#by the end of this she’ll have like half of corporate night city head over heels in love with her kansjxjxkx

[thedeadthree]

VIKA MET BOYFRIEND #2 TODAY HUZZAH ✨😌

[flyingupward]

Venice the Musical Sentence Starters

all sentences taken from the lyrics to the musical venice. feel free to change pronouns, etc.

Act I

“All I hear is ‘left, right, left, right, left, right’.”

“I am your lifeline, your forward and hindsight.”

“To tell this story is a means of resistance.”

“Many no long living for not keeping themselves hidden.”

“This story needs a voice so I will oblige.”

“Once had freedom then we lost it.”

“What’s the price of living this life?”

“Darkness fell, our freedom taken.”

“We were taught to be proud to be from here.”

“The government dissolved and a corporation crept.”

“Twenty years of occupation has taught us better.”

“Left for dead, stuck here while the wealthy fled.”

“Bombs exploded round our heads. Get some rest.”

“If we don’t demand more from our lives, how can we expect our kids to thrive?”

“Separate, we are powerless, but together, we can rise.”

“After all of these years writing to you, I’ll finally be home by your side.”

“Is this the day that we can say you paved the way?”

“Today is the day that we find out our fate.”

“Home at last, our children reunite.”

“A divided nation torn in two demands reunion.”

“I hope you let us tell you a little story exploding onto the present.”

“I am alone, my own resistance.”

“Damned if I live this life waiting on the sidelines.”

“One time fool me and it’s shame on you. Two times fool me and it’s shame on me. Three times? There’s never three times.”

“I’ll be the last man standing when the world collapses.”

“Got them thinking my heart is gold.”

“I’ll never show what I’ll do to take the last stand.”

“She’s an illusion he’s choosing.”

“Peaceful revolution is always bound to be polluted.”

“Watch me stay focused, forever unnoticed.”

“The always obedient dog by your side’s got the worst bite.”

“The dream was better than the letters that we wrote would allow.”

“Could you believe those words could make us unite?”

“Is this our shared prayer to the morning light?

“Children write and hearts explode and dreams invite us to places we’d never go.”

“Someone so convicted in her beliefs, it can be hard to see.”

“The world was at war but this country doesn’t have to be.”

“We could be decent and generous. Don’t let hate better us.”

“Two worlds collide and fill his soul with wisdom we will never know.”

“This is the ballad of mismatched brothers.”

“I feel the void I left behind.”

“Am I strong enough to hold the weight of all their souls?

“From what I know this road is golden and I know I believe in you.”

“And so we sleep, hoping that the bombs don’t drop on our streets.”

“What you don’t see is the bomb that’s ticking.”

“I am hardly in step with your emotional dance.”

“Uninvited, unfound, in this hell of a home, opportunity knocks and it’s time to go.”

“There are many different weapons in this game called war.”

“The people who couldn’t leave, they were forced to accept whatever devil knocks at your door.”

“This is no fear of death if you never get old.”

“She was dropped on the city like a renegade, never with the promise of these better days.”

“Have you ever seen something like me?”

“You best believe I’ll haunt your dreams.”

“I can see the sunrise when I close my eyes.”

“As a kid you have a dream and it seems like nothing can come between what you dream and what you’re stuck in.”

“But when the moment’s there, will you rise up with your eyes up?”

“They look at me like I looked at her.”

“My blood trembles with desire to set the world on fire.”

“I feel the dark ahead of the dawn.”

“A spark of what I used to know stands before me all aglow.”

“Seen enough I’m not that blind.”

“They say she’ll bring us hope.”

“And are we all just children playing in our parents’ clothes?”

“And when the lights come on will we find out that we’re grown?”

“I would have done anything that you asked me to.”

“Where did I misstep? Where did I lose?”

“I wanna love and be loved.”

“I have all this money for nothing ‘cause what it buys is a disguise if you never loved me.”

“I’ve been waiting on that second chance.”

“It’s the lie of romance that over time it never stands.”

“Seen enough to make me blind.”

“I’m leaning on the brink of blazing a new path.”

“I know the dawn is coming.”

“We congregate freely, free from the evil.”

“Tonight we fucking party for a brand new tomorrow.”

“I know it’s been a long and brutal road.”

“Let me propose a toast and welcome in people who for years have been suffering.”

“Holding the weight of being held down, hell bound, lifted from the ashes, we naturally yell out.”

“I’ll give it one hundred and I’ll make you proud.”

“Imma be the remedy. Nah, I’m the elegy.”

“For all the pain, never again.”

“So the city is finally our own.”

“I’ll be free in my home.”

Act II

“People are frozen, pictures of panic painted onto their poses.”

“I am beholden for this mess.”

“All the people, they are screaming. I can hear my name.”

“Time slows and I know I don’t feel the same.”

“I’m running for a reason that I can’t explain.”

“Come and disappear with no fear.”

“My brain fails to explain the pictures I’m seeing.”

“Morning sky looking dreary like a painting painted by a guy whose demise was waiting.”

“Is _______________ lying dead when I should have been next to him?”

“I wish somebody else was lying there instead of him.”

“Vanish into air, come and stare into the light.”

“You never wish war on a people.”

“The seconds of your life just slow down.”

“My stomach eats itself. I see my own face.”

“Has something already determined my fate?”

“Time gives way. Am I too late?”

“I am death personified.”

“Your mind has been chosen. The lines have been drawn.”

“Take two steps, take one breath. Just accept your own death.”

“We will never forget and we’ll see you again.”

“Where’ve you gone, old friend, lately?”

“Have you left me here waiting to grow up on my own on this road all alone?”

“I am a desert of unfulfilled memories.”

“Death calls unspoken unseen.”

“If only we hadn’t listened to ambitions that were far beyond our reach.”

“If only there was a way to take back yesterday, you’d still be here with me.”

“If only you were a second late dreaming about yesterday.”

“If only you never came for me.”

“This morning I could feel the changes: Shadows on the wall laughing as we fall.”

“All of my moments are fractured behind me.”

“The toy of a girl has shattered inside of me.”

“Why does the silence emulate violence?”

“The cold and the quiet screams in defiance.”

“If only I had listened to the voices telling me to take it slow.”

“If only I had never wanted for better.”

“If only I didn’t stay up at night and miss you.”

“If only I didn’t feel like I feel when I’m with you.”

“If only I was never lonely.”

“If only I never came.”

“If only I never fell in love with you.”

“The air is scarily silent with the feeling any moment could explode into riots.”

“PTSD of twenty years of grief flooding heavy on the minds of those who never sleep.”

“Revenge is on the minds of the masses.”

“Ashes to ashes devolves into madness.”

“Have we reached the beginning of the end of peace?”

“Have we seen the end of out collective dreams?”

“There’s nothing that lasts forever. So we’ve discovered together.”

“What was white and black is now shades of gray.”

“They sit in the eye of the storm, looking at the city as it silently swarms.”

“Tell the people we are coming, declare a revolution.”

“Now it’s time somebody bled.”

“Is this the day that we can say you paved the way?”

“Alone, awake, her mind would race into her dreams.”

“Unsure of what the balance held, the girl grew up into herself.”

“When the man had got his way, he disappeared without a trace.”

“I dreamed a dream and so it seems that little girls have fantasies.”

“We are all the play things of men in this town.”

“What you’ll find, what you’ll see is that men could care less about your fantasy.”

“With flowers in their hands but pockets full of dust, ain’t no trust in a man.”

“Why am I stuck in this lie? I should’ve known better than to trust his eyes.”

“Should’ve read the signs ‘cause all my life I’ve been left behind.”

“See I had him, no denying that this love’s worth dying.”

“I’m as foolish as I ever was.”

“I came here because I believed in his love.”

“I thought the world had changed. It’s the same as it ever was.”

“How can I explain these mistakes I’ve made.”

“I wanted to love and be loved, but instead I’ve come undone.”

“How do I tell her that she has been deceived by me?”

“Our enemies showed us no mercy and we will show none in return.”

“When we needed you most, I watched you suburb.”

“Where’s all that wisdom that we saw in you, made us fall for you.”

“Is the world so fucked you’ve already given in?”

“Crumbled are the steps of the dream I stood upon.”

“As I stand dismayed by the mess that I’ve made, let me be.”

“Here you are stuck between us and them.”

“Maybe there’s a way, maybe there’s still hope,  but I don’t recognize you.”

“Don’t understand how the same damn man who gave hope to the land can stand before us and command that we’re going back.”

“This monster is growing with every breath.”

“Here I stand, a shade of a man with peace in his hand.”

“Now that they’ve tasted your dream, they can’t go back to where we were.”

“Right in this moment, you’ll find me dreaming about yesterday.”

“The soul lingers long after you pass. That’s why we feel like we’re surrounded by our past.”

“The air drenched in a bath of memories, a constant reminder of our deathly legacy.”

“I never took a risk and I’m scared to admit that this is how I lived my life.”

“‘That’s __________________,’ they told me, ‘a princess in disguise.’”

“I wanna be great for one instant.”

“I’m gonna take a risk and maybe I can save her life.”

“I have waited all these years for your face to reappear.”

“I have waited all these years for you to see me here.”

“I don’t need an icon that’s bygone.”

“When I was little, you convinced me that I belonged, but you were wrong!”

“Inside, I feel rage, and you died in vain.”

“I’m only half your babe, the other half: disgraced.”

“You took their lives in your hands and it was wrong.”

“You led those people in their very own death song.”

“You gave up being my mother - for what?”

“I can use force like you never could.”

“From what I know, this road’s still golden and I’ll always believe in you.”

“What we’ve been through, we can’t undo.”

“I have always loved and believed in you.”

“She has never loved or believed in you.”

“I done with you and the war you provoke.”

“You would push it till it burned with no concern.”

“With you, I believed in love, but you never loved me. You only used me.”

“So why should I be stuck in this lie?”

“She certainly loved you from far away.”

“Little children, they ran away a ways away where they could be safe.”

“She believed that you could be something great, someone great.”

“We need to grow up now.”

“Stop praying for, wanting more, playing war.”

“We’re not children anymore.”

“Look at what we’ve lost, what love we’ve lost.”

“We haven’t begun to see the sun. We need to set it right.”

“Let’s start anew. It’s what she died for.”

“Now this tale of love has ended, our has just begun.”

“If we Shades have thee offended, then go out and see the sun.”

“The world in here is just a shadow. We hide in these imaginary lights.”

“The world out there is a shadow of everything that might be right.”

“Rise up, shake hands, resume our days. Because this is all a play.”

“Just make believe that makes belief.”

“Give us just one moment to shine.”

[mercuryonparklane]

I just found this one-shot I wrote based on ‘betty’ that has been sitting in my notes since September. I thought I’d share, if anyone is interested in that. The characters belong to Taylor and her co-writers, of course. I just borrowed them for this fic.

‘Please, come over’

Jamie Mann stares at the text for far too long, watching those three little dots appear and, then, disappear once again. Betty hates sending more than one text in a row. Even more than that, she can't stand it when a message goes unanswered.

Still, Jamie can't quite think of what to say. Her mind flashes back to prom two weeks earlier and the boy who swayed Betty around the dance floor while she laughed at his stupid jokes. Betty told her that she isn't interested in boys, but damnit if she isn't very good at hiding that fact.

Jamie throws her phone down next to her on the bed and pulls the hood of her sweatshirt over her head. She fiddles with the strings of the sweatshirt until she hears the ding of a new message.

'I'm in front of your house. Get your ass out here and hop in.'

Jamie fights the smile on her face, but she can't help feeling a little less hurt in the moment. August was the kind of friend who could convince you to do things you would never even think to do. Like the time they hopped the fence at school on a Friday night to smoke in the softball dugout. Or the time August managed to sneak them into some gay club in the city. Or the time they almost ditched the cop trying to pull her over for running a red light. Okay, so maybe they weren't actually going to try to escape and maybe August's uncle happened to be the cop in question. But still...

Jamie grabs her backpack and puts it on as she heads down stairs.

"Where do you think you're going, young lady?"

"Mom, I literally just graduated high school last night and I turn 18 next month. I'm basically an adult."

Her mom pulls her into a hug. Jamie lets it happen for a few seconds before escaping her grasp. Mrs. Mann runs her fingers through her daughter's hair trying to fix it best she can.

"Hmm... that will have to do. Now, truthfully, where are you going? Yeah, yeah, I know you're all grown up now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop worrying about you."

Jamie rolls her eyes, but smiles nonetheless. "I'm staying over at August's. She's outside waiting for me, so can I go now?"

"Of course, dear. Have fun."

"Sure thing. Night, mom."

Jamie heads out the door and jogs to the midnight blue '67 Mustang idling in front of the driveway. She throws her backpack in the backseat before taking her spot in the passenger seat.

"So, what's the plan?"

"I was thinking we could go to that party Betty Davis is throwing."

A lump forms in Jamie's throat as she tries to come up with some excuse as to why they shouldn't go. August knows that Jamie is a lesbian, but she doesn't know anything about Betty. It was not something Betty wanted anyone to know about.

As far as anyone at school knew, Betty and Jamie were acquaintances at best. Betty was head cheerleader and Jamie was basically a skater burnout. Betty was class president and Jamie wasn't even on most of her teacher's radars. Betty was going to Yale next year. Jamie was going to a state school. Betty came from money. Jamie's mom worked two jobs to send her to private school. They weren’t exactly the likeliest of friends and no one would ever guess they were more than that.

"Come on, please? Don't you want to know what the popular kids get up to on the weekends?"

"Nah, it sounds pretty lame. I'd rather hang out just the two of us before you take your little road trip around the county, which I still can't believe your parents agreed to."

"You should come with me."

"What?"

"We would have so much fun. Besides I'm a little scared about driving around by myself."

Jamie scoffs, "You? Why, August Adams you are the bravest person I have ever known. What could possibly scare you?"

"I don't know... a car accident, rapists, serial killers, muggers, creatures..."

"Okay, I get it. I just mean... you've been planning this trip for two years. Wasn't it supposed to be some great big adventure of self-discovery?"

August shrugs. "I already know who I am. I'm a bisexual goddess, who is going to be the CEO of a major corporation someday, and no one can stop me. But also I'm just a girl sitting in front a girl, asking her to join me on the trip of a lifetime."

Jamie's heart skips a beat. She loves Betty so deeply, but being with her was torture. It would have been four more years of hiding. 'Just until we graduate college,’ Betty's words echo in her head. Four years is a long time and Jamie is sick of hiding. August came out Sophomore year and didn't care about what anyone thought of her.

"You know what, that sounds amazing."

August squeals and leans across the center console to wrap her arms around Jamie. "We're going to have so much fun, James!"

They never went to Betty’s party. Instead they drove to 7-Eleven, bought snacks and slurpees, and spent the rest of the night at the one skate park in town.

It took a bit of convincing before her mom felt comfortable letting her go on the five week trip. The fact that August had family sprinkled along their route, with whom they would be staying most of the time, helped to reassure her. August created an itinerary for Jamie's mom, so she would have an idea of where they would be and with whom.

A week into the trip, Jamie gets an unexpected text.

'I heard you left town with August Adams. Thanks for the heads up. Hope you have fun.'

The three dots show up and disappear, then reappear once again.

And finally, after almost a minute, 'I hear she's a great lay.'

Jamie doesn't even reply. Her blood boils just a bit. They'd never officially broken things off, but seeing Betty kiss that boy on the dance floor was the last straw. Jamie didn't want to hide anymore. She wanted a girlfriend who's hand she could hold while walking down the street.

So, she got one. Sort of. The text kind of sent her into overdrive and she may have decided to see if all the rumors about August were true. They were. She definitely knew what she was doing and it was nice, but it wasn't the same as it had been with Betty. It was lust. There was no romance in it. At least not on Jamie's part.

Unfortunately, she had no idea the other girl had wanted this since they were Freshmen. It killed Jamie to tell her the truth. August was beautiful and fun and clever, but Jamie's heart belonged to someone else. She confessed everything about her relationship with Betty and how she wished she had gone to that party the night after graduation.

August won't tell anyone. She might be hurt, but she wasn't heartless. She'd never out someone nor would she ever try to get back at Jamie. They did decide to give each other some space. In fact, they only met up once more that summer. It was the day before August was set to leave for school. They hugged awkwardly and promised to keep in touch and to hang out over Thanksgiving break. They didn't keep those promises.

Betty doesn't message her again. Jamie rides past the girl's house on her skateboard almost every day for a month before she finally gets the nerve to text her.

'Hey, I'm near your house. Can we talk?'

She sits on the curb across the street from Betty's house for an embarrassingly long amount of time before she finally gives up. She stops riding by her house.

It's not until her mom drags her to the mall insisting she needs a new wardrobe for college that she finally sees Betty again. She catches sights of the girl from the store across the way and she tells her mom she'll be right back. She's about to step into the store, but someone grabs her by the wrist and drags her towards an empty service hallway. Jamie's heart stutters until she realizes who exactly has a hold on her.

"What the hell, Inez?"

Inez roughly releases her grasps once they are out of the earshot of passersby.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Me?! What do you think you're doing."

Inez rolls her eyes. "Stay away from her, you freak!"

"What gives you the right to tell me what to do?"

"I don't know. Maybe the fact that Betty told me all about how you're desperately in love with her and tried to put the moves on her and that's why she had to switch homerooms. Which I said was weird because as far as I knew you were off playing Thelma and Louise with August Adams. So just, like, leave her alone. She's not... like you."

Jamie bites her tongue. There is so much she wants to say, but it would only make things worse. "Whatever. Maybe you should tell your friend not to flatter herself."

Occasionally, over the next few years, Jamie checks Betty's social media accounts, looking for any hint that one of the girls in her pictures were more than just a friend. Jamie thinks about the night after high school graduation often. She fantasizes about what would have happened if she had gone to Betty's party. Would the girl have finally kissed her in front of their classmates? Was she already drunk when she sent that message? Had she finally been ready to say 'fuck it all' and let everyone know she wasn't who they thought she was?

Jamie will probably never know. But she spends her college years chasing the feeling she had when she was with Betty. There were a couple of women who she thought she had been in love with. Maybe she had been, but there was always this one piece of her heart that hung on to past love.

She dates quite a bit the first couple of years after college, until she eventually gets into a committed relationship. It's great for a while. It lasts four and a half years. She's devastated when it ends. But also, a part of her is relieved. It doesn't really make sense until that next Thanksgiving weekend when her high school class is having its ten year reunion.

She contemplates not going, but she's already R.S.V.P.'d and she's already going to be in town to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family. So, she musters up the courage to go.

The first person she recognizes is August Adams. The other woman greets her with a tight hug.

"James! How are you? God, it's been too long."

"It has."

It really has. Jamie missed her friend. She screwed it all up so much back when they were kids. But the woman still had this brightness that radiated from her and Jamie let herself bask in it.

"Oh, you have to meet my wife," August wraps her arm around the waist of a gorgeous brunette, "This is Autumn. I know, I know. Don't even start."

Jamie chuckles, but keeps quiet. After catching up and seeing way too many pictures of August's kid (she was a proud mom and it was kind of cute, to be honest), Jamie was left alone when the other woman found another old friend to talk to. She didn't mind. It gave her a chance to finally get to the bar and get a drink.

Jamie orders a whiskey on the rocks.

"I'll take one of those too, please," a voice speaks from beside her.

Jamie turns her head and takes in the sight before her. Betty hasn't changed much. If anything, she's even more attractive than she was all those years ago.

"Hi."

"Uhh..." Jamie clears her throat, "Hey."

Betty bites her lower lip, a smirk forming on her face anyway. "You look..." Her eyes scan Jamie's body and Jamie shifts a bit under her gaze, "good."

"That's all." Jamie elbows her playfully. The bartender sets their drinks in front of them. Jamie lifts the glass to her mouth.

"Let me try that again. You look incredible in that suit, but all I can think about is what you'd look like out of it."

Jamie chokes on her drink, pounding her chest with her fist as she coughs. Betty quirks her eyebrows and smirks smugly, while Jamie tries to gain some sense of control over her own body again.

"Umm... wow, that... I wouldn't mind..."

"Are you here with anyone?"

"No. I'm actually single at the moment. You?"

Betty doesn't even bother to answer. Instead she kisses Jamie. It takes a moment for Jamie to register what is happening, but eventually she gets a hold of herself and reciprocates the kiss, matching the passion of the woman in front of her.

There are a couple of 'whoops' from former classmates and a 'Get it, Davis' before Betty pulls away.

"Do you want to get out of here?"

How could Jamie say no to that? After that kiss? After ten years of dreaming about this moment? She couldn't.

"Definitely."

'Out of here' isn't very far. It's actually a room at the hotel where the reunion was being hosted, but really it was better than Jamie could have ever dreamed.

As they lay together in the afterglow, Betty runs her fingers through Jamie's curly, golden locks. Jamie rests her head on Betty's chest, her fingers tracing random patterns across Betty's toned abs.

"You're still as fit as you were back then."

Betty buries her face in Jamie's hair. Jamie feels the laughter rumble through the other woman's chest at the comment. "Really? Those are your first words after everything?"

"I can't help it, when you look like this."

"You're not so bad yourself."

Jamie looks up at Betty incredulously, "I'm sexy as hell."

"Hmm... I mean, you're attractive, sure. 'Sexy as hell', may be a touch too far."

"Oh, yeah?" Jamie smiles up at her as she moves her hand down Betty's abdomen. "Let me show you a touch too far."

Being with Betty makes Jamie feel like she's 17 again. All the years away from the girl did nothing to quell her desire to be as close to her as humanly possible. Somehow it was like a part of Jamie's heart had finally found its place again. It was a part that she thought had long been lost and she had resigned herself to the fact that the puzzle would sit there in her chest missing that one piece forever.

Maybe she didn't know much back when they were kids, but she knew one thing that would always ring true: Betty Davis is, has always been, and will always be her person.

[aertifas]

Broken Mirror - Chapter 1

i. five years later...

It’s been five years, and Tifa still has nightmares.

Not every night--not anymore, at least.  But somehow, that makes them worse.  She can’t prepare for them now, because she never knows when they’ll happen.  When she falls asleep, it’s either a dreamless void, or a reenactment of the worst day of her life.

It always starts the same, with the fire.  Tifa runs down the stairs and out the door of our little cottage the moment she smells smoke.  She looks everywhere for her father, but the kitchen is already engulfed in flames.  The ceiling banisters come crashing down and block her way in.  She has to escape, and she hopes to God that he made it out before her.

The heat is so intense that she can feel it on her cheeks, even now.  That’s why, at first, she doesn’t understand that it’s all a dream.  It feels so real.  When she walks too close to the flames, they singe the ends of her long hair; when she breathes in too much smoke, it feels like her chest is on fire, and she struggles to take in air.  The smell is a combination of burning wood, blood, and something metallic and rancid: Mako.  They’d been smelling Mako from the broken reactor for days, but it’s even worse now.  It’s enough to make her choke.

Two Shinra guards lie, dead or injured, in the square.  The screams of the people--Tifa’s neighbors, her friends--echo across the plaza and suddenly stop.  She’s frozen.  She stops and thinks, Who could have done this?  Who could have killed all these people?  

And then, just like that, she already knows who it is.  Sephiroth.

But Tifa doesn't see Sephiroth.  She doesn't see her dad.  And then, like a knife through her heart, it all hits her.  The reactor.

She runs as fast as her legs can carry her.  Through town, up the mountain, across the bridge.  All the scenery speeds by in a flash, and suddenly she’s standing in front of the Mako reactor.  Someone broke through the door, leaving only a mangled piece of metal on the catwalk.  A clean, straight line cuts the metal in half.

Every part of her body is numb.  She stands there for just a moment, trying to make her body move forward.  But she’s so scared that she can’t move at all.

That’s when the SOLDIER approaches her, the one who escorted Sephiroth to the village a few days ago.  He’s got a massive sword slung on his back and hair like the night sky.  He grabs Tifa before she can step inside and shakes her, pleading, “Just get out of here!  You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

But she doesn't listen to him.  She doesn't even really process what he’s saying.  She simply shakes loose from his tight grip on her shoulders and leaves him behind.

When she reaches the catwalk above the Mako pool, she sees her father on the other end, in a motionless heap on the floor.  She doesn't see the pool of blood and the deadly sword lying beside him until she steps closer.

She kneels down; she can’t even cry, because she’s in shock.  In a desperate attempt to grab at hope, she checks for a pulse--and nothing.

Tifa hears her voice out loud, like a matra, but she doesn't feel in control of her words.  “Sephiroth… SOLDIER… Mako… Shinra...”  She brushes her hand against the hilt of Sephiroth’s sword and grabs it so tightly that her knuckles turn white.  She thinks about the many people killed by this blade, the pain they must have felt.  The thought alone makes her hand shake uncontrollably.

“I’m sick of it all...” she whispers to herself.  “I’m ending it here.”

Tifa takes the sword and rushes to the next room to find Sephiroth there.  His presence is foreboding--she can feel the power in the room they’re standing in.  He’s dressed in all black, like the Angel of Death.  There isn’t a drop of blood on his clothes.  He must hear her come in, but he doesn’t turn around--not even when she yells, “Why did you do this, Sephiroth?”  Because Tifa is inconsequential to him--just something taking up space, something for him to mow over.

She feels a burning, searing anger well up inside her.  She can’t think.  She can’t feel.  And she attacks.

But it’s all for nothing.  As soon as she gets close enough, he wrestles the sword from her hands and turns it on her.  One swift cut across Tifa’s stomach and chest sends her tumbling back down the stairs.  When she lands, she tries to get up, only for her vision to blur.  She touches one hand to her stomach just below the sternum where she feels a siering pain and it comes back dark red.  

She hears the voice of that SOLDIER in the distance, but she doesn't ever see him; by then, the whole world has almost disappeared entirely.

Sephiroth didn’t even turn around all the way, and Tifa didn’t even put a single scratch on him.

But the dream doesn’t end in the reactor.  It doesn’t end in the town, or the Midgar hospital where she’ll eventually wake up.  

It ends with a color: blue, like the deepest part of the ocean.

And then, she wakes up.

************************************************************************

Another restless sleep.

On the days she has this nightmare, it’s hard for Tifa to even leave her bed.  For a long time, she just stares at the ceiling of her dingy apartment and focuses on her breathing.  In four… hold seven… out eight.  It’s an exercise Zangan taught her a long time ago, when she studied martial arts.  Every time she’d lose herself, or make a careless mistake, Zangan would yell, “Breathe, Tifa!  Breathe!”  And she’d do this very same ritual over and over again until she cleared her head.

In four… hold seven… out eight… 

Outside her door is the big city--Midgar.  When she lived in Nibelheim, she’d read about Midgar all the time in the papers.  About the wonderful Shinra reactors that blessed the whole city with light.  About the hustle and bustle of corporate men and women commuting to work by train.  About the feat of engineering, the 70-story monolith called the Shinra building that marked the heart of the city.

Never once did Tifa read about the slums--where she ended up.

In four… hold seven… out eight…

Tifa knows that she can’t stall forever.  She grabs blindly at her nightstand and finds Barret’s shopping list there.  In his scraggly handwriting, he’s written down items needed at the bar.  Soda.  Corel whiskey.  Napkins.  The night before, he’d asked Tifa to run these small errands as he had errands of his own--and Tifa knew better than to ask about his plans, when his face became somber like that.

Tifa’s bar Seventh Heaven, the only home she really has in the Sector 7 slums, serves as a front for Barret’s militia group, Avalanche.  Admittedly, Tifa doesn’t know very much about Avalanche.  They have two goals: the first is to save the Planet, and the second is to take down the Shinra Corporation.  Barret tells Tifa all the time that these goals are one and the same.  “Take Shinra down, and the rest will follow!” he’ll shout enthusiastically, from one end of the bar.  “They’re the ones suckin’ the Planet dry!”

Mako, planetology, the reactors.  It’s all foreign to Tifa.  But she remembers a time when she was small, and Mt. Nibel was alive with flowers, trees, animals.  Life.  Before Shinra built their reactor there.  Everything died, and the air in the town reeked with that undeniable Mako smell.

Tifa always agrees to help Barret and Avalanche.  Perhaps that’s her small way of getting revenge.

She gets ready quickly, efficiently.  There’s not much in her apartment, and she doesn’t have many clothes.  What she does have is essential and necessary; she can’t afford to splurge with the bar and the apartment always needing repairs.

She puts on her clothes standing in front of the full length mirror on the wall of her tiny studio.  She chooses something comfortable, breathable, and easy to move in.  As always, when she looks in the mirror, her eyes can’t help but gravitate toward the scar--a hard, discolored line of skin, six inches long, running from the center of her chest to the bottom of her rib cage.  When Tifa runs her fingers over it, she can imagine the sting, cold and unrelenting and siering, as if it’s happening to her now.  She should feel as if this scar is a badge of honor--after all, she lived.  She may be the only one.  But instead, she thinks of it as a brutal reminder.

Today, Tifa dons a coat to protect her from the harsh Midgar winter and heads for the station.

Midgar winters bring no snow--at least, they don’t underneath the plate.  When Tifa looks up, she can see the plate staring back at her, suspended three hundred meters above her head by gargantuan supporting pillars.  The plate looms like a shadow; it blocks the sun from resting warmly on her face and hides the sky behind mangled metal.  The only light that shines on the slums comes from the sun lamps, gigantic, harsh white lights that radiate down on them like spotlights.  In five years, Tifa can count on one hand the times she’s seen the sun; she’s seen the stars even less, since the lights from Midgar’s many buildings and structures wash them away.  Tifa misses the stars the most--back home, she loved looking up at the night sky and picturing what it’d be like to be among them.

Seventh Heaven is on Tifa’s route to the station.  Even this early, Barret is already awake, and he stands on the bar’s wooden porch as he gets Marlene ready for school.  Barret is tall, large, and intimidating--but Tifa knows him well, and deep down he’s got a soft center.  Especially when it comes to Marlene.  She’s his everything.  Tifa doesn’t know how Marlene came into Barret’s care, but it doesn’t really matter; whatever the circumstances, they’ve become a perfect little family.

Marlene spots Tifa first.  Clad in a pink dress, her backpack hanging from her shoulders, she shouts, “Tifa!  It’s time for school!”

“Sure is,” Tifa tells her, patting Marlene’s head when she gets close enough.  “You better hurry or else you’ll be late.”  When she says the word late, Tifa sneaks a cheeky glance at Barret, who returns it sheepishly.

“She said she wanted pancakes for breakfast,” explains Barret.  “How am I s’posed to say no to my little angel?”

Marlene takes off in the direction of the schoolhouse, which is within sight of the bar.  As soon as she’s inside, Barret turns his attention to Tifa.  “You gonna swing by the bar later?” he asks, sitting at one of the outdoor tables, laying his arm--the one augmented with a machine gun where his right hand should be--on the table’s surface.  Tifa doesn’t know the story of his gun arm, and at this point she knows better than to ask.

Tifa nods.  “Of course.  It’s Saturday night--busiest night of the week!”

Barret nods.  “Good.  If it wasn’t for you… I dunno how we’d keep the lights on in this place.”

Tifa thinks Barret gives her too much credit.  After all, Barret protects the place.  Jessie fixes leaks and broken pipes for free.  Biggs and Wedge hand out flyers all over town to get people to come in.

“We gotta talk to you,” adds Barret.  “Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, and me.  We wanna tell you about the plan going forward.”

Tifa’s smile wavers a little.  She nods at Barret.  “Okay.”

Of course, Tifa knows what he’s talking about--the reactor bombing.  Barret and the others have been planning for months.  Jessie sources explosives from a mole at Shinra headquarters, and had them delivered to the bar in the dead of night.  She took them into the bar’s secret basement level--accessible only by a rigged pinball machine-turned-elevator--and spends hours down there now crafting a bomb.  Wedge, too, began stockpiling assault rifles and ammunition for the fight ahead.  Some nights, when the bar is particularly empty, Barret and Biggs will sneak away into the kitchen and mull over a map of Mako Reactor #1, tracing routes in and out with chalk and erasing them until they’re satisfied.

A few weeks ago, it looked like the plan wouldn’t go through.  Barret’s talk with the higher-ups at Avalanche failed miserably; they vowed to separate Barret’s small Sector 7 sect from the bigger movement if Barret intended on going through with the attack, providing them with no support going forward.  Barret said afterwards, “We’re just too visionary for them!  They can’t see the bigger picture!”  For a while, Tifa hoped that maybe Barret and the others would be discouraged.  She wanted Shinra to get what they deserved, of course--but she couldn’t help thinking about the people of Sector 1, the normal people who don’t know any better but to live their lives in Shinra’s bubble.  She worried for their sake.

Unfortunately, it looks like Barret’s decided otherwise.

Tifa waves goodbye to Barret and makes her way to the station with greater haste.  She feels a knot in her stomach now that wasn’t there before.  She thinks, What if the power goes out on Sector 1?  How will all those people survive?  What about the hospitals?  The trains?  She knows what Barret would tell her.  He’d say, “Nothing worth fighting for was ever won without sacrifice!”  That’s his go-to line these days.

At the train station, a few workers dressed in suits and a Shinra train operator are crowded around the stairs.  Tifa doesn’t think much of it--after all, Midgar’s a big place, filled with rowdy people.  Commotions at the station, even this early in the morning, happen all the time.  In fact, Tifa nearly walks past it without a second glance.

But it’s when the crowd shuffles a little, and she’s finally able to see through it, that she finally stops to take one, curious look.

And that’s when she sees him.

She blinks a few times.  She doesn’t trust her eyes--why would she, after seven years of radio silence?  Why should she expect to see him here, of all places?  But the combination of traits, unique to only him, is undeniable.  Blond hair, styled into harsh spikes.  Slumped shoulders.  A chiseled jawline, almost harsh, coming to a sharp point at the chin.

She can’t believe it.  It really is Cloud Strife.

*

*

*

Blog Introduction/Chapter Selection | Next Chapter

[arpmemething2]

Arrowverse Starters

Was too lazy to do a bunch of individual memes for each series, so here’s one giant meme with quotes from all of them.  Some of these have been slightly altered to take out specific names and/or make them more generic.  Feel free to send in for my muse’s reaction.

"You have failed this omelet."

"I just watched a half-man half-shark take on the fastest man alive. I love this city!"

"Congratulations. You have the wit of a youtube comment."

"I think the seam was starting to split."

"Nobody breaks up my family, you son of a bitch!"

"No offense, but I never met a building I couldn't break into."

"Because I like men. And I like women."

"A jedi craves not these things... No one's feeling that quote."

"I didn’t get to where I am by running and hiding from a fight."

"You two have each other. Most people, in any time period, aren't that lucky."

"You guys are like 10 seasons of Ross and Rachel but smushed into one year."

"I'm from East London. Oh, and the future."

"What kind of tool steals a yellow Humvee?"

"I'm not a murderer. I'm a force of nature. A servant of fate. I enable destiny."

"If you can't kill your enemy, weaken him. If you can't cut off his head, take his heart."

"I want a wife to grow old with. And a kid. And I don't want them to wonder all the time if their dad is in trouble. "

"If we have the power to change the world, don't you think we have the power to change our own fate?"

"You're lucky he didn't knock out your teeth. THose puppies don't grow back."

“I was always too good at forgiving myself. You were never good enough.”

"To run a corporation is not the same as ruling a country."

"I don't believe in fat. I believe in choices."

"We go out for one lousy drink and you guys somehow manage to pick a fight with Bobba Fett."

"I have tried everything I can think of. Last night I helped a family assemble their Ikea table. It’s still not enough."

"If there's one thing pirates love more than treasure, it's a good story."

"In my defense, they were happily corrupted."

"He fights for justice and he cares about this city which is no different than any other officer here as far as I'm concerned. "

"Living is not for the weak."

"You and I, we've been through too much together to let each other down now. Please, let me help you."

"Best team up ever!"

"You're the best person I ever knew. You may not think you're a hero, but you're a hero to me."

"Sometimes I want to repay that violence with more violence. I wanna make someone hurt as much as I do."

"In order to live, we must keep daring."

"I hearby christen this building as the bomb."

"More drinking, less feeling."

"All four of you standing there doing nothing, you look like the attractive yet non threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show."

"Alright? We've been kidnapped!"

"Usually I find the person and then I put the fear of God into them until they talk. But we can try your way."

"We all have regrets. But we can't undo the things we've done."

"You know us billionaire vigilantes, we do love our toys."

"If I’m going to be a hero and prove to everyone that I know what I’m doing, I’m gonna need practice. Start small, get better."

"I'd tell you to go to hell, but you'd probably just feel at home there."

"Finally, I realized some people are just bad. But you can learn to protect yourself.”

"We might want to rethink that whole "we screw up things for the better" motto."

"We fight to live as long as we can. That's the only way to live and to be able to live with yourself."

"That film is surpisingly scientifically accurate."

"To quote every 'Star Wars' movie ever made, I've got a bad feeling about this."

"I'll take a nightmare that's real over a dream that's a lie."

"If you want to harness your power, you need to learn to control your fear."

"We only break the rules to help people."

"Somebody once told me that secrets have weight. The more you keep, the harder it is to keep moving."

"It turns out at the end of the day, love is worth the risk. None of us can do this alone."

"Get me a salad for lunch. I don't care what kind as long as it has a cheeseburger on top."

"There's something about me that for most of my life, I've run from it. But last night, I embraced who I am and don't want to stop."

"I have no interest in this being a fair fight."

"Say, didn't I kidnap you once?"

"Really? We're trying to save the world and you're lifting wallets?"

"(S)he’s the kind of girl/boy that you take home to your parents, and I am the kind you take to an exorcism."

"We protected the humans of this city by killing a monster."

"You can't change the things you did. But you can change what you become."

"You have failed this city."

"Call security. I haven't seen eyes that crazy since I had fondue with Ramona Singer."

"Do you remember when you told me you had nothing left to teach me? I guess you had one final lesson. How to be a cold son of a bitch."

"I'll go get the alien. You get the girl."

"I have a feeling she'll want to hyphenate."

"Nazis? I hate Nazis."

"It's not a big deal, I got into a fight. I thought you'd be proud of me. I went for the nose, just like you told me."

"They are mostly a jerk. But every once and a while, they could be a dick."

"You're joking. You're working with the man who threatened to kill my entire family?"

"I've spent my whole life searching for the impossible. Never imagining that I would become the impossible."

"Your goodness is your strength."

"Having a nemesis is stressful."

"How can you speak 6 languages and sound like a dick in every one of them?"

"Forgive me, but to me, you've been dead for centuries."

"I'm sorry; I didn't realize being a fake lawyer was more interesting than getting revent on the bastard that kill them."

"Great things are never easy."

"Totally rather get shot than look like a Sears model."

"Well, that's what I am. I'm very boring and really normal."

"You could have just used the door."

"Out of everyone you could've picked to rob, you picked me?"

"If we make the wrong move in here, these cuffs are gonna be the least of our worries."

"Not every hero wears a mask. Some heroes save the day in the simplest of ways. By just being there for us, or letting us know we're believed in."

"There's no bravery without fear."

"You're on fire! You don't seem that bothered by the fact that you're on fire."

"Your choice insisted I not walk around your house naked, so I found one of your dresses. You're out of milk."

"Cops'll never hassle a dad buying diapers in the middle of the night."

"Well, research skills are kind of a superpower."

"They are the objective just not the priority. Not this time."

"No hero can save everyone, but a real hero never stops trying."

[s-nebul0sa]

Peanut M&Ms

Read on AO3, or below. Based on this tumblr post.

Ever since Lena realised she could lie about certain things and get away with it, she’s been doing so. Not about important matters. Not when she knows she can’t keep up the lie, or be consistent. Not about something she only wants to lie to certain people about; usually evading answers suffice in that case. But, one thing she has been lying about for over twenty years now.

Lena is not allergic to peanuts.

She just hates the smell of peanut butter and by the time she’s turned five, she’d learned other people didn’t agree with her. Some would even get defensive about it and somehow tried to blame her for not liking the smell. Or they’d try and coax her into trying a bite. She doesn’t even like the taste that much either and soon is sick of people not accepting her dislike at face value.

No, five-year-old Lena quickly realised lying about being allergic to peanuts solves all her problems. Now, she no longer is the weird girl who doesn’t like peanut butter. She’s the poor twenty-six-year-old woman who’s never got to taste peanut butter because she’s allergic.

One small issue...

She loves peanut M&Ms.

Her new lie makes it so she can only them in private. This wasn’t much of a problem when she buried herself in work and basically lived in her office. No one entered without her permission and she’d never attend any event where her self-restrain was tested. Peanut M&Ms aren’t exactly hors d’oeuvres and are thus not served at galas and fundraisers for National City’s elite.

Starting to date Kara Danvers, though, changed her life in more ways than one. She works a little less, since she now has someone to go home to. She has friends; Kara’s friends and family accepted her as their own. She attends movie nights and game nights. And she eats a lot more snacks than she used to, especially in presence of other people.

It’s easy on nights at their place. Kara is the only one who knows about her (white) lie, so she understands and helps Lena in any way possible. They make sure there’s no peanut M&Ms so Lena can’t be tempted. If Lena can’t have peanut M&Ms, she’s not going to serve them to others.

When they have a game or movie night elsewhere, it’s where it suddenly has gotten tricky. There’s never been peanut M&Ms before. Winn was afraid Lena would somehow accidentally ingest one and die. Alex isn’t the biggest fan of them and would rather get other snacks. Nia is probably one of the few women Lena knows who isn’t a big chocolate fan, so she always gets them popcorn and chips and sugary sweets. Brainy doesn’t know about their existence.

Or, rather, didn’t know about their existence. Because right there, within arm’s reach of Lena, is a plastic technicolour bowl filled with peanut M&Ms.

The brightly coated sweets seem to scream at her. Begging her to please eat them.

She finds her gaze drifting to the cursed bowl every several minutes. One moment she’s talking to Nia about the influence of fashion in corporate businesses, the next she’s eyeing those evil candies again.

Winn manages to snatch her as his charades partner — she hasn’t even noticed, too distracted by the M&Ms she’d by now managed to be seated as far away from as possible. Charades is a decent distraction for a while.

Alex talks to her about alien biology and Brainy joins the conversation when they shift to talking about ways do L-Corp to contribute to improved alien healthcare with new technology. All the while, Lena’s eyes keep drifting back to the slowly dwindling pile of colourful balls.

There are about two handfuls left.

One and a half.

One handful.

Twenty pieces.

Fifteen. Three green, two blue, one brown, four orange, two red and three yellow ones.

Alex eats all the green ones. For someone who doesn’t like M&Ms all that much, she sure seems to enjoy them.

Twelve left.

Lena gets distracted by a discussion about what game to play next. Alex argues for something short — it is a weekday and it’s getting pretty late. Winn thinks they should end with something fun and challenging. Lena has to agree with Alex on this. Her alarm will go off in less than six hours. A long game sounds like a very bad idea. Especially because she’ll be forcibly reminded of not getting to eat her favourite snack for the rest of the night by the flashy bowl on the table across from her.

The next time she looks, there’s suddenly only five pieces left. Two orange, one yellow and one brown.

Winn’s hand moves in the direction of the bowl, disappears behind the outer rim and, in the shape of a closed fist, re-emerges and moves to his mouth.

Zero M&Ms left. At least she can no longer be tempted.

Lena drags her eyes away from the bowl, sends Kara a sad smile over the table and focusses on the last game of the night.

Tired but sated, Kara and Lena finally arrive home about an hour later. Lena tugs off her heels and sighs as she placed her bare feet back on the cold wood. Kara kicks off her own shoes and dumps them near the coat rack, close enough for them to not be a tripping hazard but still disorganised in a Kara-like fashion. Lena bends down to neatly place her own shoes, side by side, beneath the coats and puts Kara’s next to them.

They hang their coats on the rack but instead of immediately moving to the bedroom, like Lena expected, Kara stops at the dining table. Her hands disappear inside her pockets.

Lena tries to move passed her. She’s tired. She wants to sleep.

“Wait, I got you something,” Kara says before she can leave the room.

Lena turns around again, facing Kara, and raises an eyebrow. “Love, you know I like surprises but not at midnight when I have an early meeting the next day.”

Instead of answering, Kara simply removes her hands from her pockets and places her closed fists on the table, knuckles up. Her fingers unwrap from whatever she is holding and slowly straighten until her hands are flat and floating above the table.

She quickly removes them and reveals at least two dozen peanut M&Ms.

“I saw you looking at them the whole night so I figured I’d sneak some home for you so you can eat them without blowing your secret.”

Lena doesn’t know if it’s her tiredness, her gratitude, her love for Kara or just no longer having to restrain herself, but she flies across the room and nearly jumps up in Kara’s arms. She’s lucky to have a girlfriend of steel with lightning reflexes because they surely would have tumbled over otherwise. With ease, Kara catches her and holds her up just a few inches from the ground. Exactly enough for their faces to be at the same height and giving Lena easy access to her mouth.

Lena tries to initiate a fierce kiss but Kara keeps her from deepening it after their initial touch. She does hold on close but removes her head back a little so their lips are no longer connected.

“How about you properly thank me like that tomorrow when we have time to finish what you start and we’re both less tired wrecks?” Kara suggests. Lena pouts for a moment but another small coax from Kara in the form of, “Just eat your snacks, babe. Thank me later,” sets her off towards the table.

Nimble fingers take hold of a blue M&M and Lena takes a second to enjoy the feel of it on her skin. It isn’t much and she is soon done relishing the idea of getting to eat them. Finally, she brings that first M&M to her mouth.

She bites into it.

Lena could swear she’s never had a peanut M&M this good. It’s probably because she has been wanting to taste them for hours now. Because of the intense craving she’s had to withstand.

Twenty-seven peanut M&Ms disappear in quick succession. Kara watches on, very amused at her girlfriend eating M&Ms like she hasn’t been fed in a week. Lena can’t think of anything other than how glad she is for Kara. She’ll surely thank her tomorrow. For tonight though, they’ll just change into their PJs, brush their teeth and wash their faces and then cuddle up in bed. Kara’s arms wrapped around Lena and Lena’s around Kara. Their legs intertwined and the blankets wrapping the together in a single burrito.

[chrysalispen]

Prompt #22 - Fragment

Agony pierces through her chest, radiating outwards, and the Lightwarden of the First Reflection can only think that she is thankful the others are not here.

Catching herself before she can fall, she doubles over and braces herself on trembling legs, coughing and retching blood that has no color. It looks like liquid sunlight, she thinks vaguely, squinting at what little of it she can actually see. The spatter pattern against the pristine stones with their utterly precise geometric arrangements is almost as beautiful as it is monstrous. 

She can feel the change in herself, one she struggles to ignore.

The urge to consume aether strains endlessly against the leash of her will. She can feel the hideous ache of it twisting itself into her very bones, roiling under the surface of her skin like magma. It burns in her, it hurts, and it has nowhere to go but out. Once it does, she will be gone. The Light will destroy all traces of her humanity and leave only horrifying purity in its wake.

But she won’t let it. Not yet.

Even though she holds her form together with the tattered remnants of the Blessing and the sheer force of her own will, she is just spiteful enough to want to make sure that Emet-Selch is in close proximity when she turns. If her death destroys him, she thinks bitterly, wiping at her mouth with another painful little cough, all the better.

She takes a few tentative steps forward, searching for the lip of the bench she can sense a few ilms away – Light poisoning has rendered her nearly blind, but by either mercy or miracle her third eye still retains its function – and lowers herself on stiff and aching joints onto the marble surface.

For now, she’ll rest. Just for a minute, to catch her breath, to muster the wherewithal to keep everything inside her, before she continues on her way.

~*~

It’s always something in the color of the soul, as faded as it is.

Over countless reflections, over a thousand thousand ages, over all of the permutations of Light and Darkness, there has always been that intangible something. Emet-Selch could pick her soul out of the sea of endless fragments that makes up the Lifestream were he called to do so. If he had no eyes to see, if he lost his corporeal form, if she did- he would still know. In thousands of years he has never once been wrong.

Nowadays he prefers to be alone, to work alone. Usually. He had sought the presence of the others in the beginning, when the pain of his loss was still too fresh to bear without the company.

When it becomes too much, Emet-Selch sleeps, and in his long years and decades (and sometimes centuries) of slumber, the Ascian loses himself for a time in dreams of tall spires and endless halcyon days of peace, bleeding one into the other like ink soaking into vellum. Of wonders that no eye has seen since the sundering.

Since Zodiark shattered, and all of the souls of the people Emet-Selch knew and loved splintered along with Him.

So, he’d known the second the dying Warrior of Light came into his domain. 

Her death will be slow and extraordinarily painful, and she has failed in every sense of the word. 

He’d taken a malicious pleasure in the expression on her face when she realized she had become the instrument not only of her own destruction but the very world she had come to save, and had fully expected her to succumb to despair. Anyone else would have done.

(You had done,) comes the whispered, hateful thought, one he pushes away furiously to the back of his mind.

But he has miscalculated, much to his immense displeasure. 

This particular iteration of Hydaelyn’s Champion is a Garlean–and like every Garlean Emet-Selch has ever met, she is powered by sheer bloodyminded spitefulness. Four days later, she is still, somehow, if only barely, maintaining the physical integrity of her soul against the corrupting force of primordial Light through naught else.

Emet-Selch admits to himself that his own oversight, like as not, has allowed the events of the last five years to come to pass. The vast majority of her race has no innate ability whatsoever to channel aether–even less than the pitiful, paltry efforts of most mortals–so it certainly had never occurred to him to think that Hydaelyn would select one of them as Her champion. 

Although— he really should have known she would prolong her own death throes just to make some absurd point.

Still-

=

“Please,” Hades said, his voice decidedly pained, “do not tell me you are planning on actually using this.”

“Hm? Oh, of course not, dear, it’s purely hypothetical.” His wife hummed over her equasions, muttering something to herself, a frown knitting her brow. In the privacy of her workshop she’d removed her mask, and it lay carelessly atop a pile of books detailing Halmarut’s theorems. “A thought exercise in terms of scale, nothing more. I doubt I could even get a permit for its creation. It would require fully half the city’s ambient aether to create something of this magnitude, at the very least.”

“Then save it for the flights of fancy, hmm?” He kissed her on the cheek, his lips curving in a smile. “I should hate to have to rebuild the Akadaemia after the Warden took it into her head to attempt the summoning just to see what would happen. Your aegis raised enough eyebrows.”

She laughed.

“And you, Emet-Selch, can save your stuffy lectures for the late-night Convocation minutes.” She reached up and flipped his hood back, and before he could utter a protest she’d already given his snowy hair a friendly ruffle. “Come, let’s decide what to make for supper.”

=

A crisp snap of his fingers, and the tableau of his own memory disappears before his eyes. The apartment, made of recollection and aether, lies cold and empty once more.

No, he tells himself.

Do not do this. Do not. She disappointed you just like all the others did. Best to put her and this dying world out of its misery. A mercy killing. Best not to hold onto hope. Best not to think how much more complete this one is, or how much more like her she is than any of the others that came before.

(Best not to remember the night she almost called you Hades.)

A fragment, and yet he cannot help but feel her death added to his ever-growing pile of regrets.

Staring down at the street below through the window, watching her slow, staggering gait towards the Capitol building with tired amber eyes, the Ascian sighs. He'll be taking a very well-earned nap, he thinks, once he's ushered this world to its end.

How tedious.

[aerialsquid]

Noodling Part V: Angry Man Shops for Flower Arrangements

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Chapter-specific Content Warning: Emotional/mental trauma related to academic pressure and teachers. Nothing severe, but this is a little more intense than the last chapter. ----------

"This time I really need you to stay behind. This girl has an Earthshaking Quirk, and if she decides to use it she could take out half the block."

"You think she'll turn hostile?"

"Always possible, if I confront her directly. Which is what I plan on doing." Aizawa privately hoped she did. It would give him an excuse to vent the tension that had been building in him over the last several days, and that his trip to Kuroda and Samejima's residence hadn't sated in the least.

This time, instead of hunting for her home address, Aizawa and Yagi had targeted Tsukuda Jiodo's place of employment - 'Scent of Lilies', a small store selling floral arrangements and pots across the street from one of the city parks. Picturesque, but hardly the kind of place that a destructively-Quirked hero would be satisfied with.

Through the shop windows, Aizawa could see Jiodo rearranging small pots on the shelves. She had a slight build with night-dark hair, longer now than it was when he'd last seen her sobbing in Nezu's office on the day his request for expulsion was approved. The store seemed to be deserted, too, and they'd shown up about half an hour before the shop closed for the day. A good time for a private talk that might turn ugly.

Aizawa remembered Jiodo as a quiet, eager to please girl with a fierce dedication to her studies. As a student, she'd been fine. Not the best ever, but fine. He'd seen her type before - great at academics, born with a powerful-seeming Quirk, and lucked into passing an entrance exam designed to favor those who could break the most large objects in a given time period. Unfortunately it took more than that to make a good hero, which was why Aizawa considered the entrance exam only as a first culling before he made his own judgments about who deserved to move ahead.

Jiodo, in his assessment, had not.

"Good afternoo--" As the bell over the door jingled merrily, Jiodo turned and made it halfway through a greeting before her higher functions realized who she was looking at. She froze up.

"Huh. Long time no see," said Aizawa, expression blank. "You were...Tsukuda, yeah? Something like that?" He shrugged in false apathy and moved past her into the store.

"Ai..Mr. Aiz…" Jiodo bobbed forward into a frantic, shivering bow, clutching a clipboard tight to her chest for security. It reminded Aizawa briefly of the way Yagi reacted to Gran Turino, on the single awkward occasion he'd been in the same room as the pair of them. This wasn't the panic of a trapped criminal, it was the panic of a traumatized student abruptly reliving her past trauma at the sight of his face.

Right now, Aizawa couldn't bring himself to care. He waited, stonefaced, while his former student scrambled for words.

"HowcanIhelpyoutodaysir," said Jiodo in a single breath during the downstroke of yet another bow.

Playing dumb, for now. Fine. He'd see if she could be baited out.

Aizawa pretended to consider the arrangements and little bowls, pacing the store agonizingly slowly while she watched him with wide-eyes.

"So this is where you wound up, Tsukuda?" he asked, watching her reflection in the sheen of a metal vase.

"Yes, sir," said Jiodo in the tiniest of voices.

"Huh. What school did you go to after UA?"

"No, sir. I, uh. I didn't." Her voice dropped to the lightest, frailest of whispers. "I didn't go anywhere," she muttered, head down.

Aizawa prodded at the bowed head of a peace lily blossom. "Nowhere? You were a good study. It was the one thing you were actually good at."

"I would...like to not talk about this, sir. What kind of flowers do you want?"

"Something big and brash. It's my anniversary. I'll know it when I find it."

"Oh...anniversary...these are for someone you're dating?" Aizawa didn't need to check to know she was giving him that 'Aizawa-sensei dates??' look of horror and confusion that he got every time someone referenced the concept of him having a romantic life.

"Something like that." She'd be unlikely to believe Aizawa Shouta would go shopping for flowers of his own accord, and he needed an excuse to browse.

Aizawa drew the silence out as she kept following him around the store, offering quiet terse answers to his bullshit questions about the prices of flowers and how fast each type were likely to die. He made sure that he never had his back fully to her, but also never fully looked her in the face the way he would someone who actually meant something to him. Occasionally he made a small 'tsk' noise with his tongue, as if finding disapproval with the blossoms, and every time he did it Jiodo trembled.

"So. Hero school to flower shop. Must have been a rough time."

"Mhm."

"Honestly, I'm surprised you're treating me this nicely. Maybe expelling you really was a good decision if you're this comfortable with it."

Come on. Break. Take out that grudge you've been nursing. You know I have you dead to rights--

"I actually hated UA." Jiodo's hand slapped over her mouth. She stared at Aizawa with wide, fraught eyes as if he would somehow double-expel her for it. He turned to fully face her and stared back with an even, calm gaze.

"Go on."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Aizawa," she whispered.

"No, no. I'm not your teacher anymore. Speak your mind." He gestured for her to continue, carefully watching the movement of her limbs. If he remembered the nuances of her Quirk correctly she'd need to be touching the earth with her bare hands to cause a quake, but with all the dirt in this shop there might be a way around it...

Jiodo swallowed hard. Her fingers were white where they held the clipboard tightly to her chest. "I hated every moment of it. I hated being there. I never felt like I fit, I never felt like I could rest. I hated you and I hated my classmates, even the nice ones," she said quietly, eyes downcast. "After you expelled me, I...it hurt, but it meant that all my worries about class ranking and achievement didn't matter anymore. I was free. Doomed, but free. I was...I went in the bathroom and I just started laughing, because it meant I didn't have to fight anymore. I could just give up. It felt so good to just stop chasing something I didn't even want in the first place."

She tensed up again, wary, and bit her lip. "I'm almost grateful you did it, now."

"You work in a flower shop and you could have been a hero, and you're grateful for it?" Aizawa put every drop of venom he could into his words. He folded his arms, subtly getting his fingers around the end of his capture weapon. "Are you sure you're not just trying to justify failure to yourself to make it less unpleasant?"

Come on. Come at me. You're cruel enough to blackmail me using Yagi's body as a weapon, you're cruel enough to try and attack me in person.

"I like the flower shop," Jiodo insisted, a notch louder. Her breath was hitching and her eyes were still on the floor, but her voice was growing stronger. "I have friends now, and we can go play video games or just hang out, and we're pooling in money to start a little garden together. I didn't have friends at UA. I hated having to fight and compete all the time even when I was good at it. The money's not great, but...but I'm happy here. And at UA, I was miserable. The only people who were happy about me being there were...were my parents. I had my whole life kinda planned out around becoming a pro hero, so I had to...just put myself back together again. From scratch. And it, y'know...it's getting easier. No, not easier, just better. I finally feel like I can breathe. And I"m sorry, I know it's not what anyone wanted for me and I know it's a waste, but at least I'm happy."

"And is that what matters to you now? Being happy?"

Jiodo looked up at him over the clipboard, only to find Aizawa was half-smiling, a single corner of his mouth turned up.

"I...yes. Yes, it does," she answered weakly. "I'm sorry. I know I'm a failure."

"I don't just expel people for kicks, you know. If the business course passes a student who's not fit for the work, all we have is one more incompetent corporate executive in the world. If I pass a student who isn't right for hero work, I might as well be writing their death sentence. You weren't a bad student. You worked hard, and you had drive. Maybe you'd even have been a mediocre hero after all. But I couldn't take a chance on mediocre. Mediocre CEOs just lose money. Mediocre heroes die."

"I know. I'm sorry. The school put its faith in me and I let you all down."

"Bullshit." She flinched, and Aizawa moderated his tone a few degrees softer. "You weren't the disappointment. People who shoved you into the hero path from the moment you manifested your abilities are the ones who let us down. Not everything should be about climbing the ranks higher and higher until going any further would break you completely." He thought of the man waiting for him outside. All Might set out to be a symbol and it worked too well...he should have been a symbol of a terrible task that needed doing and ought not to ever be done again. Instead, and with as little of his consent as he'd given for the pornography, his path had become an aspiration.

"Huh." Jiodo let out a shaky huff. "Tell that to my parents. Anytime I wasn't pressing myself so hard I nearly lost my mind, they called me lazy. I think they took my expulsion even worse than I did--no, I know they did. All their hard work, down the drain. These days they barely talk to me."

"And is that so bad, not having them puppeting you around?"

"Well, no, but…"

"This goddamn system is broken, Tsukuda. it's been broken since before either of us were born. Don't be sorry for not becoming something you never wanted to be...I'm not sorry for keeping you from it either. A parent who'd prefer you rushing to your death instead of happy and working a retail job isn't worth of the title."

The spectre of Yagi, lurking in the back of his head like a long-limbed shoulder angel urged him to add, "But I'm sorry I made you suffer by denying it. I'm glad you've found what makes you happy."

Tears welled up in Jiodo's eyes.

-----------

Fifteen minutes after entering Scent of Lilies, Aizawa sent a subtle 'it's good keep waiting' text to Yagi as Jiodo poured her guts out to him. Yagi spent an agonizing twenty further minutes pacing back and forth in the park, trying to hide behind trees when people looked at him for too long, and thoroughly made himself seem like a creeper.

When the lights in the shop finally went out Jiodo and Aizawa exited together. Jiodo's eyes were red-ringed, but there was an exhausted smile of relief on her face. Yagi watched from the trees as the two exchanged a few final words, and then Jiodo gave Aizawa a tight hug that nearly crushed the air out of him. All the flowerpot-lifting had clearly given her good upper arm strength. She pressed something wrapped in cellophane into his hands, and then scampered off down the street, one hand upraised in a goodbye wave. Aizawa stood watching her for several seconds before slowly turning and heading into the park.

"Well?" Yagi asked, when Aizawa finally trailed back to him.

"She's not our blackmailer, but I know who is."

"Who?"

"Tsukuda Jidai. Her father. Similar enough name on the credit card statement to throw us off, plenty of motive, and one hell of an entitlement complex. I think I know how we can take him down a few notches, though."

Aizawa held out the package. Through the translucent wrapping at its base Yagi could see it was a pot of small purple flowers. The pot was in the shape of a plump yellow duck who'd clearly seen hard times, judging by the rough edges where a fall had broken off part of its wing. Damaged goods, impossible to sell, but still serving its purpose of protecting the tender blossoms embedded in its back.

"Also, happy anniversary. Here's a duck."

[mollyellee]

if you say that you are mine

Sebastian meets Blaine at a business social in a box at Madison Square Garden. They try to make up for lost time, until Blaine finds out Sebastian’s boss wants to buy his company. Sebastian has to prove it’s not corporate espionage, it’s begging for a second chance.

Here we go again!  It’s been a while since I’ve written anything, so hopefully I’m not too rusty.  Thanks to @seblaineaffairs​ for giving me an opportunity to post something for Seblainiversary 2018, hope you guys like it!  

m for a sprinkling of smut and language//inspired by the “should I stay or should I go” prompt from the original Seblainiversary post; title inspired by the song

Blaine likes sports. He’s never been the type of guy to memorize stats about the whole team or be able to recite the championship history in heavy detail, but he likes them.

And now that he’s divorced, he finds himself going to games by himself just because he can. Kurt would never begrudge him a day out at the ballpark, but after about an hour, he would complain about the greasy food, the inability to follow the game, and Blaine would lose all sense of enjoyment trying to make his husband happy.

So when his boss volunteers him to attend a hockey game in a private box, he jumps at the chance. His boss said that they needed some assistance getting some of their initiatives off the ground, and Blaine is the best man for the job.

When he steps in the luxury box, he is immediately taken aback. There’s a fully stocked bar, waiters mingling throughout the room, and a small crowd of at least 15-20 people.  Normally when he goes to games by himself, he sits up as far as possible, wanting to remain another anonymous face in the crowd.  Tonight, he knows he’s supposed to mingle, meet new people, and he’s fine with that.

Until he sees him.

The two haven’t interacted since high school, but Blaine would recognize Sebastian Smythe anywhere.  He’s standing near the exit of the luxury box, so close to the seats that if he took two steps to his left, he’d be invisible to Blaine, just a mystery man in a crowd of mystery men.

Then again, Sebastian has always been a little bit of a mystery to him.

And then the person talking to him leaves and Sebastian looks up, right into Blaine’s eyeline. He doesn’t look like he feels the the life changing shock that Blaine felt when he saw Sebastian, but his eyebrows do raise slightly. Blaine isn’t sure how they do this.  Do they act like they didn’t see each other? It feels like Sebastian remains stationary, but Blaine feels like he’s on a conveyor belt straight to him.  He isn’t sure how he arrives in front of Sebastian but before he knows it, he’s opening his mouth to speak.

“I wasn’t sure what I’d say if I ever saw you again.”

Sebastian still has that same self assured smirk as all those years ago, “And that’s what you went with?”

Blaine laughs and releases a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, “What’s your best line for an old friend you haven’t seen in ten years?”

Blaine notices Sebastian’s slight flinch at friend, but he’s more occupied with trying not to stare as Sebastian takes a sip of his drink, clearly buying time to think of something clever.  After swallowing and licking his lips, just to make sure Blaine sees them shining and wet, he responds.

“Still look hot in a blazer, Anderson.”

The Dalton model, blue and red and maybe just slightly too big, has been replaced with a sleek black jacket that compliments Blaine’s strong shoulders.  He rolls his eyes playfully and replies.

“Mine was better.  It implies that I’ve been thinking about you all this time.”

Sebastian sighs dramatically, “If only that were true.  But alas, you were scooped up long ago by that understudy for Tinkerbell.”

Blaine’s shoulders tense up instantly, but not because he has any residual feelings left for Kurt.  But he feels the inexplicable guilt of letting Sebastian slip out of his life.  He doesn’t want to explain everything that happened that led him to this moment, but he does want to make his current situation very clear to Sebastian, even if he’s not willing to admit the reason quite yet.

“Actually, I’m divorced, so this Peter Pan is all on his own in Neverland.”

At this, Sebastian’s eyebrows raise, intrigued, “That can’t possibly be true. You two were practically attached at the hip. Maybe that was the problem, too close for comfort?”

“I think that was more of our problem. For him anyway,” Blaine says teasingly. Sebastian is impressed. This Blaine is looser, more comfortable than the one he remembers. Maybe losing Kurt (and those horrendous bow ties) has done him some good.

Not that Sebastian would’ve expected any different.

“Well then,” he says slowly, finishing the rest of his drink and distractedly putting it on a counter next to him, “since you never grew up, why don’t we finish what we started back in high school?  My place is just a little ways uptown, care for a nightcap?”

Blaine is enjoying this.  It’s been a long time since flirting with someone made him feel excited, and the fact that it’s Sebastian, someone he always wanted but never could have, makes it feel even more thrilling.

“I bet that’s what you ask all the boys,” Blaine says with a smirk, “minus the high school thing, of course.  Unless every broken heart you left in Lima followed you to the big city.”

Sebastian leans over and murmurs low into Blaine’s ear, “For your information, it is a sacred few that make it through the hallowed halls of my home. I usually just leave them in the club bathroom when we’re finished.”

As Sebastian pulls away, they are both laughing, and Blaine feels the slightest twinge that he should stop this.  The game isn’t even half over, he hasn’t spoken to anyone about work, and he’s seriously considering doing something with Sebastian that he always thought he might regret.

“I actually should probably be talking to some of these people since this is a business function,” he responds, and pulls out a business card from his blazer pocket.  Sebastian reads it and asks, “Broadway Works Project?”

The name of the company Blaine works for is printed on the card, but he suddenly feels foolish for handing one to someone who just asked him to go home for a drink (and definitely more, but Blaine can’t focus on that right now).

“Uh yeah, it’s this little non-profit I work for.  We’re small, but we do a lot of good work, and you probably don’t care at all,” he says with a self-depricating laugh.

“I’ll have to look into it,” Sebastian responds with a warm smile, “It was good talking to you, Blaine.”

“You too,” Blaine says, and slowly makes his way to some of the other small groups forming in the room.  He makes casual conversation, explains the mission of Broadway Works Project, that they help up-and-coming actors looking to make it on Broadway with auditions, portfolios, anything they need to get their career started.  His boss had sent him to drum up support for the project, mostly monetary, but he knew Blaine’s passion for the group would show through and bring support in whatever form they could get.

And yet, as he talks and mingles, all he can think about is Sebastian. The few times he allows himself to zone out of the conversations he’s having, he looks over and Sebastian is always looking his way, a small playful smile on his face, even from across the room.

It has been a long time since Blaine did something reckless.  He’s done enough work for one night, he thinks he can afford to play a little too.  They’ll forgive him at work tomorrow.

He walks over just as Sebastian is finishing talking to an older man, and the two exchange cards.  He quirks his head to the side and smiles.  He doesn’t even have to say anything before Blaine responds to the question he asked earlier in the evening.

“All right, yeah,” he answers, “Take me home, Sebastian.”

---

Blaine should’ve known Sebastian would never take the subway, so they stand in silence as they wait for a cab outside Madison Square Garden.  It doesn’t take long, the city alive as always, but Blaine feels like he can feel his whole body vibrating as they get in and Sebastian directs the driver toward an address on the Upper West Side. He doesn’t know if it’s the thrill of going home with a hot guy, or if it’s because that guy is Sebastian, but he feels more alive than he has in a long time. When Sebastian leans back against the seat after stating the address, Blaine swears he winks at him before looking down at his phone and sending a few quick text messages.

He looks down at his own phone and sees a message from a coworker, and more importantly, an old friend.

How is the event? Get any buzz going?

She doesn’t like to be ignored, and she’ll give Blaine hell for it when she sees him tomorrow, but right now, he wants to think about nothing but Sebastian.  As the taller boy writes an email, Blaine scans his body from top to bottom.  He’s always been gorgeous, but growing older has done him so many favors.  His teenage lankiness has evolved into sharp edges that define his long legs, and the button down he’s wearing is rolled up at the sleeves so Blaine can see his toned, but not overly muscular arms.  He doesn’t even bother looking up from the email before saying, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Blaine snorts through a laugh, “And you think I’m the one with the lame lines.”

He hits send and smirks as he looks at Blaine, “I don’t think anything about you is lame.  Well, your taste in men used to be, but clearly that has improved.”

Sebastian finishes his statement just as the cab comes to a stop and Blaine is immediately in awe of the beautiful building. They step out and he waves hello to Sebastian’s doorman, as they go through the lobby to the elevator and end up on the 14th floor of a 16-story building.  The building is massive, but it appears to only have three apartments on the floor and as Sebastian unlocks the door and they move into his apartment, Blaine tries to control his eyes because he knows they must be bulging out of his head.  

They walk through the slightly narrow foyer, into a large open living area where Sebastian has a massive white couch, an extensive bar area in the corner, and a record player sitting where Blaine has his TV.  Past that though, is what takes Blaine’s breath away.  The whole wall is a large glass window, looking out on the city, lights twinkling, televised advertisements constantly changing, cars moving slowly.  There is no way any of those people below can see them, but Blaine feels like he can see everything.

Suddenly, Blaine feels nervous and slightly panicked.  His apartment is nowhere as near as nice as this place, and he realizes he hasn’t even asked Sebastian any questions about his life, his job; hell, he could be married and just looking for a little fun on the side. This last part particularly makes him panicked and he can’t help the accusation from bubbling out.

“Are you married?”

Sebastian looks over from where he’s hanging up his coat in the closet by the door and laughs, “Insulted that you think I wouldn’t be able to afford this place on my own.”

Blaine can feel his walls coming down at the familiarity, “I’m just saying, I was married, and we still could never have afforded a place like this.”

Sebastian avoids the topic, and instead opts to go over to the bar, pouring two glasses of scotch, “What happened with you and your marriage?”

Blaine sighs, “I don’t know.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes playfully, handing a glass to Blaine, “You do know, you’re just too nice to say.”

Blaine nervously throws back his drink in one gulp, amazed at how smooth it goes down, and looks up at Sebastian, his hand shaking slightly.

“I don’t know what I’m doing with you.”

Sebastian takes a sip of his drink and then takes both his and Blaine’s glasses and sets them on the shelf next to the record player, where all his albums are displayed proudly.

“Nothing yet,” he murmurs, “but I am in fact, not married, so the possibilities are endless.”

He leans down and kisses Blaine, slowly, tentatively, like he doesn’t want to scare him, but Blaine doesn’t seem scared, returning the kiss like he’s giving permission for it to continue. Sebastian effortlessly reaches out to the wall, turning off the lights and putting them in darkness save for the glow of the city around them.  Blaine gasps when he opens his eyes, letting them adjust to see the shine on Sebastian’s lips, the twinkling of the city lights behind him.

“Tell me something you don’t tell the other boys,” he says quietly.

Sebastian likes this game. He smiles, “This place was a gift from my Dad for business school graduation. After all the trouble I caused in high school, I think he was so grateful I actually did something with my life.” He doesn’t look hurt by this admission, just takes it as fact.

“Your turn, killer.”

Blaine practically goes weak at the knees at the mention of his old nickname. He and Sebastian have moved closer to the window, and the lights from the city are casting the most beautiful shadows on his face. He leans forward, placing his hand on Sebastian’s chest.

“I don’t think Kurt ever got over the insecurity he felt with you.”

This pleases Sebastian, or at least if his behavior is any indication it does. He leans down, ghosting his nose over the shell of Blaine’s ear before biting down gently on his lobe, moving to kiss down his neck. When he finally returns to Blaine’s mouth, Blaine receives his kiss easily, all while reaching for Sebastian’s shirt, unbuttoning it as quickly as possible, and sliding the shirt off his broad shoulders, stopping to stare at him in the light.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you, Sebastian.”

“I think I do,” he says, desperation lacing his voice, “because I’ve been waiting longer.”

Sebastian reaches down, pulling Blaine’s shirt over his head and pressing him against the window. He feels Blaine arch his back and shudder and pulls away to make sure he didn’t hurt him and Blaine just smiles sheepishly.

“Cold,” he says, gesturing at the window.

“Sorry, I just want the whole world to see,” Sebastian admits and Blaine asks breathlessly, “See what?”

“That you’re mine.”

Blaine knows that Sebastian’s always been a smooth talker, but god damn is it irresistible when he can actually do something about it.

“There’s gotta be a bedroom around here somewhere, right?”

“Fuck yes there is,” Sebastian breathes out, grabbing Blaine’s hand, but keeping him close, reaching with his other hand to unbuckle his belt and dispose of his slacks. When they get into the bedroom, he gently pushes Blaine on the bed and gets rid of his own remaining clothing. When he turns around Blaine has shed the last of his clothes and is laying back on the bed. Sebastian comes closer and Blaine pulls him on top of him, close so he can feel every inch of their bodies touching. Their cocks brush and as Blaine groans lowly, Sebastian laughs breathlessly.  Blaine musters the strength to glare, but Sebastian just keeps smiling.

“I’ve waited a decade to hear you make that sound,” he admits.

“I’ll make some other ones if you play nice,” Blaine breathes out.

“Oh Blaine,” Sebastian says with a smirk, “you know I never liked to play nice.”

Without warning, he hoists Blaine’s legs up around him, leaning down again to kiss him and then murmuring close to his ear.

“Tell me again how long you’ve wanted me.”

Blaine babbles out “forever, since the moment I met you, please”, his breathing getting more labored by the second.  Sebastian wants him to elaborate, but wants something else much more. He moves as quickly as he can to the side table drawer where he easily finds a condom and his bottle of lube. Blaine shuts his eyes, hearing Sebastian pop open the bottle and it’s only when the cool sensation hits his entrance that his eyes shoot open. He looks down and sees Sebastian working his fingers in and out of him, slow at first but faster, more assured as Blaine gets more comfortable.

Blaine can see the sweat shining on Sebastian’s abs as he breathes and fuck they need to get on with it before he comes just from the sight.

“Sebastian I’m...I’m ready, just do it,” he pants out and almost instantly feels a twinge of regret because Sebastian’s fingers are gone that very next second. But before Blaine can miss them, he feels Sebastian pressing inside him slowly and he reaches up to grip the headboard, his back arching to get him closer.

Sebastian thrusts shallowly at first, but hearing Blaine’s whines and watching as he scrambles to ground himself encourages his movements.  He slams into Blaine once, testing the waters, and Blaine practically screams with pleasure.

So, yeah, he’ll definitely be doing that again.

He knows Blaine is getting desperate, so he reaches down to Blaine’s cock, bobbing hard and full between them and strokes once, twice, just to hear Blaine’s breathy moans of please and faster.  Sebastian’s strokes become more frantic, knowing he himself is close to the edge, and as he thrusts hard once more, the combination of his cock and his hand become too much for Blaine and he comes, panting as Sebastian stills for a moment, just staring at the beautiful picture in front of him, the one he had given up on ever seeing.

“Well, don’t just sit there, move,” Blaine encourages him, wanting Sebastian to have his release.  Sebastian happily obliges, pushing a few more times into Blaine’s tight heat before he’s coming, releasing Blaine’s legs from where he’s held them at his sides and drawing out of Blaine.

He rolls over onto his back and disposes of the condom.  He knows he should get up, get a wet towel to wipe the remaining traces of Blaine off of his stomach, but he can’t seem to find the strength to move.  Blaine seems to sense this so he gets up with a smile, coming back a few seconds later to wipe down Sebastian’s abs with a warm towel.

“You just wanted to touch me again,” Sebastian teases, still a little breathless.

“Yeah maybe,” Blaine replies with a smirk, throwing the towel in the bathroom and coming back to lay beside Sebastian.  They don’t say anything for a few moments, and the next time Sebastian opens his eyes, Blaine’s breathing has evened out.  He’s not usually a fan of the one night stand sleepovers, but for Blaine Anderson, he thinks he could probably make an exception.

---

When Blaine wakes up, he hears the sound of water falling and his first thought is how nice and relaxing the sound of the rain is. He opens his eyes and see his clothes scattered on the floor and smiles, feeling the soft sheets enveloping his body.  Tentatively, he reaches for his cell phone and turns it over to see the time.

It’s 9:15. Normally he would have his breakfast and be on the train from his apartment in Brooklyn by 8 am.

They are going to kill him at work. Especially since he didn’t exactly do his job last night.

He’s in full on panic mode, running around the bedroom and throwing his clothes on haphazardly.  He looks in the mirror in Sebastian’s hallway, making sure his hair is at least presentable.  He realizes that the sound isn’t the rain, it’s the shower, but he doesn’t have time to have the awkward conversation with Sebastian about what they are or aren’t, and truth be told, he’s not sure he would have any answers that he feels confident in.

After ten years apart, they had a great night, but their past is complicated.  So why not just leave it at the perfect night?

Blaine glances back toward the bathroom door, part of his heart begging him to stay.  But his sensible side takes over, and he’s knows it’s best to go.  So, he leaves without a word.  

All the while, the water is still running.

—-

“What the fuck Blaine, where have you been?!”

That’s about the reaction he expected. He places an Americano from her favorite coffee shop down the block on her desk, hoping it will placate her, but she is still glaring with her arms folded.

“Sorry, I um...got caught up after the event last night.”

If anyone had told him after high school that the person he would be seeing most often would be Santana Lopez, he wouldn’t have believed it. But ten years, two divorces and one non-profit later, here they were: co-workers, and dare Blaine say it, possibly best friends. The Broadway Works Project happened at a time when they both needed it and when they both needed a friend.  And although they had success working for the company, felt the most fulfilled they ever had at any job, both knew it had led to their hardest failures.  But they were failures they both understood, and failures they could help each other through.

“You got caught up?” She said, an eyebrow raised, and then the moment Blaine had been worrying about all the way over from Sebastian’s happened.  She’s studying his outfit a little too closely for him to not be caught.  

“Blaine Anderson, you were wearing that tie yesterday! Did you actually get some?!”

“Oh my god can you keep it down?” He’s frantically looking around, hoping Santana’s outburst doesn’t draw the attention of their boss, Charlie, who no doubt will ask Blaine how the event went last night.  Charlie is the founder of the group, and so passionate and dedicated to his mission that he would never skip out on an event to make it even greater.  Blaine knew he had let him down, but he had managed to take a few business cards before he skipped out. So that had to count for something, didn’t it?

“Spill. Now,” she says quieter, “Was it…”  She looks off into the distance, mentally scrolling through the list of attendees she casually glanced at the day before.  Neither of them had remembered seeing Sebastian’s name.  Blaine isn’t sure if that would have persuaded him to go or caused him to make an excuse not to.  He knows now, but yesterday seems a lifetime away.

“It was no one. Now can we leave it?” Blaine knows as soon as the words come out that Sebastian is far from no one but he doesn’t know what he is, and he’s not trying to figure it out now when he’s two hours late for work and has to come up with an excuse as to why he doesn’t have any intel for his boss.

She lets it go (for now), and goes back to whatever she was working on, making phone calls and screaming in Spanish to casting directors and stage managers, and Blaine considers the matter forgotten.  

It isn’t until about an hour later when he hears her stop mid-sentence and go, “I have to call you back.”

It isn’t much that makes Santana speechless, but she stops flat and stares behind Blaine. For a moment Blaine panics, thinking it’s going to be Charlie, but he is usually friendly and understanding, not a boss to be afraid of.  Both Blaine and Santana know they don’t have anything to fear from Charlie when they don’t get their work done, he just encourages them to keep at it.  So, he turns around to see who she could possibly be gaping at.

And standing in the middle of their office is Sebastian Smythe.

“Hey there Cinderella. You left so fast this morning the smoke was still clearing when I got out of the shower.”

Behind him, Blaine can hear Santana choking on her coffee and he turns around to shoot her a look.  When he turns back, Sebastian is sitting on the edge of his desk giving him that salacious grin he’s having flashbacks to.

“I...how did you find me?”

He reaches into the pocket at the front of his suit jacket and pulls out a business card.  It’s Blaine’s own.

“Your glass slipper.”

“I’m sorry, is this for real?” Santana says a little too loudly, caught between confusion, excitement and anger.  A lot of time has passed since Santana and Sebastian’s confrontation, and she’s not sure where Blaine stands on everything.  Although it does seem pretty clear that all seems to be forgotten and forgiven.

“Feels like I’m a new man since the last time we met, Santana.”  Sebastian is over by her desk now, extending his hand and Blaine nods letting her know, it’s okay I’m okay.

She accepts his handshake, “Well you look damn good, Smythe.  Still up to your wicked ways?”

“Nah, left that life behind.  Now I am but a humble PR rep for an entertainment company.”

Blaine snorts, “Yeah, so humble he has an apartment the size of Yankee Stadium.”

“You’ve been to his apartment?” Santana asks with a grin, confirming her suspicions, “Well, well, well, this is interesting.”

“Santana, please, don’t tell Charlie,” he panics, “I went to Sebastian’s last night during the event, so I...I didn’t exactly accomplish our goals.”

“Oh honey, you accomplished every goal I’ve had for you for two years.”

“Two years?” Sebastian pipes up, interested, “For someone who was out of practice, you sure didn’t seem like it.”  He and Santana exchange smiles and Blaine can feel himself turning red with embarrassment.  He had left Sebastian’s apartment without a word, hoping to avoid any awkwardness of ‘what does this all mean’, and instead he was now getting it from both sides.

“Yes, well, is there something I can help you with, Mr. Smythe? Or did you just come all this way to sex-shame me?”

Santana and Sebastian share another look and Blaine hates it already.  This closeness starting to form between them is trouble, and the last two people he wants causing trouble are his best friend and his...well, whatever Sebastian is.

“Well, Mr. Anderson,” he teases playfully, “I was hoping you might join me for a little late breakfast-early lunch.  It’s the least I can do for keeping you from your work last night.”

He’s already started saying “Sebastian, we don’t have to…” when he hears Santana exclaim “Yes!”  They both stare at her, Blaine shocked, Sebastian pleased, and she clears her throat to speak again, “Sebastian, would you mind giving Blaine and I just two seconds? He’ll be right out.”

Sebastian nods and leaves and Blaine turns back to her and hisses, “What are you doing?”

“Blaine, I haven’t seen you get this flustered over a guy in years.  In fact, I think the only other guy besides Kurt that ever made you act this way is him.  So why not take a chance and see what could be?”

“It was a one night stand, Santana.  Consider it a check off my bucket list.”

“Talking about checking off your bucket list is exactly why you need to go have lunch and flirt with a hot guy.  I’ll cover for you, say you ate some bad wings at the Garden last night and are at home barfing your face off or something.”

Blaine closes his eyes for a moment and thinks.  He never really got to travel down this road with Sebastian because his heart had been occupied from the moment they met.  Does he want to give him this chance 10 years later?

He picks up his bag, “All right, fine.  But if I end up with another slushee in my face, I’m blaming you.”

She rolls her eyes, “That level of drama is so high school.  Go get into some big boy trouble.”

He laughs and heads outside where Sebastian is ending a phone call.  He smiles when he sees Blaine walk through the door.

“If something more important came up, we can reschedule,” Blaine offers, motioning at the other man’s phone.  But Sebastian waves it off.

“No, no it’s nothing.  So, where do you want to eat?”

Blaine’s eyes alight.  If there’s one thing he loves about New York, it’s the food.  And Sebastian looks like the type to order the same sandwich from the same deli delivered to his desk every single day because he’s too busy to go out to eat.  Blaine is going to rock his world.

---

“Holy shit, this is amazing,” Sebastian moans.

Blaine is quite pleased with himself.  They are at a little Italian cafe, not far from the Broadway Works Project, but far enough that Blaine (hopefully) won’t be running into his boss while he plays hooky with the hottest ghost from his past.

“Told you,” Blaine says with a satisfied smile, thanking the waiter and leaving them alone.  Sebastian figures this is as good a time as any to ask the question again, the one he’s dying to know the answer to.

“So, come on, tell me.  What idiotic decision led to you becoming a divorcee?”

“Wow,” Blaine says, taking a long drink of water, “pretty hard hitting topics for a first date.”

“This is a date?”

“Guess I should ask the guy who stalked me at my work after a one night stand.”

“Ouch, killer,” Sebastian says with a laugh and a touch of mock hurt.

Blaine can feel himself blushing despite himself, “Stop calling me that. It makes me forget that maybe I should hate you.”

“And why is that?”

“Oh, I don’t know, you’ve made me shirk my responsibilities at work twice now, you threw rock salt in my eye, you tried endlessly to break up my relationship…”

Sebastian’s smooth facade falls for a moment and he looks genuinely remorseful, “I am sorry about what I did to you all those years ago.  I was an immature idiotic kid.  I never would have forgiven myself if I had, god forbid, blinded you or something.”

Blaine smiles warmly, “It’s forgiven.  Honest.  Although, I’m pretty sure I’m still mad at you about that other stuff.”

Sebastian shrugs, “Hey, if you had given me a chance the first time I asked, maybe you wouldn’t have had all that heartbreak to deal with.  Marriage and divorce, it’s so expensive, who needs it?”

At this, Blaine pauses, amused, “You wouldn’t have broken my heart?”

“Maybe,” Sebastian responds, noncommittal.  He knows he wasn’t perfect, never has been. “But the fact is that Kurt did and you still haven’t told me how.”

Blaine explains quickly what they do at Broadway Works Project. How they act more like advisors than agents, but nevertheless, they advocate for actors, ones who just need a little help getting their big break. The same big break Kurt had been chasing his whole life.

“He didn’t get that I couldn’t just hand him these roles, you know?” Blaine sighs, “and then he got jealous because I was giving roles to other guys and he thought I must like them better and I just got so tired of it.  I know it must’ve been hard to be him, coming to NYADA only to have so many doors closed in his face, but he never even considered how hard it was to be me.  I never told him this because I didn’t want to crush his dreams, but it wasn’t me who didn’t want him in any of the shows. I tried, believe me.”

Sebastian picks up his glass of wine and takes a drink, “He never deserved you, I could’ve told you that.”

Blaine rolls his eyes, but is still smiling, “I think you did tell me that. That was the problem.”

“Well, I hope it’s not a problem that I’m telling you now.”

Blaine can’t believe how absolutely smitten he is still is for this boy. Maybe always was.

“Not in the slightest.”

—-

1 date becomes 5. Nightcaps become sleepovers.

Days become weeks become months.

And before he knows it, Blaine Anderson has a boyfriend.  And so does Sebastian Smythe.

---

“I’m sorry, you’ve lived here how long and you’ve never taken the subway?!”

“Blaine, why would I ever share transportation with God knows who coming from God knows where when I could have a nice private car to myself?  Nobody talks to me, I don’t talk to them, everyone is happy.”

“The subway is what makes the city come alive! You have to try it at least once.”

Blaine’s puppy dog eyes are met with Sebastian’s unimpressed side eye, but within minutes, they are on the platform, waiting for the train to take them back to Blaine’s apartment.

“Is this smell also part of the experience?”

“Nah that’s just trash,” Blaine says with a shrug, taking Sebastian’s hand and pulling him into the train as the taller of the two mutters, “Lovely.”

The train moves, it stops where it shouldn’t, they’re treated to an impromptu musical number, kids talk way too loud in front of them, but Sebastian never complains.  He just looks over, Blaine’s head resting happily on his shoulder as they sit.  He thinks it, but he can’t say it

Not with the knowledge that it might someday break Blaine all over again.

When they get to Blaine’s stop, Sebastian has never felt so relieved.  They get off the train and the cold air of early fall hits them, but Blaine doesn’t seem to mind at all.  He’s practically grinning ear to ear.

“Okay, you can’t like the subway that much, you’re acting like a character in a tourism ad.  I’m worried you’re going to burst into a song and dance about the Empire State Building” Sebastian says skeptically.

“Not about the subway,” Blaine replies as they get to the door to his small brownstone, “You hated it.”

“Not my preferred transportation, but…”

“But you did it.  For me.”

Sebastian feels his heart ache.  Everytime Blaine does something like this, appreciates him for the little things, he can’t help but feel warm inside.  But there’s always that feeling of guilt, the little voice in his head that says tell him before it’s too late.

Sebastian just nods and Blaine pushes up to kiss him.  When he pulls away, he is still smiling.

“I love you, Sebastian.”

It’s been six months since they met again, but Blaine has wanted to say it since that very first date.  He knew, even then, that there had to be a reason he had never fully given up on Sebastian Smythe.

Sebastian can’t say it, for so many reasons, so he kisses him back, hurries them inside so they can warm up.  Blaine is so elated he got his feelings out, that they don’t even make it to the bedroom.  They undress in the living room, clothes catching on barstools, shelves, even his TV, but he can’t bring himself to care.  Sebastian loves him, he can feel it in his touch, the way he looks at him.

The way he drops to his knees in front of Blaine’s couch, looking up at Blaine ferociously as he kisses down Blaine’s torso, leaves little bites along his stomach, the inside of his thighs.  By the time Sebastian’s lips reach Blaine’s cock, he’s practically begging for it, and Sebastian is happy to oblige.  He takes him deep, humming around the shaft, and Blaine can’t help but stare as Sebastian works his tongue around him.  He grips Sebastian’s hair, lightly, just to feel him everywhere.  When it’s almost too much, he throws his head back against the couch, whimpering and scrambling, but Sebastian remains steady, moving up and down until he can feel Blaine’s release.

When he knows Blaine is close, he pulls off, replacing his mouth with his hand, and Blaine gasps, whipping his head forward.  He leans up to kiss Sebastian frantically and comes hard, biting Sebastian’s lip as his hand works him through it.  He takes a few moments to breathe, and when he looks up, Sebastian is cleaning up with Blaine’s t-shirt, and Blaine whacks him playfully on the side of the head.

“Hey asshole, that’s my t-shirt,” he says with a grin.

“Yeah, well, this was my lip, but you didn’t seem to care about that,” Sebastian replies, sticking his tongue out and then showing the little pricks of blood coming from where Blaine bit down as his orgasm hit.

“Oh my god, Sebastian, I’m so sorry.  Are you okay?”

He shrugs playfully, “I don’t know, I may never be able to kiss you again.”

“Oh I highly doubt that,” Blaine says with a smile and Sebastian laughs, lying back on the couch.  He nods and pulls Blaine on top of him, and everything starts again.

He wishes it could stay this way forever.

—-

“And last we have...Sebastian.”

He hears his boss state his name over the phone, the last order of business on the conference call and he sits up straighter, having been distracted by dread, knowing this moment was doomed to arrive.

“Um yeah, what can I answer for you?”

“What’s happening with the Broadway Works Project? We were supposed to have acquired them 6 months ago, I have agents waiting to foster that talent.”

He swallows hard and realizes he has no good answer for the predicament he’s found himself in. He loves this job, worked harder than he’s ever worked in his whole life to get where he is.  If his boss wants to take over a company, he should be doing whatever it takes to make that happen.  

But then there’s the picture of him and Blaine sitting on his desk, the two of them at Coney Island, Blaine looking up at Sebastian adoringly like he’s his whole world.

Sebastian can’t bear to tell him.

His whole world is a lie.

—-

Sebastian is standing in his apartment alone, staring out at the city, waiting for her to arrive.  Blaine had said he was taking a new client to tour some theaters around the city, get an idea of exactly the types of shows he’d like to get involved with and Sebastian was more than happy to have some time alone.

He needs to figure this out.

The buzzer signaling someone is at his door chimes brightly and he could almost curse the happy jingling tone.  He moves toward the door, knowing he’s dragging his feet.  Knowing she’s almost certainly thinking she’s coming there for something happy.  Knowing it’s the complete and total opposite.

When he opens the door, Santana is grinning, bottle of champagne in her hand, and even Sebastian is a little thrown off by this gesture.

“Hi, I’m so excited you called!”

She flings her arms around him for a hug and he hugs back, distracted and confused.  He takes the bottle of champagne and holds it out, “What’s this for?”

She enters the apartment, walking straight into the kitchen area to look for champagne flutes.

“Your engagement, of course!  I know some people might think it’s fast, but I’m so happy for you guys.  Blaine is just so happy with you, and he won’t be home for hours.  I made a very extensive tour list for him and Michael.”

Sebastian’s heart drops and he almost drops the bottle of champagne, but instead he places it gently on the counter and halts Santana’s search for the glasses.

“Santana, I need you to sit down.”

She looks taken aback; this isn’t exactly textbook behavior for someone who she thinks is about to ask the biggest question of his life, but as with Blaine, Sebastian has always been a bit of a mystery.  They sit down on the couch, facing each other from opposite ends and Sebastian starts, shaky.

“I haven’t been honest...with Blaine.”

She instantly looks angry. She never thought she and Blaine would ever be this close, but he is her best friend, the person she would protect over anyone.  But she tries to stay calm, hear him out.

“What do you mean, Sebastian?”

“When we met again, I was working for Mirage Talent Agency, and I still am.  I was at that event at MSG looking for partnerships.  My boss was looking to grow our business, so I had been talking to a few other reps from smaller agencies.  Nothing too exciting.  And then I saw Blaine.  And that night, we didn’t talk about Broadway Works Project, or my job, we just reignited that spark.  But the next day when I went into work, my boss told me about the company, said one of my co-workers saw me leave with Blaine and thought I was working with him on a deal to buy the Project.  When I said I wasn’t, he insisted I should. That’s when I came to see Blaine, I had to figure out what to do.”

“So what? Your first date was a test?”

“I don’t know,” Sebastian sighs, frustrated, “I thought it might make it easier, if I could see Blaine in the light of day, realize we were only meant to last for a night, then I wouldn’t feel bad trying to acquire the company.  He hurt me by choosing Kurt so long ago, I thought maybe this was my chance to even things out.  But after that first date, I knew, I couldn’t hurt him.  I’ve been stalling at work for months, saying the deal isn’t ready, things aren’t right, but I can’t do that for much longer.  If my boss doesn’t see some results soon, I’m going to get fired, and Mirage might take over BWP anyway.  So I don’t know what to do.”

Santana is furious now, “Jesus Christ, Sebastian. You should know he’s been through this before!  You’re the one who told him that you’re not like Kurt, you’re different.  You don’t want anything but him.  What a load of shit.”

“That’s the thing, Santana, I know I want him!  I don’t want the company, I never did.  But I don’t know how to stop this without staying.  If I’m there, I can fix this, I can try to set my boss’ sights on another company.”

Santana just shakes her head sadly, “I don’t know if you can fix this.”

“I don’t either.”

Both of them look up suddenly from the couch and there’s Blaine, standing in the foyer hallway.  His eyes look hard and angry, but there is a weariness to him; Sebastian can tell that he’s been crying.

“Santana, would you mind?” It seems like that’s all he can get out, but she understands instantly.  She shoots Sebastian a glare before grabbing the champagne off the kitchen counter.  She puts one arm around Blaine, whispers “call me if you need me”, and then she’s gone.

“Blaine, please, let me explain.”

“I ran into Kurt.  He explained.”

Sebastian is taken aback.  “You still talk to Kurt?”

“I don’t, but if we’re going to make this about keeping secrets, you’re definitely going to lose, so I probably wouldn’t go there.”

Blaine is so angry he can feel his hands shaking.  He tries to calm down, remember the details of Kurt’s story so he can keep the facts straight.

Blaine is getting off the subway, having just left Michael after the most meticulously planned tour of the city’s theaters courtesy of Santana. He’s planning on heading back to the office to finish a few things up when he’s walking up the stairs to head outside and he sees him.

Kurt. Coming down the stairs.

They both freeze, passengers around them swearing and jostling them to move out of the way.  Kurt backs up a few steps so that he and Blaine are standing outside, away from the subway’s entrance.

“Hi Blaine, how are you?”

“I’m, um, I’m good, Kurt. How are you?”

Blaine can hardly believe this is the person he thought he was going to spend forever with.  They seem so separate, so distant.  He can barely remember a time when they were one, they are now so solidly two.

“I’m okay.  Rachel is about to be picked up by a new agent, I think.  They actually said that they work for BWP.”

Blaine is confused.  Broadway Works Project is a small organization, they’re like a family.  He would know if there was a new agent.

“I don’t think we’ve hired anyone new lately, do you know his name?”

Kurt shrugs, “I can show you a picture, he just followed Rachel and me on Twitter.”

He pulls out his phone and shows Blaine a picture of a man he has never seen before.  But underneath the picture is his heading that reads: “The newest agent for the Broadway Works Project, a subsidiary of Mirage Talent Agency; coming soon!.”

Mirage Talent Agency.  Or, as Blaine knows it, the company Sebastian works for.

His head is spinning and he knows he has to get out of here.  But he can’t lose it in front of Kurt.  He might explain why he’s so upset, explain that Sebastian is back in his life.

Explain that Kurt was right about him.

“Interesting,” he says distractedly, and if it comes off a bit rude, he can’t put forth the effort to care, “I’ll have to look into it.  Good seeing you Kurt, I gotta run.”

And that’s practically what he does.  He walks so fast he can hear his heart pounding in his ears.  He can tell he’s on the brink of tears, but he won’t lose it in the middle of the city.  Won’t let them get the best of his anger.

That has got to be saved for the person who hurt him most.

“Blaine, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“You’re right, he probably doesn’t know this. So tell me, Sebastian, who are you? Do you really work in PR?”

“No,” Sebastian admits readily and Blaine feels like someone has punched him in the gut, “my boss is Head of Acquisitions.  I’m a Talent Manager, I handle agents who handle clients.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this? We practically do the same job!”

“I didn’t know how to explain,” Sebastian says, frustrated, “I didn’t even know what Broadway Works Project was when we met again that night, and then the next thing I knew, my boss was suggesting we acquire it.  I barely knew you then!”

“And yet, you took me to dinner, to plays, to fucking Coney Island and asked me question after question about my job.”

“I was getting to know you, Blaine.  That’s what people do when they date someone.”

“So this whole time we’ve been dating, what was that, like corporate espionage or something?” Blaine feels like he sounds crazy, words he never expected to say coming out of his mouth.

“Jesus, how could I be spying on you when I didn’t even expect to see you ever again?  I saw you that night and I thought fuck I missed him. I’ve worked my ass off to get where I am, but in that moment, everything changed course.  I am so in love with you, I knew it the second you walked back into my life.”

Blaine isn’t sure what to say. He is seething with anger, but it is rare to hear Sebastian be so open about how he feels. He knows his resolve is weakening, so he tenses up, asks the question he needs to know the answer to.

“Is Mirage taking over BWP?”

“It’s not a done deal,” Sebastian tries to sound confident, “I can fix it.  I can point my boss in another direction, I know how much Broadway Works means to you.”

“You do. And you knew how used I felt by Kurt and you did the exact same thing! I mean, Jesus, I love Broadway Works, but I don’t see why the fuck everyone in my life wants to take the control of it from me.”

“I don’t, I’m sorry, I was trying to prevent that,” Sebastian can feel that he’s practically begging now, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He can feel Blaine slipping from him by the second.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Blaine’s breath hitches. He is not going to cry in this moment. He takes a breath and finishes the statement.

“I can’t trust you anymore.”

“You don’t mean that,” Sebastian says calmly, the panic inside him threatening to erupt.

“Good luck with your deal, Sebastian. Maybe in some cruel twist of fate, you’ll end up being my boss.”

Blaine can’t even bear to look at him anymore, confronted with the fear that all it will take to forgive him is one look at Sebastian’s broken eyes, the way his body is slumped in resignation.

Blaine should’ve known better. Zebras can’t change their stripes.

And heartbreakers will always be just that.

—-

Santana is sitting on her couch, having a glass of wine when the knock comes. She rushes to her door, and on the other side, Blaine is standing, eyes red from crying.

When she sees him, she puts her arms around him and he starts sobbing all over again. They stand in her doorway for what feels like forever before Santana guides him in. She sets him up in her guest room, and asks if he needs anything.

“Fix my heart,” he sobs out and hers breaks.

She may not be able to fix his, but if she ever sees Sebastian again, she will shatter his.

—-

Blaine lays in Santana’s bed for a few days, staring at the ceiling, trying to make his heart stop hurting when he realizes he’s got to try to distract himself.

So he goes to work, tries to pretend everything is normal, and only Santana is the wiser.

But he watches Charlie in his office every single day, making frantic phone calls, pacing back and forth. He’s defending a company he didn’t even know was under attack and he’s woefully unprepared.

His heart aches, wishing there was something he could do about any of it. Wishing he could save the company he loves, the one who gave him a home.

Selfishly, wishing he could do the same for Sebastian.

“Should I tell him?” Blaine says quietly to Santana, motioning his head in the direction of Charlie’s office.

“Tell him what? You didn’t do anything wrong,” she replies.

“If I had never seen him again, if I hadn’t been with him, Charlie wouldn’t be having to fight to save us,” he laments.

“Blaine,” she says sternly, but caring, “maybe you dating Sebastian expedited the process a little, but bottom feeders like whoever Sebastian’s working for will always find a way to pick on the little guy. We’re underdogs, always have been. But we’ll be all right.”

He knows she’s not just talking about the company. But if he’s honest with himself, he’s not sure he believes her about any of it.

—-

Blaine thanks God for winter. A few days later, the biggest storm to hit New York in decades arrives, leaving him and Santana snowed into her apartment. He’s selfishly glad for the snow, seeing Charlie distraught and run ragged has been wearing on his conscience and although Santana told him none of it was his fault, he still felt responsible for bringing Sebastian, and thus, Sebastian’s company, into their lives.

He doesn’t allow himself to think about the fact that there were parts of Sebastian being in his life that were good. So good they keep him up at night, entering his dreams and even sometimes his conscious thoughts when he knows he’s alone.

“Maybe I’ll just be a spinster.”

“Don’t be dramatic, boys can’t be spinsters,” Santana says with what she calls “her most loving eye roll”.

“You told me not to be dramatic when he showed up at Broadway to take me to lunch. Maybe this is all your fault.”

She throws a cotton ball at him at this comment before continuing to paint her nails. He’s being mopey and sad, but at least he’s making jokes, which is a large step forward from the past few weeks. Part of her does feel bad that she encouraged him to go out with Sebastian, but she had seen the chemistry between them. Sebastian had shown up, like Blaine’s prince with the glass slipper and they had all fallen for it.

Blaine is lying on the couch, idly flipping through reality shows when his phone rings. He looks and sees that it’s Charlie and groans.

“Santana, can you deal with this?”

“If he wanted to talk to me, he would’ve called me,” she says, not looking up from her manicure.

“Pleaseeeee,” he says, turning over on his stomach and facing her with his biggest pout, “I’m heartbroken.”

She scoffs, but puts down the nail polish nevertheless.

“This shit is going to get old at some point, you know,” she says before greeting Charlie with a quick, “Blaine Anderson’s phone, this is his secretary.”

Blaine can hear Charlie laugh, and it’s such a welcome sound.  He can’t hear what his boss is saying, but he is loud, fast, talking excitedly.  Santana’s eyes are getting larger by the second, like she’s hearing some truly unbelievable news, and she tries to interrupt Charlie a few times, but he keeps chatting.  Finally, she gets a word in.

“The donor was anonymous?” Blaine sits up straighter, stares directly at her.  “I don’t know Charlie, but that’s absolutely incredible news!  It’s definitely going to make Blaine’s day, I’ll be sure to tell him.”

She hangs up and takes a breath, trying to process everything she just heard.  But Blaine is impatient.

“What donor? What did he call for?”

She laughs, incredulous, “Mirage was all set to buy us. And then they were stopped. By an anonymous donor who far exceeded what they were comfortable with bidding.”

Blaine takes a moment to let the news settle on him. He knows without a doubt who the donor is, but how?

And then the text comes through to his phone, which is sitting between him and Santana on the couch.  They both look at once.

It’s all yours. All of it.

—-

Blaine leaves Santana’s apartment in a rush, taking the train down to Sebastian’s building, where he’s stopped by the doorman before he can even enter.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson, but Mr. Smythe no longer lives here.”

Blaine is shocked, “What? Where did he go?”

“Relocated,” the stern man replies, and then lower, almost as if he’s ashamed to say it, “To Brooklyn.”

Normally, Blaine is strictly subway, but today, he springs for a taxi. He has to get home. Fast.

—-

His three-story brownstone has a small stoop where kids play, moms gossip, college students study.

But when he walks up to the building, all he sees is Sebastian, sitting and waiting for him.  Looking absolutely gorgeous in the thinnest peacoat Blaine has ever seen.

“You do know it’s fucking freezing out here, right?” Blaine says, immediately removing his scarf and putting it around Sebastian’s neck. Sebastian stands up, looking at the scarf approvingly.

“Had nowhere else to go. I’m homeless,” Sebastian replies with a shrug.

Blaine raises an eyebrow, “So you’ve been sitting out here in the snow waiting for me?”

Sebastian sighs, “Okay, I may have gotten a hotel. But strictly for sleeping.” Blaine gives him a pointed stare and he continues, “Okay I may also have paid Luther to tell me when you showed up at my old place so I could be here.”

“Sebastian, how long have you been here?  And why is that your old place?”

“I sold it,” he says, matter-of-fact, “It took a few weeks to get the deal done and everything squared away, but I figured my father’s very heartfelt gesture of congratulations should reward someone who has actually done some good. Like a non-profit for dreamers who need a hand.”

He is self-deprecating but he is also looking at Blaine with the slightest shimmer of hope in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Blaine offers, but his voice indicates how touched he feels by the gesture.

“I know it’s just money. But I made the donation anonymous so that Charlie can just keep running BWP the way he wants to, and that you guys can keep doing the work you were doing before…”

He stops.  Blaine knows he means before he came back into his life.  Before they intertwined their lives, told each other everything.  Well, Blaine thought they did anyway.

“I promised you I would fix it and I hope I did,” Sebastian offers, “Or at least made a start to.”

“Are we just talking about Broadway Works?” Blaine asks, stepping closer.

“I know I betrayed you.  You have every right not to trust me.  I did everything he did and broke your heart all over again, and if you never wanted to see me again, I’d understand.  But I had to risk everything at the hope that you might give me another chance.  I went ten years without seeing you the first time.  I couldn’t do that again.”

As they stand outside Blaine’s brownstone, a light snow has begun to fall, but all Sebastian can see are the few tears rolling down Blaine’s cheeks.  Last time they were together, Blaine swore to himself that he wouldn’t let Sebastian see him cry.  But if this is going to work, they have to be open and vulnerable with each other.  

And Sebastian seems to know that as he says, “I love you.  I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you from the moment we met. And I will spend the rest of my life begging you to forgive me for this.  If you’ll let me.”

Blaine laughs incredulously, but nods frantically, gripping the scarf at Sebastian’s neck and pulling him in to kiss him deep and long and slow.  It’s freezing and the snow is picking up, so they are alone on the street, but even in a crowded room, Blaine knows, they would only see each other.

After all, that’s how this started.

And as they pull apart, they are still entwined, Sebastian’s hands in the pockets of Blaine’s peacoat, Blaine’s arms still flung around Sebastian’s neck, he leans in to offer a suggestion.

“Take me home, Blaine.”

They climb the stairs two at a time to the third floor, losing clothing by the second, Sebastian muttering “leave it” against Blaine’s lips, Blaine running back down the stairs to pick everything up before any of his neighbors have the chance to see him half-naked and disheveled. By the time Blaine’s apartment door shuts, their clothes are all discarded and Sebastian is looking all around at the place he will now call home.

At least, he hopes Blaine will ask him to call it home.

“Hey.”

Blaine’s statement beckons Sebastian’s gaze away from the apartment and when his eyes fall on Blaine standing in the doorway, a small contented smile on his lips, he isn’t sure how he ever looked away in the first place.

“Come on, our bedroom’s this way.”

His whole life, Sebastian has always been a strong advocate for mine and yours.

He’s beginning to think ours doesn’t sound too bad.

[theevangelion]

The Old Guard: Supercorp ABO AU

Anonymous prompt for the WYWH special: ABO Supercorp story with Lena as the alpha please? Something based on The Old Guard?

Old Guard AU Lena/Kara ABO

She’s a woman thrown beyond the boundaries of time. Lena doesn’t even vaguely remember what it is to be human anymore. To have a mother, a father, to experience a first, a last, to fear, to love; to have both wrapped up in the complex fragility of one another.

In the fleeting embrace of death, the singular moment where her soul knows quietude, the rush of air diving back into her stalled lungs always comes unwanted and too sudden.

Lena doesn’t remember what it is to be human, but she remembers what it’s like to be born. Again and again, always against her will, endless times and yet still an aeon more of it to come, she’s now certain of that.

Andy was perhaps the only other with the accumulated years under her belt to empathise with her predicament. Andy’s take was that when it was the right time, the cycle of rebirth would simply stop, as it had with others they had met and knew before. A last glorious war, a final valiant fight, and then peace. Finally, just a little peace.

Six thousand years later, and Lena still felt that was Andy’s youth showing.

“So, how old are you?” The newling curled up inside the sleeping bag prods for more details. “You must be pretty old, right?”

Lena had felt Kara come back to life like a ripple in the water. It was like a push from the universe that could not be ignored. The CatCo building had caught fire and collapsed and then burned some more for good measure, the rescue crews were called off after a week, and while the recovery mission was organised, that brief interim was when Lena made her move and dug through the rubble like a woman with precise coordinates — following the pull of her instincts until she found a set of wiggling fingers in the debris that had been entombed beneath the blaze.

It had taken a good long while, a lot of explaining, a lot of tears, and then a bullet between her eyes just to prove she really was immortal and Lena wasn’t playing a strange joke, but Kara was finally settling. Lena kept a gun on her hip in case she got other ideas, but that was becoming more redundant by the day.

“Lena?” Kara waves to get her attention. “I know it’s rude to ask a lady her age but given the circumstances…”

“Get some sleep, Kara.” Lena pinches the bridge of her nose and tries not to reach for the gun. “It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow, please go to sleep.”

“But we’re invincible?” Kara doesn’t understand the rules yet, despite Lena having explained the big ones no less than six times and counting. “A late night won’t kill us,” she reasons.

“Yes, but we’re not fucking saints and I want to get some sleep. We have all the time in the world for questions, trust me—” Lena knows it better than anyone, she thinks to herself grumpily. “Just, please go to sleep.”

“Two thousand. Higher or lower?” The estimate makes Lena suddenly laugh despite her bad mood. It tickles her, really tickles her. “Okay, so, not two thousand. Got it.” Kara nods decisively.

“Nowhere near two thousand.” Lena rolls the other way and closes her eyes. “Now go to sleep.”

It’s the truth; in a roundabout, complicated, technically correct kind of way.

Two thousand years was child’s play.

***

In dreams, the memories of ages long before rush back thick and fast. The Library of Alexandria burns like a silent world on fire, lost to the smoke, and Lena watches from afar and feels nothing. A weary traveller trudging the scenic route, she’s already old enough to know she’ll see it rise again one day.

Her dream folds in on itself. Alexandria fades as quickly as the day it burned. She finds herself in a new place, a mathematical impossibility, but she doesn’t recognise her surroundings and so she rationalises that it’s simply from a time before the boundary. Her mind will only allow her to remember so far back. A few civilisations, and then it gets blurry.

A woman sits nude facing the water with her knees pulled to her chest, her dark brown hair is damp and curling at the ends. Lena craves to reach out and touch it. She knows and yet does not know, feels and yet feels nothing, her heart remembers this woman but her brain… too much time has passed.

When the woman turns and smiles, her almond-shaped eyes glittering, a knot of guilt forms in Lena’s belly without context. She has no questions. The thumping of her heart, the strange stillness of a constant wardrum that beats in the back of her head, Lena understands perfectly well who they are to one another.

Her teeth remember the pressure of her shoulderblade. The name of her mate doesn’t spring to mind. The wetness on her cheeks tells her that, despite too much time having passed between now and then, they knew happiness with one another.

An eternal measure of it.

***

Six months in, Kara’s third rebirth is a doozy.

Kara is starting to get the hang of it, Lena thinks. A dozen more and the process won’t be so terrifying. Ironically, it’s a car barrelling down the side road in search of nothing more than a cut-through that does it. It sends them careening high into the air. And, of course, what goes up must come back down.

It’s a combination of terminal velocity and gravity that kill them today, no valiant battles this time. The car speeds away before they even start to stir back.

Lena awakes to life with a hard gasp and the sensation of a shattered bone cracking itself back together. She hates that. The way her soul comes back to her corporeal vessel before it’s finished healing. When her elbow pops back in place, when the gash on her forehead knits and fades, she takes a few acclimating breaths and stumbles over to the broken body some metres away.

Kara looks like a frightened little girl, Lena thinks as she hovers over the newling in order to appraise the damage. On the outside, Lena shows no symptom of sympathy.

Kara’s neck is broken at such a hideous crooked angle that she cannot move the rest of her body, all the newling can do is wait for the healing, wait and then wait some more. It’s taking its time. Kara’s eyes are wide with terror, utterly helpless, trained on Lena as though with all her years and experience she might be able to remedy this.

“The first few are slow,” Lena says mutely, then glances at her chipped fresh red manicure. She’ll have to get it touched up when they’re finished here, which is an inconvenience. “Don’t fight the pain,” Lena comes back with a glare. “The more you fight, the longer it takes.”

When the snapped cervical spine unfucks itself with a satisfying pop, Kara’s nervous system slowly begins to work again. Lena watches her fingers twitch, then her toes, an agonised groan, the newling comes back to herself in bits and pieces.

“That wasn’t like the last two times.” Kara blinks and stays prone on the floor, horrified and utterly quiet in the way she says it. “I couldn’t. I was in agony and I couldn’t move—”

Lena sighs and scoops her jet black hair into a ponytail off her face. “The last one was a bullet, quick and easy, and this wasn’t that.” She shrugs.

“I couldn’t fucking move!” Kara snaps loudly, as though her reality is dawning on her all at once. “I was in agony and I… I couldn’t make a sound. That isn’t,” Kara scratches her head, dumbfounded. “That isn’t invincible.”

“I tried to tell you that being invincible doesn’t mean being invincible.” Lena refuses to join the pity parade, she simply extends her hand to help the idiot up. “Dying sucks. Coming back to life sucks more. Welcome to your forever. Do you still want waffles for lunch or no?”

“You’re repulsive,” Kara spits beneath her breath.

“You should consider yourself lucky.” Lena darkens, leaning in to emphasise her point. “There’s others like us, at least half-a-dozen of them these days, they’re like a merry band of men who rush to die for other people’s squabbles. If your soul had called to one of them… if they had found you…” Lena shakes her head, remembering the days when she too was a wardog for hire. “Rest assured, if they don’t find death then death certainly finds them.”

“And we don’t do that?!”

“Hit and runs aside, I only die when it’s important, which means you only die when it’s important. That’s step one of not snapping your fucking neck every other weekend.”

“Whatever you say boss,” Kara pushes past her, trudging down the side street with a hand rubbing the back of her neck. “You’re paying for the waffles.”

“Over your dead body,” Lena mutters beneath her breath.

***

Lena pays for the waffles.

She feels pity, but most of all she feels guilt, and it’s the only way her body will let her express it. Plus, she has a two-for-one coupon.

She doesn’t tell Kara that part.

***

Home for now is an abandoned industrial building down in the textiles quarter. During the day the city is so busy that it’s easy to get lost in the crowd and that’s important for longevity’s sake. At night, however, the street outside is so empty that a pin drop can be heard from one end of the road all the way to the other.

That too is important for longevity’s sake.

Belly full of waffles, Kara curls by the oil heater on her camping cot like a puppy licking her wounds — or substantial lack thereof. There are seldom possessions that Lena travels with, she tells herself it’s because she has outgrown materialness, but she tosses on the uncomfortable cot and stares at her hold-all bag wishing for an Advil or an extra pillow to miraculously appear.

“So you’re not two-thousand,” Kara mentions with a curious expression, drudging up a conversation that had been parked some six months ago.

“No, not two-thousand.” Lena gives nothing away.

“Where were you born? Will you tell me that much?”

“That’s a complicated answer.”

“How is that possibly complicated?” Kara asks, and Lena doesn’t know how to explain the rise and fall of lost civilisations, nomadic settlements, or the fact that she simply… doesn’t remember specifics anymore.

“What’s known today as Ireland.” Lena tries to be approximate but knows she’s hazarding nothing more than an educated guess.

“You don’t have the accent.” Kara’s eyes glimmer with amusement.

“It wasn’t Ireland when I was born there.” Lena smiles.

“Do we still have heat cycles or is that incompatible with the whole immortality thing—” The question takes Lena aback with how out of left-field it is.

The little idiot just laughs at her expression like it’s the funniest thing in the world.

“I don’t know about heat cycles but… I still have my cycle, sometimes.” Lena remains indifferent, disconnected, forcefully disinterested almost. “It’s not as bad for us though.  It takes a long time, but stops being so intense, stops being so frequent, it’s barely a tickle for me anymore.”

“What do you mean you don’t know about heat cycles?” Kara’s eyebrows do the thing.

“I’m not an Omega. I don’t have a heat cycle, I go into rut.”

“Into rut?” Kara becomes confused.

“I’m an Alpha.” Lena stares as though she’s stupid.

“Oh.” Kara’s eyes go wide. “Oh. That… makes sense.” She nods, gulping. “That makes a lot of sense. Sure, yes, of course. I don’t know,” she laughs awkwardly. “I don’t know why I assumed you were an Omega—”

“Because you’re an infant, you’re unworldly, you know only what you have been taught. Yes, female Alphas exist. Yes, that is why I don’t get changed in front of you. Well done for putting two and two together, Miss Journalist, some of your finest investigative work right there.”

Lena can’t help but smirk at the way Kara blushes crimson.

“Goodnight, Kara.” Lena lies down and savours the silence.

“Goodnight!” Kara peeps and rolls over.

Sweet, sweet silence -- or at least almost silent.

Lena makes the most of it and drifts to sleep.

READ IT HERE LADS.

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: ix

part viii/AO3.

For a very long moment, Lucy struggles to discern what the sensible, rational response in this situation would be. Not that that is remotely pertinent to her actions anymore, but she still has to make the effort. How did Emma know they were here? Has she been looking for Lucy (and Flynn) on Rittenhouse’s behalf ever since the Great Gala Jailbreak? There were certainly more convenient moments to approach her, if so – not here in frigging Philadelphia when she’s decided she can’t do this anymore. But Emma does look genuinely distressed and apologetic, and Lucy’s caretaker instinct surfaces: a student has come to her with a problem, needs to talk it through. After another moment when she wonders if she should yell for Flynn, and decides that absolutely no good can come of it, she repeats, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry. It’s a long story.” Emma glances at her diffidently, notices her tears, and frowns. “Are you okay? I ran into you pretty hard.”

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s not – not that.” Lucy wipes her eyes quickly with the back of her hand. “How did you find – me?”

“I talked to your friend Wyatt, back in San Francisco,” Emma says. “On Saturday. Got a flight out, and here I am. Is Garcia Flynn here?”

Lucy flinches. “What – if he was, what would you want with him?”

“I need to talk to him.” Emma shrugs. “Wyatt suggested he might be helpful. Here at the University of Pennsylvania – I think I know what you’re trying to do. Just got turned down trying to access the Rittenhouse collections, didn’t you?”

“How did – ” Lucy opens and shuts her mouth, suspicious instincts flaring up instead. “What, have you been following me? Spying? We talked at the gala, I know you’re one of them!”

Emma raises both hands, then uses them to slowly open her sleek leather jacket and show Lucy that it’s empty. “Easy, princess. Look, no gun, none of that. I’m not here to help Rittenhouse. I’m here because I’m trying to get away from them.”

That, despite herself, catches Lucy off guard. She figured that Rittenhouse’s members were as fanatically devoted to it as any other cult, and sure, there’s probably a job perk or two – money, influence, knowledge, power, the sell-your-soul-for-a-teeny-little-price infernal bargain that goes back to Faustus and Mephistopheles. They didn’t seem like the kind of people troubled by second thoughts, in other words, but she supposes that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Just made to conveniently disappear, or forced to shun their entire family – like the “Suppressive Persons” principle in Scientology, where you can’t talk to your loved ones if they don’t appreciate you becoming a marching disciple of Xenu. Does Rittenhouse have a Sea Org? Probably. They must not know about Emma’s desertion plans, or do they?

At any rate, it’s unhappily clear that this is a question beyond Lucy’s pay grade. She really does not want to turn around and walk back to Flynn, especially less than ten minutes after telling him to get professional help and that he was on his own, but if Emma really is here to turn on Rittenhouse, it could be the break that they need. Besides, that old impulse to be nice, Lucy Good Girl Preston, has once more made its reappearance. Emma came quite a long way and took considerable risks to do it. She should at least get a proper hearing out.

Lucy wavers a moment more. Then she says, “All right. Come on.”

Emma walks next to her as they start back down the path, as Lucy tries to resist the urge to ask what exactly Wyatt said about her (or Flynn). Finally, as casually as she can, she says, “So you saw Wyatt in San Francisco?”

“He turned up there, yeah.” Emma glances sidelong at her. “Came all the way to Mason Industries. Seemed pretty determined.”

“Mason – right, you work there.” Lucy remembers that, and telling Flynn while they were hurtling down the dark road. “So he’s still on the case?”

“Looks like it. Also, if I had to guess, behind his bosses’ backs. Freaked Connor the hell out.” Emma laughs shortly. “Then again, Connor – but no. I shouldn’t talk about this here.”

That makes Lucy glance to either side, as if armed Matrix henchmen might be rushing up to apprehend them, but she sees nothing out of the ordinary for a normal Tuesday morning on a busy university campus. It occurs to her to wonder what to do if Flynn has done a bunk or run back to Van Pelt for another go (or to aggressively persuade the librarian to hand over the books and nobody gets hurt), but they round a corner and there he is, still standing where Lucy left him. His never-ending whirl of energy and (mostly bad) ideas and anger seems to have momentarily run dry, as if he never considered that they weren’t going to do this as partners, that he’s, as the saying goes, S.O.L. Then he looks up and sees her walking back toward him, third party in tow, and the expression on his face is almost comical. And then, he apparently remembers where he recognizes Emma from, and it goes thunderous.

“Easy.” Emma pulls open her jacket again. “There. Not carrying. Can you say the same?”

Flynn clearly can’t (Lucy saw him take his gun out of the suitcase this morning), but this at least throws him enough for Emma to take over the conversation first. “Yes,” she says, before Flynn can recover. “You saw me at the Rittenhouse party, I’m guessing, when you had the brilliant idea to sneak in and grab Lucy. Cahill was furious. I think he fired his entire security team. Ruined their stock options, too.”

“Good,” Flynn manages, after another dumbstruck moment, while Lucy is still wanting to know what exactly Rittenhouse stock options are. “Serves the bastard right.”

“I agree.” Emma smiles faintly. “Cahill’s a pompous asshole who thinks he’s a lot smarter than he is. We all could have told him that popping up in your secret daughter’s life after twenty-seven years incommunicado and promising her that she too can join the Evil Empire isn’t a great plan. Is that what you’re doing here? Investigating Rittenhouse?”

Flynn hesitates. He half-puts out an arm toward Lucy, as if to shield her, then drops it. Finally he says grumpily, “Yes.”

“Thought so. Whose idea was this?”

“Mine,” Lucy says, without stopping to think it over. It might be more convenient to let Flynn take the blame for it, since he was the one who dragged them out here (well, he didn’t quite drag, she did choose to come along, at least until he started with the time travel business – perhaps she should warn Emma that Flynn is possibly clinically insane and not liable to be much help, but the words don’t come). “I put the pieces together about David Rittenhouse and where he used to teach, and I thought there might be something here.”

“Clever.” Emma eyes her approvingly, almost in a way that makes Lucy wonder if she’s hitting on her, and if she would mind if she was. “And as a matter of fact, you’re right. There are plenty of Rittenhouse papers here. I could probably get you in.”

“We tried,” Lucy admits. “They wanted an appointment.”

“Well.” Emma shrugs again. “I can deal with that. Well? You in?”

Flynn has been regarding her narrowly, as if trying to find the words for a thought he can’t quite articulate. Then he says, “Why are you helping us?”

“Because,” Emma says, “I have full expectation of being helped in return. As I said to your girlfriend, I want away from them. You’re in the NSA, or at least you were. I’m figuring you can give me something a little more substantial than the witness-protection starter kit that Logan was offering. New identity, new placement, possibly somewhere outside the States. I was thinking London. I’d like to live in London.”

“It rains a lot.” Flynn has continued to watch her carefully. “Not much like California.”

“I think I can adjust.” Emma tilts her chin back. “We could make it look legit. Connor Mason’s from there, after all. He has plenty of satellite corporations and partner enterprises in the City. I could even keep my day job, just pretend to be hired on as a new employee. So?”

Flynn is quiet. Lucy can hear him debating whether to disclose that he’s not really an NSA agent anymore, that his employment status is – to say the least – murky, and that even if he did promise, there’s not any guarantee that he could carry it through. But if that is all it would take – tell Emma to buy an umbrella and start watching Doctor Who, and she’ll spirit them into the Rittenhouse archives – is he really going to do that?

It turns out, indeed, that the answer is yes. Flynn pauses a final moment, then jerks his head in a terse nod and holds out his hand. “Fine.”

Emma smiles, shakes it, and gives Flynn just enough of a look to make the jealousy in Lucy’s chest, just about (but not quite) tamped down, flare its green-eyed snout out for another sniff. Emma is based in the Bay Area, after all – is this who he spent the night with? He seems genuinely surprised to see her, as well as learning that she wants to turn on Rittenhouse, and they’re not acting like two people who had a secret dirty hookup just a few nights ago. But since Flynn has been so utterly obtuse about it, and Lucy is so utterly in the dark, she is scrambling for any clue or possibility, even while reminding herself that it is stupid. Emma gave her a look kind of like that too, after all. Maybe she’s just really excited about getting away from Rittenhouse. Which is entirely possible.

Emma leads the way with a confident stride as they climb the steps of Van Pelt. Lucy wonders what the librarian is going to make of them, turning up hopefully again barely an hour after being bounced the first time, but she doesn’t have to wonder for long. They head inside, Emma asks to speak to someone managerial-sounding, and a balding, middle-aged man with an institutional ID around his neck is apparently delighted to see her. He does look briefly squiggly-eyed when Emma introduces her friends – is Lucy being paranoid, or has he been tipped to be on the lookout for someone matching their description? – but it is quickly smoothed over. Yes, he would be happy to fetch up any boxes they want. Did Ms. Whitmore have something particularly in mind?

For the first time since Lucy walked off in tears, she and Flynn glance at each other, though she isn’t sure what is communicated in it. This is certainly an improvement over their last aborted attempt, and Emma has an air about her that feels as if you should just make it easier on yourself and do what she says. The archivist scurries off to get their boxes, and once they’re in the private reading room, Lucy says, “You must know these people pretty well.”

“I’ve worked my way up.” Emma evidently catches the implicit question in this. “You don’t entirely trust me, do you?”

“It seems a little convenient,” Lucy admits. “That you’ve turned up now.”

“Any more than you agreeing to come out here with him?” Emma turns an amused eye on Flynn, who is once more impersonating a piece of classical statuary. “We all have our reasons for wanting Rittenhouse taken down, don’t we? Trust me, if I was still working for them, I wouldn’t have let you get within sniffing distance of this place. There’s stuff here that even some of the long-term members haven’t seen. Tell me, Lucy, have you ever heard of Nicholas Keynes?”

“No.” Lucy’s startled. “Should I have?”

“You tell me.” Emma arches an eyebrow. “Anyway, he was killed in 1918 – World War I, Saint-Mihiel, France. It was a huge loss for Rittenhouse, apparently. He was some kind of mastermind for them, wrote reams and reams about how to reform the world and redesign humanity in a new image. The kind of eugenics soft-fascism screed that was really popular for everyone until Hitler came along and ruined it. Some of his stuff might be here.”

That sends a cold chill down Lucy’s spine, though she’s not even sure why. She glances at Flynn again. He hasn’t been rushing to bust out his “time travel!!!” theory in front of Emma, so either he realizes it’s cracked, or he doesn’t want Emma to likewise decide he’s too crazy to help. Not that that really seems to constrain Flynn otherwise, given what he’s been busting out on Lucy on a regular basis, but still.

After a few more minutes, the archivist returns with several boxes, which prove to contain some of David Rittenhouse’s original papers. Lucy can’t help a historian’s frisson of delight – she loves old books and obscure archives and handling the documents that people so many centuries before you (or three, in this case) touched, knowing that they survived this long and you’re looking at what they made with their own hands. She thanks the archivist, who sees himself out with half a bow, then shuts the door, and she, Flynn, and Emma start to dig.

Of the three of them, Lucy is by far the most experienced at reading elaborate eighteenth-century handwriting; both Flynn and Emma are quickly looking a little cross-eyed. It’s undoubtedly interesting, if not as immediately enlightening as they were hoping. A lot of Rittenhouse’s scientific and astronomical notes, and sketched models for his orrery, or model of the universe, that’s still in Penn’s collections. A copy of his lecture to the American Philosophical Society in February 1775, which so impressed the founding fathers that they ordered it distributed at the Constitutional Convention. Some correspondence between Rittenhouse and famous and non-famous parties – Lucy catches her breath when she sees one from Thomas Jefferson, even though Jefferson was definitely a jerk. But nothing referencing an Illuminati-esque secret society bent on taking over the world, and she starts to wonder if ol’ Dave Rittenhouse actually had anything to do with it. Maybe it really was a bunch of creepy ideologues borrowing his name and some of his ideas about time and fate.

An hour or so passes, as Lucy keeps diligently searching. Flynn is working on a stack of newspapers, and Emma is turning through a folder labeled J. Rittenhouse, which seems to be David’s son – that’s weird, Lucy didn’t recall him having one, though she doesn’t keep a close track on that kind of thing. Finally, when she’s pretty sure that she’s had at least a preliminary look through everything, she straightens up. “I’m not sure this is it.”

“These are only a few boxes,” Emma says. “The full collection is much bigger. We could keep looking.”

“There has to be something.” Flynn throws down the newspapers rather harder than one should for a lot of delicate historical documents. “This is taking too long!”

Lucy bites her cheek, wanting to point out that if Flynn thinks one morning of trawling through archives without finding what you want is too much, he is definitely not cut out to be a historian. Still, either they can try to read more of this, or they can try… well, something else. She looks back at Emma. “Did Rittenhouse purge these documents? Probably, right? They wouldn’t have kept anything around where some random researcher could find it, even if the odds were low. Is there some other archive?”

“Look,” Emma says. “I am telling you everything I know. I can ask if there are other boxes that the archivist is keeping back, or – ”

“No.” Flynn stands up, knocking the desk. “This isn’t working. We need to try something else. What you said earlier – Keynes, Nicholas Keynes. Where’s the material on him?”

“I’m not sure,” Emma replies. “I only said I thought it might be here, I don’t know if it is. But we need to be careful. I can open a lot of doors, but not all of them. If Rittenhouse gets wind that I’m poking around in the dark underbelly of things, they could get tipped off, and – ”

“Are you going to be useful or not?”

Emma blinks. “Excuse me? I’m the one who came here and tried to – ”

“Yes, well, I didn’t ask Wyatt Logan to give out my whereabouts like I’m some sort of rest home for stray Rittenhouse runaways! So how about you come up with an idea, or – ”

“Wow,” Emma says bitingly. “So I’m only worth having around if I’m immediately useful, not because I’m on the run from an incredibly evil organization that will take both of us down the instant they get the first chance, and I’m already doing everything I can to help you. Good to know. Real winner you’ve got here, Lucy.”

It is on the tip of Lucy’s tongue to inform the other woman that they are not together, that Flynn has been doing everything short of lighting himself on fire to forestall the possibility, but that is also not Emma’s business either way. Instead she says, “Squabbling about this is not going to help. Emma, is there any way for you to see if they have the Keynes stuff without setting off too many alarm bells? Maybe have them bring up another Rittenhouse box, just to be thorough, but it’s probably already been censored.”

Emma considers, then tips a shoulder. “Fine. I’ll go back down and ask. But if something does go sideways, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

With that, she strides to the reading room door and lets herself out, shutting it with not-quite-a-bang behind her. That leaves Lucy and Flynn alone together for the first time since she ended it (the professional relationship, if you can call it that) this morning. Did that, and yet look, here they are, back together. As if they can’t escape each other’s gravitational pull no matter how hard they try, as if there is some invisible tether yanking them back together. It’s not clear if either of them appreciate it, or if this “somehow destined toward each other” thing is a hell of a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Lucy could do with being able to walk away from him, just once. See how it goes. Not that the three-odd weeks in which they were apart after the shooting were that great, in the least. But still.

Neither of them seem keen to break the silence, staring fixedly at the far wall. Finally Flynn says, “If she can find the papers on Keynes, then what? Can we just – ”

Lucy holds up a hand. She doesn’t know that she’s surprised that he’s still barreling full speed ahead to what looks like a truly spectacular fiery crash, but she can’t in good faith stand by and let it happen. “Can we back up from that for a minute? For several minutes? This morning, remember, when you came out with the ridiculous time travel thing? Emma works at Mason Industries. You can just ask her. I’m not saying it’s not something that a cutting-edge spec-tech company might try, but. . . Garcia. Please.”

Flynn looks at her for a long moment. There are clearly any number of things he could say to that. Because he’s Flynn, apparently, he selects the least helpful. “So what? This is only possible if it happens with things you know about? Haven’t we established that you don’t? You don’t know, Lucy. So why pretend you do?”

Lucy’s cheeks flame. “That’s what you’re going with? I try to help, I try to take you seriously when you sound more like a paranoid ranting lunatic all the time, and instead of acknowledging this or giving me any solid reason to believe you, you’ll just keep acting like a total – ”

“How is this my fault now? Emma’s here, she’s told you that Rittenhouse are exactly as bad as we thought or worse, so what do you need – an itemized receipt? Or do you never actually intend to believe that I could possibly – ”

“It’s not that I don’t believe Rittenhouse is bad, it’s that I don’t believe – for obvious reasons, I might add – that time travel has anything to do with it, or that you should be working this again when you already almost got killed, or that you’re going to just – you know what. I don’t care. I don’t care. Suit yourself.”

Flynn’s eyes glitter. He does that thing with his tongue that he – well, that he really just should not be allowed to do, especially right now. Echoing her own words deliberately back at her, he says, “That’s what you’re going with?”

Lucy’s flush deepens. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean.” Flynn shrugs. “Considering the looks you’ve been giving me. Or are we also pretending those don’t exist?”

For a moment, for two, for several, Lucy is totally speechless. She isn’t sure what she’s more furious about – that he’s taken note of her thinly disguised jealousy and is using it against her, or that she’s almost pleased he did. Not that he’s being a dick, but that is just Flynn’s everyday, ordinary operation. Nothing out of the ordinary, and yet. She has had it up to here, and she takes a step, then another, advancing on him like a big-game hunter. “If by that little crack, you mean that it’s bothered me that you’ve gone to all this trouble to get me to help you, then start acting as if I don’t exist or you can’t say a sensible word to me, then – then yes! Just tell me, just tell me, why you’re so convinced that we’re some sort of – ”

“I’m trying to explain!” Flynn shouts back at her. “I’m trying to explain, but it’s insane, it’s insane, and if you’re just going to act like a – ”

“Act like a what, exactly – or am I somehow the only one in denial about what’s – ”

They’re almost nose to nose despite the height difference, Lucy almost on her tiptoes, head craned back in order to look him in the eye, even as her utterly unhelpful Nice Girl brain chimes in yet again to remind her that she should not be shouting in a library, even one where they are currently alone in the room. Honestly, she wants to reach out with both hands and shove Flynn in the chest, not that she’s likely to dislodge him at all, but it might be worth it to see him off guard, even for a split second. But if she does that, she’s not altogether sure what would happen next. There is too much bottled up between them, and this is as far from the place or time as could be imagined. Yet her exasperation has run over, and she needs to do something more than just shout at him, needs to –

Lucy pushes at him, and Flynn catches her, his large hand almost swamping her slender wrist. It’s clear that he’s not going to get without giving just as good, but it feels like fire shooting down her entire body, rooting her feet to the floor. She wriggles like a fish on a hook, almost whimpers  – she’s practically in his arms and his free hand comes up to cup her face and the look on his own – it’s not about goading her, it’s not about scoring points off her jealousy or whatever the hell this nuclear disaster of a human being thought he was doing earlier. He looks as if he’s caught lightning in his bare hands, as if that is why the world turns on its axis and how the stars align, as if he can’t believe he is actually touching her, and nothing about this man makes sense, and yet –

Lucy grabs at his head, hauling his obnoxious skyscraper ass closer to hers, completely out of patience or desire to pretend that she doesn’t want to find out, at least once, what they were about to have on that first night, before everything got knocked off track and arguably has never gotten back on. One of his arms is around her and the other still has hold of her wrist and he lifts her and her mouth is opening, raw and hungry, and –

There is a click at the door as it opens, a marked silence, and a very pointed cough and throat-clearing. “So. . . I should just come back later, then?”

Lucy and Flynn are too entangled to let go of each other immediately, but they try, managing to spring apart after only a belated instant of sorting out whose limbs belong to who. Emma is standing there with a box in her arms and both eyebrows arched as high as they will go, as if it’s a good thing she walked in here if Van Pelt Library did not want its nice old tables banged upon like rabbits. (Not that they would have, but – Lucy’s legs feel weak and she doesn’t dare look at Flynn and her heart is hammering in her ears.) Emma continues to regard them archly as they weakly shuffle several more paces apart, then says, “Well, I don’t know if this is useful or not, but it’s what they had. Should we take a look, or is there something else you’d rather be doing?”

“No,” Lucy blurts out. “We’re fine. We’re ready.”

Emma carts the box over to the table, pulls it open, and they start to dig. It’s old journals and thin sheets of onionskin-fine paper, covered in the same strong, slanting black handwriting. There’s a black-and-white photo of a young man, presumably Nicholas Keynes, in a World War I uniform, holding a blonde baby girl who looks briefly, glancingly familiar, though Lucy has no idea why. It’s poignant to think that he never made it home, went off to die on the killing fields of France like so many other young men. Is that his daughter? Did she grow up wondering what happened to him, or did she always know?

“Lucy?” Flynn says. “Lucy!”

“Sorry.” She jumps. “I’m awake. I – just.” She can’t believe she’s the one asking this, but before she follows either of them any further down this rabbit hole, and since Flynn clearly isn’t going to bring it up, she is going to have to be the one to bite the bullet. Hopefully not literally. “Emma, is Mason Industries working on. . . is there anything you know of about them trying to invent. . . a time machine?”

She cringes even as it’s coming out of her mouth, ready to be laughed out of the reading room, but Emma doesn’t react as if it’s a joke. Indeed, her eyes and mouth both go narrow, she looks as if she definitely did not see that coming but not for the reasons you’d think, and cocks her head to one side. Then she says, “Who told you that?”

“I did,” Flynn bulls in, completely blowing to hell any idea Lucy had about protecting him by not bringing him up (she doesn’t know why, but she’s done it consistently for a while now, and it’s just habit, ill-advised or not). “Well?”

Emma laughs, but with somewhat less humor than previously. “Aren’t you two a pair of eager beavers. Very well, yes. Connor Mason has been working on the prototype for at least the last five years. Probably longer, I don’t know. He used to just be able to send quarks and other sub-atomic particles, but he graduated to vertebrates, then to midsize mammals, and he’s finally gotten to the place where he’s ready to try human subjects. I told you that I did advanced software testing, Lucy. Remember?”

That rocks Lucy almost physically onto her heels. It’s one thing to have Flynn running off at the mouth about a time machine, but to then hear it from someone else – someone who seems, to all appearances, sane, well-adjusted, professional, and with no apparent reason to lie about it – is altogether something else. “I – I’m sorry,” she manages. “You do – is that what you do? Test runs in a time machine? Isn’t that – isn’t that dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous.” Emma seems slightly surprised that she has to ask. “We’ve lost half a dozen people already. Others returned with mental problems, seizures, missing limbs – it’s a regular Dr. Frankenstein’s nightmare lab in there, sometimes. I’m one of the lucky ones, I’m good at my job. It’s something, let me tell you.”

“You’re. . .” Lucy feels choked, faint, reaches out reflexively for Flynn’s arm. “You’re telling me that you’ve traveled through time?”

“Only briefly. I haven’t been allowed out of the Mothership. Just jump back, hold it – I think the longest I’ve managed is two minutes – and then return to the present. One of these days, though, one of us is going to open the door and step out. Probably Anthony, it’s his brainchild as much as Connor’s.” Emma looks somewhat gratified at the effect that this is having on both of them – even Flynn seems floored, much as he’s trying to play it cool. “Actually visit the past. A historian like you, Lucy, you can’t tell me you’re not interested.”

Lucy keeps opening and shutting her mouth, making noises like a stepped-on bladder. Finally she succeeds in, “Why? How can this – surely this can’t be legal?”

“What do you mean?” Emma clearly doesn’t understand. “Was it illegal for us to try to get to the moon, into space? Astronauts died, plenty of them, but the ultimate goal, the success, was worth it. Humans always want to go places they’ve never been before. If they die on the adventure, well, that happens. That’s not illegal.”

Lucy supposes she’s right, but this isn’t like kayaking down the Amazon or trying to climb Mount Everest or whatever else. History is her field of study, her specialty, her love – but it’s in the past, it’s comfortingly solid (at least in one sense), and it’s the reason you don’t wake up some morning and find that all of known reality has shifted out from under you. Things happened one way, not another, and that is just how the cookie crumbles. It might be arbitrary, it might be irrational, it might be – as Flynn said in their argument back in her apartment – scared animals making stupid choices, but they’re still done, solidified, over with. The possibility of messing with that is very, very dangerous.

“Why does anyone need a time machine?” Lucy says at last. “What would they possibly do with it? Rittenhouse – is Rittenhouse planning on. . .?” A creepy cult is one thing. A creepy cult with the chance to control all time and space is. . . not even nightmarish seems to fit. Jesus. Flynn is right. He’s right, he’s not crazy (or at least if he believes this, it’s because someone even crazier has claimed it first). He’s not actively or maliciously misleading her, he’s. . . as insane as this is, and putting aside the entire question of whether it is actually the case, he’s trying to tell her the truth as he sees it. He isn’t lying about this, or at least not consciously. And Lucy has no idea what to do with that.

“I don’t know what they want with it,” Emma says. “That’s Connor’s department, not mine. I just run the tests they tell me.”

“And what?” Flynn growls. “You’ve never told Rittenhouse that your other employer just happened to invent a time machine? When this would be the exact sort of thing they’d kill their own grandmothers to get a hold of?”

“They might know something about it.” Emma’s fingers tap on the edge of the Nicholas Keynes box. “Not from me, though. Connor has all sorts of cozy ties with them, they’ve funded his work for years. Very generously.”

Flynn’s nostrils flare. He turns sharply on his heel and stalks the length of the reading room, then back, like a zoo tiger in a too-small cage. “Brilliant,” he spits at last. “So it’s true. Rittenhouse are about to have a time machine of their very own, and that imbecile Mason is in it up to the hilt. How far is it from completion?”

“It’s in the testing phase, like I said.” Emma eyes him carefully, as if to judge the likelihood that he will burst out of here and go full Incredible Hulk. “It’s nowhere near out of beta. I’ve come back from my test jumps because I’m good. Not everyone does. It has to be at least a few years away from full functionality, we still have to invent half the technology we need to complete it properly. It’s incredibly complicated theoretical physics and mechanical engineering, you can’t just put out an ad on Craigslist for the kind of people you need to work on it. But if we can disrupt Rittenhouse beforehand, it doesn’t matter.”

Flynn stares back at her. His gaze flicks between the box on the table, to Lucy, then back to Emma, as if he’s trying to work something out – what exactly, Lucy can’t be sure, but given his track record, not likely to be anything good. Finally, he whirls on his heel and starts toward the door, without a glance back at the Nicholas Keynes papers he was so adamant that they fetch, and Lucy runs after him. “Flynn. Flynn! Where are you –?”

“We’re wasting time in here,” Flynn snaps. “We’re done.”

“I just went to get these damn things,” Emma says. “Now you’re doing a bunk on me without even looking at them?”

“What other homework do we need to do? I think we’ve heard plenty about who these people are and what they want! You’re the one who’s good at this, if that’s what you want to do. Me, well, I have something else.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.” This might be a fool’s errand, but Lucy doesn’t care. She takes a few more steps after him, reaching for his arm, turning him toward her. “Garcia, don’t – ”

He looks at her as if he never wants to stop, as if he is memorizing her. His brow is drawn and dark, his lips thin, his eyes shadowed. It’s as if he has suddenly felt the weight of whatever he has decided on, and is struggling to understand if it is worth bearing. Then, almost gently, he pulls his arm out of her grasp. “Goodbye, Lucy.”

This is an extremely dramatic and frankly, incredibly extra thing to say, especially since Lucy wasn’t even aware that this was a farewell until he did. She stares at him, words caught in her throat, and just then, hears footsteps behind her. Emma’s voice says in her ear, “How about everyone just calm down.”

Lucy would like to point out that she’s calm, she’s very calm – well, she’s not, her mind is racing, she doesn’t quite understand what Flynn was about to do, but she’s not coming unglued. Then she feels the slight prick of something at the side of her neck, which she doesn’t understand, and starts to turn. “Emma, what are you – ”

“Everyone calm down,” Emma repeats. Her hand catches Lucy’s wrist, lithe and strong. Lucy can feel another prick under her right ear, sees a brief glint of metal in the ceiling light and – she can’t look to be sure, but she has the sudden and overwhelming impression that Emma is holding a box cutter to her jugular vein. She can, however, see Flynn’s face, and it’s gone white and frozen. What is – what is –

“Easy,” Emma says. “One thing at a time. You. Flynn. You have a gun on you?”

Flynn’s head jerks up once, then down.

“Thought so. Now, take it out of your jacket and slide it over here with your foot. Very carefully. No sudden moves.”

“Emma,” Lucy manages, feeling the razor-sharp edge of the blade rasp against her skin. This has all turned on its head too fast to be believed. “Emma, what are you – ”

“Sorry, princess,” Emma says. “But I can’t let your boyfriend do what I’m pretty sure he was just about to do. I thought we were getting along. I was really helping you out, you know. Not my fault you decided to be difficult.”

“You’re not here to turn on Rittenhouse,” Flynn says, voice a rasp. “Are you.”

“We’ll leave it up to debate what I’m doing, and for who.” Emma’s tone remains light, offhand. “Not something we need to get into right now. Anyway, as I was saying. Your gun?”

Flynn’s eyes burn holes through both of them. Emma makes a pointed little jab with the tip of the box cutter, and Lucy can feel a bead of blood roll down her neck. Flynn looks like the entire world has gone out from under him, as he slowly undoes his jacket, reaches in, and removes the gun, setting it on the floor and sliding it over. Emma puts her foot on it, never taking her eyes off him, as she can clearly sense that he is waiting for a split-second of distracted attention to try to charge her. She pulls Lucy down with her, using her as a shield, to pick up the gun and stow it in her own jacket, then straightens up. Transfers the box cutter deftly into her other hand and takes hold of Lucy’s as if they are in fact just gal pals, pressing the blade against the inside of her wrist. If Lucy tries to pull away too fast, or otherwise tries something funny, she will open the vein there, and bleed out within a few minutes.

“Well,” Emma says pleasantly. “Let’s take a ride.”

[alisonembers]

Cogs and Queens (Eberron Fan Fic) - Week 9

Content Warning: Course Language, Depression, Assault.

—————————————————–

Google Drive Link for correctly formatted version with NSFW content: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18CWsnlyu_a3ZKcDc-oD6fWQyxn-L0nrt/view?usp=sharing

The glass fell around Mercury, a trail of blood following from behind, the bullet resting in their lower left hip. I knew something wasn’t right. No certificate to pardon me when the job was done. No way to confirm what Tal was doing was legit. I trusted him. They hit the deck of the airship with a loud thud, the planks of wood rattling Mercury to the bone.

“Get someone onto them!” one of the Veterans shout.

Mercury rolls over onto their stomach and begins crawling towards the stairs leading down below deck.

Multiple crewmates of the ship back away from Mercury, keeping a close eye on them, whispers from their lips directed at one another.

Mercury crawls down the stairs slowly, eventually hoisting themselves on the railing. They walk carefully, their legs wobbly, their back in intense pain. How am I going to get this fixed? They look around the deck as many men and women watch cautiously. Mercury hobbles towards some large crates marked with the Jorasco symbol, a family known for healing supplies operating in the upper city. They grip around the edges of the lid with their mechanical hand, ripping it off with a crunch. A single potion? It’s small, but it will help. They grip the small potion, and apply the liquid to the area of the wound. It sizzles as the skin slowly grows into place, and Mercury lets out a pained moan. They close their eyes as footsteps come towards them from behind.

“Mercury, you got out,” Tal says, shocked.

Mercury swings around, their canines showing with intimidation. “What the fuck was that, Tal!? You snitched on me!?”

Tal raises his hands. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Mercury steps towards them, their eyes narrow, their limp suppressed from adrenaline. “It very well fucking is what it looks like! Money too good, huh? Fuck me one night, fuck me over in the morning? Burn in hell!”

“Mercury, what did you expect me to do? Put my life on the line to try and save yours?”

“Yes, actually!” Mercury cries, tears forming at the corners of their eyes.

“Fuck! That ain’t the type of man I am.” Tal says, stepping back.

“Fucking clearly. Get a taste of sweet nostalgia, get paid for it, and dip,” Mercury says.

“Look. I’m sorry. You got away, right? I knew you would! When we get to the lower city, you can go back into hiding.”

Mercury grunts in pain as they feel their hip. They look at their mechanical hand, blood staining the silver. “Got away?” Mercury says, shaking the blood from their hand onto the floor.

Tal moves closer. “Let me get a look at that.”

Mercury whips their revolver from their holster, aiming it at Tal. “I think you’ve had enough time to look at me.”

“Mercury, please, don’t be like that,” Tal says, his hand slowly moving for his rifle slung around his back.

Mercury aims at Tal’s hand, and as they pull the trigger, Tal dodges to the side, the shot echoing through the deck.

He rotates his rifle around his torso into his hands, taking a shot at Mercury.

Mercury slides behinds a steel table, kicking it sideways, the bullet inside the wound throbbing. Fuck!

“Mercury, please! It doesn’t have to be like this!” Tal shouts, loading another bullet into his lever-action rifle.

“You’re a corporate shill! A fucking rat!” Mercury calls from behind the table. “You know what I think about men like you?”

“Mercury, if you were in my position, you would have given me up too. The money was too good,” Tal says.

“I’m starting to wonder if you ever really knew me!” Mercury slides out of cover on their right, fanning the hammer of their revolver three times.

Tal ducks behind a steel post, the clang of bullets ricocheting into the wood walls, floors, and roof around him. He ducks back out, taking two shots at Mercury as they run for another steel post.

Mercury cracks the revolver forward, loading new bullets to replace the expended ones. They slow their breathing, listening out for Tal. A creak comes from around the post, and Mercury ducks out, firing twice with both hands on the grip.

Tal dodges out of the way and grabs Mercury’s right wrist. With his more immense strength, he throws Mercury down, their revolver flying out of their hands.

As Mercury meets the ground, their wrist makes a loud snap, and the bullet lodged in their hip disturbs and opens the wound. Mercury lets out a sharp yelp, squirming on the floor pinned, their tail thrashing like an animal caught in a bear trap.

“Mercury. Stop. Please. I just broke your right wrist. If you plan on knowing what the sensation of touch is like for a while longer, I beg you to stop.” Tal rests his knee on Mercury’s stomach, pinning them down further.

Mercury launches their mechanical fist into Tal’s temple, knocking him sideways.

Tal rolls over, holding his forehead. “Mercury! Stop!”

Mercury looks at him, tears streaming down their cheek, blood soaking their coat. “I can’t believe you…” Mercury says, broken. “Kill me here. Now. Get it over with.”

“No,” Tal says.

“Coward,” Mercury says, sniffling.

Tal stands up and walks to a storage crate. “When the ship lands, I’m taking you to my sister. She’ll know how to fix your fleshy wrist.”

“I’d also appreciate this bullet getting out of my fucking hip,” Mercury says, their voice cracking.

“Glad I gave you that Whisky, Mousey,” he says, pulling out a brown cloak from the crate.

Mercury rolls their head to face the ceiling, water streaming to the floorboards beneath them, mixing with red. “I can’t fucking believe you ratted me out.”

“I’ll give you half the gold,” Tal says, wrapping the cloak around Mercury. He unloads the revolver and pockets the ammo. “Believe me, I’m sorry this happened.”

I don’t believe you for a second.

      V

 Tal carries Mercury through the house’s front door, the cloak hiding their identity. “Kal!” he calls out.

“What!?” a woman calls from another room.

“I have Mousey! They’re hurt!”

“Mousey!?” Kal calls out.

“Mercury is here!” Tal says.

A half-orc woman comes rushing from the room over, the same height as Tal. She pulls the hood of Mercury’s temporary cloak back, revealing their sad eyes and pale face. “What happened?” she asks, looking up at Tal.

“We got into a bit of a fight. I went a little far. They also got shot in the back from a guard.”

Kal takes Mercury into their arms, holding them like a child. “C’mere, honey.”

Mercury closes their eyes. I can’t fucking believe him. Kal begins to walk while carrying them, entering a room with a nicely made bed, expensive cabinets, and dragon-themed tapestry.

Kal takes them over to the bed, laying them down gently. They move across the room and begin sifting through a cabinet.

“Kal… He rat me out to the guard,” Mercury says, their voice shaky.

“He fucking what?” Kal asks, placing a beaker onto a metal tray.

“I trusted him like…”

“Like what?” Kal asks with frustration building in their voice, placing a syringe onto the metal tray with other alchemical liquids.

“I don’t know. He’s not like a brother… Fucked too many times as a teen for that. Last night too.”

“My asshole brother fucked you last night and then snitched?” Kal asks with a face of rage.

“Yeah,” Mercury says, closing their eyes.

“Tal! You asshole!” Kal yells. She mixes a blue liquid with a red one inside a beaker, creating purple bubbles that float to the top, yet the two mix like strands refusing to bond.

Tal walks in with a look of shame coated across his face. “Yeah, look, I know.”

Kal pulls out some fine thread and a needle. “You don’t do that to somebody, Tal! That’s fucking abusive and evil!”

“The guard offered me five hundred gold,” Tal says.

“Honestly, I’d akin it to assault!” Kal yells, pouring a yellow liquid into the beaker mix, making all the liquids bond together.

“When you put it like that…” Tal says, looking away.

“You look at me when you speak!” Kal says. “You don’t do that. If you had just sold them out without the sex the previous night to gain their compliance, I would have been disappointed. But I am beyond disappointed with you. How the fuck do you think Mercury feels knowing their life is worth five hundred gold to you?” Kal looks down at Mercury, their eyes streaming with water again.

Mercury clears their throat. “Can you tell Tal to leave the room?” they say in a low broken voice to Kal.

Kal nods. “Get out.”

Tal nods, leaving the room. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to roll you over so I can get a look at the wound, okay? Your wrist is going to hurt more while moving,” Kal says, threading the needle.

Mercury nods and rolls over with the assistance of Kal, their right wrist throbbing in pain.

“Well, it could be worse,” Kal says. “Stay still.”

Mercury feels something cold press into the wound. They shriek, feeling the bullet rip through the burnt flesh from the potion.

“Good…” Kal says. They begin threading the needle through Mercury’s wound, hearing them whimper, and she starts tightening the opening, sealing it shut. “Okay, I need you to roll over again, sweety.”

Mercury rolls onto their back again, their right wrist throbbing once more, feeling it in their elbow.

Kal places the end of the syringe into the beaker, drawing out a large amount of liquid. “I am going to inject this into your wrist. It will make it heal quickly,” they grab a large cylinder of cork. “Bite down on this. It’s going to hurt more than it did breaking.”

Mercury bites down on the cork, and as Kal slides the syringe into Mercury’s wrist, they scream loudly as tears continue to drop down their face. They grip the sheets tightly with their metal fingers, the motors whirring in each joint—their tail curls in the blanket, tighter and tighter. The world around them grows darker as their vision narrows onto a reflection above them on the roof. Their eyes shift color from a gray human iris to a deep void black. Whispers from an unknown origin begin to fill the room, and the lanterns nearby begin to flicker from an orange glow to a dim silver light.

 Everything was black.

“You’re not supposed to be here. Not yet, at least.”

 To be continued…

[cloudbattrolls]

Internal Complications

Sombra Lyseli || Present Night || Coloth HQ, R&D Room

Saori’s proboscis flicked out as she and Sombra waited, the room empty except for the pair of them. Tables and equipment gleamed in the low light, set to not blind the creature whose wide chameleon-like eyes shimmered in various blue hues. Devices for examining and repairing trolls, machines, and every combination in between stood in perfect order, immaculately clean. The sight of them made Sombra uneasy, even though she’d seen them a million times. 

She could never quite shake the feeling that some night, Tetrao might use them on her if she failed him badly enough

You know he didn’t really send for you.

The indigo scowled at her unwanted companion.

Most trolls believed the alien couldn’t speak. If only Sombra was so lucky, and her lack of a conventional mouth prevented her from forming words at all. Though it was more...feelings, ones so direct and precise that they carried thoughts with them. Emotional manipulation of the highest order, beyond the abilities of even most advanced troll psychics. Blood color was no barrier to Saori.

“I don’t know anything like that.” She retorted, jutting her chin up.

Don’t know much at all, poor you. It must be hard being so stupid.

The long, sinuous gray tail flexed around the creature’s feet, making Sombra back up even though she was already ten feet away. Too many memories of being tripped, crashing, getting bruised and cracking a horn. She’d learned to bandage her own wounds that way, and disinfect them.

Her own voodoos had never worked on Saori. Her thinkpan was too different, the troll DNA used to create her overshadowed by the alien kind.

Not for the first time, the indigo wished Tetrao had never paid to make the creature.

Tetrao...where was he? He’d texted her two words: be there. Saori claimed he’d given her a longer invitation. Saori claimed a lot of things.

But even her boss’s pet alien hadn’t seen him in over two weeks. No one had. 

She would’ve been hungry, but she was too nervous to eat. She started pacing up and down, arms folded behind her back. 

Careful not to break the floor. I know you can’t help being so big, but think of how long it’d take to fix. He’d be so upset.

Sombra barely noticed the barb. It was basically part of her mind by now, along with Tetrao’s commands. 

Besides, she was supposed to be big. She could snap the mothlike creature in half. She could’ve watched her bleed out all over the floor, leave her for the R&D department to eagerly chop up. 

She’d be heavily punished - maybe even culled - for killing the most valuable thing Coloth Industries owned.

Her hands still balled into fists, clenching and unclenching as she imagined Saori’s clear blood splattered everywhere, her bright ridged eyes dead and unseeing.

A hologram sprung to life in the laboratory, so smooth it would have seemed alive were it not for the telltale glowing light. It showed a seadweller shorter than the two women, a violet with a curvy figure who wore much gold jewelry and tech accessories over his shorts and crop top.

Saori squinted as Sombra smiled in relief. Tetrao would tell her what to do.

“Is Latrai still trying to cut us off at every turn?”

Yes, said the alien, irately flexing her geckolike fingers. Her bots scuttle and sniff around our security probes, and the empire is too busy to care as long as fleet gets its quotas.

But she can’t save every lowblood. We’ve locked our factories to her, and I go among them every night to squash any rebellion in their thoughts.

It didn’t matter that Tetrao wasn’t near them; as long as he was somewhere in the building, Saori could still broadcast to him.

“She is repairing the city.” Sombra pitched in, then frowned uneasily. “She’s almost done, actually...should I sabotage her?”

You? Do something stealthy? Don’t make me laugh; you couldn’t even protect us from getting robbed.

Tetrao - his projection - simply looked at them with an uncharacteristic degree of solemn focus and silence. Sombra’s skin prickled with discomfort, and fear he might punish her for that failure again.

“Not yet. Let’s see what happens when she’s done picking up the pieces of the burned out sword idiots and the wishers. I want to see what Latrai does when she gets what she wants, if she really believes her own lies. If the blue fool is right, she’ll give up her power. When she does, we can decry her for abandoning her people.”

Sombra blinked, confused. Her boss had always spoken of Latrai condescendingly or with annoyed amusement at her laughable anti-spectrum views; now he seemed keenly interested. Maybe it was because they were directly opposed now with little interference; the other corporate heads were laying low, most politicians scrabbling to protect their interests in and around the city.

You want to expose her as a fraud and take her down when she thinks she’s won? Nice.

“That aside...start hunting down the resistance. We need to destroy them before they unite with her.”

Saori’s antennae waved in surprise and Sombra’s mouth dropped in shock.

“Wh - hunting down the resistance would take a lot of time and resources. And troll power.”

Sir, this seems...possibly impractical given what else we need to focus on. The resistance isn’t a threat. Even if Latrai could find them, there’s no guarantee they’d join her.

The hologram crackled with white light as the violet’s eyes narrowed and the voice relay became cold.

“Did I ask? No. Hunt them down. I want them wiped out and every record of their activities wiped.”

As one, Saori and Sombra felt a massive spike of fear and concern - one of the only times in their lives the sisters had ever been united.

The resistance had evaded capture for sweeps; occasionally individual members would be found and caught, but they always either escaped or chose to make themselves impossible to interrogate, so there had never been any real progress.

They had never openly declared rebellion, preferring to be an indirect thorn in the sides of Civitrecce’s companies and imperial organizations. This protected them, but it also meant they had little support from the general populace, who barely knew who they were. Sometimes other lowbloods even resented the group for irritating those in charge if they came down on warm castes as a whole in revenge.

And no one knew exactly what deeds the resistance had done, what sabotages were their own crimes rather than those committed by simple criminals or opportunists; if it were possible to trace them, it would have been done long ago.

But the alien’s proboscis merely flicked in and out, and Sombra nodded, knowing they had no other option.

“Of course, sir.” 

The spoken words were echoed by the alien’s psychic broadcast as well.

The hologram flickered and vanished.

Sombra tilted her head, confused.

What’re you doing now? Trying to add two plus two? Don’t hurt yourself.

“His tech never flickers.”

And you know this because of your endless expertise?

“But he also seemed - “

Shut up, Sombra. Use your thinkpan for once in your life. We have to go outside the building to talk, get ourselves scanned for any hidden bugs after we get rid of our bracelets.

The tall woman bit her lip, reluctant to trust Saori at all. This could be a prank, or a trick. But then why did the words in her head feel so serious and urgent? The alien never spoke to her that way.

It was impossible to tell her sincerity from her face. The twitching antennae meant she was irate (not exactly unusual) but the creature had no eyebrows to read, nor a mouth. 

Yet Tetrao had been acting so strange, and no one else would understand exactly how wrong it was.

She took a deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Follow me. Be careful where you step, even what you look at, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I know one thing for sure. I picked it up after a few broadcasts.

That’s not him.

Sombra felt her breath catch.

Whatever’s happened to Tetrao, it wasn’t him talking. 

He’s been replaced. 

END

[dankaroo-writes]

something along the way

Someone’s trying to destroy Supergirl and the Super name, too. In a freak accident, all of the Superfriends have switched bodies with each other — except Kara. Now they have to get the bad guy (and switch back) before he strikes again.

ao3

chapter 1/3

Kara Danvers loves a good sunrise. She’s well aware that sunsets are supposed to be more romantic or more beautiful or whatever, but there’s something about how the light creeps up the treetops and over buildings, up the toes of her boots and over her face, warming every inch of her— she can’t get enough of it. It has little to do with getting her powers from the sun, although she does appreciate the sentiment that’s she’s literally soaking in the strength of it as it rises. If she’s honest, it’s more about the serenity and quietness of dawn. She loves the silence right before the birds start chirping, the street lamps extinguish themselves, car horns blare, the airwaves clog with radio signals and pop hits singles of the week.

It’s the colors that she likes best of all, though. The soft pinks and oranges and yellows and blues remind her of the home she lost. Even though they have nothing on a Kryptonian moonrise, they’re as close as she can get these days. As close as she’ll ever get, probably. Kara doesn’t make a habit of getting up early enough to watch the sun wake up the whole city, but she’ll keep herself awake an extra half an hour to see it on the days she spends the early morning hours patrolling National City. It’s special enough to her to warrant the extra morning grumpiness that she — um, everyone else — will face later for that fleeting moment of peace. Those are the days she can fool herself into thinking that everything will be okay somehow, and that her life is pretty good. Not that she doesn’t like her life! She has wonderful friends and a loving family. And being a reporter makes — made — her feel like she is — ugh, was — contributing to something important. Like she’s making a difference, superhero or not. Sure, Supergirl could knock bad guys three city blocks away with a single punch and hold up a building until everyone can escape, but Kara wants to help too and now that she doesn’t have a way, she feels lost. Cliché? Yes. True? Double yes. She feels lost but not quite as lost as when she first came to Earth, of course. Nothing will ever compare with the loneliness of being the sole survivor of an entire culture. Maybe she’s having a quarter-life crisis or something. She hasn’t had one yet, not counting the whole coming out as Supergirl stuff. So what if she was born 50 years ago? She’s technically only 26, she’s as much a millennial as Winn and James and Alex. They all had one. Alex had, like, three. So maybe that’s what it is. She’ll have to ask Alex for her opinion later. The whole funemployment thing stopped being fun when it meant she had extra time to think about all this crap, genius-alien-brain-that-should-know-better-than-to-be-all-existential be damned. She heaves a sigh and is ready to turn in for the night. If she gets home now, she’ll have… forty-five minutes of sleep before she’s due at the DEO. Great. She decides that it’s a sunrise morning. She’s sitting on the roof of her apartment watching the rays peek over the CatCo building and then L-Corp, and then— The unmistakable sound of metal crushing against cement has her pushing off into the sky, full speed towards what can only be a car accident. She arrives to see the front end of a silver Lexus flattened against the side of an overpass. Without a moment’s hesitation, the hero rips off the roof of the car to free any people inside but instead finds a small gray device with a flashing red light. The device begins to blink more rapidly, and, oh shit, it’s a bomb. She scans the area for potential casualties and finds none, grabs the device, and launches herself and it into the sky. When she’s above any possible flight path or where any kind of living thing might be dwelling, Kara throws it further still as the light turns solid and the device explodes. Everything is quiet. The city is safe. Again. For now.

---

“Supergirl! Check out this thing I did! It literally downloads—” Winn is flanking Kara with some sort of metal USB drive as she beelines to the center of the room, but she dismisses him with a quick Sorry, later! and a grimace. He heads back to his desk, grumbling and fiddling with the memory stick for a while before busying himself with security updates to the network. “Something weird happened this morning,” Kara walks up to J’onn, arms folded across her chest. “I heard,” J’onn says, “But I thought NCPD had it handled. Nothing extra-normal, alien or otherwise.” Kara inhales deeply and explains, “It just didn’t feel right. It was early morning. No one was out, no one was around. Why plant a bomb if there weren’t going to be any casualties? I’m glad no one was hurt, but…” “It doesn’t make sense.” J’onn says. “You think it was a decoy.” “Yeah, but, for what?” “Whoever is behind this is trying to lure you out.” “You read my mind,” Kara jokes, and the faint pull at the corner of J’onn’s mouth is the only indication that he appreciates her jab at the limitations of his Martian abilities. “Okay, so you’re being targeted. That makes this DEO territory.” Kara sighs as J’onn takes his leave to make some phone calls to the National City Police Department. “I’m gonna go get some food before something else blows up,” she announces to no one in particular, arms crossed. “Mind if I tag along?” Oh, Winn. She’d been sidetracked and completely forgot. It’s been a while since the two of them hung out one-on-one, since she and Mon-El started doing… whatever it is that they’re doing. On and off relationships are so not her thing, and she’s so stressed, and gosh, she misses her friend. She breaks into a grin. “Let me change real quick.” He drives them into the city, and Kara’s grateful for the sense of normalcy of not flying. Winn parks in front of Noonan’s. “Thought we’d go back to our roots,” he beams. “Also I’ve been dying for those almond bearclaws.” Kara laughs and agrees, “Yeah, I could eat probably ten and not get sick of them.” They chat idly in a booth, sipping their coffees and picking at the dozen pastries they bought to share. They reminisce for a while about working at CatCo together and how they met, and Kara laughs at the appropriate times but her smile doesn’t fully reach her eyes. Winn leans over the table and rests a hand on Kara’s arm. She looks him in the eye, a little surprised by the physical contact, and he asks, “Hey, Kara, are you doing okay?” She adjusts her glasses and looks at her lap. “Yeah, of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Winn looks at her with a sheepish smile, and treads carefully. “It’s just, you seem to be, wound up? I guess. I don’t know if that’s the right word. James and I were talking—” “Look, I know you guys do the whole vigilante thing together but talking behind my back—” the whispering makes it sound harsher than she means it, and she feels a little bad, but then Winn cuts her off. “Kara, come on. No, listen. We’re just worried about you. Ever since you stopped, y’know, having a routine that includes stuff other than saving people all the time, you’ve been a little… touchy. We were just thinking that maybe it’s time for a friend night?” He punctuates the proposition with what Kara affectionately coined his Winning smile back when they first started to become friends. (She’d laughed at her own joke for about five minutes, and Winn knew he’d found a true friend in that moment.) Kara inhales deeply and rubs her temples. “I’m sorry, I’m— you’re right. I am a little moody right now.” She fiddles with her hands and looks up at her friend. “I’d love that. Friend night.” They share a smile, and she continues with a wince, “Is it really that noticeable?” “Oh, yeah. You’re like, eat-a-Snickers levels of grumpy. I’m the only one with enough guts to say anything, though.” Kara clutches her chest in fake agony and bows her head in mock shame. “You’ve all been conspiring against me!” Winn’s glad to have gotten a positive reaction out of her. “Only because we love you! How’s tomorrow work?” “Yeah, that’s great.” But she sits on that for a second, and then remembers, “Oh, wait, I have plans with Lena, actually. Maybe Saturday?” He thinks for a minute, and then surprises himself. “Or,” he suggests, “you could just invite her like a normal person? Because she’s your friend? And this is your friend night?” Kara bites her lip in hesitation. “But she doesn’t know…” Winn gives her a look, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline and half a smirk, that makes her want to draw her knees to her chest and curl up into a little ball. She knows she’s being silly, but the prospect of Lena knowing that she’s Supergirl has her stomach in knots. It’s her big life secret, that she’s an alien and a superhero. She and Lena are close, but are they there yet? Once they acknowledge it out loud, it’s kind of a best-friend-for-life deal. It’s a big step. A milestone, even. “Kara. The woman built a black body field generator, hatched a foolproof plan against her own mother to render a virus inert and save all the aliens in the city, runs a multibillion dollar corporation at the ripe old age of twentysomething, and has spent more than ten minutes with you. She knows.” “But!” Kara’s nerves have her reaching for any kind of proof that maybe Lena doesn’t know, but she comes up with exactly nothing. “She knows. Don’t insult her intelligence, I’ll tell her you think she’s not as smart as you,” he teases. He wouldn’t really, for reasons including he’s kind of afraid of Lena, but it’s fun to see Kara get flustered. She opens her mouth and gestures wildly with an index finger to defend herself, but only stammers out some vowels before she gives in, shoulders dropping in defeat. “I’ll text her.” She taps out a message and clarifies, “For the record, I don’t think I’m smarter than her. Or anyone else.” It’s not a fair comparison anyway, Kara thinks. Math and science classes are way more advanced on Krypton, and if Lena or Winn had the chance to learn there they probably would’ve done as well as she had. For sure. “Mhm.” Winn plays at being unconvinced, just to see Kara flounder a little. He misses this. She looks up to refute him and realizes he’s kidding. She sits back and crosses her arms, and then lets out a few short laughs before shaking her head and looking down at her phone. “If she doesn’t want to come, we’ll do Saturday, okay?” “She’ll want to come.” “But, I—” “You can’t keep her to yourself forever,” Winn says. She feels a little guilty about that, now that he mentions it. She wants Lena to be a bigger part of her life, she’s just worried because her friends didn’t exactly trust the Luthor at first, and that makes things weird. And Lena’s great, and Kara knows everyone will like her once they get a chance to really meet her, but it’s always hard to be the new person in a group and throwing her into the fire like this may not be the best way. For Lena’s sake, of course. Not because Kara’s afraid of taking that next step. Which she’s not. So Winn’s right. It’ll be totally fine. Just a normal old friend night. A night of friends. Of which Lena is one. “She’s a busy person, she probably won’t answer until tonight,” Kara says a little haughtily, “so I’ll let you know.” Her phone dings with a notification. Winn chuckles to himself, and Kara blushes a little. “She wants to come.” He whoops in excitement, mostly at being right, and they finish their lunch before heading back to the DEO.

---

It’s not awkward. Okay, it was at the beginning, but now they’re collectively three bottles of wine into friend night and things are great. Mon-El has been pawing at her hand for the better part of an hour, which has been kind of annoying, but other than that he’s behaving. Sort of. He’s also been pouting because she’s been paying more attention to Lena than him, but it’s only because Lena’s the newest and Kara’s her only connection to the whole group. It’s more important for her to be a good friend to Lena than a good girlfriend to Mon-El right now. She knows she’ll hear an earful about it later, but whatever. She’s having fun. And so is Lena. And everyone else, too. They’re playing a round of charades, with Kara acting and Mon-El and Lena trying to guess. James, Winn, Alex, and Maggie are sitting on the couch watching the hilarity about to ensue.

Kara holds up two fingers, prompting her team. “Two words,” Lena starts, and Kara makes a circular hand motion with both hands. “About…” Kara points to herself, “Supergirl.” Lena’s eyes are twinkling, and, yeah, it’s confirmed. Kara bites her lip and shakes her head no. “Kara, hero, hot girl, glasses?” Mon-El tries. Kara’s eyes widen and she shakes her head vigorously. She tries again and points between herself and Mon-El a few times. “Couple, dating, in love?” She rolls her eyes, and ugh, no, he’s not getting it, but when Lena blurts “Aliens!” Kara jumps up and down and claps, smiling. The other team is in stitches, and Kara’s pretty sure Alex is in tears. She holds up one finger. “First word,” Mon-El says. She starts to flap both of her arms up and down. A high pitched tone rips into her eardrums and she gasps in pain and doubles over, covering her ears. “Loud, sick, headache?” When she doesn’t respond: “Are you okay?” “Kara what’s the matter?” She’s not sure who’s asking what, but the tone stops and she drops her hands. “Sorry guys, there was this… never mind. It’s gone now.” She takes a breath and nods to show she’s okay, and starts flapping her arms again. Alex watches her carefully, and both Lena and Mon-El guess flying, and she’s ready to try for the second word when the tone starts up again. This time it’s reverberating in her skull and it’s persistent. She winces as she hones in on the source of the noise, and follows it to the windowsill. She picks up a small rectangular black box, and it juts out a lancet and pricks her hand. Well, tries to. The beeping stops when the lancet breaks off. Alex is off the couch in a second and steps towards her sister, holding up a cautious hand. “Kara, what’s —“ Something, no, someone smashes through the window. The intruder raises a massive blue fist and swings it at Kara, who ducks just in time and manages to get a hit in at his stomach on the way down. “Everyone, get back!” They’re matching blow for blow, so Kara throws her glasses aside and squints her eyes to zap his shoulder with her heat vision. The creature roars and grabs for her, misses, and stumbles. Kara takes advantage of his weak positioning to get a hand around his throat, and another around one wrist. She shoves him backward and has him pinned to the wall, next to the window he busted through. “You ruined friend night!” She’s mad, rightfully so, and headbutts the beast in his nose. One of his noses. Whatever. His face. He bares his teeth, but then his mouth twists into what can only be interpreted as a vicious smile. His confidence shakes her and she stares into his pitch black, beady eyes as she tightens her grip on him. With his free hand, he holds up a device identical to the one that Kara had found in her apartment and presses the small button on the underside. There’s a moment where Kara is afraid something terrible is going to happen, but then the brute’s face begins to fall, and oh, something is not right. All of the sound seems to get sucked out of the room, and then the device in his hand explodes. Kara is thrown across the room and lands in front of Lena and Winn, who are crouched behind the couch. The monster catches a glimpse of Lena as she’s pulling Kara behind it, and stumbles as he starts towards her. Kara looks up at him, confused by his hesitation at the sight of a human when he very clearly came prepared to attack a Kryptonian, and tries to stand up. She won’t let him hurt her friends. He takes one more look around the room, snarls, and then jumps out of the destroyed apartment wall to the street below. By the time the group has rushed over, he’s long gone. “Are you guys okay?” Kara’s facing her friends now, and they all look uneasy. Something’s definitely not right. There’s a few mumbled yeahs, and no one has a scratch on them. Thank Rao for small favors.

Kara turns around to inspect the damage to her house. The window is gone and the blast has taken a good chunk of the surrounding wall with it. A few pieces of drywall crumble and fall to the ground. She sighs. James walks up beside her and places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay Kara, you can stay with me until this gets fixed.” Kara’s flattered, and her and James are good friends, but yeah, no. There’s hardly any awkwardness left from their break-up, and they made up after their fight about James being Guardian, but it would still be… weird, is what Kara settles on. She lets him down easy. “Thanks, James, but I think I’ll just crash with Alex.” She turns and offers him a reassuring smile, and then looks at Alex. Alex knits her brows and turns to look behind her, where no one is standing. “I’m not James,” James says, and then holds his hands up to look at them. “Wait, I’m James? No, I’m not!” “Did you hit your head? Should we go to the hospital?” Kara’s concerned, and reaches up to the man’s face to check for any missed injuries. “I’m James,” says Maggie, raising her hand. There’s a pause as everyone looks around the group. “I’m Maggie,” says Alex. “Wait, wait, wait. Everyone hold on.” Kara’s holding her hands out in front of her, trying to get her bearings. “I think I hit my head.” “Maybe, but, uh, I think something else has gone Super wrong,” and it’s Lena’s voice, but only Winn would talk like that. And make a joke at a time like this. “So if Maggie is Alex, and James is Maggie, who are you?” Kara turns back to ‘James.’ He huffs, “I’m your boyfriend, Kara.” Oh, great. So now her boyfriend is her ex, on top of this all. Perfect.

Kara looks between the two remaining people. Winn pipes up, "Alex." “Right. So if Lena’s Winn, and Winn's Alex, then you’re—” She faces the body of her boyfriend “—Lena.” Lena looks like she’s about to pass out. “I need to sit down,” Lena says. Kara closes her eyes and rubs them with the heels of her hands. “Okay, this is happening.” She takes a deep breath and picks up the device that has fallen to the ground.

“We need to call J’onn.”

[ecotone99]

[RF] Santino's Interview

Brisk October air ruffled the leaves on the trees and flowed between the towering buildings as Santino strutted down Market Street in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district. Men and women in suits littered the busy sidewalks as they paced hurriedly to work, but none looked quite as good as Santino did that cool morning. Sporting a fresh shave and haircut, a pressed navy blue suit with an equally blue tie and his polished Italian leather shoes, Santino looked and felt like the finest young professional the city had ever seen.

If there was every day on which Santino needed this confidence, it was today. In just one hour, he would head to the 31st floor of the tallest building on Market to interview for the sports agency firm he had longed to work for since his days as an undergrad slaving away at his legal studies coursework. Night after night he had worked tirelessly to assure his papers were perfect, leaving no t uncrossed or i undotted. When he wasn’t focusing on his coursework, he spent hours in the depths of the university library studying for the LSAT, a test he needed to ace in order to earn admission to a Top-14 law school. The remainder of his time was spent interning at a local court nearly an hour away from his off-campus apartment. Though the commute and workload exhausted him, he knew the experience he was gaining would give him a great leg up on the other applicants. Sure enough, he was right.

Through his hard work and dedication, Santino nailed the LSAT, maintained a perfect 4.0 GPA and earned himself an admission to the law school of his dreams.

Throughout his time in law school, he worked as hard as he ever had, excelling in his classes and spending hours on end interning for one of the most esteemed sports agents in the area. After graduating summa cum laude, he scored nearly perfect on the California Bar Exam and returned to the golden state where the air was warmer and the girls were prettier. After weeks and weeks of perfecting his resume and cover letter and gathering recommendation letters from his professors and employers, Santino submitted what had to have been the most robust application the firm had ever received. Then, he waited.

And he waited.

And he waited.

As morning turned to day and day turned to night, Santino incessantly watched his phone for any email or phone call from the firm. He even went as far as sleeping with his phone ringer on full blast at night, just in case they called him at one in the morning to schedule an interview.

With each passing day, Santino grew restless. It crossed his mind to submit other applications in the meantime, but he decided against it because he saw it as settling. Santino was the best candidate out there, and he would aspire for nothing but the best.

So he waited.

In order to preserve his sanity and keep his mind off the application, he had to find ways to occupy his time. Every morning at precisely 5:30a.m. he would wake up and prepare a breakfast consisting of two eggs over easy, one scrambled, three egg whites, two pieces of sourdough toast garnished with gluten-free margarine, a short stack of chocolate chip pancakes, a bowl of strawberry yogurt mixed with granola, two chicken-apple sausages and a bowl of Frosted Flakes, washed down with a cup-and-a-half of black coffee, two glasses of filtered water from his parents’ state-of-the-art Kitchenaid refrigerator and a smoothie consisting of a banana, two spoonfuls of Skippy super chunk peanut butter, twenty grams of vanilla protein powder, a cup of blueberries, exactly three strawberries and a light drizzle of organic honey. Once he finished his feast, he washed his dishes and headed straight out the front door and over to his local 24-Hour Fitness where he engaged in a rigorous workout regimen consisting of stretching, running on the treadmill, weightlifting, swimming and more stretching. When his workout was completed, he went back home to prepare his parents’ breakfast, which was the least he could do considering they were letting him live in their home rent-free. After his parents were fed and their dishes were cleaned, Santino would sit under the shady tree at the park down the street where he read classic literature, sipped on an iced green tea and let the summer breeze caress his skin. When he finished his reading, he headed back home, studied NFL and MLB statistics and practiced negotiating contracts based on those stats.

Santino usually finished these activities by one in the afternoon, at which point he would settle on the couch for a midday siesta.

The rest of Santino’s day was typically spent playing solitaire, making hip-hop beats for his friend José, reading the Bible, Quran, Talmud and The Book of Mormon, dominating online strangers in virtual chess, brushing up on his Southern Italian cooking skills and studying more sports statistics.

For a while, this laundry list of activities kept Santino preoccupied and did a fairly decent job of keeping his mind off his job application.

Until it didn’t.

After about the second day of this routine, Santino once again grew restless and was engulfed by anxiety.

Why haven’t they responded? he asked himself.

Did I sound too eager in my cover letter? Too cocky?

Do they not like Italians?

After days and days of insufferable torment, Santino had had enough. It was time to call the firm’s human resources department and ask if they had received his application. He had been reluctant to do so because he didn’t want to appear desperate. But at this point, he was desperate and had nothing to lose.

After finding the firm’s HR phone number, Santino poured himself a glass of room-temperature water to clear his throat and hit the “call” button. As the phone rang, he took a deep gulp of his water and repeated through his head, Sound confident; not cocky. Confident, not cocky.

“The Chang Corporation, this is Clarice. How may I help you?” asked an energetic voice on the other end of the line.

Caught off guard, Santino choked uncontrollably on his water and spit it all over himself.

“Uhh, hi!” he squeaked embarrassingly. “I mean, um, hello,” he stated in a forced tone much lower than that of his regular speaking voice. “My name is Santino Rigoli and I’m calling to inquire about the status of an application I submitted several weeks ago.”

“Okay, Mr. Rigoli,” Clarice responded. “Give me one second and I’ll pull up your application.”

Silence flooded the phone line and Santino nervously paced his kitchen floor, with each passing second looming like an eternity. What if the application hadn’t been received? Or worse, what if it had been received and they had simply discarded it?

“Well, Mr. Rigoli,” Clarice said after some time, “It seems we did receive your application and its status is listed as ‘Under Review.’ I’ll tell you what, though. I’m going to go ahead to transfer you over to DeSean Holman, who is one of our hiring managers, and he can give you further details on what to expect with your application from here on out.”

“Oh, wow!” Santino declared a little too excitedly. “Thank you so mu-

The line clicked and Santino was now listening to Country Roads, Take me Home, by John Denver. After fighting the urge to shout “West Virginia” about eight times, the music stopped and a strong voice took over the line.

“DeSean Holman, may I ask who’s calling?”

“Hello, Mr. Holman, my name is Santino Rigoli and I’m calling in regard to an application I submitted to your firm several weeks ago. I was just told by your receptionist that it was under review, bu-

“Well if you know it’s under review, then what more can I do for you at this time?” Mr. Holman asked impatiently.

“Um, I just wanted to se-

“You just wanted to see what was taking so long, is that right?” Holman asserted. “We have processes here, son, and you need to respect that. Business doesn’t get done at the snap of your fingers. It takes time, and you need to respect that and let us do our job as we see fit.”

Santino was shooketh, rattled like a snake. Before he could muster up the confidence to apologize for being too forward, Mr. Holman began speaking once more.

“But you know what, kid. I will say this: you got ambition. Too many kids your age, man, they’re complacent. They’re not hungry. They would have waited for months on end before we got back to ‘em. And if we didn’t? Oh well. And that’s the problem with you millenials; you expect stuff to come to you. But not you, Sanchito.”

“Santino,” he corrected him.

“That’s what I said, Dorito. But look, you’re not like those other kids. You’re hungry. You wanted something and you went for it, and that’s the type of ambition we’re looking for at this firm. And shoot, I have your resume right here in front of me, and I can tell you’ve got that ambition.”

In just a matter of seconds, Santino had gone from nearly throwing up to smiling like a priest in a boys’ daycare facility.

“I’ll tell you what, Sergio. We’re gonna bring you in for an interview. Tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. sharp. I want you in a full suit, tie and all. You come prepared with your resume, references and any other materials you find necessary. Check in with Clarice on the 31st floor and she’ll take you to Mr. Chang’s office where he’ll conduct your first round of interviews. Got it?”

Nearly in disbelief, Santino had to bring himself off Cloud Nine and confirm he understood the details of the interview. After thanking and saying goodbye to Mr. Holman, he hung up the phone and hurried to his room where he spent the next several hours preparing for his interview.

​

The next morning, Santino shot out of bed at promptly 5:37 a.m., downed two tall glasses of water, performed 50 consecutive push-ups and hopped in the shower. Once he was clean, he ate a banana, ironed his suit, shined his shoes, sytled his hair, brushed each individual tooth as if he were polishing Michelangelo’s “David” sculpture, gathered his interview materials and headed out the door.

He arrived at the West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station at 7:01 a.m. and boarded his train almost instantaneously. Scheduled to arrive in San Francisco’s financial district at 7:58, he was afforded nearly an hour to rehearse his prepared responses to any questions his interviewers might throw at him. Right on schedule, the train stopped and Santino deboarded and rode up the escalator to Market Street. Despite the plethora of spectacles and distractions Market had to offer, Santino was not fazed. He was in the zone, locked and loaded, ready to go.

Conveniently, the Chang Corporation’s office was located right next to the BART station and would take less than a minute for Santino to reach by foot. The problem, however, was that he was 57 minutes early. He didn’t want to check in with Clarice too early out of fear of seeming too eager, giving the impression that he was desperate. Of course, he was desperate, but that didn’t matter. What mattered is that he didn’t seem desperate.

As Santino thought of ways to kill some time, he remembered there was a Peet’s Coffee just around the corner of Market and 3rd Street. Suddenly he realized that in the midst of all his excitement that morning, he hadn’t even remembered to brew his morning cup of joe. Not that he needed the boost of energy, for his enthusiasm had him feeling plenty energized. Still, a little jolt of java couldn’t hurt, right? After all, he certainly looked the best he ever had, and he was willing to do whatever he could to feel his best too. So with his chest puffed out and his chin held high, Santino strutted down the sidewalk with a sexy swag and rounded the corner onto 3rd Street.

Immediately after rounding the corner, Santino collided into a careless woman who spilled a piping hot cup of coffee onto his white shirt and all over his face and hair. To make matters worse, she was holding a breakfast burrito that exploded all over Santino and drenched his clothes in bacon grease, avocado and copious amounts of Tapatio. With his mouth gaping in shock, Santino was overcome with horror and wore an expression that looked as if he had seen Harvey Weinstein.

“I… uh… you…” he stammered, desperately searching for words he could not find.

“What in the hell is the matter with you?” the woman yelled as if it wasn’t her inattentiveness that had caused the collision. “Flying around the corner like that, not watching where you’re going! This is unbelievable; I have to be at work soon!”

Still, Santino couldn’t find his words. Perhaps there were no words to express his despair.

“This is unbelievable,” the woman spat as she swiped away egg particles out of her long, black hair. “Unbelievable. How am I going to show up to the office like this?”

She continued her angry tirade as she stormed off into the sea of people and out of eyesight. Stunned, soaked and covered in filth, Santino stood hopelessly on the sidewalk as he watched her disappear.

This was how it ended. He couldn’t walk into his interview with coffee stains on his shirt and face with hot sauce and avocado smeared on his jacket all the way down to his shoes. He looked terrible, and he felt even worse. It wasn’t even 8:30 and all the clothing stores were still closed, so that threw out the possibility of him swapping out his wardrobe. This was the look Santino was stuck with, covered in grime from head to toe. Moreover, there was no way he could muster the confidence to conduct an interview now, at least not a decent one.

As he crouched into a seat on the cafe’s patio, Santino thought about all the steps he had taken to reach this point. All those hours spent in the university library studying for exams and mock trials. The sleepless nights spent reading and memorizing penal codes. The times he sold his belongings when he was short on rent. All the time and money spent on his commutes to his internships that paid little to no wages. So many sacrifices made, all for nothing.

“No,” Santino said softly. “This isn’t how I go down.”

Santino Rigoli was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a quitter. He thought back to those trying nights when his will was tested and his limits were pushed. Although giving up had crossed his mind several times, he had never seriously considered it. It wasn’t who he was. Santino was a go-getter. An ambitious and talented individual who always worked hard to achieve success. He hadn’t sacrificed years of his life and taken on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to be stopped by a little coffee stain and some egg yolk. He ate those problems for breakfast. No, Santino Rigoli was a competitor, and he was going to overcome this challenge just like he had overcome all the others. He had a story to tell, and it was time to start writing it.

Quickly, Santino got up out of his seat and hurried into the cafe to freshen up. He grabbed a handful of napkins out of the dispenser, dampened them under the bathroom sink faucet and began wiping away whatever food residue he could. The scalding coffee had left his face quite red and would perhaps later resemble a serious burn, but all he could do now was splash cold water on it and hope for the best. His hair was dampened and the gel he molded it with had nearly entirely lost its hold. Thankfully his Italian ancestors had granted him dark, sleek hair that looked stylish even when messy, so that was the look he was going to roll with.

When he finished freshening up, he still looked sloppy but at least he knew he had done the best he could. It was now 8:41 and he had to leave the cafe if he wanted to check in with Clarice exactly 15 minutes before his interview.

As he marched down Market, the autumn air cooled his singed face and the foliage on the trees glowed red and orange overhead. When he reached the building, he managed to secure an elevator all to himself, rode it straight to the 31st floor and approached Clarice at her desk.

“Hi, Clarice?” he began. “My name is Santino Rigoli, you and I spoke on the phone yesterday. I’m here for an interview with Mr. Chang.”

Clarice looked up from her appointment book and brushed her bushy hair back with her hands. “Mr. Rigoli, you’re here early,” she said with a tone of satisfaction. “Thankfully, Mr. Chang is…” She stopped her sentence once she noticed Santino’s appearance. Though she saw how dirty he looked, she decided against saying anything as not to hurt his confidence. Thankfully, she was quick enough that Santino didn’t notice. “Mr. Chang is ready to see you right now, so you won’t have to wait. Please follow me.”

With that, she arose from her seat and led Santino through the Chang Corporation’s office, which was a breathtaking space characterized by cool, earth tones and high ceilings.

“Will Mr. Holman be conducting my interview as well this morning?” Santino asked in a strong, professional tone.

“DeSean is actually out meeting with a client today,” Clarice responded. “He’s working on a big contract right now and felt his time would be best spent focusing on that. But let me tell you, DeSean was very impressed with the initiative you showed yesterday, and he made sure to let Mr. Chang know that.” Trying not to reveal too much excitement, Santino let out a half smile and expressed his satisfaction with a simple nod.

The two continued walking to Mr. Chang’s office in silence, and Santino couldn’t help but stare in awe of the facility as they passed through it. All along the walls were life-sized images of athletes represented by the firm. Record-setting contracts were framed on full display in the most visible places. To Santino’s left he saw a trophy case containing an NFL MVP award, two MLB Cy Young awards and an NBA Rookie of the Year award. To his right, he saw offices, state-of-the-art coffee machines, ping-pong tables, massage chairs, a weight room and a cafeteria that served gourmet cuisine ranging from smoked salmon to grilled bison. Straight ahead stood a gorgeous waterfall that fell from the ceiling down into a shimmering sapphire pool in which koi fish swam.

This is it, Santino thought. This is where I belong. I am going to work for the Chang Corporation.

Inspired, he envisioned himself working in one of the building’s offices, eating at fine restaurants with professional athletes and charging their meals to the company credit card, attending important sporting events and setting record-breaking contracts of his own.

It all starts with this interview, Santino told himself. This is going to be the best interview of your life.

“Okay, Mr. Rigoli, here we are,” Clarice said encouragingly when they approached a large pair of mahogany doors. “Mr. Chang,” she said as she knocked lightly on the door. “Santino Rigoli is here for his interview.”

“Ah yes!” sang an older gentleman’s voice from the other side of the door. “Please, Clarice, send him on in.”

“Well, Mr. Rigoli, best of luck to you,” Clarice smiled before she turned around and headed back to her desk.

Confident, not cocky, Santino reminded himself.

As he pushed the door open and stepped onto pristine cream-colored carpeting, he discovered Mr. Chang’s office was just as grandiose as the rest of the building. The ceilings arched high overhead and the walls were lined with wooden shelves holding dozens of knick-knacks ranging from collector’s edition baseball cards to decades-old bottles of wine. Mr. Chang’s fine mahogany desk sat approximately 20 feet from the room’s entrance. Cool and collected, Santino closed the door behind him and strided toward his interviewer.

“Mr. Rigoli,” Mr. Chang stood up, revealing his tall stature. “It’s a pleasure to have you here.” Although Chang was an older gentleman with gray-turning-white hair and a fair share of wrinkles on his face, he possessed a surprisingly strong frame and boasted the energy of a very young man.

“Please, Mr. Chang. Mr. Rigoli is my father. Call me Santino,” he responded charmingly.

“Well then, Santino,” Chang chuckled. “Go on ahead and have a se…”

Just as Santino was about to place the folder containing his resume on the desk and have a seat, Mr. Chang stopped his sentence and fixed his gaze on Santino’s shirt. He then moved his eyes from his shirt and scanned Santino’s entire torso and what he could see of his pants.

It’s okay, Santino thought. You knew this was gonna happen. Just play it cool and win him over with your confidence.

“I see you’re rather fixated on my attire, Mr. Chang,” he began. “I do hope you won’t call the fashion poli-”

“What in the hell are you wearing, son?” Chang asked in a tone full of disappointment. Santino’s stomach sank slightly.

“You see sir, I was ju-”

“You see? Yeah, kid, I do see. I see that you look like a wreck. What in the hell is the matter with you? Did you get into a food fight before you came over here?” Now rattled to his core, Santino knew he had to act fast.

“I, uh, I kn-know you see, sir. Th-the thing is, I-I-”

“I-I-I-I,” Chang mocked him. “I rolled around in the garbage before I came up here? I used coffee as cologne this morning and combed my hair with hot sauce? What in the hell is the matter with you?” Santino gulped. He was mortified beyond anything he could have imagined.

“Mi-Mister Chang, listen. I-”

“Listen? You’re telling me to listen? No, you listen to me, buddy. You come in here dressed like a slob, you can’t explain yourself and stammer like an idiot, and then you start barking orders at me in my own office? Do you know where you are, or who I am? This is the top sports agency in the world, and I am its founder and CEO. And you have the nerve to come into my office and tell me what do? No. No, I don’t think so.” Seeing his hopes and dreams burst into flames before his very eyes, Santino shook and stood silently, waiting for Chang’s wrath to come to an end.

“You know,” he continued. “This is the problem with you kids nowadays. You don’t have standards. You think that can just cruise to success without facing any trials or tribulations, that you can just enjoy the benefits of hard work without actually putting in the work.”

Santino felt as if his throat was closing. Rage and despair rose within him. Nothing Mr. Chang said had even remotely applied to him. Santino did put in the work, and he wanted to continue to work hard. If Mr. Chang would only hear him out.

“Sir, if you would please just let me spe-”

“No!” Chang barked furiously. “Don’t you dare interrupt me. You had your turn to speak, and you stuttered and insulted me. Now, I speak and you listen. I’ve seen kids like you before. You come in here acting like a hot shot with your fancy degree from this big-name school and act like that will serve as your free pass to do whatever you want to do. Well, guess what, pal? That’s not how it works here. You show up covered in filth, talking like you own the place and expected to get offered a job on the spot. Well it’s not gonna happen. I want you to get outta my office and escort yourself out of my facility, right now.” Chang looked on his desk and saw Santino’s folder. “And what’s this, your resume? Take it with you. I wouldn’t even be able to read it anyway because it’s probably soaked in coffee just like the rest of you. Get out.”

Santino sheepishly took the folder out of Chang’s hand, turned around and escorted himself out of the room without saying another word. On the way out, he thanked Clarice for showing him around and waited in silence for the elevator. Once outside, he walked down the steps leading to the BART station, boarded his train and headed back home.

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[arrogvnces]

   halloween fades out into a new week, one in which every piece of his life is left behind to leave space for the new ones to come. he doesn’t step foot on campus. he doesn’t see any of his peers, much less henrietta. most of his time is spent packing, drinking and throwing a ball against the ceiling. every day, simon sends him another text apologizing. on the seventh day, after receiving no reply, he says his goodbyes. sinclair wishes he could say it made him sad, but he doesn’t feel much of anything anymore, these days. he’s too busy counting down the minutes, and if he sometimes imagines the plane crashing with him in it, well — that’s no one’s business but his own. 

   on sunday before he’s set to leave the country, he first flies to new york. he doesn’t bother touring the city or visiting his building. every place seems to have been marked by her. instead, he goes to the one place she’s never even set foot in. his mother opens the door to her apartment with barely contained anger, immediately setting off into a long-winded speech to which he only nods, discarding his shoes and promptly sinking into her white-furred expensive couch.

   “i told you to be careful, did i not?” she scolds, pouring herself yet another glass of whiskey, from the apparent redness on her cheeks. “i said, sinclair, he watches your every move, don’t cause any more trouble. but you’ve always been exactly like your father, always off doing whatever you want without worrying about how the rest of us might feel.” 

   “we’re so alike that he chose the first rat off the street to replace me with,” he replies, bitterness seeping into his tongue. he doesn’t like to think about theodore kim. it always leads to thoughts he’s not used to having, not even when bust calvin’s lip open. his mother scoffs, properly sitting next to him. 

   “theodore is not a street rat, he’s a harvard business school alumni… the youngest of his class,” she informs him, earning a frown. “his father was leonard’s right-hand for many years until he passed ten years ago. at first i thought he was helping the boy out of loyalty for a dead man, but of course, that snake always has something evil up his sleeve.” 

   while sinclair collected achievement after achievement for his attention, his father was busy adopting a stray and molding him into the son he always wanted. what a joke. he sighs, sitting up a little straighter. around them, the cold minimalistic loft fills him up with something akin to nostalgia. his childhood home wasn’t much different; always silent, pristine, and white. the only difference is his mother, by his side. 

   “why did you marry him?” he blurts out, barely earning a reaction out of her. it’s a question that’s always been on the tip of his tongue, begging to come out. he never had the nerve, but somehow, sitting here, she seems a little more attainable. his mother half-smiles, taking another swig of her drink.

   “we were young, not much older than you and henrietta,” she says, and his chest hurts at the mention of her name. “he was spending a semester at zurich university, and all the girls were swooning over him. i did, too. he was tall, clean-cut, always the best dressed wherever he went. he only had eyes for his goals, though. i guess that’s why he approached me.” she pauses, a faraway look in her gaze. sinclair tenses a bit, at the unfamiliarity of this moment. “i wasn’t the prettiest, nor the kindest, but i was the richest. at the time, your grandfather was investing in a lot of growing businesses in america and he’d gotten ear of it. he soon began walking me to class, taking me out for dinner, charming me with all his big plans and caring for my dreams. before he went back to america, he asked my father for my hand in marriage. and the rest is… the rest.” 

   he nods, looking down at the carpet he’s sure his father’s feet have never stepped on. “where did it go wrong?” he asks, thinking of his own failed love story. his mother sighs.

   “he quit his job at lvmh when i was about seven months pregnant with you,” she replies, placing the glass on the glass table in front of them. “my father was livid, he wanted to know how he planned to support his family with no income. so leonard made him a proposition, and by the time you were five months old, park & seo saw the light of day.” he knew the story from there onwards. when his grandfather died, park & seo was immediately renamed park corporation. it had been the last time his parents had lived together. “after that, he’d gotten what he wanted. his father-in-law’s money, his company, his goal. there was no need to keep pretending.” 

   she gets up then, shaking her head. “but that’s all in the past. i’ve had twenty years to make peace with my mistakes. j’espère que tu ne les répètera pas.” she turns to him, and he has to crane his neck to look up at her. i hope you don’t repeat them. she raises a hand, and he waits for the pinch in his cheek she used to give him every time he misbehaved as a child. instead, she runs her fingers through his hair, stunning them both. the moment is over before he can process it entirely, and she walks away, but not before calling out: “there’s no one i know that has ever won against leonard. be the first.” 

   i will, he thinks to himself. because if i don’t, then i just let the love of my life go for nothing. 

—

   one week in seoul, and he’s no longer sure if he can keep any of his promises. it’s not only that everything is foreign to him, that his brain can’t seem to immediately make the transition to korean, or that his neighbor from upstairs is a famous k-pop idol with partying hours that do not coincide with his sleeping schedule. truthfully, he fucking hates the job.

   his supervisor is a stoic dictator, his co-workers quickly spread the news about his nepotism, earning him hateful looks every elevator ride, and he can never find a parking spot no matter how early he gets there. the workload is uninspired, his days being filled with writing e-mails, sorting through correspondence, calling starving interns in to fire them, schedule depraved dinners in seedy hotels, run through the entire building while carrying multiple errands and dodging personal questions from other secretaries. by the time he makes it back home, the pounding edm music keeps him awake well until three in the morning. so can he prove his father that he’s a hard-worker, deserving of inheriting the corporation? doubtful. 

   it’s not until his third week in that he meets a silver lining. he’s sitting at the cafeteria by himself, toying with his food as he considers going back to his car and taking a nap, when a woman plops into the chair next to him, unwrapping her utensils without a word. his once-over of her appearance is quick, delicately beautiful features eliciting a mere aesthetical appreciation before he returns to his own thoughts. she’ll leave soon enough; they all do. but after ten minutes, she continues to chew her food as if she has all the time in the world, and he grows increasingly annoyed at the loud slurping of her juice box. 

   “look, i’m not interested —” he starts, but the abrupt sound of her reaching the end of her drink cuts him off. she smashes it in her hand, letting the box fall on the tray before finally meeting his gaze, chin resting on her palm.

   “am i selling you anything?” she asks, her husky voice throwing him off a bit. he shakes his head, somewhat intimidated. “have i offered you anything?” another shake. “so what are you not interested in, exactly?”

   they stare at each other, eyes narrowing simultaneously. she’s the first to break it, rolling her eyes with a small smile.

   “relax, park eunkwang,” his korean name comes out of her lips in poorly hidden contempt. “i actually am here with an invitation: we’re having a welcome dinner for all new company employees tomorrow, and it’s been made my duty to make sure you attend.” 

   he sighs, making a move to stand up. “no, thank you. i don’t socialize.”

   “why not? because one day you’re going to be our boss and we’re all so beneath you?” she questions, standing up with him. though he’s several inches taller, she makes it hard to look down on her. 

   it’s his turn to roll his eyes, picking up his tray and walking away. by the sound of heels on the floor, she follows him. “i’m running on three hours of sleep any given day,” he says, discarding his untouched plate on the bin. “i have no energy left to deal with nosy people, asking me to mention them to my father.” 

   “i know, life is hard when you’re rich with the best connections in the market,” she counters, stacking up her tray after his and keeping up with his pace, heading towards the elevators. “but it would be in your best interest to do so. you might one day be ceo, but right now you’re just a secretary. a very rude and haughty secretary, with a line-up of other secretaries planning to make your stay down here with us miserable.” they stop in front of the closed metal doors, the tips of his ears turning red. when he looks back at her, she’s scribbling something onto the back of a business card. “here,” she says, handing it to him. “that’s the address. be on time or be late, but show up, eunkwang.” 

   “it’s sinclair,” he blurts out, hating his korean name all over again. “and i’m not showing up.” the elevator doors open and she steps inside. he makes no move to join her. 

   “then i guess i’ll be waiting for you on monday morning with my caramel macchiato,” the woman exclaims, punching a button. “see ya’, sinclair.” 

   when the door closes and she’s out of view, he turns the card around. luna seo, marketing analyst. he chuckles to himself, pocketing the card and pressing the button once more. like hell he’ll be there.

—

   he finds himself standing in front of the restaurant the next day, the busy streets of gangnam nearly swallowing him whole. he could argue that it was his neighbor’s brand new party that dragged him out, but in reality, he’s had enough of his cold, dark and silent home. another night where he comes back to no one waiting for him, worrying about him or caring for him drives him closer to giving up. something he can’t do. so he’s here, entering a strange environment designed to stress him out, but filled to the brim with noise, light, and people. 

   inside, it doesn’t take him very long to spot his co-workers. occupying a long table, they all chatter loudly and clink glasses with one another in good spirit. he considers leaving while they still haven’t spotted him, but when he begins to turn around, the same deep voice calls out to his back:

   “oh, it’s sinclair park,” luna announces, forcing him to stay in place as they all go silent and bend their necks to stare at him. he silently curses the woman, meeting her satisfied gaze at one end of the table. she beckons him forward, an empty chair on her left side. he strides towards the seat, under the scrutiny of park corp’s employees. “now, let’s not be awkward, you guys. tonight, he is not the son of the men who could end your careers with one word. he’s just another secretary, fetching coffee and taking calls.” 

   it doesn’t do anything to dissipate the awkward air around, and he considers getting up and leaving when the man across the table holds out his empty shot glass. sinclair reddens, but when he meets the man’s gaze, there is nothing malicious in it. slowly, unsure of his own movements, he reaches for the nearest soju bottle, holding his wrist with one hand and pouring the drink into the man’s glass. something seems to unlock, as everyone else proceeds with their previous discussions, firing up the grill with more meat. 

   “they just needed to know you respect them,” the man says, taking a single sip of his drink before discarding it in a pot plant behind his seat. “i’m elijah kwon, by the way. i work as a manager in human resources. it’s nice to meet you. luna said you were vehement about not coming, but i’m glad you changed your mind.” 

   sinclair grimaces, attempting to pick a piece of meat for himself with the metal chopsticks. “well, luna did so kindly threaten me, so how could i say no?” in place of a response, she blocks his utensils, picking a large and juicy piece and dropping it on his plate. elijah chuckles.

   “don’t blame her too much, i asked her to convince you.” he raises one eyebrow, chewing the greasy piece with delight. it’s been a long time he’s eaten decent food.

   “why?”

   “i wanted to make sure you were aware of something,” elijah answers in english, straightening up and lowering his voice just loud enough for luna and sinclair to hear him. “it seems your father tasked my boss with reporting everything you do back to him. or in simpler terms, i’ve been tasked to report on you to him. but…” he eyes sinclair’s expression, thick and dark brows slightly frowning. “you don’t seem surprised by that.” 

   “it’s very on-brand for him to do that,” sinclair replies, swallowing hard. “i’m only sorry this tedious task fell onto your hands. i’m curious, though— why are you telling me this?” 

   “out of the goodness of his heart,” luna answers in his stead, and when sinclair leans back into his chair, he’s positioned in the right angle to see their hands entertwined under the table. suddenly, his comment about not being interested makes him sound really foolish. “or because your presence here has added several unpaid hours to his schedule. can you imagine graduating snu to babysit?” 

   “luna…” her boyfriend, sinclair guesses, warns her gently. she pouts, dropping his hand to reach for the bottle of sparkling water. when sinclair meets his gaze across the table, he half-smiles, despite the evident dark circles under his eyes. yet another person caught in the whirlwind of the park’s pathetic life. sinclair has a mind to apologize, to promise he’ll have a talk with his father but neither of those things will solve anything. luna is right. he’s nothing but a secretary. 

   a silence settles between them, more soju bottles arriving along with the meat. he doesn’t know what to say, so he eats. every other minute, he accepts a drink and downs a full glass of water right after. he answers the few questions nameless faces throw at him, trying his best to remain polite. mostly, he’s stuck thinking about the best way to excuse himself so he can head to his depressing abode. it’s only when her name is mentioned that his shoulders tense.

   “so, what’s little miss huang like?” a bald man not much older than him babbles, clearly drunk from the way his eyes refuse to stay open. “everyone says she’s so… sooo pretty, but i say that’s dangerous. pretty girls are alw–always hiding something.” 

   “i must be full of secrets then,” luna quips in, earning a few cheers from the other female employees at the table. the drunkard swats her comment with his hand, still staring at sinclair.

   he doesn’t bother answering, because he’s not even sure there is a question in any of what he said. another employee, curly-haired with an unbuttoned shirt, takes over. “it must be hard for you to be over here while she’s in america, though, right? if my girlfriend lived on the other side of the world, i’d always be worried she’s laying down with some other dude.” on instinct, sinclair’s jaw clenches.

   “if you’re the boyfriend, maybe” a girl on his right says, grinning. 

   “whatever, i’m just saying,” curly hair pouts, not catching his cue to stop. “girls that look like henrietta huang have men lining up wherever they go. no matter what you look like, there’s no way you’re not just a little bit nervous, right?” 

   he stands up rather abruptly, startling everyone. his entire face is on fire, and he’s not sure if it’s due to the alcohol or the dread that invades him little by little. he hadn’t thought of that, because he didn’t think he'd have to. they’re still engaged. they’re still getting married. but what if it’s in the way his parents are still married? living apart, meeting other people. . . he might throw up. “excuse me, i’m going to go … smoke.” 

   when he steps outside, the cold soothes the burn in his cheeks, allowing him to breathe again. he should’ve stayed home, after all. maybe it is better to be alone than surrounded by that. because now, he can’t stop thinking of the possibility of henri with someone else. it tears him apart, especially knowing there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. he gave her up, to be here. now, all he can do is smile and nod at questions about a marriage she no longer wants. defeated, he sits down on the two steps in front of the restaurant, the hand in his pocket toying with the idea of taking out his phone and calling her. not even to say anything, just to hear her voice. but, he’s not sure she would pick up. still, he takes it out, searching her name in his contact list and nearly pressing the call button when a figure plops down next to him, startling him into turning off the screen. 

   luna eyes him suspiciously, unfolding her legs in front of her with a sigh. “where’s your cigarette?” 

   he scoffs, pocketing his phone. another day, maybe. “threw it away right before you got here.” she raises her eyebrows as if to say right, you’re full of shit. they say nothing for a few minutes, staring out into the street as people stumble by, their lives entirely unaffected by the inner turmoil of the man and woman who observe them. “so, the reason you’re hostile to me is that i’m responsible for your boyfriend’s long hours?” 

   she hums. “no, i’m naturally mean. though, i shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

   “apology accepted.” 

   she takes a deep breath, before angling her body away from him, so they are nearly face to face. “look, i— we didn’t ask you here just to tell you that. i actually want to ask something of you. something i probably shouldn’t be asking a stranger.” his first instinct is to say no, regardless of what it is. he’s in no position to say or do anything for anyone else. but then he contemplates her, truly, and says nothing. she takes it as her cue to continue. “elijah is not my boyfriend. he’s my fiancé. we’re supposed to get married in june, but… something, or rather someone, is in the way. and it’s your boss.” 

   he frowns at her, the sudden turn of this conversation confusing him. “mr. kang is keeping you from getting married? how?” 

   she scowls at thin air, pure hatred emanating off of her. “he’s always had this weird obsession with me, ever since i started working there. he made advances once, but when i made it clear i had no qualm about reporting him, he backed off. kept it very passive-aggressive.” that part he doesn’t doubt. he’s met the man, hating him almost on sight. “but he stumbled upon elijah and i on a date, once, and we made it clear we were engaged. the next day, he told me if i got married, he’d tell my uncle what a terrible job i was doing and get me fired. subtly acting on ‘if i can’t have you, no one can' bullshit.” 

   there’s too much information at once, so he latches on perhaps the least jarring one. “who’s your uncle?” he asks, and from the slight widening of her eyes, he can tell she wasn’t expecting him to ask that.

   still, reluctantly, she says: “lee yoon-gi.” he recognizes almost instantly the name of one of the most prominent board members. “but make no mistake, you and i are not the same, sinclair park. i might’ve been privileged to get in, but my position is not sealed. if i’m anything less than extraordinary, i will get fired. and now apparently, if i marry the man i love, as well.”

   the way venom spits out of her without any warning throws him off, perhaps because he knows that defense all too well. he’s done it far too many times to blame her. however, nothing of what she says makes any kind of sense to him. “so, what are you even asking of me? to report him to my father?”

   “no!” she exclaims, palms raised up against his chest. “no, because then he’d know it was me and i would be fired all the same. i don’t want you to report him, i… i need you to find dirt on him. right now, he trusts you. he knows that as leonard’s son, you’re automatically on his side, protecting his best interest. he’ll let his guard down and expose who he really is. then, we could use that to force him to resign.” 

   he makes no sound, no movement. only gapes at the audacity of this strange woman in front of him. he’s not even sure he can come up with an adequate answer to her request. who is he, to help her? what obligations does he have, to help her? he’d be putting his own position at risk if found out. and yet, flatly refusing to do anything feels like the furthest thing from right. he turns back towards the street, barely registering the bodies walking back-and-forth in front of him. “you know, telling me this was really reckless.” 

   she nods in his field of vision, burying her head in her crossed forearms. 

   “maybe i would side with him,” sinclair suggests, frowning as a couple skips by, hand-in-hand. “maybe i would tell him you tried to get to me spy on him. you don’t know me enough to ask me that in the first five minutes of conversation. there wasn’t even any coddling, any flattery, any pretense of being my friend. you just jumped right in. is it your first time?” she doesn’t say anything, at first. maybe he’s frightened her with a possibility she hadn’t considered. but then, she giggles.

   “you don’t remember me.” it’s a statement, rather than a question. “but i was there, at your engagement party. i was vacationing in new york, and my uncle couldn’t go for whatever reason, so he sent me in his stead. it was a beautiful party, if a bit cold.” as hard as he tries, he can’t place her. he’d been so nervous that night, anxious by theodore’s presence, afraid henri wouldn’t like the ring. he clears his throat, to apologize maybe, but she carries on. “the highlight was definitely your speech, though. i remember thinking ‘elijah and i have got to write personalized vows.’ you left a good impression on me, that night. that’s a hard thing to do. but you seemed like a genuine boy, deeply in love, unbothered by what everyone else thought. and then you showed up here, and you looked exactly like your father. he comes by, sometimes. you both walk the same way, talk the same way. you live as if everyone else’s existence is meaningless next to yours.” 

   “i—” he tries to defend himself, but she holds one finger up. he closes his mouth. 

   “but it’s not a fair assessment, because you’re right,” she says, almost as if it pains her to admit it. “i don’t know you. so, can you imagine how desperate i must be to ask someone i don’t know to help me, by exposing something that could destroy everything i’ve worked hard for? i don’t know you, sinclair but i know you love henrietta huang very deeply. and you don’t know me, but if you must know something, is that i love elijah kwon more than i’ve ever loved anything else. all i want is to be able to be with him — without restraints. without fear of losing my career. can you understand that?” 

   he fixates on a light far away, a car making its way through the narrow cobbled streets. the cold no longer does anything to soothe, and his voice is barely audible when he speaks again. “i’m not as solid as you think i am.” 

   “what do you mean?”

   he breathes in, bracing himself for just about the second stupidest thing to happen in this conversation. “i am very lonely, luna. so i’m going to blame this equally reckless thing on the fact that i have no one else to tell it to, and if i go down for it, i can go down knowing you did as well.” he considers her from the corner of his eye. she’s raised her head again, but doesn’t say anything. “i’m not inheriting park corp. my father has changed his will and is giving it to theodore kim— you might have seen him at the party? anyway, i’m not here to work, i’m here to prove to my father that i’m worthy of inheriting this company after he dies. that’s why poor elijah is reporting my daily activities.” he waits for her reaction, but the only thing he gets is her side profile, as she observes the street. “my position is as fickle as yours, after all.” 

   the night passes them by in a blur, the sound of their co-workers inside slowly losing its spark. they’re drunker now, sleepier. the tips of his fingers are numb, and he considers standing up after this long stretch of nothing, but she reaches for his wrist, keeping him in place. 

   “elijah will say you’re doing an amazing job,” she announces, decidedly. “he’ll say everyone is pleased to have you around, that you’ve adapted to the social circle with ease, and that you take your work very seriously. you’re meticulous, dedicated, appreciated. you’re a true leader.” he understands what she is saying without her saying it. i’ll keep your secret, if you keep mine. i’ll help you, if you help me. “all you have to do is find something that he can’t wiggle his way out of– that is all.” 

   “and if he catches on?”

   she grins, then. her first genuine one directed towards him. “then i will pretend to know absolutely nothing about it.” he snickers, something in chest loosening. it feels more than just a deal between two desperate people. rather, he has the same feeling as when he was seven and shook hands with his soccer teammate, agreeing to be friends. finally, i’m not alone. 

   the door behind them opens abruptly, elijah’s head peeking out. sinclair sees his eyes drift towards luna’s hand still gripping sinclair’s wrist, a grimace forms in his classic features. “should i be worried?” he asks, and his fiancé frowns in confusion before catching on. she stands up then, scoffing in clear dismissal.

   “about whom? this infant?” she questions, walking up to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “never.” sinclair looks away, then, because it’s a private moment he shouldn’t witness. but behind him, they only burst into laughter. “oh my god, you really are like a child,” luna says, and he cranes his neck slightly to see them staring down at him. “no one knows we’re together, there will be no pda here, chill.” 

   he stands up, blushing at his ears. something tells him he’ll have to deal with a lot of that, in the presence of luna and elijah. the latter is called back inside, something about time to pay up, and waves at them. sinclair steps up, ready to get his things and head home, but once more, luna decides not let him leave, holding a firm grip on the handle.

   “i know i’m pushing my luck here,” she starts, this time gazing downwards at her shoes. “but what made you decide to help me? that was a lot faster than i thought it would be. are you really that bored?” you have no idea, he almost says. instead, he lays one cold hand on her shoulder, forcing her gaze back up.

   “i know what it’s like to be the lucky one, in a relationship,” he answers, chest aching. “maybe i just don’t want someone else to miss out on true love by prioritizing their ambitions. make of that what you will.” and with that, he heads back inside.

   later, when he gets home to the same cold, dark and silent place (save for the mellow r&b music), he doesn’t panic as he usually does. he thinks that maybe he can fulfill his promise, after all. all he needed was a wholesome purpose.

   now, he has one. 

—

   the days blend into one another in an entirely different way, from before. on monday morning, after a long weekend of radio silence with the world, he posts a warning under his neighbor’s door about the noise. on monday night, he receives a long apology and a promise to be more careful. that same night, he has his first full night of sleep in seoul. 

   after that, he begins to slow the pace of his step. he starts looking up, instead of at his feet. he observes and learns from mr. kang, accompanying him to meetings in and outside the building. he listens, makes quick chatting with the driver, the maid, the cook. nothing too suspicious, only mere confirmations of his everyday schedule. when the workday is done, he’ll meet luna at a quiet coffee shop nearby. some days elijah joins them, and her face is split open into a smile. others, she blames sinclair for his busy schedule keeping him away. 

   they build a routine, to discuss his boss mainly, but their conversations begin to veer elsewhere. there isn’t always something to say about his activities, so she’ll ask him whether or not he’s set a date for the wedding because ‘there’s no way you can get married in june, i’m not letting you two steal our thunder.’ he almost tells her the truth, a couple of times. she already holds his biggest secret, the one he couldn’t even give up to henrietta, so why not reveal this one? then he’ll be able to stop smiling and nodding while it tears him up inside. but then he remembers what she said about his first impression on her, and how it was based on his love for his fiancé. if he confesses the truth, she might see him in a different light. as much as he hates to admit, sinclair begins to care about what luna thinks of him. maybe it’s because he’s never met someone as brutally honest as her, never mincing her words about his childish opinions. one day, while they argue about brown vs oxford, elijah interrupts them with his quiet giggles, a strange look on his face. 

   “i’m sorry, i never thought i’d meet someone just like luna.” it sends them into another flurry of arguing, luna turning nearly red with opposition to his comment. but by the end of it, all three find themselves roaring with laughter, clutching at their bellies, teary-eyed. it feels good. he didn’t think he would find those moments again, where happiness seems almost reachable. but there’d be other moments, where the couple would get lost in each other’s eyes, forgetting his presence and he’d feel a familiar heartache. he doesn’t blame them, for being young and in love. no, there is no one to blame. 

   somewhere in the middle of december, his routine is broken most unexpectedly. he’s sitting in the same coffee shop, enjoying his break with a warm drink when a familiar figure takes the seat next to him. he frowns, immediately.

   “honestly, you’re a hard man to find,” simon says, half of his face covered by a checkered scarf. “i go to your place, your housekeeper says you’re at work. i go to work, they say you’re out on a break. thank god i decided to take my time and saw you staring out the window like you’re in a taylor swift music video.” 

   sinclair doesn’t respond, and he thinks for a second he’s back on campus, with all of those people breathing down his neck. he takes a sip of his hot chocolate, warming himself up from the coldness the memories bring. “this might be the creepiest thing you’ve ever done, and you slept with calvin lee.” simon rolls his eyes, signaling to the waitress the same drink as well. 

   “and you slept with mina kang, several times, during a whole year,” he counters, earning himself a scowl. “my point is, we all make mistakes. does that mean you’re not going to speak to me for the rest of our lives because i had sex with calvin?” 

   “i’m not speaking to you for the rest of our lives because you’ve made it very clear my life is nothing but entertainment to you,” he rebutts, and simon has the decency of looking ashamed. “you’ve shown time after time to have no loyalty towards me, and i’ve realized that i actually deserve better than that.” 

   they stare at each for too many seconds, the truth unspoken between the two. sinclair knows he won’t argue, that he won’t say what’s been hanging between them for most of the year. and he’s fine with it, because it no longer concerns him. he grabs his coat, standing up

   “look, i had a stupid fucking crush on you, okay?” simon blurts out, stunning them both. “i know, how cliché. me, crushing on the straightest guy to walk through campus. but that’s just how it was. i knew what i signed up for, but i was still bitter every time i had to see you walk around with henri. so when people asked me dirt on you, i gave it to them. it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, and i’m sorry. i’ve been trying to change.” 

   neither of them says anything after that, distracted by the foam in his cup. it’s not news to sinclair, he just never thought the other boy would have the courage to say it out loud. “what are you even doing here, simon? did you seriously came all the way to south korea just to tell me that?” 

   “what? no way,” he exclaims, looking up at sinclair with wide eyes. “i’m failing college, man. i told my parents i was going to drop out and they put me in the first plane back here. they’re hoping grandma will bully me back into academics. but i’m over it, honestly. it was fun before when everyone was hanging around being dramatic as shit, but now the group’s all broken up and i have a d- in english.” 

   sinclair considers his surrounding, the time in his patek watch signaling another fifteen minutes away from his tiresome work. with a sigh, he sits back down, glaring at the boy in front of him. “maybe if you didn’t spend all your time butting in other people’s business,” he comments, unsure of what to do next. or rather, unsure if he has any right to ask the question on the tip of his tongue. “the whole group’s broken up? every single one?”

   he rolls his eyes. “i know, right? who knew you were the glue holding us together? everyone was pretty shocked when you just got up and left, you were like, their main source of fun. calvin actually started focusing on his training again, valentina tried to bully mina a while longer but after that speech you gave her at the party she completely stopped hanging out with us. i actually haven’t spoken with stephanie in weeks. she’s still stuck on the whole gossip girl of yale thing.” 

   “and what about henri?” sinclair questions, despite knowing better. “is she okay?”

   “i… don’t actually know,” he shrugs, but it’s not casual enough for sinclair to believe him. in the face of his clear disbelief, simon sighs. “i’m serious. i told you, i’m trying to change. i’ve seen her around once or twice but i haven’t bothered to ask her if she’s super depressed over your break-up. she seemed fine, i guess. in the same way you seem fine.” 

   “and what way is that?”

   “it’s something stephanie said once when i was complaining you kept blowing me off for henri. she said ‘they don’t make sense without each other.’ i thought that was stupid, you’d lived your whole lives apart, you didn’t need each other all the time to be complete, but… now, i kinda’ get it. you’re here, in front of me, and you look amazing. you have a full-time job, you seem much more mature than two months ago. and yet… something’s missing.”

   he doesn’t answer that. he doesn’t have it in him to dispute it. as much as he’s begun to adapt to this life, as much as he’s begun to look forward to this day— something is missing. there is no replacing it. all he can do is learn to live with it and hope that someday, the wound will close on its own. they drink their hot chocolates in silence, the minutes ticking away. he peers at simon over the edge of his cup, unsure of what to do or say. it seems almost childish to hold on to this betrayal when he knows he was never an exemplary friend either. he just can’t erase the way he felt in one apology. but maybe apologies aren’t always about swiping the slate clean. 

   “i have to go back to work,” he announces, collecting his things. he leaves a few bills on the table, as simon gets up in a hurry. 

   “oh, i… okay then,” simon hesitates, nearly knocking the table over with his sudden standing. “i guess, i’ll see you around.” 

   “friday,” sinclair suggests, a half-smile on his lips. “i haven’t really been around all those places only you know about. it’s awkward to go clubbing by yourself.” 

   the other boy’s face splits open into a grin, and before he can say anything, sinclair raises his finger. “just, don’t drop me off in the corner to go sleep with another one of my arch-nemesis, please.” 

   “oh god, i am never going to live that down, am i?” sinclair chuckles in response, leaving the coffee shop for the snowy streets of seoul. 

   the knots in his life come undone, one by one. he wonders, while snowflakes find refuge in his long lashes, if one day he’ll be able to undo the biggest of them all, with this much ease. but the thought of a negative answer squeezes his heart into two, and he pushes it aside.

   one day at a time. 

—

   by christmas time, he no longer has a single minute for himself. in between shadowing mr. kang and writing down every suspicious movement of his, being dragged all over eastern asia by simon on his days off, and colluding with luna and elijah after work, he’s exhausted by the time he reaches his bed and collapses. 

   at times, he’ll wake up in the middle of the night and find that he can’t sleep again. those are the dangerous hours, where his phone is his worst enemy and instagram shows him what he gave up on. every new update of hers makes him feel pathetic for the sudden beating of his heart, and perhaps a little creepy, as well. when his mother reminds him over facetime of the upcoming event they’re set to attend together, he nearly tells her the truth, hoping for enough empathy to spare him of it. but just because they’re on speaking terms, doesn’t mean she’ll cut him any slack. and it’s not as if he doesn’t want to see henri again. he does, more than anything. but is he ready to handle the awkwardness that will come with pretending to still be a loving couple? 

   on christmas eve, after wrapping up the last of his work for the next three days, he heads over for the first time to luna’s apartment in hannam-dong, where she’s decided to host a christmas dinner with elijah for their families. he wasn’t sure whether he belonged there at all, until she notified his presence to her mother on the phone, arguing that her friend had no one else to spend the holidays with. a blatant lie, since simon had nearly begged him to save him from his family, but she’d argued her mother would only let him inside as a stray. so here he is, flowers and expensive champagne in hand at the threshold of a luxurious building in un village. he’s let in rather quickly, the noise from inside through the speakerphone nearly sending him back to his apartment. 

   upstairs, he’s greeted by red-faced luna, ushering him inside. “i’m warning you in advance, tonight’s going to be a shithole, both of my parents are here in the same room which hasn’t happened since 2009.” she nearly yanks his coat out of him, not-so-gently pushing him towards the expansive living room. a pine tree in the corner is decorated by excited children, white tinsel hanging off beige walls, and candles just about everywhere. a fire hazard. multiple adults he doesn’t know a single thing about make conversation, champagne flutes in hand. he nearly says something about it, but is stopped by the sheer look of exhaustion and anxiety in luna’s pleading eyes. 

   “your dress is very pretty,” he says, instead, commenting on the red off-the-shoulder gown. she nods, a silent thank you passing between them. from behind the tree, elijah suddenly pops up, half of his sleek tuxedo covered in red and green glitter. his fiancé groans, though it’s half-heartedly. the kids around him giggle at his appearance, and he drops some of the glitter on their heads, before striding over.

   “glad you could make it,” they shake hands, half-hugging as elijah pats his back. sinclair steps back with a shiny bowtie. “we’re going to need all the help we can get, tonight.” 

   “i thought i was invited to a christmas party, not war.”

   “isn’t it the same?” 

   from across the room, standing at the end of a long table, an old woman dressed head-to-toe in chanel clinks her glass with a tiny spoon. it takes no genius to recognize her as luna’s mother, her sleek bob and many years on her daughter unable to mask the same delicate features. “now, now,” she begins, capturing everyone’s attention. “since we’re all here, let’s sit down for dinner. i don’t know about you all, but i’m absolutely starving.” 

   “um, mom,” luna semi-interrupts, raising her hand almost as if she’s afraid to speak. “dad’s not here, he went to buy the chocolates you asked of him, remember?” 

   mrs. seo only smiles, proceeding to sit down without another word. they seem to hesitate for a second, until she orders the housekeeper to bring in the food. luna only sighs, finding her seat alongside elijah. sinclair hesitates, but she holds out the empty chair on her left side, between her and a girl who practically gapes at him. without saying a single word, he takes his place to a very long evening. 

   it is not as unpleasant as he thought it’d be. the conversation is made easily, as he falls back into familiar habits built by years of attending parties he didn’t necessarily want to be at. he goes unnoticed for most of the night, elijah and luna’s family more worried about the details of their upcoming wedding than the park boy next to them. it becomes clear which one of the two is most used to public speaking, as elijah takes the reins and gives diplomatic answers. luna is relegated to nodding along, at times making snide remarks to certain comments.

   “honestly, who would’ve thought luna would finally settle down with a nice man?” one of her aunts, seemingly the witch out of a children’s book, exclaims amidst the quiet chatter. “do you remember, yoona, i told you ‘luna is a modern woman, she can’t be held down by just one man…’ and yet!” yoona, luna’s mother, gives her a tight-lip smile in response, before downing the rest of her drink. 

   “how’s uncle doing, by the way?” luna jumps in, her aunt flinching if only slightly. “i heard he’s been seeing one of his secretaries? how old is she again? twenty… something, right? it must be hard for you, but i’m sure you’ll get through it.” 

   “never a boring day in this family,” the girl next to him mutters, smirking. he’s inclined to believe her. especially, when luna’s father shows up by the time dessert is being served, one chocolate box in hand, panting heavily. he only squints at mrs. seo, before excusing himself to the kitchen for his ‘late dinner.’ sinclair nearly chuckles, earning himself a scowl from his friend. it’s not that it’s particularly funny to see how dysfunctional her family is — rather, it’s because he knows now the parks are not the only lost cause. and though it makes him a bad friend to think it, he’s glad it’s not him that the spotlight is on tonight. 

   afterward, they’re mostly left to their own devices as luna and elijah excuse themselves from the party for a minute. he almost stops them to ask her why, but the shouting in the background of mariah carey’s ‘all i want for christmas is you’ keeps him in place. he’s considering leaving early, when the same girl from before approaches him, half-smiling.

   “believe it or not, that was the tamest dinner i’ve ever had with any of them,” she informs him, leaning against the couch by his side. “my mom usually tears into luna a little stronger, but i guess she noticed we had a special guest tonight.” 

   “i’d hardly call myself special,” he retorts, still wiping away glitter from his clothes. the girl scoffs.

   “you’re sinclair park, i’d hardly call you not special.” 

   “i didn’t think anyone had noticed.” 

   "your father is responsible for most of my family’s wealth,” she quips, one raised eyebrow. “we’ve noticed. but elijah made everyone promise not to mention anything about it. not to make it weird for you, and all that.” something warm swirls in his chest. he’s no longer sure the deal they made is the only thing that drives this relationship. “i think it’s really cute that they’ve found someone to care for. if you weren’t here, luna would’ve probably said something even meaner.”

   “that’s possible?” 

   “for her? that was kid’s play. they go at it every year, it’s almost an event.” 

   “and it doesn’t bother you, that she’s insulting your mom?”

   she shakes her head, sipping more of her champagne. “i know who my parents are, and my mom asks for it, really. she goes after luna because she knows that’s aunt yoona’s sore spot. it’s her sister that she’s really trying to hurt.” he considers the young woman for the first time, gaze sweeping down the length of her body. it’s no secret that she’s beautiful, with a sweet gaze and defined cheekbones. her mass of black hair is swept back into a ponytail, exposing sharp collarbones and a gold necklace that disappears into the cut of her dress. you’re staring, he realizes, and nearly snaps his neck looking away. 

   “i’m sorry, i haven’t even asked your name,” he says, feeling the tip of cheekbones redden. she grins, and it’s a strange feeling. something in his gut twists. 

   “it’s okay, i’m very patient,” she replies, holding out her hand for him to shake. “i’m lee sora, but just call me sora.” he takes her smaller hand in his, warm at the touch. “it’s nice to meet you, sinclair.” 

   the minutes begin to fly by. he’s not sure which one of them finds a topic, but they seem to always have something to say. she’s into classical music, so they discuss what concertos are the best for a workout. he mentions growing up in england, and she happened to spend two years in london modelling. it’s easy to keep up, and without even noticing, they’ve gotten so close that their arms are glued to one another. his stomach continues to twist, something akin to guilt building up in his chest even though he can’t seem to look away from her every time she laughs. he’s glad that the few people around them are too busy with their own discussions. he doesn’t want to think of what he looks like, right now. 

   “how long are you staying in seoul for?” she asks, bending down to untie the straps of high heels. “sorry, these are really killing my feet.” 

   “um, i don’t know, my guess is until next summer,” he answers, watching as she attempts to balance on one foot to undo the clasp. “be careful—” but she’s already stumbling, losing her balance and threatening to fall face-first on the floor. he’s quicker to react, reaching for her waist as she stumbles into his chest. she grips his forearm rather tightly, and though he hears her foot step correctly against the floor, she doesn’t immediately straighten. it’s only when he clears his throat awkwardly that she stands up on her own, face cherry red. 

   “sorry, that was awkward,” she mutters, looking up at him with glitter in her cheeks. he half-smiles, reaching on instinct to wipe away the red. her skin is smooth to touch, and her eyes widen at the action, but he’s so focused that he doesn’t notice most of the room staring at them. it’s only when another hand pulls at his wrist that he snaps out of it.

   “hey, sinclair,” luna seethes, face scrunched up. “how about you and i go have a little chat outside?” he doesn’t have enough time to answer, and already she’s throwing his coat at him and banging the door to the apartment behind them. 

   she doesn’t say anything, raging all the way to the park in front of her house, every bit of it white except for the small covered area with rows of picnic tables. he takes a seat, hands in his pocket, leg bouncing up and down, while she continues to round in circles, not sparing him a single glance. he doesn’t think she’s ever seen her this angry. she is about to ask him, and he’ll have to tell the truth. how many secrets can he confide in her, before it all blows up in his face? 

   “i don’t like to be wrong about people,” she says, attempting calmness. “i don’t like to be wrong about you. i’d like to think that for the past month, you and i have actually become friends. i mean, i invited you to christmas with mine and my fiancé’s family.” she pauses, biting her lower lip. “so, which nerve of yours did you use when you decided to come here, and use my beloved cousin to cheat on your fiancée?” 

   he snaps his eyes shut, wincing at her choice of words. if he lies, he loses her trust and friendship. if he tells the truth, that is another power she holds over him. he thinks back to elijah telling everyone not to bother him about his father. about the hours spent in the coffee shop, in enjoyable companionship. 

   “a secret for a secret,” he suggests, the cold winter air carrying his words. she glowers at him. “i can only tell you if you tell me something in return. i promise you, the truth is better than this.” 

   she ponders over it, tapping her foot nearly at the same rhythm as he taps his. then, she gives in. “you go first. and make it really good, because i’m this close to murdering you on christmas.” 

   he lets out a deep breath. “henrietta and i are engaged but… we are not together.” she frowns, switching between staring into nothing, then back at him.

   “but at the engagement party—”

   “we were together, then. that was true. but a few days before i came here, she broke things off. so… we’re no longer a couple, emotionally. i’m not cheating on her, although i definitely shouldn’t be as comfortable as i was up there with your cousin.” 

   luna stops pacing, digesting this information on her own, as his anxiety begins to climb up steadily. when he thinks he can’t handle the silence anymore, she takes a seat next to him. “what was it? the distance?” 

   he shakes his head. “she didn’t know i was coming. she didn’t know anything— i didn’t tell her what my father did.” her judgemental stare does nothing. no one is more aware of his mistakes than he is. “i was too proud. i was hoping to fix it before she figured out anything. at the same time, my ex came back into my life and she made the assumption that the reason i was suddenly closed-off was that i was cheating on her. it didn’t matter how much i denied it, the only way to convince her otherwise was tell the truth and i couldn’t.” 

   the world fills up the silence when they can’t, leaves blowing, snow falling, cars going in and out of the property. there is no more turning back. he can no longer keep people at arm’s length, brooding in his own corner, waiting for life to pass him by. he’s opened all the doors and all the windows, shouted out for help and was heard. maybe it’s stupid. maybe she will betray him if it ever comes down to him or her. but it’s not lonely. and he’s tired of being alone. 

   “my parents divorced because of me,” she says, startling him. a secret for a secret. “believe it or not, i was a really temperamental child. i never liked to be hugged, to be coddled or treated like a kid. i saw life for what it was very early on, and my mother hated it. she wanted a doll, to dote on and play with. when she realized i couldn’t be that, she gave up on me. and that was when i started acting my age.” her eyes crinkle at the corners, something dark passing over them. “by the time i was sixteen, i was off the rails. partying, drinking, skipping school. i could do whatever, they didn’t notice. so i went in even harder. i got into men and drugs. i was either high, hungover, or destroying someone’s marriage. i thought i was invincible. but then came the fall out…” she quickly glances at him, before fixating on the tips of her shoes. “in one of my many drunk hookups, i ended up sleeping with this friend of mine’s boyfriend. at the time, i had profusely apologized, and she said it was okay because she was going to dump him anyway. well, as you can guess, it was not okay. a few days later, my parents received a picture from an anonymous number. well, multiple pictures actually. mostly of me, passed out in random places, powder on my nose, a joint in my hand. everything you don't want to see your child doing, basically. two days later, they put me into rehab. it was not super pleasant to beg your parents to believe you’re not a drug addict but… maybe i was, i don’t know. anyway, by the time i made it out, they were on my ass all the time. except, their ideas of how to help me diverged. my mother thought i needed to be under her care forever, while he thought i would need to be thrown out into the world to fend for myself. they were fighting a lot, so much that something broke forever. i graduated, fixed my life, came to work here but they… they never reconnected after that.” 

   he’s not sure of what to say, so he says the first thing that comes to his head. “is that why your aunt said you would never be able to settle down?” she snickers, features relaxing if only slightly.

   “oh yeah, when the truth came out about what i’d been doing she was delighted— finally, a failure to throw at my mom’s face. i take it more as a joke now because i have elijah but… it definitely hurt.” 

   “and he knows,” he thinks out loud. she nods. 

   “from the very beginning, i didn’t hide anything,” she explains. “i didn’t want him to think i was someone else. i didn’t want him to stumble in and wonder why everyone in my family thought so lowly of me. he never cared, you know. that’s one of the reasons why i love him. your past is your past, with him. he only cares about the now.” 

   they watch as another car passes by. “my secret’s kinda lame next to yours,” he suggests, earning another chuckle.

   “kind of, but i get why no one can know,” she says, pensively. “it’s a business deal, but the magic is in believing it’s not. if the lie is uncovered, it won’t look good.” 

   “it’s not just that,” he admits, quietly. “i hadn’t said it out loud, yet. we’re not together. i knew the moment i did there would be no turning back. it’s scary, because it all happened so fast. one minute i couldn’t stand her, the next i was falling hard. and now, nothing. i wasn’t ready to face that. but i shouldn’t have asked you tell me something that private. i’m sorry.” 

   “i didn’t tell you because you asked me, sinclair. i told you because that’s what friends do. we tell each other our deepest secrets and trust blindly, even when we know better.” she reaches for his hand, holding it in his. “don’t ask me a secret for a secret again. trust me with the truth. i’m your friend. i may bully you and get annoyed, but i’m your friend.”

   he smiles a little. isn’t that what he’s been waiting his entire life to hear? the promise of friendship with no hidden agenda? how ironic that he finds it after losing his love. “no matter what i tell, you’ll keep it to yourself? you won’t even tell elijah?” 

   she rolls her eyes, snatching her hand away. “now you’re asking for the moon. ugh, come on, i think my mom might make my dad choke on her chocolates if i’m not there in the next five minutes.” he chuckles, following her inside the building. it is the weirdest christmas of his life. and despite the weight in his heart that won’t go away any time soon, he knows his dimples are in full display.

   “hey, you think sora might give me her number?” he asks, earning himself a strong punch in the arm.

—

   january rolls around, with dark clouds hanging around the corner. he’s not entirely sure why he wakes up with dread in his heart, but sinclair nearly calls work sick for nothing more than a bad feeling. still, he senses he is way too close to finding dirt on mr. kang to absent himself, and drags his body to park corp. and because he’s particularly lucky, he’s stuck doing desk work as his boss prefers playing golf in hong kong than showing up the office. something’s not right, but he powers through the day.

   at lunch, he finds elijah sitting by himself, typing furiously into his laptop with a kind of anger he’s never known the man to have. elijah is a calm pond, while luna is the tsunami. he barely notices when sinclair plops down on the seat next to him, pushing his glasses up, and rubbing his eyes with a sigh.

   “rough day?” sinclair asks, startling him. he’s quick to smile, making sinclair wonder how many times a day he pretends to be happy for everyone else’s sake. 

   “you could say that,” he answers, closing the lid of his mac. “i’m supposed to be an employee relations manager, but i’m somehow stuck sorting through lawsuits and well, reports on you. i’ve run out of ways to say wonderful work ethic.” 

   “you don’t need to do that, you know. i know it’s part of our deal and all but—”

   “i don’t know what you’re talking about,” he cuts in, nose scrunching. “that’s between you and luna. i’m being honest, here. i think you’re doing a great job, and i think you’ll do a lot better when you’re given a role that honors your skillset.” 

   he doesn’t know what to say to that, and mutters a shy thanks before digging into his food. they sit in comfortable silence for a while, a much needed moment on their loaded workdays. still, sinclair’s heart is in his throat, unable to eat another bite of his sandwich. he begins to take notice of his surroundings, how much more excited his co-workers seem to be. almost as if an event is happening and he’s the only one unaware of it.

   “is something special happening, today?” he asks elijah, frowning. “why does everyone seem so on edge?”

   “it’s probably because our idol is coming by to visit,” he says, as if that answers his question. “you don’t know? theodore kim, the unofficial cfo? he’s been shadowing your father for the best part of the year—” 

   “let’s ditch work,” luna announces, appearing from behind them, throwing sinclair a rather anxious look. “let’s just all get sick at once. maybe if we eat that green goo menu, who knows what will happen.” how annoying, he thinks, his grip on the water bottle tightening. amazingly, he’s managed to tune out the man partially responsible for his misery, except that now he’s caught by surprise. theodore is here. he should do something. say something. but what?

   “i really don’t think you should speak to him,” she suggests, earning a confused stare from elijah. she hasn’t told him. he’ll tell him himself, at some point. “in the grand scheme of things, he really doesn’t matter. he’s nothing but a pretty face, basically the model of the company. give him two or three years and he’ll be a has-been dumped back in the streets.” 

   “what you are talking about?” elijah chuckles, missing the cues. “he’s the most valuable asset as of right now, the guy’s a genius. he’s got us that deal with nestlé that brought in billions. everyone’s saying leonard will make cfo before his twenty-seventh birthday.” everyone is wrong, sinclair nearly says. leonard will make him ceo. 

   “eli, i love you, but now’s not the time for your hard-on.” 

   sinclair doesn’t bother tuning in to the rest of their talk, pouting in his corner at the idea of that man in the same building as him. the sinclair yale birthed wants to find him and knock his teeth out. that sinclair wishes he was as easy to handle as a beefy baseball player with a bad temper. but he doesn’t need to know theodore intimately to know he is not the type— no one makes it near his father without a severe amount of control. 

   their break over, all three walk the length towards the elevator together, without saying another word. they’re nearing the metallic doors when several men burst through the lobby, all shadowing one figure that leads them in confidence. theodore strides purposefully, greeting every worker that stops in their tracks to bow to him. it’s a scene straight out of a korean drama and sinclair’s certain he’ll throw up thinking about it later. 

   when their eyes lock, theodore holds a hand for the men behind him, making his way to sinclair all by himself. luna mutters something akin to ‘ugh, seriously’ behind him, but he doesn’t react to it. he’s fixated on those smirking eyes. 

   “my, i was hoping to run into you here, sinclair,” he says, in lieu of a greeting. his shining white teeth blind anyone that stares too closely. “i was delighted when your father told me you’d finally give in a hand to the family business.” he speaks as if the family includes him, and sinclair wonders if his nose would break easily. 

   “yes, i was made aware that in my absence many people thought my position was up for grabbing,” he replies, canines in full display. “it only made sense for me to show them all that i am capable of.” 

   “ah, i’m sure your duties as a secretary have impressed more than one,” the sarcasm drips from his voice, soaking them all in annoyance. “it’s a pity you’re stuck down here, especially when there was an opening as an analyst when you made up your mind. perhaps, your father simply didn’t think you were up to the task, yet?” 

   “who knows what my father is thinking. he seems to have a penchant for reckless and nonsensical decisions, lately.” they stare at one another, grinning. he barely notices his fist trembling behind him until an equally large one holds it together. elijah. theodore seems to notice, scoffing.

   “i hope you learn to do better than your little stunt in vegas, truly,” he mocks, hands in his pocket. “it’s a pity that you let your temper get the best of you, but it won’t get you very far in any conference room. if you make it to that point, of course.”

   “you don’t need to worry about me.”

   “i never do.”

   one of his men steps up, whispering something in his ear. sinclair can’t read lips, but he knows this encounter is coming to its end. he releases a sigh when theodore turns around without further ado, but in the blink of an eye, his attention returns. this time, he steps up closer, his presence pushing luna and elijah back. he leans in, whispering into sinclair’s ear.

   “i’m genuinely curious, though. do you actually think anything you’re doing here will make a change?” 

   isn’t that the question sinclair’s been asking himself every single day since arriving in this city… he’s gone through so many answers, he’s no longer sure of what he believes in. some days, he imagines that through hard work and dedication, he can prove to his father that he is no longer a boy, but a man. other days, he knows the approval he’s been begging for twenty years will never really come, and this is another way of wasting his time. mostly, he tries not to think about it. still, he pretends to ponder on it.

   “six months ago, i would’ve never thought my father would drag up an orphan out of nowhere and make him into his lapdog to take over my birthright,” he answers, calmly, the exact opposite of how he feels. “and yet, here we are. i think you need to be open to every possibility, theodore.” 

   his laughter is a fork against metal, making sinclair’s teeth hurt at the sound. theodore takes a few steps back, the same infuriating smile on his face, though there’s an edge to it. “it was really nice seeing you,” he blatantly lies, resuming his carefree stance. “henri’s been worried about how you’d fare without her, but clearly you’re full of energy. i’ll make sure to tell her you’re doing as great as she is.” 

   it takes all the strength in the world not to snap his neck as he turns around. sinclair thinks he’s a saint, for not resorting to fists. but he’s not pleased with not getting the last word. that is the one thing he can still do.

   “theodore,” he calls out, and the man stops long enough to give him his side profile. “you should be careful. my father’s right-hand men never really end up where they want to go. i’d hate for you not to honor your father.” he sees the shadow that crosses the man’s face, a crack in the carefully crafted mask of theodore kim. he only scoffs in his response, making his way to the other side of the building with his faithful group. 

   without another word, he opens the door the staircase, devoid of human life. he hears the duo follow him, but he’s not bothered by their presence. instead, he yells every curse he knows, the sound echoing upwards. it takes him a minute to calm himself, breathing hard. the most painful part of it all is that he finally sees it— the reason why his dad picked that bastard over him. so many people have said he’s just like his father, but they clearly haven’t met theodore kim before. if anyone’s a copy of anyone, it’s the both of them. who better to take over for leonard park when the time comes than his personal clone? he will always be more cutthroat than sinclair, always smarter than sinclair, always devoid of emotions unlike sinclair. he sinks into one of the steps, exhausted all of a sudden.

   “what is it that you two aren’t telling me?” elijah finally asks, leaning against the door. luna sighs, pacing in circles. she won’t tell him. so sinclair does. when he’s done summarizing his situation, elijah’s face has gone all shades of red. “i’m sorry, i really had no idea. shit, sinclair. i should’ve let you punch him, now.” 

   “so he can prove sinclair’s nothing but a hotheaded child unfit to become ceo?” luna argues, her circles growing increasingly nauseating to sinclair. “no, he’s going to have to do this the right way. with words. bringing up his dead father, by the way, is not the kind of words i advise you to use again.” 

   “he gets under my skin, okay,” he mutters, feeling stupid and childish. “he’s already won. i can’t gloat with someone who’s already on the podium while i’m in the stands.” 

   “well, it’s too late to regret anything anyway,” she concludes, finally stopping in her tracks. “you’ve already done the last thing you’re prepared for.” they exchange a look, and he sighs. you’ve declared war. 

   elijah sinks against the wall, his glasses falling sideways on his face. when he begins to giggle, luna sinks to his level, grabbing his hand. “what is it?” she asks, softly. 

   “nothing, it’s just… we are so not getting married in june.” 

   all three groan simultaneously, falling apart in their own corner of the world. there is a strange hope in the air, despite it all. because sinclair knows he’s not alone. he came to seoul ready to fight by himself, two pathetic fists held high and one brain failing under stress. now, for better or for worse, it’s the three of them. he’s going to find a way to destroy mr. kang. he’s going to burn theodore out of that will. he is going to make sure his father chokes on his own words. he will be present at these two insane and amazing people’s wedding. and maybe, just maybe…

   he’ll get his girl back.