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[starnervefan]

Some people have asked me how Detective Fear and Thief Joy's first meeting would go, so here goes...

----

Detective Fear AU: Fear and the Thief

(about 2,000~ words)

His lungs were burning by the time he made it up the stairs. He huffed and puffed, leaning against the guard rail to steady himself. As he caught his breath, his lips curled into a smug smile. The thief had nowhere to run now. She was cornered.

He burst through the door and onto the roof, training his revolver on the shadowy figure. "All right!" he called out. "Put your h…ha…."

The words died in his throat as the thief pulled back her hood, exposing glowing, golden skin and a crop of short, shimmery blue hair. She wiped the back of her gloved hand across her forehead and checked her belt. Only then did she turn her head in his direction, her blue eyes wide and startled. And what beautiful eyes, like great pools of sapphire, filled with an entire galaxy of stars…

Fear and the thief stared each other down for several long moments. No sound could be heard but the brisk September wind sighing between the skyscrapers, and the far-off sounds of traffic, many floors below. A siren wailed in the distance.

Fear slowly lowered his gun, almost involuntarily. Threatening this blue-eyed beauty with violence suddenly seemed a tad extreme. At a glance, she seemed so sweet and pure, her skin's glow casting an angel's halo around her exposed head and neck. Surely somebody this lovely couldn't possibly be bad?

In his line of work, he had come into contact with all manner of criminals. Even the women, beautiful though they may have been, had an air of hostility or cruelty to them. But Fear couldn't detect even the slightest hint of malice in the thief's face or posture. She warily fixed him with her wide, innocent eyes, clearly on guard for his next move. Perhaps he could talk her down? He cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

"I… I… um."

His tongue refused to cooperate, tripping over itself as he stammered incoherently. The thief furrowed her brows and cocked her head to one side, scrutinizing him thoughtfully. Fear felt his face begin to heat up beneath her appraising stare. Well, it would have been a good idea, if I could actually talk…

A slow smile crossed the thief's pixie-like face, her lids lowering. She ran a hand through her sapphire locks and struck a pose, resting a palm on her cocked hip. Fear suddenly felt exposed as she looked him up and down. "Well, hi there, Inspector Cutie," she purred.

Fear glanced behind him uncertainly while trying to keep one eye trained on the glowing beauty before him.

"Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, handsome." The thief sauntered toward him, flaring her hips with each step. She grasped him by the tie and slowly smoothed it down. Fear sucked in a breath, his spine tingling at her feather-like touch. "Tell me, what's your name?"

"I-it's… I… buh..." Fear could only stammer and sputter, the heat beneath his collar quickly becoming unbearable.

"'Fear', huh?" Even the simple way she said his name sent his head spinning.

He frowned suddenly, his focus snapping to attention. "Wait. H… how did you…?"

The thief held up Fear's police badge with a smug grin. "It's on this."

Fear gaped. He hadn't even noticed her swipe it from his coat pocket. "H-hey, g-give that back!" he squeaked, with as much authority as the crack in his voice allowed. He made a grab for it, but the thief giggled and held it out of reach, taking a few steps backward.

"Well, since I know your name, I'll tell you mine," she offered. "It's Joy. Master Thief Joy. My card." She produced a small piece of cardboard from seemingly nowhere and flashed him a glimpse of flowery text surrounded by sparkle and flower patterns.

"Um…" was about all he could think to say in response. Why does a thief need a business card? he wondered.

She thrust the card at him and he took it, perusing the text. You have been hoodwinked by Master Thief Joy! Have a stupendous day!

"That's my calling card," she explained, as she examined something in her hand. "Hey, is this your girlfriend? Oh, I'm so jealous - she's very pretty…"

"Huh?!" Fear's head snapped upright. Joy was now holding his wallet, going through his personal family photos. His face reddened in frustration. "G-give me that!" he demanded.

He made an impressive lunge toward her and this time, managed to knock the wallet out of her grasp. Coins tinkled as they bounced to the asphalt and papers flew everywhere. Fear desperately scrabbled to collect all his paper money before the chill breeze blew it away. When he stood, puffing and panting, Joy still held onto the photograph she'd been looking at. She held it up casually.

"Your girlfriend?" she prompted, as if nothing had happened and they were having a perfectly normal rooftop conversation.

"N-no, th-that's my mom," Fear grumbled, red in the face as he hastily stuffed his cash and belongings back into the cramped confines of his wallet. "And hand it over!"

To his surprise, Joy obliged. "You two look very close. That's so sweet!" she cooed, clasping her hands together.

Fear drew back from her, squinting. "This is… this is a trick, isn't it? Y-you're just… t-trying to c-confuse me, or… or something."

"Is it working?" she asked, batting her lashes disarmingly.

Fear frowned at her. She'd just openly admitted to… whatever it was she was doing. He should be angry, but the twisting sensations in his stomach and the giddy, lightheaded dizziness that had started the moment he'd seen her face had him thoroughly distracted as he fought to keep a clear head.

His heart skipped a beat as he suddenly realized that his hands were empty. He patted himself down and looked around absent-mindedly. While he'd been fumbling around with his wallet, where had he put…?

With an awful premonition, he slowly turned his head to the thief, who, sure enough, held something black and shiny in her sticky fingers, turning it over and examining it thoughtfully.

His heart stopped. He broke out in a cold sweat as his life flashed before his eyes. He hadn't even noticed her swipe his revolver. He was a goner now for sure! He put his hands up and prepared to plead for his life…

… but instead of shooting him, she grasped it by the muzzle and handed it back to him, grip first. His hands shook with adrenaline as he buried it safely in its holster. Joy inclined her head to the gun.

"Ya know, those things are awful dangerous. Somebody could get hurt," she smiled innocently.

Fear took deep breaths to try and calm himself, almost hyperventilating. "N-n-nobody has to get hurt," he heard himself saying. He tried to reason with the thief: "L-listen, uh, w-would you maybe consider returning that diamond?" He pointed shakily at the pouch on her belt, where something glinted from within.

"Oh, this?" Joy looked down as if noticing the pouch for the first time. "Sorry, no can do."

"Then, uh…" He coughed apologetically. "I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me."

"As entertaining as that sounds, no." She smirked at him incredulously. "Are you saying you'd actually let me go if I gave it back?"

"Uh, well, I don't… actually have the authority to do that… I mean, we have a laundry list of your offenses… but I could talk to people, explain the situation," he offered.

Joy looked at him oddly for a moment, before a wide grin slowly spread across her face. She placed her hands on her hips. "Okay, 'fess up, Inspector. Why are you being so nice to me? Do you like me or something?" she teased.

"H…huh?" Fear found himself beginning to blush once more. "I… b-but I'm just… t-trying to do my job…"

"None of you police-types have ever actually given me a choice in the matter before," Joy mused. "It's always, 'You're coming with me' or 'Come out with your hands up'. But you…" Her eyes lit up, practically sparkling with delight. "Here you are, treating me like an actual person! You must be the sweetest detective I've ever met."

Fear couldn't help it. His face split into a silly grin before he could stop it. He quickly slapped his hand against his face and turned to try and hide how flustered he was, but his palm couldn't stop the spout of goofy giggling that escaped his lungs.

Joy laughed lightly in return. "Oh, you're a cute one, Mr. Detective. I think I'll keep my eye on you."

Fear fidgeted, wringing his tie in his hands and trying to fight down his bashful grin. "S-so… um… any chance of you… uh… cooperating with me? I-I'll m-make sure they treat you well…"

Joy suddenly seemed distracted, glancing skyward. "Oh, finally!" she burst out, her face lighting up in a relieved smile.

For the first time, Fear took notice of the massive shadow suddenly falling across the roof. He whirled, looking up so fast his head spun.

A dirigible hovered over them, engines whirring loudly. The wind whipped fiercely around them, prompting Fear to hold tight to his hat. He could just make out a length of rope dangling from a window of the gondola.

"Well, it's been fun, Inspector, but I gotta go," Joy declared, giving him one last playful smile. With her cloak streaming behind her like a banner, she hopped effortlessly onto the parapet and grabbed the rope, giving it two sharp tugs.

It took him a moment, but slowly his wits returned. "W-wait!" Fear cried out, belatedly giving chase. "Y-you can't leave now! I-I need that diamond!" He came to an abrupt halt as he slammed against the parapet, making a desperate grab for Joy's belt as she dangled freely from the edge of the building. She twisted easily out of his reach.

"Let's do this again sometime," she purred, swinging back around so she could stroke his chin with a single glowing fingertip. "And oh, don't look so glum. I'm sure we'll see each other again very soon!"

As the airship ponderously turned and floated away into the heavens, Joy clung to the rope. He thought he saw her blow him a kiss before she turned away. He watched her longingly, hardly able to breathe.

He watched until the airship was a mere speck on the horizon, then he watched some more. Slowly he let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Geez. What… what just happened…? He drew out Joy's calling card from his coat pocket, turning it over in his hand. You have been hoodwinked by Master Thief Joy! it read. "I'll say," he muttered to himself.

The door to the rooftop burst open with a bang. Fear jumped and whirled around, fully expecting to find trouble, but it was only Anger.

Anger's thick chest heaved as he stood in the doorway, glaring at Fear. "Well?" he panted. "Where is she?"

"She…" Fear stuffed the calling card hastily back into his coat pocket. "Sh-she… uh, she left."

"She's gone?" Anger demanded, dumbfounded. "You let her escape? How did she escape?!" He looked around, his scowl darkening dangerously. "There's nowhere to run! You had her right where you wanted her!" he yelled, throwing his arms wide. Fear shrugged helplessly with a nervous giggle.

"Seriously, how did you let her slip away?" Anger growled, stomping over to the edge of the roof.

Fear shrank away from him, intimidated. "Well, see, there was this airship…" he began uncertainly. "A-and it just kind of… swooped down out of nowhere, and then… she was gone."

"An airship?" Anger repeated incredulously. He narrowed his eyes and glanced to the sky. He clenched his teeth, the air above his head beginning to steam. "I don't see any airship."

"W-well, it was-- it was right there…" Fear stammered, pointing. "A-and a rope came down, and Miss Joy-- th-the thief grabbed onto the rope and sailed away."

Anger wiped his palm down his face in exasperation, muttering and grumbling. He took a deep breath, trying his level best to be patient. "Can I get a description of this magical, mythical airship?" Fear thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Did you happen to see who was driving the thing?" Anger prodded. Fear shook his head again, his face burning with humiliation.

"Do you know anything useful at all?!" Anger burst out, taking off his hat and throwing it to the ground, frustrated. He always did this when he got angry, partly because it just plain felt good, but mostly because whenever he lost his temper, the top of his head would burst into flames. Fear had lost count of all the hats Anger had burned to a crisp because he wasn't fast enough to fling them to the ground.

Fear tried desperately to think back to just a few minutes earlier, but he drew a blank. All he could see in his mind's eye was Joy: her face, the stars in her eyes, her teasing smile and long, supple legs…

"Fear? Earth to Fear?!"

Anger's voice snapped him out of his reverie. He became aware that his partner had grabbed him by the arms and was shaking him roughly.

Fear did his best to come up with an explanation, but he could only sigh heavily, his back drooping in defeat. "I… I'm sorry. I… I guess I just wasn't… fast enough."

"Our client isn't gonna like this," Anger rumbled, shooting Fear a dark look. "You'd best have a better explanation ready for when we get back to headquarters empty-handed." Fear winced with dread, knowing that Anger was right.

As he followed Anger down the stairs and out onto the busy street, Fear buried his hands deep in his pockets and scowled at nothing. He felt so foolish. Miss Joy had just been playing with him, stalling for time until her buddies showed up. Why, she was probably laughing at him right now, telling whoever was on the airship with her all about it. Just thinking about it made his neck burn with embarrassment.

And yet…

He gazed dreamily up at the clouds across the moon, the same bright moon that had overlooked him and Joy on the rooftop. There, beneath that same moon, under those very stars and wispy clouds, he had felt something. Something that he couldn't see or explain. Something about Miss Joy had struck a chord deep within him, and he knew that he would never be able to forget her.

[call-sign-shark]

Heaven in Your Eyes || Arthur Shelby x Reader!OC

Summary: Disobeying Tommy's orders, you're back in Small Heath. Your rebellious attitude starts to really bother him but you don't care. All that matters is that you're reunited with Arthur and John, the two men of your lives. From then, nothing can go wrong. Nothing, right? -- Featuring John Shelby x Reader.

Words: 5.5k

TW: Extreme angst - read at your own risk, graphic depiction of violence, canonical violence, graphic depiction of murder, major character death, allusions to self-harm.

Notes:

✞ Theme song on repeat if you want to break your heart: HERE

✞ Quotes from the TV Shows are in bold and italics

✞ Heaven is OP's original character but written with the use of « you » (Moodboard here).

PREVIOUS || Masterlist || NEXT CHAPTER

The deafening howl of the train’s honk boomed in Small Heath’s station, quickly followed by a whistling sound. The steel giant had barely opened its heavy doors when the foul-smelling wind of the city rushed into the wagon and made you wrinkle your nose in disgust. It was not that you hated Small Heath strictly speaking, but the stark contrast between the industrial city and the green landscape of the forest in which you lived now was difficult to process. The sound of your stiletto soon clicked on the metallic steps as you got off the train, attracting people’s eyes to your tiny frame. Yet, you weren’t really sure if this sudden attention came from their sound, or rather the sight of your short black dress adorned with the most expensive white fur coat you had ever owned, and the gold choker necklace you wore, whose shape was one of a barbed wire wrapped around your neck. When your heels found the dirty concrete of the platform, a gargantuan hundred pounds Cane Corso with a spiked collar followed you closely, like a silent but off-putting bodyguard. He was your shadow, mimicking each of your movements and grazing your steps,  except if told otherwise. Loyal guardian, Kaiser was even more protective since Arthur left. Without minding the fascinated or curious stares that were looking at you, you walked out of the station with the dog’s leash in one of your small hands and a cigarette in the other.

“Mrs. Shelby? Here is your bag.” A man told you, all the while putting the said luggage at your feet. 

“Thanks, sir.” You replied with a brief polite smile, before stubbing your cigarette on the nearest wall and throwing it away. At first, you had been surprised by the care the staff provided you during the whole trip until you saw the glow of fear in their eyes as soon as they noticed your family name on the ticket.  She’s Arthur Shelby’s wife, you better be ready to help her with her stuff if you don’t want her husband to knock at your door and break your skull. That was what the ticket inspector told one of his colleagues when he met him in another wagon a few minutes after this frightful discovery. Waiting in front of the train station with a slight feeling of uneasiness, you swept your surrounding with your celeste blue eyes, whose coldness equaled the freezing English wind.  Looking around you in the hope of catching sight of a cab, your fingers absentmindedly brushed the almost imperceptible white burn scar on your wrist. The circle-shaped wound the cigarette had left on your skin had miraculously healed in a matter of days.

“Welcome home, little Angel.”  A familiar voice echoed right behind you. You turned around in one swift movement, and your freezing gaze turned into a child-like expression: John’s smile welcomed you, its charms so blinding that it made you momentarily forget about the dreadful feeling you carried in your soul. 

“John!” You exclaimed, unable to hold your joy any longer. Kaiser’s bark followed right after when he recognized who the man was. Without further ado, you rushed into him to pull him in a hug. Amused, John could not help but chuckle at such a vivid reaction before wrapping your body with his muscular arms and tightening his grip around you with the firm desire not to let you go, “What are you doing here?” You asked, looking at him. Your enlightened expression adorned your doll face and made your hypnotizing eyes shine with elation.

“That ain’t the right question, love. What are you doing here?” He teased you, raising one of his eyebrows, then stared right at your eyes. His tongue pushed the toothpick that was in his mouth from the right corner to the left before he went on, “When Arthur got your letter he told me about your arrival in Birmingham. Hell, he was so happy and terrified at the same time I thought that bastard was having an aneurysm. I’m the one who came at the train station ‘cause Arthur still has to make a few last-minute adjustments to welcome you here.”  As he talked, the young Shelby brother had freed one of his hands from your delicate body to pat the big Cane Corso’s head. The latter closed his eyes, mouth wide open and tongue hanging in bliss.

“A few adjustments?” You frowned.

“Like, threatening all the men of Small Heath not to even look at you, and dealing with Tommy’s reaction. He’s fuckin’ mad at you, eh.” 

Of course, he was — you could not expect less from Thomas Shelby. God, you barely arrived in town he already found a way to bother you, even if he was not here. At this stage, he had real talent. “You know what? Fuck Tommy. If he thought I’d be dumb enough to stay out of the plan while my husband and you risk your lives, well it’s his problem, not mine. And if Changretta’s men come to my door, I’ll put them in the dirt myself.” That being said, you waved off the topic, “But let’s not talk about Tommy, please” You concluded, then laid a soft kiss on his chin.  As your juicy lips crashed against his skin, John half-closed his eyelids and let out a soft exhale from his nostrils.

“Yeah, I bet you will,” He stated, referring to you possibly burying Changretta’s henchmen six feet deep. John enjoyed the physical contact for a few extra seconds, then he gently parted from you and closed his fingers around your wrist in a soft grip. You raised your gaze to him, surprised.

“Wait a minute. I just wanna check something before you get in my car.” His smile vanished, handing over to a very serious expression that kind of unsettled you.

“What‘s the problem?” Your smile followed his somewhere else. You didn’t know where, but what was sure was that it had left your face. 

Without the slightest warning, John raised your arm above your head and made you twirl one first time, “Would you look at you, little angel! What a stunning outfit!” He exclaimed, before spinning you again to admire your otherworldly beauty, “Oh my God, I’m in love. Last time we met you were barefoot in the grass like some kind of ethereal nymphet and here you come in the shape of a goddess, dressed like a queen?”  You suddenly chuckled at his unexpected reaction.

“Hey fuck you! You’ve scared me!” You nudged him in the ribs with your free arm, but it only made him laugh louder. 

“My little heart can’t resist that.” He winked at you, his grin stretching in an adorably annoying smile only he could do before making you twirl again. Sometimes, you wondered if Tommy and he were really brothers. He is so different from Arthur and John. You thought.

“John! Shut up, dumbass. Your little heart can’t resist girls in general — or more like your cock can’t resist girls.” You rolled your eyes, faking an annoyed pout which only resulted in John protectively wrapping your shoulders with one arm. 

“That’s my mean angel! Fuck I’ve missed you and your quick wit so bad. C’mon!” He said, grabbing your bag with his free hand before you started walking away. Kaiser ran and hopped inside the car a few seconds before you did.

The whole trip went well, casual conversations and joking with John had managed to alleviate the anger in your heart, which was far too focused on the driver’s joyful voice and stunning eyes. He talked to you about the kids, about his new house, and about some childhood stories. Surprisingly enough, each of his sentences had snatched a smirk from you despite the anxious situation in which the Shelbys were embedded. Nevertheless, your mind drifted away at some point and you stopped listening to him though. Not that he bothered you, but it was rather due to the fact that you lost yourself in the contemplation of the smallest details of his face. The adorable freckles, his little round ears, his pinchable cheeks… Everything about John Shelby made you feel at home. 

“Is that fine with you?” His voice suddenly popped your thoughts bubble.

“Hm?”

“I was saying that you’re going to live a few days at me house just the time for Arthur to secure Watery Lane properly. You’ll spend Christmas with me, Esme, and the kids.” He repeated, noticing he had been talking to himself for a little while.

“Ah,” You started, batting your Bambi lashes quickly to chase away your daydreams. That was all you could say, for you dive into your thoughts right again. A comforting silence fell between you. After a little while, John slightly bit the inner of his cheek and glanced at you. The truth was he had been hesitating on his next move for five solid minutes. No matter how goofy John Shelby could act, he was a sharp observant. Considering his ease at analyzing people, he naturally noticed the way your fingers nervously played with the fabric of your dress, indicating your inner turmoil. The young gangster slowly moved his hand towards you, still conflicted about what he was about to do — Was it appropriate? Were you going to slap him? He hoped not, for he didn’t want to crash the car on the side of the road and explain the reason behind the accident to Esme. But worst than facing his wife’s wrath was to offend you.

No, no he wouldn’t want you to hate him. Yet, John was not the kind of man to let the demons of his mind win. Acting first, and thinking after was a motto he often applied in real life. He briefly looked at you again, his sky-blue eyes meeting your aquamarine iris before they shifted their focus back on the road. The young Shelby brother finally gathered his courage and rested his warm and strong hand on your thighs. 

“Hey. Are you okay? You didn’t tell me what you think about living at me house.” 

“Oh yeah,” You slightly shook your head, “That’s fine with me John boy.” You finally said, punctuating your sentence by gently covering his hand with yours and, to his greatest surprise, your small and cold fingers clenched around him. The physical contact almost immediately sent a wave of comforting warmth into your soul. John’s lips stretched in a caring smile and he replied to your sweet gesture by turning his hand to intertwine your fingers together.

That was definitely fine with you, for you knew that as long as John was around, there was no place for the storm.

Only for the sun.

A sun as bright as his smile.

“Get the fuck off my way.” Arthur’s gruff voice thundered in the hallway, followed by a noisy thud and Michael’s flourishing insults.

“Piss off, Arthur!” 

The tall gangster had been so eager to rejoin his sweet angel after two awful weeks of loneliness that he had shoved Michael right into the nearest wall for the sole reason that he had been walking too slowly for Arthur’s tastes.  All the while walking through the corridor, he had thrown his beret out of frustration and had brought his hands in his hair to nervously slick them back. He busted into the living room and his shiny steel blue eyes, sparkling with a gleam of hope, searched for you. 

“Hey, Arthur.” When your soft voice swirled in the room and reached his ear with the tone of a mesmeric siren’s chant, goosebumps of excitation appeared on Arthur’s skin. Moving your body with a wildcat’s grace from the sofa, you stood up and looked at your husband with an adorably shy smile, like a young bride seeing her groom for the very first time. All the confidence you’ve felt kinda disappeared now that you were standing in front of him — would he be happy to see you? Or did you deceive him by disobeying and coming back to town despite Changretta’s men lurking in the shadow? You hadn’t the time to think about the matter though for Arthur rushed to you without waiting any longer and, with an uncontrolled strength enhanced by the power of his overflowing emotions, hugged your little frame. The gangster then lifted you from the ground, causing a cry of surprise to break free from your plumped and glossy lips.

“Bloody Hell, angel! I’ve told ye to stay safe at home!” 

He said, putting you back on the ground right before cupping your face with his large, warm, and calloused hands, before you could even react, “I’ve told ye it was too fookin’ dangerous here! What if Changretta and his men would have attacked you on the train eh?!” He exclaimed, a bit more aggressively than intended. At first, you opened your mouth to reply but no sound came out. The sight of his pained eyes and his worried expression suddenly made you feel a bit guilty: if there was one thing you hated it was being the cause of his worries. “Hmm?!” He insisted when faced with your silence. His piercing blue iris dived into yours, looking in their celestial frost for the answer your mouth could not produce. 

“I— I don’t care. If you’re in trouble then I am too. If you fight, I fight. If you die, then I fucking die. We’re one, and I’m sick of acting like the good frail wife waiting for her husband to come back from the war,” You started, shaking yourself out of your silence; and the more you spoke, the more your confidence came back, backfiring, “I don’t care about the danger, Arthur.” A desperate smile stretched the corner of your lips, making your eyes squint a little bit. A smile both tainted with sadness and mad love, “The first time we met I’ve made the promise that you’ll never face Hell alone ever again and I don’t plan to back up now that we’re at its gates.” 

“Yer fookin’ crazy, I swear you are.” He replied. His eyes shone with dawning tears as he observed your holy pulchritude, “Out of yer goddamn mind, Heaven Shelby… Fookin’ bonkers.” His face relaxed, anger swept away by the winter breeze that had rushed into the living room through the open window. Arthur finally let out a nervous yet endeared little chuckle and shook his head in disbelief, "You're so much trouble eh."

“I’ve learned from you.” You straight off replied, gently pressing your forehead against his in this intimate gesture that was so proper to him. Yet, he didn’t reply right away, still shaken by your fierceness — these last two weeks had almost made him forget how untamable you were. He wanted to scold you for behaving in such a reckless way — He really did. But the truth was big bad Arthur Shelby couldn’t resist you. And God knew how hard it was to function without your heavenly and reassuring presence. If he had to be honest, he would admit that he wasn’t sure he could do it without you anymore. He was consumed by his love for you, body and soul.

A little sigh escaped from his lips as his boiling worries slowly faded away, drowning himself in the little details of your face. With trembling fingers, Arthur grazed your snow-white hair. Fuck, he had missed you bad. Very bad. To the extent of drinking himself to sleep almost every night and lashing out at the boxing ring, mercilessly beating his opponents, for these were the only ways he had found not to slip into pure insanity. 

“Angel —“ He started, wanting to say so many things at once, but words choked in his throat. Closing his mouth, Arthur swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he did. The joy of having you there was so intense that his mind could not find something relevant to say: he wanted to talk about Tommy, about the letter he had sent you, about the Changrettas but nothing mattered anymore. What did though was you and him. That was why he finally gave up everything to hug your frame again, his spine bent so that he could bury his face in your small breasts. “I promise I’ll protect ye with me whole life, Angel. No one’s gonna hurt ye. Not on me watch.” He finally mumbled, the sound of his words muffled against the soft pale skin your cleavage exposed, thus turning his plead into more of a symphony of low grunts than anything else. 

“I’m here, darling.” You reassured him. Arthur squeezed your body a bit too painfully in reply, but you didn’t mind. The uncomfortable pressure of his brutal grip chased your worries away and made your whole soul flicker — It made you feel so tiny, so fragile, as no other men did before, and you genuinely liked it. So, he could break you in half with his hug if he wanted, you would be okay if it was the price to pay to keep feeling his possessive and aggressive love all around you.

With the desire to soothe his heated spirit and confusing thoughts that were bumping into each other in his confused head, you let your small fingers lose themselves in his messy hair. Your gesture brought immediate relief, whose warm sensation spread in his bones at the contact with your frozen skin. Arthur’s whole being gradually relaxed, and he could finally let out the pressure of these last two weeks. All of sudden, you felt salty and wet drops running down your chest, “I’ve fookin’ missed ye.” He lamented, his crystal tears dying in your cleavage. Parting from you was the worst idea ever, he thought, and he didn’t want to experience it ever again. 

“I’ve missed you too.” You said in a whisper. Ceasing to caress his hair, you put your hand on the back of his head and pressed his face a bit more against your bosom, keeping him still until his grip finally loosen around you and his tears run dry. Now that the storm of emotions was slowly calming down, Arthur sniffed one last time and raised his head, his lips reaching for yours. The press of his kiss, eager and hungry, dissipated the last couple of clouds of his troubled mind the moment your flesh reunited. Weakened by his scorching passion, your legs shook at the sweet and liquored taste of whisky on your tongue, while his strong hands explored you just as if the tall gangster wanted to make sure you were really here. To make sure he was not dreaming. His hands grabbed you, rubbed the sides of your thighs, ran up the curves of your ass, and then clenched on your shoulder blades for a short while before going down again to seize your waist in a bruising movement. You squeezed your eyes tighter, shaken to the core by the way his fingers left streams of fire in their trail, melting the ice that had settled under your skin the night he had left the house without you. Arthur deepened the kiss, almost leaving you breathless.

After an undefinable while during which you both lost the notion of time, his tongue gave yours one last stroke before he finally broke the kiss and reopened his eyes. Yes… You were still there — to his greatest relief. You let out a faint feverish sigh, the sensation of his kiss still tingling on your swollen lips, then you tilted your head to the side. Betrothed by your adorable pout, Arthur’s smile widened until the crow feet at the corner of his eyes appears. 

“Look at you. You’re fookin’ stunning, little one.” He laid his big hand on your cheek and you gently rubbed it against his palm in reply.

“What about you tell me what you're up to instead of treating me like a little girl, Mr Shelby?” You teased, your reunion definitely erasing the worries out of your brain, even if the threat section D had sent you still lingered at the back of your mind. 

“Listen,” He started, his thumb brushing your lips with utter desire but he tried not to get too distracted by them, “John should have already told ye but you’re going to stay here ‘til Christmas hm? The house isn’t safe yet and you’ll be safer with Esme and the kids. Also, John will stick around to protect you. Just until Christmas right?”

“What about you?” You retorted, furrowing your brows. 

“As for me Tommy and I will figure out what to do. But don’t ye worry… " He brought his face closer, his mouth reaching your ear, "Each night I’ll be back in your arms and I’ll show ye how bad I’ve missed you.” He whispered, his low voice alike the growl of a starving wolf, “I'm a little afraid ye’ forgot what’s like to feel your husband, hmm.” A little amused snort came from your nostrils at the delightful perspectives. For sure, Arthur’s way to make up for the last two weeks of loneliness you’ve both been through was particularly exciting. 

“You think so? Little evil me is not so sure if she prefers Kaiser’s presence next to her in bed rather than yours. ” 

“We’ll see, love.” He was about to kiss you a second time to shut your bratty mouth when Esme appeared at the doorframe, arms crossed in her chest and one brow raised.

“There are kids there.” She reminded, her voice cold and slightly bothered. Of course, she wasn’t enchanted by your stay here, but it has been two years since you joined the Shelby family, which had given her all the time needed to tame her hostility toward you. Your relationship was still rocky, but at least she had stopped insulting you on every occasion. 

“Oops, sorry Esme.” You replied with the biggest and most charming smile you could do before taking a step back from your husband to help him —and you— resist the temptation of giving in to your burning desires. Arthur could not help but chuckle at the comment. He slipped his hands into the pocket of his long black coat, coming to the conclusion that it was safer if they stayed there.

“Alright, no need to bark Esme.” He grunted, but the sincerity of his grumpiness was definitely undermined by the faint smirk etched on his lips.

“I’ve made tea.” Esme went on, her magnificent brown eyes going from Arthur to you several times. Their dark color struck you for one second for their hard beauty reminded you of autumn leaves spinning in the immensity of her iris. You did not hate her. You never did. As harsh as her behavior had been, you had come to understand that her reactions were dictated by fear rather than spite. As a very catholic person, Esme was more than terrified by evil spirits — and she ultimately thought you were one, not seeing the enamored twenty-five-year-old girl you were, but the evil witch you could be. You could not blame her though, for she wasn’t entirely wrong. Somehow, you were convinced that Esme was the only one of the family who truly understood your dormant dangerous nature. What she did not grasp though was the sincerity of your feelings, “Hurry up.” She said, turning around and returning to the kitchen.

“Come on,” You gently wrapped your arms around your husband, “Kaiser is waiting in the kitchen. He’s going to be so happy!”

“Ah right, let’s see the man who took me place in bed.”

Arthur had barely stepped into the room when you heard the dog’s frantic barks, soon followed by his muscular body running toward his master to greet him with great enthusiasm. The sight of Kaiser almost reaching Arthur’s height, with his two front paws on his shoulders, filled you with joy.

It was at this very moment that you were almost convinced that nothing could go wrong.

The calm of the forest was a type of peacefulness nothing else could outmatch. All that was lacking from this grandiose landscape was the mighty shadow of the old and wise mountains of Haute-Falaise, whose silent lullaby could only be heard by those who paid close attention to it. From where you came, Christmas was always synonymous with snow along with the cold sensation of frosty wind biting at your face. Each time you would come back home after a joyful moment of playing games outside with your little sister, the warmth of the hearth’s fire would welcome you. But this Christmas, like many others since you left France, there was no snow. No mountains. And no little sister anymore. You were alone in the forest, wandering among the dead trees and the howling breeze.

Katie had woken up with a light fever, and she had cried in her father’s arms for twenty strong minutes before he managed to hush down her sorrow. Following a quick discussion with John, you informed him that you knew a natural remedy against fever and then, you went in the forest to collect the few plants you needed to concoct a healing tea. Esme would have naturally disagreed with the idea if John had told her, which hadn’t been the case. Instead, you simply replied that you needed some fresh air when she asked you why you were venturing outside the house on Christmas morning.

Oh, fuck it's you. Got nothing better to do on Christmas morning? // Tommy wants everybody at Charlie's Yard now, come on.

You’ve been wandering for over one hour when you finally found all the plants you needed for Katie’s tea. Satisfied, you headed back home with a light heart, already thinking about the pleasant breakfast that was waiting for you. A small grin flattered your lips at the thought of the children tearing their gifts’ paper apart and screaming with awe at the discovery of their new toys. 

What's gonna happen man, it's fucking Christmas.

Moreover, you could not wait for the adults to open their gifts too. Even if Ada told everyone to focus on the kids, you could not help but buy a little something for the house’s hosts: a beautiful silver necklace with a protective crystal pendant for Esme, and an expensive ring for John inside which was engraved the sentence “Le soleil brûle dans ton sourire” which meant "The sun burns in your smile". 

John. John, come to the meeting. All right? Think about the kids. Come to the meeting and if you want to leave, then fine.

For sure you could not wait to see their surprised expression slowly shifting to joy the moment you would give them their gifts! A little smile flattered your lips at such adorable thought. In truth, you had stopped celebrating Christmas for so long that the perspective to do it today delighted you. It was going to be a wonderful, wonderful day.

Get in the fuckin' house!

The petrifying detonations of gunshots tore the forest’s silence apart, which caused a cloud of afraid birds to erupt from the trees’ thick foliage. One shot, the surprise made you wonder if you had really heard that or if it was just the traumatizing memories of men chasing you down in the forest that was playing with your mind. Two shots, you turned towards where the noise was coming from, realizing it was real. Three shots — they stirred a brutal pain in your chest. A pain so vivid your fingers loosened their grips on the plants, letting them go, and grabbed the place where your heart was. It was drumming so hard in your chest that you felt it was about to burst your ribcage open. Crushed by the unexplainable ache and a crawling feeling of anxiety, you leaned against a tree not to collapse on the muddy soil. Your throat felt tight, to the extent you could barely breathe anymore. With eyes wide open, you desperately tried to calm yourself and comprehend what was happening to you. And suddenly the macabre evidence of the whole situation hit you like a train — a suffocating panic seized you again as you realized that the gunshots were not coming from hunters in the forest but from John's house.

No.

Your body moved slowly from the tree, taking a few wobbly steps.

“No!” Your voice yelled but no one was there to hear your desperate cry except the pristine nature, which had sent the wind to howl in pain with you. A surge of adrenaline ran through your body and, as if you had received the fiercest whiplash ever, you started running to the house as fast as you could. You ran faster and faster, with the cold breeze biting your face and brambles clawing at your exposed skin as you rushed past thick bushes. That was all you could do anyway for every other function of your being had shut down to focus only on your restless race. You could not think straight anymore. You could not hear anything else than the brutal beating of your heart resonating in your skull. Gosh, you couldn't even see properly, your vision narrowed into a small point in the horizon that was John's house. So you just ran, you ran no matter the insufferable burn in your lungs and the soreness of your legs.

"Hey! Come back, little doe". You could almost hear them behind you. The cruel men who hunted little thirteen years old you in the dark woods of Haute-Falaise. "We’re not gonna hurt you! Fuck — where’s that little slut?!"

Moving away the last branches aside, you jumped above a thick root and broke the last meters that separated you from the house. That was when you heard it, the agonizing scream of Esme. Her voice, filled with pain and fear, almost pierced your eardrums like the wailing lament of a Banshee. You reached the front of the house and suddenly, your legs made an abrupt stop, refusing to move anymore. In front of your wide-opened eyes, from which tears were already leaking, laid the inanimate body of both Michael and John in a crimson puddle of their own blood.

"John! Oh my God, John! No!" Esme yelled, her face contorting with indescribable sorrow and insufferable ache. She was kneeling on the pavement and hugging the motionless frame of her husband, whose skin already faded two shades paler. The young Romani beauty shook him but John's eyes remained shut. At first, you wanted to scream along with her, giving in to panic, but no sound came from your mouth. Instead, you let your quivering body drop to its knees and immediately put the moist palms of your hands on your best friend's wounded chest — The numerous bullet holes had made flowers of blood blossom on the white fabric of his shirt.

You took a deep breath, threw your head back, and closed your eyes in a desperate attempt to channel all the magic that was running in your blood to save him. After all, you had witnessed your mother performing similar miracles in your childhood. All you needed to save him was a faint beating of his heart, even the weakest would do the trick. Thus, you focused on your task the best you could and drained yourself of most of your energy in the hope of seeing John reopening his magnificent blue eyes and offering you one of his beaming smiles. You were pretty sure that he would come back to life, just like the bird you had found in the garden two years ago. Yes, you were going to bring him back to life, and this awful nightmare would be over and you would all have a good fairy tale ending.

— But life wasn't like the tales you loved: his heart had stopped beating for too long for you to do anything. It had been only a matter of minutes but still, you came too late.

You came too late.

When you understood it, a river of tears streamed down your angelic face. One of your hands gently moved up to his throat, and you pressed two fingers on his carotid artery to check his pulse in a desperate and last attempt to feel something, but there was nothing. Only the dull silence of Death. You slowly backed off and looked at the surprisingly peaceful expression on his face, forever frozen by the Reaper's cold kiss.

John was gone.

And so was the sun.

✞ A little note now that you've finished this chapter: Heaven did not ignore poor Michael by the way. When walking past him she noticed that his wound was not as serious as John's, so she decided to check him after checking John.

✞ Any comment, review, reblog, or constructive criticism is welcome. Your reactions really motivate me and keep me alive, so please don't be shy. English is not my first language.

✞ gif by the amazing @fkmylif3

✞ Tag list: @adaydreamaway08 @theshelbyclan @jomarch-wannabe @esposadomd @zablife @woofgocows @anathemasworld @anastasia000 @kate654 @kxnnxy @babayaga67 @meowtastick @shelbyssins @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @bluevenus19 @raincoffeeandfandoms @kishie8 @zablife @brummiereader @alexandra-001 @dearshelby

[misssharrington]

— ✧ ˚ · girl of steel !!

. . . ࿐ྂ ❝ one | the morning after ❞

wattpad | playlist

The creaking of the train echoed through the emptied carriage of the early morning. Passing lights of tunnels and the sunrise shone through the windows, softly coating my face in faint warmth. I sat in the seat closest to the door, resting my aching head against the glass as I took in my reflection.

My black bra was perfectly visible through my barely-there top. The mini-skirt I wore had ridden up more than you could possibly imagine, lace stockings unclipped and hanging around my shins. I held my black heeled pumps in my hands. Any makeup I had worn the night before was rubbed off, the only remaining remnants being the black eyeliner smeared over my eyes, and glitter along my cheekbones and all in my hair. I couldn't tell if it was the train glass making my reflection all distorted or what was leftover in my system.

I sat with my legs tucked into myself, fading in and out of sleep. I rubbed my eyes with my hands groggily, debating whether I should stay on this train instead of going home.

There were a handful of people in the same carriage as me. A middle aged man seemed to wear a perverted smirk as he ogled me. I stuck my middle finger up at him, and his expression turned sour. I laughed at his reaction. Across from me, a concerned mother was trying to keep her son as away from me as possible.

The carriage doors opened and a ticket inspector came walking through. I cursed under my breath and went to get up, but there were too few people around to distract him from my movement. 

"Ticket?" He asked me. 

"Um, yeah." I replied hesitantly, feeling around my non-existent pockets for a ticket.

The inspector stood impatiently in front of me, tapping his foot on the metal floor. The pervert smirked at my obvious trouble. 

"Miss, if you don't have a ticket, I'm going to have to fine you." He told me. 

"Please don't do that." I asked tiredly, my voice hoarse from last night. 

He sighed. "If you pay for a ticket now, I won't fine you."

I groaned. 

"What's the problem?" He asked. 

"I don't have any money." I told him, cringing my face at his reaction.

"I'm going to have to fine you." He told me sternly. 

"Listen, man-" I began, before I was interrupted. 

"I can pay!" A boy not so far from me intruded on the situation. 

"Young man, this is her problem, not yours." The ticket inspector told him. 

"No, really, it's okay. I can pay for her ticket." The boy insisted. 

The inspector looked between him and I suspiciously. I shrugged at him, just as confused as he was. 

He sighed. "Alright." 

The boy paid for the ticket, and the inspector begrudgingly left. The boy handed the ticket to me with an awkward smile. 

He looked about my age, with dark hair and a dorky lopsided smile. 

"Thanks..." I trailed off, waiting for his name. 

"Tim." He told me sweetly. 

"Tim. Thanks, again." I said. 

"No problem..." He waited for me to do the same. 

"Bianca." I told him. 

"Bianca." He repeated, the name sounding melodic on his lips. 

"That was really nice of you." I said to him truthfully.

"It was really no problem. Don't worry about it." He told me. 

We well into a silence next to each other. The only noise between us was the train bumping on the old tracks. 

"So," I began, "where are you headed?"

"School." Tim told me. 

"Cool." I nodded my head. "Me too."

He tilted his head in slight confusion. "Does your school not have a dress code?"

"Watch." I told him, standing up. I put on the jumper I was carrying with me, which covered my whole chest. I pulled my skirt down so it wasn't so short, clipped my stockings back, and put my shoes on. 

"Ta da!" I said in a sing songy voice, my appearance now more presentable. 

"Cool party trick." He said, grinning. 

"Thanks!" I smiled back. 

The train pulled into my station. I felt a pang of annoyance that my conversation with Tim had to be cut short. 

"This is me." I said. 

"Oh." He hummed lowly. "Well, have fun at school."

"See you round Tim. I owe you. For the ticket, I mean." I told him, smirking. 

"Yeah, you do." He retorted, a glint in his eyes. 

I chucked to myself, stepping off of the train and into the dingy station. As it began to leave, I looked back to the carriage. He was looking back at me. I sucked in my cheeks, watching the train leave, butterflies in my stomach. I shook my head at myself, snapping out of my own silly thoughts.

As I entered the school's office, the lady who worked there didn't lift her head to acknowledge me. She continued to tap her long-nailed fingers on her keyboard in front of her. I cleared my throat, and she looked up. 

"Hi." I waved at her innocently. 

"You're late." She told me blankly. 

"I know, I'm here to sign in." I told her.

"You can only sign in if you have a reason to be late." She said. 

"I had a doctors appointment." I said, lying through my teeth.

"Did you now?" She replied sarcastically. 

"Yeah?" I said, unsure of how well this was going. 

She said nothing, and handed me a plastic ziplock bag. 

"Aw, why?" I moaned at her.

"You're late. Again." She ground through her teeth, tapping her pen on her desk in annoyance.

I huffed as I emptied out my pockets. I put my phone and lipgloss into the bag, and handed it back to the lady. She raised her eyebrow at me, and crossed her arms. 

"Fine." I sighed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter I had hidden in my bra. I put them in the bag and sealed it up. The lady snatched it out of my hands. 

"Collect it at the end of the day." She told me, before turning her back on me, and continuing to do her work. 

I rolled my eyes at her, and walked to class. 

The hallways were empty and dim. Lifeless is the word I would use. This was Bakerline Prep, a reform school for troubled teens. I had been expelled from school a couple of months ago, and admitted into this institution not long after. It was a prison for sixteen year olds - literally. Everything was clinical. All the rooms were white. All the desks were metal. Any sharp edges were harm proofed. There weren't even locks on bathroom doors. 

I came up to the classroom, and peeked through the glass of the door. I debated running away and hiding in a closet somewhere. Sighing, I opened the door with a creak. 

"Bianca, you're late." The teacher told me. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I grumbled, and made my way to my seat through a maze of sullen faces. 

The teacher continued to speak, and I sunk down in my seat, overcome with boredom. I hung my head backwards, looking at the boy behind me. 

"Hi." I whispered to Luke. 

He leaned forward, smirking at me. 

"You should be paying attention." Luke teased. "You've already missed the first half of the lesson."

"You should be paying attention." I said. "Otherwise you'll get held back another year."

He kicked my chair and I giggled. 

"Pass these around the classroom." The teacher began. "Please write your name and age. Read through and tick the boxes of what sounds interesting to you. We will do our hardest to get you placements according to your preferences." He droned on, reading the lesson plan from a sheet of paper through his thickly rimmed glasses. 

The sheet of paper was passed back to me. I wasn't paying enough attention to know what was happening. I looked back to Luke for help. 

"Placement year forms." He told me. I continued to stare at him, not knowing what that was. 

"Work experience." He simplified it. I made an 'o' shape with my mouth, understanding. 

I read the form in front of me, tapping my pen on the metal desk. The chairs and desks were firmly screwed into the ground, so no one can try and throw them. I learned the hard way. 

I began to fill in all the forms. Name: Bianca Romano. Age: 16.

I put my hand up, and the teacher came over. 

"Can I have a pen reader?" I asked him. 

"Yeah, sure." He told me, and handed me one from his desk drawer, with some headphones.

I plugged them in and dragged the reader over each word. It repeated them into the headphones, reading the words out to me, rather than me trying to struggle through my dyslexia. 

Write reports. No.

Work in an office. No. 

Work with animals. I ticked that box.

Take care of children. Hell no.

Act in a TV show or movie. I didn't tick it. I wouldn't like those many cameras on me all at once. 

Write for a newspaper. Newspaper? I stared at that option, hesitantly ticking the box. I didn't even think people read newspapers anymore. Maybe the workload would be minimal. 

I made my way through the rest of the list, leaving the remaining boxes blank. These were all terrible, but I didn't expect any respectively good companies to want troubled children with criminal records working for them. 

I looked around once I was done, realising I was the last one in the empty classroom. I stood up and handed the paper to the teacher, and left. 

"Hey." I heard someone call me. I turned around, to see Luke following me into the school garden. 

"Hey yourself." I said, sitting on one of the tables outside, resting my feet on the seat attached to it. 

He came to stand in front of me, and pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. Luke offered me one, and I accepted. He lit it for me with a grin. I eyed him cautiously. He was tall, and handsome, and he had a sharp smile that cut like a knife. 

"What did you do to your hair?" Luke asked, brushing his fingers through my blue streaked blonde locks. 

"I dyed it." I told him, bored. 

"It looks... distinctive." He struggled to find the words. 

"Thanks." I said dismissively, having no care for his opinion. 

"What did you pick for your placement?" He asked me, switching the conversation.

"Animals and newspaper." I told him. 

"Newspaper?" Luke laughed at me. 

"What?" I asked.

"Why would you pick newspaper?" He asked, confused.

"Like Sex In The City!" I defended myself.

"You know that involves, like, actually doing something." Luke teased me.

"No, really? I thought I would tick the box and suddenly the newspaper fairies would appear and carry me to an office far far away." I replied sarcastically. He rolled his eyes at me. 

"I didn't realise I don't meet your standards for work placements." I told him, feigning innocence. "God forbid I'm even seen with you in public." I said, getting up to leave. 

"C'mon, I was only messing around." He said, moving in front of me so I don't leave. I tilted my head at him, annoyed. He brushed his hands over my shoulders, down to my waist. 

"I'm only playing, don't be mad." Luke said charmingly. His cropped brown hair glinted more auburn in the midday sunlight. 

I gathered the material of his shirt in my hands and pulled him forward, so his face was close to mine. 

"Don't be fucking rude." I told him sweetly.

I put out my cigarette on the sleeve of his jacket, and went to leave for the cafeteria. I felt my stomach begin to rumble in hunger. Luke stayed where he was, but gave me some money for food. 

"Drop me home later?" I asked, fluttering my eyelashes. 

"Always." He told me. 

I smiled, pleased with his answer. I wasn't exactly asking. 

I thanked Luke with a kiss for driving me all the way home. He had asked to come up to my room, but I hadn't let him. It wasn't that I didn't like him - I was just embarrassed of what my life would look like compared to his. Luke was from the Luthor family - his father was the CEO of LexCorp. They shit gold. 

And me? They wouldn't touch my gold with a ten foot pole. 

It was something I didn't want to think about. Luke lived with his father in a penthouse apartment that had more bathrooms than I could count on one hand. And I lived in one small flat with my family of eight, with three bedrooms between us. 

I made my way up the stairs to our apartment, and bumped into Camilla, my younger sister. 

"Where are you going?" I asked her, eyeing her blue and yellow cheer uniform.

"I have a pep rally." She said, brushing her curly brown hair out of her face, barely looking at me. 

The sound of Luke's expensive car leaving the street echoed through the tattered building doors.  We watched the car drive away through the glass. Camilla scoffed at his obnoxiousness.

"Why do you even hang out with him?" She scoffed. "Oh, that's right. He's rich, and single, and male. Of course you'd throw yourself at him." My sister smirked at me viciously. 

I held back my anger at her comment. "Good luck at your pep rally, Cami. And good luck on the top of the pyramid. Hopefully you don't slip, fall and break your neck." I told her sweetly, venom lacing my tone. 

"Whatever." She said, storming off down the stairs. 

I arrived at our door, and knocked, not having my keys. No one answered. I tried the door handle, and it was unlocked. If we ever get robbed, we'd probably deserve it. But I pity the robber that comes into our apartment looking for anything nice at all. 

I walked into the kitchen, sighing when I saw Tina, my older sister. 

"You look like shit." She told me, eyeing my appearance like a vulture. 

"Not all of us can be perfect like you." I told her, looking her up and down. Her hair was straightened, dark silky waves falling down her back. Her makeup was perfectly done, and her workwear was pristine. 

"Where were you last night?" She asked me. 

I got a bowl out of a cupboard and poured myself some cereal. I huffed when there was only scraps left in the bag for me to have. 

"I was at church." I told her sarcastically.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at my lack of an answer.

"I ran into Cami in the hallway." I mentioned, pouring some milk into the bowl. Tina nodded uninterested. "She still hates me." I continued. 

"You did have sex with her boyfriend." She bit back. 

I slammed the milk down on the counter angrily, splitting the bottom of the plastic bottle. 

"He is not her boyfriend!" I shouted. "He never was!"

"Jesus, Bianca-" Tina began.

"I had sex with someone she wanted to and she's still sore I got there first, and now she's a massive bitch to me every second of my life and everyone defends her!" I continued to shout. 

Tina stared at me, quiet. "Having tantrums about your mistakes won't fix things." She told me lowly. 

I sucked my cheeks in with anger, pursing my lips and sticking my middle finger up at her. She rolled her eyes at my behaviour, ignoring me. I turned to storm out of the room. 

"Your cereal?" Tina reminded me. 

"Why the fuck would I want the scraps left for the least favourite child?" I retorted, hurt lacing my words. 

I got to my room and slammed the door shut, loudly. 

I was so overcome with anger, I grabbed a pillow from my bed and screamed into it. I smashed it with my fists until I became tired, and lay on my bed in defeat. Everything was so shit. The world was tinted in a permanent grey. I didn't know how much longer I could take it.

remember to like and reblog !!

[floydmtalbert]

le départ

Lou + Rosie, a succession of trains, and a Westland Lysander, for @mercurygray! A follow-up to this wonderful piece, an AU in which Merc’s Joan and my Louise are running an escape line.

It is a morning of ragged cloud and fitful sunshine, the southern outskirts of the city rinsed by the recent rain and buffed up to a shine by the wind. The cold, hard light throws everything into sharp relief: the acres of cheap housing, the wasteland of railway sidings and warehouses and factories, the handful of people waiting on the platform at Ivry. They carry bags and suitcases and have a dark, shuttered look about them. No one speaks. This is Paris in its fourth year of occupation: the silver city, tarnished and battered, silence and suspicion amongst strangers.

Louise and Robert stand apart from the other travellers, huddled against the wind, his arm around her shoulders and hers around his waist. Casual, patient, as though none of this really matters. They are just a young suburban couple, newlyweds, heading to the country for the weekend.

The Bordeaux train draws in from the Gare d’Austerlitz, wheezing steam, half an hour late and already packed, even in the first-class carriages. Louise appeals to an elderly woman sat by the window, asking if she would move so that she and her husband might sit together. The woman sighs and grumbles, glaring at them with rheumy eyes, but eventually they are settled, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. She can feel the warmth of him even through the layers of his clothing, the sweater Ferraby had offered up, its sleeves a little too short for Robert, the suit and thick wool coat in a nondescript grey that she and Joan had chosen with care. As the train heaves itself into motion and gathers speed, he turns his head to look out of the window, and she turns her head to look at him. If only… she thinks, but stops herself.

If only we really were going away for the weekend. If only this journey would never end. If only the war was simply something happening to other people.

At Étampes, an inspector walks down the corridor, stepping over people and luggage, calling for tickets. He stops at their compartment, a police officer behind him, and there is the dutiful pause while people rifle through handbags, search through pockets. Louise takes out her ticket, waits a second while Robert does the same, following her lead, and then hands both of them over. The man glances down at the tickets, and up again at their faces, and passes them back. Then the door slides closed and he and the policeman are gone.

With great sighs the train traipses on into the flat farmland of La Beauce, where the fields are brushed green with sprouting winter wheat and the sky is a cool blue.

In the outskirts of Orléans they slow. The marshalling yards of Fleury-les-Aubrais have recently been bombed and everywhere there is wreckage, wagons thrown about, rails twisted and knotted, the ruins of buildings still smoking. In silence people stare out of the window at these signs of what is to come, while the carriages rattle and jolt over the single track that has been repaired.

At the station itself, doors slam and people come and go. They hear heavy footsteps in the corridor, Germans this time, two sergeants of the Feldgendarmerie in their grey uniforms and silver breastplates, flanking another man in a belted raincoat and trilby, a uniform in itself. Louise and Robert hand over their tickets and the identity cards bearing the names Anaïs Hélène Gauthier and Maxence Charles Gauthier.

“You are travelling to Angoulême?” the Gestapo officer asks. He speaks French well, which she always finds unsettling: no hope of hiding behind incomprehension, of playing for time with confusion.

“Yes.”

“For what purpose?”

Louise glances at Robert with a small smile, reaches for his hand. “We’re having a few days away.”

The German looks between them and then back at their papers, turning them over in his hands, lingering. Time seems to slow. Louise holds Robert’s hand tightly in hers, feeling his pulse racing against her own skin, just as her thoughts are racing. How would she act if she were entirely innocent, if she really were a young Frenchwoman taking a trip with her husband? How would Anaïs Gauthier behave? She would hardly care at all, would sit there and deal with it, this little interruption to her day.

And so Louise puts her hand on Robert’s cheek, tilts his face down to hers, and kisses him. Nonchalance, Gallic insouciance, in the face of everyday inconvenience.

At last the Gestapo officer turns his attention away from them. Questions are asked of the other passengers in the compartment, and then he tells them all to wait and steps outside with their documents.

The elderly woman sighs, and the two men sat next to her, minor bureaucratic types, mutter in low tones, complaining about the delay, wondering if they will still make their meeting in Blois. Louise says nothing. Sweat prickles under her arms, in the small of her back. She can feel the dampness of Robert’s hand, as well, and still the thud of his pulse.

He puts his mouth close against her ear and says, so quietly only she can hear: “What are they doing?”

She forces herself to smile, coyly, as if he has just whispered an endearment. She turns her face into his neck and then tips her head up to murmur into his ear, her voice no louder than a breath. “Checking lists. Noting names. Don’t know.”

The door opens again with a crash and the officer reappears. “Alright,” he says, passing the documents back, before he and his military policemen head into the next compartment.

Don’t ever look relieved, she had been told at Beaulieu. The instructor’s voice echoes in her ear, even at the distance of two years and hundreds of miles. Don’t look relieved, because being relieved means you were scared, and being scared means you have something to hide. Louise keeps her expression calm, indifferent, but as she returns her identity card to her handbag Robert smiles at her, and she can’t help but smile back, a hint of triumph in her eyes.

The train jolts forward, and they are moving again at last, on through the city of Orléans itself, the city of la Pucelle, Sainte Jeanne d’Arc. Louise thinks briefly of Joan, her Joan, who had seen her off the night before last with deux bisous and a handful of francs Louise was sure had come from Joan’s own purse and not from London. Hardly a maiden, dressed not in breeches and armour but in immaculate skirt suits, and still the kind of woman to be spoken of with something approaching reverence.

Louise smiles a little to herself, looking out of the train window at France, for which she had come in the first place, and thinking of Joan, and Ferraby, and all of her comrades, and every airman she had guided back into the fight, for whom she had stayed.

Soon they are out of the city and into the bare fields of the floodplain with the line of the river visible as a distant fringe of willows. Robert dozes, his cheek resting against the top of her head, while Louise pretends to sleep and instead keeps track of the other passengers in the compartment. The pair of government officials leave for their meeting in Blois, and two young women take their place, gossiping in low and urgent voices about a man they know, a real salaud, who is going with two girls at once. Should they tell the girls? The debate goes on without ever reaching a conclusion. At Amboise, the man sat next to Louise disembarks, and a mother with a small child replaces him. The train rumbles across the river on a stone bridge and edges its way through the drab suburbs of Tours. Only the elderly woman remains, but when Louise makes a show of waking, just before Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, she sees that the woman is fast asleep, her head nodding on her chest. No one who heard Louise mention Angoulême sees them stand up and retrieve their suitcase and shuffle down the corridor to the end of the carriage.

Robert jumps down onto the platform and takes the suitcase from her, and then holds her around the waist and lifts her down beside him. The guard blows his whistle and the train draws away, leaving a scattering of passengers behind. They file towards the exit while Louise and Robert walk towards the concourse and the ticket office.

They stand on the platform on the other side of the station, waiting for the slow train to Vierzon. It is deserted: there is no one around, no one else taking the train with them, no one to notice them on this February afternoon with the sun casting long shadows and the wind cold on their faces. When the train arrives it is empty, too, and they climb into a compartment and lean back against the faded and threadbare plush.

She touches his arm. “Not long, now,” she says, and he nods, looking at her steadily.

Outside on the platform a whistle blows, and the train lurches forward, on into the countryside. Through their pale reflections in the window are the flat fields of the floodplain between the Loire and the Cher, stretching away to the horizon, brushed with the glow from a setting sun. The sky is a luminous blue like the blue of a stained-glass window. Poplars stand like plumes in the drift of sunlight.

At Azay-sur-Cher a young man is waiting for them. He flicks away the stub of his cigarette and comes forward to greet Louise, kissing her on both cheeks while the two of them go through the little rigmarole of the double password.

She turns to Robert, puts a hand on his elbow. “This is Guy, our air movements officer,” she explains. To the Frenchman she says: “Voici Bob!”

Guy grins, a handsome, boyish grin. “Salut, Bob, ça va?”

“Uh…” Robert takes his outstretched hand and shakes it. “Ça va?” he replies, glancing at Louise with a small smile, and she nods, beaming back at him, both of them remembering sitting in the attic of the atelier, stifling laughter as he stumbled through the phrases she was trying to teach him.

Guy leads them to a shed behind the station house where four bicycles are stored. He wheels the spare one beside him as they cycle off into the gathering dusk, over the level crossing and onto a single-track road meandering through the fields. The land is flat and bare and unending, broken only by lines of poplars planted as windbreaks, willows along the rim of a drainage ditch. Through the trees to the east the moon is rising, replacing the dying sun with its own silvery light.

After a few miles they turn off onto a farm track and bump over ruts and potholes out into the fields. Guy brings them to a halt by a small copse, and dismounts to survey the pasture stretching out before them, looking left and right, squinting into the gloom, taking a few experimental strides over the rough earth and patchy grass.

He returns to them and starts speaking to Louise, and she translates for Robert. “He says things look fine. All okay. There are no obstructions and the ground is firm enough for the aircraft to land. The only worry tonight is fog.”

Behind the copse is a dilapidated barn, empty but for some rusted farm equipment half-covered by canvas tarpaulins. A scant covering of straw is strewn across the floor, and cobwebs hang thickly in every corner and across the walls. Guy and Louise move with well-practised ease, slipping wordlessly into the routine. The Frenchman crosses over to a bundle of fence posts propped against the wall, and selects three stakes about four feet long, each with an end sharpened to a point, while Louise lifts the corner of a sheet of tarpaulin and retrieves some lengths of string and four torches, and tests each one in turn.

“Wait here,” she tells Robert, and she and Guy head outside to set things up.

There is just enough light to see by as they walk out into the field. A hundred yards out Guy plants one stake in the ground and waits while Louise fastens a torch to it. Then he sets off into the distance, marching with wide steps as if performing some ancient and arcane ritual, while she follows behind him, their footsteps leaving a trail in the dewy grass like the wake of a ship in still water. They position the second stake and the second torch, and pace to the right to repeat the process for a third time. Guy glances back at their work, the stakes only visible as vague shadows, and nods at her, satisfied.

Back in the barn they make themselves as comfortable as possible, unwrapping the food Louise and Robert have brought in their suitcase, and sipping ersatz coffee from a flask Guy produces from his satchel. They leave the door open despite the chill night air, using the light of the moon to see rather than risking switching on the torch Louise has kept in her coat pocket.

Guy turns to Robert and says something in French, a question which makes Louise laugh, a bright, young sound out of place in the shadowy and derelict barn. Robert looks at her, curious, and she translates for him: “He asks if you’ve flown before.”

Robert starts to smile. “Just a couple times,” he says wryly.

She looks back at the Frenchman. “Bob is an American airman. A pilot.”

Guy nods, realisation dawning, and makes an apologetic shrug. He says something else, and again Louise laughs and explains for Robert. “He says, she never tells me anything. Whether our guests are British or American, soldiers or airmen. Sometimes I ask foolish questions, but it is good security.”

Another flutter of French passes between them and they share soft laughter at some private joke. Then Guy straightens up and begins speaking to Robert, breaking off every now and then for Louise to translate.

“He says as you have flown many times before you know there is nothing to fear. But we must still explain to you our way of doing things. As it will be quite different to what you are used to.”

She waits while Guy brushes some straw aside and lays out three coins on the floor, forming an inverted ‘L’. “We have positioned three markers out in the field,” she explains, her soft English following Guy’s rapid French, “like this. The pilot will touch down at the first marker, here. He brakes, and stops at the second marker. Then he turns around the third marker and comes back to the first, where we’ll be waiting.”

Again she pauses. “The passengers jump down and unload their luggage, and then you climb up the ladder. There will be a parachute in the aircraft for you, and a flying helmet and oxygen mask.”

Robert frowns. “Will we need oxygen?”

“No, no, but that’s where the microphone is. For the intercom.” Louise smiles at him as he nods. “Every airman I’ve met wishes we had throat microphones like you Americans, but…” She shrugs. “Everything will be plugged in, but you’ll have to flick the on-off switch on the front of the mask when you want to speak.”

They take him through the procedure a second time: where they will stand, where the Lysander will land and turn, what they all must do. Robert listens intently, his eyes fixed on Guy and then on Louise in turn, a small furrow between his brows. It will be fine, they tell him. The whole thing will take no more than five minutes.

“—comme sur des roulettes,” Guy says.

Louise searches for the best translation, and settles on: “Easy-peasy.” She smiles again. “Is that all alright?”

Robert nods. “Yeah. Easy-peasy,” he repeats, and smiles back at her. “Will you, uh—will you tell him that I understand? And will you thank him for me, please?”

She turns to Guy and passes the message along, and the young Frenchman grins, and reaches out to shake Robert’s hand once more.

Presently Guy goes outside to check the landing zone, worried about the police, German troops, worried, above all, about fog. Alone again, Louise and Robert sit close together, leaning into each other.

“You’ll be in England by daybreak,” she tells him. “Before, even.”

“Yeah.” He is quiet for a moment. “Where are you headed? Back to Paris?”

“Mmm. Yes.”

Neither of them says anything more, aware that time is running out, wanting to hold on to the illusion that the night will spin on forever. They wait in silence, even when Guy returns, watching the rectangle of sky through the open door. Overhead, Orion the hunter tilts like a windmill, dragging a whole panoply of constellations behind him, and the moon climbs higher and higher, flooding silver across the fields.

At midnight, Guy gets to his feet and stretches. “Let’s get ready,” he says to Louise. She and Robert follow him out into the moonlight, ghostly shadows moving across the pale countryside. Underfoot the ground is hard with frost. Ribbons of mist are wrapped around the trees along the edge of the field and a bank of fog lies over the river.

“Look,” Guy mutters, pointing. “Fog. It could ruin everything.”

“I know,” Louise whispers back. “But there’s nothing we can do. We just have to wait.”

They wait. Dark figures in a monochrome landscape, staring at the stars, painted by the moon. Cold seeps into them. There are the sounds of night, the distant barking of a dog, the susurration of the icy breeze, and underneath everything the sound of the nearby river. And then something else.

“Can you hear that?”

“What?”

It dies away. Did she imagine it? But the sound returns, a murmur becoming a rumble.

“That’s it!”

Now there is no doubt: an aero engine, the sound coming and going on the breeze and then settling to a steady drumbeat. Louise hands the torch to Guy and he points it up into the night sky, flashing the letter ‘P’ in Morse code. The letter ‘Q’ comes back to them, a small star blinking in the blackness.

Robert points. “I see it!”

Louise turns on the first torch and sets off to the other stakes, running, stumbling on the hard, uneven ground. She reaches the second marker and snaps the torch on, then crosses to the third. As she sprints back to where the men are waiting she sees the Lysander above her, a black shape against the spray of stars.

The aircraft turns towards them, shedding height, growing larger and larger, tilting in the flow of air. The noise of the engine rises and falls as the pilot jazzes the throttle. Suddenly, shockingly, its landing lights are switched on, as brilliant as spotlights so that on the ground they seem exposed to view like figures on a stage. Then, slowly, deliberately, it touches down, bounces, hits again, and rumbles down the flarepath. They watch it turn at the second lamp, and the third, and come back towards them where they wait, deafened by the din, beside the first.

The slipstream hits them as the aircraft turns once more and points into the wind. Guy waves at the pilot in the cockpit and runs up to talk to him. In the rear of the cockpit two passengers are moving. The hatch slides back and a figure emerges and climbs down the ladder to the ground.

Louise turns to Robert, glancing at his eyes, the slope of his nose in the moonlight. She clutches the sleeve of his coat, almost desperately. He faces her, puts his mouth close to her ear.

“Thank you,” he says, half-shouting to be heard over the engine. “Thank you for everything. I wish I could say more.”

She shakes her head, and leans back so that he can see her smile. Then she leans up on her tiptoes. “In this line of work we consider it bad luck to say ‘good luck’,” she tells him, her own voice raised. “So I’ll just say bon voyage. And I hope never to see you in France again.”

He grins back at her. By now the second agent is on the ground and Guy is shouting from beside the nose of the aircraft, his words picked up by the propellor blast and thrown back at them in disorder. “Need—go! Get—quick!”

Louise ushers Robert over to the Lysander. Time hurtles at her—the engine roaring, the propellor a blurred disc against the moonlight, the stars rampaging across the sky—and she just stares at him, wanting to tell him so many things and unable to say them. He nods, as if he has read her mind, and puts one hand on the side of her face and leans down to kiss her.

Then he is gone, up the ladder and into the cockpit, and the pilot gives the thumbs-up, and Louise and Guy run back from the aircraft.

“Go!” Guy yells, gesturing downwind with his hand. “Go, go!”

The engine gains noise, roaring and raging at the night, straining for a moment against the brakes before lurching forward, bumping along, gathering speed, with Robert looking back at her, his face no more than a smudge of whiteness and shadow. Then abruptly the Lysander is in the air, a matte black shape against the luminous black of the sky, climbing, turning, swinging through the stars, and leaving Louise standing in the backwash, her hair blowing in the wind, her coat flapping around her, in tears.

The sound of the Lysander fades into the minutiae of the night. Suddenly she is cold.

Beside her, Guy is shaking hands with the two men, welcoming them to France. She stands for a moment longer, running through what she must do: clear up in the field and the barn, share out the men’s clothing in her suitcase amongst the new agents, put the identity card for Anaïs Gauthier into a slip in the lining and retrieve the papers for Irène Françoise Brochard. Cycle to the safehouse Guy has found for them, and, in the morning, catch the first train to Vierzon and escort the agents to Paris. Move on, get back to work. Keep going.

Guy is looking at her expectantly. She wipes the tears from her cheeks and puts on a smile and walks over to the men waiting for her.

[littlemisspascal]

Rockford & Roan Pt. 5

Pairing: Tim Rockford x Female Reader/OFC ‘Roan’

Word Count: 3.2k

Summary:  There’s no escape. You’re prey in a spider’s web.

Rating: T. Heed the warnings y'all!

Warnings: Language, Reader has a dog, Reader has military background, Superpower AU, They Were Roommates AU, self-esteem issues, soulmates-ish, original characters, worldbuilding, references of dead bodies + suicide, police, trauma, ptsd flashback including non-con touching, fear

- Reader has no first name and no physical traits described in detail except for being shorter than Rockford. Reader is mentioned to have hair

Author Note: Thank you always for the kind support💗

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜💜💜

Series Masterlist

The Body

The warehouse is bone-chilling. 

It’s your first observation when you follow Rockford inside, body temperature dropping as the frozen air slices through your jacket like the blade of a knife. The windows are all busted, jagged shards of glass litter the grimy concrete floor beneath your feet. Various metallic beams covered in rust criss-cross overhead. It’s a hauntingly eerie place, even with the multitude of policemen and CSIs meandering about.

And there, in the center of it all, a woman lies dead wearing a bright yellow duffle coat and matching yellow rain boots.

You inhale a sharp breath upon seeing her. Banjo whines softly, laying down with his head on his paws, and your hand fidgets with the urge to pet him, empathy twinging in response to his fear. 

“Victim is Carmin Carrillo, thirty-eight years old from Toven with a gift of claw extension according to her driver license,” Inspector Dorrance informs you and Rockford, his voice a low rumble as he recites information from his pocket notebook. “We’re in the process now of determining contact details. Couple of kids screwing around found her, but it doesn't look like she’s been here long. Suicide by cyanide ingestion, just like the others.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Rockford mutters under his breath, snapping on a spare pair of latex gloves Dorrance provides.

Your match wastes no time in striding forward to carefully analyze the body, staring down for a long beat at her hands stained scarlet with blood. He moves onto her coat next without saying a word, crouching down and running a gloved hand over the yellow material, flexing his fingers afterwards almost clinically. An umbrella is pulled out from the coat pocket, scrutinized by his brown eyes as if it were an explosive device. He actually reminds you a bit of bomb-sniffer dogs at airports and train stations, unflinchingly calm and dedicated to their task at hand.

Unlike the canines who usually sit upon making a discovery though, Rockford stands to full height and swivels around. “Miss Roan, what do you feel?”

“From who?” you ask with a quick, confused look over at Dorrance. The inspector merely crosses his arms over his chest with a quiet sigh, radiating something akin to resignation.

“Our victim here,” Rockford says.

Your eyebrows lift so high up your forehead you’re surprised they don’t fly off. What Rockford’s suggesting—feeling the emotions of the dead—is a delicate process involving empathic echoes. Emotional imprints left behind in the wake of traumatic events which empaths can tap into and experience for themselves. During your service, you’d been instructed to focus your mind-gift on the living souls rather than the deceased, but that didn’t stop the echoes from setting off a series of ominous clicks in your eardrums like a Geiger counter when you brushed too close.

“If it’ll solve this case faster, go ahead,” Dorrance says, noticing your hesitation. He eyes Banjo, a note of firmness slipping into his tone when he adds, “But the pup stays back.”

You glance over at Rockford, finding him rapidly scrolling on his phone, oblivious beyond the screen. “O-okay,” you reply, and hand over Banjo’s leash in exchange for your own pair of latex gloves.

The concrete is cold under your knees as you kneel beside the body. Carmin’s lying on her left side with her eyes closed, raven locks framing her head, long and frizzy. She could almost be mistaken for sleeping, if not for her unnatural stillness and the dry blood coating her hands. 

Dorrance had mentioned the victim left behind a note. What he’d failed to say was that she’d cut the message into her own palm with her fingernails—no, with her claws.

Naranja.

The Spanish word for orange. You mouth it to yourself, baffled. Was it a side effect of the cyanide resulting in the self-mutilation or is there another, more meaningful reason for its existence? It’s gruesome either way.

Rockford’s leather shoes shuffle out of the corner of your eye, reminding you of the task at hand. Empathic echo. Right. Your match is counting on you to be helpful. You mustn’t let him down.

You stretch out your empathy, the emotions of those in the room overlapping and ricocheting off of one another like rain pattering on a metal roof, but they aren’t what you’re searching for. Focus. You sidestep them, feeling your mind-gift sharpen, scraping along the walls, the floors, no corner left unchecked. Focus.

A distinct clicking sound sends a little spark down your spine, growing in frequency as your empathy zeroes in further, and you have no idea what you’re engaging with, but it’s–

The change from individual clicks to a shrill whine is explosive, silencing all other sounds, vision whiting out as if a spotlight’s been aimed directly at your eyes.  

Fear starts pooling in your gut, slow at first, ignorable. But it keeps building, bubbling up your throat, wrapping around your heart. The desire to scream burns worse than acid. Can’t. Your mouth is sewn shut. Muscles paralyzed. Everything’s on fire. There’s no escape. You’re prey in a spider’s web. 

Trapped. Poisoned. Dying.

You hear it then. Somewhere as close as it is far away, muffled and distorted by time—the quiet hiss of laughter. 

Shuddering, it reminds you of—

Oh, dear God no.

“Miss Roan?”

Hands tear at your clothes, grimy fingers grazing skin as a heavy weight pins you to the ground. Acrid breath floods your nostrils. And lust, so much vile, thirsting lust it sours your stomach, gagging at the deluge. Get off, you think hysterically, get off get off get off.

“Miss Roan!”

You blink, sucking in a shaky lungful of air. You’re in the warehouse still, on the floor, but you’d been moved away from Carmin several feet. How long were you ensnared by the echo? By the…rest of it? You blink again, struggling to focus. Rockford’s crouched in front of you, brown eyes full of concern. 

“It’s alright, Roan. You’re okay.”

His hand squeezes your shoulder, and it grounds you back in reality the same way an asteroid crashes to the earth, sudden and violent. Uncaring of the destruction upon impact.

You flinch, and there’s a collective groan from the entire room’s occupants as they press their hands to their heads, teeth gritting and eyes scrunching. Even Banjo’s afflicted, pawing helplessly at his ears. 

It’s your fault they’re in pain. Empathy taking root in their minds, holding them hostage, applying pressure until it hurts. You force yourself to take another breath, trying to reign it in, box it up, but it’s not–it won’t–fuck, what the hell is wrong with you?

“Kez.” Rockford’s gaze remains steadily locked with yours, expressing nothing, an impenetrable mask, though his voice is a little rougher than normal. “Take her outside.”

“Tim,” Dorrance starts.

“Now, Keziah,” Rockford cuts him off, not quite snapping but close enough.

Too rattled to speak, you feel like you’re watching yourself be pulled clumsily onto your feet by Rockford and passed over to Dorrance. The inspector holds onto Banjo’s leash in one hand and your bicep in the other, leading you both towards the rear exit of the warehouse, away from the lights and cameras still swarming at the front.

Even while functioning on autopilot, it’s hard to ignore the stares of the CSIs, their silent judgment palpable even without your triggered mind-gift achingly aware of their distrustfulness like individual bug bites. It’s even harder to ignore how Rockford’s emotions have never felt so distant from your reach before, guarded and indecipherable. A door once freely open now barred shut.

And it’s funny, you think, how someone who’s the most important person in your life can so suddenly change into an unrecognizable stranger in a mere matter of minutes. As if you never really knew them at all.

My fault. I caused this.

It’s all so fucking hysterical.

The Discussion

Inspector Dorrance guides you to a bench outside, releasing his hold once you sink down heavily. Banjo hops up on the seat next to you, snuffling at your jacket sleeve before curling closer, and the man seems to realize the dog is trained enough to remain put, letting go of the leash so it hangs limply next to your leg.

You try again to wrestle control of your empathy, but it continues slipping free and bleeding out into the atmosphere, drawn to the laid-back stillness of Dorrance’s mood. Unshaken by your episode. Unbothered by your nearness.

Just…clockwork calm.

Maybe it’s due to his training that he keeps a cool head, or maybe the sucker he digs free from his inner suit pocket is infused with some kind of mood-numbing ingredient. Either way, after unwrapping the candy, you barely catch a glimpse of its bright green coloring before it’s shoved into his mouth, rolled around on his tongue.

Dorrance looks over across the wharf, out at the docked boats and to the nightly horizon beyond. You follow his gaze, absently stroking a hand over Banjo’s ears, the mutt’s affection a low hum taking some of the sting out of your mind-gift, and there’s a moment where the whole world feels hushed.

The moon hangs above the sea, cascading streaks of silver light upon the waves. Shining brightly even in the darkest of hours. A rebel against the encroaching, ravenous shadows.

“I used to smoke like a damn chimney. My boyfriend hated it,” Dorrance says, out of nowhere. He holds the sucker’s stick between his fingertips, gesticulating as he talks. “It was Tim’s idea, substituting candy for cigarettes. Loathed the suggestion at first, thought he was taking the piss out of me, but now…” He shrugs, wedges the sucker back into the corner of his scarred mouth.

You stare at him, the details of his face highlighted by the moon. Standing out as a beacon in the void. He shouldn’t be here–there’s a dead body literally right behind you, far more important than your pathetic issues–but he shows no signs of impatience, outward or internal. No blame either, but its absence doesn’t loosen the weight on your chest. Doesn’t mean you didn’t royally fuck everything up.

Banjo presses impossibly closer, wet nose against your wrist disrupting your spiraling thoughts. 

“Tim Rockford is a very perceptive man, Miss Roan,” Dorrance says, blunt and to the point now. Your eyes snap back to him, subconsciously sitting up straighter in response to the tone shift. “But even he has his blind spots. Things—and people—he takes for granted, expecting them to do whatever he wants them to regardless of the consequences. Especially when there’s a case to be solved. Do yourself a favor and don't let yourself become one. Talk to him, alright?”

When Rockford had said–

You belong anywhere I am.

We’re stuck with each other.

–he’d meant every word. 

At the time, at least. Before your lapse of self-control proved your empathy can’t be trusted under pressure, not even with your match within close reach. You used to face down enemies bigger than mountains, teeth bared and blood under your fingernails. You used to be fearless. 

You’re not that person anymore. And you’re not who Rockford deserves as his match either.

You need to be better. You have to be.

“...Alright,” you repeat quietly, thinking back to the icy certainty you’d felt back at the apartment. How you’d known there was another side of your match you’d never encountered before. And this is it, so it would seem, a side passionately dedicated to his work that shouldn’t have to be burdened with your mistakes and triggers. “I–I’m sorry for losing control the way I did. It shouldn’t’ve happened. It was unprofessional and–”

“At ease, soldier.” It should be irritating to hear, a reminder of a life you’re no longer living, but the words strike a chord deep within, shoulders reflexively dropping. “Headaches are common amongst the force, each of us trying to understand why people do the things they do.”

A burning sensation lingers in the back of your throat. Hand trembling even as it runs through Banjo’s fur. “She was scared. Carmin, I mean. Absolutely terrified during her final moments. And I swear…I know how this sounds, but I swear, inspector, I heard somebody laughing at her. She wasn’t alone.”

Dorrance’s eyes widen slightly at that, and you can feel the ticking of his mind speeding up, realization striking. “Fuck,” he breathes, half turning to glare back at the warehouse as if he could see through to the interior. His jaw clenches so harshly around the candy stick you’re surprised it doesn’t cut in half. “Fuck, Tim’s been right all along, hasn’t he? These suicides—somebody’s been pulling the strings. But how? Why?”

You don’t have the answers he wants. You’re not Rockford. Can’t produce calculations and explanations out of the tiniest of observations. The only thing you can do is offer Dorrance’s own advice back to the man.

“Talk to Rockford,” you say, because he’s the best chance of making sense out of any of this bloody mess. And together, Dorrance and him will get Carmin and the other victims the justice they deserve. “Tell him what I felt.”

Dorrance is silent for a moment, just watching your face, and to his credit he doesn’t ask why you don’t tell Rockford yourself, doesn’t dig his fingers into the proverbial wound you’re struggling to stitch back up. It hurts to wonder what you must look like in his eyes, fidgety and unstable. A far cry from the woman he met earlier. 

“I will,” he finally nods. “Take your time out here. Come in when you’re ready.”

And then he’s walking past you, turning his back on the moonlight and returning to the warehouse of metal and death. Not once does the steady tempo of his mind falter.

You’re not sure if you’re more comforted by his strict self-control or envious of it.

You’re not sure of much right now, actually.

The Woman

Time has a strange way of moving when you’re lost in your thoughts. Could be five minutes you sit there, could be forty. You don’t know, don’t care much either—it’s just you, the moon, and Banjo.

The little mutt nudges at your hand when it’s still too long, and then when that doesn’t achieve the ear-scratches he craves he goes one step further and stands with his two front paws on top of your thigh. He looks at you squarely in the eye. You stare back. 

“I was back there for a moment,” you tell him, a hollow, emptiness in your voice. “In camp during the raid when that man…when he tried to…” You take a slow, trembling breath, swallowing harshly against the lump in your throat. “Well, you don’t need to hear about that. We’ve all got our bad days, yeah? Just the way the cards are dealt.”

Banjo sneezes. Maybe that’s all it is, but part of you like to think he’s agreeing bad days are a total pain in the ass.

“Finding you was a good day though.” You boop him on the nose. “One of my very best.”

Banjo’s tail starts to wag, but then his ears perk, hearing something. He turns immediately, a low warning growl building in his chest. And that’s the thing about your scrappy dog—he’s a friendly, easily pleased ball of fur at his core. He doesn’t growl at anything or anyone unless there’s a damn good reason to.

And that’s when you feel it.

A shard of curiosity deliberately pricks your mind-gift, sparkling and bright. Attention-seeking. It doesn’t stem from the direction of the warehouse, but closer. Alarmingly so. 

You turn your head so fast your neck aches, squinting against the darkness. 

There, several feet in front of you, a woman stands on the concrete dropoff separating land from water. She waves when she catches your wide-eyed gaze, a cheeky gesture, curiosity morphing into satisfaction. A glimmering diamond which might have mesmerized your mind-gift if not for its sharp edges promising a painful cut. Whoever this stranger is, not only has she snuck up on the backside of a crime scene, she’s also been trained to fend off empaths.

Alarm bells ring loudly in your mind. You’re torn between shouting for backup–if anyone will even listen to you–and going down there and confronting her yourself. The woman stares you down, practically daring you to make a choice.

It’s Banjo who makes your decision for you. He leaps off the bench before you can even think of grabbing him or the leash. The second his paws connect with the ground he’s off like a rocket with his sight set on the woman, ignoring your cry of his name as you chase after him.

The distance to the dropoff is short, but with the amount of panic pumping through your nervous system it might as well be miles. You’ve got to catch Banjo, stop him before he causes harm. Growling is a rarity for him. Outright charging at somebody though? It’s as if he’s been possessed or replaced with an entirely different dog. 

You don’t think things can get any worse. 

The woman falls backwards over the edge into the water.

What the–

Banjo doesn’t stop, committed to his hunt, and jumps after her.

FUCK.

If your heartbeat wasn’t throbbing in your ears, maybe you would’ve heard the lack of splashing after their dives.

As it is, you make the leap, your little mutt dog the only thing on your mind. Your body instinctively braces for the cold water to hit, but it never comes. You just keep falling and falling, the colors of your vision warping into a blurry haze. 

Of course, you think, mentally kicking and cursing yourself for forgetting every lesson instilled in you during recruit training, including the most important one of all. Determine the enemy’s gift before engaging. Of fucking course she had to be a portal maker.

When reality finally settles again, you find yourself rolling across a wooden tile floor, stopping just before your head collides with the edge of a leather sofa. For a second you merely lie there, taking stock of your body, the aches from your limbs of being unceremoniously dropped out of the portal. 

A familiar bark has you sitting up in a rush. You spot the woman first, dark haired and stylishly dressed. She’s reclining comfortably in a plush chair next to a marble fireplace with a massive piece of artwork worthy of being displayed in the Louvre hanging above. You’re in someone’s house, you realize, another stone of dread dropping into your stomach. The woman smiles at you, perfectly pleasant, but her glittering amusement makes you grit your teeth in irritation. 

Banjo barks again, yanking your attention to the other half of the room where the largest book case you’ve ever seen takes up almost an entire wall. He isn’t growling anymore, but his hackles remain raised, tail held stiff. Once you notice the man crouched in front of Banjo, offering his hand for the dog to smell, you cannot believe what you’re seeing.

Because the man he…

Brown eyes lift over Banjo’s figure to lock with yours, a dimpled smile curling on a mouth outlined in dark, bristly hair.

The man has Rockford’s face. Identical to the very last detail.

“So, you’re the unfortunate soul who matched with my brother.” He stands to full height, dressed in formal wear with an untied floral robe swishing with every movement. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Miss Roan. You and I have got quite a lot to talk about.”

[ginger-futch]

Return AU, Chapter 1, part 1 (warning for blood):

The lights were on.

Plaster littered the floor in dusty chunks, ceiling panels fallen from their places to expose wiring and pipes, the very front doors having to be picked open. It was abandoned, clearly so, for a whole decade, and yet the lights were still on.

She put a hand on her holster, and scanned every square inch of unlocked space in the front area.

Past the turnstiles, she found nothing but a locked shutter, a big blue light in the shape of a hand being the only indication of a locking mechanism.

The little store was empty, boxes emptied and shelves tipped over. A lone dismantled Boogie Bot sat on the counter in a splatter of reddish brown goo. The train circling the rail overhead was still running; at the back of her mind, she admired how the company's product was still functional years down the line, but at the moment it was just uncanny.

But, nobody was there, so she let her shoulders fall with just a little hesitation. Ransacked by edgelords as it was, it didn't look inhabited at all.

Sam went to check the door opposite of it, only to find it locked behind a colorful keypad.

CMYK? No.

Huggy colors? No.

... Train colors?

A chime sounded, and the doors slid open. She smiled to herself, a pinch smug. She wondered how many guests put the pieces together and just wandered into the employee area unsupervised. Did they have to repaint the train every time they changed the code?

For the most part, it looked like a regular security room; monitors lined the one wall, and chairs and desks filled much of the rest of the space. The recess in the wall with the ropes and pipes in it, and the TV with the VCR on the cart, were all interesting, but first, she made sure to check the desks.

This search yielded very little. A lot of old, dried out stationary, as well as hand-written reports of minor incidents and a drawer full of crumpled up employee complaint forms. The latter were at least a little interesting; at least in its last few months, the company was basically hemorrhaging employees. Complaints about having little time to sleep between shifts, not being paid overtime despite working well beyond full time hours, intimidation from higher ups, etc. contrasted heavily with the aggressively friendly image they portrayed.

She set her duffel bag down, and took out a simple plastic folder. Nothing special, just enough to keep things organized until she'd pick them up later. This room wasn't too humid or exposed to the elements, so she felt comfortable leading the documents there for now to be collected later while she was on her way out. Low priority, though.

As soon as she finished her task, Sam took the blue tape off the one desk, checked to see if it was wound (it was, good), and slid it into the VCR.

Dreamy music filled the room, and some animal part of her brain immediately raised its hackles. A memory, foggy and intense, overtook her, and her eyes immediately swept around the room, like every shadow had a predator waiting to leap out at her. She breathed in deeply from her nose.

In, out.

In, out.

In.... out.

And in a second, it faded into a dull sense of unease.

Before she knew it, the video unloaded a short tutorial on the GrabPack. She chuckled hesitantly at the part where the yellow stickman coworker got his head taken off, and remembered all at once how many employees she had seen with one of these things strapped to their backs. How was any of this approved by OSHA?

Though, given some of the complaints in the desk, she suspected the inspectors got paid off.

Looking back at her duffel bag, and taking a good look at the ceiling, she decided against setting up her tent for now. There weren't enough holes to worry about rain, the temperature was on the warmer side this time of year, and her cargo pants and utility coat were loaded with enough emergency supplies to last her a couple days before she needed to return to the van for more. For now, she had what she needed to go further in.

Using the GrabPack felt almost second nature to her, like picking up a bike again after a long time of disuse. Which was damn weird because last time she was anywhere near this place, she was a kid, and these things were dangerous in the wrong hands.

Thoughts of child safety violations quickly left her mind when she entered the grand hall. It was huge, just as she remembered it, and at the very center a towering Huggy Wuggy statue. In the bright moonlight, she could see the fur faintly moving.

Breathing.

Memories of giant toys come to life flooded her mind, and she had to take a step out and do yet more breathing exercises to come down. It was probably just a draft from the windows.

She forcibly perked up, and jogged right back into the room. Yeah... yeah! Just a draft. Just... don't think too hard on it.

Her eyes only barely grazed the plaque before the giant toy - it wasn't anything she didn't already know how popular this giant Sour Patch Kid was, given they were still selling bootleg Wuggies at the flea market - as she investigated the rest of the room. She tried her picks on the regular doors first, to little success. At least, not without heavier machinery; Sam left her power drill at home, so she'd have to save investigating those portions of the facility for a later date. Damn.

Finally, she tried the door with the one handprint, only for it to go black and give a concerning sound at the contact, a spark traveling down the wire to the next room over, labelled "POWER."

Jingle.

She turned on her heel, and saw... nothing. No other human being in the room. She almost sighed in relief, until she spotted a glint of gold in Huggy's raised hand.

A key that wasn't there before.

Fuck. He was alive. Or haunted, either or.

Hesitantly, she aimed her GrabPack for the key and snatched it out of his hand, watching as he didn't even flinch at the contact by the dangerous tool.

She almost proceeded to the Power room, but stopped herself.

How long has he been standing in that one spot, alone?

As terrifying as it was to stand in the same room as a nearly twenty foot living statue... he wasn't doing anything yet, and it felt kinda rude not to offer up something in return for his help.

Indulging her inner superstitious child, she took a bag of jerky out from one of her pockets - the nice homemade kind from the dried snacks stand at the same market as the bootleg toys - a napkin, and a bottle of water. Noting his lack of fingers, she laid out the napkin like a makeshift plate on one of the letter blocks, poured out an ample portion of jerky onto it, and left the bottle of water opened off to the side for him to take.

Stepping out a fair distance, she gave him a deep bow, and said sincerely, "Thank you for the key."

She felt silly talking to a statue that was only maybe alive, but hey, if she was wrong, no harm done.

Satisfied with her work, she continued off to fix the door.

...

There was more of the brownish red stains in this room, this time around the remains of a Bron toy. Narrowing her eyes, she took out her blacklight, and it lit up like a Christmas tree. There was a fair chance it was some kind of biological material, but blood wasn't the only thing that lit up under UV light; it could just as easily have been some kind of dried detergent or something containing lemon juice, for all she knew. She snapped a photo with her disposable camera, and put a pin on that thought. Whatever it was, it probably did not belong in a plastic kids' toy. She figured she'd pick it up on her second sweep of the facility and see if one of her classmates in Forensics could do a swab test.

She moved on to investigating the rest of the room; it almost resembled a locker room, except they held circuit breakers instead of shoes. Off to the side, a well lit poster hanged. Sam snapped a photo of that too, chuckling at the one rule.

A fuzzy memory tickled the edge of her brain. She was small again, angry and defiant with adults who acted like they hated her because they probably did. She was a bit of a turd as a kid, so she didn't totally blame them.

She was hiding for some reason. Looking for a way out, she thought. But the only doors going forward were locked, and so, she waited to get caught. In her stubbornness, she refused to come out and go peacefully, but instead give the workers a good sweat looking for her.

A man passed by the door she hid behind, and seeing the opportunity, she jumped out with a shout. The bastard nearly leapt out of his skin, dropping the clipboard in his hand as he gasped and nearly fell. His assistant, some mousey young nerd, squeaked and tripped over her own feet.

"God-damn it, kid!" he yelled, hand on his chest, "You nearly gave me a freaking heart attack!"

She was too busy laughing at his beet red face to even notice getting hauled off by security.

Sam in the present chuckled at the warm memory. Was that Leith Pierre? She didn't know, it wasn't like she was an expert on the small army of faceless old men who bossed her around as a squirt.

The end of the room held more stains, and a strange message scratched onto the wall:

ISNT HE WONDERFUL?

She doubted that a bored, edgy film student could have made it this far. What in the hell was going on in here?

She snapped some more pictures, and went to work fixing the wiring. It took a good second to rip the door off the one conduit, and with great hesitance, she fired the blue hand at it. The wire lit up, and carefully, she maneuvered it to touch the three power nodes, the lights turning back on fully with the final connection. Retracting the hand, she sighed when she felt no current hit herself.

She stepped out, feeling a great sense of relief... until she saw the empty podium in the main hall.

[cliozaur]

Dear Inspector Javert served the justice system that was fundamentally wrong. Eugen Weber says that French peasants in the nineteenth and even in the early twentieth century feared and hated everything connected to “justice.” In different regions of France, they used a very similar formula of the evening prayer: “Deliver us from all evil and from justice”.

“When asked what was meant by justice, the peasant’s answer inevitably included some reference to “the cornered hats” or “the blue coats”: not just the gendarmes, but all those in their train, from the bailiff and the tax collector… to the lowliest forest guard and gamekeeper. All that had to do with “justice” was a cause for fear”.

[galadriel1010]

Jack and Phryne haven’t been married long before the inevitable happens and they’re working together on a case for the first time as man and wife. Wife and man, really, of course. Jack is more than relieved to realise that, as he’d always expected, it’s exactly like it was before their marriage, except that the conversation continues over breakfast. She’s still brilliant and infuriating, and they’re still perfectly in step.

The joy of it - it shouldn’t be a joy, really, a man is dead and his wife is missing, and Phryne is full speed ahead trying to find her while Jack deals with the statements and notes back at the station - is only dimmed slightly when Scanlon corners him, in front of two shifts, and asks why he’s letting her come along on cases still.

“Miss Fisher is an expert consultant who specialises in cases involving women and children. We have a missing woman, therefore she is on the case.”

Scanlon snorts. “Shouldn’t she be at home making your dinner?”

“No,” Jack eyes him, puzzled. “We have a Cordon Bleu trained chef for that. Besides, I’ve eaten her cooking. It’s not bad,” he adds quickly, because it isn’t, “but she’s a better detective than cook. Have you got that warrant yet?”

“You’ve changed, Robbo.”

He smiles back. A more intelligent man than Scanlon would be backing away by now. “I’ve been married for less than a month to one of the wealthiest and by far the most brilliant and beautiful woman in Australia. You have at least another eleven months of me being pleased with myself.”

“Wealthy and brilliant. What did she see in you?”

The temperature in the room has been dropping steadily and Jack has made a mental note of the constables clever enough to edge for the doors, but at that comment he can’t help but laugh. “Mr Butler cooks, I eat, and between us we keep her quite happy.” There is a lone snort of laughter from the one constable who gets it. “Most women appreciate a man who treats them as a human being. You should try it some time.”

Scanlon goes purple in the face and turns to storm off, but Jack grabs his collar before he can leave. “I’d appreciate it, Inspector, if you would keep your thoughts to yourself. Whether in public or private,” he adds, because he doesn’t mind holding his own in front of their men and it’s not exactly hard against Scanlon, but he doesn’t want to have to. “And especially in front of Phryne.”

“Why? What will you do?”

Jack smiles, and something about his expression drains the colour from Scanlon’s face. “Hold her coat. Now get me that warrant.”

ETA: now on AO3

[myfairstarlight]

Morbid Fascinations

AO3 Link.

Rated: T

Length: 2.6k

Written for @dgswomenzine with spot arts by @/AlienadoArt on twitter.

Gen - implied susahao/ghoulstrade but the main focus is on Maria and Rei/Haori

CW: Death, graphic descriptions of injuries

Summary:

When her first visit to London turns into a murder mystery, Rei finds herself under Dr Gorey's apprenticeship, at least for the duration of this case. As the two women, who seem such polar opposites, meet in a gloomy office with a decaying corpse on the side, quite an unlikely and stimulating friendship starts to bloom.

*additional notes on ao3.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

In the dim light of Dr Gorey’s office, Rei has to squint her eyes to be able to read the report Inspector Lestrade had handed to her. It is a far cry from the setting she is used to working in, Professor Mikotoba’s lab is spacier and allows for more light to come through. There is no window here, just an artificial light that hits the unsettling dolls decorating the upper shelves in a ghostly manner. Professor Mikotoba also likes to put on some music while he works but the only things filling the silence right now are the ticking of the clock behind Rei and Dr Gorey sharpening her knives.

Lowering the paper on the table before her, Rei sighs discreetly as she spares a glance at her new lab partner. Dr Gorey is already wearing her mask, making her breathing sound much harsher against the layer of leather and sending shivers down Rei’s spine. If she didn’t know any better, she would think she is the one about to be dissected and not the gradually rotting corpse laying a couple of feet away and frankly? It is an option she still fears from the stories she has heard from Susato and Naruhodo-san about the young coroner, actually.

“This is a peculiar case, don’t you think?” Rei tries to open the conversation, only to get a grunt as a response as the other young woman continues to sharpen her knives. “Good talk.”

Right, back to reading it is, then. Rei straightens her back and tries to ignore the constant slashing sound to her right as she pulls her hair into a low ponytail and grabs the report once more.

She was there when the body was discovered, but it is always interesting to read the perspective of an objective party whose vision did not get clouded by surprise or fear.

See, Rei literally just set foot in London when chaos suddenly unleashed on the train station. Susato, who had jumped off the train before her, wasted no time and ran towards the commotion, prompting Kazuma-kun and Lord van Zieks, who were welcoming them, to run after her, and Rei, well, she was on unfamiliar ground and had no other choice but to follow them as well before she lost sight of them. Lord van Zieks took advantage of his status to make the crowd part in their wake and as they approached a train track, Rei’s breath got caught in her throat at the sight before her.

A bloodied body was left laying on the dusty tracks, right where a train just departed. More surprising was someone next to it, unconscious but very much breathing and alive, looking perfectly fine if it wasn’t for the knife coated in blood in his left hand, droplets forming a grimsly pattern on his wrist. Fresh. The murder had just happened, from what Rei could gather from her quick observation before Susato was suddenly grabbing her and pulling her away from the scene as Kazuma-kun and Lord van Zieks started shouting instructions to the frightened crowd. Scotland Yard arrived shortly after with Inspector Lestrade leading the charge. She introduced herself with a bright smile and confident reassuring words that would have made Rei swoon in other circumstances if she hadn’t been a bit preoccupied by the murder scene.

“Welcome to London! Not the most heartwarming welcome but y’know, that’s London for ya,” she said in her thick accent.

Rei just nervously chuckled.

There’s something to be said about how eventful her first few hours in London have been, though. What was supposed to be a simple visit turned into a full investigation with Susato, now a certified defence lawyer of her own merit, taking the stand to defend the suspect — the unconscious man next to the body they have yet to identify — with her brother on the prosecution side. Rei, on her part, isn’t a licensed doctor just yet, but she was hoping this visit in London would allow her to learn a bit more about British practice and help her in her studies so she requested to be allowed to assist. She was quite surprised when the coroner in charge of the autopsy was barely two years older than her.

SHLANK!

Rei startles out of her seat at the sudden sound so close to her ear.

“Do you mind?!” she shouts from the floor, flustered more than actually scared. The only answer she gets is a mix between a snort and huff — quite hard to tell without being able to see Dr Gorey’s face or without being able to hear her properly.

“You looked distracted,” Dr Gorey says eventually, pulling off the mask and Rei has the sneaking suspicion it is so she can clearly see the coroner lift her left eyebrow in judgement at her. “Got work to do.”

“You read the report already?” Rei asks as she stands up again. She’s actually a tiny bit taller than the coroner when she stands at her full height and Rei gets a glimpse of Dr Gorey’s pout upon having the same realisation before she hides her expression away again behind her mask.

“Don’t need to, all I need to know is inside that body.” A pause as she tilts her head. “Why are you reading it? You were there.”

“Susato tried to protect me and hide the scene from me so I figured Inspector Lestrade may have written details I didn’t catch.”

“Huh. You’ve never seen a dead body before? I don’t need you fainting on me here.”

“Oh no, I have! Susato just forgot at that moment.”

“Mm.”

Silence takes over the room once more as Dr Gorey spins one thin cutter between her fingers. Back to business it is then. Rei takes a deep breath and reaches for her own mask, although with a much simpler design than Dr Gorey’s. She carefully covers her nose and mouth with it then tightens the knot behind her head. Just as she is done, Dr Gorey turns on the lamp above the examination table, making the already paling corpse look even whiter.

Which is… odd, actually.

“The body’s been dead for a while,” Rei finds herself saying before she could stop it. “Kept wondering why I could smell the decay… That isn’t supposed to happen until at the very least thirty-six hours after death. We discovered the body only a few hours ago— all these knife cuts, they were made post-mortem, see? The blood is already coagulated, dark and bloated, unlike the blood found on the knife and the suspect.”

Dr Gorey stops all her movements to stare at her in complete silence. Rei blinks and starts fidgeting. “Um. Sorry? You can go on, Dr Gorey.”

“No,” Dr Gorey’s soft voice answers. “I was expecting to teach you things but you’re already competent. I’d love to hear what else you’ve observed.”

Rei perks up then and rounds the examination table so she can point towards the cuts near the deceased’s heart.

“Burn marks,” she says, “the killer tried to clumsily hide them by stabbing the spot and then smearing fresh blood around it; however you can still see traces around the abdomen and around the wrists.”

Dr Gorey hums as she reaches forward and pulls the head of the victim to the side. “Burn marks around the skull as well, our poor puppet was tied up pretty strongly for it to leave such a trace after all this time.”

Rei makes a face at the “puppet” comment, eyes unconsciously shifting towards the dolls on the upper shelves, their button eyes seeming to look down on them, judging.

“Can’t be the cause of death, however, but we can assume he’s been dead for at least a good week,” Dr Gorey continues. “Anything else you can observe before we open him up?”

Rei hums, brow furrowing in concentration. “Well—”

As she launches into another observation about the man’s irises and blue-tinted lips that may indicate suffocation, Maria stares. It is unbecoming of her, she is aware it is rather impolite but she’s never been good at holding back her blatant interest when she is met with someone with a mind and competence so similar to hers — hence the mask, at least hidden behind the leather her staring is not as noticeable and doesn’t unsettle the subject of her current admiration.

Rei Membami is not quite what she expected. Over the years since The Professor’s case was unravelled, Maria thinks she has gotten better at socialising; it would be safe to say she is friends with Gina and Kazuma since they work so often together now, and the latter has often spoken of the people he had waiting for him in Japan, one of whom happened to be the woman standing right before her. His dearly beloved sister’s best friend.

“Please don’t be too harsh on her? She can be quite shy with new people,” the sister had asked her earlier with the forlorn look of a worried lover.

Maria had sighed. “Fine, I will not try to dissect her.”

Susato laughed, relieved and delighted, as if she had actually expected Maria to cut her friend to pieces, if not with knives, with words. “Good, thank you.”

Based on that brief discussion, Maria had expected to meet a quiet and reserved Japanese student who would not dare to speak up until prompted to. Rei Membami is anything but shy, so Maria supposes Susato’s perception is a bit skewed for reasons she doesn't care to learn.

“Dr Gorey?” The girl’s voice calling her snaps her out of her short reminiscence. Maria blinks back to the present, seeing Rei tilting her head in question.

“Why do you do that?” Maria finds herself asking, temporarily distracted.

“Do what?”

“Constantly call me Dr Gorey,” she explains, because it has been bothering her, just a tiny bit. “I’m your age, almost, it feels… odd.”

“I don’t see why it would be, you’ve earned that title!” Rei exclaims, smiling radiantly. Maria blinks once again at the sight of it. Far from shy and reserved, she thinks faintly. “And so young, it’s impressive, you should be proud! I’d demand that everyone never forget to call me Doctor if I were you, remind them of the power behind that title.”

Maria flushes. She’s been priding herself with her title, one has to in London as a young woman, but it's something else to hear someone else acknowledge it and praising her instead of berating her for being “too boastful for a woman of her standing”.

“That is true… however, between us, you can call me Maria, though, less of a mouthful… deal, Dr Membami?”

Rei flushes at the title suddenly applied to her. “Oh! But I’m not certified yet—”

“You should be, trust me.” Maria smiles then, lifting her mask up. She offers a hand and sees Rei’s eyes light up before she grabs it into a firm handshake and a small smile. “How come your friend is a certified lawyer but you’re still studying? From what I understand, women were not even permitted in a Japanese court unless they were a witness until very recently.”

“Ah. I got accused of murder.”

Oh, that would do.

“I also wasn’t officially a student at the time, just Professor Mikotoba’s assistant but then he left for a few months to be here. I got cleared of the charges, obviously, but being accused of murder does taint your image, especially when you want to specialise as a coroner and without Professor Mikotoba to vouch for me as a respected higher figure, I couldn’t apply to officially enrol at the University until much later. That didn’t stop me from trying but it only ended up delaying my enrollment because the administration was tired of me.” Rei chuckles, her pale cheeks gaining a healthy flush. “Here I am, though!”

“Impressive,” Maria praises. She tosses a cutter the other woman’s way and Rei catches it without even a flinch. Oh, Maria really likes her. “Well then, Dr Membami, we still have to find the cause of death in our case.”

“My bet is on drowning.”

Maria smiles. Probably not the most appropriate response to hearing someone might have drowned.

“You spotted the traces of salt clinging to his skin then, good,” Maria says. “Have you ever dissected a corpse before? A human one, of course.”

“No, unfortunately,” Rei admits. “I was hoping to watch an expert at work so I can learn, though.”

“Better, you’ll assist. There is no better lesson than practice, and the good thing about a dead corpse is that even if you mess up, it won’t feel anything.”

Rei makes a face even as she nods — alright, so morbid humour is not on the table. Nobody is perfect, Maria concedes.

And so, Maria instructs while Rei executes and sometimes, the other way around. Hours pass as they work effortlessly together, exchanging tools and idle conversations. Maria is having fun, the most fun she’s ever had since… well, since her mother was imprisoned. It turns out, she’s missed working in tandem with someone. Gina and Kazuma are fine co-workers but they do have other things to do than keep Maria company in her gloomy little office as she works on dead bodies and writes her reports.

They both startle as knocks resonate, followed by a familiar thick accent yelling, “Oi! ‘S it safe to go in?” followed by a much gentler and softer voice saying, “We really need the autopsy report, sorry to interrupt!”

Maria and Rei share a look.

“Did you… note down anything?” Maria asks, already knowing the answer.

Rei presents her gloved hands, smeared with dark dried blood, and shrugs. Maria finds herself chuckling and her new friend joins her in this odd moment of glee.

That is how Gina and Susato find them a couple minutes later as they push through the door when no answer is given to them. The two coroners continue to laugh along, scrambling to remove their gloves so they can grab some paper and a pen while Gina and Susato look on, a shared puzzled look in their eyes.

“Well, I did tell ya Maria wouldn’t murder your girl, didn’t I?” Gina says eventually.

“I did not actually think she would,” Susato huffs, elbowing the inspector. “But I suppose yes, that is a relief to see them getting on so well. Too well even, I do need that autopsy report now, my investigation is going nowhere…”

Gina nudges her back. “Don’t ya worry. ‘S teamwork, yeah?”

“You’re Kazuma-sama’s partner.”

The blonde playfully puts a finger in front of her lips as she smiles. “Tsk, he doesn’t need to know! I like ya better anyway.”

Susato indulges a smile just as Rei jumps in, handing them both a copy of the autopsy report, both written in her surprisingly neat handwriting considering how fast these reports had to be written. Then, Maria whistles which makes Gina immediately turn to her and follow her as both women settle around the coroner’s desk and start talking.

Susato leans against the wall while Rei squeezes right into her personal space.

“Alright, so this report is really just the basics, estimated time of death, injuries and cause of death, so you and Inspector Lestrade can continue investigating for the day, but Dr Gorey and I will write a more thorough report for tomorrow’s trial,” Rei starts to explain. “But I can tell you everything later today when we meet up for dinner.”

Some of Susato’s anxiety eases. “Perfect. I assume you and Dr Gorey worked well together?”

“And I cannot wait to work together again!” Rei gushes with that signature brilliant smile of hers. “Not that I wish for more murders—”

Susato only chuckles and looks back towards Maria and Gina just as Gina seems to make a joke, prompting Maria to flick her forehead so the inspector doesn’t see the smile threatening to bloom on the coroner’s lips.

It is teamwork, indeed, and what a team.

[sachingja]

carriage ( dojin and hogae )

carriage. hogae locks dojin in with him in their train compartment.

it must be morbid fascination. that is the only reason why dojin has not yet pulled open the window of the train car and tried to find his way out of this tin-can and into the safety of the fresh, cool night-air. or, it might be self perseverance. outside, thick, gray clouds have hung low in the sky for the entirety of the day, tinging their surroundings in as little light as possible, nothing but the cold clinging to the edges of their fingertips, stealing beneath the many layers of dojin's heavy, woolen travel-coat. it is hand-woven, a family hand-me-down his father owned before him and that has been passed down when he died so many years ago, dojin can hardly remember his face anymore. it doesn't sting — these things rarely do, at least where it concerns him with his disregard for close, familial ties and anything else of that sort ( unless, of course, one were to inquire about his dearest sister ) — but it sometimes leaves him somewhat on edge, a little too intertwined with the ghosts of his past. that same, eerie sensation comes to haunt him now, in the confines of this train compartment that is supposed to take them from the edges of the continent towards the borders of the west. it should be a journey of days and weeks, and dojin does not like the idea one bit, but there is company, at least. company that, currently, is standing with his back to dojin, peering out into the barely-lit hallway lying beyond the separative screen and the door.

this compartment is far nice than anything dojin could ever afford, apparently sponsored by hogae's father, a politician or a wealthy business man, or a man of law ; someone rich enough to afford moderate first class train cars for his son and his son's companion, nothing but a mere combat doctor with nothing much to his name. the fixtures are all beautiful, hand-made no doubts, just like his coat, but not for the sake of protecting anyone or anything, it is merely a display of wealth. and that is what has led them here, hasn't it? hogae has had a hunch, has heard whispers in the dining wagon when dojin had been too concerned with the quality of meat served, and now they are locked into the train compartment for however long this is gonna last.

" you have to be kidding me, inspector jin, " dojin says warily, falling back into his seat and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. hogae, who is nothing but long legs and long limbs, seems undeterred, and all dojin can do is watch him inspect every nook and cranny of the little space they have, check the hallway again, before he joins dojin, one of his knees knocking into dojin's thigh, he is that close. well, mostly due to the absurd length of all of him. " can we at least crack open a window? or i will die before we ever make it out of siberia. i will endure the frostbite, " he mutters, not amused by the detective's antics. hogae could have chosen literally any other time to follow one of those scraps he always seems to sink his teeth into. dojin met him like that, a gnarly, bleeding wound in his shoulder that he would sew up, a part of him forever stitched into hogae's skin. " this better be good. if this is one of your flukes again, and you are seeing things where there are none, i swear to god — "

[sandcobangevent]

London is a Series of Tubes

By @daemonbreath and @silvascribble

The evening had started off normal enough. 

Sherlock and John had just closed a tricky but very lucrative case, and John had insisted on a company outing to celebrate. Mariana had found a local theatre company that was doing Shakespeare’s 12th Night and managed to get them all tickets. Sherlock was surprisingly interested in Shakespeare and seemed very excited to see the play. 

If they wanted to make it to the theatre in time for curtain call, they had to do a bit of scrambling to get ready. Right as John and Mariana were about to leave 221, Sherlock had remembered a sensitive experiment that needed tending to. He had told John and Mariana to go on without him, and that he’d meet them in the lobby. Not wanting to be late, Mariana had agreed and she and John caught a cab to the theatre.

That had been over an hour ago.

Mariana and John had arrived in time to get snacks and drinks, then waited in the lobby for Sherlock. No sign of him. Then the show started, and they found their seats. Still no detective. John tried to focus on the show, but his mind wandered. Did the experiment really take that long to attend to? Did Sherlock decide to walk to the theatre? Or… Or did he lie when he said he was interested in the show? Part of John’s brain latched onto that idea, but if John had learned anything from working with Sherlock, it was that he shouldn’t guess or jump to conclusions. 

“I’m gonna text him,” John whispered to Mariana, who nodded, and he quietly got up and left the theatre. Once in the hall, John took his phone out and called Sherlock’s.

Ring…

Ring…

Ring…

Ring…

“Sherlock Holmes. I’m not available right now. If you have a case, tell me everything important. If you don’t have a case, I probably don’t care.”

John sighed and ended the call. He tried a couple more times, but Sherlock still didn’t answer. John was starting to get worried— even if he was up to his eyeballs in a project, Sherlock would have answered his phone, even if it was just to make it stop ringing. He went to put his phone away, but it buzzed with a text. 

[UNKNOWN] Come and find him.

[UNKNOWN] untitled.img

[UNKNOWN] untitled1.img

The pictures almost made John drop his phone. The first one was of Sherlock, bloodied and bruised, knocked out and tied to a chair. It seemed to have been taken in an tube station, but John couldn’t tell which one. There were no visible signs, and the tiles were caked with dirt and grime. The second picture was more confusing. It was a top-down view of two train cars connected by dark purple yarn, with the latter end of the yarn angled down. That was not good.

John hurried back into the theatre, and leaned down to whisper, “we need to leave.” into Mariana’s ear.

“What? Why?” Mariana asked.

“Now, Mariana,” John begged. “Please.”

Mariana sighed but relented, gathering her coat and purse before following John out of the theatre. John handed his phone to Mariana so she could see the messages, and she gasped.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, eyes wide. “How did this happen? He’s usually so careful…”

“No idea,” John said, taking his phone back. He dialed 999 and tapped his foot as he waited for someone to pick up.

“999, how can I h—”

“Hi, yeah, could you put me through to Detective Inspector Lestrade?” John asked. “It’s about Sherlock Holmes.”

The 999 operator sighed but agreed, and John was put on hold for a moment. 

“DI Lestrade, ‘ow can I ‘elp?” Lestrade said after the call connected, her Yorkshire accent thick as ever.

“It’s Dr. Watson,” John replied. “Sherlock’s been kidnapped.”

A police car arrived not long after John hung up, Lestrade herself stepping out. John stepped forwards with his hand out, and she shook it.

“Good to meet you, Lestrade,” John said. “Sherlock’s had good things to say about you.”

“Same to you, Dr. Watson,” Lestrade said.

“Call me John, please.”

“Georgia, then,” she said, smiling tightly.  “So, show me these texts you got.”

John took out his phone then unlocked it and passed it over to Georgia. She looked at both pictures, then handed it back.

“Any ideas?”

“W-what?” John stared at Georgia. “You’re asking me what to do?”

“Well, yeah.” Georgia shrugged. “Ye work with Holmes a lot, yeah? Y’must have learned some stuff from watchin’ him run around and solve crimes.”

Fuck. Okay. John took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to stay calm. What would Sherlock do if he were here? First thing’s first— consider everything that might be a clue. Sherlock said he’d be taking the tube to the theatre, so it’s likely he was picked up from Baker Street station. Whoever kidnapped him was ready with a clue and a picture of Sherlock, which meant the kidnapper didn’t plan on just killing Sherlock outright— they wanted something. 

The picture he’d been sent definitely showed Sherlock in a tube station, just one that looked old and disused. Most likely an abandoned one. If John could figure out which station it was, they could rescue Sherlock.

“Okay,” John said, sounding a lot more calm than he felt, “I’m gonna need a map of the London Underground, including stations that aren’t in service anymore. Sherlock’s being held in a tube station, so he was probably taken from one.”

“Any thoughts as to which station?” Georgia asked, jotting down everything John said.

“Baker Street,” John replied. “He was gonna come here from that station.”

“Right. I’ll see if I can pull any CCTV footage to try an’ fin ‘im. D'you two need a right to yer flat?”

“No, but thank you for the offer,” Mariana said, smiling at Georgia. She nodded back at them, then got in her car and drove off. John took a deep breath, turning to Mariana.

“Right then. Let’s save Sherlock Holmes.”

[ohbeyewise]

Two Sociopaths of High Intelligence

People- when I heard Feyd-Rautha described as a sociopath of high intelligence, I was reminded of my favorite high functioning sociopath and a version of reality when these two cold-eyed men met came into being.

Don't ask me how- it's not important. Probably the Doctor since Sherlock is taking me back to 2014.

I thought it would be really interesting to explore a little bit of a world where Sherlock spent a few of his formative years on Ghedi Prime as a companion/servant of the young Na-Baron. In such a dynamic Sherlock would be a very intelligent but sensitive soul compared to his peers and that would explain his impatience and threshold for violence back in London.

Sherlock exposed to the spice or with Mentat training? Too powerful a combination! It puts his drug addiction in a whole new light.

Though familiar with both the Dune and Sherlock Fandoms, this is making no effort to follow cannon. (clearly) and is entirely unbeta'd.

Also, because it's so popular I have included the assumption that this Feyd has married an Atraides wife and is wildly devoted to her and his children. Please enjoy!

“Sherlock! We need you at the yard!”

Sherlock had no patience for Sally Donovan on any given day, but this time there was a catch in her voice that stood out to him. She was unnerved. She had practically flew up the stairs to the flat in her effort to get to him quickly. This was the first time she hadn’t hesitated at his doorstep. There were only a few things that could unnerve Sally, as irritating as she was, and of those things there were even fewer that would result in him being asked to come to the police station. 

“Is it interesting?” He asked languidly, waiting for her fear to confirm his suspicions. She huffed. As always, irritated by Sherlock's blaise attitude. He was always feeling the exact wrong thing. 

“Someone’s asking for you, a bald freak. He says you know him.” 

Sherlock hummed. Feigning disinterest even as he glanced around to determine where John was. At work judging by the coat rack. 

“Well who is he?” He demanded impatiently after waiting for a moment for Sergeant Donovan to elaborate. Bald would always put him in mind of Ghedi Prime, where he had spent a few years working for the Baron’s family but that was hardly a help to him here in London. How many times did he have to say he was a detective and not a mind reader?

“We don’t know!” She barked back, her unease coming through once more as she shifted in place. “Now are you coming or not?” 

“I’ll follow in a cab.” Sherlock eventually agreed with another roll of his eyes. Her fear wouldn’t be out of place if there was a Harkonnen ambassador waiting for him at the police station. Idly, Sherlock wondered what he would do if there was such a person. In some ways it would be a relief to return to the life he’d once had. The intrigue, the whispers, the plans within plans and plots within plots… he'd never been bored. Only Moriarty had ever been able to scratch the itch that his former life had left in him. 

The yard was unusually silent while they all waited anxiously for Sherlock to arrive. Sergeant Donovan had texted Inspector Lestrade that she had collected him and was on her way back only a few minutes ago, but each moment dragged dangerously on. 

The. . . guests, Lestrade supposed he could call them waited patiently, completely still. Apparently unbothered by the surrounding police officers. 

If their stillness wasn’t strange enough Lestrade was put off by the way they looked. Rarely had he been faced with such a …. monochromatic group of people. 

They all looked alarmingly similar; pale, hairless, and dressed in layers of black. 

Lestrade would have pegged them for some kind of new age high fashion group of some kind, the sort of people who had come into the world with money and had run out of ideas about how to use it but that didn’t quite suit them. They were too, well… militaristic for lack of a better word. 

The whole group of them, five altogether had filed into the station, nearly an hour ago. 

They walked with a sharpness and regularity that took years of practice and had filed off the street and up the stairs and the the doors with a smooth, almost water-like steps. There had been no hesitation. No pausing to read the signs about where to que, they marched right to the front desk, and asked for Sherlock Holmes. 

Lestrade had been called down from his office by the very flustered secretary because a group of scary men looking for Sherlock was unfortunately his division. He had guided the group into an empty conference room, deciding against putting them under arrest and in an interrogation room until he actually learned something. 

However, despite his best efforts, Sherlock’s name was the only thing he was able to get out of them. He wasn’t convinced, after fifteen minutes of fruitless questions that they even spoke English. The one who spoke, one of the shorter men stood out from the others because of a strange rectangular black tattoo over his lip bottom lip and down his chin.

“Come off it, why do you want to see Sherlock?” He asked again, exasperated by the silence he was being met with. 

“Sherlock Holmes.” The man said again, his pronunciation careful and deliberate, like he was reading a cue card. 

His voice had a smooth, silibus quality that stretched the S in Sherlock’s name just a touch farther then they should have been, and snapped down on the K with unusual force. It made Lestrade wonder if their native language, as he was getting to be more and more convinced that they had, was mostly made of harsh sounds, deep in the throat. 

Lestrade had asked, begged and demand they give him some more information, to no avail. He hadn’t convinced any of the others to speak. Most didn’t even look him in the eye, instead fixating their gazes just past him. 

He had forensics looking through surveillance footage, to see if they could get anything they could use to identify them, but so far nothing. 

It was ridiculous, big conspicuous group like this? They should have left a trial a mile wide behind them. 

“It’s got to be some kind of elaborate prank. It’s the only explanation.” Anderson said, glaring out at the group from behind the glass door. Lestrade had taken a break, he was sick of meeting their cold staring eyes and knew he needed to take a step back. 

“Well if it is, I don’t get the punchline.” Lestrade said watching them through the conference room window from his place beside Anderson, holding his mug of long cold coffee tightly. 

“It’s got to be something the freak’s set up. Bunch of freaks come in here looking for another freak? They know each other somehow. He’s pulling one over on us.” Anderson scoffed as he spoke, if he was a less nosey man he might even have left it alone and walked away. 

“Well I hope he does. Maybe then he can explain what they want and why they felt like they had to come to the police station to get it.” 

The longer Lestrade watched them the more he thought he had pegged the leader. It wasn’t the spokesman. He was sure. 

Instead, he thought it was a man in the middle, flanked on all sides with his back to the wall. There was something about the way that the others surrounded him, each with their backs to him, creating nearly a kind of staggered circle around him. 

He was slightly taller than average, and slighter of figure than the bulkier men who stood around him, but there was something about the way he watched the room. Almost… predatory. Lestrade felt silly even thinking it but the longer he stood in the man's presence, the truer it seemed to be. 

Unlike the others, he made no effort to avoid eye contact, instead almost forcing it, looking intently at Lestrade when he spoke.

There was a hint of a smile on his face, but it was far from a friendly expression, instead dangerous and – Lestrade was uncomfortable just drawing the comparison- just like Sherlock’s most cheshire grins. There was something about the cold expression in the eyes that kept Lestrade from looking at them too long. They were almost. . . snake like. 

Even holding still with his hands clasped in front of him the man radiated an animal intensity that Lestrade could feel from across the room. 

Finally giving in to the silence, Lestrade poked his head back inside, making eye contact with the yet unnamed man. “He’s on his way.”

There was a flicker of something, too fast for Lestrade to catch it across the man’s face but the hair on the back of Lestrade’s neck stood up and started trying to pull him away. Not for the first time, Lestrade hoped he wasn’t putting Sherlock in danger by having him come over here. 

Donavan must have had her lights on because she slammed the door open in record time. The banging of the door against the wall was loud against the stillness that the strange man’s cold eyes had brought and made Lestrade jump his heart pounding after such a long tense silence. 

Sherlock swished in after Donavan, his coat flowing behind him and his usual sneer of indifference on his face. It shuddered away as soon as he caught sight of who was waiting for him in the conference room. 

Sherlock came to an abrupt halt, almost rearing backwards in surprise. 

Lestrade strained forward to try and make out Sherlocks expression, his hand on his gun just in case but to his surprise there was an almost… warmth to his expression. 

A… fondness that Lestrade had only ever seen directed at John or, on occasion, Mrs. Hudson. It was gone as soon as Lestrade registered it, hidden behind a careful professionalism as Sherlock stepped to the side away from Donovan into the room and to Lestrade’s everlasting shock - dipped into a deep sincere bow, nothing like the mocking ones Lestrade had seen from the man on occasion. 

Lestrade struggled to follow Sherlock, the room was getting tight with all seven of them, and despite his slight stature Sherlock couldn’t help but take up the space of two men. 

“Na-Baron.” Sherlock’s voice held a careful reverence and respect that Lestrade had never heard from him before. He couldn’t help himself from taking another look to make sure it was Sherlock who was speaking. 

The man that Lestrade had picked out, the one with the snake eyes and dangerous, sharp expression stepped forward away from his compatriots. The way he moved was just as smooth as his stare. He held himself with the ease of a man who was used to being obeyed. There was no hesitation, impatience or uncertainty in his movements, or expression. Lestrade knew instinctively that the man, the “Na-Barron” As Sherlock had identified him was a trained fighter, as capable of a burst of deadly speed as the snake he so resembled. 

Even his few steps forward were economical, there was no movement wasted, no glance without a purpose. Lestrade didn’t know if he had ever seen a man with a more sure hold on the ground beneath his feet. 

“William.” Lestrade would have been caught off guard by the address, but he was too busy being surprised at the sound of the Na-Barons voice. 

It wasn’t what Lestrade was expecting. It was a dark, raspy sound, almost sensual in how it slipped out of his mouth. The strange accent that his companion had spoken with was almost entirely absent, but there was a harshness to his voice that Lestrade normally associated with smokers.

“It’s Baron, now.” It was said softly, Lestrade would have called if casually except for the danger that was so clearly present. 

Sherlock stood back up, his motion smooth and practiced. As if he’d made that bow a hundred times. 

“My apologies my lord, and my condolences.” 

The Baron’s chilling smirk, widened to something more like a grin and Lestrade was appalled to see that the man’s teeth were black. Not the black of decay but a glossy, prepared black. One that contracted with his almost colorless skin and added a terrible otherworldliness to his expression. 

“Yes. My Uncle's death was unexpected.” 

There was nothing close to remorse in the words. The moment he said them Lestrade felt sure that this man had killed his uncle. There was something so insidious, so deliberately casual in their delivery, it put all of his teeth on edge. 

Lestrade watched Sherlock closely, waiting for a clue of some kind as to what kind of man this so-called Baron was. 

Sherlocks expression was unreadable, he was looking over the Baron carefully, using his skills to draw conclusions from the Baron’s appearance that was beyond Lestrade’s ability. 

“You’ve come a long way from Ghedi Prime my Lord. Is it to do with your Uncles unfortunate passing?” 

The dreadful dark grin on the Baron’s face continued as he chastised. 

“It was unexpected. Not a mystery.” 

Sherlock hesitated, even as he bowed his head in acceptance of the clarification, watching the man closely, from beneath his curls and Lestrade wondered if he dared to interrupt. There was clearly more they were saying to each other then he was able to discern. 

The Baron stepped forward again, coming closer to Sherlock with a clean, hunters gait, his arms loose at his sides, ready to strike.

He stood right in front of Sherlock, in his personal space, meeting his eyes directly. 

“No. There is something else I need you for. Something… more important.” His voice was quiet. Deliberate. If there had been any other noise in the station Lestrade wouldn’t have been able to pick out the low, intimate rasp. 

Lestrade took a step forward, hands on his hips, ready to interpret but stopped at Sherlocks extending hand holding him back. 

He frowned but waited, trusting Sherlock for now. 

“And what service can I offer the great Barron Feyd-Rautha?” Sherlock’s voice was low, subservient and flattering, without a hint of mockery. 

Lestrade cringed to hear it, and he knew without looking that his crew was doing the same from where they were pressed against the doors and walls to listen. It was unnatural to see Sherlock of all people trying to be ingratiating. Worse to see it be successful. 

“You,” the man, Feyd-Rautha Lestrade supposed was his name, took a step around Sherlock, starting to circle him. Sherlock turned his head to keep an eye on him but didn’t spin around, allowing the man at his back. 

Lestrade was forced to step away to stay clear of the Barrons stride, nearly out of the room entirely.

“Are going to help me find something. Or rather someone.” As he spoke the room seemed to get colder. Chilled by the ice in his raspy voice. Lestrade could feel the cold rage leaking off him. 

“Someone that belongs to me.” There was a darkness in that. Lestrade, trapped, watched as Sherlock carefully worked to learn his new task without waking the waiting bloodlust coursing through the Barons body, building a tension that would only break with blood. 

“One of of your’s my lord?” There was a deceptive casualness to his tone. 

How Sherlock remained calm when the Baron turned and hissed at him, black teeth flashing against pale skin Lestrade didn’t know.

“Things have changed since I last procured your services.” 

“Your ascendancy my lord.” 

“My progenitorship.” He rolled the word over his tongue, passing it gently, lovingly to Sherlock from where he stood, nearly pressed to the shorter mans back.

“You will help recover what has been taken from me.” Feyd-Rautha didn’t need to say or else, or promise suffering or even death to the perpetrators. The guarantee was in the air. 

Lestrade didn’t know if he was more afraid for whoever had dared to steal from this man or the person they had taken. 

Sherlock’s head tilted, and Lestrade didn’t have to see him to know what expression was on his face, like a hunting dog picking up an scent. The thick tense atmosphere did nothing to stop Sherlock coming alight at what was clearly an exciting challenge. The hunt, as he was apt to say, was on. 

Sherlock could feel the stakes mount over him. He turned to face his old companion, eyes bright with affront. 

“Someone has taken your heir?” The careful handling that had been in his every motion, every word was abruptly gone, instead replaced with something almost like awe, or that’s what Lestrade would have thought if he’d ever considered Sherlock capable of something as human as awe. 

His dropping of whatever strange role he had been taking before was met by Feyd-Rautha who once more snarled in a rage that was only just reigned in. Lestrade noticed that his men flinched at the sound. Each one watching Feyd with a care that spoke of long practice avoiding his wrath. 

“My youngest. I will have her back.” 

“Alright- that’s enough of that.” 

Sherlock, who had been tilted to face the “Baron” (which wasn’t making any sense to Lestrade, last he checked none of the lords of the land looked like Voldemort with a nose) Snapped his head up and faced him, his eyes alight with an expression that made Lestrade doubly uneasy. 

“Listen Sherlock- come here.” He would have reached out and tried to pull Sherlock back towards him, but the Baron's expression- he seemed entirely too pleased at the idea of Lestrade putting himself within his grasp- stopped him from finishing the action. 

“Come here.” Lestrade repeated with more force when it didn’t look like Sherlock was going to obey him. He wondered what he would do if Sherlock didn’t come. Did he dare to let them leave? Would he risk trying to make them stay? 

The Baron, seemed almost surprised when Sherlock decided to follow Lestrade command, but he did not stop him. 

Sherlock made an aborted kind of bow to the man and stepped past Lestrade, swiftly moving past him and leaving the conference room. 

Lestrade followed him out and shut the door. 

Sherlock spun and faced him, tension clear on his face. “Listen to me detective. It is vitally important that you and the yard stay away from this. Far away. Do you understand?”

Lestrade swore. “The hell I do. What’s going on? Who are these people?” 

Sherlock stepped froward till he was nose to nose with Lestrade, breath mixing between them. Lestrade leaned back in surprise. 

“I will explain as much as I can as soon as I can but right now you need to let me take Feyd-Rautha and-” 

“Feyd- what?” Lestrade interrupted only to be steamrolled by Sherlock.

“And leave right now.” There was a tension, a tightly controlled fear in Sherlock’s voice that Lestrade very uneasy.

“I-” Lestrade opened his mouth to protest but Sherlock, after glancing right over his shoulder continued 

“Greg. Please.” 

Lestrade almost fell over. Never before had Sherlock said his name correctly. 

“This is the only way.”

Lestrade hesitated, Sherlock’s carefully controlled fear working over him. 

“Okay. Alright.”

As soon as his consent was out of his mouth Sherlock opened the door swung out, his steps long and easily measured. Careful. The fear he had pleaded with was completely absent now, Lestrade wondered which Sherlock was a mask, the one who spoke to him, or the one who spoke to the Baron. 

“I am at your service Baron.” 

Lestrade watched, filled with trepidation as the Baron gestured for Sherlock to lead the way out of the station. 

“I knew you would be.” Lestrade resisted the duel urge to run after Sherlock, and to run away when the Baron looked over and grinned triumphantly with devil black teeth and a steady vipers eye. Instead he stood rooted to the spot as the consulting detective he had started to consider a friend guided who he felt was a trained killer out of the police station. When had it come to this? When had he started to trust Sherlock over his own instincts?

[queer-whatchamacallit]

I just rewatched 1x02 of The Bear, and took notes to get deeper into these fucked up silly guy’s heads, so here we go!!

Tw: workplace abuse, intentional emeto

The staff at EMP wear white tops, black pants, and a blue apron which Carm continued after his switch to The Beef

With both the “why?” bit and “Do you like working with fucking idiots?” “I’ll do better,” the only accepted response is that a mistake was made and it was their fault

“Do you like working with fucking idiots?” “I’ll do better.” “Say ‘yes Chef’” both serve to paint Carm as a fucking idiot and to show Chef as always deserving his respect

There’s a constant flip flop between absolutely tearing Carm to shreds and making him feel like dirt beneath Chef’s shoe for the problem that occurred and making sure he’s keeping work flowing at a rate and quality that’s acceptable to Chef (which it never will be)

I’m sure you’ve seen the “Chef saying ‘you should be dead’ was off screen so you can’t tell if it was actually Chef or if that was in Carmy’s head,” and I lean more toward the latter. I know it’s plausible (which is really fucked up), but I just like the narrative possibilities for Carm starting to hear Chef’s voice. It sounds different too. It’s whispered, but Chef had to be careful about who heard that one more than everything else, so idk

His eyes are kinda hazy through the whole thing, and when it’s over, he stalls for a second before blinking hard and brushing it off. He still sounds kind of off-kilter after though.

There’s a time skip I never noticed before where one moment, he’s desperately calling hands, and the next, they’re cleaning up after service. Maybe unintentional but maybe slipping in a little of that s1 unreality and showing that Carmy misses time sometimes

Marcus just loves messing with Richie, first his cologne and second “DeVry, we’re serious about success!!” and he’s so real for that

SYDNEY: [mocking laughter] <333

Carm doesn’t actually clean the floors with a toothbrush, he had a rag which feels… weird. His floor-cleaning toothbrush is such a staple in fics

He walks to and from work

On his coffee table, he has an ash tray, a mason jar of water, and some clutter I couldn’t make out

“YOU KILLED MICHAEL” on the order tickets is an interesting one. I’d probably tie this most easily to the train of thought that he wasn’t there, but he could have helped, and if he never left, Michael would still be alive. Maybe he thinks the pressure of having to deal with him as a kid contributed or that his success as a high end chef made Mike feel like shit by comparison, but idk, there’s a lot of ways you could go here

“That’s um… a lot of words.” We have a work day here and reading about managing his business is not fast and exciting and Carmy is a little blood-sniffing shark, if he stops moving, he’ll die. Fr kinda love him for this but am pissed at him for just shoving it back to Syd

“Is my hair on fire?” I had to look up a definition, but Carmy’s starting to wonder if he’s just totally fucked and if The Beef can make it out of this. It’s interesting to see him so unsure of whether he’s going to make it. “Not yet, no, but you need help,” just feels nice. It’s both sugar-coated and completely accurate

I love Ebra for just listening to T rant about how much she hates Syd, and later, he just fuckin rocks it when Syd calls orders out. Ebra’s one of my favs <33

Syd with her journal shows the first signs of her impatience and Richie interrupting her with the inspector I think finally flipped the switch of her just absolutely despising him

Them getting a C and seeing everyone go through the 5 stages of grief is so funny omg

Syd breaking up fights and stubborn idiot-proofing by getting the right caulk was so hot girl of her

“Fak, fix that fuckin sound.” I want to know what made the difference between this and the “I don’t mind it” alarm during the s2 Cicero meeting

“He’s a baby. Don’t get Carmen into trouble, y’know? I was a baby too once, Sydney. Nobody gave a fuck.” This is pretty self explanatory, but… yeah ouch

Carm’s willing to vent to Jimmy about work with the slightest encouragement. Might point to them having a closer relationship, or maybe Carm would vent about work to whoever will listen

“I asked you where you’ve been.” So he hasn’t seen Cicero or his mom since moving back, and I feel like him and Nat had at least texted or called before 1x01 but probably not seen each other, could be wrong on that though. So he just dove headfirst into the restaurant the second he got back to Chicago, and hasn’t even talked to the family he’s been self-isolating from for the past 5 years

I love Carm’s phone password being 11111

Edit: I’m watching this ep yet again, and the flowers on the table in the scene with Pete are the same from his cooking show dream in 1x08!!! Maybe tying in that he feels like his slow breakdown is being seen by everyone he knows, not just those connected just by cooking. Or maybe it’s connecting his conversation with Sugar to how he was also struggling especially hard at the time of the dream, but then, I feel like it would be in Sugar’s kitchen when they’re talking about it. Idk but I love this detail a lot

Sugar doesn’t seem to treat Pete super great :’(. She kinda pushes him away after he hands her the phone, and he instantly assumes that she’s telling him to shut the fuck up. She is the sibling trying hardest to change and be healthier, but she did indeed inherit that Berzatto temper and fast pace to the point of rudeness

Carm’s “Did you hear I apologized? :D” is so funny to me

Carm will vent to Sugar when something happens that’s more in the mental side of things. He wants to be casual about it, doesn’t want to think too hard into how deeply fucked he is, but he needed to talk to someone about almost setting his apartment on fire

Apparently he sleep cooks “sometimes,” and that wasn’t the only time

We know that the breathing difficulties started “sometime in New York maybe?” and I feel like crying out of nowhere is a little more recent, but the nightmares could’ve started at any time, or maybe he was saying New York for all 3, who knows

“I don’t want to bother you.” When considering who to tell what, he does consider his perceived burden on the other person

“I was throwing up every day before work… kinda dug it.” This quote has naturally festered in my brain for the past couple months because it says so much about him. He experiences stress nausea and maybe it became an intentional way of gaining control and consistency in an environment that fought so hard to make him feel faceless and powerless. It shows how far he is willing to go for this. He’ll do whatever it takes, including making himself vomit from anxiety. In his mind, it helps him become a better chef. Could also illustrate his likely connection between perfection and suffering. He kinda dug it. He felt like that self-destruction was necessary for him to excel. I could go on all day

He stayed there because “People loved the food. It felt good.” Here’s his stated motivation. His actual motivation is some messed up combination of that and lot of stuff he talks about in his Al-Anon speech: the excitement of being that good at something for once, just keeping going, hoping that one day, Mikey would acknowledge how good he was at it. People loving the food was confirmation that he was really fucking good at this. More than anything though, he wanted Mike to love the food

When the health inspector reveals that a pack of cigarettes was left by the stove, it doesn’t cross his mind that it was him. He was the CDC at EMP, he wouldn’t make a mistake like that, but he did, and now, this is just reinforcing how fucked everything’s gotten, especially himself. He’s just the type of person who leaves cigarettes by stovetops now

And yeah, that’s 1x02 - Hands all good and done!! Again, I don’t know how far I’ll get with these, but they’re very fun

Edit thanks to Pinterest scrolling: in Carm’s nightmare, the dates on the tickets are set before and after Mike’s death

[lesmiserablesabridged]

The Terrible Thenardiers: Nemesis

Madeleine: I just received word that a new inspector has arrived in town. I shall go to meet him.

Javert: I don't know why I was assigned to this small city, but I sure will try my best.

Fauchelevent: Inspector, that guy is evil! He struts about the city like he owns it! He ruined my business, which must mean he is evil! Please arrest him!

Javert: He is the mayor, meaning he is the government. The government is never wrong, blah blah blah.

Narrator: And you wonder why people dislike you.

Javert: That's beside the point. And who are you, anyway?

Fauchelevent: I am Armand Fauchelevent, the guy who would defy you and your law.

Javert: What was that?

Fauchelevent: Nothing. And now for a random fact that will not become relevant at all: I had a brother called Ultime who died when he was six years old.

Javert: You are giving me a headache. Now go away.

Fauchelevent: All right.

Narrator: So he leaves, for now.

Madeleine: Pleased to meet you, inspector. I hope we'll get along.

Javert: Everyone in this city is happy. I can't stand it. I never had a happy childhood, so why should they?

Enjolras: There are so many things wrong with that statement I can't even begin to list them.

Narrator: Pay no attention to him. Pay attention to me instead.

Young Javert: The trees are barren, the ground is black, the weather is cold, very cold, and I am walking through the fields with only a single coat. I wonder how I never got sick in my life...

Narrator: I am actually more interested how did you survive without stealing when you had no money at all? How did you get lucky to survive when many people didn't?

Javert: I will answer with some cliche like believing in the pie in the sky, but the truth is that a police officer took pity on me and trained me to follow in his footsteps.

Narrator: So why can't you take pity on those less fortunate than yourself?

Javert: Pity is for sissies. Those who are poor deserve it for being born poor!

Narrator: Right, teach him a lesson, boys. Just don't kill him, he is still needed for the story proper.

Prouvaire: Gladly!

Combeferre: You know what this means...

All: Puppy marathon!

Javert: NOOOOOO!

Narrator: And so Javert is dragged off by Les Amis for his punishment.