilish sneer that curled your doppelgänger’s lips. The ‘you’ who watched you gripped what appeared to be a mask in ‘her’ hands, wrapped in the glowing bluish-white flames just as ‘she’ was.

A chilling chuckle left ‘her’ lips, the marigold irises glinting maniacally as you blinked...

She was gone.

“...What the...?”

“By the way...”

“Wahhh! Mommy!”

The distressed cries of a little girl caught your attention, staring at her as her brown eyes welled up with tears. Her ice cream cone hit the ground with a soft splat noise, the cone crumbling at the edges. The life-like statues, the people that surrounded you resumed their previous activities. They, talked, laughed, complained, and they walked, ran, drove, or sped past you on bicycles.

“Hush, now. I’ll buy you another one,” the mother said, reassuring her sniffling daughter.

“Where were you yesterday?”

“He said that? Really?”

“Heh? That’s new...”

“Seriously? I mean...”

They’re all moving again? you thought, blinking owlishly as you looked around.

“Huh... Was it just my imagination...?”

Frowning, you spared a glance down at the screen of your cellphone. The app was still there.

“...Yeah. That’s got to be it,” you muttered, pressing and holding your index finger on the blinking red and black app.

A trash bin icon popped up as the blinking app was dragged down, disappearing from your sight. Your eyes widened as the current time glared back at you in (f/c) digital numbers: 16:45.

“It’s this late already?!” you gasped, turning on your heels and running from the clusters of citizens.

To you, it seemed as though someone had pressed a fast forward button on the world, but you soon found yourself standing in front of a coffee shop in a back alley.

“Café Leblanc... This must be it,” you said, breathing in as you steadied yourself.

A slim, feminine hand reached for the café’s latch, pulling down on it and tugging the café’s door open. A small golden bell above the entrance jingled merrily as you stepped inside, signaling your arrival—and almost immediately, the scent of brewing coffee made its aroma known to you.

“A public transit bus was driven down an opposing line with its customers still in it! The citizens can’t live in peace if this keeps up!”

The voice of a tabloid show host announced the news through a TV screen fixed into the wall, near the service counter. The TV host’s monotone voice resulted in you managing to resist the urge to roll your eyes heavenward, if only slightly.

“How frightening,” an elderly man said, shaking his head as he talked.

“What could be going on? Didn’t something similar happen just the other day?”

An elderly woman sat across from him, tossing in her thoughts as well. They were most likely husband and wife.

“Vertical is... The name of a shellfish used for farming pearls...”

The second man’s voice caught your attention, staring at a man who sat in one of the stools. He appeared to be middle-aged, black hair that was slicked-back with a receding hairline, gray eyes, a chinstrap beard with a goatee that flared out, and glasses sat on his nose. He wore a pale pink dress shirt with rolled up sleeves, a black apron with a white pinstripe design, pale khakis held up by a white leather belt, and white loafers completed his appearance.

After a short pause he glanced up, fixing a stare on you.

“...Oh, right,” he said, pausing to set the crossword puzzle and pencil aside on the service counter.

“They did say that was today.”

“We’ll be going now. The payment’s on the table,” the elderly man said, standing up along with his wife.

“Thanks for coming.”

“This place is in the back alley, so there’s no chance of a car crashing in here.”

The older man let out a soft, wheezy laugh, as though he had said something particularly funny.

“A what now?”

“There’s been a string of those rampage accidents, you know. I just hope that none happen around here.”

“It’s none of my concern.”

Your brows furrowed slightly at the bearded man’s cold attitude. Just what sort of acquaintance was this man to your parents?

“Haha, we’ll see you next time.”

You moved to give the elderly couple enough room to move, watching them over your shoulder as they exited the small café. The telltale jingle of the small bell above the entrance was heard as the door shut behind them.

A soft “tsk” of annoyance made you look back at the middle-aged man.

“...Four hours for a single cup of joe,” he muttered to himself, raising a hand to scratch the back of his head. His voice spoke volumes of his annoyance.

“I was wondering what kind of unruly kid would show up, but you’re the one, huh?”

You stared at the gray-eyed, middle-aged owner, blinking owlishly.

“I’m (Y/n) (L/n),” you said, pausing to bow respectfully before adding, “I appreciate this, sir.”

The man raised his eyebrows, lazily drawling out a “heh” in response to your greeting. He seemed to be surprised by your display of manners.

“So, you’re (Y/n)?”

You straightened your posture, nodding once. A smile quirked the corner of his lips.

“I’m Sojiro Sakura. You’ll be in my custody for the next year.”

#persona 5 #p5 #persona 5 AU #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #reader #akiraxreader #renxreader #akiraxreaderxren #ryuji sakamoto #morgana #ann takamaki #yusuke kitagawa #makoto niijima #futaba sakura #haru okumura #goro akechi #the first meeting #of the best adopted Dad ever!

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Trial of the Chicago 7: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin Were the Martin and Lewis of the Radical Left

https://ift.tt/3497VU7

“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows,” Bob Dylan intoned on his song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” influencing a group of young mad bombers to blow against the wind. The group at the center of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 didn’t blow up bathrooms in federal investigative agencies; they protested bombings, and all other forms of violence, when they stood against authority at the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

The Youth International Party, or Yippies, was non-violent, even if one of the co-founders, Abbie Hoffman (played by Sacha Baron Cohen in the movie), wrote his first radical tract, Fuck the System, under the pseudonym George Metesky, a mad bomber from the 1940s. The other, Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong on screen), blew bubbles while dressed as George Washington at his HUAC hearing.

Rubin would go on to beat bongos as part of John Lennon’s morphing street musician crusaders, playing live at political demonstrations across America, while Hoffman was knocked upside the head with the guitar of The Who’s Pete Townshend when he interrupted the band at Woodstock. But Lennon had the last word about Rubin. “I gotta ask you comrades and brothers, how do you treat your own woman back home?” Lennon asked in the song “Power to the People.” He was singing to Rubin.

Abbie Hoffman was a radical. He believed in the redistribution of wealth and power, universal hospital care, and that the richest country in the world should not have homeless people. Radical, said his political enemies. Insane. Crazy like the Flower Power movement he was part of. Flowers don’t power things, oil does. Money does. Blood does.

Hoffman’s contribution to political literature was a guidebook on living free, and the first step was to take the title literally: Steal This Book. By the time Hoffman resurfaced from his years underground as a drug dealing charged fugitive, he expressed his primary concern, and that of many caught up in the insane no-tolerance drug policies of the time, with the book Steal This Urine Test. It didn’t suggest dumping them in the holy water. It waged guerilla warfare on the War on Drugs.

Hoffman was a born outlaw, a duck-tailed, leather jacketed teen rebel looking for a cause. Born Nov. 30, 1936 in Worcester, Massachusetts, he was expelled from Classical High School when a paper he wrote concluded God could not possibly exist, prompting his teacher to call him a Communist punk. Hoffman proved it by jumping the teacher.

Rubin was born July 14, 1938 in Cincinnati. His father was a union organizer. Rubin was one of the leaders of the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon. After the heyday of the protest movement, Rubin moved from radical politics to freeing the mind with human potential, although it wasn’t free of charge.

Rubin was a burgeoning businessman, but was also an outlaw at heart. He even died breaking a law. One of the most basic laws almost everyone, regardless of class, color, or creed, thinks nothing of breaking. Rubin died of a heart attack two weeks after being hit by a car while jaywalking. The implications seem almost surreal, but the Yippie movement was filled with ridiculous ways to challenge legal authority.

Well before Rubin’s death in the ‘90s, he was there with Hoffman on Aug. 24, 1967, tossing fistfuls of dollars, real and fake, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to protest capitalism. Traders went crazy grabbing at the cash. The NYSE built a wall to stop the unfettered financial fun. The Youth International Party nominated Pigasus, a pig, as its candidate for president in the 1968 election campaign.

The “Chicago Seven” trial, named after Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers was tried separately from the original defendants, was loaded with courthouse street theater. They even wanted to design their own costumes. The first things Rubin, Hoffman, Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, and Lee Weiner did when they went into trial was to stomp on their judicial robes. When Hoffman got sworn in as a witness, his hand was giving the finger.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot, but they were a riot in court. Sadly, the judge at the bench didn’t get the jokes. Judge Julius Hoffman’s humor went another way. He thought it was fitting to have Seale bound and gagged when he wanted to be tried separately, and didn’t like to be heckled. The giddy group of mischievous militants were cited for contempt over 200 times.

The Chicago Seven Trial saw the appearances of “cultural witnesses” like Allen Ginsberg, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, and Norman Mailer. Hoffman gave a speech saying if Abraham Lincoln were alive and in Chicago during the convention, he would have been arrested in Lincoln Park. When he was being sentenced, Hoffman offered to hook the judge up with an LSD dealer he knew.The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Chicago Seven convictions, cited errors by Judge Hoffman and criticized his courtroom demeanor. The Walker Commission, which investigated the disruption at the Chicago Democratic Convention, concluded it was a “police riot.”

The old guard Left was also lacking in its sense of humor. The militant youth movement, hippies, self-proclaimed freaks and Free Speech movers, were merry pranksters. Diehard socialists fought with placards, bricks, and feet. Hoffman tried to levitate the Pentagon. Was it childish? The demonstration would have heard noted baby-rearing author Dr. Benjamin Spock speak about the importance of protecting children of any age. The protesters were met by soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division. With poet Allen Ginsberg leading Tibetan chants behind him, Hoffman telepathically tuned in and declared the Vietnam War would end when the Pentagon started to vibrate and turn orange.

The Youth International Party had no official membership or leadership. Before the Yippie movement, Rubin ran as the radical candidate for mayor of Berkeley, on a platform of exposing his opponent’s racist hiring policies. Hoffman was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a radical community-action group called the Diggers, who kicked him out for being a media junky. Abbie published a book blowing “the hustle of every poor person on the Lower East Side,” according to Peter Coyote.

Following the trial, Rubin wrote the books Do It! and We Are Everywhere, which made him think he was a rock star. He appeared with Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bobby Seale, Ralph Nader, Chuck Berry, and George Carlin on The Mike Douglas Show. Until the end of his career, Douglas maintained that was the most interesting week of his entire career.

On Aug. 28, 1973, Hoffman was arrested in New York City for trying to sell $36,000 worth of cocaine. He said he was set up and entrapped. He jumped bail in 1974 and vanished, occasionally popping up to remind police he’d disappeared. Turns out he was actually working for the rock magazine Crawdaddy! as a travel writer under the name Barry Freed and had his face rendered unrecognizable by plastic surgery. He surrendered to authorities in 1980, but not until after he taped an interview with Barbara Walters for ABC’s 20/20. He received a one-year sentence but was released after four months.

In the late ‘70s, Rubin discovered seminar training with est and sold a nutritional drink called Wow, which had plenty of kelp, ginseng and bee pollen. Bobby Seale was one of his salesmen. Having broken down the $20,000 financial firewall constructed after the fistfuls-of-dollars stunt, Rubin returned to Wall Street in the 1980s decade of greed and trickle-down voodoo economics. At first, he claimed he was trying to bring some consciousness to the spiritual center of capitalism. But then he sold his soul for a three-piece suit and became a broker. He opened Business Networking Salons, Inc., hosting parties at Studio 54, and said he was part of a real American revolution. Rubin and Hoffman went on a speaking tour giving public debates about yuppies versus Yippies.

Movies

The Trial of the Chicago 7 Ending: What Happened Next?

By David Crow

Movies

Aaron Sorkin: Donald Trump Made The Trial of the Chicago 7 Movie Possible

By David Crow

Rubin took to the “Me Generation” with the same fervor he had with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. He embarked on an inner revolution, eating carrots until he turned orange. He also atoned for his misogynist past by discussing his own sexual shortcomings in the 1980 book The War Between the Sheets, which he wrote with his wife, commodities futures trader Mimi Leonard.

Rubin could afford it, he had by this time become a multimillionaire, having invested in Apple Computer. Hoffman never bit the apple, continuing in the tradition of American civil disobedience whether it came to saving trees from deforestation or Third World Countries from the U.S. intelligence community. One embraced the unfettered financial social coup, the other was disgusted with the anti-capitalist complacency of Reagan America.

Hoffman made a cameo appearance playing himself in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, the story of anti-war activist Ron Kovic. Rubin would have been quite comfortable as himself in Stone’s Wall Street, the embodiment of the “Greed is Good” mentality.

Hoffman was arrested In November 1986, along with Amy Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to protest CIA recruitment on its campus. The federal district trial which followed exposed CIA involvement in Nicaragua, along with decades of illegal covert activities.

Hoffman was found dead in his apartment, on April 12, 1989, in an apparent suicide. When Abbie died, Jerry was the only Chicago conspiracy defendant at the funeral. “I used to say, ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30,’” Rubin told a reporter in his financially fatter latter years. “Now I say don’t trust anyone under 50.” Abbie maintained the ideals of his youth, but found far fewer dividends.

The pair were happy to be the “clowns for peace” Lennon called himself during his and Yoko’s honeymoon protest. They brought the generational divide closer together by exposing the ridiculous nature of the divisions. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 sets out to capture all three rings of the circus of political justice. Rubin and Hoffman were masters of ceremonies in the most unceremonious of ways.

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elsewhereuniversity · 8 years ago

Text

She did not apply to Elsewhere. She’s very sure she did not apply to Elsewhere. She had let her eyes deliberately slide past the name and the godforsaken crest, had made sure she didn’t take any forms she didn’t need, had double and triple checked the addresses.

The letter came for her anyway.

The envelope had a single stamp neatly glued to it’s top right corner, which she appreciates (it forms a nice balance with the university crest on the top left), but really, if they were trying for normality there should be a postmark somewhere.

And they should perhaps leave the letter in her mailbox instead of on her goddamn coffee table.

She’d like to think that she was calm when she saw it, looking like a poisoned gift in the middle of the oval tabletop, but really, her reaction was more like an amalgamation of the words ‘why god why’ and ‘oh hell no’.

It took several hours of calming down, a box of Pop Tarts and a brief trip out for milk and salt before she approached it, a cup of warm milk in one hand.

A bowl of salt in the other.

She placed both on the coffee table, positioned them so they looked like they were closing in on the inanimate trespasser. It doesn’t do anything for what she’s planning, but helps with morale nonetheless.

Grabbing a pair of tweezers (stainless steel, but it’ll do) in a gloved hand, she picked up the letter from one corner and dropped it into the bowl.

Nothing.

She frowned. They were getting clever.

Taking another sip of milk, she dragged the envelope back onto the coffee table, and proceeded to rip it open with the tweezers. When that didn’t work, she got up, went to the study, and got a box cutter, fresh from it’s packaging.

The blade snapped as soon as it touched the flap. Trying to tear it open with gloves was like catching a live fish with bare hands.

By the time the sun went from being high in the sky to brushing the horizon, she had went from scared to frustrated, and the envelope went from unopened to slightly crumpled, but very decidedly Not Open.

She put her head in her hand, still gloved, and let out a groan.

Burning it hadn’t worked (she hasn’t seen paper curl away from fire like that before). Burying it in the backyard didn’t work (she had to sweep up the dirt the letter tracked in). Switching into her thinnest gloves hadn’t worked. Opening it with her acrylic nails didn’t do anything apart from snapping all of them in two.

She grabbed the letter, went outside, and stuck it into her iron letterbox.

When she returned to the living room, the letter was sitting on the coffee table like a smug guest. She could have screamed.

“You,” she snarled, “are more trouble than you’re worth. Open.”

The envelope actually deflated. Slowly, the flap curled back, revealing a sliver of cream against white.

Pulling out a single sheet, she unfolded the letter.

There were no pretences between her and the Gentry, whether they resided in an educational institution or not. So the letter was short (by their standards, not hers) and to the point (again, by their standards, not hers).

Dear Xian,

She rolled her eyes. Damn their inability to comprehend Chinese names.

On behalf of our admissions team, I congratulate you on your admissions to Elsewhere University. You have been awarded a place at our institution, Elsewhere University, by request of our generous patrons, who have agreed to finance your education during your time here.

Generous her ass. The Folk are not generous. Not when it doesn’t suit them.

Elsewhere University is a high ranking institution with a longstanding tradition of recognising and nurturing excellence,

And in capture-and-release of unsuspecting college students, she’s sure.

and we are pleased to have you be a part of our student body.

You mean be a part of Fae TV, she thought angrily, reading the rest of the letter. It was mostly drivel all the way down, admissions statistics and how she should be proud to be offered a place. Scoffing again at ‘university traditions’, she got to the last paragraph.

We expect your acceptance to our invitation by Beltane (May 1st). Elsewhere University welcomes you, and I personally look forward to greeting you on campus.

Sincerely,

An illegible scrawl, and what may be a drop of blood next to it. There was no name.

Great. An acceptance from a university she never applied to, an endorsement from a shadowy figure, and quite literally no room for rejection. Might as well tell her she’s been summoned and be done with it.

Part of her itched to set the damn thing on fire, but another part, who had curled into herself and began to scheme, knew that it would be the worst thing she ever did in this situation.

Her mind flickered back to a vision of rolling hills, borne out of flat land, of beings too beautiful to be seen without a small measure of horror, of standing transfixed, a child’s curiosity, still untempered by fear or knowledge.

The sensation of being lifted up, like a flower plucked from the earth and carried away, fast and far. Of staring into eyes that she knew but couldn’t recognise, of fingernails that were suddenly too sharp when they held her (‘Mama!’ ‘I’m so sorry, my darling, so sorry, did I hurt you, my darling, are you in pain?’ ), of talons that lightly scratched at her scalp when they brushed through her hair and limbs that didn’t move as naturally as they usually did, even hours after she was brought home.

And now, it seems, she’s being called back.

Pushing her hair back from her face, she looked at the letter again. It stared back, as well as a thing without eyes could.

Ah what the hell.

Peeling back a glove so it wouldn’t get ruined, she reached forward and touched the tip of a lengthened fingernail to the paper.

The words shifted, crawling over the paper like ants to form a single sentence, written in a heavy hand:

“We appreciate your prompt response, and expect your attendance at the University this fall.”

Well, shit.

——————-

I devoured the Elsewhere University archives within 2 days, and have been loyally following any updates ever since, so here’s my humble contribution from playing in this sandbox.

This was combining the partly the idea of descendants attending the same university (and one of them being rather desperate to break the tradition), the idea of a treaty with the university, current racial politics, tales of students adapting to the lifestyle and culture of another land, and a conversation with my friend that ended in “Y'know, if they were brazen enough, who’s to say they won’t steal each other’s kids? I’m just saying that someone must have tried, yanno?"

So here’s my international student receiving an acceptance to EU without actually applying there, who is a bit more than what she seems, but is mostly human. Mostly.

(x)

#silverinthenorth #stories #too beautiful to be seen without a small measure of horror #is a very good line #international students #holy fuck this is lovely #submission

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ilovehighhats · 8 years ago

Text

Sculptor, ch. 2, The Weed

Or shaping the future one day at a time.

In which the sapling turns out to be something different than what was planted.

Bane sighed, releasing a thick cloud of vapour, feeling the tension escape him further along with air leaving his lungs.

Aware that the ritual was as important to him as the drug, he took care now to find half an hour both before and after sleep. Helena welcomed the brackets he imposed on their activities, easily swallowing his explanation. Meditation. Wasn’t a lie, not technically, since he did that, too. Only, after a session he took out a small vaporizer and a vial of green oil he got from Dr Isley and imbibed. THC did work on him, to his quiet astonishment. Not wonders, even though the essence was from some novelty variety crossbred by the botanist; nothing could compare with the instant thunderous impact of Venom. Nevertheless it helped him chill and dulled some of his aches to a point he believed he behaved like a normal guy. Regular Frank, not looking over his shoulder at every louder sound, not jumping at unfamiliar shadows, not lashing out at strangers visiting his property uninvited.

He thought he could live without it, without the scheduled regularity, but then the episode with the knife happened. So he kept on taking two, sometimes three doses every day.

Helena’s suggestion that he should start smoking marijuana delighted him. His prim and proper scribe ready to break the rules for him. Only for him. Always, for him.

With each passing day he was more and more besotted with her.

To his dismay, it didn’t help settle him in his sleep. And she saw him that night when reality shifted, the fabric of time overlapping so that he was at the same time back in the condo in Gotham, with Talia sullenly complaining about Wayne, and yet aware that the body beside him was Helena’s, so his mind made a connection telling him he must have been at the Armenian compound. She surprised him again that night, twice. First with how calm she reacted, letting him gently fall away from the mirage his mind conjured. And then later, when she took him out and away from fruitless and frustrating tossing and turning on the bed. Once again she was attuned to him, fitting in his cracks and crevices, filling out inadequacies, tempering sharp points and overeager tendencies. With a start he realized she led him and he followed gladly, a revelation at once baffling and oddly satisfying. Maybe leading wasn’t the best word, he thought smirking and inhaling deep the vapour, guiding seemed much more suitable. Helena herself insisted on them walking side by side, even if she was the one who set the destination. He still had ample opportunity to discuss the path, chart the course together and pick the tempo; if he wanted. She was his compass and at the same time the azymuth he followed. Ultimately it boiled down to the fact he wanted to be wherever she was, whether on the move or rooted to the ground.

oOo

Much like back at the monastery they quickly developed a comfortable routine. Both slept in their respective beds, but the days were spent intermittently together, either on mornings or evenings. Sometimes Helena would sleep over at Bane’s.

She still couldn’t bring herself to call him by his real name.

Schedule cemented after two weeks, the first signs of true comfort began seeping into their interactions. A tender kiss on the neck. Cuddling on the sofa. Soft palm running over shoulders in passing. Warm smiles from over a book, or a plate, or when Bane pummelled Helena’s King on the chessboard, yet again winning the round in three moves.

All of this was very well. But the device she bought for him didn’t do its job. Bane still had nightmares. Sometimes he’d tell her himself, sometimes she saw that in the way he rubbed his jaw or stretched his neck.

She worried.

Getting him to use Lully was more to see if he’d be receptive to her help, but there was hope at the back of her head that it would be enough. Silly thought. He needed therapy.

On top of all that he never mentioned if he had hallucinations again. Asking would be too much on Helena’s nerves, so she settled on letting him deal with that on his own. For now. Until she’d be less scared of who he saw her as.

Now she was facing another gruesome task, namely preparing him for another type of trauma. Easter brunch loomed not even a week away. She knew some other people would attend and Bane agreed to go, much to her amazement. Gathering intel, he said. Didn’t want to specify on what.

Again, she worried.

Exercise seemed to be the best medicine, so she decided it was high time to roll up her sleeves, literally, and get to work on a vegetable patch and herb garden she wanted to plant.

What she forgot to take into consideration was the fact that the soil she tried to turn was hardly moved in last fifty years. It was nearly as hard and dense as the rocks around. She worked up a nice sweat and her lungs burned with the exertion, and what she had to show for it? A tiny tiny square of ground, filled with rocks, sandy underneath and dry overall.

Maybe she should just keep her plants in pots? That would give her cottage a Mediterranean look. Could be nice.

She stood by her terrace, hands propped up on the shovel, looking down miserably, contemplating her options.

That’s how Bane saw her.

“Your turn to make dinner tonight,” he said as a greeting.

Shit, she forgot.

“Shit, I forgot,” she admitted. “I’m battling the elements in hope of cultivating this godforsaken land, but as you can see it's all a rather pitiful attempt at trying to tame nature.”

He chuckled and took the shovel, exchanging it for a teacloth bundle he brought along.

“What’s that?”

“Bread.” He looked around. “How far you want to go with your renovation?”

“Up to that damson tree, and like this.” She stepped through the grass to show him the shape she wanted to achieve and how far it stretched. “Just turn the soil over, I’ll have to work in fertilizer anyway, so it doesn't have to be very deep.”

“Aren't you supposed to do that before April?”

“I had other concerns in early spring.”

“Right. Off you go,” he shooed her away.

She pecked his cheek quickly before she went, humming even before she crossed the threshold.

They went grocery shopping the day before, so she decided what to cook as she trotted down the stairs. The bread Bane made was a luscious, crusty loaf, very rustic. She decided it would be best to offset it with a nice stew, creamy and warm. The perfect hearty meal after some honest work.

Fond smile crept up on her lips as she cut chicken thighs, then carrots, broccoli, potatoes and onions. From time to time she looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of Bane in the skylight. When she sautéed meat with onions in the crockpot in heaping helping of butter, he leaned his head down over the window.

“It smells delicious,” he mouthed through the glass.

Helena giggled and beamed up at him.

Soon she was adding vegetables and some broth from her freezer. At the top she carefully placed some fresh bay leaves, snipped right off the plant that was standing on the counter. Just like Julia Child. The downtime she had before making roux was perfect opportunity to pick parsley leaves off the stalk and set the table.

Bane came down when she was stirring the stew, smell of nutmeg sharp in the air.

“Are your hands clean?” she asked, turning to look at him.

They weren't, and the rest of him was just as filthy. He took off his outer wear and must have worked only in jeans and long sleeve henley, perspiration clearly visible along with streaks of mud and some green stains.

“Still like me sweaty and dirty?” he teased.

Helena turned off the stove without looking.

“Oh I don’t know, you're not covered in blood and gunpowder,” she said, dared him further with a tantalizing sucking on her lower lip. “I guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we?”

Glued to the spot he nevertheless excluded an air of confidence. She couldn't resist him like this, chest puffed out, hands fisted at his sides, shoulders tightly pulled back. He watched her like a hawk when she neared him carefully, one step after another.

She stopped just outside his reach, marvelling at the way quickened breath escaped his nose in short angry puffs.

“Do it. Take the last step,” he tempted, deep voice husky with need.

This was a bad idea.

Her eyes measured him one last time, from feet to the top of his head.

This was a very bad idea.

Her mouth touched his neck first. Barely a second after, he gripped her hips and her hands found his flanks. A hiss escaped Bane’s mouth, pained and short, when he felt her tongue track a slick trail up to his ear. Reflexively his fingers dug into soft flesh beneath, thumbs hooking at hipbones, easy to find under thin skin. He rocked towards her, once then twice, and rubbed cheek scratchy with stubble on her delicate one. Blindly he found her lips, parted in welcome, eager to taste more of him.

Helena watched him keenly, finally able to see his face with a satisfied, blissful smile. He was beautiful. The scars marring his jaw were like a relief, an organic pattern designed to bring out perfect symmetry of subject underneath. Mutely telling stories of cruelty, bravery and survival.

Their lips met again in a gentle stroke, teasing the nerve endings with back and forth touch that was far from enough.

He threaded fingers through her hair, freeing them from the elastic, individual strands catching lightly on callouses of his hand.

“Tell me you want this,” Bane whispered, stormy eyes insistent. He wouldn’t trespass again, he’d wait just as she asked of him.

Helena smiled, stroking warm palms up his stomach, feeling the damage underneath. Her face shifted, happiness giving way to regret.

“I could have lost you.” She pressed closer, slithering her arms around his broad back. “I never want to be parted with you again.“ And then she looked up once more, meeting his eyes with the same intensity he had, equally burning desire simmering under her skin. “I want you.”

The last step she had to take.

“You're never getting rid of me,” Bane warned, crowding her back, pushing with slightly shaky hands in her hips. “You're mine and no one will touch you but me. Understand?“

“Yes,” she moaned it out because he was already kissing her neck, wet and sloppy, at the same time raising her on the table.

“I always wanted to fuck you on a desk. A kitchen table will do, too,” he hissed in her ear, pulling away to yank her jeans open.

Someone knocked on the skylight.

Their hands stilled and Bane growled, a primal, vibrating sound, the epitome of male displeasure.

“Do you expect anyone?”

“No,” Helena said, jumping off the table, righting her clothes with knitted brows. “I’ll see who that is.”

An unfamiliar silhouette loomed beyond the door, slowing Helena’s steps with uncertainty. Whoever the intruder was knew she would be getting out from the underground level, and pass the balcony door. Which was closest to the skylight. Which in turn, told her volumes about the fact that, intentional or not, they wanted her intimidated.

No such luck.

She opened the door and greeted the guest.

“Mr Brown.”

“Ms Wolf,” he said with a pleasant smile. “May I?” He gestured vaguely towards interior of the house.

“No.”

The level answer surprised him.

“I said I will be back to discuss Bane,” he reminded.

“You did. And I remember distinctly never agreeing on that. Instead I asked you to leave your contact info, so I could notice you if anything as unlikely as Bane calling me would happen.”

“We can do it the hard way,” he warned.

“Let’s. I’m quite sure it we be greater difficulty for you. Stop harassing me.”

The agent’s jaw tensed visibly.

“Who are you protecting?”

“Myself. My peace of mind. Didn’t you get all you wanted when I was interrogated back a few years ago? What would it help you now to make me relive all that had happened again?”

“I’m sure you omitted some vital information back then,” he replied angrily.

Something in wording of that statement caught Helena's interest.

“Really? Tell me, what exactly you think I was unclear about?”

“I would like to conduct this conversation indoors.” The evasion was blatant and insulting.

“You haven’t seen it.” She exclaimed gleefully. “You come here and pester me, because your little government agencies are too incompetent to work together. And you’re grasping at straws.” Her smile turned vicious. “Do you realize that what Bane did to me back then was not the end? Oh, he didn’t contact me over the years, no. But last year, someone very close to me was in Gotham. Someone whom I care about very much. And you come here now, as your colleagues from CIA came before you, and accuse me of withholding vital information from the time I was kept imprisoned. And you had your bad guy trapped and did nothing,” her voice shook with the pent up aggression, “nothing at all to stop him then. When you knew exactly where he was. And I almost lost everything dear to me again. So, Mr Brown, don’t come here anymore. I’m quite certain if you’d try to tackle this issue in, as you described, ‘the difficult way’,” she air quoted, giving way to all the frustration she held at bay before, “the amount of paperwork required for you to interrogate me lawfully would make you sit back and realize how pathetic this attempt is. I’m well aware what you are doing now is illegal.” She mocked him openly now, high on adrenaline. “Oh yes, I know you should be accompanied at least by Norwegian authority. And since I’m not a citizen? Boy howdy, how long does it take to get all papers through an embassy, yeah? You’ve fucked up. I never had anything to say to you, but now I will spite every other US agency that comes here as well, simply because you people never stopped to respect me enough to talk with me openly.” She paused for just two seconds before sneering the final ‘goodbye’, closing the door.

Bane was waiting for her on the stairs to the kitchen, out of sight. She squished beside him on narrow steps, and he hauled her to his lap, hugged her close.

“You were fierce,” he noted.

“The nerve of those people,” she hissed, “Treating every other country as their backyard. And right after they had a crisis developing over months, on their own turf, and didn’t do shit about it. Pisses me off.”

“Indeed?” The usual mockery was toned down, a false note hidden beneath the usual amusement.

“I think I finally tapped into those feelings for Dorrance, the residue that was left after all the time I worried about him as much as I dreaded what would happen with Bane the Terrorist. Now I think about them both at the same time, and both sides mix and intertwine. It’s so difficult to have the same person as both the victim and the oppressor.”

She sighed and cuddled more comfortably into Bane’s comfortable frame. She was warm, and content. Would it be wrong to stay like this until the end of days?

“We should leave,” he murmured into her hair, rubbing his lips on soft tresses.

“I don’t want to leave,” she complained. “I have dinner on the stove.”

Slow chuckle rumbled beneath her ear pressed to Bane’s neck.

oOo

Over the years living in the coast Helena grew to like silence. It was never the ringing in her ears from the absolute muteness around, but instead the calming white noise of nature. Rustle of leaves as branches moved under strong gusts of wind. Creaking of wood. Murmur of grass blades rubbing together, moving as if stroked with an invisible giant hand. Always there were some man-made noises adding to the experience, grounding her in the present. Blips of email notifications. Rustle of sheets, as her current envoy turned unhurriedly every other minute. Clacking of laptop keys. Whisper of paper, as pages of a book were turned almost silently. Or, as it was now, low murmur of a one-sided conversation, as Bane sat with laptop on his thighs and a headpiece on, engrossed in a discussion with one of his colleagues.

The chuckle was uncharacteristic, goofy and puffing in short bursts. Helena looked up from her novel surprised. She smiled, astonished with Bane’s carefree reaction. It was nothing out of the ordinary really, a man enjoying talk with a friend, but it didn't suit the image of this particular man. The fearsome killer snickering over some nerdy joke?

She sobered, catching the thought like an annoying fat fly, bringing it closer for detailed inspection, an analysis of its roots.

That had to be the heart of her inability to fully accept his return. She still thought of Bane the mercenary whenever she saw him. Tony the scientist was there if she read emails or talked over the phone. When in fact he was neither. Or rather both. Or someone in between the two, in the middle of the spectrum.

Her golden mean. Happy medium. Meden agan.

Tiredly she rubbed her cheeks with both hands, shifting on the sofa. Back at the monastery Bane was just himself to her. Both her ruthless kidnapper and avid listener. She knew some of his terrorist profile and saw only part of his scientific research. And still she was able to maintain a relationship, to want it, at least to some point.

Now she finally had the whole picture.

He wasn’t any different to how she remembered him to be. If anything, now he was more inclined to stay and live with her, a fact she knew but didn’t stop to wonder about until now. Regardless of the failure that was Gotham, he sacrificed a lot to come to her. What was to gain? For her a companion, and a friend that’s for sure. Another chance at seeing if she could build a lasting relationship, without the excuse of the partner being inadequate. Bane was her ideal, both thanks to his nature and merit, and not in small amount thanks to her own idealization of him.

But what made him decide, and prepare for, spending his days out in Norwegian province, away from everything his life up to this point has been? Was it the calm stability? The sleepy quality of every day being free to do everything or nothing at all?

He turned to her, broad smile stretching his lips and shrinking some of the scars.

Did it really matter why he was here?

Helena put away her book and slid her palm on his shoulders as she went past to the kitchen, taking the opportunity to leave a small kiss on his temple. She’d make some tea and then when he would be done they’d eat dinner and discuss what herbs to plant and what to bring to Grace and Graham’s Easter brunch.

After dinner Bane lounged in a chair, pensive, tapping slightly the forefinger of left hand on his lips. Steaming cup of tea sat forgotten on the table and his left foot dangled perilously close to it, balanced on his knee. It amused Helena for the first minute or so, watching him so engrossed in his own musings. He murmured something vaguely scientific at her soft inquiry, quantity of dark matter in young galaxies, which told her nothing but the fact that he was theorizing and wouldn't pay her any attention in the foreseeable future. Unless she were to become a young galaxy herself.

Smiling slightly at the prospect of becoming an example of a Greek myth, like Europa abducted by powerful and jealous being enamoured with her beauty, she settled back to read. It wasn't that far off from what actually happened but she wasn't young anymore. Neither of them were.

Rows of letters filled her vision like bars. They formed words, but she couldn’t focus on the text, aware that her prolonged observation resulted in usual and predictable side effect.

Even older, battered and scarred, Bane still was an alluring and enticing specimen. Forearms were thick with muscles cording under tanned skin even in their current relaxed state. T-shirt hugged his chest softly, hanging loosely over taut, strong stomach. He was formidable, the raw power visible even at a glance. Yet his biggest asset was his brain, the immense vastness of information he stored, calculations and possibilities thought over in a blink of an eye, the inexplicable creative surge that made him this much more unexpected and therefore - dangerous. Helena realized he was most threatening when he was like this, folded comfortably in quiet contemplation. Passive. All his ruinous intentions held at bay, unknown and malignant in the way that built dread if only one realized what might be coming.

Or, she corrected herself, since he wasn't a menace anymore this was the most promising sign. Bane developing ideas, straightening and widening path of science.

Forcing herself to look back again at her magazine she sighed slightly. He could talk to her and even if she wouldn't understand a word, his voice alone would be enough to make her cream. Who was she kidding. He was just sitting there, lost in thought, and it was all she needed to tingle with anticipation. But she closed that door herself. She refused him and then he stopped pursuing… And now she wanted to jump him.

“I'll take a nap,” she said, standing up abruptly.

Bane hummed but didn't otherwise react; it might as well be an acknowledgement of some thought that passed his mind at that moment.

She was silent when she scaled the corridor, but her head was bursting with complaints. Why didn't she sit by him? Why didn't she just tell him she wanted him, right now? Why didn't she make that final step, the one she insisted he'd let her take?

On a whim she turned just before the guest room.

Did he hear her intrude on the intimacy of his bedroom? She smirked, disrobing carefully and methodically, down to her panties. He always had a soft spot for those. Although today regretfully she had only some regular cotton ones, an outrageously coloured pair with broad strip of lace out front as a sole ornament.

Immersing herself in Bane’s bed she sighed happily. That smell. She remembered it, and the way the sheets were after few of her visits, his fragrance mixed with hers and dirty smell of sex and sweat. She burrowed deeper, stretching comfortably on her stomach, pressing her head to the only pillow. The bed itself was broad, but as a practical man Bane wouldn't see a point in having more than the necessary on top of it. Even in the mattress was supple, the textiles luxurious…

“I hope you understand, there is no escape for you now.”

Helena smiled into soft cotton, angling her head a bit to the side.

“You think?”

“I'm positive,“ he growled sending her a warning glance, pausing for just a second in his stride. She let herself be swept away with curent of anticipation, aware of his movements but not entirely sure what his intentions were.The bed dipped when he reached it, kneeled over Helena and with gentle hand smoothed her hair to the side.

“I won't let you run from me ever again. And my way of securing that,” he mouthed over her delicate ear. She craned her neck, giving him easier access, huffing an unsteady breath out. “my way of securing that would be very simple and very effective. One that I know you'd like.” His fingers danced on top of her skin, tracing a throbbing line down her neck. She felt her abdomen contract in the ageless sensation, a sweet ache brought forward by mere proximity of the man she wanted.

“And what is that?” She smiled when he dipped his hand under her, grunting and cupping her breast, and pressing to her back more fully even through the sheet.

“All I need to do is keep you exhausted. In my bed.“ He taunted. “Wouldn't even need to tie you to it, I'm sure.”

“Oh, but I might like that,” she murmured, savouring his greediness when he impatiently clawed the sheet off and leaned back. She watched him in her peripheral, knowing the exact way his eyes were glistening as he appreciated flowing line of her exposed back, and the way bold shade of her lingerie cut striking lines accentuating her buttocks.

Hot mouth at the base of her neck was a surprise. A welcome one, but break in their pattern, one she still remembered after ten years apart. But he was free to use his mouth now, and Helena scoffed, mad at herself for submerging into the sensation deep enough to forget about that detail. Where was her obsession with his face, that need to touch and see it? Once she would be unrelenting until he’d let her kiss him, especially in the light of day.

It was so long ago...

“Do you remember that first night?” she asked, rising hips to allow him better hold, relishing strong palms circling slightly protruding bones.

“Yes,” he confirmed, voice sharp and strained.

Her back was engulfed in heat when he bore down, put his weight on top of her. One palm slid down in a stealthy movement while he distracted her with licks and nips and kisses around her shoulders and neck.

Helena dug her knees into the mattress, pressing up, rolling her hips to encourage his hand to hit its mark.

“I loved everything you did then,” she panted. Bane's fingers caressed hem of her panties, tickling taut skin on her abdomen. “But I always wanted to have it all finished with an addition of your mouth on my pussy at the end.”

He growled. Helena shivered at the sound and gripped the pillow, pressed her forehead down under weight of his hand tangled in her hair.

“Just like back then?” he asked, humid breath moving fine fuzz at the back of her neck, the one he obsessed over and over again, an eternity ago.

“Please.” The moan was so much more than a plea to continue.

An absolution. A promise. An admission.

Bane didn't waste time to check how ready she was, the evidence was clear to see when he gently slid her underwear off, glimmer of slick moisture sticking to the fabric, like a hair extending until it broke under the tension. The material was down to her mid-thigh, restricting her movement slightly, and his options along with it.

With a start he straightened, realizing only now he was still fully clothed.

“Do you want me instruct you again?” she asked, turning to him with a laugh.

He was just throwing his t-shirt away, set already on unzipping his pants, his expression fierce and unforgiving.

Helena gulped.

“On your knees,” he ordered.

Oh, she remembered what was to come now. The gentle and sensual part was apparently over. Helena hissed slightly, nerves zapped with sensation of Bane’s cock hot at her entrance.

He cursed under his breath and moved away, shuffling frantically in cupboard of the bedside table. In record time he fished out a silvery packet, opened it and rolled the condom out, stilling again right before making the last step.

“Bane…” Helena moaned.

He looked at her, from the top of round cheeks hid under his splayed palms, through enticing plane of her back, arched and twisted slightly to let her look at him from under fringe of tousled hair. Thin arms circled his pillow, fingers digging into soft fabric, one over and the other under her head.

She smiled and he pushed.

Home.

The pleasure punched him in the gut, bowing him down with the amount of relief it brought. Even despite near violent tremor that ran up his back he fought to keep his eyes open, filing the moment, committing it to the memory. His brows knitted with concentration and he had to bite his lip to suppress the surge of profanity threatening to spill. Nothing compared.

Underneath him, Helena was immersed in her own little world of sensation, moving in tandem with his thrusts, moaning and sighing in time with his tempo. Or maybe her tempo, Bane wasn't sure anymore. His hands gripped her hips, but did he pull her to him, or did he brace for stability, he didn't know himself. He was dizzy, light headed like after a good few glasses of whisky, spiralling further and further into that mindless feral place where nothing but pleasure mattered.

Vaguely he noticed she was further from the peak than him. And also, that little detail of not having his mask nagged on his mind. Of course. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Wasting such an opportunity, he was an imbecile. With pained whine he reached to his pelvis and pulled out, mindful of the contraption on his cock.

“Turn around,” he ordered.

Helena giggled and sat straight, reaching out to touch Bane's chest. He was having none of it. Two quick moves and she was flat on her back, a quick squeak the only reaction she managed before he was back on her, pushing to the hilt and swallowing her groan with his mouth. She gripped his face, fingers playing with ridges of his scars, stroking ears and scratching back of his neck just under his hair. Her tongue drew a slick insistent path over his lips, and he let her mouth some inconsequential nonsense over his cheeks and under his jaw, enjoying the delicate caress.

Too soon he was degraded to a grunting, grinding mess, desperately trying to reach oblivion, focused solely on his own pleasure. He latched onto Helena's mouth, greedy, insistent and demanding, pumping with fast rhythm, faltering into a stutter. Helena scratched down his back, disentangling forcefully to draw a much needed breath and moan her hoarse cries off into the quiet of the afternoon. Bane was fast on her track, gripping her hair to bring her lips back to his, mouth hot and tight with growls.

Feeling the impending release he slowed, determined to savour the finish, just as he savoured sweat he licked off her skin, as he relished the breathy way she gulped air and violence of nails rising swollen welts on his skin.

“Look at me,” Helena whispered, cutting through his movement, forcing him to snap his head up. “Now.”

Just like that she undid him, all careful calculations and planning, every shred of control he thought he had, stripped off to leave him gulping air almost panicked, snuggling his face to the racing pulse at her neck. His hips moved strongly one more time and then he could only grind up in tight little circles, unable to stop the contact of overheated skin, addicted to moisture sticking them together everywhere. Sweat, saliva and her very own nectar. He regretted putting the condom on; wouldn't mind adding in his semen to the mixing then tasting it all in her, off her.

He remembered her comment then, the one she made while he still was mostly in the possession of his mind.

Wolfish grin spread slowly on his lips.

“I'm not done with you yet,” he warned.

Helena laughed, panting through last tremors of her high.

“I hope you never will be,” she admitted.

oOo

She knew falling asleep was a mistake.

Boastful part of her wanted to believe her presence would be enough to placate his demons, to soothe the pain tensing his muscles and disrupting his rest. Foolish. Neither of them had a shred of control over the situation. She knew the awakening would be rude.

Just how rude though, she never would have guessed.

Without preamble she opened her eyes, staring at the sloping ceiling over her head. Her dreams stopped immediately when a hand constricted around her neck. It wasn’t threatening in the beginning, the pressure noticeable but more than bearable. But she didn't dare move. Gently she drew in breath a bit deeper, involuntarily shifting on his outstretched arm and that was enough.

His fingers closed, slowly, deliberately, building the tension of impending doom with practiced ease. Helena knew fighting was no use, and she tried calling to him. Softly, enticingly.

It was no use too.

Her pulse quickened when she had first trouble with swallowing, and out of sheer reflex her hand flew to his, and she dug her nails in, a feeble attempt at prying his paw off of her.

No use at all.

Ugly thoughts creeped into her mind. What if he won't let go? What if he uses the other hand too? What if he's not asleep? She felt dread like a physical sensation, washing like a cold and damp tendril slithering down her spine.

High pitched whine escaped her lips and she trashed, panicked now, trying to free herself at any cost, scratching, hitting, kicking, shouting.

In a second it was over and she was sat upright, halfway off the bed with her effort to get away. Strong arms held her close, pinned, restrained, braced to an overheated body.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…” Like a mantra behind her ear, in an uncharacteristic broken whisper, something she didn't suspect Bane capable of.

Her throat was raw, but nonetheless she greedily gulped big gusts of air, trying to remember all and any techniques to calm herself down.

She started inhaling in time with Bane’s slowing words, gradually coming down, tired with the rush of emotions she lived through just now. When she started trembling, he finally let her go.

“Do you want water?” He asked.

She nodded, thankful for the opportunity to sit still alone for a little while.

When he came from the kitchen she was almost back to herself. Bane didn’t apologize anymore, but the guilt was clearly visible in his eyes.

“I'll relocate to my room,” she said plainly. They both winced at how her vocal cords squealed.

Helena knew hiding from the issue would be the worst course to take. They should talk about it. Discuss the reasons, possibilities, paths to follow.

She was so tired with all that meticulous dismantling of every action, each thought, and all reasons behind them. All she wanted was a good night's sleep at Bane’s side, and maybe a repeat performance of their afternoon activity, followed by a carefree morning in the kitchen.

Fat chance.

“Stay for a while,” he said. It wasn't a plea. Neither an order. It sounded like both.

“What for?” she croaked out.

“If you go now you will associate me with what happened. I want to blur that memory,” he explained.

Helena huffed angrily, unsure what she wanted. It did make sense, of course it did. Then again, getting as far away as she could was quite logical too. After all he was the reason her neck was bruised; he could just as easily have her windpipe crushed. Why would she let him try his manipulative tricks now?

“Please,” he whispered. “Don't leave me.”

It was the knife all over again. He knew it was his doing, but had hardly any recollection of the fact. Helena was aware. She suspected there was dissociation, one he was trying to bridge with having her close now. As a reminder to him of what he had done. At the same time he would probably try to caress her to erase painful memory, overlapping it with a pleasurable one.

Reluctantly she shuffled to the bed, sitting on the edge.

He was miserable. Looked actually kind of afraid of her reaction.

“At least you didn't have any weapons close this time,” she smirked tiredly at him.

He gathered her close, easily pulling her to his lap. Rested his chin on the crown of her head. His body was dangerous to her as it was, without augmentation of steel in any shape or form. A terrible realization.

“I don't know what I would do if I'd hurt you more severely,” he whispered. “I'm sorry.”

“Will you agree to get some professional help?”

He didn’t answer and she tensed again, not bothering to hide the trepidation twisting her heart.

“Bane, please. I won't be able to continue like that.”

“I'll inquire into my options.”

“Thank you.”

She settled down for a while. It was good enough for now.

Bane absent-mindedly stroked her arms, fingers playing with downy hair, lips pressing to the crown of her head in gentle kisses. Neither of them could stay long like that, so eventually Helena stirred and slithered out.

“I should be going now,” she said with a smile.

“You should stay.”

Bane wa tense still. Plagued by what happened most likely.

“I promise I won't drink any poison while you won't be looking.” The poor attempt at a joke escaped Helena’s lips before she thought better.

“Stop joking about it.��

It wasn't a shout. Yet the palpable anger behind Bane's words stilled Helena on her way out. With stiff back she slowly turned.

“Why not?”

It was stupid impulse to nudge him closer to the edge and she knew it. But she had her defense mechanisms as well, her inadequacies and misgivings. Her nerves were bristling still from what transpired just minutes ago.

“Because I lost that child too. Before I even knew it existed. You took the decision away without so much as a courtesy acknowledgement in my direction.”

“That I did. I don't think it is a discussion you want to have right now.”

“How can you be so fucking calm?” he shouted, “I love you but you're so… detached. Is there any shred of humanity left in you to at least admit to yourself what you did?”

“You ask me about humanity? You! How many children you killed with hunger, rapes and violence during Gotham siege? Before that, with raids on civilians, or manipulation of local warlords, or whatever it was that you did as a mercenary?”

Her voice shook, tremors wracking her body like some great beast trying to get out.

“I never wanted to take part in any of that, let alone to be pregnant with you. With anyone! You want to know why I panicked like that? I was afraid you'd make me keep it. I loathed the thought of giving birth to it and then staying at the monastery, looking after it until you'd deem it grown enough to immerse into your little fucked up operation.” Tears welled and overflowed in an instant, hot and stinging. “I had nightmares where I was happy with just sitting there, caring for it and waiting for you,” she sobbed.

Bane was horrified, standing before her with fisted hands.

“I didn't want to like that idea. I didn't want to like you. I didn't want to give you any more power over me than what you already had,” she choked out, overwhelmed with strain of keeping the torrent of memories at bay, impossible once the dam she put up cracked. “What you took and what I so foolishly gave you.” Tears glistened in faint glow from the window, her palms impatiently smoothing over cheeks to get rid of them.

“I got it all regardless.”

His argument, although at face value cruel and impassive, calmed her down. She chuckled and settled visibly. Even her shoulders relaxed a bit.

“You did. You always get what you want.”

“The price is always too high.”

His fists remained closed, gripping nothing but his rage. Or maybe sadness. Clearly there was tempestuous brew of emotions raging in his head as well, even though he tried to maintain a steady, calm facade.

“Come to bed. I won't fall asleep. Just want to hold you.”

Helena kept staring at him, hesitant over her own desires and his true intentions. It was still hard to believe this terrorist, this merciless killer, was in some way dependant on her. Required her presence, her compliance, to feel well.

“Your schedule is already disrupted enough,” she argued. “We both should get rested as much as possible before tomorrow.”

That glimpse, the one she was inadvertently drawn to, was back in his gaze.

“To bed,” he commanded mildly. “Now.”

She scoffed, but the retort died in her throat when he reached out and tugged her close. Still he was gentle with her body, stroking her lightly to placate and relax. The mercenary was holding the reins, since the scientist failed at securing their objective.

“Don't fight me anymore. Not tonight.” Not ever, he added in his head.

To his visible relief she followed him between the sheets, settling a tad uneasily but silently beside him.

They both needed time to unwind, muscles still jumping occasionally with adrenaline leftover from the argument. Bane absentmindedly kissed Helena’s hair, taking the opportunity as he usually did to bask in the faint fragrance. This is what home smelled like. He had one now. Briefly his mind jumped to the memory of a night a short week past, when he emerged from his hallucination. He meant it when he said he was home. No other place shared that title, only the spot by Helena’s side. Whether it was at this cottage or anywhere else in the world.

It was his job now to protect it.

Even from himself.

#bane #bane dcu #fanfiction #fanfic #original character #batman #Nolanverse #the dark knigth rises

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