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idgaf-what-you-call-me · 4 years ago

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This is the first time, outside of therapy, that I am opening up fully my past, I ask that you remain respectful.

Trigger warnings: Suicide, torture, neglect, alcoholism, … a lot listen you’ve got to be well resourced before you read this.

I know Dean, because I was Dean. I was raised to be “perfect”, I am so much like my dad, I didn’t have a childhood, I was tortured, I have lost time (dissociation not possession by an arc angel), I am fairly closeted, and I’m finally starting to get better.

Ever since a very young child, I was raised to be perfect. To look at a 99 and learn what I got wrong before I brought the grade home, otherwise, I was sent to study. I was raised to not be heard and taught to stay in my room. I was raised to not show emotion because anything more than stoic meant that I was an inconvenience. I had “fend for yourself nights” where I had to sort out what I would eat for dinner, and at inexcusably young ages, 5-6 years old. I learned to shoot at 8, and was taken fishing anytime my dad went. I was brought to the construction sites, learned how to use power tools, and eventually had my own set at home. While I wasn’t trained to hunt demons or other things that go bump in the night, I was molded to be just like my dad. My mom wasn’t around much when I was a kid, so I idolized my father. He was like a god to me. As I got older (legal), I even would drink things that my dad approved of like scotch and I smoked cigars. Often praised, “that’s my girl! Look guys, my daughter drinking scotch and smoking a cigar! Where are your kids?” The validation was like a high to me. I was desperate for his approval. Just like Dean. Talked like his dad, walked like his dad, drank like his dad, I get it.

I was blatantly ignored including being told that I was invisible by siblings. They would hold up a remote to me and say, “you’re invisible” and ignore me. I could leave the house and they would not come look for me. With my mom and dad often gone (usually working or partying we were quite poor), I didn’t have anyone looking after me since I was 4 so when my dad was around, much like Dean, all I wanted to do was make him happy and proud of me.

I was a closeted bisexual, who made so many gay jokes towards my cishet brother that I feel quite a bit of shame as an adult. I repressed every facet of desire I had for the opposite gender because being bisexual really meant that I must be gay. At least that is what Will and Grace told me, and I did not want to be gay. Things were bad enough, I didn’t need to add to my shit pile. By the time I was 12, I had no idea how to feel emotions and I had no idea how to love myself. Most days, now at 29, I still don’t know how to love myself. I am not out to everyone in my family. I don’t feel safe with everyone. All the gay jokes between the brothers, all the Dean is bi subtext, I lived a lot of it.

Torture can take the shape of many different forms but they fall under two umbrellas: physical and psychological. I was subjected to sound torture and sleep deprivation forms of physical torture that have lasting psychological effects. When you live through something like that, you don’t “rebound” in the traditional sense, and I would dissociate. My consciousness would retreat back into itself until it was safe enough to come back.

I dreaded Thursday nights as that is when it would begin. My father would bring home several cases of Michelob Ultra, from the store, and then he would start drinking. My dad didn’t measure his consumption in beers, instead he measured by the case. A form of extreme binge drinking that to this day I still don’t completely understand. While he would drink, his music would get progressively louder and louder until the whole house vibrated with noise.

There are some songs and artists that I cannot listen to anymore. They’re not songs by Metallica or Black Sabbath, instead they’re by Credence Clearwater Revival, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and the like. Songs that people dance to at their weddings, sing at funerals, and enjoy on a road trip with the entire family. They are generally described as lively yet not heavy, yet this music was the conduit of 5 years of actual torture for me. I used to say that these were my favorite songs, but it was a way to cope with hearing them at home, and then hearing them play in the car on the way to school the next morning. In my house, the music was played so loudly that walls and floors shook and overwhelmed my senses and ability to sleep, think, do anything but have a heartbeat and breathe. It would last all night. I never learned to “fall asleep” I would pass out. To this day, I can be desperately tired, and able to drive for several hours without being a dangerous driver. Like my body learned to ignore fatigue. “I just need like 4 hours every couple of days,” yeah Deano, I’ve been there.

I would freeze mentally. Almost like a zone out but on steroids. Then I’d look around and things wouldn’t feel real to me. I would look in the mirror and see a stranger. Now I understand that I had developed dpdr as a way to cope. I don’t wish it on anyone.

My mother? She would leave the house and go clubbing. My siblings were 8 years older than me and lived on their own a great distance from where I lived. Besides, I had school to go to on Fridays. So I cooked, I monitored myself, I had to become an adult. I didn’t get to be a kid. My catharsis was angsty and fluffy Harry Potter fan fiction. You can find it on FF.net, RandHrFan I no longer post with that handle. Dean’s were movies, movies that my dad, and I’d wager his dad watched. I also love westerns just like my dad and my grandfather, there is something about them.

When Dean cries and opens up to Sam about his hell experiences, I get it. I’m so proud of him for telling Sam. To some it seems like he’s closed off but he’s not. He’s opening up as much as he mentally can. And Sam listens. Just like my sister eventually did. When Dean gets mad and yells at John and Mary, I’m proud of him, because he is fighting for himself. He knew he deserved better and he didn’t let it go. Just like I have done in my not so distant past.

All the while my parent’s marriage was fracturing and I was mentally declining. My mom began sleeping in my room and in my bed, and I was basically left to sleep on the couch. On days when my dad would drink, and my mom would go out, I could get to be in my room again. I could be on the computer (laptops weren’t a thing yet) which lived in my room. I could connect with the two other friends on AIM, but the reality of my situation I couldn’t escape. I was isolated, didn’t trust my family and I didn’t know how to ask for help.

One day I attempted to take my life. I saw no value in it. What was I doing with my life. I was a broken human who didn’t deserve love, who didn’t deserve safety, who didn’t deserve well anything. So I downed a bottle of pills. I had an iron clad stomach, I wasn’t too worried about not being successful. Except, I sent a goodbye message to a friend, and that friend saved my life. He got a hold of my sister who got to me in enough time to make me throw up. (She was a champ at that, having suffered from bulimia and taught to throw up from no other than my dad.)

I didn’t receive help afterwards. I signed a paper saying that I wouldn’t attempt again and was taken home. (I hope this isn’t how hospitals roll anymore.) I left my house, I went to school out of state and found stability, created stability for myself. But my past still haunted me whenever I went home. So when Dean has a death wish, and gets discharged from hospitals before he’s stable, I get it.

My parents eventually divorced, and I came home to a place where I couldn’t live anymore for a solid couple of months, I couch surfed, and again my mental health took a nosedive, but nevertheless, I persisted. I got my head back in the game, and finished my degree. Chemistry. I couldn’t go back home, because if I did I’d be working for my dad. I couldn’t do that, it was too painful. So I went to grad school. I got my Ph.D. I began to chart my own path. But there was a rage in me that I couldn’t escape. I lashed out at anyone and everyone to hide the pain that I felt all the time. People were afraid of me. I was great at what I did but I couldn’t make lasting connections with others.

When I was 27 suicidal ideations became dangerous, and I got about as dark. I tried to harm myself, and wanted my world to burn. It didn’t matter that I was married, with pets, and owned a home. Nothing mattered. I finally had to decide between life and death, I couldn’t continue in that state. I can say confidently that I would be dead if I didn’t get help that day. I wish Dean had this chance. He gets close to this in moments with Cas when he is honest about his feelings and experiences, he cries, he gets angry, lashes out, but Cas is there for him. From someone like Dean, I’ll tell you Cas being present holds more weight than gold for Dean.

I have been in intense therapy for a year. By intense I do mean more than once a week, regular check ins with her, and the occasional group session. She sends me articles to read, homework, and we do EMDR work, emotional integration therapy, mindfulness, etc.

It was then that I began to learn that all the rage that I had built inside me was hiding intense fear, loss, and disappointment. The rage gave way to tears, and the tears gave way to a new anger that I could make peace with. That anger comes from the person I am today. The person who fights for herself. Who doesn’t take shit from anyone. The person who says, humans don’t break, vases break, and I am a human. I see a lot of that in late season Dean. He is a fighter.

But I am still the person who receives a compliment and shuts down, there is still a side of me that doesn’t believe that I deserve nice things, good things to happen to me, but that person is getting smaller. My therapist likes to hit me with compliments when I am vulnerable as I am more likely to believe them. I still react like a dead fish when she says them, and then after the session sob for hours over it. One day my head and my heart will believe the same things about myself. I would have reacted the same way as Dean to that confession.

When the cards fall, I still know that I can depend on myself before anyone else because I had to. My life as an impoverished, unstable, depressed, neglected, and abused kid says I should be dead or amounting to nothing, but hear I am. I’ve now closely mentored about 20 undergraduate students, a handful of graduate students, and have helped them find their paths in life. I have taught nearly 1000 students. I made a difference with the life that I tried to throw away.

I have come to a place where I can love my dad. He is sober again, and yes, my love for him does depend on his sobriety. When he is drinking he is not the same person. I wouldn’t call him an A+ dad by a long shot, and hell I am so much like him that at times it makes me sick, but I do love him. I have been able to forgive him. Forgive in the sense that I can make peace with what happened. It doesn’t change what happened or how much it affected me, and I certainly don’t forget, but that isn’t what forgiveness is. I don’t hold the rage anymore. The fact that Dean is able to is personal for Dean, as it is for me, and it isn’t some “family that is what you do” type reason.

I do experience flashbacks when there are fireworks, I can’t go to a movie theatre because of the volume, when people play really loud music in their cars I typically have to peel off into a parking lot and meditate for 20 minutes to be able to drive again. There are some stores that I don’t shop at because their music triggers me. So when Dean experiences those flashbacks, I get it.

There is a belief in the psychology that monster shows help us become comfortable with our dark sides. My dark side saved me over and over again. My dark side told me to be better than them. My dark side told me to fight for me, to adopt a survivor mindset. (If you can’t tell I am a green veined Slytherin and have never been sorted into any other house even by random house generators.) The things I delight in are a bit off color. I cultivate a poison garden, consume way too much true crime, to gore I say give me s��more and so on. Dean gets to experience his dark side, and he has to make peace with it. He makes inappropriate jokes, laughs at it, but he also does talk about it.

This is the hard part: Just like Dean, I am also light. I love people (vomit), seriously though, they are more precious to me than any earthly possession. Plants bring me serenity. Animals are a comfort and companion in the worst of times. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do to protect living things. My motivations come from a place of love and a need to protect others from what I have been through. I know I can survive, but I don’t know if that is true for everyone else.

I know Dean. I was Dean. I see that every episode. Moments when he yells and screams for himself, I cheer him on. Moments where he tries to waste his life away, I understand, and am crying right with him. The purgatory apology guts me, I’ve had to make that apology more than once. The dead fish reaction, hell that is me at the end of a therapy session. I am here to say: Dean is not broken. Dean is strong. Dean is resilient. Dean doesn’t just fight for himself, he fights for the whole of creation. Dean is not a vase. He is a human.

Oh and John’s taste in beer, much like my fathers, is crap. Don’t drink shitty beer. Also, I don’t drink scotch anymore. I'm a gin girl and I drink *okay* beer.

I’m the same blogger who does drunk blogging regarding Supernatural on Saturdays. It is a lovely bit of comfort and joy for me and I won’t be stopping any time soon. We will get back to the lovely and light “Dean is Bi he he” commentary this weekend.

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stusbunker · 6 years ago

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Known: Case of the Weak, Part B

A Supernatural Dark Fan-fiction

Featuring: Dean Winchester x Demon!Reader, Sam, Female Vessel OC, a nameless trucker and some guy named Alan.

Summary: A discovery and an exit strategy.

Warnings: Talk of vomit, possession, angst, blood, consequences.

Series Masterlist

March 25, 2014

The Bunker

Dean felt nauseous.

He had stepped into the spare bedroom CC stayed in to change the sheets and the stink of sulfur hit him like a right hook. It was everywhere, the bed, the desk chair, little dusting of yellow flakes that stopped him in his tracks. He closed his eyes as the rage poured through the Mark and into his veins. A tiny voice inside his mind replied, ‘And you call yourself a hunter.’ He clenched his fist and released his jaw, taking in one more deep breath of betrayal.

“Sam!”

“Yeah?”

“Just come here a sec!” Dean barked, the energy drained from him as the terrifying possibilities came crashing into focus.

“What is it—shit, it reeks in here,” Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t test her?”

“I was a little preoccupied!” Dean admonished, “what? You didn’t either!”

“Is she?”

“No, she’s alive or at least she was last I saw her. How did I miss this?!” Dean’s eyes finally locked onto Sam’s. Sam swallowed as he realized how deep this cut into Dean’s carefully crafted armor. Dean dropped onto the perfectly made bed, elbows resting on his knees as he tried to gather himself.

“You’re telling me,” Sam huffed, then their old friend suspicion surfaced. “Crowley.”

Dean pulled his bottom lip against his teeth, shaking his head as it didn’t add up.

“He was pretty keen on meeting CC, Dean.” Sam mentally walked through the day at Magnus’s and the last time they saw the King of Hell.

“Oh god, Sam. What if it was one of the ones that defiled my Baby?” Dean stood and stormed down the hall toward the bathroom. “I am going to be sick, I mean, I--- and she--- and--”

“Breathe!” Sam rolled his eyes as his brother started to dry heave. Dean inhaled the cool, fresh air of the shower room, face leaning over the sink as Sam waited beside him. Dean tried to block the images of CC’s face in his hands, blood on his thighs, mouth on him. He sloshed the cold water on his face and neck, fingers dragging a little rougher than necessary, subconsciously hurting himself to bury the repulsion, the guilt, the fear.

“How did it even get in here, Sam? This place is warded to the gills.” Dean kept his eyes closed, unwilling to meet his reflection in the mirror. “She had a branding, on her thigh. But it wasn’t ancient, it just said, ‘Hi.’ I mean ‘hi’, really?!” Dean pushed off the sink, hand tugging the hair off his forehead.

“Might be some kind of blood spell? I’ll look in to what could have gotten past the Men of Letters’ fail-safes.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Dean sighed. “You do that, I’m gonna burn my sheets and take a shower. In lye.”

Three hours later and Sam hadn’t narrowed down what a demon would have to do in order to gain access to the Bunker. Dean had stopped himself from calling Crowley five or six times, unwilling to give the demon the satisfaction of pulling one over on him. The whole thing felt like a sick twisted game of humiliation and not even the good kind. As most days when he was lost in thought, Dean’s left hand rubbed over the Mark, like bellows doting over embers.

“Look, just call her, maybe we can meet up, exorcise it?”

“Something tells me she is going to see through whatever we cook up, Sam,” Dean muttered.

“This isn’t Chloe, Dean. This is a demon who has our friend!” Sam was losing his patience. “I mean, no matter who she’s working for, we have to go after her.”

Dean waited, letting Sam’s exasperation contort his face into five different things before he looked his big brother in the unamused eye. “You done?”

“No, but if you have something to add, why don’t you share with the class?”

“You don’t think that I know what this means, for CC? The girl that I--, the hunter that has been pulling my head out of my ass for the better part of a year to be taken like this? To have that thing inside her? Sam? Really?!” Dean had his lecture face on staring admonished at Sam’s bitch face and his lips pursed.

“Well, don’t you think it’s time we do something about it?” Sam shifted in his chair.

“Oh, we’re going to do something about it, but I’m not leaving it to chance or a bad tip from Crowley. We do what we do, we hunt the thing.” The brothers shared a look, an entire conversation that resulted in a sucking of teeth and a ruthless smirk.

*^*

Her bike had run out of gas, how something that was extremely fuel efficient and, also the stuff of dreams ran out of gas, made little sense to Chloe. But there she was, on the side of the road in the afternoon heat, stranded. Her conversation with her granddad’s spirit had replayed itself in her thoughts for days. It was like elevator music to her now, familiar yet warbled, and easily dismissed.

The eighteen-wheeler was the first sign of civilization she had seen since leaving the memories in the woods. If this was her impending choice, she was ready to answer and take the next step back towards control. It was not. Though the trucker was friendly and had the air conditioning on full blast.

“Where to, princess?”

“Don’t know, we’ll see when we get there.”

The driver gave a thoughtful frown and eased off the brakes.

*^*

April 9, 2014

Sayre, OK

Fog clung to the road, sloping into ditches as the passing cars drove by, their proximity rattling the windows around you. You had pulled over to the shoulder hoping for a distraction, but that was hours ago. The body heat had steamed the windshield against the sunrise, scarlet and coral blotches appeared slowly before your unfocused eyes. You listened to the voicemail again, letting the once solacing voice eat away at any semblance of purpose you had left.

He had heard about your last case, wanted to meet half way. There were rumors about Crowley and Dean felt like his show down with Abaddon was an any-day-now situation. Damn, was he a brilliant bullshit artist. You almost believed he wanted to see you. It almost sounded that he had convinced himself he need to see CC again before that next battle. Maybe that’s what it was, maybe it was just Dean’s sentimental side breaking through before he got the First Blade back in his hand.

But it was just a hint too earnest and two puffs too smooth for someone who had done the things to you that he had. Dean knew and he was setting his trap.

You thought of going underground, knowing Crowley still had a few tails on you, despite your regular check ins. There was always defection, switch teams and play against the world’s deadliest hunters, with the last Knight of Hell as your team captain. Or you could tell him the disgusting, grisly truth and let him, or Sam, exorcise you where you stand.

None of those were without merit, but all were without much hope in your survival. The radio crackled over the opening cords of the next song, Kurt Cobain’s voice came next, shattering your pretensions, and finally the tears began to fall.

*^*

Rock Springs, WY

April 12, 2014

The Impala pulled into the parking lot just after rush hour, which wasn’t much to avoid in most respects. Sam had been on the phone on and off the entire drive, keeping tabs on the soul banks that Abaddon had erected all over. Dean was listening, but they both knew he had checked out unless it was about CC or the Queen Bitch herself. He needed the easy routine of tuning the radio and the weight of his foot on the gas. Because when he stopped or thought too much, everything seemed to unfreeze and fall apart at his slightest touch.

The motel had plenty of vacancies, especially for Agents Hawkins and Grohl. There wasn’t a verified case for forty miles, but something about putting on the Fed suit and using an alias made Dean feel in control. It was hard to believe there was a time when he hated the get ups. He replayed his times with CC on and off through the years, usually as one forgotten memory would surface, eventually they all snowballed over the bigger picture. But he could only see now where the holes in time split and the emptiness of his unspoken promises fissured.

“You call her?” Sam’s voice broke through his weapons check.

“Yeah, just rang through to voicemail. We’ll settle in and grab something to eat and I will try again.”

He didn’t turn around to see that look on Sam’s face, he already felt its sting without having to face it.

*^*

It as if she was asleep, her body seemed so much smaller from the outside. Though her boots fell inside the edge of the mattress, you felt the need to bed her knees, curling her on her side as she liked to rest. She was warm and her body heavy. You waited at the small breakfast table, new vessel’s fingers flexing as you acclimated to him. “Come on, CC, wake up.”

She shouldn’t have been tired, you had a solid six hours the night before. But when you left her mouth, you only passively realized that she was nowhere to be found. In fact, you couldn’t recall the last time you felt her fighting you.

Dean.

You hadn’t felt her since Dean. It was a good thing they were coming for you, then. Maybe his voice could break through to her, wherever she had gone. Like some macabre fairy tale, the cursed hunter wakes the mind-lost vessel. You should be gone by then, they didn’t need an audience. You didn’t need to bare witness to that. They would probably blast you full of rock salt and finish you off with their Kurdish knife. Instead you stayed, staring at the man’s generic phone screen until you heard CC’s ringtone from her coat on the rack behind the door.

Dean.

*^*

“I don’t know Sam, this all feel off to you?” Dean swallowed down some coffee as he waited for CC’s voicemail message to pick up again.

“We’re hunting a demon, not really expecting it to make it easy,” Sam shrugged.

“But, wouldn’t it pick up and taunt us?”

“Maybe it ditched her phone, want me to try the GPS?” Sam offered, pulling open his laptop on the cramped diner table.

Dean smiled at the waitress as she brought his slice of pie, though his stomach was full, he wasn’t going to deny himself a slice of Dutch Apple, especially not tonight. Sam huh-ed.

“What?”

“It’s pinging at our motel.” Sam stuck his tongue in his cheek as he spun the screen for Dean to see.

“Fucking demons,” Dean spoke through his bite of pie, inhaling all he could as Sam packed up his computer and left more than enough extra for a tip.

*^*

You could smoke out, there was still enough time. The Impala’s engine cut on the other side of the parking lot. You could almost feel him from where you sat, but this body was a poor substitute, and you were a selfish, masochistic bitch. So, you waited. Chloe’s breath was shallow, but steady. She hadn’t stirred or made even one noise. In a way, this was probably the last time you would ever see her again. Moving day and this was your last walk through of your first place. It was understandable to linger, justifying your inability to walk away from her and Dean.

They had geared up in their room, you could hear muffled voices through the walls, there were just three rooms between you and two were empty. Even whispering, you’d know those voices anywhere. They walked around the building, knowing if they took the shortest distance they would pass in front of the large window at your back. Sometimes you hated hunters’ caution and sometimes you wanted to pat their little heads. You pulled air through his nose and waited.

He called again. Honestly.

“Door’s open,” you said to whichever one was at the door, trying to discreetly pick the lock in nearly full view of the parking lot and surrounding alley. The voice was coarse out of your throat, foreign and distasteful to use for such occasions.

*^*

As the door swung open, Sam’s eyes fell on their host, before locking on to the sight of CC prone on the bed. He dragged his brother to his feet, and they walked straight into the fray. Tucking away his lock pick, Dean rocked forward in a fury, only taking two steps before he was knocked back. In half a breath, Sam and Dean were pinned against the coat rack as the door swung closed. The demon hadn’t even stood up.

“What did you do to her?!” Dean demanded, working to focus and to buy Sam time as a distraction.

“Nothing much worse than you did,” he spoke calmly, but the cadence wasn’t meant for this mouth.

“I’m going to kill you, you sonofabitch!”

“I know you want to, especially now, with all that blood-lust running through you.” The demon stood, the vessel was a white guy in his forties, small compared to them, but that meant nothing now. “The Mark really smarts after you lost the Blade, doesn’t Dean? I know how it makes you feel and how you think. So, I know you want to kill me, in fact, I was banking on it. That’s why I found a new meat suit. Didn’t wanna add anymore guilt on the Winchester laundry list.”

“But, why?” Sam searched for understanding, “I mean, why stick around for us to find you. You could have run back to Abaddon or Crowley or to fucking Botswana by now.”

The demon didn’t answer, but watched Dean watch CC, it almost seemed wistful. Sam was struggling to piece together its motivations all while fighting the force holding him against his will. But Dean had stopped fidgeting beside him, his brother had gone lax. Dean’s eyes unfocused before glaring at their captor.

“You like to watch, huh? Is that it? You get off on people’s feelings, you sick fuck.” Dean inhaled slowly with a piercing stare that further challenged the demon. He tried not to let his rage plummet with the shock as he started to feel an ease of pressure against his body.

“You know I don’t. Besides, I haven’t answered Sam, yet.” The demon approached them, waiting just out of arm’s reach. “I need your help.”

*^*

You had no clue if this would work, but it was the Hail Mary at the end of the game of your own devising. You kept going back to him and now that you had been made, you were running out of options. Nothing you did made sense, but if you were going to get through to Dean, you had to tell the truth. Or at least part of it.

“I don’t know where CC is.”

“You mean other than on the bed,” Dean was not amused with the child-like turn.

You rolled your eyes and put your hands on your hips, which was far less empowering in this form than in hers. “Obviously. She hasn’t been talking back for a while and when I exited stage left, it’s been quiet.”

“Has she had any brain damage or major trauma?” Sam asked.

You shook your head and then shrugged, possession was a bit traumatic, even when you weren’t out to derail her sanity. “The last time I remember even a glimpse of her was with Dean, so I was hoping…”

“No.”

“What, why?”

“It wants me to wake Sleeping Beauty,” Dean snapped. “I am not putting the moves on a comatose girl, not after what, just no.”

“It has a name,” you snipped, dropping your hold on Dean, which oddly wasn’t as secure as it was originally. “Just try and talk to her? Maybe she can resurface.”

“And if I don’t?” Dean watched you like a true enemy. While the power you possessed was nothing compared to what he unknowingly held over you, it was nice to been seen for what you were finally. Again, you remained silent, choosing to squeeze Sam’s throat enough for him to audibly choke. “Noted.”

He approached the bed with caution, eyeing the weapons you had forced from their grasp and waist bands with their confinement. You slid them across the floor beneath the table, nudging Dean onward. Out of annoyance more than courtesy, you removed the strangle hold from Sam’s throat. He sputtered and coughed as Dean checked CC’s pulse.

“Dean?”

“She’s good.” Dean’s large hand cradled her face as he began to whisper, “I’m so sorry, but we’re going to get you out of here. We’re gonna get you back on your feet and we can kick the bastard’s ass together, okay? Cease, you hearing me in there, huh?”

Your eyes flitted back to Sam, he looked at you with something too close to pity in his eyes. You let your eyes blacken and stuck your tongue out at him. Dean started talking again, leaving a little peck on Chloe’s forehead as he waxed on about their first hunt. Things you had learned but hadn’t realized what their past meant for him. It paled in comparison to yours, but Dean wasn’t here for you. And, finally you saw that you weren’t only there for yourself either.

“What about a dream walk?” Sam suggested, “we could probably scrounge up the ingredients between us.”

“Dean? Think you could handle it?” Everything rested on the head of a pin, Chloe’s life, your afterlife, Sam’s patience and Dean’s faith.

“I’m not leaving you alone with Sam,” Dean didn’t bother looking at you, he was too worried about CC.

“It’s not like we can trust her with our bodies, Dean.” Sam cocked his head as Dean’s eyes looked skyward.

“Demons don’t sleep, ergo it’s not coming with.”

You swallowed, remembering everything you knew about the ritual. “Dean, look, if I trust Sam to keep from killing OR exorcising me while I’m in. Will you trust me to go with you?”

“Why are you even still here?” Dean muttered, offended by your very existence.

“Because I don’t want Chloe dead, if I did, I would have done it a long time ago.”

“That right?” Dean stood now, looking down his nose at your vessel.

“Look, I asked for your help, alright?” You threw in your final chip and let Sam fall back to his feet. “Either help me find Chloe or kill me and do it on your own, but this guy has kids and I haven’t done a thing to him or her since you’ve been here. You can trust me.”

Dean let out a mirthless laugh. “Trust you? Sorry, Alan,” he quipped as he flicked the embroidered name tag on your chest. “I don’t even know you.”

*^*

He was impossibly close now and though he had been hiding it, the rage was surging just beneath the surface. Dean’s every instinct told him to kill this thing, but the way it moved and spoke was giving him a headache. It was like a bad body swap, because he was very clearly talking to CC while talking about CC. Just how long had she been possessed for it to have this sort of mimicry?

“That stings a little, but I’m not going to hold a shitty memory against you, Dean. Ball’s in your court, boys.” The demon sat down, leaning back to grab both of their guns and knife.

Tags: @mogaruke @dontshootmespence @mrswhozeewhatsis@smi727@sassykayla255@supernaturalboi@dumbthotticus@eve05glee@veroinnumera@spn-dean-and-sam-winchester@fanfictionrecommendations-com@soullesscollection-world

Next Chapter: Case of the Weak Part C

#dean winchester #spn fanfic #moc!dean #demon!reader #dean x reader #dean x female vessel #dean x demon!reader #moc!dean x demon!reader #known series #dean winchester fanfiction #dark fic #possession #angst #dean x cc #dean winchester dark fic #spn dark fic #spn dark fic series

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robininthelabyrinth · 8 years ago

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Fic: Win the Race (ao3 link) Fandom: Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, references to Arrow Pairing: Barry Allen/Iris West; Leonard Snart/Mick Rory

Summary: You make some adjustments when aliens attack and a whole bunch of people get abducted.

Adjustments like adopting some kids - very quick kids -

(in which Len and Mick accidentally adopt Barry and Iris' kids)

A/N: Set past the end of Flash season 3. Very few Legends.

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Losing Barry had hurt worse than anything.

Iris didn't want to eat - their favorite places - or see anyone - everyone reminded her of him - or, well, do anything.

They'd sent out their save the date cards, so at least she didn't have to look at the box of all her hopes and dreams and optimism. Not that that made her feel better. At least Dad took care of calling all of them and explaining that the wedding is off.

It's about a month and a half before people start getting impatient with her moping. Luckily, Iris gets sick right around the same time - vomiting! That means she's really sick, not just more moping! - so that's a good excuse to keep inside and away from everyone.

Play with McSnurtle. At least he doesn't pressure her to move on because "this isn't what Barry would've wanted".

Well, Barry's trapped in the stupid-ass speed force by his own stupid guilt - seriously, Iris has a list of alternative ways they could've satisfied the Speed Force's need for a speedster without having to give up Barry, because she totally hasn't been obsessing over this or anything - so Barry's sort of lost his right to have a say.

There's a knock at her door.

"Go away, Dad!" Iris shouts.

"It's, uh, it's not your dad," a muffled female voice says.

Iris frowns. She doesn't have that many female friends - never did, sad to say - so she's not immediately sure who it is.

She goes over to the door, wonders for a minute if whoever it is outside is going to judge her because she's wearing Barry's old college t-shirt and a pair of his STAR Labs sweats, figures the answer is yes, accepts it, and pulls open the door anyway.

She blinks.

"Caitlin?" she asks. "Or, uh, is it Killer Frost right now?"

"Caitlin is fine," the now white-haired woman says wryly. "I see you're handling what happened better than I handled Ronnie dying. Both times."

Iris hesitates. It's true, Caitlin does know what she's going through. That being said - "I'm not really in the mood for sympathy."

"I'm not here to offer it," Caitlin says. "I'm here to take you to your doctor's appointment."

"My...?"

"By your own report, you've been vomiting on a daily basis for two weeks straight. As a doctor: you are now way past time to see a doctor. Now, we either go to your GP for a walk in, or I kidnap you and take you to my lair to test you anyway. Since I am still a doctor myself."

Iris cracks a smile. "Is your lair STAR Labs?"

"Everything there is still set up for me," Caitlin says, not denying it.

"I'll call my doctor," Iris says. She doesn't want to go to STAR Labs. "She takes walk-ins."

She had time for Iris, miracles of miracles.

Iris wishes she'd taken the time to shower but, honestly, putting on real clothing was about as much effort as she was willing to put into this. Caitlin hadn't commented.

She had refused to leave, which - seriously? Iris isn't going to go out of a window to avoid having to have regular human interactions. Probably.

...not now, anyway.

"So, doc, what's the news?" Iris jokes. "Am I dying?"

She almost means it.

"Nothing like that, Iris," her doctor says warmly. "Just a bad bout of morning sickness."

Iris freezes. "Of...what?"

Dr. Hansen looks sympathetically at her. "Oh, I’m sorry! I didn't realize you didn’t know. Congratulations, Ms. West; you're pregnant."

Pregnant? But -

Barry.

"Oh god," Iris says, and goes to throw up.

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

"This sucks," Mick says.

"You're the one who wanted to live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland," Len points out snippily.

Mick thinks about objecting - Len needs to let 2046 go already! Mick's gotten over the Oculus! ...mostly! - but then Len blasts a few more aliens and Mick decides to let it go. Len's tired, he's tired. Len's always like order more than he did, and there's not much of that to be found now.

It's the end of the world.

No, really. The Dominators fleeing with their tails between their legs had apparently drawn the attention of the whatever-the-fuck these things were called, and this time, they'd been smart about it.

They went for the heroes first.

Of course, Barry was gone, so Central City was defended by a combination of Cisco - Mick refuses to call him Vibe, especially since Lisa had made that terrible joke about it - and Kid Flash, but they weren't Barry.

They'd never be Barry, and they knew it.

When the aliens came, they were careful to attack a whole bunch of places all at once, all places the heroes cared about, so that there wouldn't be enough time for a team-up. Without Barry to hold it together, any team-up probably wouldn't have worked, anyway.

They got to most of Team Arrow first, luring them onto a spaceship and then portalling it to the other end of the goddamn galaxy. As far as Mick had heard, those guys weren't dead, but they weren't getting home anytime soon, either. At least they'd been with their families when they'd detoured onto that ship - they'd been right in the middle of getting them out of the refugee camps the government had unwisely started forming.

Queen and Felicity were all that were left behind, and they're still standing, last Mick heard. They have a check-in every fortnight with them just to be sure.

Central City, with its metahumans, wasn't anywhere as lucky. The aliens timed their attack well - they'd invaded relentlessly, again and again and again, goading them, then waited until Team Flash got desperate. Team Flash had developed a habit of visit Earth-2 (apparently Kid Flash was dating the Flash of that Earth, which seemed weird, but also the Harrison Wells of that Earth served as their mentor so honestly Mick wasn't gonna ask), and they'd fallen back on the same habit when they decided to go seek help and a safe place to let some of their heroes rest.

That'd been what the aliens had been waiting for, the assholes. They detonate an EMP over STAR Labs just as the going group was jumping, disabling Cisco's universe-hopping device, and then they'd snapped Cisco up into one of those goddamn pods before he could make his way through.

Long-term stasis units, they were called. Fucking bullshit, that's what Mick thinks of them. They zap you unconscious and drag you to one of the pod farms, and then you're just lying there all Matrix-like, not aging, not moving, just asleep. Frozen in time.

But with no universe-hopper and no Cisco, there was no way for Team Flash to make it home. Joe West, Wally West, some other woman, even Caitlin Snow - all gone.

Only Iris West and Julian Albert had been left behind, and neither of them had powers. They'd teamed up with another CSI - some girl named Patty who used to be a cop - but there was only so much that they could do, these last few months.

The aliens were hunting them, too. Any association with Team Flash was as good as a target. They'd gotten Patty a week or so back, and Mick was pretty sure the other two weren't much longer for the world.

Which left Central City under the dubious protection of -

Well.

Him and Len.

Len was Central City's son, born and bred, and he was her foremost supervillain now that Grodd had been banished. The aliens hadn't counted for him in their plans.

Mostly because he'd been spending some time dead at the time they'd made their plans, but hey, what can you do?

(Len likes to tell people it was for tax reasons. Mick likes to hit Len whenever he says that.)

It'd ended up being to Mick's benefit, at any rate; when the aliens ambushed the Waverider, breaking the time drive and stranding them all god-knows-when, Mick was already back on land, nursing a still time-confused Len back to health. Len had gotten over his little brush with death - he'd only come back because they'd screwed up the timeline to such a horrific extent with that spear thing, but he was back and that's what's important to Mick - and now he was back with a vengeance.

A vengeance currently fixated on the aliens that had ruined large portions of his city.

Mick always said he'd give everything to Len, in the end, and he did: he dug up his old ship, with the Kronos armor, and though the time drive there was shot too - decay rather than sabotage, but either way still useless - it was still useful in launching a hell of an effective surprise attack on the bastards from space.

Mick also picked up some tips on armor from Haircut during their time on the Waverider, putting together weapons and cloaks and all sorts of shit you can use growing and shrinking and blaster tech for.

Len took a different approach. He gathered every metahuman still in Central - villain and civilian and confused - and he whipped them into a defense force under his control.

Well.

His and Lisa's.

The Rogues had been designed to be villains, but in the absence of real heroes, they ended up being hero substitutes instead.

Hell, the Rogues had been so goddamn successful that Lisa had ended up branching out, splitting off her own hand-selected group of Rogues and going to Gotham to recruit the villains there into their own version of a defense force. Len hadn't wanted to see her go, of course, but she'd insisted...

"Hey, Mick, you hear that?"

Mick pauses in where he's melting an alien which is probably (definitely) already dead by now, clicking his gun to silence.

Nothing at first, then, very distantly –

Crying.

"Someone's in trouble," Mick says.

"Let's go," Len says. "Unless you're getting low on charge..."

"Nah, I'm good. Ever since we got the dwarf star, the recharge times have been excellent, even if it does make the gun heavy as fuck."

"Good. Let's go."

The aliens are centering around a cute little daycare. There's a car which shows the typical signs of alien attack, so whoever had gone out to get groceries - Mick can see them spilled out on the ground - was almost certainly already pod-bound even as they approached.

The crying was coming from the daycare.

Shit, kids. Len hates it when aliens go after kids.

"Can we get them?" Len asks, trying to come off as dispassionate, coldly analytical as his nickname suggests, but Mick knows Len. His whole brain is bent on trying to figure out how they could save the kids - not at the expense of their lives, which Len knew were too valuable to Central to lose, but certainly with less of a margin for risk than usual.

Mick studies the situation. "Think so," he says, because he does. "Your call, boss."

"Let's move in. I'll go point, take center; you come in later."

Mick nods. They'd figured out the best way to hit these assholes long ago: the reason their plans were so good in advance is because they had their sharpest minds back on their homeworld planning it. The drones they sent to Earth, on the other hand, were shit at dealing with the unexpected.

Which is to say, dealing with Len at all, really.

Even against regular non-armed humans, they'd found the best way was for one human to establish a pattern of attack (like, throwing things) and when the aliens had adjusted to that attack, a second person attacks from a different direction using a different method (stabbing, shooting, whatever). The aliens are momentarily paralyzed trying to recalibrate their expectations, leaving a window of time when the humans can successfully attack or run away.

Mick and Len have been teaching a lot of self-defense classes at the underground refugee camp.

It's not actually underground, to be fair; it was just connected by radio and maintained-with-great-difficulty-and-sacrifice Internet into a living network instead of gathering up in person. The aliens used actual refugee camps as targets - too many humans in one place was practically asking for an attack. So they did the rounds, instead, meeting in short bursts and living off correspondence. But it's still living, which is better than not-living.

Len moves in with his cold gun.

The aliens he hits first die. The rest balk their wings (terrible buzzing creatures, like flies who couldn't achieve lift) and adopt a defensive formation, weakest drones out in front to act as a living shield against Len's ice while the stronger ones harden their shells against the cold.

Of course, a hard shell means that temperatures that go too high will cook them from the inside out.

Mick hoists his own gun and waits for the signal.

Len gives it, and in he goes.

There are more aliens than he'd anticipated, more than usual for these sort of pod runs, but about halfway through the fight Len and Mick swap guns and that confuses the aliens yet again. No one expects Captain Cold to be wielding flame.

Mick ends up having to bring out his Kronos pulse rifle to finish them off, which is a surprise; it's been a while since there have been so many gathered in one spot.

"Big family or important target?" Mick asks Len, who snorts.

"No more important targets left," he replies. "Let's go."

Inside, there are kids.

But not a huge amount, no; there are only two. Not even toddlers, not really - they're something like a year and a half, max. Maybe two, if Mick's being generous. And they're all alone.

"Shit," Mick says, already wracking his brain to see if he can find anyone who wants babies. The foster families are filled to the brim; the underground network is stretched thin...

Len kneels next to the kids. One boy, one girl. "Hey," he says gently, like he's talking to Lisa way back when she was young. "No more aliens, kids. Just me and Mick."

Mick's not expecting it to work - the kids are too young to really understand what Len's saying, and the calm tone he's using will eventually take some time to sooth them - but somehow it does. They calm down and reach out their chubby little arms to Len.

People who think Len's cold-hearted have never seen how quick he melts.

"Hey," Len says gently. "Where's your mom?"

They sniffle. "Momma back?" one asks hopefully. At least, that's what Mick thinks she's asking, it's a little slurred with tears.

Mick thinks of the car outside. "Doubt it."

Len glares at him. "What about your dad?"

"Daddy's gone." That sounded rehearsed, or at least an echo of something said regularly enough by a loving adult for the kids to repeat as well.

"Mick?" Len asks, but he's already put away the cold gun and is gathering them into his arms.

"I'm thinking!" Mick says. "There's a couple of options..." He shakes his head. "No one immediate. We'll have to cover for a few days while I get in contact with people."

Len nods. "My name's Len," he tells them. "You can call me Lenny, if you like. What’s your names?"

Oh, crap, they're at Lenny status already? Damnit Len, you can't get attached to all of them...

"Dawn," the girl says proudly.

"Don," the boy says, equally proud. "I'm a Don."

"Nice to meet you both," Len says gently, and Mick already knows what's going to happen.

Sure enough, by the time - about three days - that Mick finds someone to take the kids in, Len's in love.

Worse, Mick's got a case of the same.

"We can't keep 'em," he tells Len.

"We definitely can't," Len agrees. "C'mon, Duckie, open up for the airplane..."

Don - now proudly nicknamed Duckie, under the assumption that Don is short for Donald - pouts and turns his face away.

Len sighs dramatically. "Oh, well," he says. "Guess I'll have to eat this myself."

"No!" Duckie yells. "Mine!"

"Fine. Then you eat it."

There's a tug at Mick's pants. He looks down.

Dawn - already fed - looks up at him hopefully. "Dawnie up?" she asks.

"Sure, sunshine," he says, and scoops her up. Dawn likes to be tall. "You wanna sit on my shoulders?"

"Yeah!"

Onto the shoulders she goes.

Dawn imperiously waves at Duckie, making him demand that Len lift him as well.

"We can't," Mick says again, but it's weaker.

"You sure?" Len asks.

Mick sighs.

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

It's not that Len and Mick don't try to find the kids' original family. They do! If there was family, even if they're all dead, they'd want to know so they could honor their traditions or some such like that. Len is a stickler for that, talking grimly about the non-consensual adoption of Jewish kids after the Holocaust by converting Christians and how he ain't ever gonna be a party to that sort of shit.

Mick's got fewer personal connections to the issue, but he agrees.

Unfortunately, the daycare has nothing to tell them who lived there or who was using it. Their files were burnt, their walls were scrubbed, everything. The car is equally useless, since the obvious evidence of shoddy hotwiring makes it clear that it was stolen.

Asking Dawnie or Duckie is equally useless. It's not their fault, they're not even three; they happily tell them about Momma (mostly that they want her back and how she made things better), and Daddy (gone), and Paw-Paw (gone away as opposed to just gone), and Auntie C and Uncle C.

Auntie C had cold hands and Uncle C always has the best toys, but they also went “away”.

Not that unusual a story, honestly, but not very helpful.

Honestly, at this point, all they can guess at this point is that, given their light brown skin tone, at least one of their parents was black, possibly both. Dawnie is darker than Duckie, but her hair is straight and fine while his shows distinct signs of kinks and curls as it grows out.

Honestly, they're not even all too sure about that much. Neither of them were ever all that good at identifying ethnicities.

Whatever. The kids are the kids, and that's good enough.

They do eventually find out their middle names, via Duckie’s excellent memory of the fact that their Mommy used to be a first-and-middle name person when she was angry.

Well, okay, he doesn't actually explain that. He just waggles his finger at a misbehaving Dawnie and says in excellent adult mimicry "Dawn Eleonora, stop!"

Duckie's middle name (Henry) takes a bit longer to figure out, but they extract it with patience.

"I can't believe you finally cracked and got kids," Lisa gushes over the phone. "Tell 'em Auntie Lisa is coming to visit!"

"We're not their parents, we're just -" Len starts, but she's already hung up.

Hurricane Lisa shows up a few weeks later - transit from Gotham to Central isn't that easy any more - and that's the moment Mick really considers to be the start of their family.

Lisa's always been the best communicator in the Snart family. The kids love her.

She asks them what names they want to call Len and Mick, since they're going to be their new parents now. Len assures them that Uncle is fine for both of them, but the kids never really had a Daddy before (because their Daddy's gone) and they are delighted by the idea of having more.

"I refuse to be Dad or Daddy," Len says stiffly. "I won't take that away from their original Dad."

Lisa and Mick share a knowing glance, fully aware that it isn't the real reason and the real reason is the man Len called dad right up until the day he died even though he'd long since lost the right to it.

"I called my dad 'Pa' most of the time I knew him," Mick offers helplessly.

"What about what's the word," Lisa says. "From your mom's dad. Sabba."

"No, that means grandfather," Len corrects. "Dad is Abba."

"Then be Abba."

"I think I'd rather be Lenny," Len says, nose wrinkled.

It doesn't help him, of course. Duckie and Dawnie pick up on Abba for him like lightning - they still call him Lenny half the time, but he's their Abba, just as Mick is their Pa as often as he is Mick or Mickey.

They boast to the other kids at their new, underground daycare that they have a Momma, a Daddy, an Abba and a Pa, but of course Momma and Daddy weren’t around. The other kids – most of them with adopted parents of their own by – solemnly agree that this is by far superior to the system demonstrated on the films they watch. Those poor kids on the TV with only a Mom and a Dad and no one else; how sad.

Kids.

Mick hadn't expected he'd love the two of them as much as he does. Oh, sure, he'd expected to feed them - he does - and to worry about them - oh, he does - but he hadn't really thought about the way his shoulders would relax every time he hears their voices. The way his chest would glow and swell every time they run to him first. How every goddamn thing they did was the best way to do that thing, because they were wonderful and brilliant children.

His wonderful and brilliant children.

He hadn't expected how Len would melt for them, and stay melted. How Len was terrified of screwing them up and how he never, ever lost his temper with them. How effective and devastating a disappointed look could be, because Len refused to spank them.

(Mick eventually finds out that the kids had picked up on his and Len's tendency to worry about each other and that Len had exploited this ruthlessly, asking them to think about whether their actions would make their Mickey sad before they did them. He curses Len's name and quickly makes up for lost time by suggesting that they pay close attention to Len to see if he also needs love and affection. Len gets covered in snuggles on the regular. He doesn't complain.)

The kids also grow ridiculously fast.

Okay, totally within normal levels for kids their age - the doc swears it's true - but they're people. They're little people.

Mick can't remember when his siblings became people all those years ago. Nate was still a baby, he remembers that much, but the rest of it...

He's very careful to use the fire pit and lighters and other Len-regulated fire sources, and his kids know everything there is to know about fire safety.

Len teaches them how to spot danger and how to avoid it. He also teaches them how to pick locks.

They're the best four-year-old robbers ever, even if Len really had meant for it to be another safety measure. The idea of them being captured by aliens because they couldn't get through a locked door - unacceptable.

"Also, it's good finger coordination development," Len says, lying like a rug. It is, of course, but that’s blatantly not the reason he’s passing on his skills.

There’s still plenty they don’t know about the kids’ lives before Len and Mick found them: for example, Dawnie and Duckie are clearly twins, but they don’t know when their birthday is. As a result, they argue about it at length - sometime early in the year, they think, because of the vague memories of snow. They end up having January 23 for Dawnie and February 7 for Duckie, just because it's easier to give in than to explain that twins are born on the same day.

At any rate, it gives them more time to pick presents now that the kid are old enough to appreciate it.

Mick and Len are just debating the question of gifts - it's May and Mick had unwisely brought up the issue of half-birthdays - when the old Particle Accelerator, an abandoned and mostly destroyed STAR Labs, suddenly goes up in a painfully familiar mushroom cloud of orange light. It doesn't spread the way the first one did, but it does go up like a goddamn firecracker.

"Oh, shit," Len says.

Mick just runs to get a car.

They're the only ones going towards the labs rather than away; Mick sees people ducking into shelters in well-practiced motions.

The Rogues' war against the aliens was doing that much, at least: the aliens avoided Central more than they attacked it, nowadays. They were focused on subduing other parts of the world.

The same protection applied in Gotham, under Lisa and her girlfriend Selina.

The same in Bludhaven, where Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn - previously part of Lisa's Rogues - had set up their own Rogues.

The same in Starling, which had reverted to its old name out of habit, and where Oliver and Felicity had taken their sweet time about accepting the Rogues' offer to help but now considered themselves the leaders of the Starling Rogues instead of Team Arrow, a name they still used to refer to their long-lost teammates.

Mardon hadn't wanted to leave Central at first, but he couldn't resist Len's carefully structured offer to be the leader of the Rogues in the Windy City. Shawna, who'd been from Chicago initially, went with him to keep his ego in check.

Scudder had managed to get over himself enough to agree to work for Len again, his fear of the aliens managing to break through even his narcissism. After half a year learning how to fight aliens at Len's side, he'd been dispatched to L.A. to teach the self-absorbed assholes there how to really fight an alien movie. He liked Hollywood.

Rosa preferred San Francisco. Len was just happy that there was distance between the two of them - as much as they were still technically together, Rosa's obsession with Sam faded when he wasn't in her sight and she remembered things. Things like having been a first-rate computer engineer, once upon a time, and something of a genius. She did well in San Francisco and the nearby Palo Alto, between its tech industry and its loopier residents.

People were starting to figure out that where there were Rogues, there could be a city again.

Mick wonders, again, if he should inform Len that he'd become a general, but as always decides against it. Len thinks of the Rogues as his crew, albeit a crew that has scattered across the nation and each of whom is leading their own hand-crafted militia unit in the protection of their territory.

No need to trouble Len with politics. It's not like they had anyone strong enough to actually do more than hold back the aliens for a while.

At least, they didn't until they got to the center of the Accelerator, where they found a very confused-looking Barry Allen rubbing his eyes and shouting, "Guys? I'm back! Guys? Is anyone here?"

"Holy crap," Mick says.

Len is somewhat more fluent than that. He always did have a facility for Yiddish curses (Mick particularly likes the one that goes 'may you be as a lamp - so that you can be hung during the day and lit on fire every night!', all in about three or four harsh-voweled words.).

"What now, boss?" Mick asks.

"Now," Len says, smiling like he can't stop, "now we have hope."

"Snart?" Barry asks when he sees them approach. "Rory? What are you doing here? What happened to this place?" He gestures at the ruined room.

"You've been gone five years," Len says. "It's been an interesting time. Let me tell you all about it..."

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

"I can't believe it," Barry says, looking shell-shocked, his fingers clenched around a mug of hot chocolate. Len had broken out the good stuff for their guest, which is to say, the Swiss Miss with mini marshmallows. "Five years - and so much has changed -"

"The emotion you're looking for is 'I go away for five years and you assholes trash the place'," Len informs him.

Dawnie giggles. "You said a bad word."

"There are no bad words," Len tells her. "Only bad men."

"Not what Mrs. Levy says..."

"See, that's one thing," Barry says. "You guys have kids! Small adorable kids!"

"We're not small," Duckie says. "We're four."

"Paragons of age and maturity," Mick agrees solemnly.

Barry chuckles, but it still sounds strained and tense.

"Can you still time travel?" Mick asks, curious, thinking of the lost Waverider, still stuck who-knows-when.

"No. Well, a little. Not enough to help."

"What do you mean?"

"Speed force said I was abusing it and took it away," Barry explains. "Even though I tried not to mess up the timeline -"

"Let me get the sequence of this right," Len drawls. "You get told by everyone not to change time. You do it. Everything gets fucked up. You do it again. More fucked up. Speed force shows up personally, says don't do it. You do it anyway. Speedforce comes and gives you an ass-kicking, saying don't do it. And you do it again, but this time you're trying not to mess up the timeline. And you're surprised it yanked your cord?"

Barry makes a face. "Yeah. I've gotten the lecture."

"I'm not comfortable with how we're anthropomorphizing forces of nature," Mick grumbles.

"You think this is a problem, try being in the middle of a three-way argument between Death, Dream and Destiny about whether or not the way your life ended was narratively satisfying," Len grumbles back.

Barry looks a question at Mick, who shakes his head. He doesn't have any answers. He doesn't even want to have questions.

"So my friends..?" Barry asks instead.

"Like we said," Len says, easily distracted away from disturbing subjects. "Most of 'em are fine, just stuck on Earth-2. The only way to get 'em back is Cisco -"

"Who's stuck in the matrix?"

"Matrix-like stasis pod," Len says. "Good news is, you pop 'em open, people inside should be fine. Probably not even notice that time passed."

"And the bad news?"

"There's a shitload of pods, and we've got no idea which one your boy's in," Len says frankly. "Or your girl, neither."

"Why didn't Iris go to Earth-2 with the others?"

"No clue," Len tells him honestly. "Not like they really told us much. Cisco was hit first, yeah. West held up pretty well for a long time, but we were allies, not buddies. She was secretive. Ran a radio program. But a few years back, it cut off."

"She might be dead," Mick warns.

"She's not," Barry says firmly. Not the slightest trace of doubt.

"Speed force tell you that?" Mick asks skeptically.

Barry grins crookedly. "Actually, yes," he says. "It said I could save her if I took it slow."

"What does that even mean?" Mick demands.

"It means we're gonna save the world again," Len says, pretending to be put out about it. "One pod-break at a time."

"Do you know how to get into them?" Barry asks.

"Sure, but the risk's too high," Len says. "Unless, of course, I have a speedster on my side."

Barry swallows and sits up straighter, like he's making a decisions. "In that case, consider me one of your Rogues."

Judging by the delighted look on Len's face, his apocalypse has been made.

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

There's a giggle and a thump and then more giggling.

Len has become a veteran child-raiser in the last two years, if he does say so himself, which is why he puts down the blueprints and heads over to the living room where the giggling is coming from.

Barry is sprawled out on his back on the Twister board, grinning helplessly as the twins crow at him.

"I see you're hard at work," Len says dryly.

Barry beams at him. "They said you and Mick refused to play it with them," he says earnestly. "What was I supposed to do, not teach them?"

"Like you couldn't not teach them the Macarena and the Chicken Dance?"

"Hey, you made me an honorary uncle when I moved in," Barry points out with some justice. Len hadn't been sure how else to explain 'magnet for trouble so I need to keep an eye on him' to the kids after years of refusing to cohabitate with any other family. "Part of that involves teaching them stuff that will drive you nuts."

"Not while you live here, I think. The true terror is Lisa."

Barry nods so fast that he's blurring, undoubtedly remembering when Lisa had managed to dig up some Tickle Me Elmo dolls for the kids' fourth birthday. Len had nearly strangled her - it was a rare item nowadays, so she'd clearly put time and effort into finding them, but it was also designed to drive Len, Mick and now Barry absolutely insane.

"You are menaces, you know," Len informs the twins.

"Like Dennis!" Dawn says excitedly. "Dennis the menace."

"Pa and Abba are pretty good menaces, too," Duckie says loyally.

"I'm not a good menace?" Barry pretends to pout.

"No! You're a hero!" Duckie proclaims. He’s maintained that ever since he found a Flash action figure.

Dawnie gives Barry a hug. "That's almost as good," she assures him with her nearly-a-five-year-old-really solemnity.

Barry laughs and hugs back. "Now," he says, making a big show of checking his watch. "I think you promised me that if I showed you how to play Twister..."

The twins giggle and run away from whatever chore they promised. Barry doesn't give chase, just watches them fondly.

"You're good at this," Len tells him.

"I'm a little jealous," Barry admits. "I've always wanted kids."

"You and Iris...?"

"Oh, no," Barry says. "We were only just getting married. Do you know what Joe would do to me if she'd gotten pregnant? Shotgun wedding doesn't even begin to describe it."

Len frowns. "But if you were getting married already..?"

"Doesn't mean Joe wants to think about us having sex," Barry says dryly. "At least if we were married, he could imagine that we conceived by magic or something."

Len shakes his head. He doesn't understand, but then again, he hadn't ever really expected to have kids.

"You're good with them," he says again.

"They're good kids," Barry agrees. "I hope that if Iris and I ever do have kids, they'd turn out like that." He thinks about it for a second. "Maybe slightly less larcenous."

"That's all good parenting," Len says proudly. "Now c'mon, I want you to see the plans."

Barry nods and is standing by Len's side before the words fade away. "What's the next step, now that we've cleaned out Central City?"

"Figuring out a way to consolidate our gains - installing those shield-makers Felicity reverse-programmed from alien ship tech, for one thing. I want Central City to live like a community again, not just refugees."

Barry nods.

"Also," Len says, "I think it's time to go north."

"North?"

"The largest single pod housing facility in the Midwest is located in the Dakotas," Len says. "We break that, we're talking tens of thousands of people. Possibly hundreds."

"Crap," Barry says, blinking. Most of the pod facilities were measured in the dozens or hundreds. "That means transportation. Serious and immediate transportation. That many people all together will definitely catch the attention of the local patrol ship."

Len stays silent.

"Unless that's the goal," Barry says.

"Mick's in Starling getting a crash course in alien tech," Len tells him. "Between Felicity's deductions and his own knowledge of piloting from his time with the Time Masters, I think we can do it."

"Are you planning on stealing an alien ship?" Barry demands, half-horrified and half-impressed. Mostly impressed.

Len smirks. "I told you, Scarlet. I intend for Central City to be free. The shields will help. Having our own gun-ship? That'll help more."

Barry nods. "And the people -"

"If we can defend them in the ships, we can do a slower transport. Cars, trucks, buses, the works."

"It's going to be massive."

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Barry says. "We're opening pods, which means we could be finding Cisco and Iris. I'm totally in. I'm just saying, it's going to be massive. Who's gonna watch the kids?"

"Mrs. Levy's agreed. Her husband was podded, too."

Barry nods. "Slow and steady," he says. It's been his mantra when it comes to dealing with the frustration that there isn't a single bad guy he can punch to make things better. "Let's save the world."

"Let's steal an alien ship," Len corrects him. "Stop making me sound heroic."

"Oh, no," Barry says, voice dry as dust. "Heroic? You? Never."

"Shut up."

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

"I don't want to sit this one out," Barry says stubbornly, but he's already given in, Mick can tell. More to the point, Mick can tell that Len can tell.

It's in the way Barry’s already started to make mac-and-cheese for the kids.

(They'd all been delighted to discover that certain farm-to-pre-made-food had been so automated that re-starting them was a cinch even after the apocalypse, but none more than the kids.)

"Uncle Barry!" Duckie shouts from the next room over. "We wanna piggy-back ride!"

"When the food is cooking," Barry automatically calls back, then scowls as he reveals his intention to be there in a few minutes. "Len, if you're sure -"

"You know we can do it without you," Len says reasonably. "And you know they're expecting you."

Barry sighs and nods. The aliens had immediately pegged Barry as the leader of the resistance once he had made its reappearance, presumably based on their snooping through old files, and they'd taken measures against him that Len was avidly noting down for future speedster problems (Barry seemed to attract future speedsters like flies, before - undoubtedly he would again; besides, what if he got around to having kids?)

The calculators behind the alien army, back on their homeworld, had made assumptions about Barry and Barry's inability to sit a mission he led out.

The calculators still had no conception of how to deal with Len. It helps to have all of your records eliminated, hard and soft copy both, so that the aliens look at you and see some asshole who got rung up on a single manslaughter count (murder in the heat of passion had been the final charge, and wasn't that hilarious?) who was assumed dead less than six months later.

They don't see Len.

And that's the way Len likes it, thank you very much.

Even without that well-timed deletion, though, Mick could've told them that none of them would ever have been enough to predict Len.

Mick has enough trouble doing it, even after all these years. That's why he only gets it then, and waits until they're in the car to actually bring it up.

The car, not the modified alien ship that even now patrols the skies of Central City.

"You think this is the one."

Len glances at him and smirks. "You always did know me best."

Mick nods. Normally, he'd leave it at that, willing to trust in Len, but maybe having two kids has made him a bit more open to actually talking about stuff out loud. "The reason this pod storage expects the Flash to hit it is 'cause that's where they've hidden his girlfriend."

"It was always too well guarded," Len murmurs. "I knew they had to have some valuable people there. It's not until a gap in their security opened up - a very specific gap, best exploited by a speedster - that I realized it was their idea of a trap. And to bait a trap..."

"Why not just fake us out?"

"Aliens," Len says. "Calculators for brain. They understand subtlety in attacking, sometimes, but not subterfuge. This trap is a step forward for them."

Mick nods. "Did you tell him?"

Len shakes his head. "I might be wrong," he offers.

"You don't think you are," Mick corrects. "You think Barry won't be able to resist the obvious trap."

Len shrugs, conceding it. Barry's been working with them for eight months, by now - long enough to celebrate the kids' fifth birthday with them as a much-beloved uncle - and Len usually trusts Barry to listen to the plan.

But, Mick supposes, this is Iris West. She always did make Barry irrational.

"You think maybe Cisco as well?"

Len is silent for a moment.

Mick glances at him sidelong.

"I don't have any reason to think so," he says slowly. "And yet - I hope he is. There haven't been any transfers out of this facility. But he'll be as hidden as Iris is prominent."

Mick nods. "Then we'll look twice as hard," he says, knowing they'll be working on a very limited time frame.

Len smirks. "Oh, you bet we will."

Mick thinks about the extra surprises he packed into his gear this time, the ones not even Len knows about, and wonders if today is the day he'll get to play with them.

Turns out it is.

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

"Oh, God, Iris!"

"Barry?" Iris gasps, her knees buckling, but Barry is there to catch her.

There's gasping and hugging and kissing.

Mick edges back.

Len studies the wall pointedly.

"Forgot how awkward these reunions are," Mick mutters to Len. They hate public displays of emotion.

"Don't remind me," Len says through gritted teeth. "Lisa's taking care of Cisco's, uh, reunion."

Mick snorts. "When's Ms. Levy dropping off the kids?"

"Soon enough. Figured Barry ought to be alone for this."

"Figured the kids didn't need to be getting the wrong idea about being all touchy feely, you mean."

"Or getting an advanced education in human reproduction. Besides, I was thinking we could have Cisco knock open the door to Earth-2, stat, before the aliens figure out how to stop us."

"Good plan."

"Told Lisa," Len says. "I figure they'll be opening the door pretty soon now."

There's a gasp from where Barry and Iris are intertwined.

Len and Mick look over.

Barry's sitting down, looking dazed, like Iris got in a good punch. More likely she said something, Mick supposes. Maybe she got a new boyfriend in the two and a half years he was gone before she also got disappeared?

It's been nearly four years since then, too. The staggered aging of the pod-freed humans and their free counterparts was one of the weirdest elements of the whole apocalypse.

"I'm so sorry," Barry says to Iris, who has sunk down next to him and is clutching his hand. No new boyfriend, then. "God, Iris - if I'd known - if I'd had any idea -"

"I didn't either," she tells him. "I had no clue until a month or two after you'd gone - and then - oh, Bear. I thought I'd lost you forever. I thought it was all I'd ever have of you."

"Of course," Barry says, wrapping his free hand around hers. "I'm so sorry I left you at all - if I'd been here -"

"If you'd been here, the aliens would've adjusted their plans to attack you first," Len says dryly.

They blink at him, clearly having forgotten anyone else was in the room.

Mick's just happy they decided to go with 'shocking revelations' instead of 'joyous reunion sex'.

"Cisco's free, too," Len tells the two of them. "We found him in a hidden chamber."

"Cisco," Iris breathes. "Oh, god, Cisco! Barry - that means he can go to Earth-2 -"

"He'll be able to get Joe and Wally and the others -"

One of Cisco's holes in reality open up in the middle of the room.

Mick hasn't seen them live before, but it's a welcome sight regardless, especially when Cisco and a second speedster stumble out first, quickly followed by Detective West and a handful of others: Killer Frost, a guy that looks like Harrison Wells, a girl dressed similarly enough to the speedsters for Mick to hope that they've now got three speedsters for the aliens to contend with.

He glances at Len, who's smirking his ass off in a way that signifies real pleasure and anticipation.

"You think..?"

"The aliens went for "em first deliberately," Len replies in an undertone, understanding Mick's unvoiced question. "Their calculators-for-brains know that the odds are against them if we've got the full set of speedsters."

Mick nods, pleased. It's well past time for the world to rid itself of the alien scourge so that they can go back to having regular communities and not having to depend on a group of radical net-neutrality activists to man the various ISPs in the area so that everyone else could cooperate using the Internet.

Joe goes straight for Iris and Barry, shouting their names.

Mick sighs.

More reunions. Great.

If only the house were big enough for them to leave...

There are tears. So many tears.

Barry keeps saying, "If I'd only known -" and getting shushed.

Eventually Len runs out of patience (thank god) and says, "As touching as this is, we're starting to get near capacity. Maybe we ought to stop with the hugging and get with the planning?"

"We're nowhere near capacity yet," Barry says. "We have at least room for -" A quick count. "- uh, okay, only ten more. But that’s still something!"

"Capacity?" Joe asks.

"The aliens attack places where humans cluster in too-large numbers," Barry explains. “Well, they try, anyway. It’s a reasonable precaution not to cluster too large.”

"So that's why Snart and his buddy are here," Joe says, nodding. "You're working together against the aliens."

Mick doesn't like how that implies that Barry would otherwise pick literally any group of people other than them if they weren't useful, but he supposes if you've not been around for the last few years, you couldn't be expected to understand. Communal living is the way people survive, now.

"Iris," Joe continues. "What about..?"

"I was captured by a pod," she says, her voice breaking. “I looked through all the pods when I was rescued – they weren’t there –”

Joe’s face is ashen, grieved.

“What were you looking for?” Mick asks.

“My babies,” she whispers, tears filling her eyes.

“You let Barry reproduce?” Len asks, sounding appalled.

Everyone glares at him.

“They might not be dead,” Mick offers into the silence. “Aliens usually ignore kids if they’re on their own – not a large enough heat signature – and there’ve been really good networks for recycling lost kids into the community.”

“Recycling’s not the word,” Barry says, correction made more out of habitual bickering than actual attempt to correct Mick. “But you think – there might be a chance?”

“It’s always possible,” Len says. “Even if we do track 'em down, though, will you recognize even 'em? It’s been three years, and babies grow fast.”

“I’m their mother.”

“Three years,” Len says implacably. “Kids. Trust me, I’ve got two of my own.”

“Who let you reproduce?” Joe asks with a bit of a sneer.

“They’re adopted,” Barry says quickly while Wally elbows Joe, likely more because of the way Len’s hand moved to sit on his gun. “And very happy. Good kids. Ms. Levy have them?”

“She’ll be dropping ‘em off soon.” Len tilts his head to the side a second before Mick hears the sound of the door opening. “Make that, dropping ‘em off now.”

“Abba!” Dawnie shouts. “Pa! We drew pictures today!”

Mick mentally canvasses how much fridge space they have left. They may need to start overlapping…

Dawnie and Duckie skitter into the room, big grins on their faces, sticky hands clenched around artwork made in crayon, and Mick watches in amusement as the amount of tension in the room relaxes as everyone smiles helplessly at the adorable kids.

Then it all goes to shit, because Dawnie’s smile fades into something nervous and wary and wanting and she stares at Iris and squeaks, “…Momma?”

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

It started, of course, with a lot of yelling in surprise and "holy crap!" and re-introductions and hugging.

Then, of course, came the recriminations.

"Why is my grandson think he's named after a duck?" Joe demands. He's a bit sore because the kids only had the vaguest recollections of their Paw-Paw.

"His name was Donald," Mick says defensively. The nickname had been his. "How were we supposed to know?"

"He was already nicknamed Don," Joe snaps. "Just like my dad."

"I'm amazed they didn't kill them," Wally mutters to girl speedster.

"You saying I hurt kids?" Len snarls at him. "Or just that I'm incompetent?"

"I didn't mean -"

"I bet."

"I'm just saying," Wally says, starting to get annoyed. "You're supervillains -"

"And you were gone, hero."

"That's not Wally's fault," Cisco exclaims.

"Oh, yeah, he's just saying – just like I'm just saying -"

"Why is everyone fighting?" Duckie asks in a small voice.

Mick puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles as loud as he can. Given that he's been using his whistles to silence entire stadiums, it's pretty effective in such a small space.

Everyone shuts up.

"It doesn't matter," Mick says. "We can fight about the details once the kids are asleep."

The Earth-2 people look at him like he kicked a puppy by admitting that they were going to keep fighting. Dawnie and Duckie (and, amusingly, Barry) all relax because this is something familiar. Len and Mick always schedule their fights for after the kids are asleep, explaining to the kids that it helped them get out their annoyance in a reasonable fashion; as a result, the kids have gotten used to thinking of fights that can be rescheduled as no big deal. No need to worry until you wake up in the morning - if the fight is still ongoing at that point, then you know it's serious.

"Let's go have dinner instead," Barry says. "We can talk over that."

"I can make Grandma West's noodles," Joe agrees.

"Not in my kitchen, you ain't," Mick says, because he's got a reputation as a kitchen tyrant to uphold. Neither Barry nor Len can cook, and if he gives an inch now, they'll be back to eating uncooked pasta. In the interests of avoiding another fight, though... "Maybe another time."

They all go to the kitchen. Mick ends up serving out a few cooked chickens he'd been freezing with plans to use over the next few weeks in different preparations, but chicken enchiladas are good for a crowd.

Most of the conversation is fixed on safe subjects, like goings-on on Earth-2 (alien free and a little boring, but for the gorillas) or the kids' achievements.

"They're even doing above their grade level in math," Barry boasts. He's selling the kids hard, but in fairness to Barry, he always does that. It doesn't feel personal.

"That part definitely came from Iris," Joe jokes. "I remember your math scores, Bear."

Mick personally thinks it came from the hours of tutoring Len put in with the kids, but - he reminds himself - they're trying not to fight.

"Kids, dishes or no dessert," he says.

The kids leap to their feet and start collecting plates. There's no dishwasher - or spare electricity to run one - so they'll be in the kitchen extra-long washing plates this time.

"Aww, let 'em have a day off," Wally says, winking at them. "Not every day they get their whole family back."

"If they don't wash the plates, they'll become unusable," Len says, pointedly ignoring Wally’s phrasing. "Humid climate like this, we'll get mold right quick. Rules are rules for a reason."

He waves the kids off.

"Strict," Joe comments. It doesn't sound like a compliment, though it doesn't necessarily sound like an insult, either. He chuckles, his mind clearly shifting directions. "Bet things'll be different when they go back home. Be careful not to give them culture shock, Iris."

"Home?" Len echoes. It's good he does, because Mick was going to speak and the wording wasn't going to be intelligible. "Not sure if your skills have deteriorated in the last few years, Detective, but they're home now."

"I just meant when they go home with Barry and Iris," Joe says.

He doesn't even mean anything by it, that's the most infuriating part of it; he just says it like it's a fact.

Mick sees red anyway.

"Now listen here, you little -" he starts, but Len's hand snaps out and catches Mick's wrist in an iron grip, signaling silence.

"Mick," Len says calmly. "Don't overreact."

"Overreact?”

"Yes. What's happened here is clear." He smirks. "Detective West has gone senile."

"I what?" Joe exclaims. “I have not –”

"You've lost your fucking mind," Mick says. "If you think anyone is taking the kids away from us."

"I just meant -"

"You'd think as an adopted father himself, he'd have more sympathy," Len says. "Unfortunately not."

"Excuse me if I don't want a pair of supervillains anywhere near my grandkids -," Joe says.

"They're our kids, asshole," Mick says.

"And we're grateful you took care of them for a bit while we were gone, but now Barry's here and Iris' here and I'm here, even Wally's here, and we're obviously more fit to raise them, that isn't even in question -"

"Dad, maybe we should wait -" Iris starts to say soothingly.

"No, Iris, I don't think this can wait. I don't see why there's even any debate about this. They're kids. They need a good, loving, stable and safe home environment, and we'll be able to provide that."

"And we won't?" Len says dangerously.

Joe snorts. "No offense meant, Snart, but you're hardly a good role model, and I can't imagine you know anything about raising kids to be anything other than a pack of criminals. Which isn't happening, in case I wasn't clear about that up front."

"Ain’t really your decision."

"No, it's Barry and Iris', as their parents," Joe says like he's speaking to an idiot. Barry and Iris look uncomfortable. "And they will obviously want to take Don and Dawn -"

"We're not going anywhere!" Dawnie yells from the doorway.

Mick immediately twists in his seat to look at them. Their faces are red and they're clearly upset, clutching at each other for comfort.

"We don't want to go away," Duckie adds, his lower lip trembling so hard he's nearly stuttering. "We wanna stay with Pa and Abba -"

"Don, my little guy," Joe says, standing and moving towards them, "you don't understand - you'll be going back to your Daddy and your Momma and your Paw-Paw -"

"We wanna stay with Pa and Abba," Dawnie says, starting to cry, Duckie right beside her. "We wanna stay! We don't wanna go with you! We hate you!"

Joe takes another step forward, clearly intent on convincing them. Mick gets up in his chair, equally intent on punching him in the face - Len is getting up, hand on his gun, face murderous -

"We're not going anywhere!" Dawnie says, and she grabs Duckie's hand and they turn -

There's a crackle of lightning and they're gone.

Everyone blinks.

"Barry!" Joe exclaims. "Bring them back this instant!"

"Uh," Barry says. "I didn't do that."

"Another speedster?" Cisco exclaims.

"I think," Iris says very carefully, "another two, actually."

"Whatever," Len says, clearly done with all of this; the revelation about the kids isn’t even making a dent in his rage. Mick sympathizes. "I don't care. Now stay down here while Mick and I go fix the damage you just did."

The kids are curled up in bed, just like they were taught to go when they’re angry.

Good.

Len and Mick spend three hours getting the now-vibrating-fast-enough-to-hurt children to calm down, explaining that they're not going to be taken away. Eventually, with the help of multiple assurances, a few more comfort animals than they're usually allowed, and a bedtime story or four, they fall asleep.

Then Len comes downstairs, Mick right beside him, and says "Barry, get Detective West the hell out of my house. Take him to Ms. Levy's place and tell them to send a signal to the next train transport - I want him out of Central City by the end of the week."

"You can't do that!" Joe shouts, whatever efforts to calm him swiftly evaporating. “Listen here, you little –”

"Joe," Barry interrupts. "You don’t understand. He can."

"What?"

"He's the head of the Rogues," Barry says. "They protect the city. If he says you're out, then you're out, and you're lucky to be out alive."

"You'd never let that happen."

"No, but - damnit, Joe, he's my boss now! And a good friend! His kids call me uncle!"

"Your kids, Bear, not his kids -"

"His kids! Their kids! Joe, they've raised them for three years; that's more than Iris and certainly more than me. They're the only parents Duckie and Dawnie remember. We're not taking them away."

"Iris -"

"I agree with Barry, Dad," Iris says. She shakes her head a little. "Dad, if Mom had shown up when I was ten or twelve and decided she was taking me away, I'd have thrown a fit about leaving you, and rightfully so. If we have a big fight about this, they're going to pick them, not us, and then next thing you know I'm not going to get to see them anymore and that's just not acceptable. I lost three years of their lives. I'm not missing another day."

Joe is silent, for once. He doesn't agree, Mick can tell that much from the way he's scowling, but he's silent. Good enough.

"West can stay," Mick says, and Len glances at him. "Kids ought to have a chance to know him. One chance. If he acts up in any way, I'll burn him."

He means it, too.

"Won't that be more traumatic?" Wally asks, crossing his arms.

"I'll say he was an alien spy masquerading as their grandpa," Mick shoots back. "They'll be cool with it."

Joe bristles, but Iris glares him silent.

"Let's at least try to make this work," Barry says.

He always was an optimist.

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

To say that this wasn't the life Iris was expecting is something of an understatement.

She'd planned a life with Barry by her side having adventures as a journalist, maybe a kid or two down the line to be taken care of at home. Maybe by her, maybe by Barry, maybe by Joe if he'd retired - maybe even with a nice babysitter helping them out.

Then Barry went away into the Speed Force - for good, she'd thought - and she was pregnant and then she had a new life in front of her: single motherhood, with help from Dad and Wally and her friends, of the two most amazing (and infuriating) babies of all time.

And then the aliens came for them, and her support system disappeared, and she'd thought of herself as a grim Sarah Conner, the prototypical mother figure, determined to survive and to keep her children alive until they could push the aliens back.

Then - nothing.

The sleep of the pod was like sleeping in bed, deep and dreamless as far as she recalls. Like a coma, maybe. Like Barry's descriptions of his own coma, at least.

And now -

Now, Iris has a life with Barry by her side having adventures as the captain of her own alien warship, and she still hopes to have a kid or two down the line to take care of at home when the aliens are gone. But she's also a part-time Momma to the two best kid-speedsters in the world - Cisco calls them the Tornado Twins - and she co-parents them with Barry and his supervillains.

One of whom is the widely acknowledged commander-in-chief of the United States, leader of the real fight against the aliens and to whose offshoot Rogue branches the armed forces have swarmed to pledge their allegiance - not that he knows it, since Mick still refuses to tell Len that the people he's commanding aren't just surprisingly competent criminals - and the other one is the guy who makes sure said commander remains functional. Iris wouldn't have believed that Len thinks ketchup is a legitimate vegetable if she hadn't walked into that argument herself, but she did, so she guesses that if Len has inadvertently become leader of the free world, that makes Mick his First Arsonist or something, and they're all very lucky to have him, too.

They all live together, with Barry and Iris having one master bedroom and Len and Mick sharing the other, and the kids have the entire downstairs to run around in. The downstairs is a disaster zone as a result, of course.

It's okay; Iris spends quite a bit of her time captaining the newly dubbed (by utterly unanimous agreement) Enterprise and supporting Barry from the air. It's awesome.

Wally's slipped happily into the role of Kid Flash and cool uncle, and even Joe has come around.

It's not the life she imagined, but it's a good life. She likes this life.

She leans back in her captain's chair. "Show them in," she orders, and watches as a handful of strange-looking aliens and one human, all dressed in shiny green suits, walk in. Iris smiles. "Welcome to the Enterprise, representatives of - how did you call it - the Green Lantern Corps. Let's talk about what exactly it is you think you can do for Earth - and whether we're going to agree to any of it."

#dccoldwave #westallen #leonard snart #mick rory #barry allen #iris west #my fic

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junker-town · 5 years ago

Text

6 takeaways from Yankees-Dodgers, which might have been the World Series preview

Photo by John McCoy/Getty Images

Two of the best teams in baseball produced an exciting weekend at Dodger Stadium, and teased what could be an even more thrilling clash in October.

The battle between the teams with the two best records in baseball lived up to the hype throughout an electric weekend in Los Angeles. We’ll have to wait and see how the Yankees and Dodgers play in October to know if this was an actual World Series preview, but the series still showcased a lot of fun moments between two clearly excellent teams.

Spiderman meme offenses

Both offenses have been hell on opposing pitchers all season. The Yankees and Dodgers lead their respective leagues in scoring. This series was a little like looking into the mirror for both teams.

“They got a lot of good people in that lineup, just like we do,” said Justin Turner, who homered on Saturday for Los Angeles.

That home run accounted for 40 percent of the Dodgers’ offense in the series, in which they were outscored by 16-5.

Both teams grind opposing pitching staffs to the nub with patience, then pounce on the opportunities they get in the strike zone. This weekend was no different. The Yankees tagged Hyun-jin Ryu and Clayton Kershaw with three home runs each, season highs for both.

“It’s really fun to watch a team approach, with really good players. I really like guys from the offensive side of things hunting pitches and having a plan. If you don’t execute, you can get hurt,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s why teams like them, teams like us, get to pens, get starters’ pitch counts up consistently.”

About those home runs

It’s the year of the home run in baseball, and this series was a monument to the feat. The Yankees mashed five home runs in Friday’s series-opening salvo, and home runs accounted for the only scoring in Saturday’s low-scoring thriller.

We went nearly two full games without a run scoring without the benefit of a home run, from the eighth inning Friday to the eighth inning Sunday.

The Yankees are second in the majors with 241 home runs, and the Dodgers are third at 227. Both are on pace to pass the major league record for home runs in a season (267) set by the Yankees in 2018.

August has been particularly powerful for the Yankees, whose 61 home runs are a major league record for a single month ... with five games still remaining.

Aaron Judge, who started his August in a 10-for-55 slump, homered in all three games over the weekend and is hitting .364 (12-for-33) with seven extra-base hits in his last eight games.

Yankees got the pitching they needed

Entering the weekend, the Yankees had a putrid 6.44 ERA from their starting rotation since the All-Star break, 29th out of 30 MLB teams. But New York’s starters got the job done against the Dodgers, allowing four total runs in 16⅔ innings over the weekend. That included Domingo German winning his 17th game with six strong innings Sunday night, and James Paxton pitching into the seventh with 11 strikeouts in the opener.

“I feel like [Paxton] has been on the verge of having this outing for a while,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He really set the tone for us in a big way.”

No, Ryu didn’t lose the Cy Young on Friday

Hyun-jin Ryu had his worst start of the season in the series opener, allowing seven runs and three home runs while failing to finish the fifth inning. Those earned runs and home runs matched Ryu’s totals for his first 11 starts at Dodger Stadium in 2019, covering 77⅔ innings.

That performance ballooned Ryu’s ERA all the way to 2.00, still the best in baseball.

The very idea that Ryu lost the National League Cy Young Award with his Friday clunker is preposterous, first because it presumes that the award was already his to begin with. Yes, he was the favorite with a minuscule 1.45 ERA as late as Aug. 11, but there are a number of good candidates besides Ryu. Max Scherzer (2.41 ERA) and Jacob deGrom (2.56 ERA) are tied for first in the NL in fWAR (5.6), and are first and second in FIP. DeGrom leads in bWAR (5.5) narrowly over Scherzer (5.4), with Ryu trailing at 4.6. Not that the Cy Young should simply be determined by sorting a WAR leaderboard, but there are other non-Ryu candidates.

Plus there is still a month of the season remaining, and though recency bias likes to trick us, Ryu allowing five total home runs in back-to-back losses to the playoff-bound Braves and Yankees doesn’t invalidate a season’s worth of excellent pitching.

Facing a hero

Tony Gonsolin started for the Dodgers on Saturday, just his fifth major league game, opposite retiring Yankees star CC Sabathia, who was making his 557th career start. Gonsolin played shortstop, just like his idol Derek Jeter, growing up in Vacaville in northern California, just a short drive from Vallejo, where Sabathia grew up 14 years earlier.

“I was a Yankees fan growing up, so it’s pretty great to throw against all those guys,” Gonsolin said. “It feels even better going up against CC, from the hometown, 15 minutes down the road. I met him when I was in high school. He probably doesn’t remember me, but I do.”

Gonsolin got the better of Sabathia on Saturday, allowing one run in his five innings while Sabathia allowed two runs in his four innings of work. Sabathia also smoked a ball to right field, a 97-mph liner caught by Cody Bellinger in what will likely be the final regular season at-bat of Sabathia’s career.

If we do see Sabathia swing the lumber one more time, it will likely mean the Yankees made the World Series.

What in the hell were they wearing?

The Yankees and Dodgers have two of the most iconic uniforms in the sport, but they were replaced this weekend by what looked like a battle between the all-black pajamas and the ice cream men in all-white.

“With Dodgers-Yankees this isn’t the best weekend, but to have them in their uniform and ours in ours, I think that would be cool,” Boone said.

At least some of the shoes were cool, like these Doug and Hey Arnold kicks worn by Cameron Maybin:

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

The Yankees won two of three games, and while it doesn’t guarantee anything for the postseason, it sure would be nice to see a seven-game series between the Dodgers and Yankees (with apologies to the Astros, who are in lock step with New York and LA with a 100-plus-win pace).

“There’s a lot of talent all over the field,” Roberts said. “Two great, iconic franchises. You could feel the energy from both dugouts as well as the stadium.”

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theonyxpath · 8 years ago

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The Primordial Feast

This week we dine on Trinkets, a story by Lauren M. Roy from The Primordial Feast, a fiction anthology for Beast: The Primordial.

“This place is a shithole.”

“A townie shithole.”

Dav and Galen aren’t wrong. The place in question is a townie bar, run by three generations of Stowes, frequented by three generations of Colebridge residents. Usually, we’d drink over at Jana’s place, or bring our booze to the park, but she’d wanted to come out tonight and this is where the cheap drinks are. That, and Jana’s hungry. She’s kicked back in her chair, eyeing the regulars at the bar the way some people eye a dessert tray. When she shifts, I feel her shoulder brush mine, even though we’re a foot apart.

Jason sits hunched over his beer, trying to make himself small as possible next to Jana’s bulk. He didn’t want to come out tonight, though I know he has to be hungry. Every time Jana’s laughter booms out across the bar, he ?inches. Her laugh draws attention, and even though Jason and I are technically townies, too, he doesn’t want to be spotted. His family and mine have lived here a good three-quarters of a century, but small town bullshit means some last names are more important than others.

High school was more than ten years gone, but that’s easy to forget in a town no one ever leaves.

It doesn’t take long for the elbowing and nudging to start. It gets more exaggerated with every round, until one of the former running backs comes over and leans down next to me. “Miranda. I thought you’d dropped off the planet.” He speaks to me but the gaze and the smirk are directed at Jason.

I want to send him packing, say something that’ll make him wet his pants and run back to his frat bro friends, but this isn’t the place for it. To a point, it’d be shitting where we eat and Jana frowns on that. Instead I clap a hand on his shoulder, turn him so he has to look me in the eye. “I haven’t yet. Shane, right?”

“Yeah.”

“My friends and I are having a conversation, but maybe I can catch you later?” The odds of him taking the hint and walking away are lousy, but it’s worth a try.

He doesn’t take it, shifts his gaze past me. “Hey, Jason,” he says, that syrupy,drawn-out, fake friendliness made worse by his drunken slur. “Hey, buddy. How are you? How’ve you been?”

Shane was huge in high school. He graduated and went straight to work for his dad’s landscaping company, so even though he got a little thicker around the middle in the intervening years, he’s still muscle under the pudge. Jason looks like a reed next to him.

But that’s why we’ve got Jana. My hand’s still on Shane’s right shoulder when hers comes clamping down on his left with a meaty smack. He lets out an urk at the force of it, and turns to peer at her. His muscles tense beneath my fingers as he gets ready for a brawl, then loosen when he realizes the dude who just dared lay a hand on him isn’t a dude at all, and he dismisses her as a threat.

That’s a mistake.

“What my friend is too polite to say,” Jana rumbles, “is fuck. Off.”

His mouth ?aps a second while his brain catches up. Jana leans forward a little, looming even more, and it’s suddenly very crowded at our table. Shane trips his way back to his feet and stumbles over to his bros. By the time he gets to them, he’s all eye-rolling and shrugs and pretending he didn’t nearly scream like a little girl. But I saw the way he waddled, like it took all his control not to let his bowels loose right then and there.

Dav snickers. He’s never been Jason’s biggest fan, but if nothing else, Jason makes good bait. And in the end, he’s family. None of us would let anything happen to him.

Jana swigs down her beer and orders another. “So, that’s dinner sorted,” she says.

She doesn’t mean it, not literally, but Jason looks like he’s about to throw up anyway.

• • •

I like it better when I can plan ahead, but it’s been a lean few weeks. The last few nights, my own Lair’s been trembling as Jana’s Horror stomps around hers. Her footsteps reverberate through the Burrows, setting the leaves of my trees shaking, sending ripples across the water of Jason’s pond. I imagine even the shadows in Dav and Galen’s shared Chambers shiver. It’s a small damned town, and there’s nothing bigger in it than Jana. For a while, that was what kept her fed. Even a town like ours has its bad neighborhoods, and she lorded over the down-and-out, told the gangs what to do, how to commit their crimes in a way that kept people afraid.

Until, that is, the new police chief got sworn in. Jana’s been laying low for a month, playing it careful while she figures out what to do about Chief Bessette’s pledge to straighten out the criminal element or send them packing. It was fine at first; she went with Dav and Galen when they raised hell in the posh section of town. Break-ins that never tripped alarms, smashed windows that had the selectmen investing in baseball bats and Maglites — not that they’d have done any good. It got the focus off Jana, but not her people, and the three of them backed off before someone got too brave and decided to play hero. But she’s still not sure whether the Chief can be bribed or manipulated or just plain needs to be run out of town himself, and it’s made her growly. Both her attitude and her stomach.

So now it’s my turn to feed us, and Shane’s the best candidate. I time my bathroom break to one of his; seems our little chat made him have to go, and once you break the seal, well. You could’ve set a watch by his bladder after that first trip to the can. Now he’s drunk enough, and arrogant enough, and questioning the size of his balls just enough that when I plant a hand on his chest, he’s ready to try again.

I don’t let him do much more than leer. My fingers play with the pendant around his neck, one of those thin, twisting cornicellos. Back in high school, he called it his Italian horny charm, and pointed it at whatever girl he was scoping out that lunch period. It’s supposed to ward off evil, but if I count, nothing’s happening. “I need some air,” I say. “How about you?”

He doesn’t even wave goodbye to his bros.

The park’s only a five-minute walk from the bar, across one busy street and down a much quieter one. We go in the back way, down the trail that leads to the row of log cabins the day camp meets in on rainy days. The park’s empty this time of year, just past Halloween. Once school starts back up, the novelty of trespassing after hours wears off quick. By the time fall nights get their bitter, first taste of winter chill, the kids have discovered much warmer places to loiter.

He’s sobered up a little as we walked, enough for a touch of common sense to creep in, for his lizard-brain to wake up from its beer-drenched nap and remind him that walking off into the woods late at night is a bad idea.

Which, hey, good for him. Except we’ve already stepped into the inky shadows that mark the edge of Dav’s Lair, and there’s no way Shane knows how to get out again. I lead him in farther, let branches brush at his face and roots make him stumble.

Part of me almost feels bad for him. Shane was loud and obnoxious back in school, sure, and if he ever gave me the time of day, I don’t remember it, but ignoring someone isn’t a crime. Then I think about the way he zeroed in on Jason, the cruel glee that crept into his voice as he said hey, buddy, and whatever fucks I was starting to give about Shane evaporate.

He’s getting nervous now. His breath comes in ragged gasps. In what little light Dav and Galen are letting through, I can see how wide his eyes are, how they roll towards every snapped twig and half-heard rustle. When I reach for his hand, his skin is clammy. I don’t hold it for long.

I know the twists of this maze, but Shane doesn’t, and losing him is only a matter of ducking behind a gnarled and twisted old oak and letting him stumble past, calling my name. I don’t answer. Why would I?

The hunt is on.

It’s for Jana more than any of us, and even though we’re chasing Shane through Dav and Galen’s nightmare woods, conjuring roots to send him sprawling, whispering in his ear, tracing icy fingers down his spine, we’re driving him inexorably towards her. She’s a dark shape through the trees, and when her Horror plucks him from the ground, lifts him up and up and up so he can look her in her red, red eyes, I can’t help but be in awe.

Shane shrieks. Dav and Galen echo it, mocking him with his own fear. Moonlight breaks through the clouds, but it brings him no comfort. Part of me is up there in the sky, my shadow skimming over the lake, dark wings beating in his ear, a talon grazing across his cheek. Above us all, Jana laughs.

He blacks out before she can lift him to her mouth, but that’s fine. Like I said, she wasn’t really going to eat him.

We leave him on the beach in the real world, roll him out of the Lair and close the path. Tomorrow he’ll wake up cold and hungover and more than a little ashamed.

I take the charm from around his neck, and realize Jason is nowhere nearby. I haven’t seen him since I left the bar.

Found out what happens to Shane, and what happened to Jason, in The Primordial Feast, now available from DriveThruFiction in ebook and print.

#Onyx Path Publishing #White Wolf Publishing #Beast: The Primordial #Beast The Primordial #Chronicles of Darkness

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itsswansecrets · 8 years ago

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7:15 (OuaT, Emma/Regina

Title: 7:15 Fandom: Once Upon A Time Pairing: Emma/Regina Rating: G Word Count: 2936

Regina watched the Sheriff come in bang on 7:15am. Just like every morning. Her tan uniform shirt was pristine, as were her black pants and black boots. She sat in her usual corner booth and opened her newspaper.

“Every day.”

Regina turned to Ruby who was arranging the display of muffins, cookies and other treats on the front counter. “I know,” Regina said, talking in a hushed tone even though the sheriff was well out of earshot. “I don’t know how she manages to arrive at the exact same time every morning.”

“I wasn’t talking about her,” Ruby’s ruby-red lips turned up in a sickly sweet smile. “I was talking about you.”

“Me?”

"Yes you! Every day, every time the Sheriff comes in you make the exact same heart-eyes. I keep expecting to see cartoon hearts floating around your head."

Regina waved away Ruby’s foolishness and started making the Sheriff’s coffee. The Sheriff had the same thing every morning: coffee and a bear claw. Every morning Regina took it to her. Regina owned and managed The Magic Bean, and she insisted that while every other customer had to order at the counter providing table service was the least she could do for her best customer. The Sheriff always left a generous tip when she left her payment at the table. The Magic Bean wasn't the biggest coffee shop in town (Jefferson's Tea Rooms had that honor) but Regina liked to think it was the best. She took regulars like the Sheriff as proof.

Regina took the coffee and pastry to the Sheriff as always. They said a pleasant good morning to each other. When Regina got back to the counter Ruby was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

They served a wave of six customers that came in and Ruby was still grinning every time she looked at Regina.

“What is with you today?” Regina asked when the last of the customers in the wave had headed for a table.

“It’s not just the way you look at her,” Ruby said. “Once you’ve taken her coffee over you come back with a spring in your step.”

“Oh hush,” Regina rolled her eyes. “Now you’re being totally ridiculous.”

“There’s nothing ridiculous about it,” Ruby insisted. “Why should there be? She’s pretty hot. If it wasn’t for Dorothy I’d probably go ask her out myself.”

Regina snorted at the idea. Ask out the Sheriff! What nonsense! “Why don’t you worry more about your work and less about my love life.”

Regina looked over to the Sheriff. Well there was one true thing in what Ruby had said, Sheriff Swan was pretty hot. But the nonsense about heart-eyes and having a spring in her step was just absurd.

For a week and a half Regina had endured Ruby’s winks and conspiratorial smiles every morning. She had threatened to fire her if she didn’t quit it, though she’d been mostly jokingly.

Mostly.

7:15

The door opened. The little bell above it tinkled. Sheriff Swan came in, dressed neat, boots polished, her blonde hair in a ponytail. Still pretty hot. Maybe it was the uniform. Was that what she found enticing? Not that she found the Sheriff enticing of course, however there was nothing wrong with admitting that the Sheriff was objectively attractive.

“Got it really bad today huh?" Ruby teased.

Regina just raised her eyebrows at Ruby and shook her head.

The routine went on as normal. Regina took over the coffee and bear claw. They said good morning to each other. A friendly professional interaction. Nothing more.

Once she was back with Ruby Regina could tell she was desperate to say something. She was practically vibrating.

“Out with it,” Regina sighed when she couldn't take it any more.

Ruby leaned in close and very quietly said "The Sheriff was checking out your ass when you walked away."

"Seriously? Can we drop this already? When did your brain revert to high school mode?"

"She was, she totally was I swear on my life."

“You’d be better swearing on your job,” Regina said. Her voice and expression and eyes deadly serious. “I know we’re friends Ruby, but really enough is enough. Please drop this.”

“Okay okay,” Ruby threw up her hands in exasperated surrender.

Regina looked over at the Sheriff. She was reading her paper and drinking her coffee. Of course she hadn't been checking her out.

“It’s just a bad idea,” Emma Swan reiterated.

“Why?” Deputy David Nolan asked again.

“Because it would be awkward. Imagine she said no.”

Emma and David were in her office at the Sheriff’s station going over the paperwork on a recent spate of break-ins in the downtown area. While Emma wanted to get to the bottom of the situation David had steered their talk elsewhere.

“Imagine she said yes,” David countered.

“It’s good coffee. Amazing coffee. I’m not going to risk making a fool of myself. I’d have to find a new place to go.”

David sighed. He saw there was going to be no persuading Emma so he dropped it. It had taken enough effort to get her to confess she thought the woman at The Magic Bean was attractive. Getting her to do something about it was a lost cause.

Emma passed him a report across the desk and changed the subject back to the break-ins.

Aside from a few looks she’d failed to hide Ruby had at last stopped badgering Regina about the Sheriff.

A week went by and on the following Monday something happened that hadn’t happened for a long time.

7:15.

Regina looked at the door.

She waited.

She looked at her watch. It turned 7:16.

There was no sign of the Sheriff.

Irrational concern plucked at her thoughts and unwarranted fear churned in her stomach. She was, of course, allowed to be late. She was, of course, entitled to not come at all.

Regina worried anyway. Was she sick? Had she been hurt? Had she picked up something of Ruby’s silly notions and been made uncomfortable? Had she discovered coffee she preferred elsewhere?

As the minutes passed Regina knew that Ruby wanted to comment but appreciated the fact that she didn’t actually say something.

It was just dumb to have this kind of reaction just because one morning one of her regular customers hadn’t come in. It happened all the time. But there was a strange sense of loss. The morning just wasn’t the same without having seen Sheriff Swan. At 8:30 Regina messed up a simple customer order, giving them cream and no sugar instead of sugar and no cream. At 9:30 she dropped a pot of coffee, shattering it. As the morning went on she became frustrated and irate, snapping at Ruby for no reason at all. Every time the bell signalled someone coming in Regina looked up in hope.

It was just after lunch, after Belle French had started her shift, that Sheriff Swan finally came in. She looked exhausted. She nodded at Regina as she went to her usual booth which was unoccupied. It was a great relief to see her. Regina went over right away.

“Afternoon Sheriff, the usual or something else?”

The Sheriff looked up, stifling a yawn. “Usual would be great. I was up all night. There was a jailbreak a couple of counties over. It was a long night of road blocks and searching.”

“Did you get your man?”

“Darn right I did,” Emma smiled.

“Good,” Regina returned the smile. “I’ll be right back with your coffee.”

Back at the counter Regina set about making Emma’s drink. She could feel Ruby and Belle’s eyes on her. She stopped what she was doing and glared at them. "Fine, I find her attractive, I'm still not going to do anything about it." Her gaze dared them to say something about it. Wisely they both kept their mouths shut.

Once Regina had gone back over to Emma, the two of them all smiles, Ruby turned to Belle. "Well at least she admits it now."

"Doesn't matter if she's not going to ask her out," Belle sighed. They watched on. It was incredibly obvious watching them that Regina and Emma both were epically into each other.

"Even if I did like her, and I'm not saying I do, I don't even know if she's gay or bi or interested in me," said Emma from the passenger seat.

David was driving. They were on patrol around town, as much about public visibility as it was about looking for any signs of crime. It had been a couple of days since the all night hunt for the escaped prisoner. "She's definitely gay," David said with the confidence of a man who thought he knew what he was talking about.

Emma blinked. "How would you know that?" She found it implausible that David would suddenly become and expert in the sexuality of the manager of her favorite coffee shop.

"Mary-Margaret," he said.

"How does your wife know if she is gay or not?" Emma blinked as one possible way occurred to her. "They didn't date or something?"

"Oh, no no, nothing like that. She's good friends with Ruby who works there. Ruby was asking Mary-Margaret if she had any idea if you were into women."

"Why would Ruby want to know if I'm into women?"

David opened his mouth to answer, then hesitated. He took a second and decided to answer anyway. "I kinda told Mary-Margaret I wouldn't say anything because Ruby swore her to secrecy but apparently Ruby thinks Regina might be interested in you."

"And what exactly did Mary-Margaret tell Ruby?"

"The truth," David said.

"Mary-Margaret told me Emma's as gay as a sparkly rainbow unicorn," Ruby said to Regina as they were wiping down the tables at the end of the day. "Those were her exact words."

Regina stopped. "I thought we weren't going to mention this again, something about someone getting fired if they did."

"Hey you totally opened it back up for discussion when you told us you were into her," Ruby countered. She stepped back from the table she'd been cleaning, checking she hadn't missed any spots. "It's an official rule."

David eased the car around a right turn.

“Well it doesn’t matter anyway, gay or straight I’m not going to...”

“Take a chance?” David suggested.

Emma sighed the sigh of someone being forced to talk about something when they'd much rather be doing anything else. “More like take a risk. It’s just not worth the embarrassment.”

“If you don’t take risks you don’t get anywhere,” David slowed to a stop at a red traffic light. “If Mary-Margaret hadn’t taken a chance and talked to me we would have never gotten together and wouldn’t be happily married now.”

Emma shifted uncomfortably. “My track record with women sucks, it’ll be weird and awkward. Who asked out the lady that serves them coffee every morning?”

“Lots of people.”

“What possible good could come of it? Green light.” Emma gestured.

David glanced up sure enough the light had turned green. He resumed driving. “Romance and happiness?”

Emma rolled her eyes like that was the silliest thing she’d heard all day.

“Well,” said Regina, “even if she is gay it doesn’t make a difference.”

“Why not?” Ruby moved on to the next table, giving it a spray with cleaner then wiping.

“I feel like a stuck record talking about this. It’s inappropriate and it wouldn’t be worth the embarrassment.”

“If you don’t put yourself out there now and again nothing good will ever happen. Do you think Dorothy and I just magically turned into a couple? It took effort and taking chances and putting ourselves out there.”

Regina put her hands on her hips and huffed out a breath. “It’s not like I have a stellar history with dating. I hardly know her, and when she rejects me she'll never come here again. What good can come of me making a fool of myself?"

"You might get laid," Ruby waggled her eyebrows.

Regina's eyes narrowed to an icy glare.

"And you might get a date with a gorgeous woman who makes you smile like no one else does."

Regina rolled her eyes. "How about we just get this finished?"

That night Emma couldn't sleep for a long time. She rolled from one position to another and still sleep didn't come.

As much as she hated to admit it to herself she couldn't stop thinking about her conversation with David. Emma had been pretty sure that Regina was gay or bi, her gaydar was definitely lit up by her. Confirmation shouldn't have changed anything. But it had. Now she knew for sure another of her excuses for not doing anything about her attraction to Regina was shattered.

Emma was rapidly running out of reasons not to go for it.

In her mind scenario after scenario played out. All the different things she could say. All the things Regina might say. Whole imaginary conversations unfolded. Some good. Some bad. Some joyous. Some painful. From the realistic to the outlandish the common thread in her flights of fancy was that she was brave enough to take the leap in the first place.

Eventually Emma drifted off into a restless slumber.

Regina made herself a cup of hot cocoa at one in the morning after trying and failing to get to sleep. She sat in the living room with late night junk TV on in hopes it would trigger her brain into sleep mode.

She barely noticed that a trashy Jerry Springer knock-off had come on. She only focused on the screen when one of the people on the show made some weird screeching noise and attacked one of the others. Regina turned the TV off. Even in her sleep deprived state she couldn't face such nonsense.

"How are you in my head like this?" Regina said aloud. "Emma. Emma. Emma Swan. Sheriff Swan." What was it about that particular woman that had gotten so under her skin? This wasn't like her. Regina had never been the kind of person to get infatuated like this.

She finished her cocoa and went back to bed. She couldn't help but imagine how nice it would be to have a certain blonde Sheriff to snuggle up with.

Not that that was ever going to happen.

The next morning Regina kept checking her watch.

7:10

7:11

7:12

"Waiting for something?" Ruby commented sweetly. “Or maybe someone?”

Regina didn’t rise to Ruby's bait.

7:13

Time wasn't this slow every morning was it? She checked the clock on the cash register. Sure enough her watch was right.

When 7:15 finally arrived Regina was busy taking an order from another customer. She glanced over and caught Emma’s eye as she came in. Right on time. Emma smiled and headed to her booth. Regina hurried to deal with her customer who was extremely particular about the complicated concoction he wanted.

Ruby took the job of making the very special coffee for Mr Particular, while Regina made Emma’s drink.

Coffee and bear claw were soon being taken by Regina to Emma. The journey to the booth seemed to be twice as many steps as usual.

“Good morning Sheriff,” Regina said as she set the coffee and pastry in front of Emma.

“Morning,” Emma looked up from her newspaper. To Regina she seemed off. Like she was on edge. Normally Emma appeared to be pretty laid back and at ease with the world. This morning though she looked jittery.

Regina almost asked if she was okay but decided against it. It made for an awkward moment, Regina looking like she was about to speak, and Emma waiting, fidgeting with her hands in front of her.

“Uh, enjoy,” Regina blurted.

“Thanks,” Emma nodded.

Regina turned away. Instead of stepping away from the booth however she turned back.

Simultaneously Regina and Emma said “Would you like to...” They both stopped, flustered.

“Sorry,” Emma apologised and looked down at her coffee. “What were you saying?”

Regina shifted uncomfortably on her feet. “Oh I, well, I, never mind.” She forced a smile and started away again.

“Wait,” Emma stood up. Regina paused. “Ask me what you want to ask me.”

Regina swallowed her nerves. “I was wondering if sometime you’d like to do something, together. Like dinner or a movie.”

“I would,” Emma licked her lips and their eyes met.

“You would?”

“Absolutely.”

For a moment they just looked at each other.

Had she just...?

Did she say...?

“When?” Regina stepped a little closer.

“Are you free tonight, we go get dinner somewhere,” Emma suggested.

“That would be perfect.”

“Okay,” Emma tugged out her notebook, scribbled on a blank page then tore it off and handed it to Regina. Regina looked at it. It was a phone number. Emma’s phone number. It was tangible proof that this was not the total disaster she had prepared herself for. "If you text me your address I'll come pick you up, say around seven-thirty?"

Regina nodded. "Yes, I should uh," she waved back over to the counter where there were a few customers waiting. "I'll see you tonight Sheriff."

"Emma, if we're going to go on a date call me Emma."

"I'll see you tonight Emma."

Regina hurried to the counter. She was giddy. She was going on a date. She had a million and one things racing through her mind.

Before serving the next customer in line she looked over to Emma. Their eyes met again and they smiled at each other.

They were going on a date!

7:15 would never be the same.

Note: Written for @swanqueenweek day 2 - Coffee AU

#swan queen week #swanqueenweek #swan queen #Emma/Regina #ouat femslash #femslash #coffee shop au #My fic

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-funny-thing-about-rachel-brosnahan/

The Funny Thing About Rachel Brosnahan

There’s a moment in the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel when the title character, a 1950s housewife turned up-and-coming stand-up comic, has to work a new type of room. Until now, she’s peddled her jokes mostly to pals at parties and small crowds at the cramped Gaslight Cafe—manageable groups, filled with friendly and slightly drunk faces. This time, though, she’s up against her biggest audience yet—an awareness that hit Rachel Brosnahan, who embodies Miriam “Midge” Maisel with an almost eerie precision, like a particularly sharp punch line. “As I got up onstage to perform that scene,” she says, “I realized that it was also bigger than anything that I was used to. And then I had the realization that it’s only going to get bigger and bigger—and more and more horrifying.”

Brosnahan is laughing when she tells this story, but she’s at least slightly serious about how scary it is for her to do comedy—even now. That’s because, as she’ll tell you herself, Brosnahan is emphatically not a comedian. She is, however, an actress—old-school, Method-trained, perhaps just the teensiest bit Type A. As a kid, she spent hours crafting a PowerPoint presentation in hopes of persuading her parents to let her get a dog. And as a 28-year-old, she channels that same energy into research. While preparing to play the title character in Amy Sherman-Palladino’s criminally charming comedy, Brosnahan didn’t just immerse herself in the work of Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller and Jean Carroll and Carol Burnett. She also made a habit of attending open mikes, so-called “bringer” shows, where wannabe comics must deliver a certain number of spectators if they want to secure a spot onstage.

Brosnahan didn’t get that dog until right before she went to college, but the care she took for Mrs. Maisel paid off immediately. The series, which Amazon has already renewed through its third season, is delightful, a candy-colored screwball throwback that easily stands out among television’s dour biggest hits (Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, HBO’s Westworld, FX’s dearly departed The Americans). Season One debuted last November 29; less than two weeks later, the series earned two Golden Globe nominations, for best comedy and for Brosnahan’s performance. It won both. At the Emmys, it will compete with 14 nominations, including outstanding comedy series and Brosnahan for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck. For additional information, visit vf.com/credits.

All that, and Brosnahan still hasn’t performed stand-up outside the confines of a soundstage. “I think that would prevent me from ever being able to do this job,” she says. “I’d be so traumatized.” Instead, when she goes to comedy shows, she dedicates herself to being the world’s most supportive spectator. “Having even had a taste of what it’s like,” says Brosnahan, “I am the one laughing the loudest at everybody’s jokes in the back, because I want them to feel seen and heard and encouraged.”

That’s true even when the comedians are practiced and the environs are significantly slicker. Case in point: this breezy June night, when she’s taking a break from Mrs. Maisel’s corsets and tongue-tripping monologues to catch a show at Caveat, a surprisingly roomy basement venue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Once, Midge Maisel may have visited this neighborhood to hunt for Judaica and discounted leather goods; now it’s a yuppie paradise where Russ & Daughters will add a schmear of goat’s-milk cream cheese to your everything bagel for just $4. In her jeans, leather jacket, and subtly chic gold-framed glasses—a far cry from Midge’s nipped waists and full, rustling skirts—Brosnahan fits right in.

“I’m late to every party. But when I arrive, I arrive.”

When comedians Dave Mizzoni and Matt Rogers take the stage, Brosnahan is the first person in the crowd to jump to her feet. (She’s not just being nice; the three of them went to N.Y.U. together, and other friends are in the audience tonight as well.) She laughs gamely and generously as the evening unfolds, even on the occasions when Mizzoni’s and Rogers’s very targeted references—the name of this program is “The Gayme Show,” and its tagline is “Exactly what you think”—whiz right past her.

Spending 16 hours a day surrounded by Eisenhower-era culture doesn’t leave a person much time to study the complete works of Frankie Grande (Ariana’s brother) or prolific YouTuber and Taylor Swift bestie Todrick Hall—or even to keep up with old co-workers. At one point, an extended riff on the new Ryan Murphy drama, Pose, ends with a pointed crack about series regular Kate Mara. Until she hears the joke, Brosnahan has no idea that Mara—who, like her, was a regular on House of Cards—is appearing on Pose or that Pose has already premiered.

“I don’t have a TV,” she says with a sigh. “I am living in 1957.”

If she woke up one morning and decided to become an expert on the life and times of pop-star-adjacent Instagram stars, though, there’s no question Brosnahan would excel. She may not be as brash as Midge Maisel, who memorably finishes her first impromptu stand-up performance by exposing herself to a crowd of roaring Beatniks, but she’s nearly as self-assured, and every bit as capable. She’s subverted expectations on bigger stages than this one, after all.

“I’m late to every party,” Brosnahan says by way of apology to Mara. “But when I arrive, I arrive.”

Before she read the Mrs. Maisel script, Brosnahan was planning to turn away from TV and toward theater and film. After, there was no question that Midge had to be hers.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck.

Objectively speaking, Brosnahan is being modest. She certainly didn’t arrive late to Hollywood: even before graduating from N.Y.U., in 2012, she was steadily booking bit parts on Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, and In Treatment. The roles were small but professional all the same, as essential to a budding acting career as a one a.m. open-mike slot is to a would-be Sarah Silverman.

“I’ve played Eating Disorder Girl, Girl, Call Girl—many types of girl,” she says, laughing. “That’s my type, all types of girl.” It’s a few hours before “The Gayme Show,” and Brosnahan is picking at a giant slice of carrot cake. Crowds of pastrami-seeking tourists have foiled our original plan to visit Katz’s Delicatessen; instead, we’ve settled into a squishy booth at the self-consciously retro Remedy Diner, a dead ringer for the vintage greasy spoons where Midge Maisel and her curmudgeonly manager, Susie (Alex Borstein), talk set lists over coffee and French fries.

Simple as these starter characters were, Brosnahan was savvy enough to see their value. Being last on the call sheet allowed her to listen, and observe, and take risks in a low-stakes environment before returning to the safe space of N.Y.U.’s Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute—where she could “ask questions, and study, and try to get better. And then try it again.”

As her undergraduate career wound to a close, Brosnahan’s persistence led her to the ultimate “girl” role: a throwaway part in the first two episodes of a new political drama called House of Cards, that of a nameless prostitute. Her handful of lines included uninspiring utterances like “Excuse me” and “I mean, I’m kinky, but I don’t know if I’m the girl you’re looking for.”

Former show-runner Beau Willimon saw potential in Brosnahan’s raw, arresting performance and her immediate chemistry with actor Michael Kelly, who plays pathologically loyal future White House chief of staff Doug Stamper. Soon, he expanded Call Girl into a proper part, one that had an arc and a backstory and a name. One that would, a few years later, earn Brosnahan an Emmy nomination for outstanding guest actress in a drama. Kelly, who received his first Emmy nomination the same year, credits her work with elevating his own.

“I was sitting at the lunch table when Beau said, ‘I think we got to give you a name,’” Kelly recalls.

The one Willimon settled on, funny enough, was “Rachel,” which inspired some mild protest from Brosnahan: “I was like, What?! Why?! That’s so fucked up!”

“Rachel was not afraid to not fall apart. She was not afraid to be angry and to stay tough.”

It was, as was Rachel the character’s sorry existence, which began when she was caught beside a drunk-driving congressman and ended, two seasons later, in a shallow grave somewhere in the New Mexico desert. (No wonder Amy Sherman-Palladino likes to classify Brosnahan’s pre–Mrs. Maisel parts as “the girl that someone’s tied up and thrown in the back of a van.”)

But House of Cards also offered another education for Brosnahan—taught her the ins and outs of having a significant part on a prestige series at the dawn of the peak-TV era—and gave her an outlet to display the dark side of her sense of humor, if only among her peers when the cameras weren’t rolling. She and Kelly, her most frequent scene partner, grew close enough that even filming her final moments ended up being a blast; scroll back far enough on her Instagram, and you’ll find a sweet snapshot of the two of them contentedly spooning in the dusty hole that will eventually house Call Girl Rachel’s lifeless body.

Then there’s the matter of Fake Rachel’s dead-eyed head, a silicone model designed solely to be buried. “On my phone somewhere, there are some pictures of Michael and Beau and I making out with Rachel’s head,” Brosnahan says, sounding simultaneously sheepish and proud. “It’s really—it’s dark.”

Though she couldn’t have known it at the time, this was also decent practice for Mrs. Maisel—whose surface whimsy conceals more than a hint of bleakness. The series begins at the end of an era for Midge Maisel—née Weissman—who has spent the entirety of her young life meticulously ticking every box on a very strict, self-imposed rubric for feminine success. She’s a Bryn Mawr graduate with an alabaster complexion and a 25-inch waist; she’s given her husband, the feckless but amiable Joel (Michael Zegen), two children, a boy and a girl. She’s secured the community’s most prominent rabbi as a guest for her upcoming Yom Kippur break-fast. If there were any justice, Midge would spend the rest of her days tending to her picture-perfect family, indulgently accompanying Joel on his jaunts to Greenwich Village comedy clubs until the two of them got old and gray and ditched Manhattan for Longboat Key.

And then Joel delivers his sucker punch. “I just don’t want this life, this whole Upper West Side, classic six, best seats in temple,” he tells Midge, after an embarrassing attempt at delivering his own jokes at the Gaslight. Oh, and he’s also been sleeping with his secretary, a skinny shiksa named Penny Pann. Sherman-Palladino and her husband and collaborator, Dan Palladino, asked every actress they considered for Midge to read three scenes in their audition, including the big breakup.

“Most of the actresses, great actresses, came in and broke down—fell apart, as sometimes you will when somebody walks out on your life,” Sherman-Palladino says. “And Rachel was not afraid to not fall apart. She was not afraid to be angry and to stay tough. Because the thing about that scene is it was not there to show her vulnerability. That scene was there to show that pain brought out the comic’s voice.”

Brosnahan in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Sure enough, shortly after Joel up and leaves—packing his things in Midge’s suitcase, a final insult to injury—Midge ends up back at the Gaslight, sloshed on kosher wine, and wanders onto the stage. Before she knows it, she’s telling a roomful of strangers every sordid detail of her wrecked marriage, but sculpting the story so it sounds amusing rather than pathetic. She heckles one dim-witted audience member; she interrupts her stream of consciousness to talk real estate with another. In the midst of explaining why she made a perfect wife, she announces that there’s no truth to “all that shit they say about Jewish girls in the bedroom᠁ There are French whores standing around the Marais district saying, ‘Did you hear what Midge did to Joel’s balls the other night?’ ” She doesn’t stop until the police show up to book her for public indecency and performing without a cabaret license, and even they can’t keep her from landing one last zinger as she gestures toward her exposed breasts: “You think Bob Newhart’s got a set of these at home? Rickles, maybe!”

The performance is spontaneous and exhilarating and very, very funny, everything that Joel isn’t—and from the moment she grabs the mike, it’s clear that both Midge and the actress playing her are going to be big, bright shining stars.

Sherman-Palladino, still best known as the creator of the fast-talking, culturally omnivorous Gilmore Girls, has no shortage of colorful descriptors for her newest muse. In her eyes, Brosnahan is simply not human: “She’s a space alien, or she’s some sort of magical creature, or—I believe I’ve described her before as a Tolkien character. She’s just, she’s just kind of not of this earth.” Then again, Brosnahan’s appeal as a performer may be even more elemental. “She’s a very smart girl, and she understands things—which is 90 percent of the job.”

Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Brosnahan was a shy and serious kid who spent much of her time immersed in fantasy—Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, the kiddie adventure novels of Enid Blyton. During the summers, which she spent with her mother’s family in England, she’d work her way through an entire carry-on bag filled with books before replacing them all with new volumes for the trip home.

Her family, she says, tends more toward the athletic than the arty. (They obviously have a creative side as well; one of her father’s sisters was the designer Kate Spade, who died in June.) Brosnahan herself is a snowboarder as well as a former high-school wrestler—a fact that greatly amused Sherman-Palladino—but also fell for acting at an early age: “Something about the transformational process just felt magical, like a lot of those books.”

It’s easy to picture Brosnahan as a thoughtful little bookworm, a Hermione Granger type with a slightly morbid edge. Even now, she speaks with the careful deliberation of someone who values and understands the weight of words; her diction is flawless, with crisply pronounced consonants and no trace of a midwestern twang. “You work with her on set, and then off set you’ll kind of chat with her—and then you’re occasionally reminded that she’s 28 years old,” says Dan Palladino. Sherman-Palladino had a rude awakening along those lines when she told Brosnahan that she resembled a more smiley Tracy Flick: “She’s like, ‘Who’s that?’ I’m like, ‘Election?’ She goes, ‘What?’ And I’m 100. I’ve officially—I just turned 100.”

“I’ve played Eating Disorder Girl, Girl, Call Girl—many types of girl,” Brosnahan says of her early roles.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck.

So perhaps it comes as no surprise that Brosnahan wasn’t the most obvious choice to play Midge, a gregarious macher who speaks as quickly as, well, a woman dreamed up by Amy Sherman-Palladino. David Oyelowo, who played Othello to Brosnahan’s Desdemona in New York Theatre Workshop’s 2016 production, said in an e-mail that his co-star was worried about Mrs. Maisel initially because she didn’t consider herself to be funny. (“She is of course saying this while we’re taking silly selfies backstage just before I had to go onstage and murder her,” he added.) Brosnahan isn’t even Jewish—though Highland Park itself was Jewish enough, she says, that she’s been to “hundreds of Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs. I could maybe Bat Mitzvah you.”

Going into her Mrs. Maisel audition, though, Brosnahan had two things working in her favor. The first was that she’d recently finished playing a Jewish wife and mother with a well-to-do background and an enviable wardrobe on the little-watched but very good WGN America drama Manhattan, set within the desert compound where American scientists raced to design and build the first atomic bomb. Sam Shaw, that show’s creator, remembers that Brosnahan originally wanted to play the role of physicist Helen Prins. She worried that Abby Isaacs, the part she ended up getting, “would become Wife No. 3, like signing on for seven years of making crudités or something,” he says. But while Abby was not the show’s lead, she wasn’t a background character, either. The part gave Brosnahan an opportunity to imbue a woman of a bygone era with real depth, and to learn how to navigate restrictive, period-appropriate shapewear. (“I have learned so much about undergarments,” she says, deadpan. “And I truly don’t understand how anybody survived the 50s.”)

The second thing working in Brosnahan’s favor was that she wanted the part of Midge Maisel. Like, really wanted it, maybe more than anything since her parents got her that dog. Before she read the Mrs. Maisel script, Brosnahan was planning to turn away from TV and toward theater and film. After, there was no question that Midge had to be hers. She’s the kind of character, Brosnahan says, that “I often don’t see represented on television—somebody who is unapologetically confident, who has an innate sense of self-empowerment, who isn’t afraid to pat herself on the back for accomplishing goals. And who’s unapologetically ambitious.” While Midge is charming and lovable, she’s also superficial and flighty and a breathtakingly terrible mother who measures her baby’s forehead when she’s worried it’s getting too big; a flawed, recognizably human person, rather than a plucky proto-feminist who conforms precisely to 21st-century ideals.

That’s catnip for a determined young actress—and for a viewing audience beaten down by a news cycle of ever mounting tragedy and violence, not to mention a TV landscape dominated by dreariness. Even the comedies sharing Emmy space with Mrs. Maisel (Atlanta, Barry) are as likely to punch viewers in the gut as they are to make them laugh. “It’s a pretty shit time to be alive, and this show’s like a little ant moving a rubber-tree plant,” says Alex Borstein, who plays Susie, the wannabe agent who persuades Midge to pursue showbiz in a serious way. “You want to see these two people succeed. It’s a breath of fresh air.”

That was especially true in November, when the series debuted its full first season just as the #MeToo movement was reaching its zenith. It was a moment when every Twitter refresh seemed to expose a new, horrifying story of sexual misconduct. And then came Mrs. Maisel, a burst of cleansing light—colorful, fast-paced, sunny as an old-fashioned musical, but without anyone breaking into song. Ironically, it’s one of the only female-oriented shows that was green-lighted by former Amazon Studios head Roy Price before he resigned last October, after being accused of sexual harassment himself. (Price has not commented on the allegations.) Though there’s some darkness at its core, Mrs. Maisel is, above all, the jubilant story of a talented woman who works hard, triumphing over the odds and her mediocre loser of a husband. It is, as Brosnahan points out, partly a fantasy. But what a fantasy.

Though there’s some darkness at its core, Mrs. Maisel is, above all, the jubilant story of a talented woman who works hard, triumphing over the odds.

Photograph by Erik Madigan Heck.

It’s impossible to know to what extent Mrs. Maisel’s exultant reception has been affected by fortuitous timing. Brosnahan grows more thoughtful than usual when asked whether she believes it was, noting that the show’s story would be inspiring no matter the surrounding context. But possibly, she continues, Mrs. Maisel had an even greater impact because it debuted at a time when “we’re talking about women finding voices they didn’t know they had,” and—her words coming faster now, and more emphatically—“young people finding voices they didn’t know they had. This is a theme of the moment.”

Brosnahan has given a lot of thought to The Moment and, more specifically, to its momentum—how her industry, and all industries, can parlay this surge of righteous anger into lasting change. Though she’s never been a particularly active social-media user, she’s backed away from Twitter, she says, “because it just feels like we’re all shouting into a vacuum, and I’m trying to focus more on taking those active statements out of Twitter and into the real world.”

As her star rises, Brosnahan has also found herself being more careful about the things she posts online—for practical reasons, as well as the understandable desire to keep her private life private. “As somebody who’s always felt like a pretty open book, I find myself being very protective of whatever the elusive real me is,” she says. Famous performers sometimes become celebrities first and actors second, a fate that would have robbed Brosnahan of her prized ability to disappear fully into a role. (That said, she does have a very cute Instagram largely devoted to her dogs: a Shiba Inu named Winston and a pit bull named Nikki.)

Brosnahan doesn’t just hope to keep her on-screen options open. She’d love to do another play in the near-ish future, to produce, to direct. She wants to see and make more stories that focus on the nuances of female friendship, like one of her current favorite shows, Issa Rae’s Insecure. She’s already developing a pilot with a couple of friends, one that focuses on young people in politics. Brosnahan doesn’t plan to star in the show, but perhaps it’ll be a stepping-stone to the next phase in her career—just as those “girl” parts led to House of Cards led to Manhattan led to Mrs. Maisel.

As of now, Brosnahan’s success hasn’t had a hugely measurable impact on her day-to-day life. She can walk her dogs in broad daylight without being swarmed; she can laugh at a comedian’s joke about Oprah without anyone around her recognizing that she actually knows Oprah. (Or at least said hello to Oprah from the stage after winning a Golden Globe.) The biggest shift, she says, is that people finally know how to pronounce “Brosnahan.” But if she keeps climbing the way Mrs. Maisel’s heroine certainly will, all this could change as well.

Remember, she admires Midge for being unapologetically ambitious. And when asked if she’d describe herself the same way, Brosnahan doesn’t hesitate: “Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah!” Then, after a brief, perfectly timed beat, the TV comedian turns to the magazine reporter and nails another punch line: “How about you?”

Clothing by Valentino; boots by Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood. Throughout: hair products by Bumble and Bumble; makeup by Chanel; nail enamel by Zoya.

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Full ScreenPhotos: Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and Her Many Hats

January 7, 2018

Hats off to the Sherman-Palladinos, husband-and-wife writing team.

Photo: By Kevork Djansezian/NBC/Getty Images.

January 10, 2013

A top hat in her Bunheads days.

Photo: By Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

March 19, 2012

With Sutton Foster on the red carpet for Bunheads (hence the angelic blue bow, we assume).

Photo: By Heidi Gutman/Getty Images.

November 13, 2017

The higher the top hat, the closer to god.

Photo: By Steve Zak Photography/Getty Images.

November 09, 2017

And still squarely in Dickens’s world.

Photo: By John Stillwell/PA Images/Getty Images.

April 21, 2003

A rare sun hat in her Gilmore Girls days.

Photo: By Mathew Imaging/Getty Images.

May 24, 2017

And an even more rare tan hat on the set of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Photo: By Bobby Bank/Getty Images.

PreviousNext

January 7, 2018

Hats off to the Sherman-Palladinos, husband-and-wife writing team.

By Kevork Djansezian/NBC/Getty Images.

January 10, 2013

A top hat in her Bunheads days.

By Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

March 19, 2012

With Sutton Foster on the red carpet for Bunheads (hence the angelic blue bow, we assume).

By Heidi Gutman/Getty Images.

November 13, 2017

The higher the top hat, the closer to god.

By Steve Zak Photography/Getty Images.

November 18, 2016

On the Netflix red carpet for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Recall the fantastical dance number in the last episode of that season, where top hats had an important role.

By Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images.