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tenebraevesper · 2 years

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Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer, Imposter Syndrome Issue #3: Imposter Syndrome (Part 3)

Here’s the third part of our Cover puzzle, fitting in with the previous two to give us a scene of Surge and Sonic, Kit and Tails, and Starline and Eggman and Metal Sonc fighting against each other.

Admittedly, I’m more fond of this Cover, as it illustrates perfectly Surge and Kit’s situation and relationship with Starline. Despite what happens in this and the next Issue, they are still under his control, no matter how much they deny it.

We start off with Starline losing his goddamn mind over being fired by Eggman. It is clearly taking place right after Metal Sonic yeeted him through the Warp Topaz portal and before Bad Guys, as we see that Starline still lacks the Tricore on his glove.

I guess that this is also before he started his work on Surge and Kit, as he shows off his own creation... which looks rather pathetic. Yeah, it is a prototype, but seriously, Eggman would’ve laughed him off if he had shown him that. There’s hardly any Badnik that can beat Metal Sonic considering how long he had lasted.

Honestly, the last panel is hella raw and it kind of makes me feel both disturbed and sorry for Starline, but at the same time, it shows just how unhinged he is. He can talk about his superiority all he wants, he’s just as mad as Eggman. He wants to create something that will surpass Metal Sonic and put him on top and prove himself to Eggman.

The next video log takes place after Bad Guys, with Starline narrating how his time with Zavok has opened his eyes, which genuinely sounds like he’s going in a good direction. Remember, Zavok told him that he can surpass Eggman if he stops obsessing over the latter’s approval. Starline notes how he had decided to forego machines and instead use a living being for his plans.

I had mentioned something like this when analyzing Bad Guys, where Zavok questioned Starline’s over-reliance on robots, telling him how having loyal teammates is better as they can do what robots cannot, something Starline clearly took to heart.

He then shows off his creations, stating how the solution is the other way around - instead of inserting animals into robots, he will insert robotic parts into animals; creating cyborgs.

Surge and Kit are clearly disturbed by what they learned, with Surge wondering whether Starline ever shuts up (no, he doesn’t, I checked). Kit wonders whether he should log out, but Surge tells him to keep digging as she wants more details. Kit notes how Starline’s archives are extensive, with Surge pinching her muzzle and calling him a wannabe influencer. She isn’t wrong, you know.

Kit notes how at least they know how he enhanced them, but questions whether they really should go behind Starline’s back. Surge tells Drippy to just get more deets, now.

Kit manages to find a more recent video log, where Starline explains how he had taken care of the cybernetic enhancements and how it is time for the specialization. He had basically assembled all the necessary components to emulate the biomechanical miracles of his adversaries and install them into his cybernetic enforcers. He shows us the images of Neo Metal Sonic, Sonic and Shadow, having obviously taken the bio-data Neo Metal got, followed by the Power Cores and Tails’ DNA.

Starline notes how he had only emulated them, not replicated (yeah, if you’d want to replicate The Ultimate Lifeform, you’d also need the blood of an extinct alien race). He continues to say how Kitsunami needs external support, while Surge needs electro-magnetic propulsion, but he plans to improve.

He continues to say how that power needs to be kept under control, which is why he kidnapped Belle, explaining how with her coding, he had the means of fabricating a personality, or rather overwriting existing ones. Surge and Kit will think what he wants them to think and they will do what he wants them to do. They will be who he wants them to be. Oh, and as a fail-safe, they’re particularly vulnerable to the hypno-glove.

Surge and Kit are shocked by this revelation, Surge being furious.

Oh, but we’re not done yet.

We then proceed to watch those sessions where Starline is overwriting Surge and Kit’s personalities. We can see that Surge had a lot more sessions with Starline than Kit did, where Starline tried to convince her that she hates Sonic and wants to destroy him until she was finally able to believe that for herself, without the hypno-glove. Note, that was Session 232.

As for Kit, he was told that he lives to support Surge, that he looks out for her and would do anything for her, even asking during the latest session (Session 033) whether he can see her. I assume that Starline kept these two separate until their personalities were fully overwritten.

Honestly, this is hella disturbing when you think about it. We know that Starline has kidnapped Surge and Kit around the time of Bad Guys, and we don’t know how much time has passed between that and The Trial by Fire Arc, but if it was a month or so, then Surge and Kit might as well have been exposed to Starline’s hypno-glove to no end, and that’s not even counting the tests Starline put them through.

Starline reveals how he repurposed the resilience of the Metal Virus into safe cellular supplements to enhance the cybernetics, meaning that, physically, Surge and Kit are extremely resilient (and we already saw that stuff with the Zombots; where you could throw them into an explosion and they would still survive).

There is a “but”, though, as Starline shows the video log of Surge failing her tests, and it is even implied that she may have died during some of them. Also, check the number again, she got put through at least 105 Test Sessions, day by day. No wonder she is pissed off.

Kit isn’t faring better, being put through the same stuff as Surge, and the numbers of Test Sessions rise to 601. Again, I have to ask how many of those were done in just one day.

It is absolutely horrifying, but Starline is just frustrated that he now he has to deal with psychological trauma. Dude, what hell did you think would happen if you put them through that?! I reiterate - Starline is intelligent,... but he’s also a huge idiot.

We then proceed to see more of the footage of Surge and Kit going through the tests, probably even dying to some of them (or at least, they would’ve been dead had it not been for their resilience thanks to the Metal Virus). Starline continues how he can’t erase their memories entirely, as they’re learning and improving, and with each revival (yeah, that confirms that they became chalk outlines at some point) he had to suppress and edit. They’re still making progress and he’s hoping that they’ll be soon ready for field-testing.

Kit looks just done with everything, while Surge looks like she wants to smash everything to pieces and burn the remains, but surprisingly, she keeps her cool and tells Kit to do one more search - she wants to know who they were before they taken in by Starline. They’re cyborgs, so obviously they had a life before this. Were they volunteers, kidnapped, heroes, convicts? She needs an answer.

Kit searches through everything, only to reveal that there are no records. Surge demands that he searches harder, but Kit tells her how he had done everything he could and there are none.

Surge then asks the question: “WHY NOT?!”

Her question is answered by Starline: “Because it’s irrelevant.”

Surge and Kit turn to Starline, who is surprisingly calm, scolding them like children who stayed up past their bedtime. Surge yells at him how it isn’t irrelevant and that she needs context. She has no past, all she has is this and this is nothing! She even calls herself a knockoff and everything she ever wanted, or at least thought she wanted, was a lie. She’s in tears, desperate to at least know something about her past.

I will stop the story here to bring up something I mentioned in the first Issue - the parallels between Surge and Scourge. If there are still people among you who think Surge is Scourge 2.0., this moment should disprove it.

Scourge always knew that he was a different version of Sonic. They were essentially one and the same person, but from different worlds, and Scourge wanted to prove himself to be the superior Sonic. Sonic’s words and actions influenced his own and even during their last encounter, he calls himself the superior Sonic.

Surge on the other hand has no clue who she is. She was molded by Starline to surpass Sonic, but she was never in control of her own destiny (same goes for Kit). She is basically a clean slate with no past and no desire except what Starline told her. She has gone through so much anger, pain and psychological trauma without knowing why except that she’s supposed to hate Sonic.

These two may be similar, but unlike Scourge, who is a bully, Surge is a victim of Starline’s own plans and I feel sorry for her and Kit. Her story, despite being simplified by Starline, is genuinely complex when you peel off the layers and get to the core; and it only gets worse from here.

Starline implies how this wasn’t the first time Surge and Kit hacked into his video logs and uses the hypno-glove on them, noting how it always ends the same way.

However, this time, things are different, as Surge and Kit attack Starline, but Starline manages to knock Kit out with his electric spurs.

Surge spin-dashes into Starline and I think Starline wanted to pick the Speed Core, but then went with the Power Core to block Surge, which explains Surge’s comment on how he can only pick one Core at the time, while she has both power and speed in her arsenal.

Starline chooses the Fly Core instead, using his poisonous spurs on her and knocking her down. Starline tells her how he invested too much into her, but he will punish her further if necessary.

Unfortunately for Starline, it is clear that he forgot that he made her to heal quickly, meaning the poison has not much of an effect on her, and second - he forgot about Kit!

As Kit lifts Starline up, Surge has managed to grab his glove. Starline tells both to... I guess not kill him? He’s the only one who knows their pasts and can maintain their enhancements, pleading with the two to let him go, but Surge shoves the hypno-glove right into his face, telling him to shut up.

Now, I will take a pause here for a moment, as there’s something else I need to address. First of all, the reason behind Surge and Kit’s rising resilience to the hypno-glove. We have seen that those with a strong will (like Zavok) can resist it, and Surge is a strong-willed person. Not to mention, I’m sure that after so many sessions, even if they were programmed to be vulnerable to it, they would eventually build up resistance to it.

The second, and more important, thing I want to address here is that, technically, Starline’s plan could’ve worked if the idiot platypus didn’t brainwash the two and instead found someone who actually does hate Sonic and would want to work for him. Or, if that wasn’t an option, at least give Surge and Kit a reason to fight against Sonic and Tails beyond “This is what you want”. They need a solid motivation.

Honestly, Starline was the one who screwed himself over in this particular regard.

After Starline goes down, Kit asks Surge what they should do, and Surge, still tearing, replies how they’ll just burn everything down. Sonic, Eggman, Starline... everyone and everything is going down. There won’t be any more heroes nor villains - Surge refuses to participate in that stupid game. If she doesn’t get a past, they won’t get a future.

Something to note here, the most dangerous people are not the ones with the most power or cunning mind, but those who have nothing to lose, and we’ll see just how bad things will get from her on.

After Kit asks her how she plans to do that, Surge replies how she doesn’t care and that maybe they should start with tormenting Starline. Kit tells her how he won’t stop her, but offers her an alternative plan - they could use Starline’s plan to bring everyone together and take it in their own direction; destroy Sonic and Tails and then destroy Eggman and Starline as well. Surge is intrigued by the idea of letting Starline go through all of that trouble only for him to set himself up for the fall and agrees.

You know, while I tend to focus on Surge more in this analysis, since she’s more vocal, I have to give it to Kit here - the whole plan where they use Starline to destroy everyone is actually his idea, and it shows just how cunning he is.

Starline wakes up from the hypnosis-induced sleep, with the videos from the test sessions playing behind him. He’s clearly confused, even nervous when he sees Surge and Kit in the room, Surge just lying around and Kit sitting and listening to him.

When he tries to make sense of the situation, Surge explains that he put himself to sleep with his own monologue and how he had just been filling them in on the details on how he made the two as part of some kind of “pre-mission prep”. She wasn’t really paying attention.

I have to say, I just love the expressions on this page, especially Starline’s. Dude looks so bewildered.

Starline clearly has a hard time believing that he did that and that Surge and Kit accepted it so easily. Surge replies that, if they weren’t, he would’ve wiped that outta their brains. She then continues telling him how he made them powerhouses, so why should they complain if they get a lifetime of hero worship as long as they turn Sonic into dust. As for Kit, he’s cool with it because Surge tells him so. Again, love the expressions here, and Kit’s empty gaze is especially unnerving.

Starline is relieved they could put that conundrum past them, with Surge and Kit just grinning at each other, and decides to move on with the plan. They will be invading Eggman’s new capital city, where Starline will upload the override program. Surge is enthusiastic, figuring they’ll just scramble Eggman with his own robots, but Starline reminds her they’ll only pacify him and that Sonic and Tails are their targets. Surge replies with a simple “My bad”.

As Starline continues explaining the plan, we see Surge and Kit glancing at each other, and Kit subtly erasing the Starline logo from the seat, foreshadowing his future.

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#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer #sonic idw #imposter syndrome #sonic the hedgehog #surge the tenrec #kitsunami the fennec #dr starline #miles tails prower #dr eggman

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banannabethchase · 2 years

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Nobody told Kenny that Adam would be back for Dynamite. Nobody warned him.

That one episode apparently has an unending hold on me. But, also, Kenny's reaction to Adam being back is something I need and if they won't give it to me, I'll just write it. Title from Always by Panic at the Disco.

I used to be known for my exclusively smluff fics. Apparently I've graduated to smut/fluff/angst. Smlungst? I'll workshop it.

Kenny is…not pleased. He’s just won a match, closed out Dynamite, put on two fantastic shows behind the scenes, and he’s not pleased.

“He shouldn’t be back!” he says, pacing the Elite’s locker room. “It’s too soon.”

“Yeah,” Matt says, and, from the tone, he’s about to be insufferable, “because that medical degree of yours is so credible.”

Kenny whips a shirt at him. “Shut up. You don’t get to be bitchy.”

“Why not?” Matt asks. “I got the pin.”

Kenny gives up on words and simply shoves Matt off the bench, and he tumbles to the floor like a rag doll.

“You’re a dick,” Matt grumbles.

“Well, you’re the one who keeps bringing out a hammer and licking it, so you seem to like dicks,” Kenny fires back.

Nick comes out of the shower, rubbing at his hair. “What is going on with the two of you?” He whips Kenny with the towel then throws it at Matt.

“Why hasn’t he come to see us?” Kenny asks. “We’re EVPs, somebody should have told us he was coming.”

Nick raises an eyebrow, pausing as he ties his sneakers. “Who?”

Kenny groans. “Hangman, obviously!” He sits hard on the bench. “A month ago he got knocked out on TV, and now he’s back? That’s ridiculous. Who cleared him?” He stands again, restless. “He should be at home still.”

He can feel more than see Matt and Nick exchange a look to the side of him as Matt pulls himself back up to standing. “Dude,” Matt says, “are you good?”

“I’m fine,” Kenny says. It doesn’t sound particularly convincing to even his own ears. “Whatever. If nobody else in this company is going to give a shit, I’m checking on him.” Before he even stands, though, Nick is blocking the door.

“Oh, no,” Nick says, hands out in front of him. “No way. We are not doing this again.”

“Doing what?”

Matt sighs. “Kenny, the last time you two imploded, you worked through about a dozen injuries without stopping.” He stands and walks toward Kenny, and it’s only then that he realizes the Bucks think he’s fragile. Him, Kenny Omega. Fragile. “You tried to destroy yourself because you couldn’t destroy him.”

“I tried to win,” Kenny says back, voice as hard as he can make it. “He was the one being precious about all of it.”

“I think precious is the wrong word,” Nick says from behind him. “You signed the contract with his blood, man. Neither of you handled it well.”

“Which is why,” Matt says, gathering his things and shoving them in Kenny’s hands, “we are leaving with you.”

Kenny protests the whole way, but, with one Buck on either side of him, he doesn’t have a damned chance of escaping. Well, unless he tried to legitimately kill them. But that feels excessive.

Kenny goes to press the number for his floor, but Nick slaps his hand out of the way. “What the fuck?”

“You’re coming with us,” Nick says. “We’re going to Matt’s room.”

Kenny stares at them, barely feeling the elevator as it stops at the eighth floor. “You’re got to be shitting me.”

Nick shakes his head. “Nope. Come on, Cleaner.”

Kenny looks between the two of them as they practically frog march him to a hotel room that is definitely not his own. “What – why?”

“Sleepover,” Matt says, as he unlocks his door. “You, me, Nick. Come on.”

“You guys are treating me like a cheerleader who got dumped at the prom,” Kenny says, but he lets Nick push him into the hotel room. There’s two beds. Kenny wonders who’s going to be the lucky one to sleep alone. He doubts it’ll be him. “Leave me alone.”

“Nope,” Matt says, a little too chipper. “What do you want to watch? Tony said Star Wars’ll be on after one of the shows, but I can’t remember if that’s tonight or Friday.”

“I want,” Kenny says, “to go back and sleep in my own room.”

“Nope,” Nick says, plopping down on the other bed, stretching out to take up the whole thing. “Want room service? Maybe they have brownies.”

“I am not some sad sixteen year old who got dumped by her ex!” Kenny says, standing.

“No,” Matt says, “you’re a sad thirty something man who saw his ex today and is reckless about it.” He pats Kenny’s cheek. “Ooh! We can sign into Disney Plus!”

Kenny is wide awake. Matt, to his surprise, is snoring to his left. He’s usually a silent sleeper. Nick’s curled up in the middle of the other bed, muttering to himself. And Kenny is wide awake. He waited until it was clear they were both asleep, and waited, and waited, but now’s his shot.

He rolls out of bed, grateful for the noise of television in the background masking his steps, and snatches his bag as he steps toward the door. There’s a creak, just loud enough to maybe be too loud, so Kenny has to turn to slide out of the door, squeezing through it and, for the first time ever, regretting how much muscle he’s put on.

He turns as he closes the door. And almost loses his mind.

Adam Page is standing there, bottle of water in hand, looking almost unfairly cozy with his hair in a bun, a hoodie, and a pair of grey sweatpants.

Stupid grey sweatpants season, Kenny finds himself thinking. Then he rips his eyes away and goes back up to Adam’s face.

“Um,” is his miserable attempt at a greeting.

Adam, those soft blue eyes kind, blinks at him. “Hi.” His voice sounds low, gruff. “I, uh,” he nods down the hallway, “just getting some ice.” He holds up the bottle, shakes it.

“Yeah, of course,” Kenny says. “Right.”

“Your room?” Adam asks.

“No,” Kenny answers before thinking.

Adam’s eyes go wide, just for a second, then they settle to careful neutrality. “Right,” he says. “Uh. Don’t let me disturb you.” He turns to walk away.

“It’s just Matt and Nick,” Kenny says, and when Adam looks back, looking even more baffled, he continues, “not, no, not like that, ew. They, uh. Kidnapped me. For a sleepover.”

Adam’s clearly fighting a smile. “A sleepover?”

Kenny nods. “They, uh. I wanted to go after you. Earlier.”

“Me?” Adam’s face is soft, shocked. Like it could be anyone other than him.

Kenny laughs, not unkindly. “Hangman, you got pulled out on a stretcher a few weeks back, and today, you came out to lock horns with the person who knocked you out.” His voice is too gentle, too fond. He can’t make it stop. “If course I was going after you.”

Adam makes a strange, aborted motion with his hand, and it takes a second before Kenny realizes he’s reaching for him. “I thought you hated me,” Adam murmurs. When did he get so close?

“No,” Kenny says. “Never.”

Kenny doesn’t want to admit that he’s the one who moves first. The one who steps closer, the one who closes the space. It would feel too much like an apology, like he’s admitting he’s the one who did something wrong. But they’re close, and Kenny can smell whatever hotel soap Adam used, and he can feel wisps of Adam’s curly hair brush against his face and, well, who could blame him? He tilts his head, just enough, and their noses brush. He wants Adam to know he could pull away. He wants Adam to stay right here.

“We shouldn’t,” Adam breathes, and Kenny feels it more than hears it. “It’s been so long.”

Kenny moves to leave, but then there’s a hand on his waist and Adam is pulling him in. “I’m down the hall,” he says breathing ragged, “if you want me-“

“I always want you,” Kenny says, and it’s stolen from somewhere deep inside him, dragged from a place he didn’t know existed.

Adam closes the final space, kissing Kenny. It’s familiar and foreign, home and a cheap motel. It’s all Kenny’s wanted and everything he’s tried to run from for nearly two years.

They stumble over each other, Adam’s water bottle banging into his hip at every step, until they reach a door down the hallway.

It strikes Kenny, briefly, that they never would have run into each other had the Bucks just let him stay on his floor, three below.

Adam won’t let go of his waist as he pulls out the card, turning them and pressing Kenny against the door as he swipes it. When he pushes the door open, he pushes a leg between Kenny’s legs, and grins against his lips.

“Always easy for me, aren’t you,” he murmurs, and Kenny’s too dazed to respond. He tilts his head again, desperate for those lips.

They stumble over to the bed, and Kenny pushes Adam down, looming over him for just a second before crawling over him and straddling his hips, pressing their bodies together against the sheets, like they’ve done so many times before. Adam’s making little pleased noises as Kenny’s hands yank up the hoodie, getting his hands all over his body. There’s scars Kenny doesn’t recognize.

“I want you,” Adam whines, “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

Kenny murmurs something in assent against Adam’s forehead, and then kisses gently down to his cheekbone, to his jaw, gentle touches.

“’M not gonna break,” Adam says, arching up against Kenny.

“You did, though,” Kenny says, and he pulls away enough to be able to look Adam in those deep, blue eyes. “You – you have no idea what it was like to see you, on the ground.” He tries to reign in the agony in his chest. “I was,” he pauses, trying to get it together, “Adam, I thought you were gone.”

“Hey,” Adam says, and he reaches a hand up to Kenny’s face, “I’m right here.” He takes Kenny’s hand, presses it to his jaw, harder than Kenny would have done. “I’m okay. Not even bruised anymore. Nothing broken.”

“Your head, though,” Kenny says. “I could – I…” He realizes there’s guilt here, so much guilt, and he can’t hold it back. “Adam, did I make this possible?”

“What? No!” Adam grabs Kenny’s face in his hands. “You didn’t do this. This was a fluke, Kenny. Hey,” he says, when Kenny closes his eyes. “You, you did hurt me. In, god, so many ways. But you weren’t responsible for this.” He touches at his jaw. “This wasn’t you.”

Kenny forces himself to nod, but can’t find words. He kisses Adam again, deep and relentless and weighed with all the mistakes and heartaches and love in their past. Adam’s hands ruck up his shirt, and Kenny pulls away just enough to get it off over his head. Adam’s fingers stutter over his shoulder.

“This where they did the surgery?” he murmurs, still against Kenny’s lips.

“Uhuh,” Kenny says, kissing down Adam’s neck. “All fixed, though.”

The words fail them for the next couple minutes as they get more frantic, more desperate, as their clothes scatter across the room in favor of miles of skin their mouths have traveled a million times. Kenny gets his hand between the two of them, and the sigh that comes out of Adam’s mouth when Kenny gets his hand around him could have been a prayer.

“Please,” Adam whines, hips twitching up, cock moving in the circle of Kenny’s hand. “Wanna feel you.”

“’Kay,” Kenny says, and he lines up against him. The way the heads of their cocks catch against each other, the way Adam reaches down to pull with him, it’s more than Kenny can bear. He moves his hand and then slides down the bed, mouth on Adam before Adam can even react.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Adam moans, and Kenny swallows him down, getting as much of him in his mouth as he can and it’s like riding a bike. Kenny wraps his hands around Adam’s hips, encouraging him to push into Kenny’s mouth, move a little rougher. “Don’t wanna hurt you,” Adam says, a little desperate.

Kenny pulls off, just long enough to say, “You won’t.”

Adam’s response is a garbled mess of Kenny’s name and whines, and he allows himself gentle thrusts as Kenny covers him, mouth and hand. The movements are shallow and soft, and Kenny would encourage more, but he’s worried it’ll scare Adam off. And that’s the last thing Kenny wants.

Adam’s hand is resting gently on the back of Kenny’s hair, playing with his curls almost absentmindedly, like he always used to. “So good,” Adam says, voice barely more than a whimper, “so good at this.”

Kenny laughs around him, pulling back slightly to grin up at him. Adam drops his head back on the pillow with a breathy, “Fucking hell.”

Adam hasn’t changed a bit. The words he babbles, the noises he makes, the way he moves his legs around while Kenny works. It breaks Kenny’s heart, just a little, because it means they could have been doing this the whole time, and it’s his fault, it’s Kenny’s fault, he didn’t.

“Close,” Adam gasps, “baby, I’m close.”

Hearing Adam call him baby again is all it takes for Kenny to keep up the work, and the way Adam says his name when he comes is reward enough. He swallows it down, not moving until Adam pushes at him with his foot, just like he always used to do.

“C’mere,” Adam says, hands grabbing at Kenny’s shoulders and practically hauling him back up. Kenny’s only now realizing he’s painfully hard as he collapses onto Adam’s chest, as Adam sits up to kiss him, almost too hard. Their teeth clack together a little bit, and Kenny laughs.

“Eager,” he says.

“Yeah,” Adam agrees, “flip over. I gotta do you.” He pulls away, eyes pleading. “Please?”

“Yeah, totally, why the hell would I say no?” Kenny flips onto his back, cock straining up against his belly, and he’s realizing now just how desperate he is for this.

Adam wastes no time, diving onto Kenny’s cock like it’s air and he’s a drowning man. Kenny can already tell this won’t last long, but he’s desperate to hold onto it, to keep this going as long as possible. He doesn’t know what will happen when all of this is over.

“You’re pretty like this,” Kenny says, voice barely a whisper, “forgot how pretty you are like this.”

Adam tilts his head just a little, so the head of Kenny’s cock bumps against the top of his mouth, and winks at Kenny with a smile in his eyes.

“God damnit,” Kenny laughs, collapsing back on the bed. “You’re – you’re such a little shit. I love you.”

Adam freezes, then pops off of Kenny’s dick. “What?”

Kenny processes it. “Oh, fuck.”

“You love me?” Adam asks. “Since – since when?!” There’s panic in his eyes, even as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No, please, I don’t want to…” Kenny feels desperate with it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Adam shakes his head. “I just – of all the times to say it. You fucking asshole.” He dives back toward Kenny, kissing him with an open mouth and fire. “You have to know,” he growls against Kenny’s lips, “you have to know I’ve always loved you. I’ve just waited for you to say it first.”

This is too much and not enough all at once for Kenny, who just today hadn’t thought about Adam in months, who just today remembered how powerful a hold this man had on him. But he started it, didn’t he? “I love you,” he finds himself saying against Adam’s lips, “I love you.”

Adam gets a hand between them and frantically slides it along Kenny’s cock, still spit slick from earlier. It takes seconds before Kenny is coming between the two of them, coating Adam’s hand and both of their bellies. “Adam,” he moans, and it’s the only word he really knows, isn’t it.

They’re silent, unmoving for a few moments, Adam slumped on top of Kenny. Kenny’s mind is far too clear, and he finds himself desperate for a distraction, some sort of fog.

Slowly, Adam pushes himself up, hands on either side of Kenny’s arms. “So,” he says, because he always needs to talk it out, “what is this?”

Kenny, inexplicably, finds himself laughing. “The best goddamn day of my life, that’s all I know.”

Adam laughs, ducking his head, curls framing his face. “Yeah, pretty good for me, too.” He looks at Kenny. “Seriously, though. What…” He trails off. “What does this mean?”

He won’t move his eyes from Kenny’s, locked in, trying to know what Kenny’s thinking without a single word. He’s always been good at that.

Kenny opens his mouth to speak.

That’s when the phone goes off. The song is strangely familiar.

“I’m sorry,” Kenny says, pushing himself up so he’s sitting, “is that Dolly Parton?”

“She’s an icon and a philanthropist and the artist of a generation,” Adam replies, and he winces when he sees the screen. “Oh, we’re fucked.” He turns the phone to Kenny. It’s Matt Jackson’s photo.

“Real fucked,” Kenny says.

With a long suffering sigh, Adam answers the phone. Matt is immediately screaming. “Page! Where is he? What have you done to Kenny!?”

“That’s a rather personal question,” Adam says, almost automatically, and Kenny lets out a bark of a laugh.

“What – are you two together?” Matt asks. He sounds mildly hysterical. “What the – it’s two in the morning, I wake up, and he – where are you?”

Kenny shakes his head frantically but, Adam caves. “We’re in room 409.”

The phone goes dark.

“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Kenny says, flopping back onto the bedsheets. “They’ll be here in three, two, o-“

That’s when the banging on the door begins. “Open the door, Page!”

Kenny, who is painfully away they are both still naked, shakes his head again. “Dude. This is not a good idea.”

“And them calling the cops on me because they think I’m torturing you in here?” Adam asks, chucking Kenny’s shorts at him and pulling on his own sweatpants. “Worse.”

Kenny doesn’t move as Adam pulls open the door. “Hi, guys.”

“Where is he?” Matt says, pushing past Adam, and then he freezes when he sees Kenny, stretched out on the bed. “Oh, for the love of God, not again.”

Kenny waves at him. “Hi.”

Matt and Nick, like a cartoon, look between Kenny and Adam, lingering on Kenny’s chest. He looks down. There’s a handful of hickeys. Great. Adam’s neck is covered in them too.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Matt says again. He sounds a little dazed. “Not again.”

Nick moves to sit, but freezes. “I – is there anywhere you two haven’t been naked in this room? I need to sit down.”

“Chair,” Adam says. He points to the cramped office area.

Nick sits down hard. “Is this – are – why?” He drops his head into his hands. “Guys.”

“Honestly, this is your fault,” Kenny says, sitting against the headboard. He crosses his legs, getting comfortable.

“How?” Matt deadpans, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. “How is this possibly our fault?”

“If I’d been on my own floor, I never would have run into him,” Kenny says. “So, like. Your fault.” He points to Nick. “Both of you.”

“I hate the two of you so much,” Matt groans, “so much.”

#Kenny Omega #Hangman Adam Page #Adam Page #in which Sara writes #aew #wtf i like wrestling now???#Kenny Omega x Adam Page #Ooohhhh my god this one happened involuntarily

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lazuli-bloom · 3 years

Text

City Murals

Paint Day

TSSM Doctor Octopus x Reader

Word Count : 6,572

One day down, four more to go. Hopefully Tuesday will go better for you. Probably not, but you can always hope. At least Doc Ock is more tolerable than you expected, unlike one of the other inmates.

Part Two | Archive | Part Four

-=-=-=-

Hurried footsteps pounded against pavement as the blurred faces of the crowd melded into a continuous blob. The strap of your bag dug into your shoulder; its contents bouncing with each step. Every breath taken dried your mouth and burned your lungs. Your heart thudded against your ribs in rhythm with your near tattered shoes hitting the sidewalk.

Almost there with two minutes to spare.

At the corner you misjudged your momentum and skidded to a stop. You passed the store entrance and nearly toppled over when you pivoted. The break in speed sent you into a coughing fit. Chest burning, you grabbed onto the wall as you hacked up a lung.

"Ah! My little muse, I was wondering when you would show up!"

You prickled at the greasy voice. A man in a tacky sports coat stood at the mural holding a three-step ladder. He kicked it open and grinned at you—flashing bleached white teeth.

"Oh, Mr. Brix," you said between wheezes, "I didn't realize you'd be here today."

Your boss's grin faltered for a split second, only to brighten as he walked over with open arms. "Little muse, I keep telling you to call me Beau. Mr. Brix sounds so formal and distant, and I want us to have a close relationship."

You gave a half smile and shrugged. He closed in for a hug, but before he could wrap his arms around you, you sidestepped to the closest ladder on the ground. "Here, let me help you get these set up." You dipped down and picked it up off the ground. A glance back at the boss showed his brows furrowed as he pouted. You swallowed the lump in your throat and put on a smile to ask, "Where do you want this one, Mr. Bri—um, Beau?"

"Up against the wall obviously."

He rolled his eyes and waved a hand in the general direction of the wall. Mr. Brix then spun on the heel of his shiny black dress shoes and strode over to pick up another ladder. He kicked it open with more force than necessary, then set it aside. Mr. Brix huffed and examined the wall next, frowning the longer he looked at it.

"Those lowlifes are almost more trouble than they're worth. What client is going to want more of my work with such a sloppy paint job?"

"They aren't all bad." You walked over to the right side of the mural and gestured to the smaller, neater section of the painting. "That Doc Ock guy has done a pretty good job so far."

The boss glared at the work, his lips curled into a sneer. "That doesn't change the fact that the other side is sloppier than a toddler with a paintball gun."

"Sir, I don't think it's quite that bad. The men have been doing a decent enough job."

"Have they?" He marched over to the other side and jabbed at the wall. "Because this looks like shit. This is unacceptable." You flinched and looked to where he pointed. Uneven paint clung to the wall with patches of primer poking through. "I would expect you and any volunteers you watch over to do a cleaner job than this."

"Y-yes sir."

"I want you working on touch up today. Understood?"

You grabbed at your arm and nodded.

"Good." A smile returned to his face, but it seemed hollow. The boss hummed, then pulled out his phone to check, and his face lit up. "Oh, wonderful!"

"What?"

"The new high-profile client loved the mock-ups I submitted. He wants to have a meeting this Friday to discuss the project."

"Who is it, and when are they wanting the mural?"

"The client is Roderick Kingsley. He's in the works of opening up a new perfume store and wants an elegant mural for it. As for a time-frame, that's what the meeting is about. As well as to refine what he wants for the mural."

"Oh! Speaking of refining work!" You rolled onto the balls of your feet as you twisted your bag's crossbody strap in your hands. "I've been working on improving some of my older work. Would you like to see? I think you'll really like ocean piece now—"

"Don't tell me you're still wasting time on that."

Hundreds of cold needles pierced your heart. Your hands slipped to the base of your bag strap as you shrank. Words failed you, stuck in your parched throat, leaving you to stand locked in place. You cast your eyes away like a guilty child. Worse was Mr. Brix tapping his foot as he heaved out a harsh breath.

"Do you honestly think any client would be interested in some cutesy ocean scene?"

"I don't know... maybe? An aquarium might be."

"Honey, please, I'm the one with experience of talking to clients. I've even done you the favor of mentioning your silly little doodles to a few of them. And trust me, no one is interested. No one wants to be stuck looking at boring fish slapped onto a wall. Especially not an aquarium. Why get a stupid mural of fish when there's living ones all over?"

A searing heat stung your eyes and cheeks. You bit hard on your lip before you said, "Maybe if they saw the new sketches of—"

"No. Enough of that. Drop the idea. Hell, when you get home trash every sketch of that design you have. It's not going to happen."

Everything stung to the point of numbness. Your thoughts struggled to form and your best response was to weakly nod. Mr. Brix hissed before he strolled up and clasped his hands on your shoulders. Your body tensed and you averted your eyes.

"Don't get like that," he said while rubbing his thumbs into your shoulders. Despite the layer of clothes, the action left a nasty, unclean sensation on your skin. "You know I'm only hard on you because you're squandering your potential with stupid designs like that ocean trash."

He squeezed your shoulders harder than what was comfortable. You wanted to squirm out and dust off the nonexistent yet displeasing unclean, but you fought to stay still. Mr. Brix gave a hard pat and flashed his bleached teeth at you once more.

"Come now, little muse, you're much more beautiful when you smile." You struggled to do so and earned an irritated sigh from the boss. He shook his head, but the next round of chiding couldn't even start before the beeping of a ringtone cut him off. Mr. Brix stepped back and answered. He didn't say too much to the caller, but his lips curled into a sleazy smirk. A minute later, he hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket. "Well, that's my cue to leave."

"Wait, you're not staying to help paint?"

"Of course not! Spending the day alongside filthy animals? Horrible, criminal scum, all of them! I have a much more important meeting with the owner of one of the ritziest hotels in the city."

"Sir! Don't call them that, they're still people."

"Oh please, they aren't even here yet." He rolled his eyes. "Anyhow, I have a client to woo, and need to get going. Don't forget to touch up that sloppy brushwork today! I expect it to be pristine by tomorrow. Ciao honey."

Mr. Brix gave a curt wave and strolled down the street. He turned the corner a minute later, and you breathed out a dejected sigh. You rubbed your temples before you finished setting up the rest of the supplies. With everything ready, you snagged what you needed and cleaned up the mural.

Fresh paint clung to the brush as the bristles grazed the wall, covering the patches of primer showing through. You sank into the routine and the specks of white steadily disappeared. Time drifted on without you, only to come crashing with a tap on your shoulder. Your humming died in your throat as you spun to face the guard. Behind him stood the other guards alongside the line of inmates.

Heat rose to your face, and you resisted the urge to slink away and hide. You coughed and hid your embarrassment as best you could with a laugh, only to earn a raised brow from the mustached guard. After a heavy beat of silence, he asked what was the plan for the day.

"Oh, same as yesterday. Grab a brush and the right paints to color in the lines as neatly as possible."

He nodded, and the other guards ushered over the men in jumpsuits. All four men lined up to take the same spots they had yesterday—which unfortunately meant that the blond one strolled up to you.

"Hey there sweet cheeks, finally coming around to old Lefty's charm?"

You flinched and turned to give a weak, crooked grin. A small noise broke free, but nothing else. How were you supposed to respond? You certainly didn't want to come across as being even slightly interested. However, being rude could flare up that temper of his. The last thing you needed was for the guy to end up doing a sloppy job out of spite and set the mural back even further.

"Ah, well, actually, my boss asked me to work on touching up this spot today."

"Touch up?" he asked with gray eyes narrowed.

"Y-yeah. It's fine. Everything's fine. Just need to cover up a few spots and redo the lines."

"You saying I'm not doing a good enough job for this stupid thing?"

His frown deepened, and you shrank. You shook your head as your mouth caught up to speak. "N-no, that's not—you're doing a perfectly fine job. My boss just wanted me to do this."

"Listen here, I ain't stupid, I know—"

"Donovan, step aside."

Both of you pivoted to the voice. A guard stepped over and clutched the blond's shoulder.

"If you can't keep from being hostile to the civilian, you lose the choice to pick your spot." The guard led the man away and called the other men to step back as well. "Donovan, you're on the far right, and far away from the painter. Jones, you're left of Donovan. Rodney, you take the center. Octavius, you're right of the painter."

You blinked and watched the men mumble gripes as most grabbed a ladder and took their assigned spots. The blond took the farthest spot, followed by the redhead and the black-haired man. Then Octi took the spot next to you. The names used by the guards replayed in your head and you couldn't help but smile.

"Why are you so happy all of a sudden?" The villain peered at you with a neutral expression on his squared face, making it difficult to get a read on him. He waited, composed and possibly—probably—studying you.

You hummed and dipped your brush in for more paint. With a shrug of your shoulders you said, "Nothing much, Octavius."

His eyes narrowed, and your grin grew to split your face. Octi glared a moment longer, but said nothing. He set to work painting, and you returned to do the same. After a few strokes, you hummed to yourself and thought longer about his name.

"I like it," you said, continuing the conversation he likely wanted you to drop. "It makes me think of music. Plus, Octi still works with it." A groan rumbled from the evil doctor and you snickered. That earned another glare from him, but that only escalated your snickering to laughter. You bit your lip and hummed to calm yourself. After a minute of quiet painting, you spoke up once more. "You know, I never told you my name."

"I haven't asked for it."

Your smile fell. How could words so blunt pierce so well?

"Fine, then." Your fingertips pressed into the metal can, bending it under the force. You dipped your brush into the emerald paint and scrapped it against the lip of the can. Once you scraped off practically all the paint, your gaze drooped to the pavement. "I just thought you'd want to know mine and make it even." Your voice came out hardly louder than a whisper.

Why did it even sting in the first place? What did it matter if he knew your name or not? Wouldn't it be better if he didn't know? Octi was... No. Doctor Octopus. He's a super villain, and you're just some average citizen—a nobody painter. Why would he ever bother to remember you?

A sharp hiss to your right pulled you out of your thoughts. You glanced at the man, his brows knitted and his brown eyes looked distant. He took in a breath and said, "I... apologize."

You narrowed your eyes on him and frowned. A moment later you huffed and turned your attention onto your paint. Your brush dipped into the paint again and you stirred it.

"Don't say that if you don't mean it."

"My apology is sincere." He averted his eyes when you turned to better face him. Still, you saw a frown pulling on his lips under a furrowed brow. He closed his eyes and took in a breath, slowly letting it back out. Once done, he faced you and gestured to himself with his free hand. "Here, allow me to properly introduce myself—I'm Doctor Otto Octavius." His hand reached out towards you, with his palm up. "And what is your name, my dear?"

You flinched with a sudden heat blazing on your face. With averted eyes, you bit at your lip before swallowing the lump in your throat. You told the man—Otto—your name. A small smile tugged at his lips and he repeated it to himself. Your name falling from his lips spread the fire to singe your ears.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

The flames intensified; all you could do was nod and return to painting. Neither of you spoke for a time, both focused on the mural. You moved to the next color, covering more gaps in the paint. As you stirred your brush in the paint can, you stared at the mural, focused on no spot in particular. Your thoughts wandered, jumping from one idea to the next. That was when a question popped into your mind.

"Hey, um, I was wondering about those robot tentacles of yours..."

"Actuators, though you could call them, 'arms' as well."

"Huh, well, I was just kinda curious. What's the stupidest or silliest thing you've used them for?"

"I beg your pardon?"

You kicked at the pavement and chuckled. With a shrug you said, "Like, have you juggled chainsaws? Or played jump rope with them? Something like that."

"Do you take me for a circus performer?"

"No, I just. I don't know." Your smile fell, and you shrugged once more. "It's just hard to believe that all you superpowered guys don't goof off a little from time to time. I mean, you're still human."

"Is that what you would do with mechanical arms, then? Juggle chainsaws and skip rope?"

You giggled some as your smile came back. "Maybe not the chainsaw thing. That was just an example that came to mind."

Octi pressed his lips tight and hummed. His jaw clenched as he mulled over a thought. With his lips pressed tight, Octi's under-bite appeared a tad more pronounced. That handsome jawline coupled with deep brown eyes behind his glasses... Wait. Handsome?

An inferno scorched your face, and you snapped your eyes to the wall. What the hell were you doing? Thoughts scattered out of your mind, leaving you with nothing. You couldn't come up with an answer to your own question.

"You'll be disappointed to learn I rarely, if ever, 'goof off'. At most I perform mundane tasks with them, like holding my coffee mug."

You blinked and made a small noise as you glanced over at the man. The burning on your face cooled, hopefully enough to not redden your skin. It took a second to process his response, then you cleared your throat and nodded.

"O-Oh? You don't?" You cleared your throat again and regained some composure. "So, you haven't run up a wall sideways just because you could? Nothing like that?"

"Not that I recall."

"Man, if I had super powers I'd do the stupidest shit with them."

A chortle came from the villain. You squinted at him, but he kept a smirk on his face. "And what exactly would that entail?"

"I don't know, depends on the superpowers, I guess. But like, as an example; if I could shape-shift into anything. Nothing could stop me from hanging out in the weirdest places as the weirdest things. Kangaroo wandering through a grocery store. A tree in the middle of the movie theater. A tiger riding the elevator up and down all day, scaring the shit out of anyone trying to get on."

"That would be quite an... interesting use of those powers."

You grinned from ear to ear and nodded. Octi rolled his eyes at you, but he couldn't hide his small twitch of a smile. You hummed and brushed more paint onto the wall. After a few strokes, you peeked over to his work.

To your right, the villainous doctor stood applying fresh paint over the old. You realized Octi wasn’t on a ladder like the others. Instead, he painted over the missed spots of the mural, cleaning up the work.

"You don't have to do that," you said with a gesture towards the wall, " the touch up, I mean. There should be another free ladder to help reach higher spots."

You glanced passed him to the other three inmates. All of them stood on ladders and slapped paint onto the higher sections. Octi followed your eyes and scanned over the three as well. After a moment, he returned to touching up his section of the wall.

"If I were to leave this as is, you'd be the one to go over and touch up all this work by yourself, correct?"

"Well, yeah but—"

"And the whole reason myself and the others are here is to aid you in completing this mural faster, yes?"

"Yeah."

"Then isn't what I'm doing still helping?"

You tapped a finger against the brush and worked out how to word your thoughts. "Yeah, it is. It's just... I appreciate it, but I don't think my boss will be happy if there isn't a lot of progress made." You bit your lip and brushed over a few more white spots. "Thank you though, you've been doing a nice job."

He paused his work and turned to you. With an arched brow, he asked, "And who exactly is this boss of yours?"

"Oh, it's Beau Brix. He's the artist of a lot of the newer murals in the area. Have you... um, had the chance to see any of them? They're really beautiful."

"Beau Brix?" He repeated the name with a tone of disdain you weren't expecting. "Yes, I've seen his work before. Though I'm left wondering why such an esteemed artist isn't here to take part in painting his own mural."

"Mr. Brix has a lot of meetings with clients. Like this Friday he's meeting with Mr. Kingsley about a mural for a new store."

He froze for a moment and studied you. "Kingsley, as in Roderick Kingsley?"

"Yeah, the guy that runs a perfume company or something?"

"'Or something' indeed."

"What?"

"It's nothing, my dear."

The fire blazed to life once more, and you locked your focus onto the wall in hopes Octi didn't notice. A handful of minutes later you calmed and sank into the rhythm of work. You made a fair amount of progress when the villain next to you spoke up.

"Has your boss done work for Kingsley before?"

You blinked once or twice before pondering an answer. With a hum and pursed lips, you shook your head. "No, I think this would be the first time. He said 'new client' this morning. Why? Do you know Mr. Kingsley?" You leaned towards the wall to continue painting but stopped. Your eyes narrowed at him. "Are you planning on kidnapping him? Actually, you know what? Never mind. I don't want to know. I don't need some kind of target on my back for asking the wrong questions."

A smirk formed on his face, accompanied by a chuckle. "A wise choice, my dear."

You flinched, and the searing heat on your face flared up. You opened your mouth to retort, only to snap it shut. He's doing that on purpose. That jerk wanted to get a reaction out of you. Well, you weren't giving him one. Instead, you jerked your head away to keep him out of your line of sight.

"What's wrong, my dear? You look feverish."

Your hairs raised and the heat spread to the back of your neck. You shot him a glare and found him wearing a punchable smirk. Smug jerk. A deep breath filled your lungs before you pressed your lips into a forced smile. "Oh, it's nothing, Octi. I'm fine." The villain took his turn to glare at you, which changed your smile into a Cheshire grin. "Thank you for your concern though, Octi. That's very kind of you."

He scowled at you, and the dam broke. Laughter erupted from you, intensifying his scowl. You were so screwed whenever Octi busts out of jail and comes after you, but that look was priceless.

Your laughter settled to a snicker a minute later. Once you calmed enough, you returned to painting with the odd giggle. Other than that, things remained quiet between you two. You did, however, hear grumbling from the far side of the mural. You shrugged it off as an inmate and focused on work, right until the first break.

Like on Monday, the guards ushered off the inmates to take a break, leaving you alone at the mural. You gave a wave as they left and scooped up your bag. Once seated beside the mural, you flipped through your sketchbook. Rough lines depicting various ideas, shapes, and scenes littered each page that flipped by. Your eyes lingered on your nicer sketches. The cat batting at a butterfly. The tree with lovely detail given to the bark and leaves. And lastly, the scene beneath the waves.

You flipped through page after page; new rough sketches of the ocean piece displayed on every one. The layouts changed between them, along with the increasingly dynamic poses of sea life. With every page turned, your heart plummeted further into the abyss. On the last page, your most recent sketch marred the paper. A huge blank spot stared at you, mocked you. The piece looked off kilter.

A group of steady footsteps caught your ear, and you snapped the book shut. You shoved the book back in your bag and tossed it against the wall far enough away from the mural. Once on your feet, you dusted yourself off and grabbed your brush and paint.

As the men filed back to the mural, you put on a smile and waved to Octi. The super villain turned and glanced at the building's facade. You could make out red dusted on his face the closer he got. The early spring sunshine was warmer than normal. You hoped he wasn't getting too hot. Maybe you could run to the store and buy him a bottle of water.

You stepped over to scoop up your bag again when an unwanted voice shouted at you. "Hey you bitch, what the hell were you and that king of freaks laughing about, huh?"

"Excuse me?" You stood back to your full height and glared at the blond.

He broke from the line and stomped your way. Two guards shouted for the man to get back into line. His lips curled into a sneer, showing off yellowed teeth, while you crossed your arms and stared him down.

"I heard you with that ugly squid freak. What did you say about me?"

"What the fuck did you just say?" You stepped closer with your hands balled into fists. "What fucking right do you have to call someone a freak? If anyone is being ugly here, it sure as shit ain't Doc, you asshat."

The man growled as his face turned a beet red. A guard marched over. But before he could get there, the blond snatched up a paint gallon off the ground. "You goddamn freak-loving whore!"

A wave of crimson crashed over you, leaving you dazed and drenched. As your mind processed what happened, a guard grabbed the inmate's shoulder and pulled him away. The guard forced the man to sit on the pavement far from everyone else.

Red paint dripped off you, pooling at your feet and staining the sidewalk. With a groan, you wiped your hands off on the back of your jeans, cleaning off your hands as best you could. You skimmed off what paint you could from your face, then slicked back your hair. The thin layer that you couldn't wipe clean clung to your features, seeping into the wrinkles as an unwanted and unpleasant second skin.

As you worked on skimming off more paint, flicking the latex goo onto the sidewalk, the mustached guard stood by the blond and spoke into a radio. Two others stuck by the three inmates, and the last guard—a man with a buzz-cut—kept some distance from you as you wiped off paint.

"Are you alright?"

You opened your mouth to reply only for a glob of paint to run down your lips and into your mouth. You gagged at the foul taste on your tongue; sputtering and spitting to get it out. After a minute, you wiped your mouth. "Gross." That nasty taste lingered. You were going to need to rinse out your mouth.

The guard repeated his question, and you nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just need some towels and maybe a bottle of water and I should be good." talking made the taste worse and you spit once more. When wiping your mouth, your eyes fell on the blond glaring at you. You narrowed your eyes back. "What's going to happen to that jackass?"

The man in question rocked forward, attempting to get up, but his arms stayed pinned behind his back. Stuck on the ground, he sneered and shouted at you instead. "You wanna say that to my face, you freak-loving whore? Or are you too busy making eyes at that squid creep?"

"You're the creep, dickwad!"

"You fucking bitch... Do you know who I am? I'm Lefty Donovan! I ain't some nobody. I got connections and when my boss gets me out of here, I'll make sure to come by and visit."

"Donovan! Shut up!" The mustached guard next to him ordered.

The guard standing by you waved a hand in front of you to get your attention off the blond. You blinked and looked to guard with the buzz-cut. His wrinkles and worry lines creased his face, while green eyes looked at you with apathy. "Please don't escalate the issue. We called for a pickup, so Donovan won't be a problem for you anymore."

"Good." You crossed your arms and nodded at him. Paint squelched as you moved. At least the red paint could hide your burning cheeks. "I... need to see if the corner store has some paper towels I can use."

"Alright, it'll be awhile before the bus can get here to pick everyone up."

"Wait, you're all leaving?"

"Yes, the warden wants everyone back before reviewing the program. Mr. Brix will get a call about any updates."

"So will you guys be back tomorrow sans the asswipe?"

"I couldn't say. It's possible, but unlikely."

You nodded and glanced at the other three inmates. The guards forced them to sit in front of the mural in their assigned spots. However, the blond was the only one in handcuffs. You lingered on Octi and felt a slight chill in your heart. Without him, there's no one to pester.

You sighed and gestured to the corner store before you parted from the guard. Paint continued to drip off you as you moved; though not as bad with most of the excess scraped off onto the sidewalk. When you reached the door, you pushed it with only the heel of your palm to not smear red all over it. Once inside, you stayed on the mat at the door and flagged down an employee. The kind sales clerk fetched a roll of paper towels and a shopping bag for you. You thanked them and set to cleaning yourself off.

Paint soaked paper towels soon filled the shopping bag to burst. Once mostly clean of wet paint, you trod to the restroom, careful to not trail paint through the store. You pitched the bag in the large bin and turned to the sink.

It took a good five minutes of scrubbing to rid your arms and hands of the caked on smears of red. With a once over in the mirror, you sighed at the sight of yourself. Clothes stained a deep red, hair slicked back with chunky half dried paint clinging to it, and the odd stubborn smear of paint caked onto your skin. Why did it have to be red?

You stepped out after cleaning yourself as best you could without a shower. First, you turned to the entrance of the store, but you paused. After all that, you deserved some kind of pick-me-up. With a hum, you strolled down the candy aisle.

A line of several bags of sour gummy worms caught your eye. That would do. You grabbed the bag on the far side and brought it to the clerk. After a quick transaction, you walked out of the store with the candy and a bottle of water.

Back in the cool morning air of spring, you glanced at the mural. However, the stain on the pavement caught your attention. A large splatter of dark crimson pooled near the mural, then a trail of red drips and footsteps headed your direction. It looked like the aftermath of a murder.

At least the paint didn't splatter on the mural at all. Still, the boss would not be thrilled that the "volunteers" were leaving early. That would leave you alone stewing in gross paint soaked clothes for the rest of the day too.

Nope. No way. You decided to call and ask to leave early. As you shuffled back to the mural, avoiding the trail of crimson, you pulled out your phone. After a bit of juggling everything in your hands, you dialed your boss. The phone rang for a minute, and you leaned against a bare spot of the wall while you waited.

Your eyes wandered as you waited, looking first to the sky where a large bird flew overhead. It circled once before it flew around the corner. You sighed and glanced down once it flew off, and watched Octi out of the corner of your eye. His back faced you as he looked in the direction the bird flew off in.

"What could you possibly need right now?" Mr. Brix's abrupt voice startled you. You stuttered and couldn't get out a response fast enough for him. "I am in the middle of a very important meeting!" You flinched away from the phone, but you could still discern the sound of giggling and splashing from the other end of the call. A shiver crawled down your spine.

"Well sir," you said, getting your composure back, "There's been a slight incident. One of the inmates threw paint on me. Now they all have to leave for the day and I'm still coated in paint."

"And your point?"

"Is it alright if I leave early for today too?"

"Absolutely not! Why on earth should you get to leave early?"

"Because, sir, I'm covered in paint. It's seeped into my clothes and caking in my hair. I feel gross and I could accidentally get red paint on the mural."

"Ugh. Fine. You can leave if you stop complaining to me. But you have to wait for those filthy criminals to leave first."

"Sir, they're human beings—"

"Whatever, just stay there until they leave so they don't ruin my art. Then you can put up all the supplies in the storage area the client set up for us."

The phone clicked, and the boss hung up. You sighed as you dropped your phone in your pocket. Various insults fell from your lips. You needed to look into seeing who else was hiring painters. Surely, with some experience under your belt now, another artist could hire you.

You pushed yourself from the wall and moved to plop down at your spot at the mural, right next to the super villain. The action caught Octi's notice, and he raised a brow at you.

"Interesting. I presumed you would have taken the opportunity to wait much further away."

"Kinda hard to annoy you at a distance, Octi."

"It's no wonder you've found yourself bathed in paint."

You laughed, which served to further confuse the man. "Would you believe this isn't the first time I've had paint thrown on me?"

Octi smirked and huffed a sharp laugh of his own. "That isn't hard to imagine."

"I've had it happen three times, four if you count the accident at the paint store."

"It sounds as if you may need to learn to hold your tongue. It appears to get you into trouble."

"Okay, hold up." You leaned closer and half glared at him. "One time was from my baby cousin being messy at my tenth birthday party, and another time was during a paint day we had about a year ago with some sophomores from Midtown High. And for the paint day one, it was a case of mistaken identity. Some football jock dumped half a quart on me, thinking I was some Parker kid."

"And the third instance?"

"Alright, that one I had coming," you said as you fumbled with the annoyingly difficult bag of candy.

"I was in middle school—so like thirteen—and honestly, I was such a brat. The school held an art contest, and I got mad this girl won first place instead of me. I was petty and said something nasty to her at lunch. She got pissed off, so next time we were in art class, she and her friends took some of the paint and threw it at me and my project."

The bag crinkled at your desperate attempts to open it without sending the contents flying. As you continued your struggle against the bag, Octi said, "So that's now two times out of four you've had paint thrown on you for your—what was it you said yesterday? Your 'stupidity and anger'?"

"Hey! The middle school one? Sure. But today?" The bag tore open, and you shoved the detached top into a pocket. "That douche-canoe said some horrible things. Of course, I was going to call him out on it. Plus, he started it by saying that bullshit." You reached out and offered the bag of candies to the well-spoken super villain. "Anyway, you want some gummy worms?"

He eyed you, then the bag before holding out his hand to accept. You tipped the bag and poured out the worms, only for a green and yellow gummy octopus to land in his palm. An inferno blazed to life under your skin and you snapped your gaze to the bag. Your stomach dropped as you read "Octopus" in clear print on the front.

"I swear I thought I grabbed worms!"

He raised a brow and pinched the head of the candy, letting its arms dangle in the air. You bit your lip and tensed. Was he insulted? Did he believe you about it being an accident? Or did he hate you even more now?

"Its color combination is rather appealing," he said before eating it.

You eased some. "You aren't insulted or anything?"

"It's just a confectionery." You relaxed completely at his words and smiled.

During the wait for the bus, you chatted and shared more of your candy. You stuck to lighter and more goofy topics until you noticed the sun burn on Octi's face again.

You pointed it out and offered him the water bottle you bought, but he declined. Octi brushed that off and instead asked you what you planned to do once you got home. You shrugged and told him your plans to work on sketches after showering.

Not long after, the bus pulled up, and the guards ordered all the inmates up. Before Octi stood, you offered him the last gummy. He stared at it a moment and closed his hand over the candy before getting to his feet.

"You've been... more friendly these past two days than I expected you to be."

You shrugged and stayed put on the pavement; shoving the empty bag into a pocket. "Well, you've been a lot more polite and talkative than I thought you would be. I don't normally have anyone to talk to, so I guess I kinda jumped at the chance to chat. It's... been nice."

He nodded and turned to fall into line. You got to your feet and watched the men file in and the bus pull back onto the road. As it passed, you saw Octi looking your way through the window. You smiled and gave him a small wave. For an evil super villain, he wasn't that bad.

Once the bus turned out of sight, you heaved out a sigh. Alone again. At least you could listen to music. You popped in your headphones and set off, rounding up all the supplies as music played in your ears.

The task took way longer than expected, but you got it all dealt with. Your trip home to the shitty little apartment didn't go much smoother. You navigated hordes of people while a gross second skin of paint crusted onto you. The looks of disgust sent your way were the cherry on top. Instant relief washed over you after you crossed the threshold to your apartment. Shitty or not, it was still your home.

Once out of the shower, you pat dry your wet hair with one of your rattier towels. Red stains added to the other dingy hues of the fibers. Afterwards, you tossed it with your other paint stained clothes.

Mostly cleaned and dressed in cozy sweatpants and a tank top, you pulled your messenger bag to you as you sat on the couch. Your sketchbook and pencils jumbled around over the day, but you fished them out after a minute. A smile spread across your face and you cracked open the book only for a chill to stab your heart.

Rough messy sketches of marine life decorated the page, bleeding into the inky night sky littered with stars. The various fish all looked... bad. Horrible. Fins too large, fins too small, missing eyes, strange movements to them. The transition between the ocean and the sky looked hideous.

Your eyes stung as you grit your teeth. The boss was right. Your work wasn't good enough to go on a wall. And it probably never would.

You took the page and ripped it out of the book.

#otto octavius x reader #doc ock x reader #TSSM Doc Ock #my writing

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morganayenneferburnham · 3 years

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Have I Known You 20 Seconds or 20 Years? – Nikolai Lantsov Series

Chapter 1: Devils Roll the Dice, Angel Roll their Eyes

Chapter 2: You Did a Number on Me

Chapter 3: You Could Call Me Babe for the Weekend

Chapter 4: The Best of Times, The Worst of Crimes

Chapter 5: All I Know Since Yesterday Is Everything Has Changed

A very short summary: Y/N has been working with the crows for a few years. Her life feels complete until she meets the insufferable Nikolai Lantsov. She finds herself forced to work with the King of Ravka on one of Kaz Brekker’s crazy schemes.

Word count: 2k

A/N: Hey there! So this took me a bit longer than expected but here it is! I should probably mention that it's an angsty one. Sorry. I hope you guys enjoy it. I'd love to get some feedback :)

Chapter 5: All I Know Since Yesterday Is Everything Has Changed

She woke that morning wishing she didn’t have to leave her room for the rest of the month. That was going to be difficult, however. Kaz would come to drag her out himself if he had to. She knew he would. It was probably best to avoid angering him any further. He had made his anger quite clear the night before.

---

Kaz had sent everyone away for the night after having heard their reports and studying the plans for a few more minutes. His gloved fingers had wrapped themselves tightly around her wrist when she’d tried to slip past him.

“Can you get the job done? Or do I have to worry I’ll lose my corporalnik to a king?” His voice had been heavy with disdain.

“Of course, I can do the job, Kaz! How long have I been working for you?” she’d felt panic rise in her, making her nauseous.

“I’ve known Jesper even longer. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t disappointed me.” He snickered. “You haven’t answered my question, Y/N.” The way he’d said her name had sent a shiver down her spine. It had been a barely hidden warning.

“Kaz…” her voice had broken. Would he send me back to Tante Ingrid? She simply couldn’t tell.

“Start tailoring Nikolai and yourself back. I’ll see you in the morning. Do not be late.”

She’d spent the next 3 hours tailoring the king, who threatened to ruin her life by occupying her every thought, and then herself. Nikolai had at least had the decency to stay quiet this time around. She had been far from done when they’d called it a night, but she’d judged it would be enough to keep Kaz off her back.

---

Y/N got ready quickly, keeping Kaz’s warning in mind. She shrugged off her nightgown. She’d slept terribly. She pulled her white shirt over her head, tucking it in the pants she’d chosen for the day. Her mind kept travelling back to Nikolai’s kiss and Kaz’s terrifying fury. She loosely tied the strings at her shirt’s collar, letting the delicate bow rest on her chest. Her brain seemed to be stuck playing both moments repeatedly. It was ridiculous. Nikolai had only kissed her to keep up the act. There was no reason to jeopardize her place with the crows over something so meaningless. So why couldn’t her mind stop bringing it up?

When she finally reached the music room that currently served as their boss’ office, Inej sent her a look of pity from her perch on Kaz’s armchair. Great, she thought, Kaz is still mad.

Jesper and Wylan were lounging, limbs tangled, on a small couch. She nodded to them, returning their greetings, making her way to the opened glass-paneled doors leading to the garden. She watched Marya Hendriks paint while they waited for Nikolai and Zoya to join them. The older woman was working on a beautiful landscape of the Geldcanal. Y/N focused whole-heartedly on the paintbrush strokes letting them erase the memories of the previous night from her mind as they went. She knew it wasn’t permanent, the problem would still exist once Marya stopped painting, but it brought her comfort for the time being.

“Thank you for gracing us with your presence, your royal highness” Kaz’s raspy voice brought her back to the present. His rage and disdain were barely leashed. She turned in time to catch the surprised look on Nikolai’s face. She might have thought it was funny if she wasn’t so scared of what Kaz could do.

“Good morning, are my general and I late?” Nikolai schooled his feature into a charming grin. “Though, you know, I was under the impression that Kings couldn’t be late, everyone else is simply early.”

Just when Y/N thought it was impossible, Kaz’s eyes darkened further. Nikolai had managed to make him angrier somehow. Kaz sneered, “You are late.” They were in for a horrible day.

The air felt colder than it had a few minutes prior to the Ravkans’ arrival. Kaz continued, “The first part of the job was a success. However, that was the easy part.” He sent a pointed look her way. “The next part will require everyone to follow the plan to the letter.”

She flinched. Kaz isn’t mad. He is livid. She moved away from the open doors opting to take place on the arm of the couch where Wylan and Jesper were still lounging. Jesper reached for her, letting his hand rest on her thigh, giving it a small squeeze as if he felt her distress. She was thankful for that small gesture. It would help her endure Kaz’s wrath.

“I still need time to figure everything out. These blueprints do give us the layout of the factory and the warehouse, but we still don’t have the guards’ rounds schedule. We’ll also need to find out the shipment schedule.”

Inej interrupted him “I’ll take care of that. Just keep planning, I do quite enjoy your scheming face.” Y/N always loved getting a glimpse of their relationship. It was always subtle, but they clearly did love each other. It was endearing how much they did.

Kaz’s features seemed to soften a bit at that. “Of course, my darling. Perhaps General Nazyalensky can be of some assistance.”

Zoya nodded. “Sure, we’ll get you the information. Just make sure we have a way out with the plans and the prototypes we need.”

Kaz nodded and turned back to Y/N his gaze cold and hard. “You’re not done with your tailoring.” It wasn’t a question, it was a critic. She felt a chill travel down her back. “You have to finish this morning before either of you can leave the house.” He considered her for a moment. “Use your room. We can’t risk a servant seeing you like this.”

-----

They’d left the room a few minutes later. Y/N leading the way to her room at the Hendriks mansion. She had been quiet, practically ignoring him the whole way. Only turning to him once to check if he was following her. Her brows were furrowed. Nikolai wasn’t sure if she was mad at him or scared. Scared of what? Me? Or Brekker?

Nikolai now watched her from his seat at the end of the bed as she readied her tailoring kit. She had tailored her body back the night before, but she still had ways to go before she was sporting her beautiful features again. She had her back turned to him, her olive pants hugging the soft curves of her hips just right. Nikolai’s mind kept travelling back to the night before and the outfit the Grisha had chosen for the day wasn’t helping him at all. He wanted to rest his hands on her hips and pull her body to his. He wanted to feel her comforting curves pressed against him, closer than they had been the night before, the fabric of her skirt no longer in the way.

He watched her finally settle in front of the mirrored desk, raising her hands to her face. He was glad she was starting with herself. It would give him time to gain full control of his brain again. He observed the careful movements of her fingers for what felt like hours. He was grateful for the time she’d bought him, until he saw her face as she made her way to him. He couldn’t help but glance at her full lips. He wondered just how different it would feel to kiss her now. Saints, I forgot just how naturally gorgeous she was. The urge to pull her closer was threatening to overwhelm him.

“So, I guess I’m only undoing my own tailoring? Not Genya Safin’s? You still need to look like Sturmhond.” She sounded guarded.

“Yeah. I don’t think you could handle how handsome I really look.” He saw her jaw tick. Saints, what a stupid thing to say. And why did I wink at her again? She’s obviously uncomfortable.

He watched her carefully as she came to a stop, standing between his thighs. Nikolai could feel his heart hammering in his chest. She was standing so close he worried she could hear it. If she did, she made no mention of it. “This is gonna hurt. Tell me if you need a break.” She sounded determined; all traces of her previous insecurity gone. He only nodded, not trusting his voice with her standing so close to him, her floral scent drifting his way due to the soft breeze coming from the open window.

Her fingers were surprisingly cold against his skin. He felt the familiar itch of tailoring as she started before the pain of bone remodeling fully settled in. He tried to stay as still as possible, focusing on the concentration etched in the girl’s features instead of the pain. He felt her set his jaw back, making sure Sturmhond’s characteristically pointed chin was just right. She had made a few adjustments the night before, but she hadn’t done any major alterations. He kept watching her as she set the rest of his face back. Her shirt had slipped dangerously lower on her chest as she worked. The small bow coming lose. It was driving Nikolai completely crazy. He wanted to reach out and finish untying the damned strings. He didn’t think he could take much more of this absolute torture. She was almost done with reworking the bone when he saw her bite her bottom lip, completely lost in her work. He was about to finally lose the last sliver of decency he had been holding on to for the last hour when she straightened up suddenly. She backed away to take in her work.

“I think that should be it for facial structure. I’ll work on your eyes next, and I’ll finish with your hair.” She seemed more at ease now. Whatever had been bothering her almost forgotten.

She took her place back between his legs reaching up to his face once more. Her fingers came to rest on his cheek.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was a mistake.” Nikolai blurted out. He could’ve sworn he saw hurt flash in Y/N’s beautiful green eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He must have imagined it. He saw her straighten her spine, her shoulders tensing up.

“Whatever, we got out. We got the job done. It doesn’t matter.” Any scrap of ease she’d gained was gone as she turned her back to him, taking a few steps towards the mirrored desk. Why did you have to open your mouth? Nikolai Nothing. Nikolai the Bastard. Pretender. Nikolai the fool. He had clearly upset her.

“Listen, I didn’t mean to upset you. Brekker told me you worked at one of the pleasure houses before… I just – I didn’t mean to cross a line.”

She whirled back towards him. Fury burning in her deep green eyes. “He had no right.” she hissed. Her rage melted quickly however, leaving her looking panicked. Nikolai saw her hands start to shake before she clenched her fists.

Another blunder. “He only told me because I asked about your tattoo.” Her hand flew to the bare skin of her arm hiding the iris burned into her skin from him. I am only making it worse, he realized. I should really learn to stop talking so much.

She lowered her head. “He’s going to send me back.” Her voice was trembling. She sounded absolutely terrified at the idea. Nikolai wanted to reach out to her, to comfort her. Why would she think that? Surely Brekker wouldn’t do that. She’s a corporalnik. If Brekker is actually stupid enough to part with such a gifted Grisha, she could have a place with the Second Army. She could have a place in Ravka… She could have a place with me.

“You could–” Nikolai didn’t get to finish his sentence. Inej had opened the door and walked in carrying a tray with tea and biscuits.

“Figured, you two were probably hungry!” Her warm smile faltered when she saw Y/N’s expression. “Everything alright?”

“Thank you Inej. You are absolutely right!” She laughed; all traces of her panic gone. “I’m starving. I could eat a stack of waffles as tall as you!” A talented corporalnik and actress, Nikolai thought.

-----

tagged: @power-of-words23

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov x you #nikolai lantsov fanfic #nikolai lantsov fic #kaz brekker #the crows #six of crows #inej ghafa #leigh bardugo #grishaverse #nikolai series #my fic #ari's fic #have i known you 20 seconds or 20 years #chapter 5 #fic update #all i know since yesterday is everything has changed

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analyzen · 3 years

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Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

#italian fandom meta #efp analysis #ao3 analysis #fandom meta

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bring-the-storm · 3 years

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Rated: T

Word Count: 1833

written for @mlcorefour appreciation week

After accidentally panicking and telling basically the whole world that she's dating a member of the hero team, Ladybug must someone to fake-date her, and fast. Of course Carapace suggests the obvious solution: she can just date his girlfriend for a few weeks. As the plan dissolves into chaos, the four learn what it means to be the heart of a team, while also getting into more shenanigans than humanly possible along the way.

---

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Those were the first words to tumble from Chat Noir’s lips, his smile too overeager, too happy to be genuine.

“I didn't-”

“Girl, you have GOT to be kidding me,” Rena Rouge interrupted, whirling on her the second her feet touched the rooftop. “I thought we were friends!?! Who is it? Pegasus? Viperion?”

“I thought he was dating Ryuko,” Carapace jumped in.

“I’m not-” Ladybug opened her mouth to explain, only to be interrupted. She couldn’t really blame Alya (who only had fifteen Ladynoir pinterest boards and showed them off to anyone who so much as mentioned the superhero duo).

“Oh, right,” Rena Rouge nodded. “Otherwise she totally would’ve been my next guess.” The fox heroine turned to her desperately. “Please don’t tell me it’s Tigresse. I’ve been working on my Tigerella fanfic for months.”

“Guys, can you calm down for-”

“King Monkey, maybe?” Carapace guessed as Chat plopped down on the edge of the building, failing at not looking miserable. “He doesn’t really seem like he’s her type, but you never know.”

Rena Rogue cut her off again. “I swear, if it’s Vesperia and I didn’t see it coming…” The heroine buried her face in her hands. “Ladybug you better explain. I don’t know what to do with my life anymore!”

Instantly, three sets of eyes locked on her, begging for clarification. Ladybug took a deep breath.

“Guys, I’m not dating anyone.”

“But you said-” Rena protested.

“I know and I’m sorry!” she cried, trying not to look at Chat as her face heated. Not that it meant anything. Obviously. “The reporters kept asking all these questions and I just wanted to get out of there and it slipped out.”

It was hard to miss the flash of relief in Chat’s eyes.

“So, let me get this straight,” Carapace said, staring at her incredulously. “Your grand plan to get out of a stressful press conference was to tell everyone in Paris on live television that you’re dating someone on our team?”

It sounded a lot worse when he said it out loud.

“I panicked,” Ladybug admitted with a wince.

Carapace breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, at least you can just admit that and everything will go back to normal.”

Rena Rouge and Chat Noir glanced at each other knowingly and almost simultaneously burst into giggles, as if he had said something hilarious.

“That doesn’t sound like a good sign,” Ladybug swung her yo-yo in an anxious circle.

“Trust me when I say it will not work out like that,” Chat Noir smirked somewhat bitterly in the light of the setting sun.

Rena waved her hand across the sky as if she could already read the headlines written on the clouds. “Shocking Reveal - Ladybug Tells All.”

“I could just tell them the truth,” she tried to protest.

“Heroes Attempt to Cover up the Truth,” Alya finished, stopping the yo-yo’s frantic circle with her flute.

Ladybug groaned, wanting to kick something, preferably Hawkmoth’s stupid face.

“And of course it's right around the anniversary,” Chat Noir reminded her.

“Uh, no it’s not,” Carapace glanced at her partner like he was crazy.

And he kinda was. She distinctly remembered a picnic with a certain kitty on the rooftops near where she ‘fell from heaven’ as they watched a parade of small children stream by, wearing Stoneheart cosplay only a few months ago.

“Not that anniversary,” Chat Noir deflated a little. “I was talking about Oblivio.”

Her brain screeched to a halt.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” she groaned.

Carapace and Rena exchanged a glance. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“After a certain Ladyblogger posted a photo of me and Chat,” she locked her gaze on Rena, relishing the moment a little too much. “Some of the fans seem to have gotten it into their heads that Kitty and I are destined to get together on that day.

“Generally involving a week full of frustrated Ladynoir-shipping akumas,” Chat jumped in. “And one exhausted and pointedly not together bug and cat.”

Ladybug giggled. “Okay, you have to admit, some of them are kinda funny.”

The cat hero snorted. “I wouldn’t call Aphrodite funny.”

“What about the fanfic style one?” she nudged his knee playfully, trying to see if banter would help cheer him up. “You have to admit, throwing mugs at the akuma during the coffee shop AU was the best.”

A hint of a real smirk flickered across her partner’s lips.

“You called me sweet when you dumped all that sugar in my hair,” she reminded him.

“It was an accident!” he protested with a grin.

“Yeah, right,” Ladybug crossed her arms. “You were supposed to throw it at him. You totally did it on purpose!”

Chat clutched his chest, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes. “I can’t believe you would have such little faith in me, m’lady!!”

Both of them somehow missed the knowing glance their best friends shot each other.

All their weapons buzzed simultaneously, doubtlessly with an update from the news. Chat Noir flicked open his baton and sighed, showing the headline to the rest of them.

“Which of Our Heroes is Ladybug’s Boyfriend?”

Her partner scrolled through the article, grumbling under his breath.

Carapace raised his eyebrows under his hood. “Bold of them to assume you don't have a girlfriend.”

“I wish I could say that it’s bold of them to assume I’m dating anyone at all,” she sighed. “But I kinda started this so I guess I can’t blame them.”

“THAT’S IT!” Rena Rouge leapt to her feet, nearly knocking her boyfriend’s shell over the edge of the roof.

“What?” Ladybug glanced at her comrades to check if they had the slightest idea of what was going on.

“You told the press that you’re dating one of us on the hero team, right?” the fox heroine asked excitedly.

“Yes?” Ladybug answered hesitantly. “You were there too.”

“Not the point,” her friend waved the comment off. “The only solution that doesn’t end in even more akuma attacks is fairly obvious.”

The other three glanced at each other to see if they had gotten it.

“COME ON GUYS,” Alya sighed. “Ladybug just has to pretend to be dating one of us for a few weeks. Think about it. They go out on a few dates, cue general excitement from Paris about the first official hero couple, tragically break up after a few weeks and everything goes back to normal.”

Ladybug shrugged. “I guess it could work.”

“Why does this sound way too similar to the basic plot for any fake dating fanfic?” Chat Noir hissed in the nearby turtle hero’s ear.

Or hood by where his ear should be.

“Probably because that's exactly what it is,” Carapace whispered back.

Rena smirked.

“And I happy to know of an available cat who would be happy to take-”

Her triumphant Ladynoir wingwoman grin fell from her face as the duo shook their heads in unison.

“Bad idea,” Chat Noir admitted. “I don’t want to think about the worldwide catastrophe that could occur after out ‘breakup.’”

“It would be like last Valentine’s day, but infinitely worse,” Ladybug jumped in, wincing at the memory of yet another love akuma that nearly burned Paris to the ground in its mission to make its OTP kiss.

Not that kissing Chat was such a bad thing. He was kinda good-

She cut off that mental track before it could get anywhere.

“Well, who else are you going to fake-date?” Alya asked. “I mean, I would totally be up for the job, but…”

She gestured at her boyfriend.

Carapace’s silence spoke for itself.

“Uh, babe?” Rena nudged him with her boot.

“Yeah?” he said with a grin.

“You can’t actually be considering this.”

“Why not?” he shrugged. “It’s not like anyone in Paris will know any better.”

“Hawkmoth could target me!” Alya pointed out. “He knows where I live!”

Carapace shrugged. “I mean, he could do that anyway.”

“Still, this could…” her voice trailed off. “Uh- why you aren’t fighting me on this.”

The turtle hero shrugged. “I guess I don’t see a problem with it, dudette. As long as both you and Ladybug are cool with it, then I’m not going to stop you.”

“You’re supposed to be my voice of reason!” Rena Rouge stared at him like he had just admitted to secretly being Chloé’s BFF. “Are you secretly a sentimonster or something?”

Nino raised his hands innocently. “I’m just trying to be a supportive boyfriend and help you reach your dreams.”

“By handing me off to the first bug who wants to date me?”

Carapace fell back dramatically. “Babe, did you see Ladybug today,” he cried in an impression of his girlfriend's voice. “The way she stuck that landing and then she winked at me and I swear I died. No offense babe, but if Ladybug ever asked me out, I would break up with you in an instant.”

Rena turned bright red.

Ladybug giggled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You’re cool with this?” Rena spun on her.

“I mean, if Carapace is,” she smirked. “Sounds like it's the closest to a realistic relationship I’m going to get.”

Rena Rouge buried her head in her hands. “Hold on. I need to go scream on a rooftop.”

“Take all the time you need, babe,” Carapace called after her.

Ladybug smirked, grabbing her hand and kissing it like Chat would sometimes do for her (which totally didn’t leave her in a stuttering mess afterwards. Obviously.). “Yeah, babe. Take all the time you need.”

Rena Rouge turned red and fled.

“Whoops,” Ladybug turned back to Carapace with a sheepish grin on her face. “Too much?”

“Just because you’re fake dating my girlfriend doesn’t mean you can steal her,” Carapace nodded. “Don’t worry. She’ll be back in a few minutes and fully on board with this.”

“I should go and talk to her,” Ladybug said as she bit her lip nervously. She waved to Chat in a TOTALLY NORMAL WAY as she leapt over the rooftops.

***

The ribbons on her pigtails fluttered in the evening wind as Chat Noir watched her vault over the rooftop after her possible future fake-girlfriend.

Carapace whistled. “Dude, you’ve got it bad.”

Adrien’s face heated as he punched the turtle hero's arm. “Shut up.”

“Have you considered telling her that, you know, you still love her?”

Chat Noir laughed bitterly. “And watch her heart rip in half as she tells me yet again that we could never be more than friends? No thanks.” He glanced away. “I’d rather give up my miraculous.”

The sounds of the city that echoed off the rooftops awkwardly filled the void between them.

Finally, Chat Noir asked. “So, wait, are we actually doing this?”

Carapace nodded. “We’re superheroes. It’s our duty to protect Paris. If the only way for us to do that is for my girlfriend to pretend-date yours, then it’s a sacrifice we have to make.”

#mlcore4 #miraculous #miraculous fanfic #chat noir #rena rouge #Ladybug #carapace #*waves nervously* hi how are you guys doing

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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 3 years

Text

Hakuoki Yuugiroku 3 drama: Please teach me, Yamazaki-san! English translation

Special thanks to @nollatooru for extracting text again since there’s no way this would have been translated anytime soon since the majority of drama translations that I’ve found as videos only are near the very bottom of my to-do list.

This is my translation of the 薄桜鬼遊戯録隊士達の大宴会店铺特典「教えてください山崎さん！」, the Yuugiroku 3 (too much of a hassle to look up the actual name) drama: Please teach me, Yamazaki-san!

Ended up doing a bit more research that I would have liked to translate this since the names of the positions in the Shinsengumi’s organization for spies didn’t translate well from Japanese into Chinese (huzzah for google translate and for biographies that list names in Chinese and Japanese so I was able to find the information I was looking for in English)... Also, i didn’t look up the gameplay for anything since I had to uninstall KW and EB for space when I was taking things off my damaged passport, not that it would have made much of a difference since I can’t recall a point when the “Watch” was actually voiced... so I might not really be consistent with a few things in this translation since I only did research during the latter half of this...?

oh well. i don’t know Japanese and don’t do the editing for my subtitle videos until I compare everything to the audio later so I can claim ignorance. i suppose that’s an odd benefit of not understanding Japanese hahaha.

Anyway, as always, my translation not be 100% accurate since I translate from Chinese. final edits will probably take a bit longer (in comparison to the other things i’m still sitting on) to do since im still debating about what im do with all the Watch-related words since I really don’t like it when the things I translate aren’t consistent....

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION: I HIGHLY ADVISE AGAINST READING THIS AND WAITING FOR MY SUBTITLE VIDEO.

Hakuoki Shinkai Yuugiroku, Please teach me, Yamazaki-san! Drama CD

Translation by KumoriYami

Yamazaki: (I think that since there haven't been any large manhunt operations lately [reword later? tl can also mean "to hunt and arrest"], things have been quiet.)

(However, what is that guy doing/is that guy's purpose?)

The one out there, I'm not going to run.

So come out and tell me why you're spying on me.

~wind blows~

(Not planning on coming out...?)

-grips sword-

Then, I'll take the imitative to attack.

(movement in bushes)

Souma: Ah, please wait a moment!

Yamazaki: Oh. You are... Souma-kun?

(movement in bushes again) Saito: Sure enough, I was immediately found/discovered/I was detected immediately. As expected of Yamazaki.

Yamazaki: Based on just the breathing, I thought there was only one person, yet Saito-san was also still here. Exactly what are you doing?

Souma: Sorry! I didn't mean to do anything strange.

It's just that I wanted to observe Yamazaki-san work.

Yamazaki: Observe me work?

Although it's fine if you want to watch, but aren't you the Chief's page?

Saito: I recommended that he try this, But he was immediately found. Still it's better to ask the person himself directly.

Yamazaki: You two, what are you talking about?

Souma:...Um, Then, Yamazaki-san, please show me how to [/you] work! ----

Souma: Hakuoki Shinkai Yuugiroku, Store Bonus Drama CD, Please teach me, Yamazaki-san! ----

Yamazaki: In other words, you now understand the duties of a page, and still want to know what sort work the other warriors do, and want to try monitoring/surveillance/doing the Watch's work?

Is that how it is? Souma-kun.

Souma: It's just as you said. As the chief's page, I work hard every day, but I still don't know a lot about the Shinsengumi.

That's why I went and asked Saito-san [about this].

Saito: I know that Souma is working very hard. Though that will naturally be [more/become] obvious as time goes by/Though as time goes by, that will naturally be understood/Although this has been said for a while, this will naturally be understood. [check audio]

Yamazaki: But you don't want to wait for/until then, and want to be of use as quickly as possible?

Souma: Yes. Can you help me with this, even if it's [for] just a little bit?

Yamazaki: Hm.

Souma: Yamazaki-san.

Yamazaki: No, I was just reminiscing the past/thinking about the past.

I used to be as anxious as you are.

Alright, if I can, permit me to teach you.

Souma: Thank you very much!

Saito: Then can I also accompany/join you?

Yamazaki: Saito-san also wants to? That won't be a problem.

Saito: I also have experience following people while on patrol

I'm very interested in how the Watch [im pretty sure it's the Watch here and in the earlier instance. tho i can't say for certain since CN doesn't exactly do capitalization and ive never played the game in Chinese] fulfills its duties.

Please allow me to learn again. [check audio]

Yamazaki: In that case then, I'll ask you to please look after me.

----

Yamazaki: Although it normally referred to as the Watch,

the Watch is actually divided into two sections.

Souma: In terms of how it organized, sorry but please review it for me again.

Saito: The part of the organization for spies which acts by itself to gather external intelligence is called Shoshi shirabeyaku ken kansatsu*, and within that, those who are responsible for investigating/monitoring the conduct of [the/our?] members/the investigators whose duty is to supervise the conduct of/our members are known as the Kansatsugata**

* Shinsengumi's organizational post for investigating movements of the opponents and keeping the Shinsengumi members under control. (source: https://japanese-wiki-corpus.github.io/person/Kuwajiro%20OISHI.html)

** had to look this up on the Shinsengumi wiki.samurai-archives

Yamazaki, who holds both positions/is capable of accomplishing both duties, is at the core of the Kansatsugata.

Souma: Shoshi shirabeyaku and Kansatsugata...

After hearing this again, I really feel that Yamazaki-san is quite amazing.

Yamazaki: Uh, do-don't say that out loud. I'm not used to it.

Souma: But, monitoring/investigating/supervising the conduct of the other members...

Saito: It's to secretly investigate whether or not members are conducting themselves in a manner that is befitting as members of the the Shinsengumi, and whether or not they have done anything improper.

Souma: In other words/That is to say, that also includes my actions so far.

Yamazaki: At the moment, you have no problems [there are no problems with you?].

Souma: Is-Is that so...

Yamazaki: There are almost two hundred members. Among them, there will be people who do not abide by the regulations, and those who clearly show their dissatisfaction/obviously dissatisfied or are treasonous/or even rebellious.

Souma: I see. Indeed there are people who obviously show that.

Saito: It these people incite trouble within the team, it would be very troublesome.

That's why the Kansatsugata are needed to investigate people like this.

Yamazaki: Having said that, the three of us have been quite noisy so it would be helpful if we quickly correct that here. Ah. The two of you, over there.

Saito: Say who is there [more like "name" i guess? probably more "identify who is over there" ]

Souma: That is... Nagakura-san? There are several other people [He's with some other people/several others].

Yamazaki: This is a rare opportunity to train one of the basic skills for spying/[needed] as a spy. I'll give you a demonstration. Afterwards, you'll eavesdrop on their conversation without being discovered.

Souma: Yes, I'll do my best.

--------

Saito: Almost 15 minutes have passed. But it's really bold for you to have come up with this practical training, Yamazaki.

Yamazaki: For his first time attempt at doing this, Nagakura-san is suitable [to practise with]. As long as one isn't murderous [being bloodthirsty? think of something later], he'll basically ignore you.

Saito: Nn. If it was Souji, he would immediately draw his sword for a harsh/ruthless interrogation.

Yamazaki: No, Saito-san would do the same thing, and immediately get rid of your pursuer [not sure if this is in the "dispose of" sense though the tl i have can be translated that way lol].

Saito: Well, it doesn't feel good to be tested when I obviously haven't been disloyal.

Yamazaki: It's as you say, but this is my job.

Souma: AAAHHHHHH!!!!

Saito: Uh. [That’s] Souma. Why is he being hunted down [chased/pursued]?

Yamazaki: By whom/Who is it? Ah, Okita-san, at this time?

(frantic steps) Souma: Sorry! I didn't mean to do anything else!

This was just training for surveillance work!

(sword swung) Souma: AAAHHH!!

Okita-san, please forgive me!

Saito: An unexpected situation.

Yamazaki: He needs help to get away/escape from that situation, he isn't his opponent at all/he's no match for him.

Saito: I'll figure out a way to deal with Souji. You escape with Souma/You take Souma and run away. --------

Souma: Truly thank you for just now. Okita-san was already behind me before I realized it I really thought that I was going to die/I was dead.

Saito: Dying is a bit of an exaggeration.

But I'm certain he would have stabbed your neck with his sword and left you half-dead.

Yamazaki: I didn't expect Okita-san to be nearby, but there was way of knowing that you'd encounter him/but nothing can be done about meeting him [check audio].

Well then, change your mood for the next training [reword later]. The target is that room. Remain quiet from this point onward.

Souma: What's next?

Yamazaki: Take this letter and swap it with the letter in that room. But, in the next room, there is someone you must not be detected by.

Saito: Training for intelligence work? If this goes well, then it's possible that the other party won't even notice you.

Souma: That would be good, so it's just this letter? Then, I'll be right back.

Yamazaki: Ah, be very careful.

---------

Yamazaki: He entered the room without any problems.

Saito: Ah. So, who is the person in the next room?

Yamazaki: Well, it shouldn't matter since that person is asleep during the day.

( door slides open, then frantic steps)

Souma: Saito-san, Yamazaki-san! I'm sorry! I couldn't do it! As soon as I entered the room, I felt that someone was staring at me through the door of the next room! There was also this creepy laughter/ing!

Saito: Laughter? The eyes staring at you, were they red? [i swear this is going to become fanart one day lol. for both the spying and souma talking about what happened]

Souma: Yes! they didn't look like human eyes at all!

(door slides open.... slow creaking footsteps)

Saito: Does that mean that one over there was...

Yamazaki: Ah, damn it! He's awake!

Saito: Yamazaki, you go first! I'll deal with this!

Yamazaki: Sorry! I'll leave the General Secretary [so... i don't really like the English localization translation of Sanan's position being a "colonel" so i looked up what it said on wikipedia and used that] to you! Souma-kun, come here!

This training/Training ends here!

Souma: Eh, eeehhhhhhhh?!

Saito: I'm sorry that it was noisy while your rested [that this noise disturbed your rest?], this was as a result of... --------

Souma: What the hell that just now...

Yamazaki + Saito: It was just your imagination.

Souma: Eh. But, "General Secretary" was clearly said...

Yamazaki + Saito: You imagined hearing it [tl is more "it was an illusion" and one that is heard... maybe "you're hearing things"?. kinda gave up on thinking about that right now. ]

Souma: Is, is that so... uh. That being said...

Saito: What's wrong/What is it?

Souma: Although the Kansatsugata feels quite unremarkable, each individual/everyone posses outstanding abilities, and I've been made aware of that again. [However] I 'm incapable of doing this sort of work.

Yamazaki: Hm. It can be said that you're not talented at this.

Souma: Eh?

Yamazaki: In the first place, not everyone can do this.

All of us within the Kansatsugata are constantly working on improving our skills.

We're always fighting in the shadows for the Shinsengumi.

What you think of being outstanding abilities is the results of our hard work. [remarkable capabilities?]

Souma: Truly, Yamazaki-san is amazing. I understand why everyone trusts you!

Yamazaki: Th-That's why you shouldn't look at me like that. But for you, I think that you're better suited to doing honest work [tl can basically mean "honourable," "not devious" or "out in the open" in the straightforward sense] and not this secret monitoring work/surveillance in the shadows [reword later].

Saito: Indeed, compared to secretly taking covert actions in the shadows, you are better suited at working in the open, Souma.

Souma: I-is that so...

Thank you very much for this/that. If it's possible, I hope to still learn some things from you.

Yamazaki: There will be opportunities for that. Then, we'll end today's training here. Souma-kun, is there/do you have anything else you want to ask?

Souma: [Something] I want to ask.... ah. then, Yamazaki-san, may I ask you one last question?

Yamazaki: Ah, if I can answer, I won't hold back [will/do so].

Souma: What sort of technique is the "Tatami flip"?

Yamazaki: Ta... Where did you hear that name from?

Souma: Just now during this investigator training/spy training, Nagakura-san mentioned it/Nagakura-san mentioned it while doing the operative training. It is said that it is Yamazaki-san's most powerful technique.

Yamazaki: That guy said something unnecessary! No, Souma-kun, that's.... It's not something amazing like a secret technique..

Saito: Why are you being modest? That move is indeed capable of being referred to as/called a secret technique. If it's possible, I'll ask you to please teach me it. Perhaps I will be able to apply it to kenjutsu.

Yamazaki: Even Saito-san, what are you saying? [Even Saito-san is saying this? check audio]

Souma: Please, Yamazaki-san!

Saito: I'll be requesting the same of you, Yamazaki. [tl is more "i'm also requesting (you) to do so/asking"]

Yamazaki: Bo-Both of you, please raise your heads. I-I get it! I'll teach you.

Souma: Really?! Thank you very much!

Yamazaki: But, you can't tell anyone else about this.

Saito: Nn. Understood.

Yamazaki: Then, please get behind me. Aoyi***, Tatami flip!

This is the literal Mandarin pronunciation of the tl without tones. CN tl can mean “profound argumentation” (in Chinese), tho it's also used to refer to some of the highest level of martial skills in JP (so says a baidu search on the term).

The English google translate of that page puts this phrase as "Ogi," and after reading this page that mentions "ogi" (http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-9948.html#:~:text=Yielding%20is%20called%20%22ju%22%20as,an%20open%20heart%20without%20ego.), so i will probably change this to either "Secret move" or "hidden technique" based on what it mentioned there

Souma: Uoh!

Yaamzaki: Ju-Just now, that was the Tatami flip.

Souma: Amazing, that was amazing, Yamazaki-san! How were you able to do that without any tools [check audio]? Please tell me how to do this!

Saito: This can be used indoors while fighting defensively/can be used as a defence when fighting indoors. It can also be used to hinder an enemy's movements.

Yamazaki: Yes. This requires focusing your strength into the centre of your palm, and within a single breath, smack/slap the edge of the tatami, and then lifting it up when the edge bounces.

Souma: So it's like that? Hoh.... tatami flip! Uh. Areh? It didn't bounce at all.

Yamazaki: Haha. It's not something you can master right away. It also took me a long time to do it. Concentrate/Focus a bit more strength into the palm of your hand.

Souma: Ha! Ah! Yah! It-It's not moving...

Saito: Practise makes perfect./Won't practise make perfect [check audio]? Alright, I will challenge this. Should the position of my hand be around here?

Yamazaki: Yes. [Though] It's better to have it moved a bit forward [moved up a bit]/ if the if the center of gravity is moved forward.

Saito: Understood. Then, I'll be going. Secret technique: Tatami flip!

Yamazaki: No way...

Souma: Uoh.

Saito: Nn. That happened naturally [reword later...? tl is is basically "letting nature take its course was achieved"] .

Souma: Sa-Saito-san, that was amazing! You actually succeeded in one go!

Saito: No, there's no guarantee that this will succeed every time. The accuracy and speed can be further improved upon.

Souma: Really, the Shinsengumi has assembled some amazing people. I can't fall behind and have to work even harder.

Saito: Ah , work hard. I am always willing to practise kenjutsu with you.

Yamazaki: Ah, but, to have it actually done it so easily, my confidence...

Saito: What is it, Yamazaki?

Yamazaki: No, I just feel that need to train a lot more. Let's improve together, Souma-kun.

Souma: Yes! Please look after me!

Souma Kazue, Kaji Yūki Saito Hajime, Toriumi Kōsuke Yamazaki Susumu, Suzuki Takayuki

-end-

sorry but this is the only souma thing i have scheduled for april.

also i wanted some Yamazaki content translated, but i unfortunately don’t remember if i ever found Yamazaki’s route from Yuugiroku 2... so I settled on translating what I hope is a certain complete chapter (as viewed via the extras menu) of Souji’s route with him in it... sorta. scheduled for july!

--------

image from suruga-ya

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki yuugiroku 3 #hakuoki drama cd #hakuoki drama translation #Saito Hajime #Yamazaki Susumu #souma kazue

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yellowocaballero · 4 years

Text

Hunt!Tim: Five Times He Murdered Someone And One Time He Loved them <3

Just kidding. This is a fic set in my Roleswap AU, acting as a character study over the course of the series into...whatever the fuck was going on with that guy. I spent so much time and energy actually figuring out his arc and character that when I finished Solitaire I hadn’t said everything I wanted to say, so that’s why this exists. It’s...not funny at all. Tim takes himself far too seriously. I’m very sorry, there are almost no jokes in this. It just doesn’t work.

Content warning for story typical issues; but more explicit depiction of suicidal ideation, kidnapping and physical assault, just in general a very fucked up little dude, and gendered violence that is more explicitly discussed as a possible precursor to further violence. Rest under the cut.

“I’m going to fucking kill them!”

“Well,” Sasha said, tapping away relentlessly on her phone as she sat primly on his couch. During work hours she was always doing something mysterious on her laptop, and after work it was on her phone. She had once alluded to being the moderator of an improbable number of forums. She liked the power. “We could probably make that happen. It’s the Magnus Institute, it’s suspicious if nobody's dying. But four people at once may not be prudent.”

“I don’t care!” Tim yelled. He paced his living room in tight lines, turning sharply on his heel at the end of the room. It felt like he was bursting with pent-up energy and rage, sending his heartbeat thumping in his ears like a war drum. “They’re obstructing justice, withholding evidence from an investigation, probably acting as an accomplice -”

“I’m going to fucking kill them!”

Sasha’s head snapped up, eyes glinting at him behind the big glasses that she always hid behind. “So you do think they were involved in Gertrude’s death?”

“Who cares. They did something, they’re obviously guilty of whatever. Every one of them have rap sheets.” Everyone but that blonde woman, which seemed a little counter-intuitive. “We just have to find something.”

Sasha hesitated, just momentarily, and she carefully put her phone down. “You’re angry, Tim. It’s affecting your judgement. Remember when we talked about that? Deep breaths. Come on, in one and out two. ”

Tim grimaced, but Sasha was right. He stopped pacing, and at Sasha’s encouraging look he resentfully took a few deep breaths. It did make him feel better. His heart wasn’t thumping in his ears anymore. She was so good at calming him down. She was just so wonderful in every way.

Thinking about how great Sasha was effective in clearing his head, but it just highlighted how terrible those women were in comparison. No respect. It was disgusting.

“Thanks,” Tim said gruffly, eliciting a beautiful smile. He collapsed on the couch next to her, disgusted and frustrated. “We’re never going to solve this Robinson case so long as those women are in the way. I won’t tolerate any obstacles in getting justice.”

“I know, and that’s what’s brave about you,” Sasha soothed, clasping his shoulder gently. Her thumb worked into his shoulder, gentle and soothing. “But we have to do it quietly. We don’t just need them out of the way, we need information. I’ll work on the technological side. You can dig up an entire life online, trust me. But if they know any of the secrets about the Institute and the Archives, we have to press them. That’s your strength, Tim. You can get anything out of anyone, because you never give up.”

Tim turned his head and smiled weakly at her. “And your strength is that you’re always there for me.” Her eyebrow ticked, but Tim hardly noticed. “I’ll keep pressing. They can’t stonewall me forever. I have their boss’ address, I’ll just show up there.”

“He’s going to ask for a warrant -”

“Oh, who gives a shit, nobody cares.” Tim snorted. “He’s a pussy if he’s hiding behind those women, anyway.” At Sasha’s carefully arched eyebrow, Tim quickly added, “Coward, I meant coward.”

“So you do remember our conversation about being PC,” Sasha said, making Tim snort. Please. Those sensitivity training the department was always forcing on them was a joke. Tim laughed with the other guys about it afterwards. He didn’t know why Sasha was complaining; she laughed just as mockingly as the rest of them. But she just readjusted her glasses now, a sign she was a little nervous. “Tim, about what you said just before we left -”

“What about it?” Tim said sharply.

Sasha was silent for a minute, before adjusting her glasses again. “Nothing. Just - be careful, okay? People who get too close to the Magnus Institute end up dead.”

If only they would. But Tim grinned at her, bright and sharp, and Sasha hesitantly smiled back too. Tim’s conviction, his bravery, always seemed to make her feel better. Sasha thought too much. She rarely second guessed herself - that was why Tim liked her - but sometimes she just thought herself into twists. She needed someone like him to cut that Gordian Knot. “Don’t worry, Sash. The good guys always prevail.”

Tim would kill them. All he needed was a reason.

ii.

Tim had nightmares, now.

Not full ones. Strange, fragmented dreams that were quickly forgotten after he woke up. Most of the time. But not always. And they were so strangely vivid - as if he was really living that moment over and over again.

It was of that construction site. And of Danny, watching those murders and the corpses with a sick, fascinated smile. And of Tim, defenseless and powerless and trembling and weak, watching it all happen.

Sometimes there would be a man. Just once or twice. The man, who would always be wearing really stupid pyjamas that contrasted wildly with how attractive he was, would frown at Tim.

‘Hey’, Sims said, ‘aren’t you that prick?’.

And Tim would wake up, heart beating fast, thumping in his ears, afraid in exactly that same poisonous metallic way that he hadn’t felt since he was a child.

Tim was going to kill that monster.

****

On a Monday afternoon, Tim sat in the driver’s seat of his car, checking his gun.

Gun, check. Rope, check. Shovel, check. Lighter and gasoline, check. Axe with belt, check, just in case things went really south. Gag, check. Tim had no idea how many secret powers that thing had, he wasn’t taking any chances.

Monday was the only night that they all went home alone. It took two frustrating weeks of stake-outs to realize that. Since he had cornered that bitch Melanie she even walked home with Daisy, who apparently lived close by. It was worth it, though. She was finally feeding him useful information, even though Tim knew that she thought she was giving irrelevant information about what they really wanted. He gave most of it straight to Sasha, who was salivating over all of the puzzle pieces Melanie was casually dumping on them as if they were meaningless. Whatever. That was Sasha’s job.

She had been worried about him lately. Probably. Tim hadn’t really noticed. He was focused on the case. Tim was a perfectionist like that.

Finally, at 5:20, Tim saw the monster - Jon, whatever, he wasn’t scared of him - round the corner. He was a little hard to distinguish in the darkness, but that was why Tim had left the headlights on.

His heart was thumping, roaring in his ears. Tim was giddy with excitement and anticipation and thirst. Catching them wasn’t the best part, but this would feel so good. He had been vividly imagining the look of fear on the thing’s face for the past month, ever since he assaulted Tim. He just couldn’t decide how he wanted to kill him - he brought his nightstick just in case he wanted to bash his face in, but fire was practical and incredibly painful.

Showtime, Tim thought, as he opened his car door and stepped out. After Tim took care of this, he and Sasha would be safe. That was the important thing. He was protecting Sasha from that thing. That was why he did it, all of it.

Jon startled a little when he saw him, but his face was backlit from the headlights and his features were probably obscured. It wasn’t until Tim stepped forward, easily and casually, that Jon began the slight speedwalk of a pedestrian encountering a persistent panhandler on the street.

“Stop right there.”

Jon froze. Not as stupid as he looks, then. Still pretty stupid.

Tim walked forward until he was standing at Jon’s back, already silently drawing out his handcuffs with one hand.

“Detective Stoker,” Jon said, and Tim almost respected the way his voice didn’t shake. “I wish this was more of a surprise.”

Normally Tim appreciated a good intimidating monologue, but he could be more efficient right now. Besides, there was time for that later. Jon turned his head backwards slightly, trying to see his face - perfect - and Tim waited until he could see his expression before he jammed the barrel of his gun on Jon’s throat.

There it was. The expression that few people besides Tim had ever seen, that secret face of man that each person felt so few times in their lives if they felt it at all. The face of a man who knew he was about to die.

It was Tim’s little secret.

“Why -”

Tim bashed it over the head with the barrel of the gun, and it dropped on the gun like a lanky puppet with its strings cut. No use letting it finish a question.

Handcuffs, rope, trunk. Carefully just under the speed limit, barrelling out of London into the cold and emotionless woods. Turning on the stereo - some mindless Amy Winehouse song. Tim found himself whistling along with it, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

It wasn’t that Tim liked killing people, or even things that looked and begged and cried like people. But it was just something you had to do. Tim shouldered that burden, so innocent people wouldn’t have to. As a police officer, he had sworn to be the wolf that protects the sheep. That was Tim - that loyal and heroic wolf.

The thrill was overwhelming. That was why people had sex in public - that excited thrill over possibly getting caught. Not that he would, and even if he did Tim basically had carte blanche to handle his cases how he wanted, but he could. His skin was prickling, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Saliva was pooling in his mouth, which he wiped off with one hand. Adrenaline did weird things. When he looked at the rear mirror inside the car to check on Jo - the monster, he saw the light of the headlights glinting strangely against his eyes, but in another second it was gone.

Tim didn’t have a ‘spot’ because that was fucking idiotic, but all of his dumping places had basically the same characteristics. You had to drive a while to get something really private. It took an hour, but they got to Chiltern hills eventually, and Tim was forced to squint at Google Maps to find the GPS coordinates he had planned out. It felt a little ridiculous to use Google Maps to find a burial spot for somebody but - well, life was weird.

When he stopped, he carefully took out the gag, the axe, the shovel, his own hunting knife, and dumped them in the spot he had picked out. He held the gag and holstered the hunting knife before carefully popping open the trunk.

Jo - the monster was awake. Which was fortunate; there was no fight when they were unconscious. He stared up at Tim with big brown eyes, all innocent and pleading, and Tim rolled his eyes before bending down to securely jam the gag in his mouth before grabbing him by his tied hands and dragging him out. The thing made a bunch of sad noises, and from the sounds of it he had wrenched a shoulder, but that wouldn’t be an issue in a few minutes.

The thing’s legs had clearly fallen asleep, and he stumbled onto the ground the minute Tim let go of him. He kept his eyes on Tim almost frantically, as if he could brainwash him by his eyes alone - could he? Could he? His eyes were fucking freaky.

Jesus. What if he could. Fuck, Tim barely knew anything about his freaky powers. But if he could brainwash via eye contact, couldn’t he -

No. Tim shook himself. That was the fear talking. Which shouldn’t exist. The fear should be gone. He had the thing bound and gagged at his feet, terrified out of its life, he couldn’t possibly still be scared of it. Fucking stupid. He was just cautious. That was caution. Tim was a cautious person.

Time for his favorite part, then.

Tim grinned lazily down at the thing, letting his white teeth flash in the lit headlights of the car. He hadn’t been able to sleep last night, writing all of this out in his mind. “Not so great on the other side, huh?”

The monster’s eyes widened.

Tim dragged him away from the car, not bothering to be gentle. He kicked and pushed on the ground, and although he was bony as hell the guy was tall and desperate, and Tim was forced to kick him down on the ground and draw his gun. He hadn’t wanted to draw the gun - they never fought and kicked and snarled and bit with the gun - but he wasn’t taking any chances here.

“I want you to know,” Tim said, friendly and warm, “that I’m doing this because I made a promise. On my badge and on my life, I protect the innocent from predators. I defend society from threats. There’s a corruption in the world, a sick and rotting infection, and it’s my job to tear it out. But I get no joy from this, okay?” He didn’t know why it was important that the monster knew that. It wasn’t like he was going to hold a grudge. The monster tried to sit up, but Tim kicked him again until he hit the ground again. Tim hated how he was shorter than him when they both were standing. He wanted to look down on him for once.

The monster was always looking down on him. With his little girl gang and his bestest buddies. With that - that moral superiority. He thought he was so smart and popular. Just because he could rip someone’s deepest secrets out of someone, he thought he was better. Just because he knew Tim’s worst fear, he thought that he had power over Tim.

Nobody did. Nobody had power over Tim. Not anymore.

“But you,” Tim hissed, “you, out of everyone I’ve ever killed - I’m going to enjoy you. You’ve crept into the lives of all those humans. You even got fucking Sasha telling me you’re not all bad. Is that what you do? Convince everybody around you that you’re a good person, when you’re a piece of shit inside?” His hand was trembling on his gun - that wasn’t in the script. Why was that happening? “Well, guess what. No matter how great you think you are, you will always be a monster.”

The handle of Tim’s gun was coated in sweat, making his trembling hand slide. Why? The gasoline and lighter were standing by his feet, ready to burn the body. His heart was thumping in his chest, not from anticipation and thrill - why? Why? Why?

“Tim, no!”

Tim, so focused on what he was doing, jerked so hard he almost fired the gun. He whipped around to the source of the voice, and found to his shock a familiar car and a familiar woman standing by it, face set in a fierce determination.

It was Sasha. Somehow, the sight of her was deeply wrong to Tim. She shouldn’t be here. Sasha should never see this. She knew, she had helped - always the finger pointing in the direction to unleash Tim - but she shouldn’t see it. He knew it wasn’t real to her, what he did.

“Sash,” Tim said weakly, hand drooping.

Jon screamed from behind his gag. He might have been calling for help.

“Put the gun down,” Sasha said coldly. She was just dressed in jeans and a messy t-shirt, as if she had come here in a great hurry. How had she kno - okay, Sasha knew everything, it was no surprise.

“Why? Sasha, what are you doing here?” Tim cried, in genuine confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that Jon is innocent of everything!” Sasha yelled, and Tim almost flinched back. “He didn’t kill Gertrude, he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on! Trust me, Jon and his team have nothing to do with any of this!”

“He’s a fucking demon, Sash,” Tim said incredulously. How could she take his side? How? “Don’t you remember what he did to me? How can you forgive that?”

“You’re not a saint either!” Sasha screamed - the first time Tim had ever heard her scream at him. He couldn’t believe this was happening. How had he lost control of the situation so badly? “If you kill him you will break his team.”

As if a single coworker nobody dying will upset anybody. “And how long until he attacks or kills his team?” Tim asked furiously. “They’re the biggest bitches I’ve ever met, but they’re human. Monsters hurt humans, Sasha. It’s in their nature. How long until he hurts someone else? How long until he hurts you?”

“If you kill him,” Sasha said, quiet and strangled and hurt, “I will never forgive you.”

Nobody had power over him - nobody, perhaps, save Sasha. She held his heart in his hands, ready at a moment’s cue to crush it or rip it out of him. He couldn’t bear her disapproving face, her quiet disappointment. If she didn’t love him, if she took that away - he wouldn’t have anything. Nothing would be left. He had to protect that love, protect her.

“Sasha,” Tim said weakly, “out of everybody, I thought you would understand.”

“I do. I’m the only one who will ever understand. That’s why you have to trust me.”

Maye that was the problem. Tim did. She was the only person he had ever trusted.

Tim flicked the safety, and dropped the gun.

Just to make himself feel better, he bent his leg back to kick Jon, but - but, for some reason, he didn’t. It just seemed so tiresome. What was the point? What was the point of any of this?

The point had always been to protect humans from the monsters. To protect Sasha. But Sasha didn’t want his help. What did he have now?

“Take him back to his house,” Tim said dully. He glared fiercely at Jon, whose face was falling in relief. “If you tell the police about this, nobody will believe you and nobody will care. If you tell anybody else about this, I’ll find you again and beat you half to death. Got it?”

Jon nodded fervently.

After that, it was all a blur. Sasha helped him up, took him to her car, and he saw her cut through his restraints once he was safely inside. Tim just gathered up his materials and dumped them in the trunk of his car, sliding into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine.

He drove home in a depressed haze, feeling worthless, feeling powerless, feeling exactly like Jon always made him feel.

His hands clenched on the steering wheel. If Jon didn’t know shit about what was going on - and Tim believed that, guy was fucking stupid - then who did? If Jon hadn’t turned into a monster on purpose, then who had turned him into a monster?

Elias Bouchard always gave Tim a bad feeling.

He’d collect some evidence. Give it a few weeks, then confront him. Bouchard would bend and crack. Then Tim would be free. Free of the Magnus Institute, free of how it made him feel.

He roared towards home, unsatisfied and angry, still afraid.

iii.

“Can you pass the rice?”

Tim silently passed Mom the bowl, staring intently at his own plate and silently shovelling potatoes in his mouth. Dad was doing his usual thing and just kind of squinting at his plate and chewing like a cow with cud. Danny was, from the outside, eating food like a normal person. Tim knew that he was vibrating with anticipation.

“So,” Mom continued, faux-brightly, “it’s been a while since you boys came home. Too good for your old folks, huh?”

The passive aggressive route - deal with the criticism, but if you bit back then it was ‘just a joke’. Favored tactic of Ha-eun Stoker.

“Sorry, Mom,” Danny said, one arm thrown over the back of his chair, utterly unrepentant, “work’s been hell lately. Big case came in, and if I want to be promoted to junior partner…”

Sure enough, Mom brightened right up. “Really! Tell us all about your case, Danny!”

Then they were off. Tim zoned out, blankly spooning gamja jorim into his mouth as Danny endlessly rattled off about his accomplishments and Mom cooed and aah’d relentlessly. Dad just chewed, occasionally grunting in satisfaction and approval.

Wow, the coveted paternal approval. Way to make them all jump through hoops for it. Tim rolled his eyes.

Unfortunately, he was caught. Mom turned her piercing gaze on him, smiling pleasantly with perfect teeth. Of course they were perfect; she had work done. All of the other women in the neighborhood do it, Tim, we should fit in. Oh, this necklace is just so in style, I saw Ms. Wallace down the street wearing it. Fucking lemming.

“What about you, Tim?” Mom asked. “How’s work going? Normally you’d be telling us all about your big arrests.”

Ah. The reason why Tim had done everything possible to avoid family dinner. They had this once a month, the only time they could all be assed to talk to each other, and Tim had jumped through hoops to try and escape.

Danny didn’t let him. This was way too entertaining to him.

He knew. Tim didn’t know how, but that was irrelevant. Danny always knew. He couldn’t lie and make up some case. Tim took a careful sip of his dak gomtang, stalling.

Finally, he said, “I took a new job, actually.”

Dad looked up from his plate. Mom’s jaw dropped.

“But you loved your job,” Mom said, for all appearances broken-hearted. “What happened?”

Danny leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, grinning. “Yeah, brother. You loved that job, you’d never quit. What happened?”

“My work partner was caught and forced to sign an employment contract by a middle management stoner, blackmailing me into working with her so I wouldn’t get arrested by the police for my dozen murders.”

Everybody stared at him. Tim sipped some water.

“That isn’t very funny, Timothy,” Mom said.

God, these people were so serious. In the stupidest second of his entire stupid life, he missed the Archive team just a little bit. At least they had a sense of humor. He’d never known those bitches to take anything seriously. But even when they were literally engaging in cult-level shunning of him and Sasha, they were always together. What was with homos and that gay found family shit?

“Kidding. I don’t know, Mom, I was just going stir-crazy. Being a copper just felt like such a dead-end job.”

“But you said you were on track for Lieutenant,” Mom gasped. “How could you throw that away?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” Danny said, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “I don’t think Tim would quit his job voluntarily.”

Mom’s jaw dropped. “You were fired?”

Tim was too dead inside for this. “Sure. I’m a librarian now. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Mom positively screeched. “What am I supposed to tell Mrs. Walker now? That my son’s not on track to Lieutenant, that he was fired? I’ve never been so ashamed of you. You’re going to make me a laughingstock, Tim. In all my life, you’ve never once cared about how your actions affected me. Let me tell you right now that this is disgraceful. You’re a grown man, and you’re still acting like a child who blah blah blah. Tim’s a disappointment and we hate him blah blah. How could I have raised such a lazy yammer yammer yammer. I only pay attention to you when I’m yelling at you and I’m totally in the right because Rachel Granger said that yada yada -”

“Well, this was fun,” Tim said pleasantly, wiping his mouth with a napkin before balling it and tossing on the table. He put his chopsticks down and stood up, dusting off his hands. “Great to see all of you again, so much fun, but I have a cat to go iron.”

But Dad was staring at him, even when Mom was fuming in rage. In Korean, he said, “You’re disrespecting your mother, Ji-hoon.”

“For god’s sake, Richard, we speak English in this house. His name’s Timothy,” Mom snapped. Danny rolled his eyes.

“Why not?” Tim asked in Korean, just to piss off Mom. Basira would have sneered at her respectability politics. Melanie would have lost her temper an hour - no, thirty years ago. Why were they stronger than Tim? “You don’t respect her.”

Almost silently, Danny whistled.

“Timothy,” Mother started, scandalized, “listen to your -”

“Why? What can she say to me, besides the same shit I’ve been hearing my entire life? She’s not saying anything interesting.” Tim smiled brightly at his family, flashing all of his teeth. “You know what? In comparison with my life lately, you three are pretty fucking boring. Bye.”

That was when his mother burst into tears, and his father started yelling at him at the top of his voice and thumping the table until the dishes rattled, and when Danny started laughing. If they did anything else, if Dad was about to get out of his chair and smack him, if Mom was going to disown him, Tim didn’t wait around to see it. He grabbed his bomber jacket and stalked out the door, letting it fall behind him.

He breathed heavily on the pretty little sidewalk in front of their pretty little house. The pretty little roses in the pretty little garden bloomed perfectly, and their thorns were all cut off. Down the street pretty little houses made of ticky tacky loomed, and they were all within HOA compliance in their gated little community. Nobody in. Nobody out.

When he was fifteen, Tim hated it because his parents were always trying to impose normalacy on him and he had never fucking measured up. When he was a young adult, he had hated it because he had fancied himself a gritty, street-wise cop who grappled with the dregs of society and always came out victorious. The perfect little families here thought that their gates could protect them from the cold and hard outside world - but the monsters in the world lived and breeded in their backyards, and they were too busy trimming their lawns to notice.

He should go home. It was late, and he had his ridiculous, evil, gloriously imperfect job tomorrow. God, Melanie would hate this place. She would sneer at him for ever having lived here, chalking it up with his infinite list of sins. All you pigs are the same, she would nag, privileged and sheltered. Bitch. Why was she always right?

But Tim just couldn’t work up the energy to drive all the way home. His heart felt scooped out with a grapefruit spoon. Instead he stumbled into the little alley next to the house, where the garbage trucks and the alley cats roamed, and he collapsed into a little patch of scrubby grass. This had been his favorite place to sulk as a child. Or hide from Danny. Danny always found him, of course, but it was the principle of the matter -

“Man, I can’t believe I got that show for free. You should have charged, Ji-hoon.”

“Fuck off, Danny,” Tim said, tone dull with how rote the phrase was.

When he glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Danny was dappled in night. The only light was from the streetlights, and the lights of their porch. In the dim lighting, Danny was lit by a bright aura but his features were hidden in the dark. Like an angel, Danny shone, and like a devil, Tim hid in the shadows. Hidden in the corner, like a powerless child.

“It’s a compliment! Normally you’re the most boring, predictable bitch alive. Wind your key and watch you go. But not even I could have predicted the shit you pulled today. Fantastic.” Danny grinned, a slash of the mouth. “You’re dead disowned, buddy. You crossed a line. They’ll never forgive you.”

“Fuck off, Danny.”

“I’m looking forward to being an only child,” Danny mused. “Mom and Dad were always so obsessed with you, it’ll be nice to have them all to myself. When I make junior partner, do you think Dad will clap me on the back? Give me a hug?” He affected a sad look, pulling his face into a mockery of tragedy. “I’m really going to miss you. You always lowered the bar for me.”

“Fuck off, Danny.”

Apparently that was one ‘fuck off’ too many, because Danny kicked Tim in the ribs. He always knew exactly where to hit - right in an old scar in the ribs, a bullet wound that he had never told him about. Tim wheezed, but he didn’t move. No point.

In a brief, strange flash of memory, Tim remembered bending his knee back to kick Jon in the stomach. Jon hadn’t flinched. Had there been no point?

“I know you spent your entire sad little childhood thinking I ruined your life. That’s bullshit and you know it. You didn’t need anyone else to ruin your life, Timbo. You’ve always been good enough at that yourself.” He pulled a faux-surprised face. Every expression Danny ever had was fake. Everything was a mask, plastic and fake. “Even your relationships, right? How’s that Mexican bird you got following you around? She still refusing to fuck you? I should pick her up, I bet she’s real easy -”

Tim saw red.

It was easy, in the end. Maybe too easy. He leapt up, in one easy and smooth motion, and tackled Danny to the ground. Tim had always been bigger but Danny had always been stronger, no matter how long Tim spent at the gym, but that didn’t matter now. Tim was faintly aware he was snarling as Danny hit the ground hard, head bouncing on the grass.

There was no time for him to recover. Tim punched him in the face, keeping him down, before punching him again. He felt bone break under his fist. A nose.

He didn’t remember anything after that. Everything fuzzed out a little, trapped in the swirling of his rage and the thump of his heartbeat. It wasn’t Martin’s anger, it wasn’t Sasha’s cold chase. It was just hatred.

It wasn’t that - that thing inside Tim, the thing he had spent years denying. It was just Tim. Or maybe Tim was that thing, and that thing was Tim.

He was faintly aware that somebody was grabbing him by the elbows, pulling him off. There was screaming. Wailing. He couldn’t really tell. Tim was dizzy, hands wet and sticky. Someone was crying - the nauseatingly familiar sound of his mother sobbing.

Just boys roughhousing, Tim wanted to say. That was a good line, snappy and sarcastic. Just boys being boys, the same line he had heard time after time after time when Danny coated his entire torso in bruises. Monsters, acting like monsters. Men, doing what men always do.

Tim left the scene. He wouldn’t be back. Never return to the scene of the crime, ha ha ha. He wouldn’t be welcome back. It should have felt crushing, isolating, terrifying.

But instead, Tim just felt free. As if a crushing weight had fallen off his shoulders, and he no longer felt suffocated by endless picking and prodding and pushing. It...he didn’t feel scared.

Tim walked down the street, taking the long way home, whistling happily. He hated himself a little bit less than usual tonight. Things were looking up.

iv.

Tim stared at Melanie as she slept.

It wasn’t hard. They kept the lights on, although after a few days Melanie had started to use a sleeping mask. She had recovered from what happened fairly quickly. She still let him keep his arm on her.

It tingled, just a little, where it touched her. She was warm and soft, breathing softly in a gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her face was slack with sleep. No nightmares. Melanie only looked gentle when she was asleep: any other time, her face was screwed up in intent thought or a mean comment or an exaggerated face made behind someone’s back.

It was the first time Tim had slept in the same bed as a woman without sleeping with her. At Sasha’s, he always slept on the couch. It was a little weird. It was really weird. He kept on telling himself to pull away, to rebuild that bridge that had been so effortless with Sasha, to act normal and stop being desperate and needy.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Every time he let go of her, he was alone. No matter how many people surrounded them, no matter how big the room or busy the sprawling London streets, when she was out of the room it felt as if she would never come back.

He hated the way he felt. It was disgusting, crawling in his gut and heart like rot. He hated himself for feeling it, he hated the world for doing it to him, and he hated Melanie for making him feel this way.

He didn’t know love could be this painful.

***

Did he love her?

Tim was fairly sure he couldn’t love anybody. Whatever he felt for Sasha, it couldn’t be love. It could only be a selfish, disgusting poison. Or maybe he really did love her, and love really was poison - if it was the kind of love Tim felt for other people, if it was all he could give.

But Tim knew Sasha, down to her soul. He knew her dark secrets, every skeleton in her closet. He knew what she was running from, why she had landed in England and never left, why she felt just as passionately for Tim’s crusade for justice as he did.

Justice. What a joke.

But Melanie wasn’t like that. She was rough and bitchy and meddling and willfully idiotic, but if you scratched that surface she was perfect. Kind, understanding, forgiving, patient, supportive - the kind of girl Tim had always wanted. Not that Sasha hadn’t been - but Sasha was somebody he should probably stay away from, for her own good.

Melanie had saved him. Melanie was trying to fix him, and she wouldn’t stop until she did. She wouldn’t give up - she never gave up on anything or anyone. Even Tim. Maybe, if it was her, Tim could be fixed.

He squinted at her in the soft lights keeping away the dark lingering in the small windows. Did he want to kiss her? He should, right? Any emotion this strong, anything that made him feel so vulnerable and desperate and insane had to come with wanting to be with her. Not that she could ever like him that way back…

The idea was oddly nice. Men and women couldn’t be friends. But maybe Tim and Melanie could - Melanie, who would never love him in that way, freeing Tim of the obligation to reciprocate.

He settled a little bit more, tucking her a little bit closer under him until he could no longer see her face. The idea was heady - that she was letting him do that, that she could be open and vulnerable in front of him too. That Tim had never really protected anybody, that Melanie was the first person to ever protect him, and that maybe he could pay that back.

Maybe she could fix him. Give him love that was pure instead of corrupted; selfless instead of selfish. Tim needed her.

He tried not to hate it.

***

That night, Tim had a dream that he was fucking Melanie in his old bed in his old flat. Danny was there, somehow, constantly mocking Tim on how badly he was doing, and every time Tim would yell at him to get out he would just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh -

***

Melanie dragged him to work with her the next morning, as Tim chugged a shitton of coffee and considered braining himself with a hammer so he could forget the dream he had last night. He would literally prefer the construction site nightmares. He could barely meet her eyes, and lived in relentless paranoia that somehow she knew and was going to call him disgusting which would be fair and true and -

“Do you think the old man in Home Alone is a Jesus allegory?”

Tim blinked blearily at her, still chugging his coffee. They had gotten his car keys and car back from Sasha - she still had everything he ever owned, but he didn’t want to deal with that - but Melanie was driving, since Tim’s reaction time wasn’t that good anymore and he tended to zone out. They would take the tube and avoid London traffic except, well…

“I have no opinions on Home Alone,” Tim said blankly. He had been reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra on his phone. So far he had several points of disagreement, his largest was the man’s weird obsession with atheism. Granted, it was hard to be a nihilist and be religious, but Tim had insider information on the nature of the universe and he was working on a thesis - anyway. Anyway. “Why?”

“It’s a good movie, right? We should watch it for movie night tonight.”

“I thought you wanted to watch T2 today.”

“Aw, fuck, right.” Melanie slightly slapped the steering wheel. They didn’t move - traffic was really hell. “I am a slut for fictionalized violence. Isn’t Sarah Connor the most badass action hero ever?”

“She’s awesome,” Tim agreed warmly. “But Schwarzenneger in that movie is just peak. Have you ever seen Predator? It was his best role.”

Melanie snorted. “Predator was so boring. Just a lot of oiled up men flexing at each other.”

Typical. Tim rolled his eyes, propping an elbow below the window, but he found himself smiling anyway. “What do you want me to watch instead, Blue is the Warmest Color?”

“Laugh all you want, idiot. You’re getting the whole rota of required watching for gay people. First on the list is the Birdcage, then right after that Paris is Burning -”

Tim groaned theatrically, drowning her out, but all that did was hit him with the musk of his small, battered car. The smell of Melanie hit him like a truck - her Melon shampoo, her 24 hour deodorant, the dust of the Archives, something unique to her that he just couldn’t place.

To Tim’s horror, the scent pulled at that deep pit in his stomach. Don’t think about it. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t let them know - except for Sasha, who always knew. It made him want to do - stuff that he didn’t want to do. Not really. Tim didn’t want that. Whoever Tim was.

Counterintuitively, the hunger made it easier to keep that fake smile and forced manic energy when they got to the office. He wasn’t really up to it today - some days were easier than others - but that didn’t really matter when he had to aggressively convince everybody that he was fine. The alternative was everybody giving him sad and pitying looks, which was a thousand times worse than any infernal hell torture.

It wasn’t. But he still didn’t want to deal with it.

So he kicked the door open, yelled something meaningless about how the bitch was back, and let Basira ignore him and Martin roll his eyes and Sasha very pointedly ignore him. He noted that Daisy wasn’t in this morning - ever since their planning session, she had been dropping by more frequently to flirt obnoxiously with Basira, but she obviously couldn’t spend all of her time here if she wanted to keep up the pretense with Peter Lukas.

Which was...somewhat of a relief.

Tim collapsed in what used to be Daisy’s chair at her desk, which was for far more important reasons than just because he didn’t want to sit next to Sasha. The upside is that Melanie sat diagonal from him, across from Basira, who didn’t give a shit what he did if she wasn’t using him as a meaningless sounding board for her constant venting. It wasn’t all bad, if he didn’t look too hard at whatever the fuck Martin was doing at any given time.

So he swiveled in his chair as Melanie, Basira, and Sasha disappeared into the library. He stood up to go with her, but Melanie made a gesture that sent him sitting down again. Martin, who was writing something ornate in his journal, snickered.

Six months ago Tim would have snapped at him, but instead he just leaned back in his chair and squeezed his grip trainer. The grind never stopped. “Writing love poetry, buddy? In the Romantic tradition or the...fuck, I don’t know any other poets.”

Martin silently held up his journal. The only thing written was ‘murder kill murder’, repeatedly, up and down two pages.

Well. That was enough teasing Martin for one day. He really had no idea how Melanie was brave enough to get Martin to listen to listen to her - or, worse, why he did.

After an hour or so, spent reading Plato and disagreeing with a great deal, Jon slunk out of his office and blinked owlishly at both Tim and Martin, who had been politely minding their own business.

Tim realized - in the same way that, whenever he saw Jon, he was inescapably reminded that he knew what he looked like when he was about to die - that the room was filled with two guys who had tried repeatedly to kill him. Fuck, he was probably uncomfortable. Good job, Tim. Way to keep terrorizing people. But he really wasn’t capable of doing anything else, so it was hardly a surprise -

“Hullo, Martin. I’m picking up some food from the vending machine, do you want anything?”

Oh. They were going for ‘disturbingly banal’ today. Martin smiled shyly at Jon, who blushed in response. “Surprise me. Thanks, Jon.”

“Want any razor blades in the apples?”

“You know that’s a myth, Jon,” Martin said disapprovingly. Or maybe not.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You are the sexiest guy I’ve ever met,” Martin whispered.

Then Jon flushed, and leaned casually in what he probably thought was a hot pose and unfortunately totally was against Martin’s desk, and Tim was subjected to their absolutely fucking atrocious flirting for the next ten minutes. At that point, Tim found his breaking point and left the Archives, the terror of being in semi-public outweighed by the terror of Jonmartin. That was what Basira and Melanie kept calling it. He really didn’t know what that meant, but whatever.

But after fifteen minutes of standing in front of the vending machine himself, quietly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of choices and colors and flavors and sugar, he heard someone else approaching. He snapped his head to the left to see a gawky, hunched scarecrow slouch down the hall, raising a hand apologetically. That man put no effort into his appearance, how as he still that hot -

Maybe Jon and Martin were normal, Tim secretly wondered, and Tim just didn’t understand gay courting rituals. He had to find out, right? How do you flirt with guys? It wasn’t as if he could practice with the two guys in the office. Especially Martin. Tim had never really paid a lot of attention to him before he came back to life, writing him off as a beta male - which ended up being so hilariously incorrect it forced Tim to sit down and reconsider his entire framework of alpha and beta males. Melanie had given him a sticker.

“Uh. Hey.”

Tim stared at him blankly.

Jon rubbed the back of his neck. “How...are you?”

Tim blinked at him.

“Well. I would, er, enjoy using the vending machine.”

Oh. Obviously. Tim stepped aside, cheeks burning, and silently let Jon punch in the code for a Mars Bar (for Martin, probably) and a granola bar (because an alarm went off on his desk if he didn’t eat a snack at 3pm).

It wasn’t their first time being alone together since he came back, but as Tim had been more or less catatonic at that period in time he was inclined not to count that. Jon hadn’t seemed scared, anyway. Probably. Tim hadn’t paid much attention.

He should do this. He had to do it. It was all about making up for the shit he did, right? He had to face this. Then Jon would forgive him, not that he had to, and - and something vaguely good would happen. He would find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and the hunger would go away, and the intrusive thoughts would be all gone. Melanie would give him another sticker. Or something.

“You can go for it, you know.”

Jon whipped his head around, shocked at Tim addressing him directly for the first time in a very long time. “What?”

Idiot. If this guy had been in a single fight in his life, he’d eat his hat. From what Jon had seen of his childhood friend, Georgie’s girlfriend who he hated for absolutely no reason, she had probably defended him from every bully. It was almost cute.

“You can get a good one in,” Tim repeated slowly. He turned his cheek. “Promise I won’t punch back or anything.”

“I - do you mean punch you?” The Mars Bar rattled down the machine, dropping heavily into the tray. “Why would I do that?”

Jesus, the guy was thick. “Do you remember when I kidnapped and tried to kill you, or is that just me?”

Jon blinked owlishly at him. “Lots of people try to kill me.”

“Don’t you want to?” Tim cried, a little bit higher and a little bit louder than he intended. “Come on, as if you’ve never wanted to do it? Wouldn’t it help? You got in a week of being a passive aggressive asshole, that isn’t enough. It doesn’t make up for anything. This would.”

“How would that fix anything?”

Tim’s breath hitched. But Jon was just staring, as if he could see right through him. Maybe he could. “What?”

“How would hurting you make me feel better?” Jon repeated slowly. “It won’t change what happened. Punching you wouldn’t change what you did to me. All it would do is make you feel better, as if that fixes it. It doesn’t. Is that how you solve all of your problems? That explains a lot.”

His breath was coming faster, hitching again. He couldn’t control it. “I’m trying to do you a favor, asshole.”

“No, you’re trying to make yourself feel better.” Jon smiled politely and, before Tim could jerk away, clapped him on the shoulder. “I forgave you a long time ago. Not because of you. But I just didn’t want it hanging over me. I gave myself closure and moved on. Sometimes bad things happen to us, and we have to get up the next day and go to work anyway. My friends helped. My family did too. I’m sorry you don’t have that, Tim. You’ll get closure one day.” Jon looked thoughtful for a second. “I mean, getting closure about being almost killed one time must be a lot easier than dealing with the fact that you killed fifteen people in your life? Twice that supernatural people, I think. You know you’re technically a serial killer? I won’t judge, this is a safe space, but I thought you ought to know.”

Somehow, inanely, all Tim could think of to say was, “It’s not serial killing if it’s part of your job.”

“Which is why I’m sure you took that job,” Jon said brightly. “Let’s get back to the office before Martin decides to amuse himself.”

For a second, just for a second - or two, or ten, or a minute - Tim vividly imagined himself ripping Jon’s throat out. Killing him properly this time, putting that look on his face again. It had felt so good, and - and it had made him feel so bad, but that felt good too, and he still didn’t know why, and he wanted to eat Jon so bad. Jon, who was innocent in everything, gentle and kind. Nothing like Tim. That was why everybody liked Jon and hated Tim.

From what he had heard, while Tim was going insane hyperfixating on the chase a few years ago, the girls had spent ages talking Jon down from a breakdown and steering him away from the same path that Tim had barrelled down. Who had done that for him? Sasha made a big show of keeping his head level, but she had used him just as ruthlessly as he had used her. She never had an investment in keeping him sane; just functional.

If somebody had done that for him, would he still be cruel?

They went back to the office, and Tim pretending that the hunger swirling in his gut was just self-hatred. But, then again, they really were the same thing.

When Melanie came out of the library with Basira and Sasha on her heels, talking quietly about some new scheme they were cooking up, Tim found himself reaching out to her. Melanie smiled and squeezed his hand, before gently heckling his choice in literature.

Some stupid part of him - maybe even a large part - thought that once he was clasping Melanie’s hand again, the hunger would quiet down. It had protected him underground, it felt as if it should protect him in the world above.

But it didn’t, and it didn’t solve anything, and Tim tried not to think about the fact that he was slowly unwinding, and that he didn’t want to see what was inside him when everything that was Tim Stoker fell away.

***

A short yet tumultuous time later, Tim was called into Jon’s office.

He hadn’t wanted to come to work. But the alternative of stewing at home - Melanie’s flat - was much worse, and Basira had reported that too many skip days made them all way too sick. Might as well come in. Melanie had spent the night at Georgie’s - like she had the past two days, what a fucking coincidence - so he didn’t have to worry about that awkwardness.

After too long memorizing the face after too many sleepless nights, Tim could imagine it vividly. Soft, uncreased, innocent of how hard the world could be. Tim couldn’t bear it. He had to ruin it. He just couldn’t bear it.

He was the first one in the office, so it was easy to see the poisonous death glare Basira shot him when she walked in. So Melanie had told them - of course she fucking told them, she hadn’t done anything wrong, she wasn’t obliged to lie. Daisy was hot on her heels, and she actually properly snarled at him before Basira pulled her back while somehow giving the full impression that she wanted to do the same thing.

He should probably go hide in the library before Martin came in. He couldn’t decide whether or not this was worse than the shunning. The shunning had driven him absolutely crazy, but at least he hadn’t been legitimately afraid that Martin would stab him and that nobody would stop him.

There was the faint sound of raised voices in the cowpen. Tim knew that they were arguing about him. He already knew what they would decide - wait for Melanie’s verdict. But are you sure she isn’t too close to this? No, she knows the fucker better than anybody else, she would judge if they needed to do anything. What are we going to tell Sasha? The truth, fucking obviously.

Sasha. Tim wanted her to be surprised. He knew she wouldn’t be. That hurt more.

After what felt like an infinite amount of time but he knew was only a few hours, pouring over Sasha’s collection of Vast and Spiral Statements, he heard the library door open. It was Jon, standing at the threshold, and all Tim could think was - oh, man, here we go.

It was a regular walk of shame into Jon’s office, and he couldn’t miss the way everybody’s heads snapped to look at him. Sasha, just as he thought, looked resigned. Melanie was frowning.

Jon’s office was the same as ever, not that Jon went in too frequently. The only strange thing about it was that Jon locked the door behind him. Tim didn’t know what that boded, but it wasn’t good.

Well, might as well take control of the situation. He collapsed on the chair in front of his desk and propped his boots on Jon’s desk, wishing he had a drink to obnoxiously sip. “Is this the part where you threaten me?” He affected a fake baritone, somehow still not even hitting Jon’s register. “ ‘Touch her again and you’ll answer to me’. ‘Stay away from her or you’ll face the consequences’. Come on, I’ve read a thousand creeps the same riot act. Get it over with.”

Jon sat down heavily in his office chair. The office had chipped in to buy him a new one as a birthday gift, much more comfortable than the old one. But he was leaning forward now, arms folded on the desk.

“Would that make you feel better?”

Great, this again. “Yeah, it evokes the emotionally absent father I was raised with,” Tim snarked. “If you aren’t going to say it, what am I in here for?”

He was afraid to know what he was in here for. Melanie had told him that if he did it again, she’d sic Jon on him. And Tim knew what it looked like when Jon was sicced on someone. This wasn’t it.

“Tim,” Jon said seriously, and he was somehow kind about it. “You know what this looks like, right?”

Something ugly and ashamed twisted in Tim’s gut. He fought the urge to sink in his seat. “Yeah.”

“You know why we’re worried now.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tim looked fixedly at the wall, unwilling to meet Jon’s eyes. “I - I’m not going to do it again. I swear. And - and it wasn’t like that. I promise. I’m not - I’m not a creep, okay? Ask Sasha. I’ve never - I’ve killed people, but that’s not nearly as bad as - I’m not going to do it again. It was a mistake.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Tim’s head snapped back to Jon, and before he could think about it he found himself half-rising from the chair. Jon’s cold stare had him sitting back down again, but his heart was thumping a drum in his chest. “Then what do you want?” Tim just barely restrained himself from yelling, knowing that the girls were probably listening at the door anyway. “What can I do to convince you that’d rather chop off my own hand than hurt her?”

“You can give your permission to let me ask you some questions.”

Tim faltered. “What? Just questions?”

“Uh.” Jon waved his hand in a circle in the air, as if that meant anything. “You know. Questions. I haven’t really done it since - since I think I did it to you? But I think I can do it on command now. I don’t like to.” His eyes sharpened, and for a second Tim could have sworn that they glimmered. “But I can’t take a chance. Not on this.”

It was like he was falling again, through that infinite void that was the last taste of freedom he had thought he would ever have. It was like he was suffocating again, a mile of dirt piled on his chest, banging incessantly at the lid of the coffin. Nobody saved him, until she did. He was distantly aware that he was barely holding back hyperventilating, but all Tim could feel was dissociated horror.

“You - you can’t. Jon, I - I won’t do it again, you can’t.”

Jon’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I won’t if you give me a flat no. I don’t like doing it.” That was a lie and they both fucking knew it. “But if you don’t, we can’t trust you again. We’d convince Melanie to let you stay with Martin. We wouldn’t leave you in the same room together. You’re not stable, Tim. It’s obvious. We thought it was harmless - or, at least, the only person you were hurting was yourself - but it’s not anymore. We’re all scared. I don’t want to hurt you just because we’re scared, but Melanie is the only one here who couldn’t really defend herself if you decided to do anything else to her.” He grimaced slightly. “Not that she admits it. She always puts herself between us and any enemy. But we have to pay that back. I know you understand.”

He did.

Hate burned in his stomach. What a hypocrite. Giving all of that big talk about choice and options. He knew that there was no option, not if they were going to rip him apart from the one person who he felt safe with.

The one person who wasn’t safe with him.

Tim deserved this. Even if it had been his worst fear a year ago - well, Tim had experienced much worse than that since then.

When you did shit to other people, you make up for it. You make sure that you can’t hurt anybody else again. Jon was right - gestures didn’t mean anything. He had to commit. He had to improve, be better. Otherwise he’d be sent straight back down to that place when he died, and there would be no saving him.

“Yeah,” Tim said, mouth dry, “you can do it. But - but no personal questions this time, okay? Just stick to the subject.”

“They seem to always end up a bit personal,” Jon said apologetically, “but I’ll try.”

Deep within Jon, inside of the unassuming and kind and gentle man, the subject of Tim’s nightmares rose. His eyes flashed green, then shined with a bright and sickly radioactive green. His hair strained against its bun and fuzzed at the end, but it didn’t break free.

“What’s your name, Tim?”

The worst part about the compelling, Tim had decided long ago, was that you didn’t feel brainwashed.

You felt exactly as if you were talking normally, that there was nothing strange about Jon or you. His words didn’t ring with a mysterious power. If you had entered it thinking you were talking of your own volition, you probably wouldn’t notice. But if you knew what was happening, the curtain was lifted, and you were deathly aware of the way the words were ripped out of you with fishhooks. It left Tim gasping, straining for air.

“Timothy Ji-hoon Stoker,” Tim said, and it was almost as if he wanted to. “My dad just calls me Ji-hoon though. So do my grandparents. My last name’s made up as fuck - I think Mom just saw a book at the airport and picked it out from the cover. Kind of ironic, considering everything.”

“Oh, really? Daisy says that she got Tonner because her English wasn’t great and she misheard someone at the airport asking her for a tenner - right, right.” Jon coughed. Wait, was the reason why Daisy barely talked when he first met her was because her English was bad? “On topic. Tim, do you want to attack Melanie again?”

“Of course not,” Tim burst out, and these words, at least, came easy. “I love her. I hate hurting her, I hate how I’m constantly fucking up and doing it anyway. I’m just violent and I don’t know how not to be violent. It’s the only way I deal with things, being violent, and I know it’s eating me up inside but I just can’t stop it. But if there’s one person who can help me stop, it’s Melanie. She’s going to fix me, I know it.”

The words were unbelievably humiliating, the kind of thing that Tim had never wanted to admit, but Jon’s expression didn’t change. Tim wanted to look away, to pretend that this was just an internal narration and that he wasn’t telling this his fucking coworker, but he found himself incapable. Their gazes locked, and Tim couldn’t pull away.

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I was scared, and I hate being scared so much. It’s what I always do, ever since I was a kid - I would get scared, and I would try to hurt something or someone about it. I did it to you, I was so scared of you that I obsessed about killing you and covered it up with some bullshit about justice or Sasha. It was just about me, it’s always been selfish. But - but- but -” The words were sticking in his throat, coagulating on the wound ripped open by Jon and his fishhooks. “But I hate her. I hate that I care, and I hate that I need her, and - and I don’t think I did it just because I was scared. I think I did it because I was scared, and I love her, and I hate her, and I’m beginning to think I have some kind of weird complex about women because of my mother’s overly dependent narcissistic personality and my father’s emotional detachment -”

“You just now figured that out?” Jon asked incredulously. “Sorry, you just now started realizing that your toxic masculinity controls your entire justification for your actions?”

“I’ve known for a while but I’ve been repressing it,” Tim said hurriedly, forced to answer that one despite Jon probably intending it as a rhetorical question.

Jon stared at him for a second silently, giving Tim time to catch his breath and try to control his breathing. He was one bad step away from a panic attack, and his hold was still clenched on this throat like a fist. Danny had done that to him one time, the son of a bitch, and he had never forgotten. Should he tell Jon that? Does he have to?

“Tim,” Jon said finally. He looked very uncomfortable, but also resolute. As if he didn’t want to ask, or maybe he just didn’t want to know, but he felt as if he had to. “Are you in love with Melanie?”

Tim opened his mouth to answer him, and found that he couldn’t.

The strange and evil magic didn’t like that. Whatever Tim wanted to say, if there was anything to say, it caught in his throat and made him gag. It choked him. He was well acquainted with the feeling, but it sent him into a panic anyway. His breath started shuddering and heaving, his vision swimming, and he kept on answering his mouth to answer because you have to answer but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, he didn’t know how -

“Forget it! Forget it, Tim, don’t worry about it! Tim, what’s your favorite color? Tim, your favorite color! Answer me!”

“Grey!” Tim cried out. “Grey, it’s grey!”

He didn’t so much stand up from his chair as fall out of it. He didn’t so much let himself sit on the ground as found himself incapable of moving. He just breathed, waiting and waiting to spit up dirt and grime and rocks, but nothing happened. It was just a panic attack, because his hell was within him, and there was no escape.

No escape. There was no escape. Not from what he’d done in his past, not from how badly he’d hurt Melanie and Sasha, not from how he would inevitably hurt them in the future.

You had to cut out the evil things in this world. One bad apple spoils the bunch. When criminals are left to run wild, they corrupt and destroy society. Evil had to be eliminated. Evil people shouldn’t exist.

Evil people shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t a new thought for him. Neither was the thought after that. It was a thought he’d had for a very long time - before he even met Melanie, before he even admitted it.

“Tim, are you alright? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

After a few heart-wrenching seconds, Tim found himself calming down enough to answer. “You meant to. You just didn’t want to. I made you do this.” One bad apple spoils the bunch. “Is - is that enough? I can answer more -”

“No, that’s enough,” Jon said quickly. “It’s - it’s not my place to pass judgement on you, Tim. And your, uh, disturbed thinking. Melanie - anyway, we’ll work on it.” He smiled weakly, placatingly. “I’ve been there. The others helped. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be - I don’t know where I’d be, but I’d be a lot worse off. We can help you too. If you let us. I know it’s scary, but it’s worth it. I promise.”

“Right,” Tim said. “Can I go now?”

When he left Jon’s office, everybody was at their desks. He knew what the guilty expressions when they all pretended they hadn’t been eavesdropping, but they weren’t wearing them now. Maybe everybody had grown up a bit recently.

Tim slunk into the library, and for good measure locked it behind him. He pulled out a thick stack of books, a teetering pile of Statements. He needed to research. There was a decision he had to make, and he needed as much proof as possible and a well-laid plan. It wasn’t quite a hunt, but it was close. It wasn’t quite the apocalypse, but it was his own.

But, of course, it was a lie. Tim had made his decision a few minutes ago. He had made it a long time ago. He kept making it, every time. Everything else was just justification.

It wouldn’t fix anything - but it’d make him feel better.

#my writing #the magnus archives #tma #tma fanfic #hunt!tim #timothy stoker #melanie king #sasha james #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #this one's a roughie try not to read it if you're in a bad place right now #danny stoker #also keep in mind that tim absolutely one of the most unreliable narrators ive ever written if not the most #it was incredibly fun #anyway enjoy

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aueua · 3 years

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Marona’s Fantastic Tale (2019) AU where the dog lives and others are happier. Idea bounced with @mushrium a few weeks back; details under cut.

Yes, I am aware that hardly anyone knows of this movie (but maybe more’ll know it now due to the streamer albeit even then this is unlikely to be a proper fandom, maybe, maybe not). Doesn’t matter. This now exists for archiving purposes.

First and foremost: Spoilers abound, don’t seek further if you don’t want them by any means - with that said, also good luck if you aren’t aware of what the movie is but I’ll do my best to give some context as necessary. (Post-edit: No clarification. Very sorry.)

See also: The movie is not for everyone but it can be appreciated artistically for its fluidity and variety of styles. There is also a lot of symbolism and the dog narrator is impeccable. I love Nine. I love her, I do.

Okay! Here we go.

Recall the [Lost Dog Sign] that is posted some scenes after Nine (protagonist, dog) left Manole (red and yellow, acrobat entertainer) and she’s picked up by Istvan beloved (Tumblr nose, big guy). Istvan may be driving and potentially distracted; however, he absolutely sees that sign. And it doesn’t quite click, not yet. He’s worried about his mother, his wife, himself, this dog. Dog... Dog! This doesn’t register until he’s arrived at his ill mother’s home. That dog on the wanted sign looks eerily like the one he just picked up... and come to think of it, it did seem well cared for...

So he fudges around, figures out what the number is.

An answer. And with one thing leading to another, Istvan figured that this guy is sincere: He loves this dog much like he does. (But he believed that Manole loved her more, deserved her more, and it isn’t likely he can bring her quite anywhere...) So. They meet up. Guy really is nice, but Istvan can see it - the acrobat’s nerves are a bit shot after all that worrying and desperation to find this dog again. Ana (dog), was it? (There was an inkling that he should call her Sara but Ana is also quite the nice name. It’s fine. And thank goodness, that he did not name her, since goodbyes would be worse.)

They part, and that is that. Istvan checked on his mother, returned to his choking snake of a wife (yellow skin ostritch, black fluff); Manole reobtained his beloved boy (girl, he knows), managed to get a contract that allowed him to work with her in the La Circe (???) troupe thingamabob since it was either them or nothing. Both of these two keep in touch with each other as Istvan is worried and, admittedly, attached to the dog after those moments in the dumps viva la his loneliness. Plus Manole’s a fun personality. He’s considered going to see one of his acts, once, but his wife’s a bit overbearing.

A bit overbearing, as in a time skip occurs and he still had yet to leave her toxic self, nor could he bear to see his mother but still stuck it through.

Come to think of it though. Manole is obviously happy, and so is the dog. He can’t recall a moment with his wife recently where he felt... happy, sincerely. Perhaps in the past, when he’d strum his guitar and skate around - free and without the exhaustion of judgment and micromanagement? He deserved better. There’s just no right timing, though, as he can’t find the motivation to work himself up and tell his wife they need a divorce for both of their own sakes.

And then his wife gave him the ultimatum: Her, or that stupid acrobat with the dog and his mother.

Well, well. Fine. He doesn’t need to pack much, and he doesn’t need to say anything. He’s rearing to go. The wife? Cocky. All until she realized quite quickly that he was serious, dead serious, and she begged and pleaded and smothered herself all over him trying to get him to obey her every whim just like before. That it was a joke, an act, a test to see where he would be really happy but she needed him and who else would indulge her needs and fluff up her ego with the beefcake of a man?

Too bad! He’s gone, but he’s also an incredible mess and it was incredibly short-notice and maybe he should’ve thought things out better, but he’s free. He’s never felt so relieved. It’s quite cold, dark, and alone, but everything seems so much more colorful and bright now but also he really should find a place to say and strangely, his immediate thought is to call up Manole -- but he’s asleep, isn’t he? Or working? He shouldn’t bother him, he should go to his mother. But...

He called. Decided that if he did not get an answer, he would let him know another time (never, really). And nobody picked up. So as he’s ready to drive out, he gets a call: It’s Manole. He picked up, and he heard the groggy-confused voice of an acrobat ringing out with the delightful barks of Ana in the background to give him the image that oh, she must have woken him up, and oh, he’s smiling. They chat for the night. As in. They meet up again, and the two take a quiet stroll out with Ana, and Istvan gets to vent, tell his story. (His little audience is quite expressive too, he noted. Loose red strings of disbelief and high-pitched barking. Dramatic flailing of arms, a growl.)

In the end, they have to rest. Manole and Ana depart (with Manole insisting that they continue their little interactions and that Istvan finally comes to one of his showings, he swore he’d make it worthwhile - Ana agreeing in her little pip), and Istvan is home. A home of memories. Bad, good, but a place that made him nevertheless and he supposed... he should probably go to that therapist Manole recommended. He gave his word that she was fine; she had helped him back then, too, when things were dire.

Solange was her name. And oh, she was understanding - the best, at least for his circumstances. He revealed his feelings, and she helped him through most of it - enough that he was in better shape than before. Enough that he can lift his head high even with his impressive stature. But - he did ask, out of polite curiosity. What was it that made her want to be a therapist?

And it was an easy answer, the way she’d told it. A deadbeat father, a single mother with a cat and her father - her own grandfather. She had been... rebellious, in a sense, and she was a menace to her family. They had financial issues, relationship issues, the works. It was only until they’d discovered the (grand)father dead that things really started to change. Viva la insurance money, they were able to handle most of the debt and loans. She felt more inclined to... help, seeing as how badly-shapen her mother was, mourning and all. And during that - she realized it was something she wanted to pursue wholeheartedly.

Overall, they’re happy. Istvan and Manole eventually get together (after a long amount of time, only when Istvan was ready to open himself up again - easier, when he’d started acting as accompaniment as (a tech) crew and occasional musical act in the streets and they realized how well they clicked). Ana thrives (with a few other secret nicknames that the others gave to her; well. She doesn’t mind.) Solange occasionally helped out in using her artistic skills with some of the advertisements.

They’re all comfortable. They’re living.

That is all.

SUMMARY:

・[Overall] The canon diverges with Istvan actually noticing and recognizing the missing dog poster Manole put up. Manole and Ana are reunited. Istvan eventually divorces his wife and gets therapy from Solange, and Istvan is later friends (or more than that, ah-heem) with Manole.

・[Manole] Acrobat for that dreamy circus, but with a dog.

・[Ana] Dog! Beloved! Living! Happy! SO Happy. Maybe gets to meet her old litter of siblings again.

・[Istvan] No more toxic wife that tries to control and restrain him with false affections and silly desires built on creating a dumb image! Musical fun time! Also lifts and flexes.

・[Solange] On good terms with mother now! Grandpa is deader than dead but it’s for the better, promise. Insurance money and her mother made her realize she’d wanted to be a therapist. Occasionally does art for Manole’s circus thing.

No I did not proofread this. I do not care. I have self love, and this is, in fact, indulgent.

#[ watched it a second time earlier ahehe ]#[ ''I bet there's an au about this!'' -> The fandom does not exist therefore no. The AU doesn't. ]#[ (hashes out a whole verse after the movie like clowns) :handshake: ]#mushrium

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ollieofthebeholder · 3 years

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leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 45: Martin Prime

“I Spy, with my mental eye, something that begins with…C.”

“Croft?”

“N—yes. Wait, how did you know that?” Jon sounded slightly indignant. “I didn’t even know you knew that word.”

Martin snorted. “Then you’re cheating.”

Jon sighed theatrically. “All right, fine, but which croft?”

“Hmm.” Martin pursed his lips thoughtfully. “The one two hills over, with the stone fence that was falling down in places. The one you had a hard time not seeing as sinister.”

“Well done.” Jon cupped Martin’s cheek in his hand and gave him a gentle kiss. “Right, your turn. Let’s go with…hmm. Let’s say Gertrude’s storage unit.”

It was a silly and relatively pointless game, but Martin loved Jon so much for coming up with it. They’d played I Spy several times when they were in Scotland because Jon had misunderstood Martin’s attempt to explain the one helpful thing he’d been given during his brief stint in therapy, but it had helped both of them, so Martin hadn’t told Jon until much, much later that it wasn’t what he’d meant. Still, it had been fun to play, and it had given them a brief moment of levity during their trek through the fearscapes between their tiny haven of sanctuary in Scotland and their ultimate destination in London. Martin had joked about playing it at Christmas, and Jon had apparently taken that to heart.

He’d come up with this variant not long after, and they’d played it a few times since. One of them would select a location they were both familiar with, and the other had to try and remember what it looked like, then pick something to “spy”. One part game, one part memory exercise, it was a continual surprise to Martin how many little details he could still picture in his head.

He sometimes suspected Jon of changing his answers solely so Martin could be “correct,” in the same way that Martin had never had a favorite color until Jon had guessed it to be green, but at least it was a fun exercise.

“Right,” he said, trying to cast his mind back over the storage unit. That one would be trickier. There’d just been so much crammed into a relatively small space, and Martin had admittedly been a little distracted by relief over having Jon back and talking to him, seeming to actually enjoy his company. It was hard to focus on details beyond the plastic explosives crammed in the hard case.

“I Spy, with my mental eye—” he began.

Jon’s fingers suddenly touched Martin’s lips as he hissed a warning to stay quiet. Martin froze and held his breath, and then he heard what Jon did—voices in the corridor. They were muffled but distinct, which did at least mean it wasn’t someone who didn’t need to be down there, but…

After a moment, though, Martin caught a laugh that sounded familiar and relaxed. “It’s them.”

“That’s…not good. It’s the middle of the day.” There was a rustle as Jon got to his feet. “God, what happened now?”

Martin bit his lip. Being blind and living essentially underground meant his internal clock was a bit off, but he trusted Jon. If it was midday, that meant it was Wednesday; Past Jon had been gone less than two days. He was probably still in Beijing. Nothing bad had happened to Jon while he was in China, unless there was something he hadn’t told Martin, and he probably hadn’t even had time to get into Pu Songling yet. Which meant something had happened to one of the others. Best case scenario, they’d uncovered a statement that bothered them or they wanted clarification on. Worst-case…

The door opened, and Past Martin’s voice came in, obviously in the middle of a sentence. “—like I’m offering to show you a pipe of Amontillado we’re keeping down here, it’s—oh, hey, you’re up already, that’s good.”

“What’s happened? Did something go wrong?” Jon asked urgently.

“Depends on your definition of ‘wrong,’ I suppose.”

There was a slight, nearly imperceptible creak as the door opened wider, and then a short pause before a female voice that sounded rather familiar spoke. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

Martin sat up a little straighter. “Melanie?”

He felt a surprising mix of delight and regret. He’d come to like the feisty firebrand in the short time they’d actually been able to get to know each other, despite the strain of the world having ended, and one thing he’d privately lamented when they’d made the decision to come back in time was that he wouldn’t get the chance to talk with her again, so having the opportunity was an unexpected pleasure. On the other hand, the fact that she was here and being brought down probably meant that she’d been trapped into working at the Institute, and that sent a stab of aching melancholy through his heart. They’d wanted so badly to keep her from turning bitter and angry…

She didn’t sound angry, though, at least not yet. Then again, their Melanie hadn’t at first either. “Are you clones or—you knew my name. What are you?”

Martin couldn’t help the grin that curled across his mouth, even as he got to his feet. “Me? Oh, I’m the Antichrist’s plus-one.”

The surprised laugh sounded like Tim’s. Melanie actually sounded delighted. “Does that mean he’s the Antichrist?”

“Assuming you’re pointing to Jon, yes.”

“Melanie.” Jon sounded like he was struggling to keep his composure. “It’s—it’s good to see you. What are you doing here?”

“Getting initiated. Or hazed, maybe. Depends on how you want to call it.” There was a rustle of fabric, and Martin guessed Melanie had just folded her arms across her chest. “You’re looking at the newest Archival Assistant.”

“Oh, Melanie,” Jon murmured, his voice full of regret.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, evil fear things, spooky stories, you can check out any time you like but you can never leave, today we are canceling the Apocalypse, blah blah blah.”

“Any other pop culture references you want to throw out there?” Martin asked dryly.

He could imagine Melanie shrugging. “I mean, you might have to give me a minute to come up with a few. But they told me all about the crap they have to put up with. We have to put up with, I guess.” She paused. “So, neither of you really answered my question.”

“Melanie King, meet the Primes,” Tim said. “Jon and Martin, meet the crazy woman who knew what she was getting into and did it anyway. Ow!” he added, punctuated by the dull, wet smack of somebody being punched in the side. “Jeez, what were you, a boxer in another life?”

“You say that like I’m not a boxer in this one,” Melanie grumbled. “I just don’t compete is all. Prime whats?”

“So you know those pop culture references?” Past Martin said. “Here’s one more. They’re—they’re Jon and me, from the future. They’re the reason we’re trying to stop the Apocalypse. The reason we know we need to stop the Apocalypse,” he corrected himself. “Tim calls them the Primes, like—”

“Like Spock Prime. Got it. Okay.” Martin could picture Melanie’s scowl pretty clearly; it had been more or less her default expression for a while. “Well, then. Unless one of you can mind-meld, you’re going to have to prove that some other way.”

“No, fortunately, the ability to plant thoughts and memories in someone’s head is one I was spared.” Jon sighed heavily. “I—I don’t know if there’s anything I can…m-most of what I know about, about your future counterpart are things that haven’t happened yet, o-or the others could have told us.”

Martin pursed his lips as a thought occurred to him. “I can think of one thing, but you probably don’t want it bruited about.”

“I seriously doubt that there’s anything you can come up with I wouldn’t want them knowing.” There was a challenging edge to Melanie’s voice that was all too familiar.

“Melanie—” Sasha began. Great, everyone was there.

“No. You think you know some big secret about me, something I wouldn’t have told you until later? Fine. Say it. I look forward to being able to look you in the eye and tell you you’re wrong.”

Martin sighed in exasperation. “You got shot by a ghost while you were in India. In the leg. You told the doctors it was a—a mugging, right? They couldn’t find anything in the scans, but trust me when I say it’s probably still in there.”

There was another one of those long pauses. “Fuck.”

“I did warn you,” Martin pointed out.

“You did, and I should have listened.” Melanie snorted. “I mean, obviously. I’ve only been working here for three hours and I already know that’s the number one Archives rule: Always listen to Martin.”

“Excellent life advice, both in the Archives and out,” Tim agreed.

“Both of you shut up,” Past Martin muttered, but without a lot of heat behind it.

Martin laughed. “It really is good to—we have missed you, Melanie.”

“You guys must have had a really rough few years if we’ve known each other long enough for you to miss me,” Melanie said, but he could hear the smile in her voice anyway. “For what it’s worth, it’s good to meet you.”

There was a bit of an expectant silence before Jon made a flustered-sounding noise of surprise and tapped Martin’s arm. “She wants to shake.”

“He’s not an idiot,” Melanie snapped. “If he doesn’t—”

“No, I’m blind. Sorry, should have warned you.” Martin reached out and found Melanie’s outstretched hand.

“Oh.” The slight pull against Martin’s arm was the only clue he got before Melanie—at least he assumed it was Melanie—surged forward and hugged him instead. In his ear, she said, “You look like you need it.”

“Well, I’ll never say no.” Martin didn’t need physical contact quite the same way Jon did, but it did give him comfort to feel a friendly touch once in a while. And it was substantially more important now that he was blind to have a tactile connection to the world around him. He was just momentarily caught off-guard; he’d forgotten how much shorter than him Melanie was.

After a moment, Melanie pulled back. “Right. Do I get an explanation or is it ‘you’re from the future’ and we leave it at that?”

“We can explain. Right, Jon?” Martin added, raising an eyebrow in his fiancé’s direction.

“Right. Of course. Ha-have a seat.” Jon sounded like the entire situation had put him off balance. “We’ll see what we can do.”

In a lot of ways, it was easier than when they’d told their story to the crew the first time, close to a year ago now. First of all, the team was aware now of a lot of things they’d had to explain, and Melanie had lived through at least some of it, so there was less to catch up on. Second of all, Tim, Sasha, and Past Martin were able to help fill in a lot of details. Including some things even Jon and Martin hadn’t been aware of.

“And then the world ended,” Jon concluded, much as he had the previous year. “And Martin and I…well, eventually we decided to try and put it back.”

“By coming back in time? How’d you even know you could do that?” Melanie asked. “Is it in one of those statements up there?”

“No. N-no, I don’t—I don’t think so. I don’t know how the Keeper found out about that passage back. That wasn’t our original plan,” Jon said slowly. “I’m not completely sure we had a plan, come to think of it.”

“Head to London, kill Jonah Magnus, and hope for the best,” Martin said with a shrug. “Push the big red reset button. I don’t know. I think we were still figuring it out when we got there.”

He could hear the frown when Melanie spoke next. “Sorry, I’m new to all this, I’m sure you’ve been over it a lot, but—how did you know you could? Can’t imagine the big scary fear god that thinks it’s won just…giving you a map to all its vulnerable spots or whatever. How did you know there was even a way to fix it?”

“We didn’t,” Martin said simply. He felt Jon lean against his shoulder and wrapped an arm around him. “But we had to try.”

There was another long pause before Melanie spoke again, her voice almost too soft to be audible. “Who else survived? Besides you two?”

“What?” Jon asked with a frown.

Martin realized she had almost been too soft to be heard; he’d only caught it because he had to concentrate so hard. “You, Georgie, and Basira. And the Admiral. But in our timeline…Sasha’d been gone for years at that point, she died when Jane Prentiss attacked us. And our Tim died in the Unknowing. Once Daisy went over to the Hunt, we were the only ones left.”

“The whole rest of the world died?” Melanie demanded.

“No,” Jon said quickly. “No, not—not yet. They would have. Eventually. But no. After the Fears came through…the world divided largely into two categories. Watcher or Watched. You were either trapped in a fear’s domain or—or observing one.”

“So which one was I?”

“Neither. You and Georgie, you were both sort of…outside it. I don’t know that you were the only ones, either, but you were the only ones we knew about.” Jon paused, then added, “You kept going into domains and—rescuing people, actually. Or trying to. These tunnels are a blind spot, and that didn’t change even when the Institute became the literal center of the world. You and Georgie would run into a domain, get someone out, and bring them down here.”

“And inadvertently started a cult,” Martin added. He couldn’t help the slight smile that tugged at his mouth. “You hated it.”

“God, yeah, I would have. I swear, the worst part of Ghost Hunt UK is dealing with the fans. I just got into it to investigate the paranormal, not to be famous doing it.” Melanie sighed heavily. Martin felt bad for her. “So what happened to us? After you left. Did you erase the whole future timeline so none of it ever happened, or did the three of us have to either fix it ourselves or live in a post-apocalyptic hellscape for the rest of our natural lives?”

“I—I don’t know.” Jon sounded incredibly shaken.

Martin rubbed comfortingly at Jon’s shoulder. “We left before…we didn’t get to tell them we were going. The Keeper—the one who helped us get back in time—he promised he’d let them know what was going on, he said they’d be safe. As far as I know, we didn’t…that timeline still continued to its end. I just don’t know when its end was. And unfortunately, we never will. Personally, I think what would have happened is that when the Keeper told everyone that our plan went to hell and Jonah got away, your counterpart would have said ‘fuck this’, got a knife, and gone after him herself. She kept trying to kill him in our timeline and he saw her every time. I don’t doubt for a minute that she’d take advantage of the fact that he literally wouldn’t have been able to see her.”

“Why not?”

“Same reason he can’t see me. Because she was blind, she was immune to the Eye. And as hard as she was working on her anger, I think she knew how to turn it into a weapon. Also, she hated Jonah.” Martin sighed. “So yeah. We don’t know what happened to everybody in our timeline, but if anyone could fix it, it’d be our Melanie. Correcting the Apocalypse with a knife and sheer spite.”

“Damn right,” Melanie said. Someone turned a laugh into a hacking cough.

Jon sighed and leaned against Martin’s shoulder. Martin shifted slightly to settle him into a more comfortable position. After all these months, the movement was as natural as breathing. “I’m so sorry, Melanie. We—we’d hoped we could keep you out of all this.”

“Hey, don’t take away my right to choose. I knew what I was getting into.”

“Did he ask?” Jon asked. “Or did he just hire you?”

“Of course he asked.” Melanie sounded exasperated. She dropped her voice to a lower register and did a very poor, mocking imitation of Elias’ drawl. “‘I understand that your show is on a hiatus, and with Jon off traveling, I’m sure Martin and the others could use some assistance. Jon spoke quite highly of your research abilities. Would you be interested in a paid position here in the Archives?’ I could have told him to fuck off if I’d really wanted to.”

Martin replayed the words in his head a couple of times. “Yeah, sounds like he flattered and dangled bait in front of you, but didn’t actually force you. Very carrot and stick.”

“So why did you say yes?” Sasha asked, sounding curious. “Knowing what you were getting into, more or less?”

Melanie sighed heavily—Martin was incredibly familiar with that sound—but to his mild surprise, it was Past Martin who answered. “She told us that, Sasha. Or at least indirectly. She—you said you started Ghost Hunt UK to investigate. And when we were having lunch before you left for India…I saw how animated you got when you were talking about that student film you did. The supernatural, the paranormal, it’s genuinely something you’re interested in. You agreed to join the Institute because it lets you do all that and get paid for it, with the added bonus of not having to deal with people if you don’t want to.”

“Yeah, basically. And, you know, if I can help save the world, that’s a nice little plus, too.”

Martin heard the rustling of fabric, but he honestly couldn’t have said if it was a hug or a light shove or what, and Tim’s next words made him none the wiser. “Thought you couldn’t read minds.”

“I can’t. I just know people.” Past Martin’s voice softened. “I promise, Tim. I’m not developing any new abilities.”

From the way he said that, Martin could picture quite vividly what Tim’s face had to look like. It was probably somewhere between the way he’d looked when he’d brought Sasha her coffee after she’d been attacked by Michael and the way he’d looked when telling Martin what had happened to his brother—a mixture of concern and fear and maybe a little bit of heartbreak. Tim really did worry about the others developing powers from the Eye, but there was probably an additional layer here because it was Past Martin.

Martin did know people. He had a fairly intuitive sense for the mood of a room and the way people interacted. In his timeline it had led him to play peacemaker, or try to, attempting to mediate between Jon and their Tim. In this…go-round, he supposed…it mostly meant he was picking up on a lot of things that weren’t being said, or at least weren’t being said aloud. He’d heard the fabric rustling, the lighthearted banter, the genuine laughter. He’d picked up on the gentleness in Past Jon’s voice that reminded him of the way Jon had spoken to him so often after Prentiss attacked, after he’d been accused of murder, and especially during those agonizing months he’d been working with Peter Lukas and they’d been so close and yet so far apart. He’d noted the affection in Tim’s voice, the way he’d tried so hard to control his anger and fear and actually talk to them. And of course he knew himself, and by extension his past self, knew what he sounded like when he was trying to navigate a simple conversation without wearing his heart on his sleeve, when he was trying to throttle back an emotion he desperately wanted to express but didn’t think would be welcome…or safe.

He knew love when he heard it, and dear God, if it had been that obvious to him for so long, he was already mentally betting with himself against how long it would take Melanie to call them out on it. Because he also knew hidden love, and he was willing to venture that they weren’t trying to hide their relationship because they thought it was inappropriate in the workplace. He was willing to bet all three of them thought it was unrequited on their part and that they had to keep it hidden from the others lest they be shot down.

He’d never really thought about polyamory himself, but in retrospect, yeah, maybe he had had a bit of a crush on their Tim. At least for a while. That would never have gone anywhere, though.

“Do we need to get out of here?” Melanie asked. “I mean, is Big Nose McCreepy going to notice we left the Archives essentially abandoned?”

“No, we’ve got a bit,” Sasha said. “He’s supposed to be meeting some of the Institute donors for a lunch of some kind. He’s not on site and he’s going to be occupied for a good while. I’m kind of hoping he gets a little tipsy, too. Anyway, he thinks he’s got us over a barrel right now. He thinks he trapped you into the Institute, so he’s feeling smug enough that he’s not going to pay attention to us for a while. His plan is to give us the rest of the week, at least, to let you ‘settle in’ before—”

“Sasha!” Jon said sharply. He sat up so suddenly it almost pulled Martin off-balance.

“Oh. Oh, shit.” Sasha inhaled abruptly. “I swear that wasn’t on purpose.”

“That’s—Christ, Sasha, you shouldn’t be able to do that from down here—”

“I didn’t—I Knew that before we came down. I’m pretty sure.” Sasha took another deep breath. “Right, okay. I don’t know who’s nominally in charge while Jon’s away, but—I think maybe I should take tomorrow off? Just to…recalibrate. Ground myself. Get some distance.”

“Take the rest of the week,” Tim suggested. “I don’t know who’s nominally in charge either, but—”

“I’ll stand in for your Jon,” Jon said. “Tim’s right. Take a good long weekend. Don’t think about the Institute, or the Archives, or the Fears. Just…I know it’s easier said than done, but try to distract yourself.”

“I think I have a way of doing that.” Sasha sounded thoughtful. Martin was pretty sure it was sincere.

“What do you do?” There was a hint of a challenge in Melanie’s voice, but also a good deal of curiosity. She was genuinely asking. “When it gets too much. What do you have that keeps you from—doing whatever it is you shouldn’t do?”

“Going out and pouncing random people to draw their traumas out of them,” Jon said dryly. “And I have Martin. He’s been my anchor for…much longer than I realized at the time. We’ll read or—or talk, or take a walk or something. We played cards a lot when we were in Scotland.”

“We were playing I Spy earlier,” Martin added.

Sasha snorted, but Past Martin seemed to actually understand. “Like a memory game type version?”

“Basically, yes. We pick someplace we both know—or knew—think about what was in it, and pick something for the other to try and guess. Five tries or less. And no mind-reading.”

“It’s still your turn,” Jon reminded him. “The storage unit.”

“Hmm.” Martin thought for a moment, then smiled as he remembered the one thing he’d fixated on while they were there. “I Spy, with my mental eye, something…brown.”

Jon made an exasperated noise. “I swear that must have been her favorite color. That could be anything.”

“Well, then, you’d best get guessing.”

“Fine.” Jon sighed heavily. “The…box full of dolls.”

“Nope. Guess again.”

“The book? The one we didn’t know what it was?”

“That was black.”

“It was—never mind.” Jon sighed again. “The notebook?”

Martin shook his head. “Come on, Jon, think. This is me we’re talking about. What would I have been looking at?”

“The…the frame on the painting with the dogs in it.”

“One guess left.”

“Give me one more hint.”

“It was the first thing that gave me hope in weeks.”

Jon was silent for a long while. Finally, he said, “I give up. I honestly, genuinely cannot think of anything that was brown that might fit the criteria you’ve given me. What do you spy?”

Martin’s smile widened. “Your eyes.”

There was a chorus of awws and exaggerated gagging sounds in equal measure from the other four, but from the way Jon took his face in both hands and kissed him, tenderly but thoroughly, Martin could tell that his choice had had the effect he wanted.

#leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall)#ollie writes fanfic #tma #the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonmartim

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