#drawing from last week that i forgot to post explodes

[moxielynx]

laloyd

[mxvladdy]

Hello! I love your writing and I may have a prompt, if it strikes your fancy. I'm aware it might not be entirely lore-friendly a request, but I love relationship shenanigans in Obey Me, so I got to ask: how do you think Luci, Diavolo, Satan and Beel would help their anxious SO adjust when MC begins demonstrating mad prowess in witchcraft right after they first spend the night together? Sex, power and pacts seem to go hand-in-hand in related media, but no one really planned for it in their case!

Awww thankie and sorry for the long wait! I’m glad you like my writing! I hope you like this! It gave me big thirst lmaooo

Lucifer

Mmmm you smell of him in the morning. He positively oozes from your every pore. Rich and spicy, like amber and freshly turned earth.

Good. Let it be known to all that you were claimed. Thoroughly.

He put his daily routine on hold for you this morning. He was weak to your pouting.

He’ll stay in bed for a little bit to indulge you. But duty calls and work waits for no demon

Neither of you really pay attention to how hard you are clinging to him when he tries to extract himself to get dressed

You both just kind of chalk it up to neither of you want to part

The day goes on as usual for him, meetings, paperwork, meetings, punishing Mammon, meetings

But the whole time something was nagging at him. He just couldn’t put his finger on it. He just felt like he forgot something important

But that’s impossible-

The wall explodes out behind him cutting Lucifer off mid-sentence. The rubble and great ball of flames miss him and Diavolo by mere inches only because of the latter’s quick reflexes. “Are you alright my friend?” Diavolo asks golden eyes alight with surprise. Lucifer could feel the prince’s defensive magic prickling his skin in response to the pungent magic wafting out of the hole.

“Of course-” Lucifer steps back, straightening his jacket’s lapels, the near-miss ruffles his feathers. Both men step closer to the hole. His hackles raise.  The power emanating from the crater was far too familiar. Someone dares to use his magical signatures without permission.  Snarling into the abyss he marches forward. He ignores Diavolo’s calls to wait and strides through the hole. His wings flare up from his back along with his temper. He walks through each wave of magic that washes over him. With each destroyed wall he steps through more and more of his demonic form comes forth till he is more beast than man. Strolling through the final hole he stops. His red eyes sweep across the scene in front of him. As the seconds' tick by his mood morphs from rage to shock, then to a sense of blinding pride.  

“Well-” He crosses his arms and smirks. He turns his gaze to the epicenter of the damage.

“Luci, I am so so sorry.” You mutter aghast behind your fingers. “I-I don’t know what happened.” You were never the best student in any of the practical classes. The teachers made exceptions for you and your lack of magical prowess. In this class, the teacher always paired you up with Solomon or Luke so they could help you prepare the necessary spells and runes. But you felt so different today, stronger and sharper. Damn near unstoppable even. Just the thought of someone else doing your work made something deep inside you seethe. You didn’t need help, you’ve seen and heard the incantations a thousand times before- it wouldn’t hurt to try…Well, let’s rephrase that, it didn’t hurt you to try.

The classroom was totaled. Dust, rubble, and burning pages all float around you like a post-apocalyptic snowstorm. Soot from your uncontrolled spell blacked your clothes and skin, next to you Solomon stands rigid in shock white brows disappearing into his hairline. Quietly you lick your thumb and forefinger and put out the small blue flame singeing his bangs. “Thanks.” He spits out around a mouthful of ash and grit.

Lucifer coughs to draw all eyes back to him. He takes inventory of the room, making sure all the other students scattered about were still breathing. Satisfied he beckons to you with a finger. “Come.” You jump into motion, scrambling up and over the rubble to grab his outstretched hand.

“Lucifer.” He cuts you off.

“Not here,” He smiles warmly rubbing at some soot staining the tip of your nose. “Come let’s get you cleaned up.”

_____________

“Should I be worried?” You ask, stepping out of Lucifer’s private showers wrapped in one of his sinfully soft towels. “I’m not going to blow stuff up on a whim now, right?” You plop down on his bedroom’s couch. Lucifer hums noncommittally by his liquor cabinet.

“I doubt it. How do you feel?” He takes a seat beside you handing you a glass and grabbing your legs to drape them over his. You take a swig from the glass, the heat of the liquor getting rid of the lingering shock from class. How did you feel?

Your bones hum with some unknown energy and there was a fire coursing through your veins. “I feel like I could take on the world. Like I dominate half of the Devildom.” Lucifer’s smile was nothing short of smug.

“Good.” He sips his drink.

“Good?” You lean forward expectantly.

Lucifer strokes your cheek coming in to inhale your fresh scent. The commingling of his and your own was beyond arousing. “There is more than one way to seal and strengthen a pact, my beloved.” He pulls you into a chastened kiss, feeling your cheeks heat with a dawning realization of what he meant. “You have now given yourself to me in both body and soul. The- bonus perks were inevitable.” He parts from you, reaching for his glass.

“Will it go away?” You honestly didn’t know if you could handle any more curveballs down here.

Lucifer laughs swirling the dredges of his drink before downing it in one go. “Ideally no- but over time if it isn’t reinforced it will weaken and disappear on its own.”

“Reinforced?” The heat of your drink seems to dip lower down your body. Your demon scoffs giving you a knowing look.

He drags you onto his lap. “Are you truly satisfied with just a night with me αγαπούλα μου?” A gloved finger tugs at the hem of your towel. “If I had my way I would keep you full and drunk on my power for all eternity.” He captures you in a searing kiss draping you over the cushions of his couch, his eyes turning predatory. “Do not worry about the side effects.” He purrs caging you in. “We have all the time in the world to get you accustomed to them.”

Diavolo

He knew. This bitch knew before he ever got you in his bed-chamber. Just think of the entertainment value~

So when he sweeps you up into his quarters for the night day weekend, he just forgets to mention it to you

He is curious about how his magic will affect a human of celestial descent. Will it show up all at once? Or over a long period of time? He hopes that your blood doesn’t cancel out his claim on you

He watches you like a hawk for a while- and nothing…

Hmm. Perhaps it just didn’t take the first time? No matter, try-try-try again as the saying goes. He certainly doesn’t see you complaining

But as the week passes he slowly puts it on his backburner as his work begins to pile up again

You on the other hand are having a time. One day you are fine and dandy and the next you can read and write in languages you’ve never even heard of.

Then you started seeing some frankly crazy shit. Had the ghost at the house always been this active?

The last straw for you was accidentally freezing half of the house’s rose garden with a sneeze. To say you are panicked is an understatement

Frazzled you run to the only mage you could (kinda) trust

“It’s not funny!” You hiss frantically staring bewildered at your friend. Your look of panic just makes him laugh harder. “Stop seriously Solomon! Gods, what did I do?” You scrub at your face hard. If you made yet another freaking pact with a demon you were going to lose it. Seven idiots were enough for several lifetimes.

Solomon howls at this, drawing curious and rude looks from the surrounding tables of the tea house. You swat at his shoulder hissing like a cat. “Sorry- sorry” He hiccups. “Your turn of phrase was just so fitting.” He collects himself by taking a sip of his tea. “Tell me, what have you been doing of late?” He smirks around the rim of his cup.

You squint at him not getting it. His keen eyes drift down to land on the garden of purple and blue bruises littering your neck. You slap a hand over your hickeys. He smiles leaning over conspiratorially. “What’s it like to sleep with a God? The perks are amazing no?”  

You shook your head. “I-what perks?”

“Oh~ Loverboy didn’t warn you of certain side-effects?” The mage leans back in his chair. He was going to have a great time today. ___________

Unbelievable. You march up the walkway to the palace, your mind absolutely reeling. Did he know about this? Of course, he did-how could he not! Did he just forget? No- Diavolo was many things, smart, cunning, conniving, but never forgetful. You knew him well and knew he had to be on the lookout for “side effects” as Solomon put it.

Fine, two can play at this game.

“Ah! Mio Giglio! How are you?” Dia glances up from his mountainous amount of paperwork when you throw open his office door. He rises in one fluid motion to scoop you up in a tight hug. Now that you know what to look for, you hone into the way he holds you. His large hands run down your back and sides possessively, he clings to you rubbing his bulking frame on you like a cat marking you. He leans in close to rub the bridge of his strong nose up and down your clavicle and neck. You feel his hot breath on your skin when he exhales. How had you not noticed this?

“Good, and you?” You smile into the fabric of his shirt. Carefully you wrap your arms around his solid waist. You hug him lightly so as to not give away your little surprise.

“Better with you here.” He chuckles stepping back to return to his desk. You follow closely behind waiting for the perfect time to strike. “What have you been up to?” He asks innocently, going to sit back down. “I haven’t seen you in a few days.”

You hum nonchalantly coming up behind him to rub at his tense shoulders. “Nothing much.” He nods closing his eyes as your fingers dig into sore muscles. “Usual school week, made some new friends...Went shopping with Asmo and Luke this morning. Bought you some treats, hidden from Barbatos of course.” You drop a quick peck on his cheek. Diavolo smiles sinking lower into his chair. He hopped it was something with lemon or orange, they were in season now. Barbatos had been on the warpath with his sugar and carb intake of late. “Then I had tea with Solomon and he filled me in on some very interesting facts.” You kiss his hairline.

“Mmmm?”

You pull away from his warmth to come around to straddle his lap while he is distracted. He jerks at your sudden weight on his lap but relaxes almost immediately. He opens a golden eye, not even realizing he had closed them. Your demeanor shifts when his gaze is fully set on you, all sweet innocence gone. A cheshire grin spreads across your face. “Funny you should ask if I’m feeling ok. I have been feeling a bit off of late.”

Diavolo tenses. “Are you well?” He tries to reach for you, his arms coming off the armrests of his desk chair. You strike like a viper, your small hands wrap and lock around his thick wrists pinning them to the chair. His eyes bulge in shock. You watch coyly as his biceps bulge under his clothes. He tries to break free for a few minutes before settling back. “I see-”

Leaning in you brush your lips across his ears, heart racing with excitement. “You forgot to mention quite a few things, Dia.” The low purr he emits shakes both of you.

“My apologies.” He admits. “You know I love a good show. Shame I missed it.” He throws you a rogue smile. “Forgive me?”

You slide closer until you rested chest to chest, legs wrapping around his to pin him down further. His purr drops down an octave. Locking eyes with him you remove a hand from his wrist daring him to move. He doesn’t. You move slowly and deliberately resting your hand on his strong neck. His reaction was instantaneous. His pupils dilate, and the gold of his irises turn molten. You start to feel his magic seep out, you match it, giddy with excitement that you could. “Only if you work for it.” You smirk.

Diavolo nods readily, licking at his dry lips in anticipation. He was more than ready to atone.

Satan

He is a good noodle and has the decency to tell you what will happen beforehand

It’s only polite to give you a heads up before he breaks your headboard

You both are curious about how it will affect you. He at least is excited to teach you some practical magic

Plus the idea of you pranking Lucifer with magic? Sublime.

He smells it blossoming under your skin while you sleep.

It’s sharp and minty with a smoky finish. Then the power hits him like a brick to the face. He is in awe.

It’s like an electrifying feedback loop that just energizes and excites him and you feel it too. He’ll lose himself in you and your body again, hyped up on the headiness of it all.

Once he has *cough* cleared his head *cough* he takes you out to try out your newly found powers. He has so many things he wants to teach you.

Satan kneels beside you nodding his head in approval at your chalk markings. Your lines weren’t exactly steady, he could see how your hand shook as you copied his paperwork but you followed it dutifully. He finds your nervousness adorable as if he would let anything bad happen to you. At his go-ahead, you get to your feet. Turning your palms down towards your summoning circle you recite your spell and watch in amazement as your runes glow bright green underneath you. In a flash of blinding lights and smoke, you sense the pull of the creature emerging from your rune work. Delighted you look down at your handy work.

“Congratulations my darling, exceptionally done.” He grins proudly from his perch by his bookshelf.

You bend down and pick up the little critter. “What is it?” It looked like a blob of flan but firmer. Its squishy form shivers in your palm when you poked it. Its body giving way under your gentle poke. It was dark green but lightened to an electric green at its base. It was surprisingly warm.

You feel Satan coming up behind you to rest his chin on your shoulder. “It looks to be a lesser familiar, not bad for your first time summoning ever.” The jelly wiggles at his praise even though you couldn’t find any discernible features on its smooth little body. You turn it this way and that in your hand, even though it didn’t have eyes you could sense it was sizing you up to.

“What can it do?” You raise a brow at your companion. His arms circle your waist, his grin turning mischievous.

“Let's find out.”

________

Your lungs burn, each breath coming hard and sharp while you run. The sound of your pounding feet was swallowed up by the rush of foot traffic around you. Satan drags you behind him ushering you both around the throng of students. “Quickly!” He looks over his shoulder and flashes you a brilliant smile. “The further away from his office we are the less likely he could blame us.”

You laugh breathlessly along with him.

________

“What Belphie say?” You lean onto Satan’s shoulder to peek at his phone. The two of you sit, crowding in on each other's space underneath a desk in one of the unused classrooms.

“It’s glorious. Everything is covered. He says it looks like magic won’t remove it either!” He cackles showing you his screen. Belphie sent him a selfie. He is grinning devilishly from ear to ear throwing you both a peace sign through the screen. In the background, you could clearly see a very irate Lucifer. His face was red with fury and his clothes covered in green goo. His office was wrecked. Your little jelly did a number on it, you hadn’t expected it to expand as large as it did. Your familiar popping on the edge of Lucifer’s desk wasn’t intended either, but totally worth it. “Think you can summon another?” Satan asks, darkening his screen. You shake your head, whatever power you had earlier today had been drained after your little stunt.

Satan nods in understanding. “Shame- imagine what one of your jellies could do to Diavolo’s office.”

“Satan-”

He chuckles wrapping an arm around your back. He plants a loud kiss onto your forehead. “Alright-alright. Perhaps after a bit of a rest and recharge?”

You poke his leg playfully and laugh. “If you wanted to have sex again you could just ask.”  

He dips low and kisses you. “Well then- if you are up for another round of delinquency…”

Beelzebub

Sweet baby didn’t know-

Well, he knew about it. Lucifer had given everyone “the talk” about it a couple of millennia ago.

He never really thought about it before you because he didn’t sleep with humans often (Him so big, human so smol if he isn’t paying attention it could be...bad)

So when you drag him into your room he just doesn’t think about it. You are both so oblivious

He doesn’t think about the shift in your scent, your kisses were just as sweet as always. If there was a peppery aftertaste to your kiss he chalks it up to something you had for breakfast

He doesn’t think anything of it when you practically drag him from your bed to shower together before school

He doesn’t think about it when at lunch your appetite starts to rival his

He starts to think about it during P.E. when your dodge ball puts a demon down for the rest of class

He definitely notices when you pin him down to steal his sandwich during your picnic date

Now he’s freaking out, whether it's because you are showing inhuman strength or the fact that you stole his food who knows

You nab yet another one of his sandwiches and start munching away with a hum of happiness. “Hey, babe.” He rumbles beneath you. “You feeling alright?” He wraps his large hands around your waist. Your weight was warm and comfortable over his prone form. He had whisked you away for an afternoon picnic, something to spend more time with you alone. After last night he craved being around you more than anything. He had packed enough food for him in mind. But it looks like it wouldn’t be enough. Odd. Beel rests his head back on the thick blanket protecting you both from the slightly damp grass underneath.

“Hmm?” You swallow down a mouthful of ruben. “Yeah! Famished though.” You lean back on his strong hip and swipe your finger around your mouth to brush off some crumbs. You reach for the other half of his sandwich to devour but pauses when you catch Beel’s kicked puppy look. With a huff of amusement, you offer the other half to him letting him chomp down with a fanged smile in thanks.

He chews in silence, watching you pick up a bowl of fresh fruit. Hmmm… He runs his rough palms up and down your thighs and hips ignoring your squirming and giggles when he runs over the thin skin of your sides. He squeezes you lightly. Huh- Your muscles were firmer than this morning, now that he was looking closer he could see that your frame was a bit sturdier too. Still his perfectly lovable and squishy human but more solid around the edges. In a last-ditch effort to figure out what has changed, he reaches out for his pact mark.

He jerks forward, upsetting your position on his lap, causing you to tumble backward, fruit flying everywhere. “Beel!” You shriek. He shushes you, squeezing your cheeks between warm hands.

“I forgot.”

“You forgot?” You repeat. “What dessert? I’m pretty sure the fruit was part of it...but I mean. If you want grassy cantaloupe it’s all yours.” You eye the remains of the seasonal fruit laying around you and then at the basket. You were pretty sure you saw some pastries at the bottom of it too.

“We had sex.” He blurts out bluntly, and quite loudly.

Your face heats. “Yes, thank you for the reminder.” You push him off sitting up on your elbows. “Please, why don’t you yell it out for all the wildlife to hear too.”

Beelzebub shakes his head groaning. “No-I forgot to warn you about our pact.”

Ahh-oh. You eye him wearily. If he was stressing you were stressing, it wasn’t like him to get so bent out of shape. “Ok-is it, like bad?”  What were you going to die? That would be a big thing to just forget. “How about you fill me in big guy.” You listen enraptured while he jerkily explains how you have strengthened your bond exponentially without even realizing it. Magic, super strength, the appetite, all because you jumped his bones.

Nice.

It sounded so cool- but then overwhelming all at the same time. Was it permanent? What if you lost control and actually hurt someone for real.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it-I just. You felt so good.” He wilts. “I should have been more careful- this is the first time I’ve done this.”

“Beel-”

“I swear.” He bulldozes over you. “I didn’t mean to keep this from you.”

You cut him off, combing your fingers through his hair soothingly. “I believe you, Beel.” You smile reassuringly. “It’s not like it’s gonna hurt me...right?”  He thinks about it for a minute then grunts, shaking his head. You grin brighter stretching out your arms. “And I get some cool powers right?”

He nods again. “For a bit yes.”

You get up off the ground excitedly. “Right then! You’ll show me the ropes right? I’ve never done anything magical before!” You look at your palms as if fire or sparks were going to fly out of them. Beel rises to his feet too.

“You sure? I doubt I will be as good of a mentor as Lucifer or even Belphie.” He looks around the large grove of trees and sprawling grassy acreage around you both. You both were far away from the populated areas of the mountain pass and town. He could practice with you freely and without worrying about damaging anything important. “Not the date I promised, but if you really want me to show you some stuff…” He offers you a shy smile. He did have a few cool tricks he could show you. You nod already rolling up your sleeves. Well- if this was what you really wanted then he would be glad to show you.  

[codenamed-queenie]

#BatsInQuarantine

I am going insane. So I poured my restlessness into one long and very detailed post and got super into it. Please enjoy this hot mess.

The Justice League, being the well-meaning virus-proof Super Friends that they are, took one good look at the news, one good look at their non-powered friends Ollie, Bruce, and their families, and collectively decided that these normal humans must be Protected At All Costs.

Now, keep in mind, Bruce is never one to roll over when it comes to being benched. 

However, he understands the importance of social distancing. He knows he needs to set a good example for his kids, and keep up appearances as Gotham’s Most Responsible Multi-Billionaire. 

So. Quarantine it is. 

But how are his kids handling it?

Dick - 

100% on board in the beginning. Gotta do the Responsible Thing. Gotta set a Good Example. Besides, guys, this is gonna be Fun. Quality Family Time is always a Must.

He lasted 2 days. 

Then he started to get twitchy. 

And as everyone knows? A Trapped Dick Grayson is a Feral Dick Grayson.

He bounces off the walls.

Literally.

“I have to climb.” 

“Dick, no.”  

“I have to climb everything.”

Has scaled the manor 16 times already. Has climbed the chandelier. The banister. Bruce. The roof. The Cave. Anything in the house that’s been bolted down and especially anything that hasn’t. 

Duke found him clinging to the wall 10 ft off the ground like Spiderman and screamed so loud it shattered glass. 

Desperate for news of the outside. 

He thrives off of it like a starving man. 

Was the one to suggest he and Barbara take a break to Social Distance from each other (”Sorry, babe, kissing spreads germs”) and experienced Instant Regret(TM) approximately 5 minutes after. 

The Family has labelled him a Flight Risk Level 1 (Most likely to say f**k it and make a break for the outside world)

Jason - 

Accidentally got trapped inside the manor with the others when Bruce called Shutdown. If he had his way, he’d be chilling in his favorite safe-house right now, binging The Witcher with Roy and Artemis, and not worrying about finding a stray brother in his sock drawer.

But he’s nothing if not an opportunist. 

The way he sees it, Jason has 3 options:

Self Improvement

Self Isolation (See Duke, Cass, and Damian)

Descension Into Madness (See Dick and Steph)

And, well, he always wanted to try a few things. Now he’s got the free time to do it.

So he settles on baking. 

Alfred’s got enough food and raw ingredients stored up to feed an army. (Not because he’s a Panic-Buying-Hoarder in times like these. But because he’s a Panic-Buying-Hoarder all the time. Just try feeding 11+ teenagers sometime.)

Uses recipes he finds off Google.

His first few attempts are, in a word, ‘tragic’.

Alfred slips him a few of his recipe cards, and Jason suddenly starts seeing Results. 

Turns out he’s pretty good at this baking thing once he gets the hang of it. 

Hope everyone’s okay eating nothing but pie, macaroons, biscuits, and whatever else Jason whips up. 

Cause that’s gonna be the only food left by the time he’s done. 

Barbara - 

Self-quarantined with her dad. 

They’ve been binge-watching classic black and white movies together.

It’s a fun time, but she’s started to get a little antsy. Loving her dad and wanting to be around him 24/7 are, understandably, mutually exclusive. 

Calls the manor to video-chat every day.

For her sanity just as much as theirs. 

Gives everyone little challenges to film on their phones and send in. She makes compilations of everyone’s submissions so they can all watch and laugh together. 

Bonus points for Creativity

One comp shows the family trying to drop Mentos into coke bottles. 

Dick did a handstand, and dropped his Mento from the second story balcony. 

Tim did it wearing the Batman cowl. The soda exploded into his face, and the rest of the video is just Bruce’s Shrieking.

Stephanie tried it, but the bottle tipped. Everyone on camera screamed as the bottle rocketed through the front window. 

She spends most of her calls having one-on-one convos with Dick.

They’ve come up with little code phrases so they can be Cheesy even with family members lurking in the background. 

She thinks the way he clings to the monitor is cute. 

Almost like he’s giving her a hug through the screen. 

(It’s easier than letting herself worry about his mental state, at least)

Tim -

Oh this boy.

Freaked out for the first five minutes before he decided ‘hey wait, Bruce is letting me stay in my pajamas all day? Noice.’ 

Now he’s just vibing.

The rest of his family is Low-Key shielding him.

He Has No Spleen, you see.

Steph: “Someone could cough on him and he could die!”

He just goes about his day, playing Animal Crossing like there’s no tomorrow, tinkering on projects, taking naps, etc. Living his best life.

Meanwhile there’s always someone lurking behind him, keeping watch, keeping him safe. 

Dick sneezed within 5 feet of Tim once (the fact that he was on top of the dusty bookshelf Tim was perusing is irrelevant)

Jason still full-body tackled him the second Tim’s back was turned. 

No one with any symptoms--

Like, any symptoms. They don’t even have to be Corona-related.

--is allowed within 10 feet of Tim. 

Tim has been wandering the manor for weeks, now, without seeing another human being. 

(He sees Dick on the ceiling sometimes, but that doesn’t really count)

He’s been trying increasingly drastic pranks and shenanigans to draw someone, anyone, out. 

But it doesn’t matter how many times he steals Damian’s sword, or sets fire to Jason’s brownie bites.

Nobody wants to risk it. 

Cass - 

No one has seen her since quarantine started.

Everyone is approximately 87% sure she’s somewhere in the manor though

Because she does eat the meals Alfred leaves out for her.

Or at least someone does, at any rate. 

(Jason and Santa top the running suspects list)

Santa was Steph’s suggestion. For some reason it snowballed. 

It’s assumed that Cass misunderstood the meaning of ‘social distancing’ and took it too far. 

But no one knows for sure. 

She is Tim’s Guardian Angel. 

People who so much as clear their throats a little too loudly anywhere near him suddenly wake up on a different floor of the house four hours later. 

Duke came closest to spotting her while he was up in the attic. 

Either that, or there’s another Creepy Sister everyone forgot to tell him about living up there.

She is silent, and watchful, sticking to the shadows, but she does leave the occasional note out to brighten her siblings’ day. 

Things like ‘helo i love u’ and ‘hop u ar ok’  mostly. 

She is bound and determined to protect her family from this invisible threat, no matter the cost. 

Steph - 

Like Dick, she was Super Pumped at first. 

(Just kind of showed up at Wayne Manor before quarantine was enacted. The original purpose of her visit is unclear, but regardless, she’s Trapped.)

Also Like Dick, her descent into madness was swift.

She is impossible to pin down. 

Not like Cass or Damian, who’ve stayed off the grid, and are therefore Untraceable. 

No. She’s impossible to pin down, because she never stops moving. 

Switches seamlessly between Zumba on top of the Giant Dinosaur in the Batcave, and furiously knitting Alfred (the Cat) a sweater with a pair of Tim’s used chopsticks. 

Braided everyone’s hair while they were asleep.

Even Bruce’s. 

She tried to do Tim’s, but somehow blacked out and regained consciousness in the attic. 

When she woke up with a scream and a furiously twitching eye, she startled Duke out of his Makeshift Fort he built out of old cardboard boxes and antique furniture. He’s had to resort to finding a new hiding place. 

Sometimes, on the rare occasions she does sit still, staring off into the distance, she’ll suddenly start laughing hysterically. This may last between thirty seconds and thirty minutes, depending entirely on how long it’s been since she’s knitted a cat sweater or done cartwheels through every room in the house.

Blew up the greenhouse out back, somehow.

Everyone has agreed not to talk about it.

Some people were built to handle prolonged time inside their homes.

Stephanie Brown is not that way.

Damian - 

Damian Wayne Cannot Be Contained.

At least not inside the house. 

He took off thirty-six hours into quarantine. 

Thanks to the security equipment around the borders of the Wayne Estate, he can’t escape the grounds. 

(He’s tried and failed multiple times. Jason and Bruce have a running bet on how many times the perimeter alarms will go off per day.)

(Jason is winning.)

He wanders the grounds with Titus as his only companion. 

The two of them run laps, practice drills, and find ways to occupy their time. 

No one’s entirely sure what those ways are. 

In fact, nobody knows exactly where Damian is at any given time. 

Only that he is Out There. 

And he’s the best security system Wayne Manor’s ever had. 

So far, he’s stopped five groups of civilians scaling the perimeter walls before the lasers and electric nets even have a chance to deploy.

They were trying to break in and steal supplies. 

(Even ones they already had in surplus. Like Toilet Paper.)

He’s also stopped Dick from escaping twelve (12) times.

Drags him back by his shirt collar and deposits him on the welcome mat. 

Usually with a note for Alfred/Jason, requesting more fruit tarts. 

Duke - 

Did not leave the attic for two weeks. 

Then Steph discovered his hiding spot (read: was dumped there by Cassandra) which forced him to relocate to the basement. 

Yes, it turns out Wayne Manor does have a basement. 

This was a surprise to Duke, who always thought that the Batcave was Bruce Wayne’s basement. 

Alfred keeps him supplied with all the necessities:

i.e. food, magazines, assorted pastries from Jason’s latest batch, usually straight out of the oven.

Duke also snagged the Manor’s Alexa. 

She has become a sort of ‘Wilson’ to Duke’s ‘Chuck Noland’.

She is his only comfort. His only ally. 

He’s determined to wait out this quarantine, doing his best to avoid the others. 

Duke has seen these people under pressure. 

He knows exactly what he’s dealing with. 

Duke: “Alexa is the only motherf****r in this madhouse I ever respected.”

*offended butler noises from the other room*

Duke: “And also Alfred.”

[writeseasonally]

Imagine the Weasley Twins, your best friends, knowing about your crush on Oliver Wood. 

Pairing(s): (implied)Oliver Wood x female!Reader, Weasley Twins x best friend!Reader (platonic)

Warning(s): none

Word(s): 615

A/N: This was supposed to be posted last week (and the week before) but I forgot to.

(Y/n) occupied one of the wooden chairs in the corner of the room while she was doing her Charm’s essay that was to be submitted the day after tomorrow. But not much has been written yet on the parchment despite the twenty minutes that had just passed. Was it because of two people, who she called her best friends, that were also sitting with her as they claimed to be doing their homework when in reality they were just playing a game of exploding snap? Around forty percent, maybe...but (Y/n) knew why she was really distracted: there was someone in the Gryffindor common room that caught her eye and distracted her for who knows how long.

From where she was sitting at, (Y/n)’s eyes were heavily settled on the person who sat beside Percy Weasley in the common room. Her (e/c) eyes gazed at him, a dreamy expression on her face. Which didn’t go unnoticed by the twins when they gave (Y/n) a small glimpse.

George nudged her, "You're staring." he announced, a large grin on his face. (Y/n) felt heat trickling up to her neck as she realized that she was caught by the twins for that matter. She averted her gaze from the Quidditch captain and looked at George, who was already looking at her in the eye. His face not so subtly making fun of her.

"You didn't see anything, Weasley."

"Now, now, (Y/n), you shouldn't be like that. Not our fault you fancy Wood not-so-secretly." Fred chirped in, his eyes holding the same amount of mischief that was in his twin's. He let out a small smirk before clearing his throat and yelling, "Oi Percy! Would you mind helping your beloved brothers out with this essay?"

"You see, we aren't really the brightest when it comes to these kinds of things." George continued. Percy looked at them with an annoyed look. The last thing he wanted for this night was to be with his brothers, specifically the twins. He so desperately just wanted to finish his patrol duties and then head back to his room and have a shut-eye. But unfortunately for him, he couldn't decline because he knew how his brothers acted. And he's already experienced enough pranks for the entirety of his lifetime.

Percy stood from his seat and stalked towards where the twins were sitting at, “(Y/n), you wouldn't mind taking my seat, would you? This is the first time Fred and George’s asked for help with their homework and I wouldn't want to miss it." he explained, tone sarcastic.

Glaring at the twins, (Y/n) stood from her spot and walked to Percy's previous seat before flopping down next to Oliver Wood, the very person the twins claimed she fancied. She glanced at him (and tried so hard to seem uninterested when he turned to look and smiled at her) and sat a few distances from him before getting out her parchment and quill from her bag to continue her Charms essay, but not before she noticed a small piece of paper tucked inside her Charms book.

She took it out and started reading it quietly, annoyance immediately consuming her the moment she realized what it was about and who had written it.

Dearest (Y/n),

This is simply us getting back at you after you filled our trunks (and quite possibly all our belongings) with spiders back in the burrow a few months back. Mum wouldn’t believe us when we said that it wasn’t ours and we were forced to degnome the front lawn for a whole week! Aren’t you lucky this is only what you’ll be getting? To be able to sit next to someone you fancy (and hopefully embarrass yourself one way or another)?

With Love,

Gred and Forge

Attached beneath the letter was a (very good) moving drawing of the twins blowing her a kiss mockingly.

 "I'm going to murder you Weasleys. You just wait." She mumbled to herself while shoving the drawing in he bag.

×××

gifs are made by yours truly unless stated otherwise

posted: 08-15-20

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Lovebug (2/10)

Summary:  

“It might be a bug.”

“A bug?”

“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“

Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Other Chapters: 1 3 4 5

Notes: I was torn between publishing the next chapter of lovebug or outlier tonight so I opted to just go for lovebug. I'll post the next chapter of outlier mid next week. As always, feedback is very much appreciated.

“We’re gonna delay the release of our next fix…” Levi repeated, just a little slower that time. He didn’t trust himself then to speak in anything faster or with a tone any louder.

It was too early in the morning for a meeting, just a little past eight in the morning. He was called into Erwin’s office right after arriving into company grounds and Erwin, a natural early bird, was talking louder than what could have been considered bearable for Levi.

At eight in the morning though, not a lot of things were bearable, especially if they involved a huge change of plans and a glaring reminder that he had a long work day ahead of him.

More importantly, Erwin’s voice was grating in a way that most bosses’ voices were grating when laced with a little more urgency than necessary. “Yes Levi, we’re delaying our fixes indefinitely, not just for Love Alarm but all of our other apps as well.”

Levi raised his eyebrows. “Really? You know we’ve been announcing this big fix for months.”

“I’ve contacted the marketing team. We are pushing the fixes back a week. You think that will be enough for you to finish everything you need?”

Levi shook his head. “There’s no need to push back the release. I can work on this bug now and I can have the other developers and the support team work on getting the regression testing done and getting the release out.”

Erwin shook his head. “I do not want to give Mr. Jaeger the impression that we aren’t prioritizing his complaints. Levi, you have to understand. He’s an important client.”

“I understand that. And I will be on top of things. I’m testing this issue myself.” Most days, Levi left the testing option to the support team. Given the nature of the bug though and the severe urgency of getting it fixed, it had been an easy decision for Levi to take it upon himself.

Erwin hummed in approval. “Yes and I’m happy to hear that you're going to be investigating this bug. I would rather that we didn’t release anything while investigating this.”

“May I ask why? This bug doesn’t involve any of our other functionalities. I can test this myself.”

Erwin hummed. “Zeke Jaeger is an unpredictable man. I don’t think he would appreciate us improving our product while such a glaring bug still exists. He is a very vocal and he might give us some bad press.”

“Oh?” Levi heard the derision in his own tone then, a smooth yet venomous sound. Zeke Jaeger had been outwardly friendly yet for some reason Levi couldn’t explain just yet. He wasn’t at all drawn by the charisma that accompanied it. In fact, the blonde had just been annoying and the conversation only cemented Levi’s first impression of Zeke Jaeger as bad, maybe even terrible.

What the hell does Hange see in him? He added to himself then. How that had entered his own contemplations then, he didn’t know. He quickly brushed it away and mustered the most seemingly uninvested face he could make then.

Erwin had that special talent of seeming uninvested either. As he settled on the sofa in front of Levi, he mixed the coffee just a little too loudly. He had an aura about him that very much meant business. “Have you done some prior investigation?”

“I did,” Levi said. As he soon found out, that aura was contagious.

“Anything new?”

“I’m entertaining the idea that what if…. The application is working fine?”

“Can you explain why his partner had two hearts while he had none?”

Levi cleared his throat. “Assuming the application is working perfectly, we can draw two conclusions. One, someone in love with Hange Zoe had their application on and Two, Hange Zoe isn’t in love with Zeke Jaeger.” That last conclusion couldn’t have easily been true, but still such words left such a sweet aftertaste in Levi’s mouth that he had to make some considerable effort not to smile.

Erwin raised his eyebrows inquisitively. “Any leads on whose application could have been on?”

It had taken some strength, some self confidence and some self discipline on Levi’s side to pull his phone out then. “My love alarm was on yesterday, I forgot to turn it off after the demo…” He navigated to the ‘history’ tab and opened his history to the exact time to late afternoon yesterday.

One person nearby is in love with you. Levi read silently to himself. In that split second, he was contemplating display issues and front end bugs that maybe just maybe accidentally chalked Hange’s heart as ‘love.’ It was highly unlikely though so even before that idea had ripened into something worth an explanation and a support ticket, Levi brushed it aside.

“So your application was on the whole time.” Erwin murmured, looking intently at the phone in front of him.

Levi nodded. “But it’s a good step in the right direction. That means there’s a bug to investigate after all. I just have to isolate it to either Hange Zoe’s application build or mine,” he explained.

“That seems promising and do you need any help organizing a meeting with her.”

“She’s coming today for a little testing.”

“Just like my best engineer to think a few steps ahead.” Erwin asked, a smile curling up his lips. “And you think you can get it done within a week?”

“If all goes well… Even less than a week.”

***

It had turned out that that small meeting had worked well to organize Levi’s thoughts. He had a quick action plan from there and with an action plan, a new burst of motivation, or at least enough of it to carry him from Erwin’s room to his own small office space in a little less than five minutes.

A week to investigate. Levi thought to himself as he leaned back on his office chair. He looked back up at the ceiling for a good few seconds before writing his deadline down on the white board next to him.

He didn’t need that whiteboard, their workflow trackers and excel sheets worked well to always keep Levi in the right state of mind. Yet there was something organic about white boards, something natural about being able to write the numbers with his own hand, freely changing his fonts with just the slight of the hand, impulsively changing formats at just a quick motion.

So he kept it there next to him, a large annoying waste of space to most people. But Levi had taken great pains to make it look organized in his room, measuring each frame to the millimeter. It was a large clean slate right next to his desk in his very small office. And more importantly, it was something that was very much his to play around with like he wanted to.

Under the deadline, he put the new release date of their fix.

We’re delaying the release of the next fix by a week.

Such wise words from someone who didn’t know how the investigation process actually worked. But with an employee and boss relationship, emphasis on Levi being the employee, he had to make it work. That’s how it had always been in the office. Erwin wasn’t a developer. He was a manager. And Levi was being paid by him.

Levi though never liked the idea of delaying fix releases. Once the date was announced, he liked to make sure all of the quality assurance testing and the regression testing was done two weeks ahead. And with that habit becoming custom for the Love Alarm project, he was sure they would have managed to make the release next week. Staring at the workflow interface, he noted the bar was more than half full already, most bugs were tagged as fix. All test builds were submitted and passed and they could have easily moved on to the final regression testing before release.

And regression testing never actually failed. The Love Alarm app after all was a very functionally simple application.

With the weight of a wasted timely release and the powerlessness of corporate politics bare on his back, Levi let out a long sigh.

He opened up his slack channel and typed out a few words.

We’re delaying the next fix release.

But it wouldn’t just be the Love Alarm which would be affected, all the other applications would be affected as well. His notifications exploded within five seconds, all feedback from each time. Levi started to wonder, maybe he should have put everything in one message.

So he edited his old message.

We’re pushing it back a week.

Under that, he put a new date and time as a reminder to all other employees. There were many why’s, many protests and his application continued to shake with notifications.

He checked the time on his phone. Hange had agreed to meet at nine and she should be texting soon. With little to no brains pace to create a summary of his meeting with Erwin in less than ten minutes, Levi typed out two words.

Erwin’s orders. Without waiting for anymore protests, he closed his laptop, packed up his things and ready to move to the small conference room he had reserved for him and Hange.

It was a few floors below. A small room among others but Levi was familiar enough with the layout of their offices to know it was very much soundproof.

Any unwelcome alarms, unwelcome notifications and unwelcome conversations would stay in that room. Even before Levi had dropped off his things in the conference room, Hange had already texted.

Her car was by the gate already.

Meet in the lobby. Levi texted back as he quickened his pace, quickly turning back towards the elevator, laptop bag still in hand.

He could have been too slow. Or Hange could have just been too fast but by the time he had arrived in the lobby, she was already on one of the seats next to the reception, playing around with her phone.

She was wearing a light sweater, her brown hair was pulled up messily into a half ponytail. Levi though had to note that it still looked very much like it fell into place. For a second, he had given her a good onceover, admiring everything at once.

Only a split second later, he was cruelly reminded that he had made her wait, long enough for her to have to sit down in one of the lobby sofas. “How long were you waiting?” It wouldn’t have been the first greeting Levi would have liked to give then. His heart was racing though and soon he realized, maybe he had taken up the unnecessary challenge of jogging down those five flights of stairs while keeping his laptop safely in tow.

Hange looked up from her phone seeming surprised. “Are you busy? Was this a bad time to visit?” Hange asked. “We could reschedule... “

More and more, the first greeting then was seeming less and less ideal. “No, no. This is great. I don’t know what just came over me. Thank you for taking the time to test this bug with me.”

Hange shook her head. “No, no, I asked my partner to invest in this application for a reason. I see great potential and I’d be happy to tweak some of those bugs with you.” Her lips widened into a smile. “So what’s the game plan?”

Levi gestured towards the elevators. “We do some simple testing. I just need to isolate the cause of this bug.”

“Oh? How does application testing work?”

“We use the application,” Levi answered matter-of-factly. Was there any other way to test it? It didn’t seem like something he should be asking the very important partner of a very important person though so Levi kept that last question to himself, instead keeping his face then as something both subtle and questioning.

“That’s cool,” Hange said. “So how’s your job?”

“It’s fine,” Levi answered. “The investigation will keep me busy.” He stared at the numbers on the elevator, getting lower and lower and Levi could have sworn it couldn’t go any slower. He could have found some consolation if anybody else had joined them in the elevator then, to at least abate that awkward need to carry some conversation between them.

Any other employees though had chosen for themselves to wait in front of other elevators. Levi was almost considering doing the same thing.

After all, Hange was talkative. She was asking questions. When they entered the elevator together, the very slow elevator, there would be more than enough time to send two to three questions back and forth. And Levi was quick to realize, he was an incredibly boring person.

“So do you have any hobbies?”

“Programming.” What about you? Levi had readied himself to ask in that long split second of silence that followed.

Hange though was quick to respond even before he could take control of the conversation. “Well aside from your actual job.”

“I like to clean,” Levi answered. He started to wonder how dorky that hobby sounded like. He needed to rephrase. “I meant--- organize things…” He added a second later. “Like Marie Kondo.”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard about her,” Hange said. She had at least allowed for a split second silence then, long enough for Levi to take the reins of the conversation.

Hange though was a high profile person, her partner was one of the richest men in the country and Levi’s mind was racing with hypotheticals. Was it okay to ask her about her hobbies? Her interests? Or was that supposed to be an exclusively professional meeting?

Soon, with all the questions nagging at him at once, he unearthed a question at the back of his mind that he had been meaning to ask since he had met Hange down at the lobby.

So how’s your husband?

Where’s your husband? Do you hang out with him often? Do you usually do stuff alone? A question that couldn’t so easily be answered by a single google search on an incognito window, only that night, he had tried searching keywords just to be sure.

Hange Zoe Zeke Jaeger Relationship

And soon after searching that just once. He had made sure to clear his browser history just in case he didn’t do it in some incognito window. After all, night mode and incognito mode had almost the same interface.

He soon found out though after jumbling around keywords over a search engine that Google wasn’t omnipotent as it turned out. The only one who could have satisfied his curiosity at that moment was the brunette next to him then.

He couldn’t bring himself to ask it just then though. So he went for another question, a very vanilla one but it seemed like a safe bet. “What about you?”

“What about me? What do you mean about me?”

Levi was starting to doubt the flow of the conversation of a while ago. Did he remember it correctly?

The elevator dinged like it was announcing some coming of a messiah. That had been more than enough to break the awkwardness of that exchange and Levi quickly slammed the open elevator door, just a little more loudly than usual. He gestured for Hange to go ahead.

“Hobbies,” Levi said as he met her outside the elevator.

“I like research,” Hange answered.

“Is that your full time job?” Levi asked. He didn’t need to ask. He had read more than enough articles of Zeke Jaeger’s partner to have seen ‘neuropsychologist’ used as an epithet enough to be convinced that that was her full time job. The last thing he wanted to do though was actually accidentally imply in a conversation that he had googled a few keywords for answers before clearing his browser history.

Hange nodded. “Yes it is.”

“Well… Hobbies aside from your actual job?” Levi asked. He kept his own word usage and his own phrasing similar to what Hange had used with him. If Hange asked it that way, that should have been a socially acceptable way to ask.

“I like plants,” Hange said firmly. She wasn’t looking at him. Although Levi had wanted to see the face she was making then, he started to realize that craning his neck to get a good view of her face might just look a little too weird.

So he settled for her side profile. From his view he could see eyes were everywhere at once from the hallways to the doorways just a little further away from the area that opened up as soon as they exited the elevator. “Where are we going?”

“Over here,” Levi said, he was quick to pull her towards the other side though, before she found out that he had taken a good few steps already in the wrong direction. “The conference room is over here…”

“We have a meeting?” Hange asked, her voice suddenly very tense.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I just thought it would be better that I reserved a room, so we could do some testing where we wouldn’t bother anyone.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I thought I was supposed to be preparing something.”

In those few minutes, he had made her wait, made her navigate some awkward conversation and made her panic. Then and there as he led her to the room, he was guessing what kind of dashing review she’d be giving Zeke about their first meet up.

More importantly, was he giving a great second impression? It was nine in the morning, too early for him to be confident that he was a fully functioning human being. Or so, that was what he repeated to himself then. He could make up for it after lunch.

Hange settled on one of the chairs nearest to the door. “Do we sit together?” She asked. The meeting room was designed for a maximum of ten people and for a good few seconds, he wondered if he should have gotten something much smaller.

Even before he had figured it out for himself, he was looking between sitting right next to her or towards the other side of the room. They weren’t married. Could he sit beside someone who was married?

But if he sat too far, he might not be able to hear her. He went for a very safe in between. He dropped his laptop bag on the seat next to her with some flourish, as if to say, he was married to his job and he was happy with that arrangement before sitting on the seat right next to his bag.

There was a bag between them, they were a safe distance away and Levi pulled his laptop out and booted it up. “I’m suspecting that the issue with your application might be the build. Can you redownload it for me?” He asked. The laptop had been a reminder at least that they were there for business. And business meant that they had a topic of conversation and he had practiced that script enough times to know, he probably didn’t sound like an idiot.

“Are we testing now?” Hange pulled her phone from her bag.

“Yes we are. Just download the app from the app store. I need to confirm that this isn't just your build in particular being faulty,” Levi brought out his own phone, deleted the application from the folder before redownloading it into his phone.

The ‘downloading’ message next to the love alarm application served some form of inspiration for conversation topics at least. “So, how does your husband like the app?” Levi asked. That line was straight from the basic customer service manual and he was very much sure that was acceptable territory for a professional conversation topic.

“Ahh Zeke? He loves the application. He told me himself, he sees potential in it too.”

Did he tell you over dinner? Over car rides? Somehow, Levi was picturing them over a happy dinner in their European style dining room in their very expensive penthouse apartment down town. He knew how it looked. He had seen it in one of the lifestyle articles he had googled just the night before. “That’s good,” Levi said, he felt that comment catch at his throat. He cleared his throat. “The bug... How does he feel about it?”

Hange’s face fell at that. Subtly at least, but with Levi had been staring at her for the past few seconds, it was very much noticeable as a split second movement. “Yeah, about that…”

“Did he say anything about it?”

“We did research on the application last night… And we were theorizing… so the heart could have been from him… and from someone else right? Someone else had their application open then. And he was saying it was you.” Hange’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “But I remember you said, it could be a bug right? And I’m sure you turned off your phone before we tested it…”

“And we’re testing again,” Levi said as he opened the newly downloaded application on his phone. “Log into your account.” He ordered, looking pointedly at Hange’s phone.

The biometrics were already in his account, all he needed was to log his fingerprints again. Levi took a glance at Hange’s phone laid out on the table.

She had gone through the log in process quickly. He turned the love alarm on and rested his chin on his hands and waited. Hange only needed a few seconds. Soon she had turned it on.

And within a second, her phone buzzed then his phone buzzed. It did wonders to shake the whole table then, enough for Levi to have to grit his teeth as the table shook sending a bolt of shivers up to his chin.

He could have sworn he felt blood rush to his face then. He quickly turned off the alarm. “It might be a problem with our phones. I”ll bring down some test devices and we can try this again. He avoided Hange’s gaze only brushing his hands on her shoulders long enough to make his point known. “Just wait here.”

Hange mumbled something with a seemingly obedient tone. Levi didn’t bother to guess. He quickly made his way out of the room, up the stairs--- he was in no mood to run into anyone in the elevator.

It had taken him roughly ten minutes to go back up to the office and come back down with a bag full of gadgets. He dropped the bag on the meeting table, maybe a little too loud and a little too roughly. “These are the most common gadgets used for testing the love alarm. They’ve all been factory reset so just set any one of them up and we try the application again.”

Hange seemed frozen with surprise, at the least she had managed a nod.

Setting up the device was a simple process and Hange didn’t ask too much about it. She had at least kept quiet through the whole ordeal and although it was second nature for Levi to set up a device, he made sure to keep his head down, his eyes intent, feigning deep concentration.

Or maybe he needed to concentrate. His hands were shaking just a little bit, his heart was racing.

He was sure he only needed to try it one different device, one commonly used model for both of their phones to rule out any problems with build or model. It was a decisive move.

And the climax of such a process came once again when Hange had motioned to click the love alarm again before looking up at him. Before they even met eyes, Levi clicked the on button on his end.

It was at the moment when the alarms rang in unison again did Hange avert her gaze. Levi bit his lip as he stared back at his phone.

One person nearby is in love with you.

He glanced up, at Hange’s phone. Although he couldn’t make out the words on it, the characteristic heart near the center was enough. She was getting the same heart.

He grabbed the phone from her. “It might be related to the model,” Levi said, Years of experience working with applications and phones were telling him, it wasn’t related. One working phone was more than enough proof. Looking at the watch at the end of the meeting room, he saw it was far from lunch time, he had at least ten devices in the bag. “Let’s try it on other phones… Just to be sure.”

***

“Levi, what if…”

“What if…” Levi nodding his head at Hange slowly, a subtle gesture for her to continue speaking.

For lunch, they had settled for one of the diner just along the wide shopping streets only a few minutes walk from the building.

An eventful few minutes walk. Levi had turned on his love alarm, put an earbud to one ear and listened to the alarm ring on repeat as he followed Hange through the streets. There were a few other notifications that popped up and left as he listened. But the ringing coming from that one heart which he had already surmised long ago, was from Hange’s heart had settled into even the cadence of his steps. It became an ubiquitous part of the short walk to the shopping street.

When they had settled in the diner though, Hange was quick to drop her phone in front of him and show him the history of her application. On her phone, there was one heart that remained steadfast through the whole ten minute walk as well.

At that moment, Hange pointed at it, then glanced quickly at Levi’s own phone. “What if… You are attracted to me. And I’m attracted to you? Because this love alarm, it doesn’t just check love right? It checks attractiveness. So if a passer by thinks you’re attractive, your alarm rings,” Hange said.

Levi leaned back on the diner behind him, picking at his fries with a fork. He couldn’t bring himself to eat one, just the results of their testing that morning had him losing his appetite. Consequently, he had ordered the burger meal at the front of the menu, something he was in no mood to eat.

“So maybe…” Hange said.

“Hange, we just met. During all the tests. I have never made anyone’s love alarm ring. Besides, I don’t think I’d be the type of guy to get attracted to someone at first glance. I don’t believe in love at first sight.” And someone who’s married at that. If Levi had something in his mouth then as that thought ran through his mind, he was sure he would have choked. He was more grateful than ever that he hadn’t started eating.

“But, we saw it already… The application was giving the same reading and when we were walking too… It never stopped ringing…” Hange explained. Still she looked like she was still finding the right words.

Levi understood her clearly though. “Hange, are you in love with me?”

Hange turned a bright red. “What? No, I'm married. Also, we just met and I don’t believe in love at first sight either”

“So do you believe there’s a bug?”

Hange nodded. “Maybe? Or maybe the data you put into the application was flawed. Maybe there are things that need to be improved.”

“That is a good point. So what do you suggest then Hange?”

“I’ll help you research. I pitched this application to Zeke because I wanted to try rolling something out similar to hospitals, psychiatric units. And if he invests maybe we could improve the application, work to make it more accurate?”

“That’s the plan. But he said so himself, he’s not going to invest in the application until the bug is fixed.”

“But what if it is working as expected… What if it’s just a matter of fixing the data?” Hange looked out the window, seeming deep in thought. Levi wondered if that last question had been for him or for herself.

“I can do further testing on this. Just to make sure,” Levi said. “The problem is… How are you gonna convince Zeke to invest in this?”

Hange sighed. “I guess it's going to be a question of timing. I'll catch him when he's in a good mood and--”

“Hange, are you willing to admit to your husband that you might just be attracted to some stranger?”

That shouldn't have been such a difficult thing. He had heard before of married couples who window shopped so Levi amended that question in his mind.

Are you willing to admit to your seemingly unhinged husband that you might just be attracted to some stranger?

***

Sometimes, the only way to find the bug is to break the application.

Levi and Hange got caught in the lunch time rush. But Hange wasn’t a typical worker, Levi wasn’t a typical eight to five employee either.

So Levi saw opportunity for a little test. “Open your love alarm,” he whispered. He put one earbud to his ear, motioning for Hange to do the same. He turned on the application once again, letting the shill ring grace his ears one again.

It was annoying at first, but over time, he had started to see it as an old friend. He was far from the denial stage already and he was already threading the lines of acceptance.

He was a developer. He had fucked up the coding and a bug had appeared. And that issue, it was a bug for sure, a bug he needed to investigate.

And any opportunity for data and evidence, was an opportunity he couldn’t waste.

“We walk through the lunch crowd,” Levi said. “Usually when I walk through, I get two to three rings. Sometimes more. There have been issues before that getting too many at once, sometimes the application would conceal all the hearts and the only way to get it to work again is to reset the application.”

“So what do we do?” Hange asked.

“Turn on your application and we walk through the crowds,” Levi repeated matter-of-factly.

The crowds around him though were disconcerting and he could understand how Hange would have needed some guidance then.

What did she know about testing? When Levi asked himself that question, he started to pick out another question too. What did he know about testing?

He was an engineer and he had been working with applications for years. He had experienced a lot about testing. But he had never experienced testing with a customer married to one of the biggest opportunities of a company and being accused of being in love with her by his own brain child.

He was treading unfamiliar grounds.

The ringing of the alarm was always unsettling at first. By the fifth ring, it always found a rhythm. Or maybe it was his own brain that found rhythm in it.

And he walked to that rhythm, he pushed past the crowds to that rhythm and every two to three rings, he would take a glance to see Hange beside him, her face had settled to some rhythm too. Sometimes, she would look back at him, other times she would look behind her, as if she suspected someone had set her alarm off.

But he had become part of her rhythm too. From his peripherals, he could see she snuck glances at him. Very quick glances that Levi had been perceptible, invested enough to notice.

They could have been walking for five minutes, or maybe even ten. Soon, Levi realized, the love alarm had embedded itself into the background noise, an annoying ring amid faint voices, conversations, public announcements.

It had only seemed loud once again when the street had opened up to an open space at the center.

In front of them was an empty park, and it usually was empty when the lunch crowds had made their way back to their offices. Levi had worked there long enough to know.

The chaos of the alarm had subsided into one noise. He turned to Hange to see that she was looking up at the sky then, one hand over her forehead, shading the view from the bright afternoon sun.

The light from the sun had done wonders to make her cheeks look a bright pink and for a second or so, Levi just stared, long enough for Hange to have noticed. Or maybe it was her plan to look to him eventually.

“Did it stop?” Levi asked as soon as he became aware of those hazel eyes on him. He averted his gaze and looked around the empty park. Nobody should be ringing his alarm. Nobody should be ringing her alarm. But them.

It should have been a win-win situation. If that had worked to break the application, Levi could have clocked that as the bug and investigated that instead. If it worked as expected, if the two applications continued to ring, then maybe it was working.

His alarm was still ringing. He did a thorough 360 of the park. No one was near enough to even meet the ten meter radius. Just to be sure though he turned to Hange. “Anyone around our ten meter radius?”

The park was empty save for one old man on a bench a good distance away, definitely more than ten meters. He hoped it had sounded like a redundant question.

Hange shook her head. “Nobody. But the application is still ringing.”

“Did it stop at all? During the walk?”

Once again, Hange shook her head.

Levi took a deep breath and dropped his shoulders back. “Erwin gave me a week to figure this out. I’ll do some of my own personal investigation after this.”

“Hey, I’ll do what I can too. I really want you to get those funds.” Hange took her hands in his and Levi had half the mind to pull away. If her hands weren’t so soft and maybe a little too warm even for a cool spring day.

Levi had been almost disappointed when Hange dropped his hand and turned back to her phone. Just ‘almost’ though. They just met, he couldn’t be too invested in hands.

So he thought back once again to backend work to the numbers that made up the love alarm. And he thought of Hange’s little suggestion. “You said something about flawed data right?”

***

“My plan is I’m gonna see if I can convince Zeke to take up that love alarm,” Hange said.

“No need to hurry. I have a week to get it working,” Levi muttered. He wasn’t looking at Hange then. His laptop was propped on his lap and he was looking through open support tickets.

They had a support team and being a developer, answering customer queries wasn’t his job. At that rate though, he was looking for anything to keep him busy. Zeke would be coming to pick up Hange and the last thing he wanted to be was free enough to stare at them.

“I have some books on love, I could send them over,” Hange suggested

Levi looked up from his laptop. The support ticket on ‘how to download the app’ was not very interesting after all and he found reason once again to stare at Hange’s bright hazel eyes. “Why would I need books about love?”

“You seem… inexperienced with love?” Hange started. She seemed unsure with that answer.

“Inexperienced with love?” Levi narrowed his eyes at her.

“Allergic to love,” Hange repeated. “so I thought it might help if you read on them.”

“Why would you care if I read them?”

“If we’re gonna work together to improve the accuracy of your alarm, I think you should learn. I’ll do my part too. I’ll learn a bit of coding.”

Levi shrugged. “Send them over then. I’ll look through them if I have time. First things first, I need to get a little more testing done.”

“They might be useful for testing. Or maybe they’ll be able to help you pick out which sensations in particular point to love.”

“I loaded the data. I would know,” Levi said.

Hange raised one eyebrow at him in playful suspicion. It had done some magic in helping Levi recall that all he remembered were the numbers and some hints about sweating, palpitations and some quickening paces. But machines had a tendency of learning more about the users over time.

“Maybe I’ll read one or two before bed," he added a second later.

“Great. Then I’ll do my homework too. I’ll see what I can get from Zeke. Hopefully I can convince him to invest, even with the bug.”

“You have my number---” Just update me. Before Levi could let those words out, he had fallen back into that support ticket about that one person not knowing how to download the application.

It was still a boring and stupid support ticket. But when Zeke had padded into the lobby like he owned the place with a butler in tow, Levi decided that the idiot of a ticket was still a better view than Zeke at that moment.

“Thank you for picking me up,” Hange said in an almost melodic tone, a tone that made Levi’s ears bleed.

“My meeting ended early and I don’t think we had a good dinner since last week. What did you have for lunch?”

“Burgers and fries.”

“Burgers and fries? Hange, I gave you more than enough money for a good meal." Zeke sounded mortified.

Levi froze. He had suggested the diner for its strategic location. He found himself running his right hand slowly over his wallet in his front pocket. He was sure he had the money for anything more expensive.

“It was good.”

“Well, I’ll make sure we get something better tonight. There’s a new restaurant, just outside town, they sell the pink fatty tuna and Kobe beef imported straight from Japan, same day shipping apparently so it’s definitely the freshest we can get here. What do you think?”

“That sounds great,” Hange said.

She had said it in such a tone, a tone she had never used with Levi before. Like she was tasting the food as she spoke of it. Of course she wouldn’t use it on you. You just met her. Levi thought to himself. As he willed himself to get back to his senses, he realized the ticket was still untouched. Although he had been staring at it since a while ago, he hadn’t made any progress at all.

He looked up at Hange then at Zeke. “Apologies for only taking her to a diner. Next time, I’ll make sure to take her somewhere a little…” Rich, expensive, snazzy, exclusive, snobby?  Too many adjectives were running through his head then but Levi settled for something seemingly more professional, or as professional as he could go. “More your tastes.”

“That would be very much appreciated,” Zeke said. He took one of Levi’s hands in his, too suddenly and too forcefully that Levi had to smack his laptop to keep it balanced on his lap. “Thank you again for taking very good care of my Hange here.” He had slipped a hundred dollar bill in between Levi’s hands and maybe he had expected Levi to smile and say ‘thank you.’

And most days, Levi was polite enough to have mustered one but his ears were still ringing, not from hearing the love alarm non stop that day but from those last words Zeke had said.

My Hange.

Hange waved, motioning with her hands to ‘text soon,’ then she turned her back on him.

Levi couldn't’ even get a good view of Hange as she walked away. Soon enough, Zeke had wrapped one arm around her shoulders. From Levi's angle, he couldn’t tell whether Hange had pushed closer to him or Zeke was the one who pulled her closer.

For a second longer, he pondered it. Of course Zeke would pull her closer, that’s his Hange. Of course Hange would move closer to him, she’s his.

Levi looked back at the support ticket, he had opened again.

How to download application. Please help.

He closed his eyes and leaned back on the sofa. He closed all his open tabs before laying his eyes again on the empty draft.

Within seconds, he had closed that tab as well. There were larger issues then than a customer not being able to download an application.

***

Hange had sent books about love in a drive folder and she had emailed it to him. When Levi opened it, he was quick to figure out, they were all self help books

Scott Peck? He could have sworn he had heard that name somewhere and when he opened it, he found the book was hundreds of pages long. He didn’t have the attention span for that.

Maybe I’ll read one or two before bed. He had promised Hange that evening. But he didn’t actually have to read it right?

So instead, Levi googled the summary.

Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. ...Conversely, it is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love.

Levi was quick to close it after that. If that concept of love was real, that would defeat the whole purpose of the love alarm. The last thing he had wanted to do so late at night was invalidate his own brain child.

“Book one for the night. Done,” Levi whispered to himself as he opened the next book on file.

Before you love others, you must learn to love yourself.

“Cliche,” Levi said. But soon after reading it, he turned back to the application on his phone. He turned it on to see an empty blue screen void of hearts. There wouldn’t be hearts, he was alone in his apartment.

He thought back to Hange’s mention of flawed data. He thought back to the alarm that wouldn’t stop ringing. They had been testing it that whole day, there was nothing wrong with the application and the developer in Levi knew there weren't any glaring bugs.

But the testing would continue. He hadn’t completely tested all the scenarios after all. The alarm ringed with Hange but would it have alarmed with anybody else? His five years worth of experience testing the application told him 'no.'

Or maybe he just hadn’t been actively looking for the right people.

Even at night, the gears in his mind managed to turn and soon, he had a plan albeit a vague one. But the first few steps were clear at least. Levi navigated to his play store and typed a few words on the screen. A few minutes later, he was downloading an application with a familiar flame icon on the screen.

He took a deep breath. "This is part of the testing process," he muttered to himself. He was gonna be spending the whole night swiping.

[patandpran]

Lost and Found - A PangWave fic

Summary: Pang knows something is missing from his life and when he tries to remember, everything is blurry. Until he runs into a Gifted student named Wave with whom he feels an instant connection. Unfortunately, Wave wants nothing to do with Pang... or does he?

Post season 1, pre-season 2. My prediction about how Pang might get his memories back. 

There were times that Pang felt like he belonged to something but he often let those feelings go, especially when he remembered that he was in Classroom 8. He had always felt distant or different from others but when he didn’t get his Hogwarts letter when he turned eleven, his hope began to dwindle.

But when he went to his knew school, he felt like he had a chance. It was somewhat of a fresh start but somehow the first half of the year had been a dull blur and while he had had made some friends, there felt like there was something starkly missing. He tried many times to put his finger on it but the thought always seemed to to slip away before he could fully form it.

Until, one day, Pang passed someone that should have been a stranger in the hallway that practically swept the very breath from his lungs. The student was quite ordinary but had a fierce glare on his face and wore a pair of glasses that made Pang do a double take. He could have sworn the student’s gaze softened when he passed him but Pang might have been making things up.

Pang felt the urge to approach this stranger so he quickly turned and ran after him. Pang stepped in front of the student and quickly zeroed in on the ‘Gifted’ program pin that the stranger had on his crisp white shirt. Pang had no idea what he was going to say but the instinct to make a connection was stronger than his planning skills so he just ended up blurting out, “Hi.”

The student scrunched up his nose in what looked like an attempted facade of annoyance but Pang could see right through it. He boldly continued and shot out his hand to introduce himself. “I’m Pang. I feel like we might have met before… you seem familiar… but I don’t know your name. Sorry.”

The supposed stranger looked at Pang as if he came from a different planet but Pang caught a flicker of recognition in the student’s eye that betrayed the act that the stranger was putting on for a reason Pang could not possibly understand. Pang lowered his hand and asked, “What’s you name?”

“Wave.” The student muttered, his gaze falling to his shoes. The name made something shift slightly inside of Pang’s memory, although he could not quite connect it with anything concrete. All he knew, in that moment, was that he was determined to keep Wave talking. There was something about Wave that made Pang want to reach out to him and hug Wave in relief but he was not sure where the urge was coming from. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

“You’re a part of the gifted program?” Pang prompted, eyeing the pin on Wave’s shirt.

At the question, Wave looked down at his shirt as if he was unsure of his response and when he met Pang’s eyes again, Wave looked as if wanted desperately share something with Pang but instead he remained silent and opted for a stiff nod in response.

Pang realized that he was likely making Wave uncomfortable with all the questions, so, as disappointing as it was, he took a step back and put distance between he and Wave. He still sensed some sort of link between them but Wave obviously did not want to clarify what it was about or maybe Pang was just looking too much for change in his life that he was making things up.

“Sorry.” Pang shared, stepping out of the way so Wave had a clear path to continue on his route to his next class. “I didn’t mean to startle you or upset you or anything. I just… something has felt like it has been missing from my life for a few months now and when I try to focus and decipher what it is, my memory is fuzzy. But then I saw you and something seemed to call out to me… Just forget I ever stopped you.”

Wave’s brows knitted together in the briefest moments of what Pang would define as concerned before it disappeared again. A look of rage replaced before Wave hissed, “I strongly suggest you keep your distance from me. There will be consequences if you don’t.”

Before Pang could object to the threat that Wave had thrown at him, Wave stalked away and disappeared into a computer classroom that only Gifted students had access to. Even if Pang wanted to follow him - and he wanted desperately to do so - it wasn’t worth the risk of being suspended for trying into somewhere he didn’t belong.

-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-

Weeks passed and Pang could not stop thinking about his interaction with Wave. It became somewhat of an obsession but whenever he tried to find Wave in the usual restricted portions of the school that were dedicated to the Gifted Program, Wave was nowhere to be found. Pang did not understand where this urgency was coming from but he felt as if something was slipping through his fingers and if he did not try to grasp for it, it would be gone forever.

The next time that Pang saw Wave, Wave was with a group of Gifted students. Pang and Nac were using a shortcut through the Gifted cafeteria to make it to the Rec field as they were about to be late for Physical Education. They did not usually use this route due to the risk of suspension but Nac insisted that it was worth it to avoid the wrath of their Gym teacher.

As soon as they stepped into the cafeteria, the students watched them like hawks, although Pang felt as if more of their attention was on him. When Wave’s eyes met Pang’s, Pang felt like he had been punched in the stomach. He did not know how a complete stranger could have this great of an impact on him. It made no sense.

Pang slowed his pace and muttered, “Nac, you keep going. I forgot something in the dorm but I don’t want you to be late.”

“Okay, see you in class.” Nac shrugged it off and continued on his way without looking back at Pang.

Pang took a deep breath and boldly approached the table that Wave was sitting at. As he got closer, Wave rose to his feet and a flicker of intensity rose through the group, as if they were preparing for some sort of battle against Pang.

As Pang looked each of the students over, there was something in his mind that whispered to him but he couldn’t make the message out. The frustration at this propelled him forward and he reached out to grab Wave’s wrist and despite the resistance that he felt immediately, Pang turned away and quickly led Wave away from the group. Wave did not protest audibly but he did put up a bit of a fight. Thankfully, Pang had the upper hand and nobody from the Gifted group seemed to be pursuing them.

Pang turned down a dimly lit hallway and found an empty classroom. He only let go of Wave’s wrist once he closes the door behind him. The classroom did not have much light but Pang could still see the look of distress and anger on Wave’s face. Pang felt immediately guilty about inflicting such emotions on Wave but as soon as he got the answers he needed, he would never bug Wave again.

“Wave. Please.” Pang urged and Wave turned away from Pang in retaliation. “I need to know what’s happening to me… I can tell you know something…. It feels like we know each other… Honestly, at this point, you can report me to the Director for all I care, I just need to understand why I am so drawn to you.”

“The Director would be the last person I shared this with.” Wave spat out as he turned back to face Pang.

Pang was shocked to see a look of fear in Wave’s eyes at the mention of the Director. It made Pang wonder what the hell Wave had meant then about consequences if Pang attempted something like this again if it had nothing to do with being expelled or suspended.

Wave hung his head, sat down on the edge of a desk and murmured, “We can’t do this, Pang. It’s too dangerous. You don’t understand what we’re up against here. It’s better if things stay the way they are.”

“No.” Pang protested and walked up to Wave. “I can’t go back to the way things were before I saw you, Wave. I…. I can’t stop thinking about you and I don’t understand why… were we…”

Wave looked up and the fear that had been in his eyes before was now replaced with shock. His question came out more as a whisper, “What are you asking me?”

Pang collected his thoughts. There was something drawing him to Wave and the Gifted Program but there was also a shadow of something else dancing in his memory. Even though Wave had put up a front of aggressiveness toward him, Pang somehow knew there was something else stirring beneath the surface that he inherently trusted and, for some reason, this made him want to take care of Wave. Pang recognized the pain that Wave was in, although he did not know the source, and it made Pang desperately want to wrap his arms around the person he weirdly felt like might be his best friend, although he recalled nothing of their history aside from the emotions that linked them together.

That was one thing about memory loss, you could take away the details but not the feelings behind them. Those still remained.

Pang took a risk and tried to share this with Wave in the only way he knew how. He reached down and pressed his lips to Wave’s gently. Their lips ghosted against one another and, at the contact, Wave’s breath hitched. Pang was shocked to find Wave putting up no resistance to the action so Pang brought his hands up to cradle Wave’s head in his hands before guiding them into a deeper kiss.

Wave seemed to be relaxing into the kiss despite his initial shock. Pang felt a wave of overwhelming emotions flowing through him but he tried to remained focused on the reality that Wave was actually kissing him back.

But then the pain in his head exploded and it sent Pang reeling back away from Wave. The pressure was beyond anything that he had ever endured before and he clutched his head to try to keep some of it at bay but nothing worked. He began to cry out and stagger around, trying to resist what was going on but the pain kept surging within his head.

“Pang!” Wave cried out in a tone that indicated his worry. “What’s going on?”

Even though he could not bear to open his eyes, Pang knew that Wave was close by so he reached out for Wave. Maybe Wave could help him somehow or, at least, Pang could find comfort in knowing Wave was there.

Wave found him and immediately put an arm around Pang and guided him to the group. “My head….” Pang moaned, the pain still ripping through him.

“I’m so sorry, Pang.” Wave shared in an urgent tone. “I should have worked harder to avoid you. I knew you were looking for me… I’m so sorry that this is happening to you…”

G - G - G - G - G - G

The memories came flooding back with a force of violence. Every detail from the first placement test, to meeting his classmates, to learning about their Potentials, returned to Pang in a swift flash of recollection.

He recalled his friendship with Ohm and Namtarn, the trials that they went through and the corruption they discovered as the year wore on. All the bizarre situations that they had navigated together as each classmate’s Potential became clear, even though Pang’s took the longest to discover.

But the thing that shocked Pang the most about his memories returning was that nothing explained his feelings for Wave. They had worked together to rise against the Director but they weren’t actually together.

So why had he felt such an urge to kiss Wave? Why was that what brought his memories back?

G - G - G - G- G- G

When Pang was able to re-gain consciousness, he found himself staring up at a very concerned looking Wave. He was seemingly lying in Wave’s lap, and, fuelled by his last thought, Pang scrambled anxiously away from his friend. The shame and guilt for kissing Wave weighed on Pang immensely.

“Wave. I’m sorry.” Pang muttered, avoiding eye contact with Wave. “Please just forget that happened. I think I was just confused about us being friends. It won’t ever happen again and we don’t have to talk about it.”

“Y-you’re back.” Wave responded in such a vulnerable tone that Pang could not help but look back at Wave.

The emotion in Wave’s eyes caught Pang off guard. He suddenly realized how difficult it must have been for Wave and the rest of the Gifted class to pretend as if they did not know Pang after everything that had happened - how painful and confusing that must have been when he got to go on back to his previous life and live in ignorance when he had been the cause of the problem.

A smirk replaced the look of relief on Wave’s face, “Took you long enough.”

Pang could not help but feel something in him unfurl. Despite crossing the line with the kiss, it seemed like Wave was just happy to have Pang back and that made Pang feel like they were back to where they had been right before he lost his memory. Things didn’t need to be weird now that they knew where they both stood and Pang had his memories back.

“Happy to be back.” Pang answered, a grin stretching across his lips.

“We tried so many ways to get you back.” Wave explained, shaking his head. “But we had to be so careful and none of them seemed to work until…”

“Until I kissed you.” Pang confirmed and felt the jolt of guilt return to him. “Like I said, we don’t have to talk about it. We can just pretend it never happened and tell everyone that you played the video for me somehow.”

“No. I don’t want to forget about it.” Wave explained and Pang felt his heart racing. “... I missed you so much.”

Pang could hear the pain in Wave’s voice and he dared to reach across the distance between them and grasp Wave’s hands in his. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you again. I missed you without even knowing what I was missing and look where it brought us. Wave, you’re what brought my memories back. If it took me losing them again to figure out how I felt about you, I’d do it.”

“Don’t joke about that.” Wave’s tone became stern and Pang chuckled fondly at how stubborn Wave was.

“So....” Pang leaned in closer to Wave. Pang was careful to not touch Wave as he asked the next question as he wanted to be absolutely sure that Wave was responding of his own free will, not because of Pang’s Potential. Pang continued, “I guess we should make up for some lost time. Can I kiss you again?”

Wave simply nodded. Pang closed the distance between them and brought their lips to meet once again. Whatever the future held, Pang knew that Wave and he could handle it. Now that he had his memories back, it was time to rise up against the Director and make a change but it was going to take everybody working together to make the kind of change they really needed.

Sometimes it took losing something to figure out what you wanted from it in the first place.

[iffeelscouldkill]

Mission Log: REDACTED

A/N: Now that Yuletide reveals are revealed, I can go ahead and own this fic I wrote for the awesome Mousek for Yuletide! It’s quite long (14,999 words), so I’m not going to post the whole thing here, just enough to give people a flavour and lure them to AO3 for the rest.

This fic is written in an “audio narrative” format, in the same style as the From the Archives ficlets if you’ve read those. Slightly spoilery warning (skip over this to remain unspoiled but please read if you’re concerned about potential triggers): this fic features people’s memories being modified (though not completely irreversibly) without their consent.

Enjoy, friends!

Summary: Canon divergence AU from mid-episode 9. Instead of executing Plan B, the Rumor crew learns about a top-secret Regime project that is being carried out at ADVANCE Labs - and that the fate of the crew of the Iris is not what they thought it had been.Violet Liu goes in undercover, posing as a member of the lab team. But can she undo what the Regime has done to the crew and free them - without losing herself in the process?

Read on AO3!

---

“This is Agent McCabe. Two weeks have now passed since our last update. Based on the continued lack of audio input via this swarm of Strain H, we can assume that the crew of the Rumor have acted on the intel given to them by the insurgents, Thasia and Violet Liu, and successfully cured themselves of the VCN nanocloud infection.

 “As a result, pending further developments in this case, the Strange Case of Starship Iris is now considered closed. Footage from the case remains available in the archives and can be accessed on request by submitting form B7-081 with a superior’s signature.

 “My thanks to Major General Frederick, Agents Bauman and Cross, and the specialists at Procyon, as well as Junior Agent Goodman for their assistance in this case. Long live the Republic.”

*

SYSTEM: E.L.L.A.

USERNAME: EMILY CRADDOCK

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED 26 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, it’s me. I just wanted to check in and say that I’m fine, I’m safe and I passed the background checks without any problems. I kept thinking the whole time that someone from the intake process would recognise me, but – none of them seemed familiar, and I guess I wasn’t either. Just a very small cog in the vast machine of the Reg- the Republic. God, I’ve got to get used to saying that again.

“I’m all settled in in my apartment – it’s twice the size of my room on the Rumor, but I can’t help thinking how much I miss that space.” Quiet laughter. “And you all. I… guess I’ll talk to you soon. I’ll have more to update you with tomorrow, after I start work at the lab. And I’ll be able to let you know whether our intel was good.

“Until then… Violet Liu out.”

*

“This is uh, lab report 05, week two? Analyst Brannon reporting on behalf of Gamma Team at ADVANCE.

“Over the past few days, our lab has continued work on synthesizing the NDMA proteins, and Specialists Chang and Yeboah report that they have made some positive advancements in this area. We have provisionally moved up the timeline for the first round of testing with this in mind, though Specialist Yeboah cautions that we need to monitor how the new proteins react with other molecules in the solution first, and then with the blood cell samples.

“A new member also joined our team today – specialist Huang. I wasn’t aware that we’d actually been hiring for our vacancy, but uh, she seems very qualified? A little over-qualified, even. In addition to her qualification from Brightwell she has extensive experience with this type of lab work, which makes us lucky to have her as part of the team. She’s joined Analyst Vázquez and Assistant Hudson in their work on the histone deacetylases.

“My specialism is in a completely different area, and I’m pretty sure our work histories have never overlapped, but – she seems familiar somehow. Except she said she was based on Mars up until six months ago, and I’ve been working on New Jupiter since… uh…

“Sorry – lost my train of thought for a minute there. I’ve been getting these persistent headaches… I think it’s all that poring over modelling data. Though I never get them while I’m working, so maybe they’re delayed-onset headaches? Heh. It could be the lab lighting; I might ask Supervisor Kaaka if we can swap out the bulbs for a lower wattage.

“Uh, anyway. This is Analyst Brannon signing off. Long live the Republic.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 27 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, it’s me. Oh my god… oh my god, I can barely process what’s been happening. I was going to send this message as soon as I got back to my apartment, and instead I’ve just been sitting and staring into space because it’s just so… surreal…

“They’re alive. They’re all just… alive and working in a lab at ADVANCE on New Jupiter.

“I mean, we haven’t ruled out the possibility of highly advanced duplicates, but why would the Repub- the Reg- the IGR go to all that trouble? The simplest explanation - even if it still sounds pretty far-fetched - is that they're the same crew.

“Brian, if you’re listening to this – Alvy's alive. I know I didn’t work with him that long but I’m sure, I’m so sure it's really him. But it’s like Thasia and Other Violet said – none of them remember who they were, or their real names. Everyone here calls him Analyst Brannon – Michael Brannon.

“We’re not working very closely together, but I found an excuse to go over to his workstation and introduce myself, and – it seemed like he recognised me. I’m gonna try and find ways to talk to him – the real Alvy Connors is still in there, Brian, I’m sure of it.

“Is there anything you want me to… ask him? Maybe a question that only he would know the answer to?

“Sorry, I don’t have much more time – the IGR has listening devices planted throughout every Republic-issued apartment; everywhere except the bathroom. Even they have to draw the line somewhere. I scanned it, and it’s clean, but if I remember right there are still sensors that will activate if you go above a certain noise, light or heat, threshold – y’know, in case anyone takes it upon themselves to… build a bomb in here or something. And I don’t want the bugs outside to pick up what I’m saying, which is why I’m whispering.

“But I can’t stay in here too long, or they’ll get suspicious, so – I’m fine, and so far I haven’t messed up or called the Republic the Regime or anything in earshot of anyone. And no-one has recognised me. Well, except for Alvy, maybe.

“I’m still trying to figure out what exactly they’re working on, here. If you’re going to go to the trouble of staffing a lab with the crew of an… of an exploded space ship, it must be important, right? Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just a test, to see how well they assimilate.

“I’ll let you know when I know more. Until then… stay safe. I will too. Violet Liu out.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 27 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hi, Liu. It’s me.

“I’ll keep this to the point, since I know you probably don’t have much time to spend playing back these messages. We’re all fine here. Kind of in a holding pattern, since there’s not much to do until we hear more from you or from Thasia and the other Violet, but it’s not too bad.

“Jeeter’s really happy, by the way, since he listened to your message. I mean, I think he’s still – processing – because he thought Connors was dead, he even wrote to his parents, and now we find out he’s alive, but not… y’know. Not Connors any more.

“But he’ll be fine. Krejjh is helping, which means the two of them are being even more nauseating then they usually are, and that’s saying something.

“Anyway. Listen, I know you want to try and get through to Connors, but… just be careful, okay? None of us, including Jeeter, wants you to get hurt or – worse – on the off chance that we might be able to bring him back. We always knew it was gonna be a long shot.

“Tripathi said to tell you the same, by the way. Well, she said it in a more… Tripathi… way, but the idea was the same. Find out what you can, but don’t get caught. We can’t afford to lo- to mess this up.

“Okay, I should go. Arkady Patel out.”

*

“This is lab report 06, week three. Analyst Brannon reporting on behalf of Gamma Team at ADVANCE.

“Since my last report, we have introduced the synthesized NDMA proteins to the solution and tested their interactions with samples representing different blood types. Six out of eight of the samples produced expected results, but two of the samples produced some unexpected interactions with the AB type blood cells, which warrants further testing and study.

“Specialist Huang, Analyst Vázquez and Assistant Hudson are progressing with their work on the histone deacetylases, which should be ready to introduce in the next phase of the solution, pending resolution of the AB blood cell issue.

“Okay, what else… Oh, Specialist Huang is integrating well with the team. She and I have had a couple of conversations, though our second one was unfortunately cut short when my headache started up again. Maybe I should bring it up with Dr. Starling…

“Damn it. Is that the time? I was supposed to go for my treatment a half hour ago – damn it, damn it.

“Uh… I should probably redact that from the final report. This is Analyst Brannon, signing off. Long live the Republic.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 30 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey guys, it’s me again. Violet. It feels kind of nice to use my own name for a change instead of being called ‘Specialist Huang’ all the time… I almost forgot to react to it once, though luckily Vázquez thought I was just focused on my work.

“Not a whole lot to report still – I’m still trying to figure out what it is the Regime is doing in these labs. It’s something to do with DNA methylation and synthesized NDMA proteins – well, I won’t bore you with the science, but why would the IGR be working on that? Could be they’re trying to develop a neural enhancer, but for what? I haven’t ruled out the possibility of there being some kind of link to the nanobots, but no-one here has mentioned nanites, and there are no nanotech specialists working in the lab.

“They keep us very siloed, too. I know what I’m working on, or at least what I have to do, but I don’t know why, and none of the people I work directly with seems to know what we’re developing here. Just something about a solution and blood cell samples. We might not even be the only lab working on this, which means I’ll have to find another way to get at the bigger picture.

“I spoke to Alvy a couple times – I was careful, Arkady, don’t worry. We didn’t manage to talk for long anyway – people don’t socialise much here. I’d kind of forgotten what it was like to work in this kind of environment, where no-one trusts anyone or lets their guard down, because people will backstab each other for the slightest thing. Maybe they had a professional disagreement, or don’t get along, or they wanted to get the credit for the other person’s work. It doesn’t take much of an insinuation to get someone transferred or – worse.

“Nothing’s happened, not yet, and it’s still nowhere near as bad as that student internship I did during the war. But it feels… tense, almost hair-trigger. I think I heard we’re having an inspection later on this week.

“Anyway, Alvy – I didn’t get to talk to him for very long, not just because of the environment, but because he had this headache come on the second time we talked. I’m not sure if it means anything – he said he gets them often. Brian, do you… remember him saying anything about that before?

“He seems a little different to the way I remember him on the Iris – a little more serious, less laid-back, though he’s still the friendliest person on the team. I didn’t… get to know him under the best circumstances, so I’m not sure if that’s due to the memory wipe or not.

“He also mentioned that he’s been seeing a doctor for these treatments – they all have. It could just be something to do with the away shuttle explosion, some kind of recovery program – there was an explosion, even if it didn’t really kill anyone, and Alvy’s got these – support struts in one of his legs, I think they’re carbon fibre. He walks with a slight limp sometimes.

“It could be nothing, but I feel like it might be worth digging into? Arkady, are you able to poke around in ADVANCE’s systems a bit, see if you can find anything that resembles medical reports?

“I’d better go. I brought my makeup bag in here as a cover for taking a bit longer – I don’t even know if the IGR has cameras in these apartments, but better to be safe than sorry – but there’s only so long you can take to put on the bare minimum I wear.

“Send me a message when you can. Violet Liu, out.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 30 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, Liu. Good instincts on the medical treatment thing. I didn’t spot anything like that in my initial sweep of the system when I forged your interview and acceptance records, but I wasn’t on the lookout for it either.

“There’s a limit to what I can access without jacking directly into ADVANCE’s mainframe computer or piggybacking on their local network, but I’ll dig around as much as I can.” Jokingly: “ Worst comes to worst, we could always send Jeeter in with an earpiece and make him pose as a computer technician.

“Oh, also, Jeeter says he doesn’t remember Alvy ever mentioning any kind of migraines or head pain. Apparently he’d go on these all-night coding benders and then sleep for two hours and be completely fine the next morning. Maybe it caught up to him, but – well, I’m not gonna jump to any conclusions. I’ll see what I can find in the medical records.

“Also – be careful with the inspection, okay? Your ID will hold up, Campbell doesn’t skimp on the quality, and you look different enough from the physical description they have on file, but those Regime higher-ups will ask some weird shit to catch you out.

“You’ve got the comm if you need us for anything. Just… keep your head down.

“Arkady Patel, out.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 31 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Hey, Liu, listen. You were right. There’s something weird going on with these treatments.

“I managed to track down the medical records for the whole crew. Wasn’t easy, but I’ll save the tales of my security-defying exploits for another time. Anyway, I managed to hack into an account belonging to someone called Dr. Starling. They were brought onto ADVANCE’s payroll on June 1st – two days before the away shuttle exploded.

“There are files for all of them, and the scientific stuff doesn’t mean much to me, but from what I can tell, they’re monitoring them all for signs of what Starling calls ‘leakage’ – memories from their previous lives. Five of the other crew members have reported experiencing head pains, and it’s not a physical injury – Starling seems to think the pain is set off by them thinking back beyond a certain point, or being reminded of something from their past life. They upped the frequency of the ‘treatments’ to try and counter it, but so far it hasn’t worked.

“I think that’s what they’re for, the treatments – they’re keeping the crew’s memories suppressed. Which means, if they can be interfered with somehow…

“Bad news is, I can’t get into the scheduling system, not without access to the local network. But in Starling’s notes it says that Alvy was meant to come in for a treatment earlier today- well, yesterday technically, since it’s after 3am. But he didn’t show. So maybe you could get through to him.

“Obviously, don’t blow your cover, but if Alvy’s been getting these headaches a lot, it could mean he’s trying to remember? You said he got a headache when you guys talked – what were you talking about?”

A stifled yawn. “Shit, I’d better sleep, Sana wanted me to help encrypt some intel to send to Thasia and the other Violet Liu first thing in the morning. I’ll talk to you later. Arkady Patel out.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED 31 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“Arkady, you’re a genius! Oh my god, I could kiss you.

“I’ve only skimmed the records you copied, but they make references to a solution that sounds a lot like the one we’re developing in the lab. What if that’s the answer? What if that’s what the IGR is having the crew develop, another version of the treatment – maybe one that’s more permanent…

“…Oh god, that’s so dark. They’re having the crew work on erasing their own memories. It’s so inhuman, so – exactly what the IGR would do.

“–I have to go, I’ve got work in half an hour, but – this really helps. And I’ll try to talk to Alvy today, see if he seems any different after his missed treatment. Violet Liu out.”

*

ACCESSING RECENT DRAFTS... YOU HAVE ONE RECENT DRAFT. COMPOSED: 31 JULY 2191.

REVIEWING DRAFT...

“You, uh—” The sound of awkward throat-clearing. “You are welcome. Yeah. Like I said, it’s uh, it’s what I do! So, no, uh thanks required. Though if you wanted to, I—

“Shit, I’ve gotta go, Sana needs me. Uh, Arkady Patel out.”

Read the rest here!

[photiniainsummer]

A Little Audience Participation Can Tip the Scales (1/?): The Lede

Genre: GenFic - Action, Mystery, Humor

Rating: Teen and Up

Story Summary: There’s a strange group living at the old Markiplier Manor.

They’re the villains of their tales, they’re looking for information, and they need your help putting Mark’s scattered egos back together to get their lives back.

And stop Mark and the Entity breaking reality.

Small goals.

(Second Person POV, vaguely fem-coded Reader)

Chapter Summary: The one where your cheeky coworker convinces you to check out the old Markiplier Manor with him.

Word Count: 5372

Author's Note: Decided to cross-post from my Ao3! The next three chapters are already up, and I try to post every Tuesday. :3

Interested?

Read on Ao3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30510852/chapters/75244647

The Lede

You watch amusedly from your desk as Jonah, your coworker-slash-mentor and partner in crime, comes bustling through the door to the reporters’ bullpen. He’s late, as usual, his half-open messenger bag slung across his rumpled self. Scribbled-on papers and even his laptop haphazardly jut out from the bag as he struggles to balance a breakfast sandwich on his thermos. Sometimes, all he had to do was exist to make you nervous. He starts to make his way across to you and your neighboring desks but is intercepted by the resident office mom for what she calls a “good old fashioned talking-to.” She’s always trying to tenderly bully him into being a better example for the junior reporters like yourself, although you have to wonder why she keeps it up despite its clearly limited efficacy. It’s not even that Jonah’s particularly stubborn - he’s just one of those people who, no matter how early he leaves home or how hard he tries, something just so happens to make him late. You can see how it would seem intentional, but you know Jonah’s too honest and, frankly, not creative enough to come up with the plethora of scenarios that conspire against him. You’ve just learned to tell Jonah to show up at least half an hour before you actually want him to.

Eleanor, however, is committed to whipping Jonah into shape. In the midst of her chiding, Jonah catches your gaze and pulls an awful face, startling a laugh out of you. Eleanor, of course, seizes on this and switches to berating him about listening when spoken to as you try to pull your attention back to scanning the morning news. He really knows how to dig himself in deeper, you think, chewing your lip to keep from laughing at the memory of his terrible expression.

“Don’t even start,” Jonah grumbles when he finally extracts himself from Eleanor’s chastising, sliding into his desk across from you. “You heard it, she already ran the full gamut this morning.” You give him your best shocked look.

“Who, me? No idea what you’re talking about,” you reply coolly, punctuating your tease by exaggeratedly returning to your work and clattering at your keyboard. “I was just going to ask how your morning went.” Jonah groans, but his lips tug upward in his typical crooked smile. At least he’d managed to shave without cutting himself this morning, you note.

“Ugh. Just because you were born able to wake up five minutes before your alarm doesn’t mean the rest of us were. Besides, I was up listening to the scanner.” Now it’s your turn to groan.

“That thing again? It’s barely legal for you to have one here, even Walker said as much.” Your boss and head editor had given Jonah his patented disapproving brow-furrow and pressed-lip combo when it had come up in conversation, but he hadn’t explicitly told the crime reporter to get rid of it, either. Jonah argued it kept him ahead of the curve on his beat, but with as many connections as he had, you suspected he used it more for the thrill of it than bettering his job performance. “What was so interesting last night, anyway? Any high-speed chases?”

“Not in our limits, unfortunately.” Jonah chuckles at your unamused expression, popping the lid on his thermos. “Kidding, come on. No, it was quiet last night, except… well.” He pauses, something changing in his expression. It’s enough to pull your attention away from your inbox. Jonah’s a goofball, but he’s a damn good reporter with a mind like a whip. He has to be, to be head of the crime division. So you take it seriously when he casts his eyes around the office before leaning in conspiratorially. His voice is hushed as he murmurs to you. “Someone called in that they saw a suspicious person skulking around the old Markiplier Manor.”

You immediately lose interest. That was news to him? The Manor had been abandoned as long as you had been alive, long since off the market after being passed from renovator to developer for most of its nearing-hundred year existence. Even with calls for it to be turned into some kind of museum, it had never been able to shake its grisly past or tendency for the strange. You’d heard the stories of the few historic maintenance crews dealing with randomly exploding lightbulbs and eerie spectres, disembodied voices and footsteps - but that’s all they were, stories. Stories from a creepy, old, run-down house on the edge of town. It was a hotspot for teenagers wanting to prove their guts - hell, you had even gone with a couple of friends back in high school, although you had been busted by a roving patrol car. You sigh at the memory of just how badly your mom had berated you about breaking curfew and fix Jonah with a disappointed look. He was immature at the worst of times, but you thought he’d at least be able to tell a lead from normal shenanigans. “That was exciting enough to make you late for the third time this week? You’re supposed to be a senior reporter around here, you know.” Jonah huffs, leaning forward on his desk and closer to you. He seems intent, despite your skepticism.

“Well, if you’d let me finish explaining, then you might know why such an on-time and dedicated individual such as yours truly would have let the time slip away from him,” he replies, sarcasm curling his tone. A quip rises on your tongue that he was the one drawing it out so much, but Jonah has a certain glint in his eyes. Something had his attention. You finally turn from your computer monitor and to face him, only slightly exasperated.

“Okay, okay. Listening.”

The man grins slightly and shifts his weight further forward on his elbows, keeping his voice down as he continues. “All right, so, PD gets this call from a neighbor that they saw someone wandering around on the property, yeah? They send an officer to check it out - of course, nobody’s around by the time he shows up. But the weird thing is… they found all the lights on inside.”

You blink, sure you missed something. “Like. Shop lights, right? There’s some construction crew working on it, or… they called in an appraiser and they forgot to turn them off.” Jonah shakes his head.

“Nope. Light fixtures. Every single one with a bulb in was blazing. And no crews or anything, I called the agency that owns the place. The last pro they had in there was over four years ago. There’s a security guard that checks it out regularly, but the power’s been off for years.”

You furrow your brow and sit in thoughtful silence for a moment, hunched and staring at your desk as you puzzle over the details. Jonah watches you intently while you think, taking the chance to work on his massive thermos of coffee, so strong you could smell it across your desks. He’d done this since you’d joined the paper, assuming the role of your mentor, at least informally. He would offer you the details of a story or curious anecdote that he’d started with and watch your mind run. You had always appreciated the exercise - it kept you sharp in dealing with local politics and its various mealy-mouthed players - and he appreciated getting a second pair of eyes on the issue at hand. Sometimes you picked up on things he hadn’t, ran rabbits he might not have. Working the inside of your cheek between your teeth, you roll the details over in your mind, hunting for another explanation as Jonah hunted for the bottom of his thermos. Something didn’t sit right with you about the details, but what?

Suddenly, you land on it, sitting up suddenly and turning to Jonah, who lifts his eyebrows at you. “The neighbor that made the call, did they mention the lights, or just someone wandering around outside?” His face breaks into a pleased smile, eyes dancing with the curiosity of the problem before the two of you.

“Nice catch. They didn’t mention the lights at all, just the trespasser.”

“So the lights got turned on between the neighbor making the call and the officer showing up.” Jonah’s smile turns into a real grin, cheeks split with it.

“Exactly. But why?” The other reporter leans back in his chair with a sigh. “That’s what kept me up, and made me late. Again.” He sips his coffee idly. “And it’s why I’m going to check it out for myself tonight.”

“What?” Jonah jumps in his chair with the volume of your exclaimation, quickly shushing you as he looks around in a panic. He can’t be serious, you think, but lower your voice. What is he being so low-key about? “No, Jonah, you absolutely can not go poking around some abandoned house.” He settles somewhat, content that nobody cast a glance your way after your outburst. Most of your colleagues are already out on assignments, anyway, given the later hour. But he’s determined, unfazed by your forbiddance.

“And why not? I’m just following a lead.” You open your mouth to protest further, but he interrupts. “Oh, come on, you aren’t a little curious to see what’s going on? What’s the harm, the cops just checked it out, it’s totally safe.” That gleeful glint is back in his eyes. How it thrills and infuriates you in equal measure.

“Seriously? Someone could be squatting there, and the cops just didn’t find them. Someone tapping a neighbor’s powerline and clearly not in their right mind, if they’re turning every light on in the place. Besides, even if it is empty, they could have a patrol posted on it now.” Jonah’s excitement begins to fade in the face of your barrage of facts. “If that agency still owns it, then it’s private, posted property, and you’d be actively breaking the law.” He sucks his teeth and slumps back in his chair, somewhat defeated.

“You’re no fun. Where’s your reporter’s spirit, your drive!” You turn back to your computer, shaking your head as you try to refocus on catching up with your inbox.

“Getting arrested for trespassing and/or breaking and entering isn’t ‘reporter’s spirit,’ Jo. You’re not Nancy Drew, you can’t just start poking your nose around abandoned buildings. It’s not safe.”

Jonah pauses for a moment, then gets an annoyingly knowing grin on his face. He leans forward again, good humor returning. “Ohhhh, so you’re scared is what I’m hearing.”

You huff in exasperation. “Literally how is that the conclusion you’re drawing from what I just said? I told you--”

“You’re the one who said ‘safe’! That means you think it might be dangerous and you’re scared.”

“Yeah, for your job and general well-being. Seriously, Jonah, I’m not scared of some abandoned house. Just because a couple of people happened to get murdered there--”

“Ah ah ah, they only found one body. The Mayor and the District Attorney were missing, assumed dead. Same for the killer.”

“Okay, Mr. Nitpicky. You you that’s even less scary, right? But, regardless, none of that makes the place inherently dangerous or scary. Hospitals aren’t scary, at least not like that, and people die there all the time.”

Jonah doesn’t immediately reply, giving you the opportunity to hammer out a reply to a scheduling issue and push your lunch meeting with the Senator back an hour. How did her assistant manage to double book her? you wonder as your reply zooms off. When you get the chance to look back to your coworker, he has a wry, sneaky little smile on his face. “What?”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” You shake your head. He really isn’t giving this up. “Fine, if you’re soooo not scared, then I dare you to come check it out with me tonight.”

“Absolutely not, did you forget about the illegal part? We aren’t kids, this isn’t just messing around after school. It could look bad for the paper, and you know Walker as well as I do - there’s no second chances.”

Jonah pauses. Mulling over your words, the threat of being fired. Then, “I’ll buy you dinner from that new Japanese place uptown.”

Visions of high-end sushi dance enticingly in your mind. Your stomach threatens to growl, with it being the end of the month and your bank account looking dismally light. Jonah always knows how to hook you, damn him. It doesn’t help that you knew from that look on his face that he knew you were already burning up inside with curiosity. The two of you were peas in a pod, and he had seen that since your first day at the paper. It was exactly why he’d gotten you set up as his desk neighbor, why he’d taken it upon himself to play mentor for you, probably why he was telling you any of this in the first place, despite how low-profile he clearly wanted to stay. You were going to be at that Manor tonight as soon as Jonah had heard the cop call in over the scanner. You sigh quietly through your nose, letting the decision sink in before you make it official.

“Fine. What time?” you ask, not looking away from your screen. Despite trying to ignore him, you could still see Jonah’s joyous fist-pump out of the corner of your eye.

What’s the harm in a little urban exploring, anyway? At least I’ll be there to keep Jonah from going too far with it, you muse to yourself, already planning your celebratory dinner.

What’s the worst that could happen?

---

Even after three years of working closely with Jonah Scott, you still managed to underestimate just how late he could be. You had agreed to meet at the foot of the Manor’s drive at Jonah-time 5:30, 6 sharp for normal people. However, it’s already pushing half-past with no apology text or update to speak of from the crime reporter. Wasn’t this his stupid plan? you mentally grumble, fruitlessly checking your phone again. At this point, your text conversation was fully one-sided, your messages over the last thirty-ish minutes taking up the entirety of your screen. With a defeated sigh, you flick the app shut and slide over to your ridesharing app. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to stick around, and with the sun setting quickly, like hell you’re going to willingly hang around the abandoned Manor longer than you have to.

As you scan available drivers, you consider just how to make Jonah pay for standing you up. You mentally upgrade your promised sushi meal straight into a sushi boat, and although you know you don’t have the heart to commit to such an egregious attack on his wallet, the thought brings a smile to your face. At the very least, you decide to charge him the cost of your rides to and from the massive property - the place is barely in the city limits, not to mention situated up a long road that only led into an almost equally long driveway. Your already light bank account was begging for mercy as you select a nearby driver. Of course it was surge pricing, to boot. The estimated ride cost is enough to make you pause and hope beyond hope that Jonah and his old jalopy were right around the corner. Maybe his phone had just died. Or maybe he was being a particularly safe driver and ignoring his texts. You decide to give it another couple of minutes, if just to make sure you had no other option but to pay through the nose for a ride home. With a sigh, you turn back towards the Manor itself, its exposed-rock exterior catching the burning sunset.

It doesn’t even look that creepy. Really, with the warmth of the setting sun, it almost looks inhabited, just in limbo between relying on daylight and its residents needing to turn the lights on for the evening. The grounds are well-maintained, too, likely thanks to a strict HOA. You figure that if neighbors are paying enough attention to report people wandering around the property despite how spaced out the houses are here, there’s likely a resident weed-measurer who complains as soon as the yard breaches an acceptable length.

That being said, the building itself barely looks like a home. Although you had brushed up on its appearance and floorplan online, images couldn’t prepare you for just how much it really looks like a castle. You knew its creator, Mark Iplier, had been a fabulously wealthy actor back in the day, building his first house to match, but good lord. There’s still such a thing as too much. It has turrets, for crying out loud. Not to mention Google Earth showed that the massive patio that wrapped around practically the entirety of the backside of the building was home to some kind of natural waterfall-looking pool and a life-sized chessboard. It had been impressive online, but in real life, the place is enormous to the point of ridiculousness.

I guess it matches its creator, then, you muse, considering what you had gleaned from a scan of a few biographical entries earlier in the day. He was a local legend, to be sure, but you had never learned more about him than surface stuff and the details of the murder case that had basically ended his career. Before all that, though, Mark had been the embodiment of every stereotype you could muster about early 20th century new-money creatives -- massive personalities with a penchant for equally massive parties. As beloved as he had been on stage and film, he’d been even more so in social circles, known for all-night ragers with massive multisection big bands, ample liquor even in the height of Prohibition, and occasionally the exotic animal or two. Famously, Mark had once arrived at a costume party on the back of an elephant, led by four retainers and dressed like a prince, swathed in silks.

In that context, the house seemed to make a bit more sense, although it had clearly seen better days. The paint on wrought-iron fence surrounding the grounds needs a fresh coat, peeled off in places; you can see a few shutters hanging lopsidedly from their hinges. It’s almost sad, the longer you look at it, especially knowing the revelry it had once hosted. Mark’s own life mirrored the place, as cliche as it was. After the incident, Mark never seemed able to recover. Even the few pictures you had found of him afterwards looked different - he seemed thinner, his eyes haunted, his smile forced. He’d appeared in a handful of films after the fact, but something had changed in him, and he ended up becoming somewhat of a recluse until his death. It was horribly tragic, really. Just trying to put yourself in his shoes had your throat tightening up a bit. Your childhood friend goes off the deep end and goes on a rampage out of nowhere with the rest of your closest friends as casualties - a freak incident right as you’re hitting your stride--

Suddenly, your phone breaks out into its ringtone, startling you out of your empathetic wallowing. You fumble the device in your hand just to keep a grip on it, cursing as you manage to maintain your hold. You check the screen - a local number, but you don’t recognize it. You answer anyway, crossing your fingers it’s not just a spoof call. “Hello?”

Jonah’s voice crackles through on the other end. “Kid! Hey, I’m so sorry-”

“You better have a damn good explanation lined up, Scott,” you snap, interrupting. “Where the hell are you?”

“God, I know, I’m sorry, I’ve been trying to get home for the last hour to call you. My car practically blew up in my face on my way home from work, and it must have been something electrical because my phone was connected and charging and got totally fried. It was kind of working for a second, but I just had to give up and come home in a taxi. I’m having to use an emergency landline, I can’t believe the damn thing even works.” The annoyance drains from your body, his tone so disappointed and clearly stressed that you can’t keep a hold on your frustration.

“Oh, Jo. I’m sorry. Are you okay, though? It didn’t shock you or anything, right?”

“No, thank god, no hospital bills on top of everything else. Look, I’m really sorry. Are you still out there?”

“Yeah, I was just about to get a ride home when you called.”

“Oh, awesome, so have you gone in?!” You scoff out of reflex, stunned at his emotional 180. If he was here, you’d give him a good pop on the head.

“What? No, Jonah, of course I didn’t go in! This was your plan, I was waiting on you to roll your goofy ass up this stupid hill. You’re lucky this place is out of the way, I bet the neighborhood association would have called the cops on me by now if the houses were any closer,” you grump down the line. Jonah’s laugh crackles on the other end.

“Lucky’s my middle name, especially today, right? Look, I know I already owe you big, but can’t you just slip in and take a look around? Like hell I’m gonna be able to afford getting a ride out there any time soon, and you’re already there… Just see if the door’s unlocked or something, look in some windows?” He’s really begging, now, and his tone melts your resolve. How does he do that every time? You sigh heavily, crossing your arms and peering up at the manor. Its large, dark windows stand out against the lighter stone as the sunlight truly begins to fade. They feel like eyes, looking down at you from the top of the hill. It sends a shiver up your spine.

“Jonah, you know I value you as a dear friend and colleague, but... Fine, look, this place is creepy, I admit it, I’m a chicken, I’m scared of the creepy murder house, can’t we just come back some other time when we’re a we and not just a me?” Although your rushed confession is half joking, it’s obvious Jonah isn’t fully engaged. He only gives a short laugh in response before you hear him shift the phone a bit, pausing. Thinking. It feels like an age before he speaks again, the crickets beginning their evening song in the interim.

Then, “Look, Vivian, I. I haven’t been straight-up with you. Yeah, the scanner was going off last night, but the truth is I’ve... been thinking about that place for months. Remember that puff piece about Mark, the retrospective Devontae put up a couple months ago?”

You shift your weight, turning away from the manor and its looming walls to focus on your friend’s voice. His tone had seriously shifted. This is Real Talk time. “Yeah, sure. The board killed it. It was weird, especially since it was his death-iversary, right? But… I dunno, Jo, that’s not enough to--”

“I talked with my friends at the Star, their board nixed a retrospective, too. So did the Inquirer, the Daily, and the Herald. Not to mention anything having to do with Mark for at least the last couple of years. I checked Walker’s record cabinet, too. Anything mentioning Mark, that night, his life after… hell, even the Manor, everything is heavily edited. Anything even adjacently referencing his existence is lucky if his name doesn’t get cut.”

You draw up short. A bit of concrete is loose underneath your feet, rocking slightly with you as you shift your weight from foot to foot. What is he getting at? “I mean. Yeah, okay, that’s pretty weird, but maybe… I dunno, maybe the board doesn’t want to bring up a dark moment like that, or more likely, they don’t wanna openly admit the town hasn’t been able to get their shit together about the Manor and make it into something other than an eyesore all this time later. You know at least half of them take board work as their victory lap after a glorious public service career,” you offer, laying it on thick. Jonah hums, considering it.

“Could be. But still, kind of a personal bent for an editorial board to take, no? Even for them. And it’s not just our board, it’s consistent across the papers.”

“But nothing that awful happened to warrant this. I mean, sure, his buddy killed a detective and presumably a couple of friends in his house, that’s sad, but… Mark wasn’t involved. He didn’t do anything, at least, nothing bad enough to make everyone decide it’d be better if he just didn’t exist.”

“Nothing that we know about,” he offers, quieter. Your blood chills.

“...you think something else happened? Something worse?” Jonah is silent for a moment. His next words are careful.

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I think what happened at the Manor has more to do with Mark than he wanted people to think, more than reports let on. And that, whatever really happened, it’s something bad enough that even now, this long after everything and even him passing over two decades ago, someone’s keen to keep it covered up.”

You’re quiet, mind reeling. You were a local, you knew as well as anyone that all of this stuff is treated more like an urban legend than true local history. It’s almost larger than life, at this point; you had heard the story told and retold a thousand times over until the telling itself was smooth and simple. Mark, fresh off a successful play’s run, had invited over his old university buddies for a night of good old fashioned revelry and reconciliation after years of petty disagreements had crescendoed with his wife cheating on him with his oldest friend, the Colonel WIlliam J. Barnum. However, little was resolved, and adding alcohol to the mix turned out to be deadly. Tensions between the group came to a head the next day, and the Colonel snapped. His rampage ended in the death of the city’s leading detective and, presumably, two of the original group’s members, although their bodies were never found, seemingly dumped in the woods behind the Manor. The Colonel’s attempt to cover up his crime left the others a chance to escape and alert the police, but the killer, too, disappeared, and was never heard from again.

It feels like a well-worn path in your mind. Nobody ever questioned Mark’s innocence in everything - it was assumed. He had just been there, equally terrorized by the killer as the other victims. But exact details had never emerged to the public, and Mark had been reticent to ever speak of things. The missing guests, too, were just so easily presumed dead at the hands of their friend, their mysterious disappearances more like eerie window-dressing on a ghost story than a suspicious hole in an otherwise tightly-woven story.

Maybe not so tightly, since now that you can see the holes, it’s hard to ignore them.

The tender inside of your cheek aches from your teeth worrying it, bitten raw. You swallow your thoughts for a moment, trying to return to the conversation. Jonah’s been equally quiet, letting you puzzle. “...and you think the Manor has some clue to that? To what might have… really happened?”

“...that’s my working theory. Mark left the place so quickly after everything, it’s still full of his stuff. He didn’t want anything to do with it, wanted to start fresh. Technically, the local historical society owns it all, now, but you know what their funding is like, so it’s all just sitting around. I figure, in his rush, he left something behind that can give us an idea of what we’re missing. Besides, reports of weird stuff happening there has been on an uptick.” You suck your teeth, feeling some of the edge of the conspiracy theory-laiden tension fade.

“Massive media blackout, I can run with. But, what, you think there are ghosts that have something to do with it?”

Jonah groans. “I never said ghosts, specifically, but… come on, kid, you have to admit it’s weird.”

“It’s practically a hundred-year old house, of course it’s weird - the wires are probably all way out of code and nobody’s been in the place in ages.”

“Okay, okay, maybe it’s a stretch,” he admits, retreating from the point. “I’m just looking for patterns. We don’t have a lot to go on, in terms of hard information. Which is why getting in there is so important.” He’s turning toward pleading again. “Please, kid, it’d mean the damn world to me if you’d just take a look around. I’ve got no idea when I’ll be able to get out there myself. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.” You know he wouldn’t, he’s always been considerate of your time and comfort. Really, Jonah is one of the best friends you’ve had, coworker element aside. It makes it horribly hard to say no to him. Which is why whatever reservations you’re still holding on to cave in the face of his honesty.

“...okay. I’ll go poke around. But you seriously, seriously owe me for this one.” You can practically hear Jonah smile on the other end.

“Seriously, I do. Thank you, kid, honestly.” He sounds relieved, taking a steadying breath. Was he really so worried you’d say no? “And take pictures if you see anything!” he quickly adds.

“Only if you call the cops if I don’t call you back in an hour. If there’s someone in there, Jonah, I--”

“Hey, hey, I promise. I’ll stay right by the phone. Cross my heart.”

You sigh quietly to yourself. “All right, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye, kid, and seriously. Thank you.” He sounds painfully sincere. You can’t summon up the spite to gripe at him anymore, so you let yourself be equally honest.

“I’ve got you, Jo. You know that.”

“Yeah. I know. Okay, I’m gonna let you go. Just be careful.”

“I will be.”

Then the line goes dead and your phone beeps dully before returning to your ridesharing app. You stare at it for a second, before you swipe up and close the app completely. No way you were going to chicken out now. Apart from Jonah’s confession, your mind was on fire. Sure, you could go home and just apologize to Jonah, but you know you’d be awake all night, tossing and trying to turn over the truth thanks to your limited information but unlimited curiosity. It wasn’t just his skepticism polluting your mind, either, there was definitely something missing from the narrative. Almost like the incident was too well-put-together, the reports from back then too careful with their words, what they didn’t say. Real crimes were messy because people were messy - their memories faulty, their behavior unpredictable and sloppy, even more so when under duress. But everything about the case and its retelling was clean. Neat.

It might as well have been wrapped up with a bow.

With nothing else between you and the Manor besides the peeling gate, you turn back to face its imposing exterior. Although the house had glowed softly in the setting sun, the rock reflecting the light so warmly, it had faded to a soft gray in the twilight. The windows are obviously dark and empty, now, their size exaggerated by the deepening of shadows as the sun slipped behind the horizon. You stare up at them, watching them back through the locked front gate from your tottering bit of pavement. You take another breath in, out. Then you square your shoulders and step up to the gate.

“It’s just a creepy old house,” you mutter, worming yourself between the wide bars. “Nobody inside, just a weird… big house. ” Nonetheless, a shiver goes down your spine when you’re through and the lawn stretches out before you and up to the front door. You crane your neck towards the nearest neighbor, but their windows were dark, too.

So why does it feel like someone’s watching you?

[solalunar-eclipse]

Scars You Can’t See - Chapter 5

Chapter title: Ready to explode

Word count: about 3800 words (whoa)

Author’s Note: I think it’s about time I gave a shoutout to @teamxdark! Their comments have gotten me to start planning out some of the later chapters (and giving me a lot of inspiration), so I figured they deserved some credit!

And thank you to everyone who’s read this fic so far- every note I get is incredible and I hope you’re all enjoying the ride :)

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Sonic stared blankly at his phone screen for the fifth time this morning. The old texts and the name at the top of the messaging app blurred slightly as his eyes unfocused. He was waiting for...something. What, he wasn’t sure.

That was a lie.

Truthfully, he was hoping that the three little dots showing that someone was typing would appear like a miracle. He knew that wouldn’t happen, though. The hedgehog on the other end of the messages had turned off his phone entirely. Heck, Shadow was literally in hiding. There had been exactly one post on Chatter (which he and Tails totally hadn’t read over and over searching for hidden messages) and that was from Omega.

But chaos, how Sonic wished for just five minutes to talk to him. He hadn’t even realized before now how much he normally texted the hybrid in a day. The hero honestly just messaged whenever he saw something or found a funny joke that he thought Shadow would like. In dealing with his new absence, though, Sonic had come up with an idea to write down whatever it was he’d seen that he figured Shadow would enjoy and save it for later.

He was forced to stop this when he wrote nearly two thousand words’ worth of moments in half an hour.

Sonic cursed all the times he’d taken Shadow’s near-constant presence for granted. The hybrid had always been a punctual texter, despite Rouge’s repeated attempts to convince him that he didn’t have to answer right away. Even when the other hedgehog had been off on a mission, Sonic still had an idea of how long he needed to wait before he could start texting. But now, it could be days, weeks, or even months before he could talk to Shadow freely again.

What if you’ll never hear from him again? a nasty inner voice whispered. What if that call was the last time you got to hear his voice?

Sonic felt his stomach fall through the floor at that idea, before swallowing the sensation and shaking his head. He couldn’t doubt Team Dark like that! They were guaranteed to pull through, and kick G.U.N.’s butt in the process.

Speaking of which…

The hero was pretty angry at G.U.N., and that was actually a big deal for him. Sonic didn’t get angry, except sometimes at Eggman. Even when a bitter detractor had posted a lengthy essay on Chatter explaining exactly why Sonic was (supposedly) a terrible person, he hadn’t reacted in fury- or even close. He’d had his friends’ support, and honestly? He’d pitied the person more than anything. Anyone who was trying to tear others down had probably been hurt pretty badly themselves.

Sonic had even made a meme out of their misspelling of his name- “Sanic” was now a worldwide joke with a hilarious drawing to match.

But now, all he really wanted to do was beat someone up- some robots, some evil agents, whatever- and trash the whole organization until they were all falling over themselves to apologize. The fact that G.U.N. had dared to treat Shadow’s obviously painful past with no kindness whatsoever really got on his nerves. The hybrid had suffered a hundred times over, lost his memory, and even died to save the world, yet he still didn’t get the respect he deserved.

“Uhhh, Sonic? Is everything okay?”

The blue blur jumped, startled out of his spiraling thoughts. He heard a growling noise, and his eyes widened when he realized it was coming from him. Sonic could feel his lips curled back into a snarl and quickly straightened his face out, blinking and clearing his throat. “Yeah! Sorry, Tails…” he said, embarrassed at having been caught in that kind of state. The fox eyed him skeptically. “Really, I’m fine!”

“Are you su-”

“Yeah!” Sonic exclaimed, grinning reassuringly. No point in upsetting others with his own problems, after all. “Everything’s good here, buddy!”

“If you say so…” Tails muttered. He didn’t seem convinced, but accepted it despite this. “Anyway, what I came over to say was: we’re out of groceries- can you head out and get some? I made a list of everything we need, it’s right here!”

Ordinarily, Sonic would’ve complained loudly and with much drama about having to do something so menial as a grocery run when he was a hero, for chaos’ sake. But that wasn’t the case these days. “Sure thing!” Sonic agreed, feeling better already. With a distraction to keep his worries and negative thoughts away, he’d be back to normal in no time. “See ya soon!”

The blue blur dashed out the door- before returning a second later, a sheepish grin on his face. “Forgot the list,” he explained, rushing out again.

With the wind in his quills, it was almost too easy to forget everything that he’d been thinking about just moments before. Sonic grinned properly as he raced across fields and through side streets. This was his element, after all!  He made his way to his and Tails’ favorite grocery store, bounding over obstacles and pulling a few awesome parkour tricks he’d picked up over the years. Shadow had always gotten on their case for not supporting a more local store- this one was a big name, after all- but Sonic had--

He shook his head, walking into the building. No more thoughts like that! There was only so much ruminating on bittersweet memories a guy could do in a day.

His presence here was relatively common, so he didn’t do much more than turn a few heads as he stepped through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned halls of the large grocery store. Sonic forced himself to walk through the aisles (instead of sprinting through them and accidentally whipping half the items off the shelves in his wake). As he did so, though, he began to hear people talking. And they weren’t just talking about the latest viral video, or boring politics, or any of those things, either.

They were talking about them.

Of course, everyone would always change the subject when he walked by, chatting loudly about their dog or their kids or whatever. It was almost as though they were saying, “Don’t look at me! I didn’t say anything about your friends! I’m just here, minding my own business!” But of course none of them really had been.

He recognized that he was spiraling down the path of thinking about it again, even though there was nothing he could do. And now no matter what, the thoughts of some of his closest friends were tainted. Which totally didn’t frustrate him at all. 

It didn’t help, he thought irritably (not noticing the mild scowl that had appeared on his face), that G.U.N. was basically screaming in all the op-eds and information releases the organization could get their hands on that they weren’t in the wrong. They didn’t say that specifically, of course- that would be too obvious. Instead, they just published the same old news over and over again: Team Dark had stolen classified files and then run away. 

This had all begun to grate on Sonic’s nerves a little, particularly when pundits and newspaper writers alike began to spout wild conspiracy theories about Team Dark having been spies for ‘the enemy’- whoever that was- or that one of them had finally lost it...or even all three at once. The most frustrating, however, was when once avid supporters of the former G.U.N. agents completely disavowed them and distanced themselves from the team as much as possible. It made him want to pull a Knuckles and punch a wall- how could people turn on the team so easily?

The hero pulled himself back to reality to realize that he’d been staring at a can of soup for the past few minutes. And were those dents where his fingers had been? He put the can in his shopping cart, took a deep breath, and continued on, giving himself a little ride on the back of the cart as a treat. Normally, he’d remember his various accidents and restrain himself, but lately the hero had needed to clear his head. He deserved this.

A few minutes later, a chime on his phone let him know that Tails had sent him a message. Sonic opened it up and read the text: 

milesperhour: Sonic, I think you need to see this. Take a close look at paragraph 5. https://www.centralcitynews.com/team-dark-update

Sonic clicked the link, sighing, and began to scan the article. Another one? Really, he’d had enough of-

Oh boy. Oh wow. Okay.

They’d made a move. G.U.N. didn’t release much in the way of information- all they’d done was declare an official alert asking people to keep a lookout for Rouge, Shadow and Omega. And to tip G.U.N. off at a hotline that they’d provided for this purpose.

Sonic had learned how to read between the lines over the last few days, though, and on his second read-through, he saw what most would not. 

...are in possession of multiple classified files…

So they’d stolen more info? That must’ve been what Omega’s post was about! Sonic began to squeeze his phone hopefully. Maybe this was it, maybe soon this whole nightmare would be over!

He practically flew through the rest of the store at the thought. Team Dark would give G.U.N. what for, the organization would apologize, and then everything would be fine!

Sonic checked out in a hurry, rushing home as fast as he could. Slamming open the door, he yelled out, “Tails! Did you see- oh right, you sent me the article. But still! Things are looking up, buddy!”

Tails had a slightly lopsided grin on his face, making the hero’s heart sink. “What’s that look all about?”

“I don’t know- it’s probably nothing! After all, Team Dark can handle any situation they come up against...just, G.U.N. has a lot of resources, you know?”

Sonic’s smile returned in full force. “Sure they do, but they also owe me for saving the world, like, a million times over! Once we’ve got the Edge Gang back with us, I’ll go talk with the commander and get them to straighten everything out!”

“That sounds like corruption, Sonic…” Tails said, a wicked smirk appearing on his face.

“Dude, what?! No! I’d never-! I just meant I was gonna see if I could talk some sense into them- hey, get back here!” Sonic screeched, seeing Tails run off with the groceries...including the donut he’d bought for himself.

…

Later that afternoon, Sonic was in the middle of finally enjoying said donut after wrestling it from Tails’s (evil terrible Sonic-and-sugar-hating) claws. It was a little squished, but it was still great- he wasn’t complaining!

That was, of course, when he heard a loud, sharp knock on the door.

He jumped up and zipped over to the entry hall, pastry still in hand. Whipping open the door, a shocking sight greeted him- one that made all of his battle-honed senses immediately scream danger danger danger. Two impeccably dressed G.U.N. agents stood before him, a human and a barn owl. The human seemed pretty awkward, wearing slightly rumpled slacks and overall looking a little messy. The owl, however, despite being about the same height as the blue blur, exuded an air of steely discipline that would make everyone she faced feel about two inches tall.

Everyone except Sonic, that was. He was secure in the knowledge that his friends were not wrong, and he maintained his usual relaxed demeanor without a hitch. The hero smiled fake-pleasantly at the two agents, ignoring the fact that he had sugar glaze at the corners of his mouth and all over his glove. “Sorry, guys, I wasn't really expecting guests.” He gestured to himself as an obvious example. “Anything I can do for ya?”

He didn’t offer to let them inside, though. These agents were hunting down his friends, he was absolutely sure of that. Sonic refused to help them in any way, not when Team Dark was still out there and being threatened by their organization.

The barn owl gave him a look that nearly pierced through his very soul. “Sonic the Hedgehog. I am Agent Toya, and this is my colleague, Agent Jones. We have a few questions that we would like to ask you. Inside.” Her voice was cold and clear, with no trace of an accent.

Sonic felt a chill run down his spine, but kept his smile up regardless. “Sure thing!” he chirped, despite very much not wanting to let them in. “The living room’s right this way- make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be back there in a sec.” He honestly didn’t think he could have refused them entry without...complications.

The hero zipped over to Tails’s workshop, flinging open the door with a little more force than he’d intended. The fox jumped up in a fright when it smacked against the wall, staring at Sonic. “G.U.N. is here. Two agents.” he said quickly. The imminent sense of danger in the back of his head wouldn't leave him be, despite the fact that he was one of the most powerful people alive.

...Despite this, don’t let G.U.N. take you or anyone else anywhere. You might not come back…

...These people aren’t crazy geniuses- they’re ruthless destroyers…

“Oh, chaos.” Tails breathed. “I’ll wait nearby, okay? Then I can do something if they start getting too intense.”

Sonic nodded, before speeding back down to see the agents sitting on his couch. “Hi! So whatcha guys want?” he asked perkily, burying his thoughts for now.

“Hello to you too, Sonic.” Jones said politely. “How are you?”

The hero tugged slightly at the cuff of his glove. “Pretty good!” he lied through his grin. “Been chilling around the house for most of the day- how ‘bout you?”

“Not bad,” the human answered. “Work is work though, you know?”

“Yeah, sounds pretty rough.” Sonic said, a little unconvincingly. Before he could stop himself, he thought of all the late nights Shadow and Omega had spent working on paperwork and various odd jobs for G.U.N., and the times when Rouge had to cancel her dates with Knuckles because she was just too exhausted from work to do much of anything. His smile became slightly strained as he worked to keep his frustration on Team Dark’s behalf under wraps.

The owl gazed at him silently for a moment, having watched this whole awkward transaction with a calculating look in her eye. Then she spoke. “I’m certain you have seen the news lately.”

“Uhhh...kinda, I’m not big on newspapers, but I try to keep up, yeah! Always nice to see an article about yours truly, hah.” He played it off, deciding to act dumb for now.

Agent Jones shifted in his seat, looking cautious. “Yeah…” he said, offering up an incredibly fake smile. “I’m a bit of a fan, myself.”

Sonic knew exactly what was going on. It was almost so classic he had to laugh- the old good cop/bad cop scenario. The human was clearly trying to play the good cop, and not enjoying it either. The hedgehog had to wonder, though, was he just a better bad cop or uncomfortable because he was helping grill a hero?

Oh, right- Agent Toya was talking again. “We know that you have seen the articles published about the betrayal of Team Dark. Even if you do not read the news, one of your friends will have told you by now.”

The hedgehog’s eyes narrowed a little. “And what’s that supposed to mean? What do you want outta me?”

“You. Know. Something.” she said sharply. “That team- in particular Shadow the Hedgehog-” He tensed at her flippant use of his name, as if they weren’t hunting him down like he had legitimately gone bad. “-trust you. You are very close with them. They would not have left you with nothing.”

Sonic shook his head, trying one last time. “I don’t think so, lady. I know about as much as you- if that. It’s not like we’re besties or anything.”

Agent Jones shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know- it looks like you guys are pretty close to me. Not that that’s bad, I mean-!!” he amended rapidly, realizing his mistake. In addition to having blown his role as the ‘good cop’, he was now being stared down by a very irritated pair of green eyes. The look he was being given contrasted sharply with the grin plastered across the hero’s face, and the agent began to sweat slightly and avoid his stare.

Meanwhile, Sonic turned his attention back to Agent Toya, sitting up straight and squaring his shoulders in preparation for more. He was a fighter, after all.

It seemed that the barn owl came here ready for a fight as well, because her own eyes flashed and she straightened her G.U.N. uniform. “Sonic. We need information. Our organization has been compromised. Twice. We are in a crisis and we are ordering you to tell us what you know.”

That did it.

“As if!” the hero exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “You think I’m the kind of guy who’d sell his friends out and watch them get carted off to jail- or worse?! I don’t know as much as you think I do, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you!” He had probably blown any semblance of ignorance up now, but Sonic couldn’t find it in himself to care.

The owl agent stood as well, glaring at him. “If that is the attitude you are going to take, then we have no choice but to take you into custody.” She began to reach for the Taser on her belt at the same time as Jones grabbed the gun from his holster. Sonic’s eyes flickered between them both- the human he could take on, but he wasn’t completely sure about Toya’s skill with the Taser.

Could he get around them? Sure, but not without breaking something...and he hated to bust up his house just because a couple of agents showed up on his doorstep and pulled weapons on him. He’d handled worse odds, hadn’t he? But then he and Tails would constantly be on the run, and that was no way for a nine-year-old to live…

A loud crash resounded in the kitchen. Jones shouted and jumped up, Sonic’s head snapped around so fast he tweaked his neck, and Toya took a step backwards.

Rubbing his neck and wincing, Sonic yelled out, “Everything okay in there?”

Tails dashed into the room out of nowhere, crying out, “Sorry! Sorry! I was just working and wanted a drink- and I heard- I heard-” 

The fox then began to cry, sobbing and clinging to Sonic’s chest. “You’re not gonna take him away, are you? I need my big brother…” he sniffled. “Sonic, everything’s gonna be okay, right?”

The hero was trying his very hardest, meanwhile, to keep his jaw from hitting the floor as he watched his brother, a brave, intelligent sidekick and someone he was proud to fight beside, put on the most incredible show he’d ever seen. “I…I dunno, buddy…” he said honestly, uncertain about how to react. 

This seemed to be a pretty good move, as Tails immediately began to bawl harder and gasped, in between sobs, “Please don’t take him away from me!”

It appeared that Toya would not feel comfortable using force against Sonic (or even resuming her interrogation) when the young fox was around. Instead, she gave him a very pointed, piercing look, before declaring, “We will be back at a later date to continue this conversation.”

She stalked out the door, Jones shoving his gun back onto his belt and following sulkily behind her. As soon as she had gotten into her car and driven off, the hero sagged into the couch and let out a loud sigh. “Welp.”

Tails flew out of the room immediately afterwards, whispering a quick “Wait there and chill for a second I’ll be right back” before he exited. Once he returned, the fox crawled around on the couch next to Sonic before letting out an “Aha!” and holding up what appeared to be a tiny piece of metal.

“It’s a shame to have to do this, but…” he muttered, before vanishing with it. A couple minutes later, a very loud noise boomed from Tails’s workshop and made Sonic panic before blasting in there at top speed. 

“What was that?!” he shrieked. 

“Just destroying this camera that human agent left in our couch.” the engineer replied lightly.

“Wait- what??” Sonic gasped. “He did what?”

“I thought they’d be crazy to leave without planting one, so I checked the camera feed, and it was pretty obvious! He must be a new recruit.”

“Wait- you have a camera? In our living room?” the hero asked, feeling slightly creeped out.

Tails shrugged. “Well, I didn’t until recently, but I figured that G.U.N. would have to show up at our place eventually, so yeah.”

They both stayed there in silence for a minute, before making their way back down to the main house. 

“Well, what do we do now?” Tails wondered. 

“I dunno- you’re the smart guy, pal.” Sonic replied quickly. “I just don’t want to have to escape from them! I like running, but not away from people. Especially bad people.”

“Well...does it count as running if we’re hanging out with Knuckles?” the fox suggested hopefully.

Sonic sighed. “I guess not...it’d be cool with him, too, since Angel Island is a pretty safe place and all. I still hate the idea of hiding from them, though.”

“Maybe you won’t have to!” Tails said, trying to be cheerful. “After all, I don’t think people will buy it if G.U.N. says you’re a...traitor…” He trailed off, remembering a particularly eventful moment from their past.

“Yyyeah.” the hedgehog said dryly, having thought of the same thing. “That’s exactly why I didn’t have to ride through the streets of Central City on a piece of helicopter.”

“Let’s not think about that for now though, okay?” Sonic asked. “ I don’t like the idea of being scared all the time.”

Tails nodded in agreement. “Besides, we’ve handled them before! We can cross that bridge when we come to it anyway.”

Sonic grinned. “How about we watch some TV for now, take our minds off things?”

“Sure! But I’m definitely gonna tell Omega- or whoever calls us next- about this. They deserve to know.” the fox answered.

“Okay…” the blue blur said. He felt a little guilty that he could just turn on a movie and forget about G.U.N. for a while- Team Dark didn’t have that luxury. Quickly, though, he added, “Anything on there you’ve been dying to watch?”

Tails smiled happily, and Sonic decided that this was totally worth it. “Well, there is this one documentary…”

[lackofhonor]

Narcos Episode 01.09 – “No, I have not been duck hunting, you... fucking hillbilly.” – Javier Peña

So this is supposed to be fun?” Javi asked sarcastically. 

Murphy lowered the binoculars and looked over his shoulder at his partner. Javier Peña was hunched over on the bench seat in the boat with a cigarette clenched between his grit teeth. The orange coal of the lit cigarette casting a tiny glow in the grey gloom of the morning. They had been on the water for maybe two hours and while Steve found the air refreshing, it was clear that his friend was finding this morning’s hunt less than invigorating.

Two weeks ago Steve had convinced Javier to come up from Texas for a visit. He had spoken with Javi via phone many times after what had happened with Escobar. Truly, Javi deserved to be there for when the fucker fell, but it just hadn’t worked out that way. Instead, Javier had been sitting in Texas waiting on a disciplinary review for his actions. Still was waiting on that review, in fact. Steve had tried to stay in touch, even as he and Connie tried to gather together their lives in Colombia and move them back to the States. It had been a monumental challenge for him personally and professionally but the strain was worth it to be standing over Escobar in the end. And it had ended for him with taking that last photo of the bastard dead on the roof. It had ended for him when he and Connie stepped on that plane flying out of Colombia. Hadn’t it?

Yeah.

But had it for Javi? Well that was the question, wasn’t it?

-

Steve couldn’t help but feel his friend still had loose ends from Colombia in his head that needed tying. Y’know, beyond the fact Peña’s career was on the line with this review board shit. No, Javi still wanted some blood. Via their phone calls, Steve had gathered that all Javi had done since hitting stateside was drink liquor and fuck women. And while that was pretty much Javi’s M.O. throughout the entire time Steve had known him, normally Javi didn’t seem so depressed while going about his chosen extra-curriculars. Sometimes he fucked or drank away the stress or was sullen and frustrated. Sure, that was fine. But this was something darker and sadder than a typical bender.

So during their most recent weekly phone call, Steve did what anybody would do for a friend: told him the truth (“You need a hobby that isn’t fucking women or drinking yourself to death, Javi.”) and invited him on a trip (“Come on out and see Connie and I. Relax for a bit. Take your mind off this review board shit for a while so you can get your head on straight.) Javier Peña, being a reasonable man who recognizes that perhaps he may not exactly be dealing with things well, gave in with some reluctance (“…yeah. Yeah I guess I could come out and see you guys for a weekend. Not like I have much to do here until the hearing anyway… “) So of course Steve Murphy felt the need to try broadening his friend and former partner’s horizons by introducing a potential new hobby (“Great! We can celebrate for real with you here. There’s this band Connie’s been dying to see so we can hit that up. Plus the season just opened Sunday and I’ve not been since before I was posted in Miami. We’ll be able to go duck hunting while you’re down here.”).

-

This chain of events lead to the current moment with both men sitting in a olive drab john boat that had seen better days and Steve’s cousin’s dog sitting in the floor next to their feet. They were floating on the choppy waves of a muddy river looking out over nearly one hundred duck decoys bobbing in the freezing water. It was a cold day. The sky couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to spit light rain or tiny frozen drops at them and the wind cut at their faces. The boat was tied to posts sunk into the riverbed that were part of a blind covered in camouflaged netting and live willow branches. Sort of a little faux tunnel the boat could hide in. Murphy had stealthily steered their vessel inside that morning after a truly harrowing ride across the water just before dawn. Murphy was calm. Soaking in the sounds, smells and sights around him. He maneuvered the boat with ease and stroked the Benelli shotgun with a fondness that spoke of years of similar experiences when he had loaded it earlier. Javier on the other hand was not as charmed. His shoulders were bunched up to his ears trying to maintain valuable heat in his neck and head and he hunched over the borrowed Remington 870 in his lap as he stared blankly at the horizon.

“Stop your whining. Isn’t this nice? You get out in nature. Enjoy some fresh air.” Steve shared in his low friendly baritone. He took a moment to drink some hot coffee from the dented green metal thermos by his feet and observed the sky contentedly.

Javi grunted and continued to puff at his cigarette as he curled further inward. He felt miserable. He was still a bit hungover from the night before to tell the truth. The wind had changed direction again and the bitch was cold as hell right in his face. He didn’t come here to be tortured by Murphy’s idea of what a healthy past time should be.

“I’m freezing my ass off in a rinky dink boat decorated in switchgrass at the ass crack of dawn so you can get this bullshit out of your system. I did not need to come along for this hillbilly holiday,” Javier complained loudly. Murphy merely hushed him with a look and continued to sip his coffee and pet the black Labrador laying in the floor of the boat.

“Come on, it’s not that bad. You got to eat a nice hot breakfast at least. Homemade biscuits and eggs fresh from the chicken’s butt. And Ace here likes you,” Steve said. Javi grumbled under his breath but did give the dog a fond scratch behind the ears.

From the slate colored sky above came a chorus of quacking, signaling the incoming flock of about thirty mallards from the south. Outlined against the ominous grey clouds above the river Javier could make out the green heads and lighter colored feathers of the birds. Steve fumbled for his duck call and gave some rapid fire noise that he had tried to explain to Javier the day before was a “hail call”. It was meant to draw the ducks in closer.

“Take your time. Let them get in close enough. Remember what I told you: swing through. Butt, belly, beak then bang!” Steve tells Javi sotte voce. They both ready their weapons as the birds approach.

“Alright, take ‘em!” Murphy hisses when the birds are in range. Javi leans into the gun and squeezes the trigger through the arc as he follows their quarry. The sky explodes with sound and two birds drop from the sky into the watter below. “Good job man!” Murphy cheers and high-fives Javi.

Maybe this hillbilly crap isn’t so bad, Javi thinks to himself as Murphy gives the dog a gruff command that has it launching itself form the boat into the water. It is kind of nice to hear the lapping of the water on the boat’s hull, the gentle flutter and soothing noises of the birds. The river in late fall is beautiful in its own way. It is stark and wild with all the green faded away now for the season, but still beautiful. Javi observes how his friend is so relaxed in this environment and cannot help but crack a smile.

“Good boy Ace! Come on, come on!” Murphy calls as the black dog paddles back to the boat. The dog is determinedly swimming back to them with head above water with the downed bird. Murphy is moving around inside the blind now. He seems to be poking around searching for something when he starts to curse.

“What’s the matter?” Javi asks as he removes the hood on his sweatshirt from over the camo baseball cap Steve had loaned him. It’s still cold, but maybe the adrenaline of the moment earlier has warmed him some.

“Fuck, I forgot the ramp this morning. It’s this thing I stick on the back of the boat so Ace can get back in the boat on his own. I coulda sworn I stuck it in here this morning.” Steve is rummaging behind the extra life jackets and decoys.

Javi shrugged and looked out to see the dog treading water over the side. Javi could barely keep his eyes open when Steve woke him up at 4 a.m., shoved his feet into a pair of chest waders and tossed him a dark green hoodie with the words ‘Ducks Unlimited’ on the chest and an old camo coat. Although he did wake up pretty quickly once they got the boat on the rive and he had the icy spray from the speeding boat and wind in his face.

“What’s the big deal?”

“He can’t get in the boat dumbass. He can’t swim like that forever. He’ll get tired,” Murphy stated, “I’ll just take the boat off the pylons and we’ll beach on the shore real quick. He’ll follow and he can climb up the rocks onto the boat.” Murphy began the process of untying the boat from the mooring posts and unlashing parts of the boat hide that made up the floating duck blind. Javi looked over the side again at the plucky little retriever. Big, bright, rusty brown eyes in a handsome black face stared back while the animal continued to paddle away, duck still firmly clamped between its jaws. He could see the nostrils of the animal widen as it huffed air in, still treading water. It wasn’t that big of a dog. 80lbs maybe? He could just scoop it out of the water. Easy.

Javi stood up. “You don’t have to do that.”

Murphy wasn’t paying attention at first. Too focused on untying his complicated knot from when he tied up earlier. He felt the boat sway as his friend moved. But out of the corner of his eye did he see Javi lean over the side of the boat for the dog. His eyes widened. “Javi, no-.”

“Come on big boy, I gotcha.” Javi called to the dog as he leaned for over into the water to scoop up the animal. He had it about balanced right. The dog was barely out of reach. If he could lean just a little further now.

“Come on Ace. Oh shi-!” Murphy watched as his partner tipped headfirst over the side.

Two seconds later the spluttering dark headed man surfaced right next to the boat cursing a storm. Ace, the mallard still clutched in his mouth, whined continuously and paddled around Javi in the truly frigid water. Steve reached out a hand to his friend in the water, bracing himself off the motor in the back of the boat. “Swim over here. I can get you back on without capsizing off the stern,” he instructed.

Javi carefully kicked and stroked his powerful arms to the back of the boat and grabbed Steve’s hand.

“Alright, on three I am gonna haul you up but you gotta push yourself onto the boat at the same time.”

Javi nodded.

“Alright, ready…three!” Steve groaned and heaved the sopping man out of the water so that his top half was wedged onto the boat. Javier used his elbows and shoulders to drag himself fully inside and flopped into the hull with a grunt.

Steve laughed and shook his head as he watched his friend cough and shiver. He was ok. He’d be a little cold but Steve would set him right in a minute. At least now he didn't look so moody, like he had been sucking on a lemon, like he had looked all morning. No, now Javi looked like a drowned rat. Although Steve wasn’t going to tell him that. Yet.

Javi straightened himself up, sitting on his knees and glaring at his friend. But before he could open his mouth the persistent whining of the dog interrupted. Steve peered over the edge of the stern of the boat. Ace doggedly paddled with the bird still in his maw.

“Alright buddy, hang on. You think we can pull him over together or you need a bit?” Steve asked Javi as the man tried to wring out part of the ancient camouflage coat that he had loaned him that morning. Javi rolled his eyes and positioned himself in the stern, carefully bracing himself on the side as Murphy was also doing. Together they carefully reached down into the water and hauled out the black lab and rolled him into the boat, dropping a good amount of water back into the boat.

The dog leapt to its feet and presented his prize to his master. A job well done surely. Murphy ruffled Ace’s ears after plucking the bird from the dog’s mouth and handed it to Javier.

“Your first duck hunt and your first duck. What do you think Javi?” The blonde man grinned at him so widely Javi couldn’t help but return the smile as he took the duck from his friend.

“Y’know, all things considered-“

Javi was interrupted by a truly massive full body shake from Ace, spraying he and Murphy with even more freezing water. Soaked to the bone, water dripping off the bill of his cap and desperately in need of a smoke he looked down at the black dog, its tail thumping furiously on the floor of the boat. He thought about the way that early morning fog had looked on the water and the duck he would eat later with Murphy’s hick relatives. He though about the money he spent for a license and duck stamp that would go back to preserving more habitat. He thought about the quiet and the trees and the way the biting wind felt. Javi wiped the water from his face and kneeled down to give the dog a good scratch behind his ears with one hand while he still held the duck.

It was fun.

Kinda.

The dog shook itself again. More water went flying. Javi scowled.

“Have we fed your inner redneck enough for today? Cause I have enough for a lifetime I think,” he huffed, searching the pocket of the duck coat to see if his precious cigarettes were dry enough to be lit.

Steve laughed and clapped him on the shoulder as Javi cupped the flame toa damp, mangled white paper cylinder. “Tell you what, next year I’ll come to Texas and play cowboy with you and your Dad on the ranch instead, ok?”

Javier’s eyes lit up. “Don’t get too cocky there, hillbilly. We’ll have to see how you measure up at ropin’ and drinking whiskey.”

Steve rolled his eyes and started the boat motor for home.

[kewltie]

Bakugou Tatsuya was born three minutes earlier than his twin and Katsuki had never let that go. They'd competed over everything – their parents’ attention, in sport and the school rankings. It was but a simple sibling rivalry, until it isn't anymore. Not when the heart is out on the frontline and neither of them is known for their mercy.

"Four hundred and eighty-eighty, huh," Tatsuya muses, looking at the scoreboard that was just posted for the first term finals. "We tied up." Not a first for either of them, but considering the prize of their wager. The results are startlingly revealing. "I thought you didn't care."

The weeks leading up to the finals, he'd locked himself in his room and crammed harder than he even did for the entrance exam for U.A., while Katsuki was out with his friends nearly everyday. To play, Tatsuya had thought, but clearly that wasn't the case at all.

He should have known. Identical twins. No matter how many people say that their similarity ended at their appearance, the level-headed Tatsuya and the firebrand that is Katsuki, they're two halves of a whole. It seems falling for the same person is written into the code of their DNA, the fabric of their very being. And neither of them is up for sharing, because for there to be a winner there must be always be a loser. It wasn't always like that though. Tatsuya would cripple his pride for Katsuki, his only and most precious brother, if it comes down to it.

He could take a loss. Or two.

But for the first time in a long time he doesn't want to let go of the hand holding his. Not even for Katsuki. And so the battle line is drawn around Izuku. He just didn't know how serious Katsuki would take it. Unlike Tatsuya, Katsuki had always kept his true feelings locked away and buried it under layers and layers of gruffness and rough exteriors.

He'd guarded it so zealously that it'd fooled Tatsuya. Once.

"I don't." Katsuki sneers beside him. "The bet was who would get a better rank in the finals and I just wanted to kick your ass. It has nothing to do with Deku.”

"Is that right?" He raises a brow.

"Yea," Katsuki says with a dismissive snort.

"So you won't mind me taking Izuku out on a date either way?" Tatsuya says, low and pointed. He'd never need to use his fist to hit where it hurt the most. His words are weapon themselves. "It doesn't bother you at all?"

At his words, Katsuki's jaw clenches as his hands balls into a fist at his side and his body tenses up like a dynamite ready to explode and all his triggers are named Deku. It's hysterically easy to read him like this.

Why couldn't Tatsuya have seen this all earlier?

Before the seed of this searing love toward Izuku took root and grew within him till it became this unmanageable thing, spilling out of him in droves. He doesn't know how Katsuki was able to hide it that long, when it's feels like an impossible millions things stuffed in him and he’s overflowing from it.

"You didn't fucking beat me," Katsuki finally answers, and his voice is unexpectedly cool against the violent storm brewing in his red eyes. "We’re tied up, so Deku isn't yours to take."

"Who you think deserve it then?" Tatsuya presses, pinning Katsuki with a glare of his own. "You, who made him cried countless times in the past?"

A thick blanket of silence falls over them, it's suffocating. Stilted against the noise of the hallway, but expected. This is a familiar battleground. Revisit a hundred times before again and again under a different kind of light and setting. In class, the field, in their home.

It's always been a contest for them. An unending series of question: who's smarter? Who's stronger? Who is the best? Who—? Who—? The answer didn't better so much as the thrill of the chase and the battle leading up to it. But then, the question became, who does Izuku loves the most?

That was when it stopped being a game between them. It’s a full blown war now.

Katsuki flexes his hand, clenching and unclenching it at his side, as though quietly mulling over it. Over the idea whether if he should answer the hit from Tatsuya's words with a physical jab of his own.

Katsuki takes a deliberate step forward toward him, but Tatsuya holds his ground. He won't be move. Not even for Katsuki. If he was a kinder person, a better older brother maybe, he would have step aside for Katsuki, but Tatsuya is tired, so very tired, of being the 'good' one, the good twin as though he only exists to be Katsuki's foil; the approachability of his image to balance out Katsuki's prickliness.

His yang to Katsuki's yin. Opposing forces working in mutual harmony, but to never stand apart.

"Tatchan is Tatchan and Kacchan is Kacchan," Izuku had once said, consoling him after another physical altercation with Katsuki. "I think it's amazing to have a twin." He'd smiled wistfully. "You guys share the same womb for ten months and that bond is stronger than anything, but you're also your own person with your own goals and desires. It doesn't always have to be an and/or thing."

While Katsuki and Tatsuya clashed over everything because they're dumb boys with an over competitive streak a mile wide, Izuku was playing the peacemaker between them. He probably doesn't expect that he would be something the twins would ferociously fight over too one day.

"Are you going to punch me now?" Tatsuya challenges.

Katsuki stops just shy of him, arms still at his side. "I should," he answers with a sharp grin of his own; the spread of his teeth is menacing and purposeful. "I really fucking should, just to shut up your arrogant mouth, but then I would be playing right into your hand."

 Tatsuya's eyes narrow minutely. It's easy to forget for all of Katsuki's violence and foul mouth, he's as keenly intelligence as Tatsuya. His score on the board speaks for itself.

"You—" he starts, but the rest of his words are swallowed by a familiar voice calling their name.

"Tatchan, Kacchan!" They both turn toward the noise and catches sight of Izuku running up to them with a breathless joy. "I heard!" He draws to a stop in front of them, breathing heavily and a face flushed with delight. "Congratulation for making it to the top ten out of our entire grade! You guys are amazing to tie for 2nd place." His grin is infectious and exuberance, dolling out affections and admirations like he got an untapped well of it.

Katsuki's face twists in annoyance. "Fuck 2nd place and the rest of the plebs. Should have taken first instead."

Tatsuya hums in agreement. They really should have.

Izuku pouts. "Hey, I got eight place and I'm happy."

"Because you're dumb and don't know how to not settle for what you rightfully deserve," Katsuki snaps, looking pointedly at him. Not that Izuku even catch any of his underlining meaning as he only looks sheepish in answer.

"You did great too, Izuku. I know how hard you study for that," Tatsuya says instead, much to the resentful glare of Katsuki aiming toward the side of his head. Not his fault that Katsuki's clumsy and inefficient way with words get his foot stuck in his mouth often.

His ineptitude is Tatsuya's advantage.

Izuku perks up with a shy and sweet smile. "T-Thank you, Tatchan!" he says. "It's all due to our study sessions. You’d helped a lot!"

Katsuki's miffed scoff can be heard loud and clear, but Tatsuya wisely ignore it to push for his end goal. "Then how about we go out this Saturday to celebrate finishing our finals and making it to the top ten?" he asks with careful deliberateness as he avoids meeting inevitable explosion beside him. He knows what to come after, but Katsuki only goes deathly still and quiet against his provocation.

Izuku's audible gasp is the only thing that can be heard. "Oh," he breathes, eyes widen in surprise. "Um," he scratches his cheek, looking anywhere but at them, "the three of us then?"

Tatsuya shakes his head. "No, just you and me." He pauses. "Will that be a problem?"

Green eyes flash toward him. "N-No, of course not!" he insists, an attractive blush rises to his cheeks. "I would love to join you on Saturday!" He casts a furtive glance at Katsuki. "But, um—"

"We have a track meet this Saturday," Katsuki cuts in, severe and low. The fact that he has been quiet all this time and hasn’t raise his voice since Izuku had joined them is startlingly enough; it's the calm before the storm. Katsuki's ire had been simmering under the surface; Tatsuya doesn't have to see it. He can feel the animosity seeping out in waves.

Izuku scrunches up nose in realization. "Oh, yes I forgot about that. Sorry!"

"It's a practice game against Tohei High, right?" Tatsuya counters, not even considering for a moment to give Katsuki an inch. "Izuku doesn't have to be there. And he's not even an official manager of the club so why do you drag him to these things?"

Katsuki bristles, anger finally getting the better of him. "The little shit begged to join us! I didn't fucking invite his ass," he hisses. "He's such a pest—" his brain catches up to his thoughtless mouth at last and the rest of his sentence died an awful, regretful death.

Izuku flushes, gaze dropping to the floor as his shoulders droop. "I see," he says quietly. "Then it wouldn't be a problem if I go with Tatchan instead."

With only Tatsuya's eyes on him, Katsuki's face goes through a gauntlet self-hatred, guilt and hurt before settling for resentment. "Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want," he snarls, voice twisted in such open derision and disgust that it's a marred of feelings. At himself, Izuku, or Tatsuya, nobody knows, but his anger is palpable enough that Izuku jerks his head up to look at him.

But Katsuki already has his back to them and is making his way out of the quagmire of a situation before anyone can get another word in.

Concern and anxiety etches across Izuku's face as he stares hauntingly at Katsuki's retreating back. It's wrought with worry over Katsuki.

Tatsuya desperately wants to reach out and ease his anxiety, but Izuku made the decision for him. "Kacchan, wait!" he cries out, running after him. He stops momentarily to look back apologetically at Tatsuya. "Sorry, I'll see you this Saturday then!"

And then he's gone. Just like that. After Katsuki.

While Tatsuya is left alone all by himself when there used to be three. He got a date out of Izuku. It's a victory in the most basic definition of it, but it feels hollow. Why is it that Katsuki is the one who ran away, but all Tatsuya sees is defeat in the vacant spaces they had left?

Because, he knows, it's an empty victory. He may have won this battle, but the war isn’t over. Far from it. Izuku has yet to choose his side and Katsuki may have retreated right now, but he hasn't thrown in his towel yet. After all, the best things are always worth the fight.

[fullmetalscullyy]

this was actually written for a prompt i got ages ago - “ed and/or al mess up and hurt Roy and/or Riza on a mission” from an anon - but i completely forgot i’d already half written this and started on a completely new idea and posted that lmao so here’s the original one that i found and finished

hope you enjoy it!

rated: t | words: 2516

“Do you want backup on this one Lieutenant?” Mustang asked her as she loaded her pistol. She hid her small smirk, predicting his question perfectly in her mind just moments before he asked it.

“That won’t be necessary, sir. We’ll be fine.”

“I know you will be fine. It’s Fullmetal I’m concerned about.”

“The boy will be fine too,” she stressed playfully, turning her smirk towards him. Her expression turned soft when she saw the concern in his eyes. It was natural for him to worry about them all before going on a solo mission. Yes, she would have Edward with her, but he’d only been a State Alchemist for a few weeks. He could handle himself in a fight – that much had been proved already – but he was still just a child. A fact the military seemed to forget.

Mustang muttered something under his breath. Riza ignored it while rolling her eyes.

The Fullmetal Alchemist walked through the door, followed by his brother.

“We’re ready, Lieutenant Hawkeye.”

“We?” Mustang questioned.

“Yeah,” Edward replied, as if it was obvious. “We.”

“Alphonse is coming too?” Riza questioned, lifting an eyebrow with a small smile. She’d expected as much.

“Well, I, uh, was wondering if I could come alone with you? Someone needs to keep Ed out of trouble,” Alphonse reasoned, pleading his case.

“Hey!” Edward protested

“I don’t doubt your abilities Lieutenant Hawkeye, but two sets of eyes are better than one.”

Riza chuckled as Edward begun to protest loudly and the two begun to argue. She took off walking down the street, heading towards their destination while the sound of their argument followed closely behind her.

*          *          *

“Edward?” Riza hissed. There was no answer. “Shit.”

Creeping forward, pistol drawn, she approached the area of warehouse where she’d last seen the brothers. She cursed herself for letting them out of her sight. They were tracking down a lead on the Philosopher’s Stone and she was there as back up. Now she’d let her charges out of her sight.

The ground begun to shake underneath her feet. She stumbled at the sudden shock, throwing out a hand to catch herself against the wall. It continued to shake before simply crumbling. She hit the ground, her knees bashing against the stone painfully. The wall also begun to crumble, falling, striking her hand and arm on the way down. Riza hissed in pain as some rocks broke the skin before she could pull away.

“Come back here you bastard!” she heard Edward cry out from somewhere to her left. Rolling her eyes, Riza pushed herself to her feet, shaking out her hand to try and rid it of the pain.

“Edward!” Alphonse cried, probably to try and stop him from doing something reckless. However, given the situation and the current state of the warehouse they were in, he’d already done something incredibly reckless. There was another clap followed by more shocks beneath her feet. She tried to walk, but she kept falling as the ground continued to move.

“Alphonse?” she called out, trying to get at least one of them under control.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye?” he replied. She rounded a stack of crates and found him in the centre of a small clearing, whipping his head around as he tried to locate her.

“What’s going on?” she barked, trying to get a handle on the situation.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Just, uh…”

“Alphonse,” she warned.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. Ed is trying to stop the guy we were tracking from escaping.”

“This is not the way to do that,” she stated, voice hard as she flicked the safety off her pistol. “Where is he?” Riza barked, eyes scanning the room.

“Come back!” they heard Edward call out. “I want to talk to you!”

Suddenly there was a massive tremor and the glass above them shattered. Riza looked up in horror, finding there was nowhere for her to move to so she could shield herself.

“Lieutenant!” Alphonse cried. Suddenly, she was pulled sharply backwards into his metal body, hitting it hard. It was enough to knock the wind out of her lungs. She gasped as his hands held her body still. The glass missed the vital parts of her body, but her arms were still stretched out as her body was jerked backwards, the glass piercing her bare skin. Riza closed her eyes against the pain, biting her lip to try and stop herself from crying out.

“Are you okay?” Alphonse asked worriedly.

Finally getting her breath back, she straightened up and forced herself out of Alphonse’s arms. “Where is Edward?” she bit out between her teeth. Her voice was deadly calm, posture wound tight because if it wasn’t, she would explode there and then.

Her anger was carefully restrained inside of her, as she’d learned to do for most of her life.

Edward is just a kid. He’s just a kid. Don’t snap. Don’t do it.

“I, uh –”

“Find him. Now,” she forced out. “I will be waiting for you outside.”

*          *          *

“Lieutenant?” Edward’s small voice reached her.

She turned, fixing her gaze on him. It seemed to make him shrink in size. His shoulders rounded inwards, his head dipped, and his gaze was cast downwards. This was a new look for him. Normally when the Colonel was telling him off for something, he would argue right back, but with just one sharp look, Riza had him shying away from her.

It would have amused her, how different the reactions from Edward were between her and the Colonel. It would have, had she not been so angry at him.

“You cannot, under any circumstances, waltz into a warehouse – or any building, actually – and start tearing up the place just because you don’t want someone to leave.” Edward nodded while Alphonse stood ashamed next to him. Riza had finished wiping the blood off her arms and tossed the soiled tissue in the car behind her. Edward watched and visibly paled at the sight of her injuries. “If that man wants to leave, you let him leave, you do not use alchemy to make him stay, do I make myself clear?”

Riza’s voice remained a deadly calm throughout. Her anger at the boy’s recklessness and complete disregard for everything and anyone around them was held in check. After all, they were just children. She remembered being that age. Her and the Colonel got up to all kinds of mischief as teenagers – it was mostly just Roy doing something insanely stupid so he could try and amuse her. But this was on a whole other level, and it was uncalled for. Edward was in the military now. Regardless of that fact, he couldn’t go around tearing up the city because he felt like it.

The boy before her audibly gulped then nodded. “I understand,” he whispered.

“Good. Get in the car.” Her order wasn’t barked, but it almost was. Her anger was slipping through, but she reigned it in as tightly as she could. Edward flinched and nodded, walking around to where he’d sat on the ride over like a dog with its tail between its legs. The door was closed quietly.

“Lieutenant –” Alphonse began, his tone worried. Riza was facing the warehouse, her back to him, and she didn’t turn. She couldn’t just yet. If she did, she would glare at him, and she didn’t want to.

It was likely Edward had initiated this whole thing, but Alphonse could be equally as careless as Edward sometimes. They just didn’t think. For being two kids who were supposedly prodigies, they could be clueless, especially when it came to the real world. And that was the reality of it all. They were children. Many didn’t understand that because they were in the military, but Riza understood it perfectly, because she’d been in the same position. She’d had to grow up far too fast and had been left to fend for herself, so everyone in town treated her like she was older than she was. It was likely they thought she was older but was just a bit on the small side for her age.

“In the car, Alphonse,” she stated. She needed time. She needed to decide what to do. The two of them had practically torn the place apart, and now she was left to deal with the fallout. No wonder the Colonel was so frustrated with Edward sometimes.

There was a quiet pause then the sound of metallic feet walking away from her, towards the car.

Letting out a long sigh once the door was closed, she walked back into the warehouse to assess the damage. She could almost picture Edward and Alphonse protesting at her entering alone, but there wasn’t a peep from them. She’d probably scared them into silence. Drawing her weapon and flicking the safety off, she entered the building.

She had no idea what was going on. She didn’t even know who the target was! She’d just been given a name. Edward had destroyed the place and caused the ceiling to fall on them before she could see the target.

Letting out a frustrated growl as she assessed the damage, Riza made a loop of the building, which she determined was empty. Whoever that man was, he was long gone, and Riza didn’t blame him.

Walking back to the car, she was in deep thought. Arriving at a solution, Riza tried to let all her anger flow out of her. She hated to do it to them, but she needed to call it in. Someone needed to survey the damage and restore it to its rightful state. Someone also needed to assess what stock had been damaged and how much the military owed the business owner. The thought alone made Riza want to pinch the bridge of her nose to try and stave off the headache forming.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye,” she stated to the operator across the car radio. She gave her security number, calling the Colonel’s office and requesting the team to meet her at the warehouse.

She wasn’t looking forward to having to explain to him what had happened. Especially as it was under her watch.

Riza slammed the door closed after climbing in the driver’s seat, using that as an outlet for her anger. Out the corner of her eye she noticed the two brothers flinch at the sound in the rear-view mirror.

“You both don’t think,” she began.

“We’re sorry,” Alphonse replied, his voice incredibly small and sounding every bit like the twelve-year-old he was.

“That’s fine, Alphonse, but what if someone had gotten hurt?” Riza asked. It wasn’t to be nasty. It was to show them the reality of working with the military. She didn’t point out the fact that she had gotten hurt. That would be cruel to them. “What if you had gotten hurt? These bad guys won’t see a child and immediately stop and show mercy. The people you encounter will not hesitate to kill you just because you’re a child,” she stated, her voice softer. “Especially if you’re with the military,” she added. Glancing over at Edward, he dipped his gaze in shame. “Your talents are great – the both of you.” She glanced over at Alphonse too. “But that will only get you so far. You’re not indestructible. You never will be. If that automail breaks you’re out of commission, Edward,” she reminded him softly. “If someone manages to break Alphonse’s armour, he’s gone.” Edward stiffened, and Alphonse shifted in his seat, his metal clanking together. “You need to think before you act.”

“We’re sorry you got hurt,” Alphonse apologised, sounding like he was on the edge of tears. “You’re right – we didn’t think.”

“Yeah,” Edward added. “I’m really sorry, Lieutenant Hawkeye.” His eyes were full of remorse as he met her gaze finally.

“Good. Apology accepted.” Out the corner of her eye, she spotted the Colonel’s car pulling up. “Stay in here,” she ordered softly. Holstering her weapon, she stepped out of the car. The last thing they needed right now was Mustang yelling at Edward.

“Hawkeye, what –” His eyes landed on her scratched and bloody forearms. His gaze lifted her hers, questioning and hard. With one eyebrow raised, he asked her what happened.

“A little misunderstanding,” she waved off. “The guy thought Edward and Alphonse were trying to take him away somewhere, so fought back.”

Mustang stared her down, but that had never worked on her before. He probably knew she was withholding information but wouldn’t call her out on it. Not in front of everyone.

“The guy was a maniac,” Riza added. “Collapsed the glass ceiling on top of us, so we had to fight back,” she shrugged as if it was nothing. It wasn’t a lie – the target had collapsed the ceiling on top of them to try and stop Edward from chasing him. “Some of the stock inside got damaged as they defended themselves.”

Mustang rolled his eyes and turned to face the warehouse, ordering members of the team to go inside and scope it out.

“And you, Lieutenant?” he asked, looking down at her arms, before his gaze flicked back up to hers. There was an unspoken question in it, an unspoken concern in there. She offered him a small smile in return.

“Perfectly fine, sir. Just a flesh wound.”

Mustang rolled his eye as he turned to face the warehouse again. “Why is it, that it’s always trouble with those two.”

Riza shrugged, surveying the work the team was doing as they had their discreet conversation. “I don’t know, sir, but it reminds me of someone else.”

“Oh?” he asked, his tone questioning.

Riza nodded. “A boy I knew from when I was a child. He always seemed to drag me into trouble, just like Edward seems to do with Alphonse.”

Mustang chuckled beside her, shifting in place so his hand brushed against hers. She felt the sensation tingle over the back of her hand and passed her wrist. “That boy sounds like a riot.”

“He was,” she surmised. “But a pain the ass, too.” She smiled fondly when he turned sharply to face her with a disapproving frown. “He turned out okay, though. I just like to remember the mischief and trouble we got into when we were their age,” she added, jerking her head backwards towards Edward and Alphonse in the car. It was a reminder for Mustang to go easy on them.

The brothers couldn’t hear their conversation – they were both too far away – but when they turned, both boys seemed to shrink into the seat.

“That boy did get into a lot of trouble, didn’t he?” Mustang mused to himself. “I remember you telling me about him.”

“I’m sure you did too, sir,” she smirked. “So, remember, go easy on them.”

Mustang sighed and nodded. “I suppose,” he joked. Riza bumped his shoulder with hers before walking to help her teammates in the warehouse. Behind her, she heard Mustang greeting the brothers, but his tone was soft as he encouraged the boys out of the car.

[missmeikakuna]

Vocaloid fanfic- The Librarian and the Maybe-Bisexual Bookworm Ch. 2

This is a fanfic I wrote for Vocaloid Amino for a previous Pride Month and thought I’d post it here. Rated: T Fandom: Vocaloid Relationship: Yukari x IA Relationship Type: F/F Description: Yukari is a hardworking student who manages to balance her studies with her relationship with a boy. Things start to change when she meets her high school’s young, beautiful new librarian IA. Yukari asks her to help her find a lesbian-themed novel like one she’s read and all goes well until she realises she might be more like the characters in those novels than she thought.

Chapter Two: Coming out is like telling someone about a book you’ve been reading in secret because it doesn’t seem like ‘your kind’ of story.

Yukari took a deep breath before entering the library. Just her luck. There were several people inside. She started walking towards the librarian’s desk but swerved towards a bookshelf. She looked behind her and saw IA, who waved at her.

Oh god, she waved at her.

Yukari just started nodding with the exaggeration of a bobblehead. After almost half a minute of this, she turned her head and focused on the bookshelf. 

She wasn’t looking for any book in particular, but she needed to do something to stop herself from staring at the librarian. The more she stared, the more the memory of the previous week’s fantasy would be able to crawl into her brain.

After a minute of staring into space, she realised she was in the mathematics section. She scrunched up her nose. If anyone were to say that being good at something makes you like it, she would throw these hefty books at them. 

She looked down at the book in her hand and remembered the main character’s struggle to talk to the ghostlike woman.

She turned around and lurched towards IA, debating whether to walk like she usually did or in a casual, breezy way.

IA smirked at her. “Do you like maths?”

Yukari snorted like a horse. “Of course. I love me some numbers. Trig is seriously underrated. Yeah.”

IA chuckled. “Calm down.”

Yukari held her head. IA eyed the book in her hand and reached for it. Yukari bit back a gasp when cold fingers brushed against her hand.

“Did you like it?” IA asked. Yukari, still looking down, nodded. “Who was your favourite character?”

“Why make me choose?” Yukari replied. “Tsukino Shion is a really relatable main character, but Kanbara Sora is a lot like… hey, how did you know my name? My name’s a lot like Shion’s.”

“It is?”

Yukari stepped back. She squinted her eyes at IA, who had her head tilted like a dog again.

“I’m Yuzuki Yukari. You… didn’t know?”

IA stood up and bowed. “I’m sorry for not asking for your name earlier. I keep getting…distracted whenever we talk.”

I keep getting distracted whenever we talk.

I keep getting distracted.

Distracted.

Yukari felt like something exploded in her head, sending a blast of heat that reached from her neck up to her ears.

She coughed. “So, uh, books. Gotta love ‘em. And music… music’s pretty… dope. It’s like oxygen. Everyone needs it in their lives.”

She mentally kicked herself.

IA sat back down and typed into the computer. “Are there any good books here?” She covered her mouth. “Forget I said that,” she said with her hand still on her mouth. She took it off and sighed. “Yuka… Miss Yuzuki, do you like jazz music?”

“I haven’t really listened to it. Why?”

“Well, you mentioned music and I remembered this lesbian romance novel about a spoiled pop star who meets a struggling jazz musician. The descriptions of the songs are really good. It’s like you can actually hear them, even though they’re just words on paper. Would you be able to come to my place again to pick it up?”

IA’s eyes widened in realisation. “Oh, is it okay to recommend you new books? You’re probably sick of reading lesbian romance novels since you’ve got a boyfriend.”

Yukari bit her lip. “What’s my boyfriend got to do with it?”

IA scratched the back of her ear and looked away, frowning. “Never mind.”

“I’m fine with reading that sort of stuff. Recommend away.”

IA beamed at Yukari, who, under her powerful gaze, started fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.

Yukari asked, “Do you like jazz?”

“I didn’t care much about it at first, but after reading the book, I started getting really interested in it. Isn’t it amazing how books can do that? It’s like every book is a new interest or hobby waiting to be discovered.”

The sky turned indigo and IA locked up the library, once again taking Yukari to her car. 

At the apartment, IA handed her a book with two women holding hands, one kissing the cheek of the other. In one woman’s remaining hand was a microphone and for the other woman it was a trumpet.

IA turned on a CD player in the room. The notes of a trombone and double bass filled the room.

“Do you have anywhere to be? Would you like to read here for a bit?”

“What are you going to do?”

IA picked a book from one of the piles called ‘Club Majesty’. “This will do for me.”

Yukari sat on the one couch in the apartment, taking off a pile of books that rested on it. IA slumped into the couch, opening her own book while existing in the grey area between sitting and lying down.

The language of the romance novel in Yukari’s hands was a bit more intricate than the previous novel IA gave Yukari but it wasn’t too difficult to read.

The jazz music in the background lulled Yukari into a trancelike state as she let the story envelop her. She felt like she was  sleep-reading and yet she was able to take in the story as if she had the concentration of a lawyer looking for holes in a witness’ story.

She was eventually broken out of her trance when IA rolled onto her back and raised her legs up against the couch’s back. IA bit her lip and stared at the book like it was written all in the most difficult of kanji characters. Yukari had to force herself to breathe, something she forgot to do as she watched her. She blushed as she stared at her lips.

She chuckled as she looked at the page IA was on. “I thought a librarian would be able to read the furigana.” She almost pointed out that furigana was usually in books for kids but didn’t want to get kicked out of the apartment.

IA said nothing, turning the page. It took her only half a minute before she turned the page again. 

Yukari took a closer look at the new page before IA once again turned it. It was a bizarre chase scene involving a car chasing a pig with a sack full of cash on its back. It was-

IA turned the page. “Hey, it was just getting good,” Yukari blurted out. She held her head down. “Um… sorry.”

IA turned her head and lightly poked Yukari’s forehead. “Silly girl. No need to apologise. Maybe you can borrow this one from me next time.”

Yukari smiled. She took a few moments to gain the courage to poke IA’s foot.

IA kicked the air, cackling like a middle-aged woman after one too many glasses of Syrah. 

She dropped her book and pounced on Yukari, tickling the underarms. This developed into a bonafide tickle match.

Yukari laughed so hard she snorted, which caused both women to laugh even harder. After they stopped, they stared at each other silently. IA leaned in closer.

Yukari felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. A mysterious shiver swam down her body and her cheeks were as hot as newly toasted bread. She breathed in and out slowly.

IA’s eyes grew before she shut them and backed away.

“Um, sorry, I… uh… you should go back to… whatshisname… your boyfriend.”

Yukari stood up and bowed. She grabbed her book and gave IA one last small smile before leaving the apartment.

She went straight home instead of Roro’s place. There was no way she was going to read a book with that kind of cover in front of him.

Her phone buzzed and she frowned when she saw the message.

How’re you doing, beautiful? Wanna hang out?- Roro row your boat

She didn’t reply. Her fingers tingled, yearning to tell him about everything, but she put her phone back in her pocket to prevent herself from oversharing. This was her battle to fight.

She read the book she was lended on her bed, hiding it under the covers whenever she heard her parent’s footsteps close in on her. Her parents never opened the door.

The book was a lot longer than the previous one so she stayed up until 3 A.M finishing it. When she finally finished it, she started pulling at the roots of her hair.

She hadn’t done any homework.

She managed to complete her homework after a few hours and went to school with bags under her eyes. Her hands shook whenever she used them and she jumped out of her skin when Roro put a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

Yukari nodded and looked away from him.

Life began to form a pattern. Go to school tired, avoid Roro’s queries, return IA’s book to her, go to her place to find a new one, read it until the early hours of the morning and for god’s sake don’t let your parents know, do homework, get two hours of sleep at best, repeat the cycle. This happened for a good three weeks.

Each time Roro kissed her during lunchtime, Yukari felt the magic a little less. She started reminiscing over the days when the two of them were friends.

Yukari began to notice a few things about IA. Her apartment had an unplugged microphone and a keyboard. Her fridge was covered with sketches of monsters with crowns on them, ranging from medusa to demons and all from the same artist. The magnets that held them up were souvenirs from Greece. She had a to-do list with the most basic of functions such as ‘brush your teeth, you dingus’ and ‘if you don’t eat breakfast, you will starve to death before you get to meet a cute girl’. In the latter one, a line went through the words ‘before you get to meet a cute girl’. Yukari felt as if she had been split in half, one side uplifted and the other brought down to the depths of wherever the demon in that drawing came from.

After those three weeks, Roro took her aside after class and brought her to the empty music room.

He coughed an ‘ahem’. “Now that I have your attention, I want to ask you something. What the hell is going on with you?”

Yukari looked at the door behind her and stepped backwards but Roro grabbed her arm. His grip was gentle. 

“Please… whatever’s going on, please let me know. Did I do something wrong?” Yukari gulped, saying nothing. “Please, just talk to me.” 

Yukari rubbed her eyes with her forearm. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“Then is there anything I can do to help you? You’re not yourself anymore.” He said that last sentence with the face of a rabbit seeing a buzzard and his voice was hoarse, as if it was a struggle to say anything.

Yukari took her arm away from her face and allowed tears to just fall down freely.

“It’s something I have to figure out on my own.”

“But I can-”

“Not when the problem’s got to do with you!”

“But you just said it’s not my-”

“It’s my fault. If only I wasn’t so selfish.”

“What’s going on with y-”

“I like someone else!” 

Roro let go of her and stepped backwards, his hands quivering. Yukari sat on the piano chair and held her head in her hands. Her body shook as she cried. Roro sat next to her, trying to ignore the discomfort of sitting on the corner. He held his hand in the air for a while before placing in on her head and stroking her hair.

“Who’s the lucky guy? Is he in our class?” His voice was slow and ponderous, as if he was trying to hold in his own tears.

“It’s… a girl. You know the new librarian?”

Roro took his hand off her hair, recoiling from shock.

“Wait, so did you… I don’t know… pretend to like me so you don’t have to admit you like girls or something?”

Yukari shook her head, still looking down. “I liked you. Liked. Past tense. I’m…” She took a deep breath. “...bisexual. I’m really sorry. I should still like you, but… this girl’s just taken over my emotions and… I feel like there’s no room in me for any romantic feelings for anyone else.” She kept repeating the word ‘sorry’ in between sobs.

Roro was silent for a while. He stood up and wiped his tears away, looking down at the ground and silently wishing the floor would collapse and take him with it.

“I… never pegged you for one of those girls. It doesn’t seem like the type of thing you’d be into.”

Yukari looked up and saw Roro silently leaving the room.

He didn’t talk to her for the rest of the day. When she returned another book to IA and they headed to her apartment, she burst into tears in her car.

She told her about the breakup but didn’t explain the reason for it. IA stopped the car in a parking lane and reached over to hug her, stroking her hair much like Roro did, though this time Yukari actually noticed it and felt her cheeks heat up.

The two stayed there for a few moments, the only sounds being their breaths. It was just her and the ghostlike librarian who seemed more real with each passing day.

[grayson-dolans-dangly-earring]

Crossroads (G.D.)

hey guys! so this is something i’ve been messing around with for a couple months now and it’s very different than what i’ve posted before. this story is from Graysons POV which is uncharted territory for me lol and also it’s sort of a crossover? like it’s the twins but the story line and little snippets of lore and stuff is from Supernatural. there are NO characters from the show in it i just am using a concept based on some stuff from the show. i hope you like it! and please please please tell me what you think and what else you want to see in the future!

@deluxedolans @hexagonaldolans @dolanswhore @hmmmethan @bouttogolinkurbitch

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Being a crossroads demon wasn’t easy. Especially when you’re also adjusting to becoming the fresh new King Of Hell. I wanted to continue my job because truthfully I loved it but being the King was a daunting task, so I let my number one Knight Of Hell, my brother Ethan, handle the crossroads deals. And he has been doing an amazing job, snatching up souls left and right. But I could tell by the look on his face as he stormed into the great hall, that something had gone wrong.

“Grayson I can’t handle this chick anymore! She’s driving me fucking nuts! And she must be a lawyer or somethin’ because she knows her contracts man. But she’s driving me up the wall and I’m gonna gank this bitch with the First Blade if you don’t go talk to her.” Ethan shouted through the hall as he approached my throne. “Ethan what are you talking about?” I asked, flipping through pages of paperwork. “Listen, there’s this girl who keeps summoning me right? Like there’s no offer I make her that will make her take the deal and eventually I get annoyed and I leave. And EVERY night she does this. She summons me EVERY. NIGHT. And this last time I went topside to see what she wanted and SHE ASKED TO SPEAK TO THE FUCKING MANAGER. Can you believe this shit?!” Ethan said, finishing with an exasperated sigh. “What’s her deal? Like what does she want?” I asked, genuinely curious about this strange woman and what she wanted. “Dude she won’t tell me! I told her whatever she wants is gonna cost her, her soul and I’ll come and collect it in 10 years. No dice. I offered 11 years, ya know an extra year to sweeten the pot but still no. She said the only way she’ll stop summoning me is if I give her a good enough deal or if I send my boss. Gray I can’t keep dealing with her. I have so much shit to do. You ever been zapped away in the middle of a battle with a leviathan? Because I can now say that I have! And it sucked! Please bro, I know you’re busy too but can you PLEASE deal with her?” Ethan pleaded, kneeling at my feet, his hands clasped together. “Fine. I’ll go up there just this once. But do not make it a constant thing to come in here asking me to do this. The King does not make it a habit to bend the rules for anyone. Not even his own twin.” I said grinning down at him and ruffling his hair. I stood up from my throne and stretched out my arms and legs before heading to the crossroads.

When I arrived there was a beautiful girl leaning against a shitty blue pick up truck, her head hanging low and her boot drawing patterns in the dirt. “Hey! You wanted to see me?” I called out, her head snapping up to look at me. “Yeah. Yeah I did.” She said. As she made her way closer to me I could sense there was something different about her. I don’t know how Ethan couldn’t tell what she was but I definitely could. “Ah ah ah sweetheart. I don’t trust angels. Drop the blade in the back of your truck or I’ll smoke outta here faster than you can blink alright?” I demanded. She was an angel. And not just in the sense that she was beautiful, no. She was a real angel. Hidden wings, angel blade, grace, and all. She was stunningly beautiful but terrifying at the same time.

“Oh! Oh right sorry! I forgot to ditch it because I didn’t know if you would actually come talk to me! I’m Y/N.” She replied with nervous laughter, throwing he sword into her truck. I crossed my arms over my bare chest and looked at her. “So, what did you want to talk about? My twin said you’ve exhausted him.” I grinned. “Well see the thing is, Ethan didn’t understand what I wanted and I think it’s because he couldn’t tell what I was. I’m an archangel. One of the original angels that God created.” She said. “Oh honey I know exactly what you are. I could see it the minute my feet hit the ground up here.” I chuckled. “Okay. So you obviously know my brother Lucifer, he used to be like your leader or whatever. But what no one knows is that I was supposed to fall too but Lucifer took the full blame even though everything that happened was half my fault. I believed in him and his cause but he insisted I stayed upstairs with Dad and the rest. When they found out I had conspired against them they locked me up for thousands of years. I’ve finally gotten free and I needed to get the fuck out. I’m so angry and I just can’t stay there anymore!” Y/N growled. Her eyes were glowing with the force of her anger and it made the surrounding air sizzle. She didn’t know it but she was having quite the effect on me. The cogs in my brain were spinning with all the ideas of what she would say next. “Y/N what do you want from me? There’s a reason you keep contacting my brother and I want to know why.”

“I want to strike a deal.” She said. “No shit sweetheart. That’s what everyone wants. I want to know what the deal is since you refuse to speak to Ethan.” I huffed, growing tired of this game. This beautiful stranger sauntered closer to me and splayed her hand over my pectoral muscle before slowly lifting her gaze to meet my eyes. I could feel the warmth radiating from her palm and it made my skin tingle. “Every king needs a queen right?” She said, grinning up at me. “You take me as your queen, and we all get what we want. I get to take my place in hell where I should have been a long time ago, and in return you get an extra set of hands and eyes to help you run the joint. I can help you Grayson. And you can help me.” Y/N murmured, delicate fingers tracing over the skin of my chest. I mulled it over for a moment, weighing the options and all that. It would be good to have a loyal partner to help me run my empire and she was beautiful and intriguing so I wouldn’t mind her being my wife. Also she had a great deal of power and with her in my arsenal I would never lose, should the opportunity of war arise.

“Well if you know so much about crossroads deals, you know how we seal this contract don’t you?” I smirked, my eyes flashing to black. “Of course I do. I’ve been waiting for this part for weeks.” She said, her hand snaking around the back of my neck and pulling my face towards her. Our lips met in a heated clash and I could feel electricity pulsing from her body. A loud thunder clap sounded in the distance as her tongue slipped into my mouth. The feeling of kissing her was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.

My hands began to roam her body and squeeze her flesh. She was so warm but so strong like her muscles were made of steel. I couldn’t get enough of her. My lips moved to her neck and I tugged on her sensitive skin with my teeth. The whimper that fell from her lips sounded like paradise. She was clawing at my back and writhing against me and all I had done was kiss her. Her responses to my touch were amazing and I never wanted this to end. I pulled back for a moment and she whined like I’d stabbed her. I pressed my lips to the shell of her ear before whispering, “Sweetheart, if we keep going at it like this I’m going to have no choice but to fuck you on the very ground you stand on.” “So do it. I want you to. I’m yours now.” She snarled. Once we landed on the ground, I began kissing her again. She audibly moaned when I ground my hard length against her clothed center. “Baby, I’m all about dry-humping but if you don’t hurry up and get inside me I actually might explode. And the last time an archangel exploded, cities were leveled and people were killed.” She giggled. “Keep sweet talking me honey. Death and destruction are a demon’s favorite things.” I groaned into her neck, a mischievous smile on my lips. She laughed aloud and it sounded like bells and I never wanted to hear anything else ever again. She took my face in her small hands, her beautiful eyes scanning my face before whispering “Take me home Grayson. It’s where we belong. Together.”

THE END

[head-and-heart]

The 100 Highlights - “How We Get To Peace” (5x08)

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait for this highlight post. I was out of town visiting family for a week and didn’t get a chance to rewatch the episode until today. And, unfortunately, I am about to be swapped for the next ten days (at least) so you can probably expect the 5x09 highlight post to be pretty late, too.

... And the 5x10 recap.

But anyway - super excited to get into this episode! Hope you enjoy my thoughts. :)

Feel free to read up on the previous posts in this series here. 

“I’ve seen the horrors we inflict on each other in the name of survival, colonel. God knows I’m as guilty as anyone, but we’re on the brink here - on the edge of an abyss I’ve stared into before - and I can tell you, having sacrificed the few to save the many more times than I care to admit, eventually, the few becomes the many. The ends don’t always justify the means and if you don’t know that by now, after everything you’ve been through, then you’re just as bad as Octavia, and we’re already lost.” 

At first I was a bit thrown by Kane’s speech here because Charmaine’s move was, objectively, very politically savvy (and it seemed a little out of place, considering Kane was the one who implied that if Charmaine got rid of McCreary she wouldn’t have to be concerned about resistance anymore but whatever) but - in retrospect - I do see the value in it. It seems to reflect what Bellamy and Clarke do later in the episode to Kara Cooper (which was honestly SO fucked up guys, like, holy shit). And the line was well delivered too. Very dramatic.

I kind of like this Vincent guy. Hm. Seems too nice to be a cannibal/serial killer. Speaking of which, are we ever going to see him snap? Maybe in 5x11 ... and that’s when we’ll get Abby telling the story of what happened in The Dark Year. :o I’ve cracked the code fam

Echo suggesting that they kill Zeke made her more familiar to me. Her character arc seems pretty on track (based on this episode) with what I have already speculated and I expect that we’re going to see her facing some issues with her old methods soon (maybe next episode?). I did like how they have set up her character arc in this episode.

I’m really enjoying that they have Indra teaming up with our mains this season. It’s an interesting dynamic, to see her interacting with characters besides Octavia and Kane this season and I am really enjoying it.

LEMME TAKE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT ZEKE PUTTING HIS HAND IN FRONT OF RAVEN PROTECTIVELY K

Listen, I know that their relationship has no base to it and they barely know each other and their connection doesn’t even really make sense *realistically* but I really, really LOVE Raven and Zeke’s dynamic. Lindsey and Jordan have fantastic chemistry and they look so good together and Zeke and Raven’s personalities/intellect complement each other so well. Also, this is a television show so lack of development DOESN’T MATTER, especially considering Zeke hasn’t killed Raven’s family or ex boyfriend or anything which - if you ask me - is a definite bonus! I just loved that little detail of him looking out for her, despite being angry (and having every right to be) because he feels protective of her and can’t really explain why just yet.

Also, I am in no way delusional enough to believe that the writers intentionally paralleled Bellarke and Zaven in this episode but this moment was visually extremely reminiscent of Bellamy jumping in front of Clarke in 2x09 ... so that’s a plus.

Everything involving Raven and Abby in this episode was just the most gut-wrenching, fam. Raven’s concern over Abby being threatened by Diyoza and her determination to protect her and Abby lying was just ... a Lot. It shows how far gone Abby is and added some new stakes to her addiction. I think it was important to show how Abby and Raven’s relationship will be affected by this.

“Your mother would be proud, Monty.” I wonder if anyone has told Monty this before, and how much he probably needed to hear it. In all that had happened, I forgot that Kara Cooper and Monty come from the same station on the Ark, and that they have probably even known each other for a long time. I never would have guessed that I would love seeing them interact so much but their scenes in this episode were so cute? Cooper laughing at Monty’s jokes about getting lit was the scene I didn’t know I needed. Leave it to The 100 to humanize the Worst character in the episode they get killed

THE ORIGINAL MURDER TRIO IS BACK AND AT IT AGAIN

I have to admit, in a kind of sick way I liked that we had Monty, Clarke, and Bellamy back at their old shenanigans again? Like, this felt like an indirect callback to Mount Weather, where they all committed mass murder together. This time, they’re trying to prevent that from happening again. It’s weird to see how their old allegiances and perspectives have shifted from that moment - and yet, they all continue to cooperate with each other.

“What’s one more, right? We’re all murderers.” OOF MONTY I FELT THAT

“We’re talking about taking one life to save hundreds.” “Really? Then let’s kill Octavia.” I literally yelled DRAG HIM at my screen when he said this lmao. Monty had ALL the lines in this episode. Like, damn, I love that he is questioning Bellamy and Clarke’s decisions in this, how they just revert so easily back to their same old methods. It’s refreshing to see.

 And also, he’s RIGHT. What Bellamy and Clarke are doing is so fucking twisted. They are literally killing someone in the most grotesque manner and framing them for something they didn’t even do all in order to avoid killing someone else - the person who forced her to commit the atrocities she has in the first place. Let’s face it: Cooper is easy to hate but the only reason she is the way she is is because of the system that Octavia created, the game Octavia forced her to play. And yet, they won’t kill Octavia, because of their own selfish wishes. It is absolutely fucked up and I am so glad that Monty called them out on their bullshit.

I really loved Murphy looking at Clarke’s drawing of him and Emori chained to the rocket from 4x08. It was a nice detail (and parallel to Season 4′s corresponding episode) and callback to include. Here’s hoping that we get to see *cough* other characters looking at pictures of themselves that Clarke has drawn. You know ... no one in particular.

“Tell me what we’re looking at.” 

“I don’t think we’d see it the same way, but all right. That’s where the trading post will be. And next to it will be a farm, and a workshop, and a mill ... And a real medical center, for Abby. To the south, there’ll be homes dug out of the ground to preserve the trees, and at the center, there’ll be a well, a place for people to gather, talk, debate ideas.”

“And a school with a playground where kids can blow off steam and bitch about their teachers and kiss under the bleachers. My kid.”

LET ME TALK ABOUT THIS SCENE !!! I LOVED THIS SCENE. 

I think this is the very first time (with the exception of Briller and the chickens) where any character has explicitly voiced their greatest wishes for the future, how it looks in their mind. And it’s so fucking tragic because you can just visualize it so clearly, but it feels so far away. That future doesn’t seem possible. It’s so melancholy and I love how Ian and Ivana delivered their lines in this scene.

Also, soft!Charmaine is EVERYTHING. Her line about the school and the teenagers “bitching” and making out and doing regular teenage thing was just so ... normal, it was honestly startling to think about. That’s the life that the hundred should have had - that they’ll never get now. I love the baby storyline so much (and I never thought I would like a pregnancy storyline but I do) because it humanizes Diyoza in so many ways. 

The music in this scene was gorgeous and matched the tone so well, I honestly started tearing up a little bit don’t @ me. I have a really big feeling that this discussion will come up again - either because we’re going to see this vision completely destroyed, or because we’re going to see it come to fruition. With the space travel theory, I do kind of wonder if we might get an “epilogue” of sorts for the people who stay behind on Eden, where we see Kane and Diyoza’s vision has come true (and maybe they’ll both even be there). It would be like a farewell to the characters who remain on Earth. I think it would be beautiful. (But that’s all assuming that the space travel theory is correct.)

As mildly annoying as it was that Kane literally named Diyoza’s baby for her (wtf Kane???) I did appreciate the symbolic purpose of naming her child “Hope”, especially considering the episode title “Pandora’s Box”, in which hope (aka. Kane/Baby) was the last out of the bunker and then flew away with Eligius. It’s a nice follow up to that little piece of mythology.

In a way, Kane, Abby, and Charmaine are delivering Hope (literally and figuratively) to the people. Which is also why I believe that they may all remain behind in Eden at the end of this season as we see our mains (ie. Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, etc) take off into cryo sleep, officially saying goodbye to all of them forever. (Goddamn I’m already crying and the season finale hasn’t even aired yet? THe fuck)

Also side note to talk about how vindicating it was when Kane was judging Charmaine the entire episode about her damn notebook (”names of the people you killed?” stfu) and it turned out to just be a goddamn list of baby names and defense strategies. Sit the fuck down, Mark.

I present to you: the creepiest fucking shot this show has done. And yet, I really liked it? Showing Cooper’s reactions by shooting through her helmet was a really well done creative choice. It was so trippy and it made her death feel so visceral and real. It honestly kind of sickens me to watch this scene, tbh.

On another note, I cannot BELIEVE how many stomachs Jason has forced me to watch explode this season .. the audacity ...

Emori establishing healthy boundaries is ... EVERYTHING. It’s so important for the writers to have addressed the toxicity in their relationship in this way. 

“Trouble in paradise?” I kind of love that McCreary says this to Memori because it is exactly what Murphy said to Clarke and Finn in 5x06 after the massacre. That’s some sweet kind of karma right there

Everything about Raven and Abby in this episode was absolutely devastating. Lindsey and Paige both killed this scene - the emotions were so real. Lindsey did such an amazing job portraying Raven’s hurt and rage - I could feel her emotions so viscerally. 

“Don’t you talk to me about pain.” If anyone deserves that line, it is Raven. She has been through hell and back and has had to be so strong for so long. I really liked that line.

CLARKE SITTING ON BELLAMY’S BED IN HIS TENT. Man, I would LOVE to see how that scene went askskqisks

Also, Clarke comforting my poor baby just like old times ... *sigh*

Although I have some reservations with the dialogue in this scene, I do appreciate the sentiment. Despite everything that has happened, Bellamy and Clarke still have such an understanding of each other. They forgive so easily - it’s practically second nature at this point. While I hated how Jason Rothenberg-y Bellamy sounded when he called Clarke a “mama bear” it IS nice that he is acknowledging the role that Madi plays in Clarke’s life. I feel like he finally is starting to understand just how crucial she is to Clarke, and recognizing that he felt the same way about Octavia. It gives them something new to connect over. Also, I’ll never turn down Bellarke being soft with each other.

Plus, have you ever seen a softer smile than Clarke Griffin’s? Cause oh boy am I not over that. She looks so fucking bashful when she looks up at Bellamy I can’t deal gotDAMN

“The worms were already loaded in the rover, so. What was Cooper doing there?” Marie’s delivery in this episode was SO good. God, she’s so creepy and she’s Killing It.

“Careful, big brother, or I’ll think you helped her and we’d have enough prisoners to settle this in the ring.” LISTEN. I WANTED THE EVERLARK AU SO FREAKING BAD CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT NEW MEANING THE WORD “TOGETHER” WOULD HAVE HOLY SHIT

But also, Bellamy’s desperate looks/protests were A Lot in this scene. He really can’t fathom losing Clarke again. His and Clarke’s tragic looks towards each other just really fucking hurt - they’ve been here before. And last time, they didn’t see each other for six years. 

“Keep Madi safe. Promise me.” “I promise.”

GOD. CLARKE LITERALLY JUST GAVE HIM FUCKING CUSTODY OF HER CHILD UMMMMM HOW ONE DOES FUNCTION??? She trusts him so much i’mma cry. Also, his called out promise. He sounds so wrecked, but he needs her to know that he will keep Madi safe, needs her to have that comfort, just in case he never sees her again. Don’t Touch Me.

“Did he hurt you?” Protective!Zeke is always a plus but I’d be lying if I said that this scene didn’t immediately remind me of Bellamy asking Clarke the same damn question in 1x10. God, these unintentional Blarke parallels are really coming for my life huh

“Have you ever loved someone so much that no matter what they do to you, or themselves, you take it?” “Mom or dad?” “Mom. Drank herself to death.” I loved that Raven has finally found someone she can open up to. Feels Good, feels Organic. But also this scene came for my LIFE it was so angsty and so good. Raven breaking down absolutely ENDED me (and Zeke comforting her ... someone call 911). I really loved how they made the parallel between Raven’s mom and Abby - it just made the previous scene all the more devastating. So often it feels like the writers on this show forget about these characters backstory and I’m so happy to get these little callbacks every once in awhile.

“The answer is yes.” The fact that Raven and Zeke have this new unexpected thing to relate about is A Lot. I felt this scene deep in my bones. 

Plot twist: Abby dies because she is eaten by Vincent, and her withdrawal symptoms are just a red herring to keep us on our feet. ;)

“So much for The 100.” Hello, favourite line of this episode. Y’all have no idea (NO IDEA) how much it means to me to hear a reference to the heart of this show again, especially from Bellamy. He hasn’t forgotten, but it appears that Miller has. Wow. I felt that one.

“I can’t let you kill Clarke, O.” NO YOU CANNOT

“Here we go again. Pleading for the life of a traitor ... who you love.” DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS LINE HONESTLY Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW WHY IT ENDED ME

BELLAMY’S FUCKING FACE JOURNEY HOLY SHIT. THEY FOCUS ON HIS FACE FOR SO LONG AND YOU CAN JUST SEE - YOU CAN SEE - HIS INTERNAL STRUGGLE. GOD.

I totally overlooked this the first time I watched it but I love how Bellamy tells Octavia that HE made a deal with Diyoza. Clarke has already been sentenced to death and still, he’s protecting her. He won’t let Clarke get hurt for the deal she made - instead, he takes the blame. I just love him a lot fam.

Bob and Marie’s acting in that final scene was SO FREAKING GOOD. Both of them killed it. It was so devastating. 

“My sister, my responsibility.” While I was predicting before that this line would happen if Bellamy had to kill Octavia, the fact that it came back in the same context (with Bellamy having to protect others from Octavia, rather than the other way around) was so perfect. I love when writers take old lines and give them new meanings and that’s exactly what they did with Bellamy’s old mantra. It was so powerful.

AND HE DID IT ALL FOR CLARKE. HE CHOSE FUCKING CLARKE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY???

So. 

That was a wild ride.

Hope you enjoyed reading my take on 5x08 and my favourite parts! Looking forward to the next episode in a few days. See ya then! 

[skycrystal23]

Just Domestic Things

Summary: A few months after the revolution Kara and Luther learn to integrate into normal domestic life. They experience things like first jobs, first vacations, first parent teacher interviews. Alice also gains a large family of brothers, aunt’s, uncles, and even a grandfather figure when they head to Detroit on vacation. They all fall into the routine of domestic things. 

Characters: Kara, Luther, Alice, Markus and co, Connor, Hank, RK900 {Nines}, Gavin Reed 

Words: 3 000 {approx.}

Warnings: None just pure fluff!

Canada was safe.

    It was everything Kara had imagined for her and her little family. For the first month they stayed with Rose’s brother in Ontario, he and wife were so kind. Alice even made friends with his daughter. All good things came to an end when Rose found them a place to stay, a small apartment in a tall building in a neighbouring town. There were things the three of them had to figure out for themselves now. She and Luther had quite the discussion whether to send Alice to school or not. After all, she wasn’t human and androids were still very much illegal in this country.

    There was the worry that Alice didn’t physically age and she couldn’t stay in the same grade forever. Maybe teachers or other parents would recognize them when they would pick her up from class? It was very distressing just thinking about it. Luther managed to lower her stress levels with his low voice and kind words. They would discuss the issue of schooling once they were fully moved in. The move wasn’t long as they didn’t own much; mostly they brought with them the clothes on their backs.

They finally crossed the schooling bridge.

    The two parents, Alice considered Luther just as much as a father as Kara was her mother, mutually decided that schooling would be the best for Alice. At least until the year was up. Alice started school in September and the two waved her off with tears in their eyes at the bus stop. She would have to take the bus to and from school until they could purchase a car. Luther was the first to get a job as a bouncer at a local club. It was a pretty low level job and he was a big intimidating guy, who wouldn’t hire him? At this point Luther was willing to take any job he could get, unfortunately he would have to leave in the evening and work all night.

    Kara was the next to snag a job working as a secretary in a large tech company. The job was fairly easy she was basically a glorified babysitter for the office. Kara quickly made friends with a few of the workers and Luther would sometimes have to force her to go out and hang out with said friends. She had a framed picture of Alice on her desk and a few of her drawn pictures hung up on the small corkboard she had. Everyone asked if she had a special someone in her life. Every time she would look away and let out a nervous laugh, and maybe she would think of Luther a little. Everyone’s jaws dropped when Luther showed up at the office with lunch for Kara one day – she left her lunch at home that morning.

    Everyone in the office watched to see where he’d go and to their surprise their sweet mom-friend of the office jumped up and walked over to the giant. “You forgot your lunch at home Kara, I thought I’d drop it off.” Kara would have the biggest smile on her face. These two were so in love everyone could see it. This would be the talk of the office for weeks. Kara wouldn’t hear the end of it. In the end she lied and said he was her husband. After all, they had to keep their facade that they were a human family up.

Parent teacher interviews were nerve-wracking.

    Luther was a paranoid father the entire time. Before they could even leave he kept asking if his outfit was ‘daddish’ enough. Kara helped him dress giving him some black pants and a floral button-up to wear. The shirt was Alice’s idea, she thought he looked great. There were so many parents there. It was hard to keep track of Alice as she kept running off whenever she saw one of her friends. Out of nervousness Luther ended up taking a hold of Kara’s hand, they walked around holding hands for the rest of the night. Alice’s teacher had nothing but compliments for their daughter which only made them more proud.

    In the end they managed to plan several play dates for Alice and her friends and even received a few invitations for upcoming birthday parties that Alice was invited to. The bus ride home was quiet and comfortable. Alice was busy sitting across from them looking out the window; Luther grabbed her hand again and gave it a firm squeeze. It would be a lie to say that Kara’s face didn’t turn bright blue. By the time they were home they sent Alice to bed and Luther left for work. Kara made sure to read Alice a book before heading to her own room.

    Androids didn’t require sleep but they could mimic sleep by going into stasis mode. Her internal clock would have her awake by seven in the morning to wake Alice up to get ready for school. Luther would arrive home just as she was leaving for work. For a long time her and Luther would be stuck in limbo with their feelings. They both did like each other but at the same time Alice was still their number one priority. Alice talked Luther into it and he eventually asked Kara out on a real date.

Vacations were so necessary.

    Once they got a car, which took a lot of saving, the first thing they did was take a weeklong vacation. Alice was pulled from school and they drove out to the border. It was a long drive and they stopped at many landmarks along the way (Alice has a bunch of knick-knacks and post cards in her room now). They went back to pay Detroit a well needed visit. After all, the revolution ended eleven months ago now. A lot has changed since they fled to Canada. The three of them paid Rose and Adam a visit and stayed at their farm house for the night. Rose was so thrilled to hear how the three of them were doing.

    While in Detroit they replenished their Thirium levels. Kara insisted that they pay a visit to Markus to thank him for his help. Apparently Markus lived in a mansion? This mansion was huge. Markus was happy to see them and glad to know that they weren’t dead. Alice got to paint with Markus, have Josh teach her about history, go to the park with Simon, and North taught her some self-defense. Markus almost shut down when Alice called him Uncle Markus. North and Kara got along surprisingly well. The four core members of Jericho were honestly like an extended family. Okay so maybe their little family was expanding?

    They went for walks in Detroit’s parks while on vacation, Alice loved the outdoors. Honestly the two of them couldn’t be happier to see their daughter so excited and full of smiles. Luther and Kara almost exploded with stress when Alice was suddenly pinned down by a rather large dog. The owner came running over yelling and Kara almost stopped functioning for the second time when she saw that it was Connor. The RK800 pulled the dog off of Alice and offered the little girl a hand. It took him less than a second to realize who they were and gave them a very timid smile. He remembers how he almost got them killed back when he was just a machine. An older man came jogging up to them, he was very obviously human.

    It turns out his name is Hank Anderson and he’s a police Lieutenant at the DPD. “So, you’re the people Connor here told me about.” He’s rather rough around the edges but a real softie once you warm up to him.

“Can we go play at the park?” Alice is jumping up and down and pointing to the nearby playground.

    Kara notices how she’s pointing to Connor as well. She’s rather apprehensive to let her go and play with the same android that was hunting them down nearly a year ago. Nonetheless, Kara can never say no so she goes to the park with them. Hank and Luther sit on a bench nearby and talk about ‘dad things’. Kara and Connor take turns pushing Alice on the swing. The two are quite quiet. Kara is normally a forgiving person and although Connor has apologized before she is still wary around the ex-deviant-hunter. She’s startled when she hears his voice inside her head. They’ve been living around humans for so long she forgot that they could make mental connections.

    The RK800 starts apologizing profusely and although he was smiling on the outside his shaky voice in the connection gave away his guilt. “I’m sorry too Connor.” From her lengthy time being a mother she realizes how everyone makes mistakes and not everyone can control what they’re doing. All is forgiven and Connor becomes a sort of older brother to Alice. The two of them were running around with Sumo for the rest of the afternoon. Kara had to suppress her laughter whenever she heard Hank make a sarcastic comment. Hank is definitely a grumpy grandpa.

    On their last day of vacation in Detroit they meet up with Markus and company in the morning to say their goodbyes. All four of them shower Alice in gifts to take home with her. Uncle Markus gives her some paint, Uncle Josh gifts a book, Uncle Simon gives her a camera, and Auntie North gives Alice some brass knuckles. Kara and Luther were mildly horrified by the last gift. Their next stop was the police precinct; Alice had two drawings she wanted to give Connor and Hank. They mistake RK900 for Connor. He looks so similar to Connor yet so different. The more they look at him the more different they realize he is from Connor.

    His name is Nines and his partner is quite the character. Everyone in the precinct has to double-take because Gavin Reed is actually so soft when it comes to children. Alice is quite fond of Gavin to Luther and Kara’s dismay. Connor and Hank find them soon enough once they realize what all the other officers are looking at. “Alright Reed step away from the kid before you scare her to death and take your ken doll with you.” Hank waves the detective away who looks about ready to hurl an insult. Gavin is surprisingly respectful to Kara, he maybe or maybe not intimidated by her boyfriend, which confuses everyone else.

    Alice presents her drawings to Connor and Hank who graciously accept them. Connor treats this crayon drawing as if it were a piece from Van Goghs gallery. Nines is much more quiet than Connor, more perceptive and judging. His gaze is harsh when aimed at everyone else but it’s much softer when he’s speaking to Alice. The small android asks if Connor is Nines’ older brother and Connor is quick to say that he is. So now Alice has two older brother figures? Alice drags Nines and Connor off to do some drawing in the kid’s area of the precinct. “So, when’s the wedding?” Hank asks.

    Luther and Kara just about shut down from embarrassment. Were they going to get married, did they need to? The visit to the precinct is short lived when they get a call about a homicide. Alice is sad to leave her new extended family but excited to tell her friends all about her vacation. The drive back across the border has all three of their stress levels raised to significant levels; at least they aren’t conducting temperature checks anymore. They make it home and the next day Alice is back in school. For show and tell she talks about her trip to Detroit and talks about her family. At the next parent teacher interview Luther and Kara have to talk about their large family that they hadn’t previously mentioned before.

    Alice is always video chatting with her brothers. Alice wants to be a detective just like them when she’s older. Kara and Luther are saddened by this; sometimes Alice forgets that she won’t grow older like her friends. Her parents just want her to be like any other kid. Summer holiday starts and Alice is sad that she won’t see her friends. The two parents did some research on how fast children age and grow and decide that Alice can head into the next grade. Alice has a sleepover with some of her friends, Luther is everyone’s dad. Swimming is fun and Alice enjoys it. The three of them get good use out of the community swimming pool downstairs.

They just love seeing how happy Alice is.

    Seven months after the revolution and androids are still forbidden in Canada. They are constantly worrying for Alice’s safety. If she were to get injured they wouldn’t know what to do. Before school starts again they take another trip to Detroit to see the family. A lot of pictures are taken while there. Connor and Nines offer to watch Alice while Luther takes Kara out for another date night. The RK twins are chaotic babysitters. Also, Gavin and Nines are closer than originally thought so Alice officially calls him Uncle Gavin. The detective threatens to disassemble both Connor and Nines if they breathe a word about this to the precinct.

    Luther takes Kara to an art gallery because he knows how much she loves art. Their whole apartment is covered head to toe in paintings, photography, and anything she finds artistic. The two of them really love each other so it isn’t surprising when Luther gets down on one knee and proposes. Of course, Kara is a sobbing mess as she accepts the ring. She didn’t expect to be so happy. She gives Luther the most passionate kiss ever and she doesn’t care whose watching. They don’t have much money so the ring is a simple silver wedding band. Kara notices how Luther’s name is engraved on the inside of the ring in cursive letters.

    They’re smiling like idiots when they show up to Gavin Reed’s apartment (Nines is a temporary guest living there). Their smiles disappear when they see Alice standing on top of a coffee table residing over her ‘kingdom’. Said kingdom was made up of Connor, Nines, Uncle Gavin, and Uncle Gavin’s four cats. How did their little family grow so much? Alice’s eyes lit up when she saw her parents, she nearly fell off the coffee table and onto her bottom from how fast as was going. Luther caught her when she jumped at him and held her close. “Hello Alice, did you have fun?” The girl was quick to nod her head. The two RK units and the detective stood and looked to their feet, all three of the mildly embarrassed.

    Once they got over their initial embarrassment Connor and Nines were quick to find the silver ring on Kara’s finger. Everyone was happy for them, no one more than Alice though. Nines even cracked a smile and after elbowing Gavin in the side the human detective muttered congratulations. This new information spread like wildfire through their family. Kara and Luther could only guess that Connor told Markus who in turn told Simon, North, and Josh. A little celebration was held at Markus’s home for the two engaged androids.

Familial gatherings.

They needed to do more of those.

    Kara didn’t know what to do with all of this attention on her. Luther was quiet; all the boys made him feel a part of the group. Everyone asked when the wedding was. The two of them had yet to decide. It would most likely be small a wedding. They could only afford so much at this time. After the get together they embarked back on their drive to Canada. Everything went back into their usual routine once they arrived back home. Alice was happy to be back and headed to her bedroom to put herself into a well-needed stasis mode. Luther turned the television on which had been left on the Jazz music station, he may or may not have picked up a fondness for that type of music after hanging out with Hank.

    Perhaps he even grabbed Kara’s hand after hearing the enchanting music and pulled her to the middle of the living room. Through whispered words he may have even asked her to dance with him. Kisses planted to her forehead, the swaying of their hips, and the sparkle in their gaze when they looked at each other – this was love. Screw everyone who ever said androids couldn’t love. The two didn’t see the little android with her camera taking a few pictures of her parents swaying together. In the morning Kara would be standing in front of the mirror in their shared room fixing her blue blazer for work. “You look perfect Kara, you’ll always look perfect.” Her face turned blue whenever he would compliment her.

    Each day they were learning more and more about themselves and about how to be a family. They wouldn’t ever be normal and they knew that. But little things like going to work, assisting Alice with homework (although she didn’t need help), heading on vacation to visit family, going to school functions, and waking out of stasis in a comforting embrace – yeah, those were just domestic things.

A/N: I would love to write more about this, please do send me prompts for this family. I’d really love to write about their wedding which I’ll probably do next. Anyways, my ask box is always open and I’m always happy to take writing requests!