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oonajaeadira · 2 years ago

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Nadie Espera un Milagro (No One Expects a Miracle)

Fandom: Narcos / Javier Peña

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader

Reader: Sassy, confident, American ex-pat female who finds her parents a little tedious and enjoys both her independence and her job as a high-level admin at the DEA. No physical descriptions, no use of y/n.

Rating: T

Warnings: era-”appropriate” behavior of men towards women in the workplace (but a lot better than it was, Steve and Javi are actually pretty respectful). Overbearing and slightly infantilizing parents. Author doesn’t know anything about politics or law enforcement.

Summary: When your parents come to visit you at your job in Bogotá, you figure it’s just easier to paint a picture that will put them at ease. The idea is simple. The plan is flawed. The execution is just fluff.

A/N: Written for my Year of Tropes (part of @yearofcreation2023) Fake dating seemed like an easy trope for a busy month, which is why I chose it for February. (Whoops. Happy April!) With all of these tropes I like to challenge myself a little and I feel like the character choice alone for this one was challenge enough for me. Not only do I not know anything about politics and law enforcement, I haven’t written Javier much. And, of all the boys I do write, I feel like he’d be the least likely candidate to participate in and fall for fake dating, so I had to figure out how to make it believable for myself. Which is why there’s more plot than I intended and reader ended up with some backstory. This is season 2 Javi, obviously not canon, and maybe a bit too soft, so sue me for yearning. Yes, reader’s parents are cartoon versions of my own parents, why do you ask?

“Well hey there, sunshine,” a wisp of smoke accompanies Steve’s greeting as he leans back in his chair and crosses his long legs at the ankle to the side of his desk, leaning over momentarily to stub the cigarette out into a shared ashtray. “We don’t often get the pleasure of a visit–looks like you remember we exist.”

“Ha ha. I could say the same about you. Did you boys finally get your morals whipped into shape, or are you just over the thrill of making me break the law for you every other week?”

There’s a halt in the clack clack clack of Javier’s typewriter as he turns at the sound of your voice. Standing to reach across the desk, he scrubs out his own cigarette, makes a futile attempt to wave away the smoke, and watches you descend the stairs into their working arena. “Hey, Sully,” he smiles like a man not accustomed to it and rests his hands on the waistband of his ridiculously out-of-fashion jeans. “That’s a new dress.”

You flash him a grin and shake your head. “Stop. Don’t waste your flirting on me, Peña. You know I don’t need greasing.”

He only shifts his weight to one hip. There’s no response but a compliant tick of his jaw.

It’s second nature with Javier. He knows he’s good looking. Knows all he has to do is flash those puppy dogs and throw some attention, and ladies will give him anything he wants. You love it and hate it. Hate it because it’s insulting to be targeted for manipulation just because you’re a woman. But you love it because the man is Javier Peña and you’d be lying if you said those big brown eyes weren’t beautiful and you’re happy to have an excuse to have them pointed your way with warmth rather than the chill he reserves for the more bureaucratic workers. It’s a safe kind of crush, the kind you can play with as long as you never expect too much.

Javier’s been stopping by your office since before there was a Steve Murphy, buttering you up and asking for favors–access to a file here, a release stamp there–hell. You’ve expedited more requests on his behalf than all of the upper cabinet combined. And how many times have you distracted the clerk in tapes archives just so Javi could walk by and flash a request form without having it scrutinized for certification?

Every request starts the same, with his awkward little smile and an actual compliment. And every mission accomplished gains you a “Thanks, you’re a miracle worker.”

“Like Anne Sullivan?” you’d asked after the tenth or twentieth time.

“Huh?”

“Anne Sullivan. Hellen Keller’s teacher. The Miracle Worker.”

That caught him off guard. “Uh, yeah. Anne–?”

“Sullivan.”

“Right. I guess you’re an Anne Sullivan. I’d be lost in the dark without you.”

You’d allowed yourself to be charmed. “Careful there, Agent Peña, or you’re gonna make me rather fond of you.”

Nothing makes a grown man blush faster than to out-flirt the flirter. Not that it was hard with Javier. He was adorably miserable at it.

But it was always fun to watch him try…and to periodically beat him at his own game.

Once Steve landed in Colombia, you got two for the price of one. But Murphy knew you could see through his games and didn’t even try. It endeared you to him that he approached you sincerely. And you knew you could always do the same with him.

“As a matter of fact, it IS a new dress,” you chirp, twisting your shoulders one way and then the other, fluttering your lashes and fanning yourself with a hand in a mock display of coy preening. “My parents are flying in tonight and I’m taking them out to dinner.”

“I thought the trade conferences weren’t for a few days,” Steve frowns and shoots a concerned glance at his desk calendar.

“They’re not. But they’re coming through to spend some time with me and tour the city. Mixing business with pleasure. That’s…um…actually why I’m here. I need to cash in a favor.”

Javi chuckles as he settles back into his chair, throwing one heel and then the other onto the desktop. “Time to pay the piper. Name it.”

“Actually,” you cringe, turning to Steve, “I thought I’d ask Murphy here.”

Throwing a surprised but self-satisfied grin over at his partner, Steve puffs out his chest. “Well I guess I can be the hero for the day. Anything you need, sunshine.”

Thankfully Javi seems to feel the need to show he’s not offended and returns to his typewriter to peck out his report. Good. This is an embarrassing enough ask. You don’t really need witnesses to this.

“So, this is going to sound like a big deal but it’s really not. My relationship with my folks is just…complicated,” you assure him, priming the agent for the stupidest thing you’re ever going to ask for in your life. “It would make my and everyone’s life easier if I was seeing someone? Because then my mother wouldn’t bring it up and pressure me and irritate my father, and he wouldn’t worry about me here so much thinking I’m a woman all alone…it’s just…it’s…,” you sigh, irritated. “This is so dumb.”

Clackety clack clack ding whirr. You look up to see Steve gaping at you.

“Are you asking me to pose as your boyfriend?”

Silence. You’re sure if you turned to look over your shoulder, you’d see a frozen Javier, two fingers of each hand hanging above his typewriter like a little T-Rex.

Oh for a trapdoor or hand of god…. Suck it up. They owe you.

“Yup.”

“Uh….”

You expected this. “I’m not asking you to make a show or….they’re coming in tomorrow and I thought if you were here you could just meet them for a second. And if you’re not, I could just point to your desk–”

“Doll,” Steve releases a confused laugh, “I’m married, you know.”

“Yeah, but Connie’s not here. Like I said, they won’t delve. If I just point at a man, they’ll accept it and leave it alone.”

“So you’re going to lie to your parents.”

A confident nod is your first response. “Absolutely. And if you’d met them–when you meet them–you’ll understand why that’s best. Or you won’t. You really won’t get to talk to them long enough to find out. Just give a couple of handshakes, be nice and I’ll move them along. It’s that easy.”

Gritting his teeth, Steve gives a disbelieving shake of the head. “I dunno. I mean, the ruse won’t stand if they mention my name to anyone. Why me? Why not that new guy in the mail room who’s been watching you walk away?”

“Jimmy?” you scoff. “Yeah, no, not my type.”

“Really. Dark hair and pretty blue eyes and a six-pack he doesn’t mind showing off isn’t your type?”

“Wellllll, when you put it that way…sure he’s not your type?” Now it’s Javi’s turn to huff a silent laugh and you give him a conspiratorial smile before rounding back on Steve. “He’s dull, Murphy. My parents know me well enough that I’m not going to go for dull. So take that as a compliment. And he’s a bedpost-notcher. I don’t want to encourage that kind of behavior. I may be lacking in male companionship but I’m not that lonely. Yet.”

Your no-nonsense, shut-em-down tone quiets both of them and for a moment you think you’ve won. But his response makes it obvious you’re going to have to cash in all your chips.

“Still. There are enough single guys around here–”

“Because,” with one hand on the corner of his desk you lean in to conspire even though his partner is three feet away and can obviously hear you, “most of them are a bunch of lazy sit-abouts and you’re always out and busy. It not only paints a good picture, it’s the perfect excuse not to join us for dinner because my mother will do her best to insist. And,” you wheedle, lowering your voice further, “because you owe me.”

“I would counter that I owe you a lot more than he does.” Javi keeps his voice at a stage whisper in mockery of your own and shrugs as you and Steve swivel your gaze to him. “What.”

“Lying to the Assistant Trade Rep of the Western Hemisphere about intimate relations with his daughter sounds like a good time to you? You can have it.” Steve taps your shoulder before pointing at his partner. “He’s not hitched. Why not Javi?”

Rolling your eyes, you stall for time as you try to find a better answer than the truth, but when one doesn’t come, a sigh paves the way. “Because you dress more respectable than he does–”

“Hey.”

“--and my mother is judgy!,” your heartfelt insisting pushes through, doing your best to placate Javi–handsome Javi–who really does know how to keep the last decade’s fashion in fashion. “Javi, you’re lovely and you look good and I don’t want you to change. But my mother is going to take you for a ladies man, which you are, you know you are, and she’s going to pick apart your choices with wanton disapproval which is almost more unbearable for me than not being attached to anyone at all because then I’ll spend hours defending you for nothing–”

Steve and Javi finally break and their sudden laughter shuts you down. It’s all you can do not to give both of them the finger and a good ol’ fuck off.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Steve says through his trailing amusement, taking his turn now to placate. “Fine. We’ll make ourselves scarce and you can use the imprint of my ass in this chair as proof of warm-blooded human male. But maybe a false name, yeah? Like…Peter or…Harvey or something.”

“Harvey?” Javi scoffs. “How about Dick. Dick Bob Jones.”

“That sounds like a hillbilly name.”

“Yep.” ________

According to your mother, your apartment is “charming,” the streets of Bogotá are “interesting,” and the department headquarters are “surprisingly up to date.” In the car on the way to the office, you managed to dodge most of her questions about your personal life, dropping one-word answers before pointing out the window and explaining certain buildings or neighborhoods.

As promised, Agents Murphy and Peña are out in the field when you walk your parents past their desks on your way through to your own department. “Well,” you wave with half commitment at it and move on, “looks like he’s out doing his job and catching those bad guys. Too bad. Maybe next time.”

The crisis is momentarily averted, but while your father ducks into a nearby restroom, your mother can’t seem to let the matter pass.

“So what does he do then? He’s a cop?”

“I told you. He’s a DEA agent. He’s on the team trying to stop the drug trade from reaching the States. Have you heard of Pablo Escobar?”

She scoffs and looks past you. “Everybody has heard of Pablo Escobar, dear. That naughty man. Oh. Oh! Is that him?”

“Hmm? Escobar?” Following her gaze and turning to look back into the atrium, you’re gifted the sight of tight jeans stretching over a familiar backside and tanned arms yanking open drawers on Steve’s desk, obviously looking for something. “No, Mom, that’s just–”

But before you can correct her, she’s striding over in her Prada heels, ruffled blouse bouncing and pearls clicking, reaching forward into an eager handshake as she interrupts the very visibly hurried agent. “It’s so nice to meet you!” she chirps. “You must be Harvey!”

“Mother–!”

Javi stops digging, having found the warrant he was looking for, looking up in surprise at this forward, fussy, American woman, his lower lip hanging in a soft V, before taking her hand courteously and introducing himself, “Javi.”

“Oh, I knew I was right! The minute I saw you I knew you had to be her Harvey, you’re certainly her type.” Her hospitable countenance flickers only for a second as she takes in his tight shirt. “She says you’re quite the cop.”

“Mom, Javi’s a government agent and–” As you catch up to her, the momentary confusion on Javi’s face melts into understanding spiced with just a hint of amusement. “--and, as you can see, he’s in a hurry so–”

“It’s okay,” he beams, continuing to shake your mother’s hand. “I can take a minute to meet the woman who raised mi milagra.”

What.

Something in your brain hits the panic button and your mother chatters on to him as your backup generators whir into gear. He gives her his full attention, smiling as she babbles about how proud she and your father are of you and how nice it is that you’ve found someone to spend time with and…did he just say–

“We’ve got a lead on a collaborator and I was just ducking in to grab some paperwork,” he explains, waving the warrant in one hand. But his other hand– “What a lucky coincidence” –dips behind you– “that you happened to stop by,” –slides across your back– “because my girl here has told me so much about you,” –settles on your hip– “ma’am,” –and pulls you flush to his side.

It’s a smirk. A smirk that he has the brazen balls to grace you with then, and it’s hard to tell if he’s fucking with you or if he’s just really enjoying being your hero and sharing a joke that only the two of you know about.

And it’s equally hard to tell if you’re about to laugh or swear or….melt… he’s holding you so tightly and he smells like cigarettes and his surprisingly light cologne… his shirt is damp, your blouse is damp, it’s a humid day and you’re sticking together a bit and he wears such fitted clothes and one of his few buttons is strained enough to give you a peek at his smooth chest beneath…

“Well, if you have to go, Harvey, I don’t want to distract you from your work, but my husband is using the facilities and he’ll be sorry to have missed you. Will you be working all evening? Why don’t you come join us for dinner! You know how well my daughter cooks and she’s making her carbonara for us–”

“Mom–”

“Your carbonara?” Javi questions you before turning back to your mother and squeezing you tighter against himself, causing you to stumble closer. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

Her delight is evident. “Oh wonderful!”

“If you’ll excuse me though, my partner’s waiting. I’ll see you tonight, honeybunny.”

The world tingles a moment as a mustache and warm lips bush your temple and then you’re watching broad shoulders and slim hips swagger away from you and up the stairs.

Honey…bunny? Honeybun–

Fuck.

“Javi! Wait!” You hold up a hand as you pass your mother. “Stay here for a second, I have to…I forgot to tell him… uh…”

He stops at the top of the stairs, leaning in, anticipating your quiet brand of ire. “Your mom’s sweet.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“What. Seems to be going well, I mean, apparently, I am your type, so it all works out. I think that performance down there earned me a dinner. I fucking love a good carbonarra.” The glare you serve him loses its bite under his soft smile lacking in any sarcasm or hazing. This is the Javi you know, the conspirator that finds you working late at night and is grateful for your help in the file room or in the microfiche lab, the one that noticed yesterday that your dress was new. Doing you a favor. What else would you expect? “If you want, I’ll wear baggier pants.”

“No, just…” you sigh. “I should give you my address–”

There’s a thing he does with his smile, something that gets you every time, a little jaw tick that comes with a quick downward bounce of the eyes and a single shake of the head. “Don’t need it. I know.”

“Okay, but…. Wait. What?” You call after him as he trots toward the door.

“I’ll come hungry!” _____

“Sir,” Javi bobs his head in reverence as he meets your father’s handshake. It’s above and beyond your requests, as is the cleanup of the five-o-clock shadow, the change to his black button up shirt, and his showing up on time. And in true commitment to the bit, he didn’t even knock, just came in and found his way to the dining area like he spends most of his time in your apartment.

“Good to meet you, Javi.”

“Dear,” your mother chirps from her watchful eye at your shoulder by the stove, “it’s Harvey.” She doubts herself. “It is Harvey, isn’t it?”

Completely disregarding your mother’s interjection, your dad gestures to a spot across from him at your modest dining table set for four and offers him a packet. “Sit down, sit down, agent. Smoke?”

“Ah,” Javi falters, and when you turn your head to your shoulder, you catch him checking in with you out of the corner of your eye. “She…doesn’t let me light up in here.”

“No? Heh. Well. I don’t know how she does it but it’s always been her way or no way. I see she’s worked her magic on you.”

“That’s for sure.”

You can’t help but smile as you give the noodles another good swirl in the pot and set the spoon on the counter. That little display just earned him a treat. Pulling out two glasses from the cabinet, you give a generous pour of the whiskey you picked up on the way home especially for him and bring them over to the table without a word for the two men.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” hums your father.

Javi glances at the glass, then up at you and your cocked eyebrow that queries him don’t I get a ‘thank you sweetheart’ from you too?

But oh, he came to play.

Ignoring the glass and taking your hand, his thumb skips across your knuckles. “You need any help, hon?”

There’s a microsecond between you where laughter is very very possible. The game is on. So you up the stakes by pushing a little curl of black hair behind his ear before trailing your fingers down to pinch his chin. “No, baby. You just relax and enjoy yourself.”

The smallest flush of pink and flash of panic that you catch on him as you turn away (only because you’re looking for it) tells you that you’ve won this round.

Back at the stove, your mother’s taken over, having drained the noodles and now attempting to pour the sauce into the noodle pot rather than your tried-and-true method of bringing the pasta to the sauce pan.

“Mom! Could you not–”

You see it coming a second too late, the sauce hasn’t thickened properly and a good portion of it misses the pot and splashes onto her blouse.

There’s commotion, a shriek and an overreaction, and you reach for a towel to catch the sauce before it stains, but the towel is dirty with spills and bacon grease and you’re both trying to keep the sauce pot from toppling off the stove. “Just…hold still, Mom, here…let me get a clean towel–”

“I’m on it,” Javi jumps up, heading down the hallway.

Great. Here’s another thing splitting your attention from timing the sauce. “Javi??” you call, “The towels are–”

“I know! The cabinet behind the door!”

How did he….doesn’t matter. The woman who raised you is in need of someone to mother her at the moment and you’re doing your best to calm her down before she causes even more of a mess. In a matter of moments, your stand-in man is back with a hand towel and you join her at the sink to help her dab it off.

“Oh, well this is just dandy,” she whines. “Now I have to sit here in a wet blouse in nice company…”

“It’s fine, Mom. You can wear one of mine.”

“The pink one or the blue? She can change in the bedroom,” Javi gestures, offering to show the way. “Ma’am?”

“Uh…the…blue….” This time you don’t have time to veil your shocked and confused expression. If Javi truly notices it as your mom swans by him, he doesn’t let on.

The rest of the evening is uneventful and pleasant, your father and Javi carrying most of the conversation as the older man drills the agent on the particulars of the cartels and Escobar’s influence with his communities, how it’s affecting customs and trade, and what that means for the conference your father is here to attend in his duty to the Trade Rep.

After a couple of hours, he makes it known that it’s time to get back to the hotel, that he has an early morning as his boss is flying in.

“Already? Dear! You boys spent all this time talking shop and I have all kinds of questions for Haaavi.”

“Well, my bride, you’re just going to have to wait to satisfy your curiosity. I’m sure it will keep.”

“Are you free for dinner tomorrow night?” Javi asks just as you take a sip of water and try your best not to choke on it. “If you’d like to try some of the local specialties, I know a place not far from here. Sancocho to die for, made fresh every day.”

The fire in your eyes is shielded, soft, but directed straight at the side of his face, hot enough that he can surely see it from his periphery if not feel the flames. The corner of his mustache rises the smallest fraction of an inch.

“That sounds a real treat, son,” your father says, rising and crushing Javi’s shoulder in a squeeze. “Tomorrow night then.”

Javi joins you at the front window when they leave so you can wave them off, having the balls to wrap his arm around your shoulder as you do. Once their car pulls away into the night though, he retracts it and ambles back to the table, gathering up a few stray plates and taking them to the sink. “Well, that went well.”

When you don’t answer, he turns to find you with a level expression and your arms folded across your chest. “What was that?”

He has the audacity to look surprised. “What?”

“We are going to address tomorrow night in a minute, but I’d love for you to explain to me why you know the location and the layout of my apartment, Agent Peña.”

Now he catches up, nodding slowly and returning to you at the window. With one hand on a hip and the other pointing to the nearest streetcorner, he explains, “Did you see that car that pulled out of there after your parents? Security. I sat in a car in that exact spot for three weeks after you were appointed to the agency. Couple days while you were at work,” he waves a hand, gesturing to the apartment as a whole, “I spent quite a few hours in here on a deep scan for taps.”

Now it’s your turn to carry the surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Standard procedure for government employees to be shadowed for a probationary period, eliminates the suspicion of inside involvement. You got a deluxe security detail treatment on top of it because…well. Your…family’s connection to Washington.”

He’s kind enough to wait for you to process this. “Wait. You mean,” peering outside at the location he indicated, noting the straight-line view into your living room, “you watched me? For three weeks???”

He turns back in search of his glass. “You dance when you’re happy. You could stand to be happy more often.” Giving you the time it takes for him to pour another finger of whiskey to stew over this, to grind through the gears of your mind and work out if you might have done anything embarrassing under the gaze of the DEA, he finally assures you, “Don’t sweat it. You’re usually a stickler for keeping your curtains closed. It was about as uneventful as a watch is possible to be.”

“So this is what they pay their agents to do? Babysit a government employee’s daughter? That seems below your pay grade.”

He downs the drink and shrugs. “I was lower on the pole back then.”

“Not that low.” But then…. The jaw tick presents itself again. His lack of eye contact confirms a sudden suspicion. “My…father paid for it.”

His nod hangs silent and sorry between you.

Independence. That’s why you took this job. Something you thought you could do on your own without your father’s help, run away from America, go live abroad and work somewhere new, somewhere exotic. How naive to think–for three years now–that you’ve done all this on your own.

The embarrassment burns.

Javi slowly runs a finger over a plate, raising a dollop of sauce to his tongue. “This is good. You’re a hell of a cook, Sully.”

It’s meant to lift your spirits, make you feel accomplished at something in your life. It’s appreciated.

“Thanks. It’s not that complicated.” Moving past him into the kitchen, you pick up your tongs from the counter and quietly start heaping half of the leftover meal into a bowl. “What’s this place you’re taking us to tomorrow? You’ve seen what a holy terror my mom is about food.”

He comes to lean against the refrigerator. “Dos Rosas Cocina.”

“I know it. Good choice. Atmosphere’s… rustic, but the food’s amazing.” Tying the bowl up in a clean towel and placing it in his hands, you sigh, all the stupid, terrible tension you didn’t know you were holding this evening seeping its way out. “I can’t believe you’re electing to spend more time on this little act.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t remember thanking you, but thank you.”

“What’s this?”

“Leftovers. Lunch. Enjoy.”

“Thanks. I will.”

“You’d better.”

Later, after the dishes are done and the leftovers stowed, you curl up on the couch with the novel you’re battling your way through. But not a single page is turned. An hour goes by as you think through the interviews and steps you took to get this job, to land your working visa, to find this apartment in a nice part of town, how easy it had all seemed at the time, how accomplished you’d felt. And then there was that little look of realization and regret in Javi’s eye. That he knew. That he was the one that slipped and let you figure it out, that he never told you before. That nobody told you before. Had you come off as stupid in that moment? Innocent? Naive?

You need to confront your father about it. Probably not tomorrow, not in front of Javi. But soon.

Dammit.

You’re not getting any reading done so you turn off the light and head to bed.

Your pajamas are folded and the bed’s been meticulously remade.

Of course.

No wonder it took longer than it should have for your mother to change her blouse.

How is it you get to be a grown ass adult and your parents will never see you as anything but their little girl, even at this age?

________

“Soooooo, how’d you two meeeeet?”

Having arrived early at Dos Rosas Cocina, Javi already has a drink in him, so your mother’s question earns a contented smile. “Well–”

“At work, Mom. Obviously at work.”

It’s not a lie. It was at your desk. He needed something notarized and your new stamp hadn’t arrived yet so he wrote his direct extension on your desk pad, asked you to ring him when it did. You remember thinking that his eyes wandered too much but couldn’t be mad when you realized yours must have too if your first impression was that his pants were a good fit.

Later that night you’d come here, to the Cocina, charmed by its walls lined with picture frames full of the owner’s ancestors and descendants, how it seemed to be the center of time itself reaching backward in it’s colorful mountain-style decor and forward in its state of the art cashier’s computer and cd jukebox.

The owner had served your meal himself and sat down to chat with you, to practice his English, he said. It was a slow night and you had nowhere to be and he put you at ease right away.

“Dos Rosas,” he explained, “it means two roses. You see the sign? One red, one white. You know what it means?”

You shook your head and smiled, mouth full of some heavenly empanada.

“The red rose is for love. The white rose for friendship. Dos Rosas is a place my father made where he wanted guests to come with love and friendship.” And then he produced a single white rose, slipping it into the vase on the table. “For your luck. You are welcome here, friend. Someday you will bring someone who will share a red one with you, si?”

It had been a favorite place ever since.

Javier had been there that night too, now that you remember it. Sitting in the dim corner away from the basket lamps, nursing a beer and a plate of arepas, the curtain of his cigarette smoke nearly hiding him from view. Back then he was just the agent who needed some papers stamped and who just happened to be at the same restaurant that night.

Hindsight and new information reframes the nearly-forgotten memory now. Of course. He must have been tailing you then.

“I think,” Javi says as he drapes an arm across the back of your cane chair and leans in, “she understands where, milagra. But what she wants to know is that I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”

Your response comes with a sweet smile that hides a challenge. “I know. You watched me for three weeks straight.”

“And then some.” He doesn’t let your jab throw him off the act. “And then there were the times I had to get into the file room for nothing in particular, just a reason to come down and talk to her.” On the contrary, he hooks a foot around the leg of your chair and yanks it closer to his own, effectively throwing you against his chest. “She used to laugh at my flirting; made fun of me, thought I wasn’t serious.”

The clench of your stomach, the cold wave of your blood pressure dropping, every method your body has to signal and react to danger begins to take over as Javi keeps you locked from pulling away with one arm, hazy smile inches from your face, his heavy-lidded gaze dropping to your mouth.

A warm hand folds gently over one of your own, floating it upward, his fingertips guiding your palm until he ducks his head half an inch to meet your knuckles to his lips. Big brown eyes beg at you and that cold wave rebounds now as a hot tsunami.

And all you can do is stare, stare at this display of tenderness that seems so very unlike the Javier Peña you know. Gone is the indifferent agent, the shielded ego, the preference for solitary. As his kiss lingers on your hand just a second longer than necessary, you get a glimpse behind the curtain to the man beyond. For one moment you witness a vulnerability and care, a fleeting tease of what it must be like to have his perfect attention, his devotion. It’s literally breathtaking.

And then something in him stalls, shifts, as if he notices the same in you.

Is he going to kiss you? Should you kiss him? Right here in front of your mother? Why is he so warm? What is that amazing cologne? Is his shirt unbuttoned further than usual? Is that a cymbal roll in the music coming from the jukebox or is that your blood rushing in your ears? Does he always breathe this forcibly? How have you never noticed that little crease in his bottom lip or realized just how dark his eyes were?

Just as his tongue flicks forth to wet his lips, your father returns from the phone booth in the back.

“Well, false alarm. Seems the ambassador just had some bad fish, but it’s passing. Conference is still on.”

Oblivious to your predicament and drawing your mother’s attention, he’s happy to answer her questions regarding the type of fish and how long it was prepared, and she offers her wisdom to nobody in particular as to preventing such a thing as food poisoning. Neither of them notice as you slowly twist yourself out of Javi’s loosening clutches and both of them obviously assume your hasty retreat has more to do with wanting to powder your nose than calm your racing heart.

The restroom is one small room, looking like a much older sibling to the restaurant itself as if it had been built first and the rest of the building added later. You count fifteen cracks in the wall over the solitary, rust-stained toilet before a knock falls on the door, momentarily spiking your softening anxiety. It’s an old man’s voice enquiring in Spanish if you’d fallen in.

You’re far from convinced that you’re ready to face or deny whatever’s going on in your heart. But you wash your hands–one of them still stubbornly holding the tingle of Javi’s lips and mustache against it–surrender the room, and find your way back to the table where the man who is not your boyfriend leans forward on his elbows, spinning stories for your parents.

“But we’re zeroing in on him now. He’s made more than a few mistakes and we’ve just barely caught them by turning around at the right second. It’s only a matter of time.”

A smile pulls wide over your father’s face as he leans back in his chair. “That’s what I like to hear. Damn, son. I admire your tenacity. We’re lucky we have talented young men like you down here catching the bad guys.”

“And we’re also lucky to have you here looking after our daughter,” your mother helps.

“Thanks, Mom, I can take care of myself. I mean, that is,” To one side, you feel Javi’s focus tilt your way, “as long as Dad’s willing to pay for it, I guess.”

Silence blankets the table as the waiter sets down four bowls of sancocho, a plate of flatbread, a candle, and a red rose in a vase in front of you all before hastily retreating.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Staring at the rose and trying to sort out your thoughts, you’re not sure why you chose this moment to bring up the subject. Maybe your body is just in fight or flight mode and perhaps you’re diverting your fluster to this deep-seated frustration. Something is shaking the cage of your heart and wants out, wants to cause some damage–

–but Javi’s hand comes to a gentle rest on your knee, soothing whatever savage beast had awakened, somehow turning frustration and fear into calm strength instead.

“I know about the money, Dad. I appreciate the help, I really do. But it’s okay. You don’t have to pay anyone to babysit me and pull strings just to make my life easier here. I came to Colombia to challenge myself. I can’t do that if you’re sneaking in and slapping training wheels on me all the time.”

For a split second it looks as if he’s going to deny it, play dumb. Instead, he softens.

“Well, sweetheart, you’ll have to forgive me. Your mother and I can’t help but look out for you. It’s what we’ve done all your life. It’s a hard habit to break.”

The confirmation stings, but you can’t deny that you set yourself up for it. “Did you do the same for Kennie?”

“Your sister has a husband and a family. She doesn’t need us to look after her anymore.”

A frustration wells up inside, burning, humiliating, full of futility. It doesn’t matter what you accomplish, how many times you have to prove yourself, they’re just not going to change. They’re never going to overcome what their generation has held as truth all their lives, even past the recent wave of feminism and push for equality. They’ll never ever see you as complete unless there’s a man involved. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.

And perhaps that’s the conclusion that makes Javi’s actions feel like the only heroic course as he rubs a side hand over your back and explains, “Sir, you don’t have to worry about her. She’s capable. Thriving. She’s in no danger here. If there were any threat at all, she could hold her own. And even so, I’d do my best to make sure trouble never came near her.”

“Oh, Haaavi. You’re so good to her. She’s so lucky to have you.”

With a defensive flick of a hand, he continues. “It’s not luck, ma’am. And it’s not goodness. It’s simply part of my job. Even if she was nothing to me but another clerk that’s too smart and too bold for her position, I’m an agent first. As a U.S. citizen and employee of the DEA, I’m going to put her life before my own. With all due respect–and I’m sorry to be so blunt–but to doubt that she or any American isn’t safe here is an insult to Colombia, to me, and all government agents on a professional level.”

The hard drag of conviction in his tone. The realization on your parents’ faces. The understanding sinking in. The steadying warmth of his arm around you.

“But she doesn’t need me. She doesn’t need anyone. Most self-sufficient and confident woman I’ve ever known. I’m the lucky one; lucky she’s bored enough to keep me around. Must be for entertainment.”

Wow.

And all at once, you regret that you hadn’t taken the chance to kiss Agent Javier Peña. ________

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a ride back to her apartment, son? It’ll be faster.”

“Thank you, sir, but I’d like to walk her home.”

Javi takes your hand in his, waving at your parents with the other, and quietly pulls you away from the car window down the dark street toward your place.

Half a minute later he’s still silent. And still holding your hand.

It feels awkward not to let go. And yet rude to do so. So you find a middle ground and squeeze instead, “Thank you. For that. Back there. I hate that I have no power to convince them of my autonomy on my own, but I think they just needed to hear it from…”

Who? A man? A government employee? A “cop”? A workaholic who is cranky most of the time because he disregards his own health and safety and refuses to sleep in his never-ending quest to quash every last cokeslinger within a thousand-mile area?

His nod and squeeze in return says he knows. “You know it’s love, right?”

Your heart trips over his words. “What?”

“Your parents love you. Doesn’t matter how old you get. Doesn’t matter how far you run. Doesn’t matter how long the flight is and how repulsive they find the local guaro, they’re gonna love you.”

In the shared laughter that follows, your hands naturally part and you double over, remembering the look on your mother’s face after tasting the aniseed liquor Javi ordered for her.

“It was so beautiful!” you crow. “She tried so hard to smile and be polite…and the tears! You could almost see the fumes pushing out of her tear ducts!!!”

“It broke my heart to do it to her, but she insisted I order for her–!”

It’s not often you see Javi laugh and smile–really smile–with unrestrained joy. Playful smirks, weary grins, the occasional shy blush perhaps, yes. But it’s not until this moment that you see him genuinely happy. It takes years off him, as if he’s shed responsibility like a coat and gone skinny-dipping into life for a minute. His eyes crinkle deeply when he truly smiles, they shine and sparkle. Like stars on this dim street.

The giggles and chuckles continue as you near your block and it’s in a resurgence of his that he casually just reaches out and takes your hand again, as if dropping it had been a little mistake that needed correcting.

And suddenly, it doesn’t feel so awkward. It should be, but it’s not. It’s like you both decided it doesn’t have to be and yet, it doesn’t have to mean anything either. If anything, a shared happiness. A familiarity.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you.”

“Hmm?” His attention is slowly returning to the street, constantly scanning, every second a chance to gather information, find the next piece of the druglord puzzle.

“This. Being the perfect boyfriend. Having someone’s parents just think the god’s ass of you for once. Playacting chivalry.”

That last bit sobers him. “Yeah, well, at least I can put on a good show.”

There’s something in the response that rings…tired. You’ve hit on some old hurt, some buried regret. Knowing Javi, addressing it would only cause him to close off and dig it in deeper.

“Well, I’m enjoying it. I feel like I’m getting good value for all of the favors I’ve done for you and prettyboy Murphy. You’re good at this. A girl could get used to it. That story you told my mother about how we met? Let nobody tell you that you don’t go above and beyond in every way, Agent Peña.”

You can’t see the little grin that pulls at the far corner of his mouth, but you know it’s there. An eyebrow cocks. “So you’re saying my tab’s clear? I can put in a new order to the miracle worker?”

“Order up,” you laugh. “After all, now that I know Dad’s pulling strings, who’s gonna fire me? Bring your worst shenanigans!”

It doesn’t have quite the reaction you expect from him and he stops just short of the steps to your apartment building, deep grooves forming between his brows. “You know, it’s not unusual; landing any job has a lot to do with who you know. Keeping it is the part that’s all you. Even if you didn’t get it on your own, you still made it your own.” When you can’t seem to meet his eyes, his tone softens. “You’ve got a lot to be proud of here. Why did you feel like you had to perfect some image of your life by toting me around?”

Flustered, you scoff and jump at the chance to dodge the question. “I’ll have you remember that I asked Steve, not you. You’re the one that jumped at a free meal.” It doesn’t work. His stance demands an honest answer, his face says it’s required more for your sake than his. “It’s… a long story. There are checkboxes in my family… my sister got married and had kids and I never did. I never really felt it was important… or that anyone would put up with my attitude. i’m not exactly the picture of perfect wife material. I mean, of course I’d like to find someone someday, but it’s never been the main goal… but my parents–”

“I couldn’t do it,” he says. Not an agreement; an admission. Simple. “I walked away from the altar. Left her standing. It just felt like there was a responsibility there to be ‘the husband’, and–like you said, same thing–check off the boxes. I didn’t know if I could check off the same ones everyone else thought were necessary.”

It takes a moment to say anything. To move past the fact that he’s just confided a piece of his past and his personal life to you. That he’s let you in. It explains a little about why he doesn’t get close to anyone, why he prefers feminine relations without hangups. Which makes this admission very weighted and precious. You see that he trusts you not to judge. And perhaps it’s his way of letting you know that you’re not alone in dodging the tried-and-true life path.

“Everyone had expectations. You thought you couldn’t be a good husband. So you ran away to join the DEA because you knew you could do that spectacularly.”

Now it’s him that can’t look at you. “I wouldn’t say that I’m doing that well–”

“Javi.” That catches his eye. “You’re a damn good agent. I know you’re going to get the job done. Why the hell do you think I’ll jump at the chance to break every rule in the goddamn department to help you do it? Like I said. Who’s gonna fire me now if I do?” Something shifts in him, like he’s been slapped or sharply woken. As if it’s something he’s been needing to hear and didn’t have the right person to tell him. You’re suddenly honored to be that for him. He needs it. And so you gift him a little more. “Obviously you don’t have to do everything by the book to be good at something. Look at the past couple of days. Thank you for being nice to my folks. And for the encouragement. That’s all it takes sometimes, you know? You’ve been a damn good stand-in boyfriend. Your little stunts included, you asshole. That’s what made it fun. I’m sure you would have been a great husband.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but thinks better of it with a tick of his jaw. Regrouping, he gives you a pained look to say, “I’m sorry that you feel you were lied to…with the surveillance and all. And that’s how you found out. I meant what I said back there, Sully.” He swallows. “All of it.”

It’s so serious and vulnerable, an obvious effort for him to say. He’s a good man, Javi. You’ve read the reports. You’ve heard the rumors. He may keep others from getting too close, may come off as flippant and impatient or pour his focus into his work. But his moral center is pointed in the right direction and he’s the first person to discard his own needs in favor of someone else.

It’s probably what overwhelms him–caring about others but not allowing anyone to care for him–bubbles up so far that he has to visit his girls to vent it. He says they’re his informants, everyone’s heard that, but nobody buys that’s all it is. He needs to be cared for, but the money keeps him safe, keeps the lines drawn. It’s an exchange he can allow himself to make.

Something about that suddenly twists your heart. You could ask him in. You could take care of him. It’s tempting. It’s what he needs.

But you’re not sure if the inevitable fallout and distancing is what you need right now. It would be too easy to want him to stay.

It’s fine to fall in love just a little with Javier Peña, as long as you don’t expect too much.

Instead, you squeeze his hand. Big and warm and gun-callused. “I know you did. Good night, hero. Thank you.”

He lets you go, this transaction settled. Doesn’t ask anything more. As you expected. The perfect gentleman. When he puts his mind to it.

________

You’ve lost count of your yawns.

Even though you brought leftover carbonara for lunch the following day, you need to escape. There’s twice as much work with the ambassador’s conferences, more calls coming through and the agents and policia all have their regular requests. And you didn’t sleep soundly the night before; something whining at the back of your mind, like something forgotten or missed… Every form and file feels like an effort and you’re just so out of it. If your mother were to stop by and take you out to lunch–a real possibility–that would just be too much.

Half an hour in the outdoor cafeteria should help, even if it’s another hot day. Air and sunshine are usually good revitalizers. And you can hide in the crowd.

Or so you thought. Just as you’re settling in with a bowl of rice and veggies, a long shadow falls across your bench and you look up to see broad shoulders and dark hair.

But the eyes you meet are blue.

“Hi, Jimmy.”

“Well hey there. Mind if I join you?”

Without waiting for an answer he perches on the bench next to you with his sandwich and starts talking. About nothing. About the heat. How it’s hot here, how it was hot back home in Arizona but nothing like the hot here. Humidity. Dry heat. Sweat. How he once baked a cookie on the dash of a car parked in the sun. How he never understood the calculations between fahrenheit and celsius, just that one is higher and one lower. Something about mercury in thermometers.

You stop listening after a minute and just chew and smile and nod. You’re not that lonely. Yet.

There’s a little old man who sells flowers from a bucket, sets up a little stall on the sidewalk across the other end of the courtyard. He’s out here most days. He’s out here today. Carnations, chrysanthemums, birds of paradise, roses…

You should get some flowers for your desk. Something nice. Might wake you up a little. You watch absently as the flower man speaks to someone in a tan shirt. A man with dark hair like so many others here. He looks like Javi from the back.

You’d rather not think about Javi’s back. Or front. Or deep brown eyes.

So you listen to Jimmy ramble for a while before he finally asks you a question.

“Don’t you think it’s hot?”

“Yeah, Jimmy. It’s hot.” _______

“I’ll take one red and one white, por favor.”

The little old flower man’s smile is even warmer up close.

On your way back into the office you muse that you’ll put the roses in a vase and let them decide for you, depending on which one lasts longer. Do you really feel the need to entertain the possibility of infatuation? Or can you be content with the easy friendship you have?

But upon arriving at your desk, you find that your little bouquet will be unbalanced and one of the two choices will have twice the advantage.

There’s already a red rose laying on the credenza.

Next to a bowl that held carbonara leftovers when last you saw it.

And a note. Fast scratches on a torn piece of yellow steno paper. Probably from the ripped piece on your desk. Next to your pen.

“I meant all of it, Sully.”

Suddenly the clack of keyboards and whine of printers and ring of phones fades away. You lift the little note to read it again. “All of it.” As if the words aren’t enough, as if you need more empirical evidence–or maybe because it was with the flower–for some odd reason you bring it close to your nose only to confirm what you knew you’d smell there.

Rose. And cigarettes.

All of it? That’s the last thing he said last night. I meant what I said back there, Sully. All of it.

It had been a heartening thing to hear, reinforcing how he would protect and serve, how he thought you were competent and confident, but why remind you now–

Oh.

Oh. Not just that part.

All of it.

“I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. And then there were the times I had to get into the file room for nothing in particular, just a reason to come down and talk to her. She used to laugh at my flirting; made fun of me, thought I wasn’t serious.”

Suddenly you understand what was keeping you awake last night.

The look on his face as he stood by your steps. The way he rethought the words before he spoke. It wasn’t easy for him. He tried to tell you and you just…

All of it.

You just thanked him and walked away.

He’s been…this whole time…he’s…

“Darling?”

Yanked from one confusion to another, you turn to find your mother rounding your desk–even though you told her not to, that only government officials are supposed to be around your files–coming to take your hand.

“Your father and I are going on a tour of the city with the Representative. I dropped by to see if you’d like to join us.”

“Hi Mom. No… no, thanks. I’m…swamped today. I’m sorry.”

She coos, worriedly. “Are you alright? You seem tired. Those are pretty…”

Blinking down at the roses in your hand and stepping slightly to the side to shield her view of the third on your credenza, you agree, “Yeah, just tired today. It’s the heat. Here,” handing her the flowers, you smile. “The red one is for you. Please give the white one to the Representative’s wife. I hope you have a nice tour.”

“Oh. Thank you, dear…but…how did you know I was coming?”

“I didn’t. There’s a nice old man who sells them. Sometimes I buy some to cheer up my desk.”

“You’re buying your own flowers? We should stop by Haavi’s desk and tell him he needs to do that for you.”

“Oh. No need. He does.”

Once she’s on her way, you swing out to the atrium, but find Steve and Javi’s desks unoccupied. There was talk of a situation on the east side of the old town, no doubt the whole department will be out most of the afternoon.

Good. Maybe you can get some work done.

Still carrying the note, you flip it over on Javi’s desk and scribble five words with the same pen–

You know where I live.

–tuck it under his typewriter with just the tiniest corner sticking out, and head for the coffee room. One cup and three more work hours should shrink that stack of paperwork on your desk.

If you can just shut it all out and concentrate.

And try not to expect too much. ________

The door to your apartment is unlocked when you get home. Well, he certainly jumped at your note.

It shouldn’t surprise you. There’s got to be department keys in some file somewhere. After all, how could he have done all that snooping around when you first got the job?

Dropping your bag and keys on the table in the hall, you head for the main room. “Javi? You here?”

Heart ramming against your ribcage, you emerge into the apartment…

…and find your parents seated at your dining table. Waiting.

“Mom. Dad. How…how did you get in?”

“Your father talked to the landlord. It wasn’t difficult, dear. We wanted a word.” Even though there’s an endearment, your mother’s tone is anything but.

“Okay. That’s kind of excessive. You could have just swung by my desk, you know where I–”

“This is a more delicate matter and we thought you might appreciate the privacy,” your father grumbles. “Sit down, sweetheart.”

There are two things on the table. Your mother’s purse, and a box of tissues. Not the brand you own. Provided for.

“I don’t think I will. What’s going on?”

They share a glance, a starting gesture as if to choose who will begin, even though it was always going to be your mom.

“We had a very nice tour of the city today. We saw the opera house and the capital. It’s a beautiful city. You must really like it here–”

“Representative wanted to go into some of the deeper parts of the city,” your father interrupts, already going off book it seems, “to see the neighborhoods that really reflect the majority economy, get a feel for the true people of Colombia.”

What’s this all about. There’s a silence. Of course there is. They’re waiting for you to prod them. “The old town. I know it. It can get rough, but mainly only if you’re already involved in something shady.”

“Well, there’s plenty that’s shady there, I’ll tell you.” Your mother’s nose lifts more than slightly. “Did you know that it’s crawling with brothels?”

“I do, actually. There are a lot of women who don’t have any other way–”

“Well, Haavi certainly knows about those brothels. We saw him coming out of one today.”

Oh. Shit.

Wait. What?

Fuck.

Your mother continues, something about being sorry to be the one to tell you, something about your heart and how it must be breaking, how it’s hard to be lied to….

The tissues sit on the table, a pretty pink box with daisies on it. They expect you to break down. Cry. How good of an actor are you?

“...and if you want to come home for a while, you know you are always welcome–”

Not good enough.

“Javi’s not my boyfriend, Mom.”

The silence that follows is thick, it mingles with the humidity, curdles it like cream in the air. You let it sit until it sours.

“He posed for me so you wouldn’t worry about me here. Like you always do. As if I could never make it on my own without someone.” Their shock sustains. The quieter they become, the easier it gets. “And Javi went along with it because he works with me. Day in and day out. If anyone ever thought I was in danger here, or couldn’t hack the agency, he’d be the first to say so. And I trust him.” Your mother opens her mouth to run her tongue, but you cut her off at the pass. “I trust that man. Yes, you saw him coming out of a brothel, but I’m not his girlfriend and he’s there for his job. Those women sleep with the people Javi’s trying to catch. It’s a brilliant tactic, actually. And they trust him too. Because he is good to them. He’s a good man; one of the best I know and deserves respect. He takes care of them and protects them as much as he would anyone else. You should have seen what he did for this girl Helena–”

It’s here that you notice something out of the corner of your eye and turn to find Javi standing silent in the hallway, still close enough to the door that your parents can’t see him around the corner into the room. But you can. Wide eyes. That tight fitting tan shirt. Slightly off balance as if he came to a stop immediately at the knowledge of walking in on something.

Why do you feel….caught?

“Anyway,” turning back to your parents with a sigh, “I appreciate your concern. But you don’t have to be. Not about him, not about me, not about anything. I’m sorry I lied. It just seemed…easier. Because you have never just believed I was fine. I’m fine. I’m more than fine. Like Javi said the other night, I’m thriving here. Even if he was posing, everything he said was true…”

But if everything he said was true…

A glance to the hallway finds it empty again. Even if the door is slightly ajar.

“Well. You can’t blame us for wanting the best for you, sweetheart. You’re never going to stop being our daughter.”

“I know, Dad. You keep saying that. It’s right there on my birth certificate.”

“There’s no shame in accepting help if it’s given freely and if it helps you achieve a goal.”

“I understand that, but I really wish you’d told me about it rather than let me think I did it all on my own. Do you understand how that feels? To be lied to?”

Your mother huffs. “I do now.”

Thank god for office coffee. Without the edge taken off of your exhaustion, you might have had more bite. But for now, you’ve said what was necessary and you’re not up for a fight or managing their feelings; you have enough of your own to sort out. If they care about you as much as they say they do, they’ll let what you’ve said sink in and not push the matter.

“Are you flying out tomorrow morning or afternoon?”

“Tomorrow morning, sweetheart.”

You nod and move into the kitchen. Seems they do care. You have to give them credit. “Okay. Do you want some dinner? I’ve got leftovers.”

“We have a dinner scheduled with the ambassador.”

“Well good. I’ve had a long day and I’m really tired. I probably wouldn’t be good company anyway. You’re coming back in for the trade agreements in January?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Good. I’ll get to see you for a whole week then.” The sad smiles you exchange with them signal that everything’s going to be okay. For now.

There are hugs and kisses, a wish for safe travels and a promise to call in the coming days. Your mother apologizes loudly for cleaning your bathroom mirror. Your father apologizes softly for your mother’s volume. This time, you walk them all the way out to the street.

Your mother’s halfway to the car when your father doubles back, digging in his pocket, just barely remembering to give you the key he got from the landlord.

Or maybe he didn’t really forget.

“Your mother and I are proud of you, sweetheart. I’m sorry if we gave the impression that we weren’t.”

“Thanks, Dad. It’s good to hear.”

“I should have said it sooner.” He hovers as your mother gets into the car. “You tell Javi that it was nice to meet him. And that we’re proud of the work he’s doing here too.”

There’s something in the way he tells you this. Another apology. Or a knowing. You’ve never been sure with Dad.

“I will.”

As they pull away, waving, your plan is to go collapse on your couch and just be alone for a minute.

As you come back into your apartment, you have to amend that plan to collapsing on your couch next to Javier Peña.

“Hey.”

“You heard all of that?”

He doesn’t answer the question. You sink in, lean back, let your eyes close. He sighs.

“You mind if I smoke?”

“I do, actually. You know I do. And I don’t have an ashtray. There’s still some whiskey if you want though. Knock yourself out.”

The couch shifts a bit as he gets up. The pop of cabinet doors. The clink of ice against glass. After a few seconds, the couch shifts again and a cool tumbler slides gently against your hand.

You open your eyes to ice water.

“Thanks.” You take a long drink, not knowing what to say. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“I never do. Bed’s too big. Sleep better when I’m not alone.” When you look him in the eye, he knows enough not to turn away. “One of the girls was called into one of Escobar’s regular haunts. Didn’t see him, but got a good look at some clients he’s courting. It was info worth delivering a retainer. And a final thanks.”

You do your best to keep your hope from shining through your cracks. “Final thanks?”

“Yeah. For all the…help in the past couple of years. Told them there’s a woman I’d like to spend some time with. Get to know better.”

The sly smile spreading across your face will not be contained. “Really. You told your informants that you were shoving off to the boring world of dating.”

“No. But I did let them know that if there’s a next time I darken their door, I won’t be in a very good mood. I don’t have a Jimmy to turn to if this doesn’t work.”

“Oh. So that was you today in the courtyard. That’s what inspired this? You jealous of Jimmy?”

“Nothing to be jealous of. He’s not your type. But. It might have sped up the process.” When you don’t laugh at that, he sighs. “Listen. I’m not good at this.”

“Yes, you are, I told you that you arrrre,” you yawn and go after another sip. “But I’m the one who’s going to be cranky and crap at it unless I take a nap. I’m sorry. It’s been a day.”

“Can I join you?” His dark eyes search yours as you empty the tumbler.

There’s something like a hope there. And something else, not quite an apology, not quite yearning, a worry that he’s going to do this right or die trying and he waited far too long to start.

Like he’s fighting the urge to expect too much.

“I said a nap, Peña.”

“Good. We were called in early. I could use it.”

It comes naturally. A smile. A matching smile. A whispered okay. He leans forward and slowly, softly, presses his lips to yours. Lingers a moment. Traces your nose–one side then the other–with his own.

“And what happens when we wake up?” you ask quietly in the space between you, in the space before the next slow, lingering kiss.

Javi stands, wraps three fingers around your glass and lifts it gracefully out of your grasp. Setting it on the end table, he reaches for your hand to help you up. “This is technically the third date, isn’t it? We could just…check off the usual boxes.”

“I think we established that I don’t especially love to do everything by somebody else’s rulebook.” Using the inertia of you coming off the couch to pull you straight into his arms and into a deeper kiss--one full of holding breath and clutching fingers--he chases it with a nip to your lip, which coaxes a chuckle. “But I’m open to actually following some rules for once. Especially the good ones.”

“Good. I think it’s time I worked you a miracle or two.”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you. Well, lead the way. You obviously know where the bedroom is…”

He smirks, guiding you by the hand. “I’ll give you the tour.”

________

MASTERLIST

CHARACTER MASTERLIST

#narcos fanfiction #javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier peña x f!reader #year of tropes #javier peña x fake dating

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orphiceonian · 4 months ago

Text

˗ˏˋSILVERV WEEK: BETRAYAL´ˎ˗

read on ao3

written for @silverv-week

It was peaceful out here.

They were outside the city limits. Far enough away that the sounds of the sleepless metropolis had fallen somewhat silent but close enough that they could still see the glimmering neon that bathed the skylight in a kaleidoscope of dazzling lights.

Johnny took a long drag of his artificial cigarette, letting the synthetic smoke fill his lungs as he crackled into existence next to V.

She was leaning against the front of her quadra, eyes locked on the city scape that sprawled out before her. He could see the dark circles that had made their home under her grey eyes and the faint glimmer of the threading that marked her face.

“We gonna talk about it?” He glanced over at her and watched as she lit her own cigarette and pulled a drag.

“I’d really rather not.”

“I’m in your head, I know you do.”

“You being in my head is what started it.” V snapped, exhaling smoke into the cool nights air.

“Right so maybe I shouldn’t have looked—.”

“No you fucking shouldn’t have. Not rocket science Johnny, just basic fucking respect.” She pushed off the car and walked away from him.

Johnny sighed and flicked his cigarette away, watching as it fizzled away into nothingness shortly after leaving his fingers��yet another reminder of his false existence.

“So what if I looked back on your ‘saka days? You saw my Samurai days.” He scoffed, “No different.”

“You wanted me to see that. We agreed you wouldn’t have free reign. Trusted you and you fucking betrayed me, again.” Her voice was full of venom, his anger and hers melding together and mixing into something vicious.

Johnny frowned at her, moving to stand a bit closer to the merc. He had crossed a line and now that line was slowly turning into a rift between them. He didn’t want their relationship to sour over something as trivial as him slipping into her memories.

He took a moment, studying her face and the slight shake of her hand as she drew another drag. Something wasn’t right—her anger was warranted but he hadn’t seen her this mad in a long time.

Johnny took a breath. He wasn’t used to being the one who apologises first—hell he wasn’t used to apologising.

“Right, sorry I looked.” He muttered, looking away from her and out to the city.

“Just don’t know how many more times I can take you betraying my trust…” Her voice was small—like she was scared to speak to him, “Had too much of that recently, fuck it started this whole thing. Can trace it all back to a single fuckin moment of betrayal.” He can hear the bite to her words now, the anger seeping through them.

“Dex?”

V laughed lightly and shook her head, “Nah, Jenkins.”

Jenkins. Her old superior. Forty-something year old bureaucratic psychopath with a flare for cruelty, “That’s why you didn’t want me looking at your ‘saka days?”

“Just reminds me that I fucked up my whole damn life cause I trusted someone.” V took another drag and looked over at him, “Plus, my corpo days weren’t pretty ones. Rather save us both the misery reliving that…”

They fall into silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of the city that echo over to them, carried on the wind.

He can feel her thinking—feel the thoughts ticking over in her mind as she mulled over what she wanted to say to him.

“Jenkins pulled me out of a rough spot. Not for him I would have been a burnt out runner at fifteen.” V tapped ash off her cigarette and kept her eyes on the horizon as she spoke, “Betrayal hits harder when it comes from someone you’re indebted to.”

Johnny let her talk, knowing it was better for her to get the anger off her chest instead of letting it fester into something ugly and twisted.

“Spent the next eight years trying to make it up to him. Being ruthless, railing synthcoke on my breaks and doing his dirty work all so he wouldn’t have that leverage over me. All for him to go and fuckin’ betray me.” Her anger overflowed into her words, each syllable laced with vitriol and bitterness.

He looked over, seeing the hatred burning in her eyes and the tears bubbling up behind them.

Johnny knew how betrayal felt. First the military—then militech. A dozen more moments of deceit and betrayal had marred his short life. He knew that burning anger that came with it and he knew that feeling of second guessing every action leading up to that moment.

“Promise…” She started, voice still shaking with aftershocks of anger, “Promise you won’t look again? You can ask if you want but just…no free rein? Got some stuff I’d rather not relive.”

“Promise.”

#silverv week #SilverV #johnny x v #Johnny Silverhand #v cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #fan fic

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xappetites · 8 months ago

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point of intersection

John Price x f!Reader | Lieutenant John Price finds himself trying to resolve a hostage situation with nothing but a blessedly reasonable and cooperative diplomat and a bureaucratic system that's more concerned with covering their own ass than the lives left behind | word count: 3,421

1. the vault | Jakarta

The worst day of your life starts as any other does. The same chaos commute, the same boring paperwork of looking over everything the ambassador doesn’t have time —doesn’t deign himself— to deal with.

Rubber stamping in and rubber stamping out, the familiar monotony of bureaucratic work on foreign soil.

Then, as noon crawls around through the mud of the day, the alarms go off.

You know they’re there, have known, in theory, all along. This office pod carved out of an ancient bank building was sold to every soul as the state of the art in security the moment you set foot in its checkerboard lobby. That doesn’t mean that the sound isn’t anything but confusing for the first couple seconds of it, followed closely by the screaming. The very many footsteps bolting away from the center of the building, towards the stairs, running for the exits. And it has you standing before you fully process it, phone and wallet in hand.

You try to follow the herd, away from the ambassador’s corner office, past the bathroom door that swings open almost in your face only to show a haggard George Ogilvey, the First Secretary to your Second Secretary, with his shirt still half out of his waistband and a laptop bag hanging from each shoulder.

Against all odds, George smiles at you. He’s charming, handsome and a right bastard if you’ve known him for more than half an hour, but he sort of likes you. Treats you like the embassy’s pet because you keep to yourself and do your work; not to mention, you look younger than you are and report mostly to him. So you figure it feeds his ego to think of himself as your ‘mentor’ in the ‘scary, crime ridden streets’ of Jakarta. Like he’d know the streets of Jakarta, taking every lunch with the ambassador on plush sofas. Or, frankly, as if London is any better.

“Here,” he shoves one of the bags your way, nearly catching you in the knees with it, “let’s go.”

It’s instinct too, to toss the strap over your shoulder, shuffling sideways to make way for him and all his bluster.

“What's happening?”

“An emergency? I have no more details, caught me in the middle of something, dear.”

He’s a step ahead of you down this horrid long hallway, so he luckily doesn’t see the sneer you don’t have the wherewithal to hide at the moment. He should know, he has to. George was supposed to be in the archives down on the ground floor, a straight shot from both a bathroom and the fire door to the back of the building, with no need to risk his hide to reach the first floor unless he knew he had to get these computers out no matter what.

“Weren’t—” the little color band in his calendar comes up in your head like a neon sign, “weren’t you supposed to be with the interns in archives?”

“Nature called. I’m sure the kids heard the alarm too.”

You stare at his back as he rounds the corner to the main stairway, blending in with the stragglers. You both know that’s horseshit. The archive room, windowless and musty and hell hot most of the year, used to be the bank's vault; the walls are too thick to drill through, so there’s no PA system installed in it and the sound is so deadened there that the building could collapse around it without anyone inside even noticing.

A gunshot rings out from the front, a chorus of screams and on its heels a shout in accented english:

We are looking for your ambassador, the rest of you have thirty seconds to leave the building.

The voice, a man, repeats his sentence, louder this time, with another shot to make his point. George looks back at you, more than a little annoyed that you won’t just be a good little girl and panic so he can rescue you.

“C’me on—“ he reaches for you, waving his hand in the universal gesture for ‘move’ . But you’re not frozen, or whatever it is that he assumes, you’re just making a split second decision.

And maybe it’s because of that assumption that he can hardly call out for you when you turn in the opposite direction, sprinting for the emergency stairs that run throughout the back of the building.

It’s insane, you’re aware, the sudden rage in your chest that has you stumbling forward out of sheer stubbornness, narrowly avoiding a wipe out when you hit the landing. Barreling your way past the heavy door to archives, propped open with the usual old broomstick.

You sour the mood immediately. Three sets of eyes look up, alarmed, to take in the absolute mess you are at the moment. But you can’t even verbalize the danger you’re all apparently in before the same voice that boomed instructions reaches you. Which means he’s close, too close— enough for you to catch a glimpse of body armor reflected on a nearby glass door.

Now, in clear sharp russian, the man seals your fate; leaving you no choice but to kick the broom away and lock the vault door behind you.

Seal the building, find the ambassador, get rid of whoever’s left.

…

Calling them kids is a bit unfair, actually. The youngest of this group of fresh graduates is no more than four years your junior. All of 20 years old and stuck in a shithole office halfway around the world, with russian paramilitary on the other side of the door and nothing but you, holding up your hands to shush them, on this one.

“What—?”

Someone tries, only to have you shoving your open palms more aggressively in their general direction. It’s silent, eerily, for a second that feels eternal. Then the locking mechanism clicks, sliding like an icy drop of panic down your spine. The handle jiggles in your grip but it doesn’t give, and the harsh buzzing that indicates a wrong code blares through the room.

It happens again: click, jiggle, buzz. And once more for a third time. Those are the sole sounds you can make out, no muttering or nothing, though you’re sure there has to be talking out there. You’d settle for simple swearing at this point just to have a better idea of what’s happening.

There’s not even footsteps when everything stops, merely the fact that you can’t stay this tense forever, so you end up slumped against the cool metal of the door.

“What the hell?”

Now it’s a curt whisper, from the same girl as before. Pearl, you think, or Opal, maybe? It’s not like you’re exactly familiar with any of them, you haven’t spoken to a single one for more than passing pleasantries. They exist in the periphery, spending their half days here doing whatever admin work other people don’t feel like doing. Which inspires in you some notion of siblinghood, but nothing more than the kind of empathy your row of prefabs shared throughout your childhood back home. The bone deep surety that you’re all stuck together in a less than desirable spot.

“There’s people out there, armed, all men, I think. Russian.”

You try not to make it a shocked mumble, still catching your breath as physical sensation comes back to you in pieces. The sweat running down the back of your neck, the soreness of rolling your ankle at the foot of the stairs and the strap digging into your shoulder.

That tickles an idea in your mind, has you moving to set the bag down and wrestle the laptop free.

“Are you—? Is this a fucking joke?”

The computer in your hands is a Macbook Pro, maxed specs, from late last year. You remember because it had fallen on you to put in the request for them. Twinsies, one for the ambassador and one for good ol’ George.

“Do I look like I’m taking the piss?” You blink up at Pearl/Opal, laptop hoisted in the crook of your elbow while the other hand digs around the back of the nearest desk for an ethernet cable, begging to whatever might be listening for a flash of luck on this shit day.

“We didn’t hear any alarms”

“Nor the gunshots, I’m sure, or you wouldn’t still be in this room.”

That comment sends a chill across the space, stunning everyone where they stand, including you. It makes you consider that perhaps you were supposed to offer some comfort in this situation, older and higher up the bureaucracy chain that you are.

“It’s the fucking thick walls,” you amend, much softer, “good thing is that they can’t hear us out there either.”

The cheery tune of the computer startup finally shakes them into a flurry of hushed questions you have no answers for. Like ‘why are they here’ and ‘what are we gonna do’ .

You don’t know . But at least the picture that comes up is a very professional portrait of the ambassador. And now this is an answer to your prayers, because this is the one password you’re privy to; and this is the only laptop in the building with full open access to the security systems.

Funny, a stray corner of your brain thinks, that the ambassador was so insistent on blowing the budget on good cameras just to catch his own kidnapping in hi def.

The feed pulls up, tiny windows to the world outside this fucking vault, each with their own little button for sound, all except for the very office three of the russians are currently breaking into. It’s unsettling for it to be this quiet, watching both sides of the fancy double doors as they bend and give in a rush of motion. Black gear against crisp white shirt and no doubt of who’ll win in the end.

“What are you doing?”

“They have the ambassador.” You croak it out, gesturing vaguely at the screen, flinching against your will at imagining the sound of the fists currently meeting flesh in the ambassador’s office. “The sink in the tea corner still works, right?”

Someone nods, so you stand as steady as you can, walk straight as possible over to the adjacent room, the weird amalgamation of server room and kitchen that keeps the tiny metal drawers of the safe room, stacked floor to ceiling over the far wall, as a postmodern sort of decoration. You run your hands under the blessedly cold water for a second or two and then offer your breakfast back up, the one good thing this god awful day hadn’t taken from you.

…

You’re still heaving when Matthew, whose name you only know because George has taken to call him Mild Matt behind his back, comes looking for you.

He doesn’t offer sympathies, gladly. Just stands in the doorway looking like he doesn’t quite know how to interrupt your very important meeting with the contents of your own stomach.

“Pearl’s counted the men,” he watches you nod and swish a mouthful of water to try and focus back on solutions to the problem, instead of the blood pouring out of the ambassador’s nose, “there’s seven the cameras can see, two on the back and the main doors and the three in the ambassador’s office.”

“Okay–”

It shouldn’t matter, at this point you’re sure the normal annoyances of sharing a limited space are the least of anyone’s problems; but you fish out a half stale peppermint cream out of a bowl anyway, to try and wash away the taste and smell of vomit before you step back into the archives room.

“What’s— what— why“

You look at Matthew where he follows you, really take a second to see what George considers mildness and you only now understand as a mind running too fast for the mouth that speaks for it.

“I really don’t know, I wasn’t thinking we’d end up trapped in the building, being honest.”

“So—” Pearl looks up from the computer, catching wind of the conversation, but the girl standing next to her is faster this time. Marie, with the same name as your sister; who you keep your distance from, to avoid finding out if she has the same personality too.

“Did Ogilvey leave us? On purpose?”

Bile rises again in your throat, this time with the same sort of rage that got you in this mess.

“Yes,” it comes out like a croak, hoarse and sharp, “I ran into him coming out of the bathroom upstairs.”

“There’s a bathroom right next door here—“

“I know, but those were up there.”

Marie doesn’t deflate when you point out the computer, just turns to Pearl looking so hopeful that you doubt for a second if what came out of your mouth was, in fact, what you meant to say.

“Okay, well if they want the computer we can give it to them and be done with this, right?”

“Wait—“ both remaining interns beat you to the punch, Pearl clinging to the laptop and Matt moving in to block the path to the door.

“They won’t hesitate to kill us, if we give them what they want they’ll have no reason to let us live.”

The sentence beats a rough rhythm against your ribs, spilling rushed out of you. It’s reasonable, it’s the correct response; but you can’t hold it against Marie that she throws her hands up in the air and paces.

“Then what the fuck do we do? Shouldn’t we call someone? The police?”

You’re pretty sure the police know already. If not by the less than subtle entrance that started this whole thing, by some of the understandably hysterical workers that did manage to make it out. You nod anyway. Move out of the way to let them beeline for the closest office phone and take guard in front of the camera feed instead.

There’s a lot more blood now, in a silence so eerie that it makes you unmute the camera right outside the vault as background noise. The long hallway to the back exit and the steady footsteps of the men assigned to keep an eye on it.

A low hum comes with it; just the crackling of empty air that the camera’s microphone picks up. And you think at first you’ve gotten lost in it enough that it feels like it’s vibrating against your skin. Until you realize it’s your own cellphone going off in your back pocket.

It’s a scramble to pick it up, though you don’t recognize the number; because frankly, very few things could make this situation worse. So unless you’re about to hear that there’s an asteroid heading for this building specifically, the smooth, deep voice on the phone that asks to confirm your name and rank is a welcome one.

“Lieutenant John Price, SAS,” he offers in return and you immediately take back that earlier thought, no matter how nice he sounds.

You know her majesty’s timing as well as any bureaucrat, so you expected nothing but six lines in tomorrow’s Guardian, if that. SAS means this random hostage situation is important for crown and country, which means shit is far bigger, far worse than you could ever imagine.

…

This is never something John wants to do, which, in fairness, can be said about many things in his line of work. But within the specifics of hostage situations, contact with someone on the inside holds far too many variables for his taste.

He can’t ever know for sure what kind of mindspace they’re in, how useful the interaction would be for either side. Then there’s the expectation, natural and understandable, that his presence itself is an assurance of safety. That he’ll promise to get them out no matter what, which isn’t something John ever allows himself to do. He might not be a good person, but he will not bet a life on that lie. Especially not with some diplomat or other breathing down everyone’s neck about a fucking laptop.

George Ogilvey, John commits the name and face to memory, just in case he loses the man in the crowd. Though, at the moment, it seems unlikely, no matter how hard he wishes to not have him following close along the makeshift blockade.

“—you do understand how dangerous it would be for the ambassador’s laptop to fall in unwanted hands?” Ogilvey makes the same point he’s been prattling on about since John’s team got here, unrelenting and completely fucking useless. “Last I saw it it was with my Second Secretary, but I doubt she’ll hold under torture if it gets to that, her name is—“

“I have her file,” the man has the gall to scoff when John dismisses the twentieth iteration of this title-name-phone number litany, waving his phone in his hand so the asshole can see it clearly trying to connect as he walks away.

It takes a minute longer than he’d like, but the woman who takes the call is steady on the line, and she listens politely as he does his own knee jerk title-name spiel to explain why he’s here.

“They have the ambassador in his office,” is the first thing she says, shit news and useful information in the same measured tone -all in all, better than he expected, “we’re stuck in what used to be the vault but we have access to the security feed.”

Then a second’s pause, a hopeless little chuckle.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

It hits John weird in the chest, the fact that under the sharp, rushed breathing pattern of fear and the conscious decision to remain calm, he can hear genuine curiosity from her.

“They’re threatening the ambassador’s life for their demands—“

“And the Crown wants him alive.”

“Not for anything good”

It’s a slip up, which John hopes will get lost under the sudden ruckus of voices that erupts on the other end of the line. This woman is a hostage, no matter how cooperative, not part of his team. And the fact that he adopted her as if she was, so immediately, sends a thrum of worry down to the pit of his stomach.

“Are there more people with you?”

“Three interns,” she answers. Interns Ogilvey failed to mention, three lives that are clearly not as important to the man when they don’t happen to be in possession of what he wants. “Could I put you on speaker?”

There’s a beat of hesitation where he wonders how good of an idea that is, with the level of noise these interns have proven themselves capable of. But the Second Secretary must still carry some sort of weight even now, because there’s anxious silence to greet him when he finally agrees, just the unmistakable hollow sort of reverberation of speakerphone.

“We’re ready for you, lieutenant.”

No, you’re not. He thinks. No one is ready for what he’s about to tell them. Hell, if it was him in there he’d have strong opinions about the paper pushing cunt who decided on this approach.

“They’ve sent us a negotiator, at the request of your First Secretary, ETA is ten minutes.”

“A negotiator?” Another woman’s voice cut in, more frantic than the Second Secretary but still quite measured. “Why can’t you just come in?”

“Command’s deemed the risk to the ambassador’s life unnecessary.”

“What about our lives?”

John lets the silence drag on for a second more than he normally would, not because he doesn’t know what to say but because the least he can do, when it took this long for someone in there to break, is not be unkind. They know their survival has been deemed a non essential, they don’t need him to verbalize it to them any more than he already has.

In the background, the line lights up again with a shuffle, a clatter, a sob choked back. Another explosion of noise that moves into the distance as he’s taken off speaker. He feels it as tension running down his spine, thinking he’s lost connection to the only point he has into this mess.

“Right,” the second secretary comes back though, still measured, and he’s starting to think that it’s not out of a stellar handling of the situation at hand, but of a general lack of trust in the system that landed her where she is “so you’re not our extraction team. What can we do for our chances?”

“Stay put,” it’s logic, it’s all he can give her. It’s not enough, “And stay on the line.”

#m: cod #r: gen #for now #captain john price x reader #personal #this is the longest chapter for anything i've ever written i think

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seriously-mike · 2 months ago

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Don't Fear Your Tears, Binge on Your Cringe

So, there's shitstorm brewing lately that Tears for Fears' new album uses AI-generated imagery for the cover and related promotional purposes, and rightly so because on that level of money and fame not hiring an actual artist to make those for you feels insultingly cheap. Also, just look at this:

This is some ridiculously basic bitch shit cooked with zero effort in Bing Image Creator. Look, if I'm disgusted, you know it sucks shit big time. It's as bad as Saxon's video for "Madame Guillotine".

So, I thought "fight AI with AI" and came up with a chorus that skewered the idea, asked for 80s synthpop with male vocals, got the right vibe in the first batch. Then, it kinda went downhill from there.

youtube

"You want Tears for Fears' new single? But we have Tears for Fears' new single at home!"

This is the cheapest kind of Temu knockoff that I could accept, and since it's in English and relevant to current events, I'm expecting a shitton of hits in no time. Hell, if the short teaser clip featuring the chorus exploded right out of the gate, I'm expecting the full version to be a smash on par with the original Chinchilla song.

But, the lyrics:

There was a day I ruled the world, When I made people shout, Girls fell head over heels for me, Then we had a falling out, I laid so low, and tears rolled down, I broke it down again, Then by some kind of God’s mistake Dined with the Kings of Spain I want a spaceman, Standing in the field, Made by an AI, People will be thrilled! I want the limelight, I want to get laid, And I don’t give a shit If the artist gets paid! I want the limelight, I want to get laid, And I don’t give a shit If the artist gets paid! (See!) I rode the wave and I forgot About how much he sucks, And then he just called me one day To help him pay some tax, This happy ending, a fresh start, The crowd will love this crap, We’re going past the tipping point, And numbers spin back up I want a spaceman, Standing in the field, Made by an AI, People will be thrilled I want the limelight, I want to get laid, And I don’t give a shit If the artist gets paid! I want the limelight, I want to get laid, And I don’t give a shit If the artist gets paid! (Say!) The getting’s good, we’re on the road, Touring with some old hacks, We rule the world with our old hits, But we still need new tracks, We’re nervous and we’re getting old, So let’s run a new scheme, The cover of our record will Be designed by machines! I want a spaceman, Standing in the field, Made by an AI, People will be thrilled I want the limelight, I want to get laid, And I don’t give a shit If the artist gets paid! I want the limelight, I want to get laid, And I don’t give a shit If the artist gets paid! (SUCKERS!)

If you look up the history of Tears for Fears on Wikipedia, you'll see an absolute shitton of references to their songs and albums, particularly in the first verse. There are also references to the acrimonious split between Orzabal and Smith and the unusual reason they reunited (basically, Smith moved to the US and after several years asked Orzabal to sort out some bureaucratic issue regarding his UK property).

It wasn't that difficult to write, considering that once I spent almost two months on trying to put together a song based on Minsc's quotes from Baldur's Gate 2. The total creation time for this one was a couple of hours, including the video for Youtube. And please do remember that the lyrics are all-natural, free-range, fair-trade, hand-crafted and GPT free.

#AI generated images #AI image #Tears for Fears #Gala Piosenki Żenującej #Udio #Udio.com #Mike's Musings #music #80s music #the 80s #synthpop #Youtube #Songs for a Nervous Planet #Astronaut

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8bitsupervillain · 27 days ago

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Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 31

For some reason, it just occurred to me that outside of those two crashes way back at the start of the chapter I didn’t run into any more issues during the rest of it. Not that I’m complaining the game wasn’t crash happy, just a vague wondering of why the first few hours of the chapter were prone to crashing. Of course, visual novel, don’t really know why it would have significant bugs anyway. Ah, but then I don’t know the first thing about programming, so who the hell knows. I had just as many crashes with Firefox as I had with Matsuribayashi.

A roll of a one (continued)

Thinking about it that is kind of an obvious thing isn’t it? Sure Irie wants to cure Hinamizawa Syndrome, but that really is dependent on the larger research Takano has been doing. Assume C117 does cure the symptoms they’re aware of, there’s always the chance that by curing these symptoms it might make some other unknown symptom significantly worse. You could reasonably argue that even the weapons research Takano has done could tie in to the search for a cure. But then that’s a rather common story trope isn’t it? Government, or the money man just doesn’t see the true value of their research, and so they’re shutting em down.

So Takano will gather up all of her research and samples, and just as she’s about to escape a squad from Tokyo is sent to retrieve the samples, and she winds up shot and dying so she injects herself with a sample, and become a giant clawed monstrosity and kill them. Happens all the time really, and not just in five separate retellings of the same event. There are almost as many games about the destruction of Raccoon City as there are chapters in the mainline Higurashi series. Crazy.

Also, there was a small grammatical error in one of these screenshots. “We we’re.”

I know that this is a government funded research endeavor, but I do wonder if some venture capitalist swooped in and offered to bankroll the research after the government shut them down if they’d be able to just continue from where they left off. Or if since they’re sworn to secrecy if Takano would have to go all the way back to Hifumi’s old research, if she was even allowed to have that much.

Disappointment

Resisting the urge to make the obvious joke.

It’s probably because I’m not a research scientist, but nearly a decade to research a thing sounds like a pretty large amount of time to get results. I’m going with the time scale of roughly a decade because we don’t know exactly when the institute/clinic was set up, but I’m going to assume it was finished around early 1978. There’s circumstantial evidence that the news they’re going to be shut down in three years time was given to them in either late 1982 or early 1983. So they’d in theory still be up and operating in 1986, so it’s kind of surprising they act like they achieved basically nothing in that time.

What a peculiar choice of phrase there. “No matter how hard she pushed herself to act villainous…” Was Tomitake aware of her support of dissecting the dam murderer and Satoko? Or does he just mean villainous in how she has to act cold and unfeeling in these meetings with the bureaucrats and money-men in Tokyo?

I find it kind of funny that while Takano’s life is falling apart Tomitake is just like “but what about me though?” It is a surprisingly realistic writing of a character.

I find this is also a surprisingly realistic look into Takano’s mind. They made a lot of noise about how she thinks that in addition to be an ace researcher she needs to also be a bit of a social butterfly. Yet despite her aspirations on that front you see here that she doesn’t really understand how people function. There are a surprisingly large amount of people who assume they can just study how to act and behave around people, and that they absolutely get it. Yet small human traits just completely fail to register with them. This fragment was a surprisingly humanizing one for the woman who is meant to be an irredeemable monster.

Also I find that this is just a very nice and subtle set up for what is probably the core thesis statement of the chapter, if not the whole series. The idea that you shouldn’t try to shoulder the burden of everything all on your own, and that you should rely on other people to get you through the most impossible of times. It’s subtle now, it will become significantly less subtle before the end.

#higurashi #higurashi when they cry #higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi playthrough

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hotcheetohatredwastaken · 10 months ago

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Alt 1: Human Shield -- The Captain's Sacrifice

tw: death, injury, kidnapping

Crash!

Warrior woke up with a groggy start. For a second, he was nothing more than mildly annoyed with the definitely not out-of-the-ordinary disturbance. Despite Time threatening the boys within an inch of their lives to stay quiet and not make a mess while they stayed in different eras’ inns so that they weren’t thrown out, it was more than often than not that they’d stay up late into the night in their shared rooms, talking and roughhousing and getting up to general tomfoolery. It wasn’t Warrior’s business as long as he himself got his beauty sleep. They all had a busy day tomorrow, and he was tasked with both taking the heroes to meet his Zelda and dealing with the bureaucratic mess caused by his sudden absence due to the portals. So they could be as tired as they wanted, as long as he got his rest. Warrior turned over, pulling his pillow up over his head and jamming it over his ears with a low groan.

But even the pillow could not drown out the noise, once the screaming started.

“—Get off of me! Get off of me, you dirty—!”

“—elp! Help! Time, Warrior, we’re—!”

Warrior sat up with a jolt, his pillow thrown to the side as he listened. Those were Wind and Four’s muffled voices, respectively, echoing down through the floorboards directly overhead. They had tried to get adjacent rooms when checking in that afternoon, but the inn was just too full, so the two were relegated to sharing a room with Wild on the floor above the rest of them. Warrior met Twilight’s gaze across the room—similarly startled awake, wide–eyed in the dark—and then they were both scrambling out of bed, shooting down the hall and up the spiraling inn stairs in less than a few seconds.

“—ilthy landlubbers! You’ll never take m—!”

Metal clanged against metal, audible even from the end of the hallway down which Warrior and Twilight bounded. Something as heavy as a dresser was dragged to the ground, and it landed with a near earth-shattering bang!

“Help, help! Guys! We’re being attacked, there’s some sort of mmmph—!”

“Get your hands off of him!” Wind’s scream reached its fevered pitch. “No! Don’t hurt him! Don’t—!”

Warrior hit the boys’ door first. He bounced off of it—locked from the inside. Shouts of alarm from Wind and Four, low grunts of exertion and vile swears voiced by unfamiliar voices, and the sounds of an intense scuffle sent a deadly chill across Warrior’s skin. Warrior did not recognize those deep, rough voices—there were grown men in there with little brothers, on the other side of the firm wood. He drove his shoulder into the door once, twice, but to no avail. It creaked, bending beneath the force of his blows, but stood firm.

“If you aren’t gonna get it open, get the hell outta the way!” Twilight barked. Warrior complied, and Twilight gathered himself up, then pushed off and kicked in the door with a shower of splintered wood. They dove inside.

The scene that met Warrior’s eyes made him falter. Wild was on the ground wrestling in eerie silence with a man twice his size, both of their hands fixed around the other’s throats as they rolled across the debris littered floor and battled for dominance. The corpse of a stranger lay next to them, face down in a pool of fresh blood with Four’s silver-hilted knife sticking out of his back. Four sat up against the wall, bleeding sluggishly from a cut on his temple and clutching his arm to his chest, his eyes far away and fixed on the body. And Wind… Wind was gone. The window at the end of the room was thrown open, its long curtains blowing mournfully in the cool night wind. Broken glass littered the floor.

Twilight promptly pulled Wild’s assailant off of him and slammed him into a wall, snarling in his face. The man scratched at the arm holding him against the inn’s roughly boarded walls, spitting curses and threats, but he was no match for Twilight’s strength. In no time at all, Twilight had thrown him down to the ground and captured his wrists and one leg in a hogtie fashioned from his own belt.

“What—I-I-I can’t—Twilight—they-they-they took —,” Four stuttered out as he blinked rapidly, reaching up gingerly to touch his own head. He seemed to nearly swoon at the sight of blood on his fingers. “The-the-th-th-the window—th-they—”

“Four, get up and get Time in here, now,” Twilight snarled. The man beneath him bucked and fought as he cursed every drop of blood in Twilight’s veins, but Twilight only clung tighter, keeping him pressed to the ground. Four flinched. “GO, Four, now!"

Four stood unsteadily, staggering with his first steps, but nevertheless fled without delay into the hallway towards Time’s room, his arm still held close to his chest. A ruby trail of blood followed him across the wooden floorboards and out the door.

“Warrior, help Wild up,” Twilight said tersely. “Make sure he’s okay and see what he knows.”

Warrior shook his head to disperse his inaction and did as commanded, helping Wild sit up from the glass-littered ground though the teen tried to wave him away with an apologetic wheeze. There was a swollen, purple ring of bruising around Wild’s throat, and his hair lay frazzled and bloodied around his shoulders. A blood vessel had burst in one of his eyes, turning the white of it a startling red. He stared straight ahead, dazed and wheezing.

“Wild, look at me. Are you okay? Where’s Wind?” Warrior asked, patting his cheek until the boy’s eyes snapped to him. Pupils even. Good. Warrior scanned Wild’s body—no injuries, at least no visible breaks or bleeds. He only hoped Wind could be as lucky, unlikely as it seemed.“Did they take him? How many of them were—”

‘I’m fine. Three of them.’ Wild held three fingers up in answer. His hand went to his throat as he grimaced, swallowing hard. He gestured with the other towards the far end of the room. ‘They took him. Out the window.’

Warrior left Wild and flew to the windowsill, uncaring of the shattered glass that crunched beneath his boots as he peered out over its edge. The rooftop sloped down from the window, obviously how the assailants had gained access to the sleeping boys. Warrior followed the angle of it with his eyes, along the street and across the tops of buildings—

There. He spotted just a flash of Wind’s signature blue shirt before it slipped out of sight around a curve of the roof.

“I’m coming, Wind!” Warrior shouted, slamming his hands down on the windowsill and vaulting out the window after them. His boots touched down, and then he was off, scrambling over the steep shingles in pursuit. “Just hold on!”

“Warrior, wait up!” Twilight’s voice rang behind him, his shout growing quieter and quieter behind Warrior. “You can’t chase ‘em without backup!”

Warrior clambered after them across the roof tops, the occasional shingle slipping underneath his foot and shattering noisily against the dark street below. Then, he leapt from the rooftop and slid down a pile of crates, plunging into the alleys zigzagging the city below. Hesitating at intersections, chasing Wind's occasional shouts, the captain's pursuit followed dark alleys and sharp corners, urged on by mere glimpses of the shadows and smears of blood. Pounding footsteps caught up to Warrior—Legend, of all people, he must have followed him out the window—and they ran side by side until they came upon the group suddenly stopped at the other end of the alley.

Wind was slack in his assailant’s grip, his face white and his eyes nearly closed. Warrior slowed to a stop as he got a better look at the men holding him—big and muscled with short haircuts and trained holds on their swords—they were soldiers, he realized with a widening of his eyes. They’d wiped out all of the traitors’ forces after the war ended—Zelda had promised him that they’d wiped them all out, and there hadn’t been any chatter in months—but here they were, how—?

“Not another step, hero,” one of the men called out. “Or he gets it.”

A sword was held threateningly across Wind’s throat. Warrior moved his hand to the hilt of his sword, and Legend unslung his bow from his shoulders, nocking it with a simple, threatening arrow. The assailant holding Wind hoisted him up and closer to his chest, using him as a shield. Legend tsked underneath his breath—he was a good shot, but he was no Wild– that they both knew–and he would not risk hitting Wind.

“Let him go,” Warrior projected his voice as confidently as he could manage, “and no one has to get hurt.”

“No one has to get hurt if you step back, hero,” one of the traitors shot back in a taunting lilt. That sword pressed in deeper at Wind’s neck, drawing a line of blood, and Legend growled beside Warrior, his grip on his nocked arrow shifting. “No harm will come to the boy. Just let us go, and your companions will have him back before dawn breaks.”

“Captain, we can’t just let them—”

“Legend, stop.” Warrior stepped forwards, towards the traitors at the end of the alley. “What do you want from us? Whatever it is, we can give it.” Another step. The men noticed, and they pulled Wind further back.

“You’ll be made aware of our demands soon, hero. You, and your weak queen, and all of Hyrule.” Suddenly, a wagon rattled up behind them, and they jumped into it without delay, pulling Wind after them. “See you soon, hero!”

Legend went after them, nailing one of the men in the arm with an arrow and then another in the thigh. But with a crack of a whip, the wagon was rattling down the street. No matter how hard he and Warrior ran after it, it was gone from sight in mere moments.

Once it was clear that their effort was futile, Legend stopped, bending over to pant for breath with his hands braced on his knees. “Did Wind seriously just get kidnapped by a bunch of randos?” A hysterical laugh left him—Warrior pretended not to notice the little tears dripping off the end of his nose, the ones that he swiped off with his long sleeves hastily. “Oh, Time is not going to be happy about this.”

Warrior couldn’t breathe. Horror and helplessness weighed heavy on his chest, making it nigh impossible to draw breath beneath them. Wind… Wind was gone. He’d slipped beneath their fingers like a minnow in a river, and now he was gone, caught in the grasp of those… soldiers. Traitors . Traitors that wanted Warrior and everything he cared about—including Wind—dead in revenge for their own losses and suffering during the war. The war that they believed that he had caused with his cursed pretty face.

“We… we should probably go back to the others,” Warrior said softly. “I… I have some ideas on who might have taken him, but… they were supposed to be gone by now, the last of them weeded out of the army on Zelda’s orders. We’re going to need to contact Hyrule Castle, get their constables looking for him… contact Zelda…”

“Warrior, you’re hurt!” Legend suddenly reached for his hands, taking them in his own. “Let me see.”

Warrior hadn’t even noticed the slices in his palms from the sharp glass he’d vaulted over to make it out the window in his haze of panic, even then he still didn’t feel it once he saw the blood and the shining shards. He tried to clench his hand into a fist, and his fingers twitched awkwardly, hanging limp. He couldn’t have fought the assailants even if he did catch up, unable to hold a sword in a firm grip as he was.

“Let’s get back to the inn, Captain,” Legend agreed. “Regroup and get your hands fixed up. We can figure out what to do with the others.”

Warrior nodded faintly, his head spinning. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Read this on ao3! The Captain’s Sacrifice

Or check out the whole series here! HotCheetoHatred's Febuwhump

#linked universe #lu #linkeduniverse #cheetowrites #febuwhump 2024 #febuwhump day 16 #whump #kidnapping #wind linked universe #warrior linked universe #legend linked universe #linked universe fanfic #linked universe fanfiction

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jaxteller87 · 9 months ago

Text

A Sanctuary for Burning Hearts(big papa 10)

I had just gotten back from a run and decided to stop by the Clubhouse to check up on things. I had been out of Charming the past three days, and I left Tig in charge while I was gone. No big deal, I took care of everything before I left; all he had to do was make sure the place didn’t burn down until I got back. There was a party going on when I walked in, and amidst the chaos, a solitary pen perched on the edge of the bar caught my eye.

“Tiggy, did we get a beer shipment today?” I picked the pen up to look for a company name.

“I don’t think so, why?”

A sickening wave washed over me, and I felt the color drain from my skin. “Everyone out, now!” I shouted. One good thing about being VP is when you yell, everyone listens. It was a matter of seconds until the place emptied out.

“What’s going on?” Tig shot up from the barstool he was sitting on.

“Where’s Amber?” I grabbed the collar of his shirt.

“Dorm room,” Tig put his hands up like he was expecting me to hit him— leave it to Tig to actually let me if need be. Not this time, Tiggy.

“Amber, shit!” I yelled, bolting down the hallway. I burst through the door and saw her sleeping on the bed. She wasn’t supposed to be here when I was out of town. Not that she wasn’t allowed, but I run with bikers, and bikers aren’t the most trustworthy people. Not that any of SAMCRO would try anything, but you never know who we’re entertaining, how much alcohol they had, or what kind of drugs they’re on. Amber is my responsibility, and no one else’s, especially at the Clubhouse. Even so, most of the guys, especially Juice, Ope, and Tig, would break a few skulls for her if need be. Even so, I didn’t go out of my way to put any of them in that situation, at least not often.

“What the hell is going on, Jax?” she squealed as I slung her over my shoulder. “My chair! Don’t forget my—”

“No time!” my voice boomed off the walls. For a moment, I sounded like Clay when he was starting to lose his shit. Fuckin’ Clay— I’ll get to that in a minute. “Keep your eyes closed!”

“Jax?” I could hear the worry in her voice. I rushed through the Clubhouse like a coked-up bull in a China shop. I stepped out of the front doors and saw everyone gathering in the parking lot. I took a few more steps before our biker sanctuary exploded behind me. I saw the orange light from the burst reflect off the buildings in front of me, followed by a warm sensation. The gust from the explosion threw me into the air, but I was able to twist myself before landing, ensuring that I broke Amber’s fall with my body. We all watched as the Clubhouse went up in flames. I don’t know what happened while I was gone, but something told me this had Clay’s name written all over it. Oh, and guess who was on day three of their five-day stay in Belfast? That’s right, Mr. President himself, Clay Morrow.

The following morning, I had to go down to the burnt mess of a Clubhouse and talk to the fire chief. After that, the boys in blue stopped by and took some statements— but this wasn’t a Jonny Law matter, so they were basically just tickin’ boxes like good little bureaucrats. When I got back home, Amber was awake and packing a duffle bag. “Win a cruise or something?”

“Packing to leave. I’m doing what I’m told as an old lady,” she hissed.

Yeah, I deserved that smartass comeback. I tore into her on our way home last night, going as far as cursing her out for being at the Clubhouse instead of home. Not only was she there, but she fell asleep in the dorm during a SAMCRO party. I yelled and yelled, and she just took it. I told her that he needed to fall in line, pack a bag, and head to New York until things cooled down a bit. It wasn’t the impromptu NY trip that was the problem, but more in my delivery of how I suggested it.

“Jackson, I mean, really, what the hell?” she seethed.

Yeah, she’s still mad. She only calls me that when she’s furious. “I’m sorry, darlin’. Clay just has me lookin’ over my shoulder right now, and I admit I’m not thinking too clearly.”

“Has his greed really gotten that bad?” she stopped what she was doing and stared at me, waiting for an answer.

I sat on the bed in silence, unable to muster a response, just meeting her gaze.

“People could have died. It’s a damn good thing Donna and the kids weren’t there,” Amber took a deep breath, thoughts about what could have been trickled through her head.

“I know,” I murmured. There was no disputing that. “It’s a damn good thing nobody did die, too.”

“This time! Something’s gotta change, Jax. The Club, or us. Because there’s no way in hell I’m raising our kids in this violence. This wasn’t the dream we had all those years ago. The Club, yes, but not like this.”

Why did I get the sinking feeling that I was losing her? If it came down to it, I’d choose her every damn time.

With that, Amber rolled out of the room, bag in her lap, and into a taxi bound for Mary’s. I lit a cigarette and poured myself a glass of Scotch. I took a swig and sat on the bed, staring at my kutte slung over the chair. One thing was certain: I had a huge decision to make.

Amber’s POV

So, it’s been a few days since I’ve been crashing at Mary’s. I packed a bag and hightailed it out, Charming like Jax commanded. What a good little housewife I am; too bad that cocky piece of shit is too full of himself to notice. I was planning on getting a hotel, but Mary wouldn’t hear of it. I knew she would insist that I stay with her because we’re so alike, and it’s precisely what I would do in this situation.

“You sure you’re really at your wits’ end?” she asked, handing me another beer.

“I’m sure. You know what— do you think my old place is still up for rent?”

“Wow. It’s that serious, huh?”

“Absolutely, Mary!” I scoffed, “If Jax were a few minutes later than he was, my ashes would be spread across Charming right now.”

“Alright, fine. So what, do you think you could get your old job back?” Mary cracked open a beer of her own and sat down at the table.

“I left a message for my old boss, I told him he can call me here. I hope that’s okay,” I sipped my frosty beverage.

“You’re really serious? Throwing the Cali life all away, huh? No more masquerading around as the King and Queen of Charming?” Mary chuckled. “Never thought I’d hear that out of you.”

“Ha ha,” I rolled my eyes. “I’m dead serious. The violence has spiraled out of control. I mean, it’s always been rough, but I mean, come on. And if I’m going to dance with the devil and almost meet my maker, I sure as shit don’t want to be catching holy hell from my husband because he can’t articulate his words in the face of danger. Whoever set that bomb didn’t care who they killed. Hell, half the Sons weren’t even there— there were a bunch of crow eaters, hangarounds, and some nomads—”

“I’m not even going to pretend I know what any of that bike slang is,” Mary chugged half her beer and slammed it down on the table. “But when it comes to danger, Jax is usually Mister Joe Cool.”

“Yeah, I guess. I kid you not; it’s been a solid two months since he’s come home without blood on his clothes. Keeping that kind of stuff pent up takes its toll on a man,” I confided. “And Club rules say I’m not allowed to ask why. Sometimes, I try to inquire anyway, just to get hit with the ‘I’m better off not knowing’ quip.”

“You’d seriously leave Teller?” Mary raised an eyebrow.

I paused, pondering the question. Would I? No, deep down, I didn’t want to. But my safety was important to me, and if it meant dragging him back with me, I would. It was something I swore I’d never do — make him choose between me and the Club. But this was a different time, a different Club than the one that we rode for years ago.

Out of nowhere, a red bird flitted into view, perching itself on a nearby tree branch. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as we sat in the kitchen, my decision weighed heavily on my mind.

Jax’s POV

I knocked on Mary’s front door, the chaos of recent days finally subsiding enough for me to make the trip to New York and see if I still had a wife waiting for me.

“Hey there, Jackson,” Mary greeted me with a smile as she answered the door.

“Is she here?” I asked anxiously, bracing myself for the fallout.

Mary nodded.

“How much trouble am I in?”

“A lot,” Mary frowned. “I don’t know if trouble is the word I would use, though, but you definitely have some baggage to work through, that’s for sure.”

“Amber, Look who the cat dragged in,” Mary announced as we entered the kitchen. “It’s the piece of shit.”

“Whoa,” I reared back. “What’s with the name-calling?”

“Oh, sorry— that’s been your nickname the past few days,” Mary winked at me. I knew she was just breaking the tension the only way she knew how, with her sarcastic assertivieness.

“Hey, Amber,” I greeted her with a smile.

“I’ll leave you guys to it. I’m gonna take Lady for a walk. Beer’s in the fridge. If you drink it all, Teller, you owe me a case,” Mary said, glancing down at her dog before disappearing out the door.

“I’m sorry,” I began, taking a seat at the table. “I should never have yelled at you, especially like that.”

“You’re right; you shouldn’t,” Amber smirked. We had a little conversation and about thirty minutes later, Mary had returned with some subs.

We sat down to a nice dinner, catching up with Mary as we ate. After a few more minutes of conversation, we made our excuses and headed back to the hotel I had booked earlier. Mary offered for us both to stay at her place, but the apartment was already a little tight and I didn’t want to impose. Plus, it’s been a few days since I’ve spent any time with my wife, so I was looking for something a little more intimate.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, nuzzling my face into Amber’s bare neck.

“I know, that’s what makes this so hard,” she admitted softly. “Jax, what are we gonna do?”

“I’m ready to pack up and drag you back to Charming with me,” I said sternly. She chuckled at the remark, but her eyes were still full of doubt.

“I mean, this is a deal-breaker for me, and that’s incredibly upsetting. I told myself years ago I’d never make you choose,” I confessed. I could feel the weight of my allegiance to the Club pulling against my allegiance to my marriage.

“Well, back then, the Club wasn’t as cutthroat as it is now. We didn’t have as much to worry about. A few stray bullets here and there, I mean, I get it— you’re a biker in a big biker gang, but Jax— they blew up the Clubhouse and half the garage. If you weren’t—”

“I know baby, I—”

“Just listen! If you weren’t there, the bodycount would have been over two dozen. And only seven Sons. Whoever did that wasn’t trying to kill you; they were trying to hurt you by killing your friends and family!”

“You’re not wrong,” I agreed with everything she was saying. “This isn’t one of those pass-the-blame moments, but everything that’s happened, all the added violence— Clay’s been dabbling in something, and I have no idea what.”

“I mean, can’t Bobby or hell, Piney, talk some sense into the old man?” Amber suggested.

“They tried, apparently. But Clay just won’t listen. Piney even threatened him with some philosophical ‘what ifs’, but that didn’t do the trick either.”

“That could have been your Mom in there, Jax. They could have killed Gemma—”

“They could have killed you,” I took her hand. “Please don’t leave me,” I whispered, kissing her bare shoulder tenderly.

“I’m not,” she whispered back. “But something’s gotta be done, babe. I’d like to start trying for a family soon.”

“Oh, really? Well, in that case, may I suggest some practice?” I smirked, glancing down at our entwined bodies.

“Maybe,” she smirked back, running her finger over my cheek.

“I went to the doctor a few weeks ago. I know my disability is not genetic, but I wasn’t sure if it would take me a little longer to get pregnant. And my doctor said no. All things considered, I’m in pretty good health. He said that anytime I wanted to stop taking the pill, we’re good to go.”

“So... have you?” I asked, curiosity burning in my chest.

“Have I what?”

“Stopped taking the pill?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that without talking to you first. What kind of croweater do you take me for, Jackson Teller?”

“My apologies,” Jax blushed, “you know how the culture is.”

“Yeah, alright,” I flicked his nipple. “Anyway, I had a little plan... Have a nice dinner, a movie maybe, then talk about it. And see what happened from there,” she chuckled, pressing a kiss to my shoulder.

“Well, I would say once everything calms down, because you’re right, trying to have a baby now would be...”

“Stupid?”

“I was going to say less than ideal,” I admitted, “but stupid works.”

“Are you ready for a little Teller running around?” she giggled.

“Ain’t nobody ready for that, darlin’.”

#jax teller imagine #jax teller fluff #jax teller x disabled reader #jax x oc

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bountyhaunter · 1 month ago

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TIMING: Spring PARTIES: Sai & Daiyu LOCATION: Larry's house SUMMARY: Daiyu and Sai get their curse broken! CONTENT: N.A.

Her spellcaster contact was booked and busy and had told Daiyu (who had been line dancing all the way through the conversation) that he’d be available in three to five business days, to which she’d ended the conversation. Sai and her had agreed on one thing: they were not going to wait a bureaucratically acceptable amount of time before getting this shit fixed.

So an ambush it was going to be.

Daiyu and Sai had danced their way to her car, had gotten into the truck and ever since she’d started it, she’d had battled the impossible task of not talking while she drove. To talk was, after all, to dance. And to dance behind the steering wheel … well, even she knew that would be disastrous.

The drive was much too long to not require any yapping, and so her head had turned a few shades more red with frustration. Add the fact that everyone in traffic was acting like a buffoon and Daiyu was incapable of cussing them, their mother, their pet and their house to hell and back, and she was ready to implode. Lifting middle fingers at other drivers worked well enough, but it was nothing. She looked at Sai in the passenger seat and mouthed the words kill me as the robot voice of her navigation system let her know she was almost at her destination.

—

It was a quiet ride, considering the whole dancing while talking thing, although not the most calm. But Daiyu was managing to keep quiet fairly well. Sai, on the other hand, had questions. He managed to catch himself before talking to her, most of the time. Every now and then he’d forget himself. The first and most important of his questions was what neighborhood they were going to, seeing as it wasn’t past sunset yet in other parts of town. He was impatient to solve the dancing problem. But not so impatient he’d walk through sunlight. Luckily, he’d only gotten a few words out before he realized he could figure that one out for himself. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll look it up,” he said, in answer to his own question, and leaned over to fiddle with the GPS. Their destination seemed to be on the edge of Nightfall Grove. Safe enough.

Did this spellcaster actually know anything about curses? Sai wondered idly as she drove, somehow managing to be in a silent fight with everyone on the road. Was curses something someone specialized in? He’d forgotten to ask much about specifics before they’d taken off. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t even bothered to ask if this person knew what they were doing, or was more of an amateur. “So how good is this friend of yours?” Sai wondered aloud, just as she looked over to mouth… something to him. “I’m not sure what you said, but don’t answer that,” he added, as his feet started moving underneath him, constrained by the seatbelt. “At least not until we’re parked,” he said. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the door, and glanced over at the GPS as they drove up on their destination. Was it the spellcaster’s house? He stopped himself before asking. They could talk properly soon enough.

—

It was like being at a dentist. Mouth wide open, unable to talk while the doctor prattled along, asking questions about life and brushing habits. Daiyu hated the dentist — not only because of the invasion of personal space, but because she was unable to talk. It should come as no surprise that she’d bitten a fair amount of dentists in her lifetime, though it wouldn’t serve to start biting Sai while she was driving. It’d take a lot of maneuvring that’d make driving hard, just as talking (and cursed dancing) would. And so she tried to mouth a few words at him as he asked a question, attempting to say Super good, even if it was a lie. He was just a guy she once got some Pin Ball quills and who had not seemed like an absolute and total jerk.

She gave Sai a thumbs up that had the same energy as her previous middle fingers dedicated to other drivers before she returned her hand to the steering wheel to grip it angrily again. At least it wasn’t a long drive. She pulled up in front of the house, doing a shoddy job of parking and letting out a long groan when she’d turned off the car. Her legs started to attempt a plié, but as she was seated there was no way for her to pull it off and so it ended as he groan did. Daiyu was out of the car in a matter of seconds, slamming the door behind her. “Fucking hell,” she said, tangoing towards the front door. “That was the worst. Drive. Ever.” A little dramatic and entirely untrue, as she’d had many worse drives, but she didn’t remember those now. Her body was too busy tangoing for her memory to work. “Not my friend, for the record. Jerri is …” She hoped that was his name, “We’re business associates.” In the business of dealing supernatural animal parts.

—

“Huh, okay,” Sai said, as he twirled out of the car to follow Daiyu. He hadn’t bothered to wonder before this moment why she knew someone who could break curses in the first place. But he could rest easy, at least, knowing she wasn’t a slayer, since if was, she’d probably already have tried to kill him. “What’s your business?”

He walked up the front steps, wondering what the best move was to convince this guy to help them. Ring the doorbell, or go around back and refuse to leave. Front door, probably. Especially considering Daiyu wasn’t friends with this person, they might not take it too kindly. And who knew what else a curse breaker could do? He rang the doorbell. A muffled, “Fuck off! The sign says no solicitors,” came from inside. Sai glanced over at Daiyu and rang it again.

—

Her business was killing creatures – some of which also happened to be partly humanoid – and making a profit of that, but she couldn’t say that. “I’m a food critic,” she answered, shimmying her shoulders as she did, “And the rest of my business is none of yours.” Daiyu thought that was a very clever answer once she stopped shimmying. She kind of hoped that she could retain some of these dance moves once all was over and done.

Jerri yelled at the doorbell, probably without dancing, and Daiyu almost respected him for it. As Sai rang the doorbell again, she started hammering on the door with both her fists, not using all the strength she had. She would, though, should she need to, “Jerri! Open the fucking door!” She had to stop pounding to do what seemed to be a popular TikTok dance. At least this curse kept up with current trends. “It’s Daiyu! You owe me!” She wasn’t sure if he did, in all fairness, but it was a good thing to say. “And it’s a fucking emergency like I said. I have this amulet and if you don’t let us in I will put it around your neck by force and —”

The door swung open. An angry looking man in his late sixties stared down at the two people at his door. His opening statement was very clear: “My name is Larry.”

—

Sai shot Daiyu a look. She hadn’t even remembered the man’s name right? That didn’t put them off to a good start. “I’m pretty sure that’s what she said,” Sai told the man. He kept accidentally bumping into Daiyu as he danced side to side on the narrow top step up to the door. “You must have misheard her.” The guy didn’t look like he believed Sai, but at least he hadn’t closed the doors in their face yet.

“U-huh.” The man crossed his arms, looking over the two of them. Sai tried not to think about getting turned into a frog, or whatever it was people who knew about curses could do. “I told you on the phone. Three to five business days. No one’s died from the can-can. But maybe I’ll be lucky and you’ll be the first.”

“We can pay you,” Sai added. Maybe it went without saying, but this seemed like a good time to make an offer. It was difficult for Sai to pull out his wallet while dancing, but after finishing talking he was able to open it and grab a couple twenties. He nudged Daiyu, intentionally this time, hoping to prompt her to chip in the other 40. “Eighty dollars,” Sai said, decisively. He wasn’t exactly sure what the going rate was for curse-breaking. “And we’ll be on our way and stop ringing your doorbell.” He tried to leave the implication hanging that they would stand out here all night ringing it if the man left them hanging, but he wasn’t sure if Larry got the idea. It was probably hard to take Sai seriously while he was jumping around with jazz hands.

—

Names were hard, strange and diverse. Daiyu could not be expected to tell the world’s Jerry’s, Larry’s and Terry’s apart — that would just be too much to ask. “Yup,” she said, nodding to Sai’s defense of her. She knew he was probably just doing it because he wanted to stop dancing whenever he talked, but it was still nice of him to do so.

She was about to mouth off to Larry (or was it Terry?) that she would be the first to die of it if it was the last thing she did, as Daiyu was prone to taking everything as a challenge. When the spellcaster announced it would be lucky for him if she died, she decided against it though. “If I were to die from the can can I would haunt your ass so bad —” Dancing while she spoke made her more aware of the fact that she was speaking and that she wasn’t saying very helpful things. She wired her jaw shut and let Sai lead, who spoke the language every person did: money.

To be fair, she had expected to have to pay. Gary had paid her to get some ingredients for him, and she’d pay him to get rid of this very annoying curse. He seemed interested enough in the prospect, but shook his head, “Nope. Has to be at least double for the rush job if you want me to help you.” Even when Daiyu’s finger was hovering threateningly over the doorbell. “175 actually, for attitude.”

She glanced at Sai, kept her mouth sealed as she dug for her wallet and fingered a few notes of cash. She had a fair bit, as bounty hunters tended to. Most people didn’t wire their blood money. “I have a great attitude,” she said, waving some of her bills around. “We can do sixty up front, the rest after. And 160 total.” Spellcasters were such nuisances sometimes, but curses were even worse.

—

The man looked between them a few times, before snatching the bills waving in his face. He paged through them as he talked as if he was counting the three 20s. “Okay. 160,” he said, pointing at Daiyu. “But the game’s on in an hour. If I haven’t fixed it by then, you both come back later.”

“That sounds great,” Sai said quickly before Daiyu could jump in and annoy the man into raising the price again. His statement was punctuated with a short tap dance that he felt really made his point. Of course, if Larry hadn’t fixed the curse by the time the game came on, he still wasn’t planning on waiting another three to five business days, but they could figure that out when they got there. With any luck, they’d get this fixed in no time. The guy sounded confident enough he could help them.

“Well, let’s see the thing, then,” Larry said, pulling out a pair of glasses from his pocket.

—

The game was on in an hour. She wanted to unwire her jaw and sink her teeth into his pointing finger after telling him that caring this much about live sports on a television was ridiculous. She was a beacon of self control as she resisted both that and the urge to point back at him. Daiyu threw her ass back, “Deal.”

As Larry worked on putting on his old-man glasses, she moved into the house so there was less risk of dancing herself off the step to the door. They were paying him, which meant he should invite them into his house. It would also make it easier should Larry prove even more annoying than he already was, as being half out on the street was not favorable for these kinds of clandestine, under the table, potentially violent meetings. She didn't want to fight the spellcaster, but if he really did prioritize his game over this curse, she might be incapable of controlling herself.

She dug in her pocket for the amulet and held it out, “Here you go,” she said, twirling twice on her tippytoes before properly handing it to Larry. The spellcaster refused to touch it though, and just bent closer with his glasses on.

“Lacks imagination,” he muttered, “That's just offensive, at this point.” He looked up, said very little to his dancing, uninivited guests and moved deeper into the belly of his home. “Come.”

—

They followed the man to the back of his house and through a backyard of dead grass, mostly empty beyond some dilapidated yard chair with missing vinyl slats. Larry opened up what looked like the door to the garage, and beckoned them in. Metal racks lined the room inside, filled with plastic tubs. They were labeled, but the handwriting was bad enough it was impossible for Sai to read what any of them said. He wondered if that was intentional or not.

Larry gestured to an empty metal table sitting in the middle of the room. “Leave it there,” he said, as he went to a back bench and pulled out an old plastic toolbox. He threw back the two sides of the lid, and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out what looked like a standard hammer.

Sai had been expecting something with a little more fanfare. Something that looked a little more like it might break a curse. Beyond vampires, there was only so much of the supernatural world he’d learned in the last few decades, and there was still plenty left to surprise him. Maybe the man had done something to the hammer already that might make it better suited to a task like this. Sai glanced at Daiyu, considering asking, but decided it wasn’t worth the dance moves. He’d see for himself how the whole process worked well enough. “If I’m right, this is an easy one,” Larry said, as he waited for Daiyu to set the amulet down. “If I’m wrong – well, the good news for you both is I’m usually not.”

—

Daiyu carried the amulet with great distaste, and not just because Jerry had called it uninspired. She did not concern herself with his opinions, even though she did agree: it was boring, to curse a locket. People should start cursing every day objects, like free promotional keychains or plastic knives. That would be much more chaotic. She imagined a world where she was a spellcaster; that world would know no peace, none at all.

She dropped the amulet with little grace, looking around the room without shame. She had half a mind to pick up a jar holding something jellified and shake it to see what would happen, but Daiyu would like to stop dancing first. Priorities and whatnot.

She looked at Terry with a look of disbelief. A hammer? “For real?” She was critically shimmying as she asked the question, but kept her mouth shut after on account of all the shimmying. It made her criticisms not sound as harsh as she wanted them to, and Daiyu didn't want to seem super enthusiastic about Terry making a joke out of all this.

“Yes,” he said tersely, aiming the hammer up before slamming it down. Not once, but thrice, in a swift and surprisingly strong manner that had Daiyu wondering if he was hiding large biceps underneath that ridiculous outfit of his. Larry looked at Sai, his preferred intruder of the day (as far as one could prefer an intruder, of course, which wasn't too far at all). “Well? Are you still dancing or …?”

—

Sai took a few steps back from the table as amulet shards went flying out from under Larry’s hammer. Should they be wearing protective goggles or something? Larry didn’t seem too concerned with it, though, as he turned to Sai.

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure,” Sai started, but with the words he’d already answered the man’s question. There was no uncontrollable urge. That tension in the muscles that had burst from every sentence was gone. He was standing still. “It looks like it’s fixed.” He looked over at the broken amulet, scattered in pieces across the table. It was good they’d had an expert to consult, sure. Only it seemed like maybe Daiyu and he should have thought to try that first. It took a little bit of the edge of Sai’s joy on not having to dance everywhere.

“Great, job well done, then,” Larry grunted. “Pay up, so you can get out of my hair.”

“Oh right,” Sai said, getting out his wallet, before remembering he’d already pulled all the cash from it. “Do you take Venmo or…” he glanced at Daiyu to see if she’d jump in.

—

She watched with relief how Sai stopped dancing and Daiyu opened her mouth with a new level of excitement. As a certified yapper, being robbed of the ability to talk without straining had been quite the curse. “Fuck yes,�� she said, while standing completely still. “You’re a miracle wo—” She stopped her compliments, remembering Larry’s general attitude. Best not make him feel too good about this entire ordeal. Especially because he was being paid. That was enough of feel good, she figured.

“Whatever. You did okay,” she said, rolling her eyes demonstratively before pulling out her wallet. She wasn’t very versed in internet security, but she had a feeling that spellcasters could curse venmo requests. She got out the remaining owed cash, pushing it into Larry’s greedy hands. “There.”

She eyed Sai, “I do take venmo.” A toothy grin was added to that statement, though unsaid went the threat that she always found people who owed her money.

“Get out, then,” Larry said before any of those sentiments could be verbalized. Daiyu offered the spellcaster another expression of disgruntledness (despite the fact that he’d saved her) before turning on her heel and leaving the weird house behind. She could not wait to tell people about this without any awkward dance moves.

#step up.#threads.#sai.

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thebawdybaldurian · 5 months ago

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Halsummer Day 1

Halsin enjoying Midsummer

It’s the start of Halsummer! A week of SFW prompts for our favorite Druid. I’ll be adding a NSFW version later tonight or tomorrow, but enjoyed keeping things a little tame. I even included a cameo of a character from a popular DnD show I’ve been wanting to write! This is a pretty Tav-focused story, but several of the other prompts will be more from Halsin’s perspective.

Background: Tav, Astarion, and Halsin are married and have two young twins. The trio has just purchased the home next door, now that they need more space than Tav’s small cottage can accommodate. They sold Astarion’s tailor shop to help pay for it, and he plans to reopen in the front of the house. Cazador’s former palace has been turned into a refuge for displaced tieflings.

Tav awoke from her trance hearing a loud, repetitive clunk that drove her out of bed. “What in the Hells is that?” She searched the cottage, finding it suspiciously empty. “Where is everyone?” She called aloud, expecting an answer. She heard giggling outside and grabbed a cloak to cover her thin chemise. The clunk was louder once she opened the front door and she skirted around the cottage to look for the source. She found Halsin in the wide alley between her cottage and the neighbor’s house, which they’d just bought to accommodate their growing household. The twins sat safely near the side of the house, playing with some toys as Halsin drove a pickaxe into the cobblestone. “What are you doing?” She yawned, shielding her eyes from the bright summer sunlight.

“Getting the new garden started,” he smiled, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“We haven’t even gotten the permits to tear up the alley yet,” she grinned, giving the kids a good morning kiss on the head.

“If some city bureaucrat wishes to come haul me down to the jail, they can certainly try,” he set down his axe to receive his own good morning kiss.

“We already drove one neighbor away from all the…noise,” she blushed as he gripped her buttocks tightly. “Not everyone can be swayed by your rippling physique and we can’t afford to buy the whole neighborhood…Good morning, by the way,” she smiled as he released her from his tight grasp.

“Good morning, my heart.”

“Were you up when Astarion left?”

“I was. He wanted to get a head start on his last minute orders since he’s closing at High Sun.”

“And yet he still hasn’t finished our Midsummer outfits yet,” she smirked, stepping back as he began breaking up stones again.

“You know how fussy he is about getting them perfect.”

“I know too well…so I’m assuming you already have a whole plan in mind for this garden?”

“I have a cart full of rich soil coming from the grove, so once I get all these stones up and dig out enough of this city dirt, I can start planting in the fall before the ground freezes. There will be thick hedges on either side so no one can just walk through and we can have…private time out here. There will be aromatic and medicinal herbs in vertical gardens to save space. I’m hoping to create a dark, damp corner to start some mycology growth, but I don’t know how they will fair in the city. Plants and flowers everywhere else,” he replied, looking over all the work to do.

“Quite ambitious for a man pushing 400,” she grinned widely.

“You make me feel no older than 200,” he growled at her.

“Just make sure to save some energy for tonight’s festivities,” she winked and headed back into the house.

Tav was performing at her first large festival since having the twins and was a little nervous. She’d been preparing for her performance for weeks, but still felt out of practice. She bathed and put on some loose clothing to do some intense stretching, practicing some of her tumbling as well now that they had more space. She brought out some iced honey tea for Halsin as he continued his work in the sun and took the kids in for a nap. She’d just begun precisely tuning her lyre when Astarion arrived home.

He was already dressed for the holiday, wearing a very short, leg-less garment adorned in flowers. It was bare in the back, showing off his now flawless, pale skin. He’d been dressing more freely since being transformed by Syma’s Wish spell. “That’s it then…last day in my old shop,” he went to the icebox to grab his own glass of honey tea.

“You certainly dressed for the occasion,” she teased, his backside peeking out as he bent into the fridge. “You really wore that all day? Bending over in it?”

“Of course,” he grinned, doing a little twirl. “I wasn’t doing any measurements and I sold ten copies of these before even getting to my shop. Once we get the new one open here, I might have to hire an assistant.”

“From dictating laws to dictating fashion trends…quite the turn for a forty-year old,” she beamed, giving him a long kiss.

“I had a lot of help,” he nuzzled against her. “I’ve never been happier.”

They kissed passionately, leaning against the kitchen table until they were interrupted by a stranger knocking on the window. “Take it outside, ha ha!” He laughed drunkenly, clearly already getting a head start on the festivities. He ambled away after taking a swig from a flask.

“So if the shop is officially closed, does that mean you’ve finally finished my costume for tonight? I’d like to make sure I don’t need to change up my set in any way,” she asked, closing the curtains.

“Oh, it’s been done for days. I just like making you wait,” he lied, having finished up the last finnicky bit before he’d gone to the shop.

They left the cottage and found Halsin stowing his tools for the day, needing to drop the kids at the Emerald Enclave, so Zevlor could watch them for the night. “We don’t have permits yet,” Astarion also teased, looking over the torn-up alley. “Though if any city inspectors see you looking like this…they might give us a break,” He gave Halsin a kiss.

Halsin let out a laugh and wiped his brow again. His tanned skin glistened with sweat, small spots of dirt smeared across his bare torso. He’d pulled his long hair until a messy knot, looking the very picture of a romance novel hero. “If it were me, I’d let him plant gardens across the entire city,” Tav stood on her toes to steal a kiss from him. “And whatever he wanted to put in me.”

“Save it for tonight, my heart,” Halsin growled playfully, gripping her tightly against him. “They are letting the maidens loose in the park to be hunted…what will they be doing with the overly amorous wives?”

“I’m sure we can think of something creative,” she purred back at him. “Speaking of…you’ve distracted me from trying on my costume. I am sure Astarion will have a few more adjustments to make.”

“Can you get the little ones up and fed lunch while I bathe? I want to get them over to the Enclave before the frivolities start spilling out into the streets.”

“Of course, my love,” she gave him one last peck on the cheek.

She followed Astarion to the front side of the house, which was still in the process of being converted into his new shop front. Piles of ready to wear garments sat stacked on tables, with various bits from the old shop scattered around. “I’ll take care of the kids,” he offered as they walked inside. “Why don’t you go try on what I left on the dress form?”

“Alright,” she nodded, heading to the small room that would serve as his sewing area.

Astarion went to the children’s bedroom, finding Ava already awake and sitting on the floor drawing. “You’re already up?” He knelt down to kiss his daughter’s head. “Did you get enough sun this morning?”

“Ya…want to dwaw so I woke up,” she replied, staring at the paper with the same intense focus as Tav did.

“You get your energy from the sun, darling, but you still need to sleep,” he mussed her long curls. “Stubborn just like your mother,” he laughed quietly.

They were so very similar that he sometimes forgot that his daughter was a dhamphir, conceived before he had been cured of his vampirism. They could only suspect her unusual thirst for sunlight instead of blood was due to the magically enchanted ring he’d worn before his cure. It had allowed him to walk in the sun through a blood bond with Tav and Halsin. He rubbed the small scar on the underside of his right ring finger, grateful that it might have saved his daughter from a life of bloodlust. “Why don’t you wake up your brother and I will take this to the table for you to finish while you eat lunch? I am sure Uncle Zevlor will have plenty for you to do at the Enclave,” he took the drawing from her to break her focus on it. She whined a little but got up, toddling over to her brother’s bed. She blew a loud raspberry into his peacefully sleeping face to wake him up. She still took after Astarion in some ways, he chuckled to himself as Shan woke up with an annoyed growl.

Astarion helped both kids into their chairs and gave them some cut up fruit to snack on while he prepared some cold sandwiches for them. He was still getting used to eating food again, so they had plenty of simple options in both houses for him. “Astarion!” Tav called from the other room as he set the kids’ plates down.

“Be good,” he looked at them before heading to his sewing room.

Tav stood facing the door with her arms crossed over her chest, both from annoyance and to cover the intense cleavage spilling out of her costume. It was made of embroidered lace, hugging her body with long trails of red, white, and pink roses. “You don’t like it?” He smirked, looking her over.

“It’s beautiful,” she uncrossed her arms. “But if I bend down, everyone is going to see my nipples slip out or what I had for dinner,” she laughed, flashing her backside at him.

“Then we should eat a fine meal tonight,” he teased, leaning down to plant a kiss on it.

“Astarion!” She protested.

“There are specific undergarments to wear under it…and a cover up for walking over to the park,” he grinned. “I just wanted to see it on you bare.”

He grabbed another box from under the table, containing the undergarments and a few other accessories as well. “Let me change then and make sure I can still move in all of this,” she looked everything over with a smile.

He returned back to the kitchen, Ava still too enraptured by her drawing to have eaten any of her sandwich. “Don’t make me take it away,” he put the plate over the drawing to interrupt her again.

“Da!” She cried, tears already beginning to fill her amethyst eyes.

“You aren’t giving your father trouble, are you?” Halsin walked in, freshly bathed and changed into new clothes.

“No,” she sulked, squishing a piece of the sandwich in her fist.

Astarion was a pushover when it came to the children, forcing Halsin and Tav to be the disciplinarians most of the time. “Thank you, my angel,” Halsin sat down next to her to help her finish eating the rest.

“Oooo pretty mommy,” Shan exclaimed with a last mouthful of food when Tav reappeared, fully changed and with her hair taken down.

The semi-sheer gossamer cover up was modest enough to wear in front of the children, the muted colors of her costume visible through the fabric. Her hair was curled and voluminous, a delicate crown of silk flowers threaded into some of the strands. She’d thrown on a bit of shimmery makeup to give her an ethereal, goddess-like aura. “Pretty indeed,” Halsin and Astarion both stared at her.

“I won’t be able to do as many flips as I planned, but Astarion has done it again,” she did a little twirl.

“Why don’t you two grab your favorite toy and I will take you to see Uncle Zevlor?” Halsin kept his gaze on Tav while helping the kids out of their chairs.

He embraced her at once after Astarion had guided the children into their room for a moment. “You are testing all of my self control,” he growled in her ear as he kissed and nuzzled her neck.

“Astarion will have your head if you rip off this one,” she giggled. “Just wait until you see me on stage.”

“The evening cannot come soon enough,” he added as Astarion returned with the kids, a wide smirk plastered on his face.

Halsin put the kids into their walking carriage so he didn’t have to carry them all the way to the Upper City. Shan had chosen to bring his owlbear plush and Ava had Clive Jr. He headed out with them into the early afternoon sun, eager to get back home to his beautiful wife. Several other couples had already dropped their children off at the Emerald Enclave, looking forward to the evening’s decadent mirth-making. “They are growing quickly,” Zevlor greeted them in his wing of the former Crimson Palace. Many of the tiefling orphans had gone to live in Reithwin at Halsin’s commune, but a few had remained in the city and Zevlor oversaw their care.

“Especially this one,” Halsin picked up Shan out of his carriage, Ava having fallen back asleep on the way.

“He will no longer be a little tree very soon,” Zevlor took him, surprised at the toddler’s weight. “He takes after his father.”

“I believe he is already taller than I was at his age,” Halsin covered Ava with a blanket so she could rest more. “Thank you again for watching them.”

“Of course,” Zevlor nodded, setting Shan down with a groan. “I am too old to enjoy most of the revelry.”

“We’ll likely be gone late into the night…but if they can’t sleep, you can always drop them home.”

“I am sure we will have a grand time,” Zevlor began pulling out toys for them to play with.

Halsin returned home after kissing the twins goodbye, already seeing festival-goers heading towards the park in scandalous attire. He could only imagine what Astarion had made for him to wear. Tav was doing some practice on her lyre when Halsin returned, a little extra blush in her cheeks. “She’s still nervous for tonight?” Halsin asked Astarion, whose cheeks were also blushed slightly.

“She is…I did what I could to…take her mind off things, but perhaps she needs a little more…reassurance,” Astarion grinned. “Then you can change and we can head to dinner.”

Halsin was quick with his reassurance, giving her voice a little extra warmup. He changed into the outfit Astarion had sewn, something similar to the one he wore, though a bit less revealing. The trio walked together towards the Helm and Cloak where they would be having dinner. They were stopped several times to inquire about their outfits, Astarion presenting them with business cards. They’d had to scratch out the old address, but Tav had already designed and sent new ones to the printers for him. They ate a sumptuous dinner and enjoyed a bit of dessert tasting off one another’s bodies, as the revelry got into full swing.

They headed towards the park after, where the festival was bustling and crowded. Alcohol flowed freely and was passed between mouths as vintners and brewers provided free samples of their fermentations. Tav accepted a few wine-laced kisses from her husbands, not wanting to drink too much before her performance, but enough to shed any last minute nerves. She left them near a prime spot by the front of the large stage and disappeared into the performer’s tent nearby to make her final preparations. She shed her cover-up, many of the other bards and acrobats inquiring about her outfit. “I’m afraid my designer only does costuming exclusively for me,” she beamed. “But he sells generic designs in his shop,” she handed out several more business cards to the disappointed artists. She secured her flower crown a little more and attached the silk epaulettes that attached to her shoulders and hips. They resembled white wisteria blooms and would shake beautifully when she danced.

She nervously waited at the side of the stage when her time slot drew near. A group of performers were doing an acrobatic number around the three maypoles that had been affixed to the stage. Two solo artists spun and contorted on the side poles, while a pair did a very sensual routine together on the center pole. Tav blushed deeply, spying Halsin and Astarion in the crowd, their arm around each others’ waists. They appeared to be very into the center performance, kissing and whispering to one another as the two performers put several new positions in their heads. Tav had been secretly practicing a few moves utilizing the maypole, but was no where close to the skill of these acrobats. The performance ended with a shower of not-so-subtle white petals that rained down onto the crowd and stage with a resounding climax of cheers. “Tough act to follow, darling,” Lucretious, the emcee, patted Tav on the back as she strutted on stage to make announcements.

Her voice boomed across the park as the Projecting Stones at the front of the stage amplified it into the crowd. “What a stunning and sensual performance by the Spinning Sisters of the Savalirwood!” Lucretious praised as the five acrobats left the stage. They all nodded at Tav as they passed, covered in sweat and petals that had stuck to their skin. “Well worth the journey from Exandria, if I do say so myself!” Lucretious continued.

“Chardonnay? Is that you? I never forget a backside,” a voice called from behind Tav as Lucretious reminded the crowd about the proper etiquette for voyeurism and consent during public activities of an erotic nature.

“Scanlan Shorthalt? Of all the people I expected to see!” Tav knelt down to greet the gnomish bard, giving him a peck on the cheek. “What are you doing on Toril?”

“I’m here with the Sisters,” Scanlan glanced back at the quintuple of acrobats heading to the performer’s tent. “I’m their manager.”

“Manager?” Tav asked. “So you’ve hung up your lute?”

“I have,” Scanlan nodded. “I’m a family man now. I have a wife and giant Goliath son to feed. The money was too good to pass up the invite.”

“I understand that,” Tav smiled, holding out her hands and showing off the two bands on both her ring fingers.

“I never thought I’d see the day and twice over!” Scanlan’s eyes widened. “Especially not after that night we had in Stilben.”

“How long are you here for?” Tav asked, hearing Lucretious wrapping up her announcements with some quick jokes. “I’d love to catch up…and introduce you to my husbands.”

“A few days. Those Planetshift Portals really screw with my insides. We can talk after, perhaps meet for dinner,” he replied as Lucretious announced Tav to the stage. “Good luck, Charddy!”

“Coming to the stage now, one of the heroes of Baldur’s Gate, a seductive songstress and contorter of clowns. Lady Chardonnay Brandywine!”

The crowd whistled as Tav walked on stage, doing a few nervous twirls and bows with her lyre tucked under her arm. All the nervousness ceased when she strummed her first note, imbuing the instrument with her magic. The thrill of the performance took over, her body moving almost instinctually to the rhythm of her music. She danced and sang, spinning around the center pole while a Mage Hand played her lyre. Halsin and Astarion stood beaming in the crowd, seeing that she hadn’t missed a step since becoming a mother. The love and passion that she held in her heart for them flowed into her performance, the crowd both enraptured and titillated. Occasionally moans could be heard in the crowd as couples let their inhibitions lower for the night. There was no shower of white at the climax of Tav’s performance, but an urgent high note as she fell into a split in front of the maypole, her chest heaving with heavy breaths.

She left the stage to cheers and whistles, the crowd becoming more rowdy after her set. “Dear Gods,” she grimaced, putting a hand to her groin. She may not have lost much of a step after giving birth to Halsin’s enormous son, but her hips weren’t what they used to be and she instantly felt it.

“As incredible as ever,” Scanlan clapped as she hobbled down the stairs.

“Just a little more weathered,” she groaned at the last step. “I have my own giant son now too.”

“You had a baby!” Scanlan exclaimed.

“Twins, actually,” Tav downed a mug of water waiting for her inside the performer’s tent. “Once you meet my husbands, you will understand.”

“I can’t wait. It sounds like you’ve gotten up to a lot in the past twenty years. A hero of Baldur’s Gate?”

“It’s a long tale,” Tav let out a loud sigh, fanning herself with her hand. “I wrote a play about it.”

“Well, wait until you hear about Vecna,” Scanlan laughed, grabbing them each a glass of wine. “It sounds like we might need to make this dinner multiple courses.”

#baldur's gate 3 #halsin #halsin silverbough #halsin x tav #BG3halsummer

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not-available-for-comment · 2 years ago

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Ok, so Firefox’s pocket suggestions have been trying to get me to read a list of “8 life-changing nonfiction books selected by top authors” and while I don’t really feel like reading that article, I think it could make a cool prompt. Nonfiction tends to have a rep for being dry or trite, but I think it can be powerful and engaging as well. I probably don’t have near enough followers to be doing a book rec post, but whatev, I like talking about books, we’re doing this.

Prompt: List 5-8 Life-Changing Nonfiction Books

In no particular order:

1. The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS by Elizabeth Pisani (2008)

This is probably the book I’m most scared to go back and read, because I suspect parts of it did not age well. I think she’s released an updated edition and I’m interested in revisiting that one. That said, as someone raised in a very conservative environment, this book completely revolutionized my thinking on harm reduction strategies like needle exchanges and free condoms from the cOnDONinG bAd beHaViOr bullshit I believed when I was younger to “oh look, a way to keep people alive and healthy”. She also had some eye opening comments on the “rescuing women from developing nation brothels” charities that were so popular in the 90s. I still think about the insights in this book often.

2. The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler (1993)

I don’t know if I can even describe how foundational this book was for me when I first read it in my early 20s. Kunstler describes the way cars have usurped human comfort in American architecture, land management, and city planning in meticulous detail. It made me look at my environment with new eyes, and appreciate alternatives I had barely even grasped, in spite of having traveled internationally. I don’t recall Kunstler’s book explicitly speaking to the disabled community’s concerns with anti-car rhetoric, which have gotten increasingly relevant over time. But I still highly recommend the book as an excellent introduction for USians interested in improving our lived environment and anyone else who wants to know What The Hell Happened With The US And Cars.

3. Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman (2009)

I’ve never been an intuitive cook: the kind of person who can look in the cupboard and throw together a dish based on what I can see. I actually started out baking almost exclusively, because the precision of baking recipes helped keep me from going astray. Ruhlman’s book was the first to help me crack the cooking code. Ironically, I’ve made very few of his recipes, which tend to have an overly fussy, professional chef ring to them. But learning about the basic ratios and techniques that went into popular western dishes helped me start to understand how cooking worked. It’s been 10 years since I read Ruhlman’s book, and I still often cook with a recipe. But sometimes I don’t. And his book is part of the reason why.

4. My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness by Nagata Kabi (2009)

I’m sure this one isn’t new to a tumblr audience, but it deserves its excellent reputation. This graphic memoir is hard to quantify accurately. It is, of course, an important work on the experience of being queer in Japan. But it’s also a searching, thoughtful, and sometimes brutal examination of the self, a coming of age story that is unsentimental but insightful and, I think, ultimately hopeful. I bought the book several years after it came out, at a time when I personally felt like a failure and a disappointment to my parents, and devoured it and felt less alone. Highly recommend to everyone, regardless of sexual orientation. (Note that it does at one point describe the author’s eating disorder.)

5. Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose (2017)

This book revolutionized the way I thought about personal essays. This is not “I had a mildly risqué experience as a young white middle class cis woman which I will now recount to you for money.” Nor is it really my much-beloved genre of creative nonfiction that combines rapturous descriptions of the taste and scent of peaches with rigorously researched discursions on the history of the state of Georgia. No, this is a creative explosion, raining color and candy, flashing by your face too quickly to be fully registered but delightful all the same. Chew-Bose writes stream of consciousness, but one loaded with sharply observed images and quicksilver thoughts, tangents to tangents to tangents, some circling back and some not, personal memory and constant cascades of cultural commentary threading together into universal but deeply personal tapestries. If you have any taste at all for either essays or virtuoso writing you MUST read this book.

I think that’s a good stopping point for me. Curious to see if anyone else does this prompt and if so, what they pick.

#book recs #rocky rambles

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haru-sen · 1 year ago

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Wanted: Alpha Readers

Hitting a wall with the original series. Looking for someone who's interested in reading a WIP and giving feedback. Bonus if you're good with me word-vomiting at you while I refine some concepts. (I promise I'll keep crying fits to a minimum.)

Book 1: The Foxglove Pact

Welcome to Illium, City of Lies, a home to man, monsters, and magic, where the cardinal rule is “don’t draw attention to the occult underground.” Except it’s not so underground any more: it lives down the street, goes to PTA meetings, and occasionally eats your pets

Private investigator Feng Yue “Claire” Giles is skeptical when a client, with severe credibility issues, comes in convinced that his child was switched for a Fey Changeling. He claims that he killed the impostor, and now he wants his real kid back. Worse, he has the influence to make her take the job.

Claire is not in this alone. She has a potential ally in the scarred mercenary Dreyson, though his past is even more checkered than hers, and none of her allies trust him. But both are on the job and under threat, physically and romantically, from the Fey Court enforcer known as the Crow Knight.

Claire has a very strained relationship with the law and a layman’s grasp of the supernatural, a combination that forces her to walk a very thin line, but also makes her precisely the right person to take this case. Especially when one of the Changelings shows up to hire her to find their human counterpart. However, the Fey Courts, preternatural civil servants, and local mercenaries all have their own agendas: not everyone wants her digging up the past. Changelings start turning up dead and this alleged baby-switching case has far-reaching consequences for the city, the children, and their families. Now Claire needs to move fast to find the Changelings and their human counterparts before it’s too late.

Book 2: The Wolfbane Trail *Contains spoilers for the Foxglove Pact

Welcome to Illium, City of Refuge, where a disgraced knight, an exiled princess, and traumatized Changeling children can give therapy a test run. Here, there is also a Family Law Division of the Shadow Courts, so yes, supernatural custody disagreements can turn into all-out war, but that isn’t really so different from everyone else; if you ignore the involvement of another sovereign state, generational curses, and murderous tree-people.

Feng Yue “Claire” Giles is now employed by the diplomatic half of the Lares, the bureaucratic guardians of the city. Her interest remains in protecting both the Changeling children (human and Fey) and the Vernal Princess, the true heir to subjugated Spring Court. Both the current ruler and an exiled uncle make a bid for custody, their political machinations and the violence of the Courts spilling over into the city. Claire opposes returning the young princess, and this stance unfortunately, puts her on the same side as the Crow Knight, who seems hellbent on courting both her and the mercenary Dreyson.

Worse, werewolves are going missing, their body parts are turning in black market shops, with no clues as to how they are disappearing. With everyone focused on the violence of the Fey Courts spilling into the city, a few missing werewolves aren’t the priority. Even Claire’s boss and close friend, Thomas Remington, refuses to help the Special Investigations Unit on the case. Against her better judgment, and everyone else’s advice, Claire agrees to look into the matter.

With tensions high, and alliances shifting, Claire needs all the help she can get to keep the children safe, stay alive, and push the Fey fighting out of the city, before everything goes straight to hell.

Book 3: The Pain in My Ass WIP

So much family drama, lol.

#writing

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whimsicalworldofme · 2 years ago

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Saving Grace: Chapter Forty-Nine

When the world needs the Avengers, Steve Rogers won’t stop at anything to keep it safe.

After spending the whole morning battling to get anything actually productive done, Grace gave up. Bruce had holed himself up in the command center, which is what her dad called the largest conference room that had all the toys and tech the Avengers would use to plan a mission, and was coordinating with whatever members of the team he could get hold of to get them up to speed on what was happening and get a response team in motion. Everyone else had made themselves busy. Pepper had meetings with partner companies that couldn’t be put off because she couldn’t very well tell everyone there was an alien invasion pending and take the day off. Grace had insisted she was fine, but she couldn’t focus, couldn’t think of anything but the looming threat and the nagging feeling that something had gone horribly wrong, which caused her father’s current state of silence.

“Friday, please let Pepper know I’m going out for a walk around the property,” she told the AI after conceding that nothing would get done and changing into a pair of yoga pants, a Led Zeppelin tee, and her comfortable sneakers.

“Of course, Dr. Turner,” the AI answered.

Pulling her hair into a ponytail as she walked down the hall towards the front door, she contemplated which trail she wanted to take. Her dad had set up quite a few nice trails around the compound because he and Pepper had recently taken up running together in Central Park.

“Uncle Rhodey?”

She halted when her dad’s best friend stepped through the front door just as she was about to head outside. He’d insisted she start calling him Uncle when they’d spent so much time together developing his leg braces and working together during his physical therapy.

“Hey Grace.”

He flashed a guilty half-smile, the sort that gave away that something was off. Before she could ask what it was that had him looking so guilt-ridden, Secretary of State, Thaddeus Ross stepped through the door behind him, adjusting the sleeves of his suit jacket.

“What the hell is he doing here,” she glared daggers at the old man whose lips curved up in a sharky smile that made her want to throw a solid punch right at his smug, stupid face. Clenching her fist, she did her bet to fight the urge.

“The situation that’s developing is something only the Avengers can handle,” Rhodey explained gently, taking a step to the side to put himself physically between her and Ross, just in case. He knew well enough by now that she had enough of her father’s tendencies to be the sort who could be an absolute menace and either insult the Secretary of State or throw an unsolicited swing at him. “Like it or not, he has to be involved.”

“As head of the Avengers—” Ross began and something in Grace’s brain snapped.

“My father and my fiancée are head of the Avengers,” she spat. “You’re just a bureaucratic obstacle in a cheap suit.”

“I don’t expect a civilian like you to understand the importance of the government’s oversight—”

“Oh, fuck off you overinflated stooge,” Grace rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Grace,” Rhodey laid a hand on her upper arm, trying to calm her, his eyes flashing an unspoken message of caution.

“Don’t worry about it, Uncle Rhodey. It’s not like he can send me to the superhero supermax prison for calling him names,” she stated before leaning around her uncle so she could shoot another potshot at the secretary while looking him directly in the eye. “Can you, you vacuous waste of oxygen?”

“Colonel Rhodes,” Ross growled in warning.

“Grace, there’s a line,” Rhodey cautioned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“He shouldn’t be here,” Grace lowered her voice, leaning in to whisper to him. “I don’t want him anywhere on the compound unaccompanied.”

“I will keep him in the command center and make sure I’m on him at all times.”

“And the instant your meeting is over, I want him off my father’s property,” she added.

“I will take care of it,” he promised.

Grace nodded, the momentary lull in her anger giving way to the unsettling fear that had been hovering over her the last few days. She felt her eyes stinging with the threat of tears and she sniffed, eyes dropping to her feet.

“My dad’s missing, isn’t he?”

Rhodey made an unusual, grunting sound as he fumbled for an answer and Grace looked back up at him, seeing the truth in his eyes, just in case his lack of words hadn’t made it clear.

“He would’ve recommended meeting with Ross in the sewers before he suggested bringing him here. And if he had to bring him here, he never would’ve allowed him on the premises without being here to keep him from snooping around.”

“Don’t let your brain go to worst case scenario,” Rhodey tried to comfort her, but since Grace’s brain had already ventured down that path, she couldn’t stop. “He’s gone missing before,” he reminded her. “He always turns up eventually, just give him a little time. He’ll be back before you know it, promise.”

Always with the promises. She wanted to roll her eyes but she knew he was only trying to help, so she tamped down her anger and simply nodded.

“Colonel Rhodes, this is a time sensitive issue,” Ross huffed from behind him.

“I’ll catch up with you after, ok?” Rhodey looked her in the eye and she nodded again. “Good,” he turned on his heel and stepped towards Ross, gesturing for him to make his way down the hall with him. “Follow me, Mr. Secretary.”

Despite Rhodey’s calm insistence that her dad would turn up, that everything would be fine, Grace couldn’t help the anxiety attack that she felt coming on. It felt like a heart attack, her chest tight, breathing shallow. She fumbled with her bracelet as she stepped out into the sunshine of the morning, hitting the button that unleashed her nanotech suit.

“Dr. Turner are you all right?” Friday’s voice inquired as the armor encased her and the visor of her helmet dropped. “I’m detecting elevated heartrate and low blood oxygen levels.”

“Just a panic attack Friday,” she gasped. “Gotta focus on something else, so please don’t ask again.”

“Of course, Dr. Turner,” the AI agreed as she shot off the ground, straight up into the sky.

Flying provided a good distraction as she skimmed over the top of the property’s manmade lake, dragging just the tips of her toes through the water, which threw up a rooster tail behind her, like a speedboat. She broke from the open spaces and began zipping through trees along one of the wooded jogging trails. Having to keep her mind fully on what was in front of her kept her from descending into a total and complete breakdown. After a while, she rocketed straight up into the sky, letting out a primal guttural yell to vent all the twisted knotted mass of emotions roiling around in her.

“Dr. Turner, there’s an incoming aircraft, please divert your course,” Friday stated and a dotted line display popped up on the screen of her visor to guide her out of harm’s way.

“Thanks, Friday,” she sighed and followed the charted path down and back towards the compound. Rolling onto her back she saw a quintjet approaching and wondered which Avengers were on board. With Bruce and Rhodey there already, her dad missing, and half the team on the lam, she racked her brain to figure out who it might be.

It wouldn’t be Thor; he’s got his own stuff going on. Maybe Clint? Would they bring in Hill? Where’s Fury? Oh, what’s Ant Man’s name? Scott?

She lingered in the air, keeping her distance from the quintjet as it landed, slowly getting closer as the gangplank began to descend. She came to a landing at the foot of it and opened up her visor in time to see Wanda, Vision, and Sam, in his Falcon suit, exit the jet, Vision between the other two, clearly injured and needing assistance to walk.

“Oh my god,” she gaped, hitting the button to have her armor retract into her bracelet. Dashing up the ramp, she met them halfway. “You guys can’t be here. Secretary Ross is here. He’ll arrest you.”

“Good to see you too, Doc,” Sam snorted a laugh, clearly unbothered by her warning.

“Vision, are you going to be ok?” She couldn’t see any visible injuries, but clearly, he needed help. “Do you need me to help out in the workshop with anything?” Since he was a humanoid android or sorts, he needed tech assistance, not medical. She wasn’t as knowledgeable as her dad, but she could do little things here and there.

“I think I can manage, Dr. Turner, thank you,” Vision replied.

“I can get you into the building undetected but you’re going to have to lay low,” Grace felt a knot in her stomach, worrying about how to keep her little family of superheroes safe from the snarly government official she’d riled up lurking in the command center.

“Ross knows we’re coming,” Nat stated as she came down the ramp. She was dressed in her usual black spy suit and her usual red hair had been dyed platinum blonde and cut short. Coming to a halt in front of Grace, she crossed her arms over her chest, giving her a stern look. “What, no hug?” She asked in a flat tone that made Grace burst out laughing when a second prior she’d felt like doing anything but. A grin cracked Nat’s serious expression and they hugged, like sisters that hadn’t seen each other in years.

“Oh my god, I’m so glad to see you all,” Grace felt her heart full to bursting as she and Nat each took a step back, hands on each other’s shoulders. “Are you going to be safe here though, with Ross?”

“I will let the Captain explain all that.”

Nat tipped her head back towards the quintjet and then stepped aside just as Steve stepped onto the gangplank causing Grace’s heart to leap into her throat. With a gentle squeeze of her arm, Nat headed the off with the others into the building, leaving her momentarily too stunned to move or even speak to the man she loved. It felt impossible and somehow unreal, to the point that she didn’t trust her eyes.

“Hey Grace,” Steve said softly, a shy smile on his lips.

It was enough to break her out of her stupor. She bolted up the ramp, crashing into him, feeling warm and woozy as he wrapped his arms around her. Slinging her arms around his neck she held him tight, getting as close to him as she possibly could, all her fears and anxiety momentarily forgotten. She breathed deeply the scent of his skin and relished the feel of his hand on her back as he pulled her close. He let out a contented sigh, nuzzling her neck, giving her goosebumps and making her heart flutter.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, almost on the brink of tears. “Ross is going to try to arrest you the minute you walk into the room.”

“Bruce called,” he explained. “Told me something was coming.” They parted just enough to look each other in the eye. “I’m not about to leave the earth defenseless just because I’m not government sanctioned anymore.”

Grace nodded, crestfallen. Things were worse than she’d feared if he was about to charge in there with Ross and take command back. It also confirmed even further that her dad was truly missing in action.

“I know you’re scared,” he cupped her face, running his thumb along her cheek, his soft blue eyes earnest as they met hers, “I’m not going to tell you not to be. I can’t make promises, but I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe and bring Tony back home.”

“Thank you for not making promises. I’m so sick of everyone making promises they have no way of keeping.”

She let out a burdened sigh and leaned into him, pressing her forehead to his chest. Steve kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

“We should get inside,” he said without making a move to go. They stayed like that for a minute, wrapped up in each other. Taking in a deep breath, he finally broke from her. He kissed her softly before taking her by the hand. “Come on,” he offered a grim half-smile, “let’s get this over with.”

With a nod, Grace allowed him to lead her by the hand away from the hangar back towards the residential building. She couldn’t help herself from staring at him, overwhelmed by her feelings for him in that moment. His hair had gotten longer since she’d seen him the previous year in Wakanda and he had a full beard. Just an affectionate glance from him, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners as he smiled, set her whole body aflame. But there was a sorrow mingled into the moment, the weight hanging over both of them that this was another brief moment together before Steve charged head first into danger. He squeezed her hand and she leaned against him, taking a deep breath and trying to steady herself.

He's home and he’s safe. Just try to enjoy this moment, right now.

She leaned into him, resting her head against him, taking the time to commit to memory the way his hand felt around hers, their fingers interwoven, the feeling of safety and comfort his presence brought. It almost felt like they had stepped back in time to when Steve was training the newest Avengers, when they would take afternoon walks along the lake and talk about wedding plans, thoughts on the future, how many kids they wanted, what kind of house they wanted and where, and what they would do with their time once they were free from their superhero entanglements. It felt like a whole other lifetime.

Grace walked with him all the way to the command center, where they could see most of the team, sans her dad, gathered around the table, almost all of them avoiding Ross as much as possible.

“Come find me when you’re done,” she cupped his face affectionately, not really wanting to leave him, but knowing she didn’t belong in that meeting. Going up on her tiptoes, she drew his face down to meet hers, which made him chuckle, and kissed him sweetly. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he grinned, kissing her one more time before slipping out of her grasp and making his way into the command center.

Running one hand up and down her arm, she lingered for just a moment, watching Steve confront Ross. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but Ross’s facial expressions conveyed the gist, which picked up her mood enough to feel fine about walking away and carrying on with her day.

Chapter 48

Masterlist

Chapter 50

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