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monstersandmaw · 4 years ago

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Male vampire x male character (nsfw) Part Four

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Sorry for taking 84yrs to post this. I thought I had shared it. Sorry. Hope you enjoy all the same.

Wordcount: 10,904 (story total: 23,704)

Heads up in this part for continued, but easing, tense familial relations, some angst/heartache (not heartbreak though), and some (consensual) blood drinking.

Part One (sfw), Part Two (nsfw), Part Three (nsfw)

Alec let out a shaky breath and crossed to the sofa, sinking down onto it as his legs finally gave out. “Vampires,” he said, hardly daring to believe the word he was uttering.

“Yes.”

“And you’re one?”

“… Yes.”

“And my family…?”

Sebastien’s voice was tight on the other end of the line as he said, “Hunts my kind. Well, those of us who aren’t registered with the ‘Guild of Hunters’ —” his tone turned acrid as he spat the words out, though he kept his voice low and quiet.

“What does that even mean? I don’t know what any of this means… And did you know about my family? I mean, before? When you started dating me?”

Sebastien took another deep breath. “Yes. I knew. And it was a long time before I fully convinced myself that you did not.”

If Sebastien had thought it was some kind of trap, that would explain his reticence at the beginning for sure.

“And were you planning on telling me any of this?” Alec snarled. God, his chest hurt so much. The deception was like Jeremy cheating on him all over again, only this time the betrayal was coming from two fronts at once: from his love life and from his family. Not that he’d had all that solid a relationship with the latter to start with. Perhaps this explained why.

“I hadn’t planned on becoming your boyfriend at all,” Sebastien snapped.

“So, what, I was just a quick diversion? A casual fuck you kept coming back for because I’m such a fucking chump? Is that it?”

“No,” Sebastien sighed. “Not at all. I fell for you. Like the horrid cliche I am, the vampire fell for the hunter, and by then I had no idea how to tell you. I’ve not been with a human before, so this is all very new to me.”

Alec ran his fingers through his dark hair to buy himself a moment. “You… You haven’t?”

“No.”

“How… How old are you?”

“Do you really want the answer to that?”

“Yes!” His phone was slippery in his fingers now from the sweat on his palm but he couldn’t bring it away from his ear long enough to put it on speaker. He needed answers.

With another cavernous sigh, Sebastien said hurriedly, “Very well. I was born in 1897 and turned on the battlefields of the Great War — World War I, that is. I was dying, and a vampire named Felicity who had been working as a field nurse turned me. My first run-in with your family was not long after I moved from France to America. They were working with the American Hunters’ Guild on a case which had nothing to do with me.” He let out a shaky breath and said, “I got in the way and I nearly died. Those were the days before the treaty, of course, and before I moved to England.”

Despite his still-spinning mind, Alec managed to croak, “What treaty?”

“Those of us who get our blood from sanctioned blood banks and do not live-feed are exempt from being hunted like animals.” He spoke like he was quoting from a law code; cold and clinical; detached.

God, the way he said it made Alec’s skin crawl. It was as if he were being permitted to exist on the grounds of good behaviour and, he supposed, that was exactly the case. Even so, Alec couldn’t help the next words that just fell out of his mouth. “So you weren’t planning on feeding from me?”

“Of course not,” Sebastien retorted but then appeared to rein himself in with yet another steadying inhale. “No. It’s been decades since I’ve fed from a human directly. I didn’t plan on starting with you.”

Alec slumped back into the sofa cushions and stared up at the ceiling of his tiny apartment. “Fuck.”

After a long silence, Sebastien’s gentle tenor sounded in his ear. “Are you alright?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve never been close to my family - my dad was always an arsehole, but… I can’t believe Theo’s involved in all this. He was such a sweet kid, and we were really close until…” he swallowed thickly around the rising lump in his throat.

“Until?” Sebastien prompted when he stalled again.

“I can’t believe this is all real,” he muttered. “Until he turned sixteen and started to ‘work out’ with dad. I was at uni by then, getting my fine art degree, but whenever I came home he was just… different. Harder. Sharper. More focused. Guess it makes sense now… Well, as much as… you know…” he gestured vaguely to the empty apartment with his hands, “… as much as all this can make sense. Fucking… vampires…”

After a heartbeat, Sebastien added softly, “Quite literally.”

Despite himself, Alec snorted. “So… where does this leave us?”

Now it was Sebastien’s turn to feel clearly uncomfortable. Eventually he said, “Alec, I don’t think it’s wise for me to see you currently. Not with your family being what they are.”

His heart twisted, even though he’d been half expecting it. “You still think they’d… what, stake you, or whatever it is that vampire hunters actually do to you lot?”

“There are many ways to kill a vampire,” he said flatly. “And your family knows all of them, probably more. You need to work this out with them first as well. Talk to your brother. He seems the more reasonable…”

“I can’t believe Ellie’s in on it as well. And my mother? Fuck…”

“Talk to them.”

“Will I still see you at work at least?”

The awkward silence told him all he needed to know, even before Sebastien said, “I just sent in my letter of resignation.”

“That was quick,” he hissed, stomach dropping. “You only just left.”

“Supernatural speed,” he replied bitterly. “Comes in useful for typing papers and getting out of awkward situations…”

That sparked another question in him. “Supernatural powers, huh? Can you turn into a bat too?”

“No.”

Then he thought of Sebastien’s Halloween outfit. “Wolf?”

He thought he detected a faint smirk in Sebastien’s response. “No, sadly. No shape-shifting for me. Felicity is not of any extraordinary bloodline, and thus, neither am I.”

“Right,” he grunted. “Of course. Is she… is she still around?”

“Felicity? Yes. We meet every now and again. She and her wife spend most of their time in Venice these days.”

“Her wife? She a vampire too?”

Sebastien swallowed audibly. “Yes.”

“Did Felicity turn her too? Would that make her wife your sister?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Did she know her as a human though?”

“Yes.”

After a moment of spinning thoughts, Alec asked, “Did… you turn her?”

“One doesn’t tend to turn one’s own intended. Between a sire and their turned, there can grow… tension. Not always, but it can be enough to ruin a relationship that was seemingly solid before. Something about exchanging blood changes the soul… or so we think, anyway. It was an honour to be asked to sire her.”

“Right.” Alec felt slightly sick. “Will I at least see you before you leave?”

“I think it best if we don’t. Not while your family is still… ‘investigating’ me.”

“Are you really in danger from them?”

“Quite possibly. My name is on the treaty, but…”

Something twanged painfully again in his chest, swiftly followed by the fizzle of fear through his veins. “But what?”

“But vampires and hunters are not supposed to sleep together, Alec…”

“Don’t bang the enemy? How very Romeo and Juliet,” he snorted. “Fuck. Why does every good relationship I have turn to shit?” he asked, not of Sebastien but of the universe itself. “What did I do?”

“Alec —”

“—Don’t. Don’t make it worse by apologising or something. It’s fine. We were only together a month. I’ll get over it. You’ll move on. Heck, you’ll fucking live forever, right? What’s a month to you anyway? Nothing, right?”

The bitterness in his own voice nearly choked him, and without thinking, or even saying goodbye, he just hung up and let his phone lie in his limp fingers on the sofa cushions. It lit up and rang a moment later, but he didn’t answer it. Six more times Sebastien tried before finally giving up.

Kay was an absolute blessing in the next few days.

He didn’t tell her immediately about the whole vampire thing, but after he’d calmed down enough to be able to look at Theo without immediately busting a vein in his forehead, he hashed the basics out with him, and then told her everything. Alec told her about his newly-discovered, secret family occupation which, apparently, stretched back centuries. He told her about the fact that his eldest sister and younger brother were monster hunters in their spare time, and he told her the real reason Sebastien why had vanished overnight without a trace — yes, Alec had gone to his apartment building, only to be politely informed by the doorman that Dr. Dulac was no longer in residence and did not leave so much as a forwarding address.

That, above almost everything else, shattered Alec’s hopes of seeing him again. Like thistledown in the wind, Sebastien had simply flitted away somewhere else.

She took it about as well as he had to start with, but when she saw the seriousness in his eyes, and when, three weekends later, she came to his apartment for a definitely-not-awkward dinner with Theo, she saw video footage that Theo and his father had captured from various hunts of supernatural creatures beyond only beautiful vampires. Then she believed him. Ghouls, ghosts, reanimated corpses, demons… you name it and Theo could tell you about it.

Alec spent Christmas with Kay’s family, and Theo met him for New Year drinks in the city, joined by Ellie. It wasn’t anything like the family dynamic he’d always longed for, but the new degree of openness between them went some way to mending his still bruised heart. Slowly. Gradually. Piece by tentative, honest piece. He never joined in, but Theo started to tell him a bit about what they did. It still sounded barbaric to him, but at least it was true.

He had no word from Sebastien, and the number he had saved in his phone had been disconnected.

With the arrival of spring, Alec found himself more than usually dissatisfied with his job. He was a good teacher, and he enjoyed seeing his students’ talents evolve and grow, but the ever-increasing admin ground him down, and the politics of the faculty and the university as a whole wore on him.

“Have you seen this?” Kay asked one afternoon as they shared a takeaway coffee beneath the drifting cherry blossoms. Petals spiralled down like pastel pink and white wedding confetti, and he watched with an absent smile as a terrier snapped and sprung around on his hind legs trying to catch them while his owner stood and talked with her friend nearby. “Oi!” Kay asked, digging him in the ribs.

“Hmm?”

“Have you seen this?” she asked, shoving her phone under his nose.

He blinked, refocusing his eyes, and read the article’s headline aloud. “Council offers artists the chance to win a sponsored exhibition in the town hall with this unique competition.” He blinked. “So?”

“So?” she gawped. “You can’t be serious?”

“Send me the link. I’ll forward it to my students. They might like that.” That earned him a smack upside the head, and he scowled. “What was that for?”

“Alec, you might be the dumbest smart guy I know,” she said. “I showed it to you so that you could enter it, you giant idiot.”

He blinked. “Me?”

“I saw those charcoals you did the other week of the cathedral! They were amazing!! And the abstracts too… I still want one, by the way.”

“It’s already wrapped up for your birthday,” he groused. “You really think I should do it?”

She rolled her eyes and drained the last of her coffee without gracing him with an answer. Of course she thought he should.

“When’s the deadline?”

“Next Thursday,” she said without looking at him.

Alec licked his lips and swallowed. “Will you help me pick some images to submit?”

Her answering grin was feral.

In all honesty, Alec forgot about having even entered the competition until the letter dropped through his door six weeks later announcing that, to his utter astonishment, he had been selected as the winner. Tears blurred his eyes and he sat down heavily at the tiny kitchen table. He’d never entered any of his own art into anything like this in his whole life, and the first time he does, he gets a whole fucking public exhibition out of it?

“Maybe this year won’t be so bad after all,” he murmured. “New year, new start…” His chest still ached when he thought about Sebastien, and he hoped he was doing alright, wherever he was.

Theo had been searching for him, probably by way of apology for lying to his big brother for all these years, but he’d turned up very little. Sebastien had gone to Venice first, it seemed, presumably to spend time with Felicity and her wife, but had disappeared completely after that, with only rumours flickering here and there that he was in Paris, St. Petersburg, Prague, and then potentially Florence. Maybe.

“Venice seems like a pretty sunny place for a pair of vampires to live,” Alec commented, but Theo shrugged.

“They don’t burn up immediately in sunlight, or your professor would never have been able to take a day-job at the university. They’re sensitive to it, some more than others, but it takes a full day of constant sunlight beating down for them to burn properly.” The callousness of his brother’s response shook him, even after all these months, and Theo must have seen it on his face because he sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, and then added, “You really loved him, didn’t you?”

Alec shrugged. Yes, he wanted to say. I thought so. “I only knew him for a month or so,” was what he said carefully instead. “And even then… turned out I didn’t know him anyway.”

Theo, who had been lounging on Alec’s sofa with his legs spread and his head tipped back into the cushions while Alec made supper, asked quietly, “Did he seem… normal to you?”

“Normal?” Alec asked, not sure he’d heard his brother correctly.

“Yeah… like… did you ever suspect he wasn’t… you know…?”

“Human?”

Theo grunted and nodded his head. “Yeah. I guess.”

“No. Obviously not. Never crossed my mind. Why would it have?”

Theo scowled and turned his eyes to regard him. Alec knew that Theo looked like a younger version of himself, if maybe in better shape, and he wondered if he’d have the same steely look in his eyes if he’d been deemed ‘man enough’ to become a hunter, or whatever bullshit criteria their arsehole father had used to select which members of his family were to become soldiers and which would live normal lives.

“What?” Alec demanded.

“But you slept with him, right?”

“I’m not talking about that with you,” he said, briefly brandishing the wooden spoon at him.

Theo pulled a face. “I’m not asking about your sex life. Gross. No, I mean…”

In that moment, Alec spotted a flash of something in his brother’s blue eyes that softened him to the kid. He turned off the gas and went over to where Theo was now sitting hunched over with his elbows on his knees, running his hands through his hair. When he looked up at Alec’s approach, his face showed open vulnerability in a way he’d not seen since they were young children and Theo had got himself into trouble at school.

“What’s going on?” Alec asked, seating himself next to his little brother.

Theo bobbed his knee like a deprived caffeine addict and bit his lip. With glassy eyes, he croaked, “I keep asking myself if we did the right thing…”

“What do you mean?”

The bravado of Theo’s early twenties melted away to become a worried, frightened, guilty little boy again and he said, “I mean… if what we do is right…”

“You mean… hunting?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

“What set this off?”

His brother quirked him a humourless smirk and said, “You always did know when something was bothering me.”

Alec remained quiet, just watching him.

“We teamed up with some hunters from Edinburgh for a ‘vamp gone rogue’ case and we finally found her yesterday. She… She’d been turning people; trying to amass some kind of small army to take over from another vampire further up north. She was insane… like, completely, sociopathically insane, but… the people she turned… they were just…” he blinked, and Alec saw with a jolt that his eyes were full of unshed tears. “They were still just people.”

He feared he already knew where this was going. Still, he asked, “What happened?”

“Father wanted to put them down. They were terrified, chained up… still on the point of lashing out…”

Bile rose in his throat. “Oh god…”

“One of the hunters said she knew of a vampire who could help rehabilitate them; help them adjust to their new lives. One of them didn’t want to live as a vampire though, so father just…”

Theo didn’t need to finish that for Alec to know that father had ended the newly-turned vampire’s life in a heartbeat. “And the rest?”

“The other three went with the hunter. I don’t know what happened, but… I trust her. It’s just… father taught me and Ellie that vampires are mindless killers when they feed… that you can’t get close to them, that all they want at the end of the day is blood no matter what they tell you… but…” he looked up at Alec. “You’ve been fucking miserable since the whole Sebastien shit-fest. I know you’ve been trying to hide it, and you’ve got the exhibition coming up next weekend, and that’s great, but… I know you’ve stopped putting yourself out there. And we did that. We fucked it all up for you. I just…” he ran his hands through his hair and sent it into wild disarray. “I just wonder if you could really have been happy with him after all.”

Alec pulled his brother close and hugged him. “I’m not going to lie,” he murmured into his brother’s dark hair. “I’m furious with father for keeping everything from me, and for making you and mum and Ellie lie to me and Angie about it as well, but… if I hadn’t seen Sebastien’s eyes go red — yeah, I thought it was just a reflection or something — and if I hadn’t seen the way he sleeps literally like the dead… I’m not sure I would have believed you anyway. I don’t forgive him for it either, but…” he sighed deeply. “I forgive you, Theo. And Ellie.”

“And mum?”

“I’m still working on that.”

Theo went slack beneath him and snaked his arms around his brother’s waist for a moment. “Thanks,” he mumbled into Alec’s shirt.

“You’re still coming to the exhibition?” Alec asked as he pulled back and went back to the stove, giving Theo a moment of privacy to pull himself together.

In truth, Alec was a little shaken too. Their relationship had been slowly patched over the intervening months, but it still wasn’t particularly close, and the matter of Sebastien had been a permanent, proverbial elephant in the room. That Theo was questioning their father’s teaching came as an immense relief to Alec though. He poured them each a glass of wine, and the two spent the rest of the evening in a quieter kind of closeness than they’d yet shared.

When the evening of the exhibition drew round, Alec was quite frankly, a bit of a mess.

“C’mon,” Theo grinned, patting the lapels of his jacket down for him and grinning up at him. “Where’s that Twayblade hunter courage, huh?”

“Must have skipped me and all gone to you,” he quipped back. “Fuck. I’m so nervous. Why am I so nervous?”

“No fucking clue,” Theo chuckled. “You’re awesome and they’re gonna fucking love you.”

“Language,” Alec said instinctively and Theo’s laughter redoubled.

“You’re a big fucking hypocrite, you know that?” Theo laughed just as Kay sidled up with three glasses of champagne awkwardly held between her hands.

“Help a girl out here, would you, boys?” she asked, proffering the glasses to them.

Alec resisted the urge to down it in one — he’d probably only choke on the bubbles anyway — and filled his lungs instead with a big gulp of air. He tried to send all his nerves into the air and then blow it out of his body in one heaving sigh to leave him calmer, but it just gave him a head rush, so he sipped the wine and turned to look around the gallery from the corner where he’d been lurking.

“What if no one shows up?” he blurted, earning him a scowl from Theo and a pout-and-eyebrow-raise combo from Kay.

He needn't have worried in the end. The marketing team had done their work, and within an hour the place was heaving and all but three of his pieces had been reserved. Scratch that. Two.

The fact that almost all of his students had turned up as well to cheer him on and trade high fives, and scrounge free alcohol and food from the canape trays, warmed him in ways he didn’t know were possible.

Overwhelmed and a little bit tearful, he stepped out of the town hall’s main exhibition space and into the small corridor that led to a fire exit and a grotty back car park beyond, letting the flush die down from his cheeks. This was what he’d really wanted right from the moment he’d graduated all those years ago; to be an artist in his own right, with people buying his work at exhibitions… It almost made him giddy to think that he had a chance to do this full time now. It seemed that Sebastien had been right when he’d said he could really make something of himself.

Ah, there was the crash in his mood that he’d been waiting for. Nothing good lasts forever, right?

Would Sebastien have been proud of him if he knew about this? Would he have been there that night, by his side? Would they even have lasted that long anyway, even without his family’s interference?

The noise in the room was gradually dying down when he gathered enough courage to step back into the echoing hall. The pale wooden floors gleamed in the low light, the white of the temporary exhibition walls almost glowing, in stark contrast to the black and grey of his charcoals. He’d chosen mostly charcoals for the show, with a few acrylic abstracts for flavour, and apparently people loved them. Every single one had a red ‘sold’ dot beneath the label now, he noted as he cast his eyes around the room.

Then his gaze snagged on someone standing with their back to him, hands clasped loosely behind them, a long, silver-blond ponytail hanging down their back. And Alec’ vision slipped sideways.

Sebastien.

It had to be him.

No one else stood with posture like that. No one else was so tall and lean and elegant and god-damned graceful, even when just standing still. And no one else stood quite as still as that.

He let out a ragged breath and swayed slightly, glancing around. There was no sign of Theo or Kay just then, and only one or two couples meandered admiringly around the room. And there, fixated by one piece in particular, stood Sebastien.

Inhaling for courage, Alec approached and came to an unsteady halt a few feet away from him. He didn’t look real, somehow. His beauty had always been striking, but now in the low light he seemed like a mirage, with his warm olive skin and contrastingly pale hair, that cut-glass jawline and —

— He turned and met Alec’s gaze with dark brown eyes alight and glassy.

“You’re here,” Alec breathed, at a loss for anything else.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sebastien said, and the sound of his voice sent a wild tingling through Alec’s whole nervous system. The man — vampire — looked uncharacteristically shy, uncertain, as he half turned to face him.

“Gotta say,” Alec said, scratching the back of his head, “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

“Should I leave?”

He chewed his lower lip for a second and Sebastien’s eyes tracked the movement before he blinked and looked back at the charcoal in front of him. It was of the Lady Chapel of the cathedral; one of the most tranquil places Alec had ever been. A shaft of light lanced down from a Gothic window high on the right, scattering fractured shards of light onto the stone floor, and behind it, just barely visible as a grey, misty outline, sat the small altar.

“You’re religious?” Alec asked.

“Mm,” Sebastien nodded. “Surprising, I know, given my ‘condition’, but there you have it.”

All the smalltalk then suddenly boiled up into thick irritation inside Alec and he scowled. “Where have you been? And why now? Why come back now? What do you want?”

He must have raised his voice fractionally because the couple admiring the seascape to their left shot them slightly scandalised looks, as if he’d started swearing in a sanctuary, and he bit back the wave of anger, halting it in its tracks.

“Shall we step outside for a moment?” Sebastien asked and Alec nodded tersely.

Passing Kay and Theo who were sitting in the chairs near the drinks table, Alec cast his eyes at them and watched Theo tense visibly. Kay laid her hand on his thigh and shook her head, at which Theo nodded and sat back, eyes hard, mouth set, but at least he didn’t appear to be on the point of leaping out and staking Sebastien on the spot.

Alec mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ at them both, and followed Sebastien out on to the street.

“You’ve patched things up with your family then?” Sebastien began, standing perfectly still beside the brick wall of the Victorian building while Alec paced.

“Mostly just with Theo, but yeah. Why are you here?” he asked again.

“Honestly? I missed you. Couldn't get you out of my head. I went all over Europe, and even to Asia briefly, and nothing I did distracted me from you, from leaving you. I had to come back.”

“You could have called,” he said, instantly regretting the way it came out like a petulant teenager’s sulking.

“And what would that have achieved?” Sebastien asked evenly. “I was hundreds of miles away.”

“You could have come back sooner? Talked to me in person?”

Sebastien sighed. “I was afraid that your family would come after me. I needed to disappear.”

“Theo convinced father to let you go. As you said yourself, your name was on the treaty, and you didn’t hurt me or hypnotise me, or whatever… did you?”

“No,” he said, pale brows pinching with evident distaste.

“Could you have?”

Sebastien levelled him with a dark look. “Yes, but… that’s not something I enjoy doing. It’s a survival mechanism — to make people forget what they’ve seen — it’s not something to be used lightly.”

“Ok, but you could have, and you didn’t, so that was another reason to let you go,” he said. God he wanted to kiss him. The realisation hit him like a gut punch and he turned away. Alec ached inside and out for those lips, those hands, those eyes… “Fuck,” he whispered, barely audible. “Are you staying?”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Alec rounded on him, frustration pouring out of him again. “Don’t answer my question with one of your own. Are you staying or not?”

Sebastien remained eerily calm, but a heartbeat later Alec saw that it wasn’t serenity in his eyes but sadness. “If you want me to, I’ll stay. I want to try again, Alec. I want… I want to be with you. I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you.”

“Feel? As in… present tense?”

“Yes. It hasn’t faded. Not with all the days and distance between us.”

“God, you sound like a shitty romance novel hero…” he scoffed. “I almost believe it.”

Sebastien spread his hands and said, “I am who — and what — I am. You know me, Alec, in a way that no one else ever has. I was utterly myself with you, except for the fact that I kept my nature from you. I hope you can at least understand why, if not forgive me. Everything else was genuine. I have never done that — been that open, that vulnerable — with anyone.”

“Even knowing what my family are?”

“Even then.”

Alec looked up at him and saw his own reflection in those dark, rich brown eyes. “Show me.”

Sebastien’s angelic face soured into a confused frown. “Show you what?”

“Your eyes. Your fangs. Show me what you are.”

“Now?”

He looked around. The street was empty on either side, with the only people around gathered outside a bar further up the street.

When he turned back to say yes to Sebastien, he found blood red eyes glowing in the man’s face. “Holy fuck,” he hissed. Every already-chiselled line on Sebastien’s face had sharpened somehow, his cheeks hollowing a little, perhaps to account for the additional hardware he now sported in his mouth, and his eyes seemed a touch more sunken. And they glowed as if lit from within.

Heartbeat thrumming out a wild tattoo, he stepped closer and Sebastien went utterly still. His chest ceased to rise and fall, and he didn’t even blink as Alec raised his fingers to his left cheek. “Show me.”

Sebastien swallowed and parted his lips. Angling his jaw a little to one side, he showed Alec the elongated canines, three quarters of an inch long. “Careful,” he murmured as Alec made to touch them. “Vampire venom is potent, even in small doses.”

“Does it really do what the hunters say it does?”

Sebastien’s red eyes glittered almost playfully. “I don’t know,” he smiled, seeming to relax a fraction. “What do they say it does?”

“Drives your victims wild, acts like a date rape drug, makes humans lose their will and their inhibitions…”

At that, a hardness returned to his features and his lip twitched in a lopsided snarl, like a wolf backed into a corner. “That’s certainly one take on it,” he said. “It creates a rush of euphoria. It’s supposed to make feeding a pleasant experience for all concerned. Endorphins in the blood make the taste sweeter, and the human feels no pain or fear.”

“Right. Gotta say I like that one better,” Alec said with a shaky smile. “But I’m not gonna risk it right here… And fuck me, your eyes are incredible.”

“They’re still red, hmm?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Closing his eyes and tilting his face upwards a little more towards the cloudy night sky, he inhaled deeply. His features softened again, and Alec watched, fascinated, as the slight bumps behind his closed upper lip slid away into nothing, presumably as his canines retracted into his gums. When he opened his eyes, they were their usual, endlessly dark brown once more.

“Better?” Sebastien asked, oddly self-conscious.

“No,” he said. “Just different.”

Something prickled on the back of his neck and he turned to find a woman silhouetted against the light of street lamp halfway up the road. “Friend of yours?” he asked, tense.

“Felicity. She came with me.”

“Why? Surely you don’t need a wingman… or, you know, woman.”

With a tiny smile, Sebastien said, “You make me more vulnerable than you realise, in more ways than one. And we weren’t sure if your family would be here.”

“Or whether they’d want to flambé you…”

“Precisely.” He inclined his head and the woman did the same, turning and vanishing even as Alec blinked.

“Can you do that too?” he asked, still gawping after her.

When he turned back, he found that Sebastien had stepped in close to him - close enough that his faint, woody cologne wafted gently around them and he felt his knees wobble slightly. He’d missed this. Oh god, he’d missed this. “Mmhmm,” Sebastien hummed. “I can.”

“Kiss me,” Alec whispered. “Please…”

Sebastien didn’t need telling twice. He took Alec’s face in both his hands and crushed a passionate kiss to his lips so hard that Alec’s mind went perfectly blank for a few beautiful seconds. When he came to, he grabbed Sebastien’s narrow hips and tugged him close, making the vampire grunt as their bodies connected.

This time, he took Sebastien’s ponytail in one hand and began to pull on it gently. Sebastien yielded at the pressure and tipped his face back, exposing the entire column of his throat to Alec without resistance. The gesture left Alec stunned and breathless. In his research with Theo over the past months, he had learned that for a vampire to expose their throat to another implied absolute trust. Overwhelmed, he pressed his lips to the bare skin and felt Sebastien gasp, grabbing at his shoulders suddenly to keep himself upright.

Over and over, the vampire shuddered tangibly beneath his touch and gasped sharply again, panting. As he shifted his hips against him, Alec felt Sebastien’s growing hardness, and at the same time, Sebastien drew back, eyes screwed shut. “Stop,” he laughed. “Not here.”

“I want you,” Alec moaned, one hand on Sebastien’s chest. “Fuck, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I want you too,” Sebastien smiled, opening his eyes. They glowed scarlet again. “And because of that, this —” he said, gesturing to his red eyes, “— isn’t going to go away quickly this time.”

“This too?” Alec said, boldly cupping the obvious bulge in Sebastien’s smart black trousers gently with his hand and making the vampire groan.

“Yeah, that too.”

“Your place or mine?” Alec asked with a dizzy grin.

“You decide. I’m booked into a hotel one street over for the next two days,” he said. “If that affects your decision in any way.”

“Yours,” he said. “I… I’ll just…” he looked over his shoulder and caught sight of the exhibition banner dangling by the door. “I should…”

Sebastien nodded slowly. “I’ll be here.”

“You’d better be,” he snarled as he adjusted himself and prayed no one would notice. He took a few steadying breaths on the threshold of the town hall and then disappeared inside.

Kay raised her eyebrows at him when he reappeared.

“Not a word,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Your hair’s a mess,” she said conversationally. “Is it windy outside?”

“Fuck off,” he grimaced and she laughed. “Where’s Theo?”

“He left out the back way,” she said. “But he told me to tell you to enjoy yourself tonight, and that he’ll stand by whatever makes you happy.”

Unexpected tears prickled his eyes and he tugged her into a hug that was probably meant for his brother.

“You can thank us later,” she said, shoving him off her. “Go be with your Prince of Darkness…”

“I’m not sure how much he’d like you calling him that,” he said as he stepped back. “I’ll have to wrap things up here first…”

It seemed to take forever, but he finally found the events coordinator and after an interminable conversation full of congratulations, agreed to stop by the next day to take down the exhibition and sort the sales out. His heart was thudding when he stepped back outside, but he let out a huge sigh when he saw Sebastien leaning against the brick building, face tilted towards the moon that was just peeking out from behind a bank of cloud.

“It’s like one of your charcoals,” Sebastien said without tearing his eyes from the sky.

Alec crossed to him and smiled when Sebastien met his gaze, red meeting blue. Alec slid his fingers into Sebastien’s where his hand hung quietly by his side.

“Ready?” the vampire asked.

Alec nodded, and let Sebastien lead him back to his hotel.

They barely made it into the lift before Alec was kissing him, backing him into the mirrored sides of the lift with a thud before the doors had even closed. He stopped suddenly, drew back and laughed, and Sebastien — who looked like he’d just got whiplash — asked, “What?”

“Vampires do have reflections after all…”

Sebastien rolled his eyes and gave an indecorous snort-laugh. The sound was rich and warm and it filled Alec’s whole consciousness for a moment. “It’s only the antique ones with genuine silver backing that don’t show our reflections. Technology has evolved, thank goodness. Now, if you don’t mind, you were kissing me senseless…”

“Sorry,” he laughed, grabbing Sebastien’s white shirt collar and tugging him down again. They nearly didn’t get out of the lift at Sebastien’s floor, but as the doors began to close again, Sebastien slid his foot into the path of the doors and dragged Alec out.

Clothes landed in a steady line on the carpet between the door of his hotel room and Sebastien’s bed, ending with them both in only their boxer-briefs on the pristine white surface of the bed. Alec was tipped back onto the duvet and lay there staring up at Sebastien who was now no longer hiding his nature from him at all. Red eyes blazed in his face and as he opened his mouth to breath heavily, the tips of his fangs were just visible. There was no denying that he was a vampire.

“Was it like this before?” Alec asked hoarsely. “I mean… did I just not see it?”

“I had to work very hard to rein all this in,” he said, kneeling on the bed and crawling a little way up it. His own boxer briefs strained at the crotch where his erection tented the fabric, and Alec’s own black ones were stained with a little spot of wetness where his cock twitched with eager interest. “I only let it slip once or twice, but you were distracted at the time.”

Alec smirked and then moaned as Sebastien’s palm skimmed up over his groin and over his stomach. He’d always been a bit self-conscious about the softer parts of him, but Sebastien worshipped him like he was some kind of immortal god, lavishing attention on him over and over until he was shaking and gasping and sweating. “Please!” he begged after what felt like hours. “Oh god, please…”

Sebastien slid off the bed and deftly removed his own underwear before encouraging Alec to lift his hips for him and drawing his boxer-briefs down too. Before Alec could think or process what was happening, Sebastien was between his legs again and had swallowed the entire length of his cock to the back of his throat in one.

“Oh fuck,” he hissed, mind whiting out.

Sparks of pleasure shot up his spine as Sebastien worked him alternately with his mouth and his hand.

He teased him, licking the slit at the tip where pre-come beaded profusely now, teasing the delicate folds of skin until Alec thought he was going to shatter apart with want. Just before it got too much to bear, Sebastien would take him back into the wet heat of his mouth and work the underside of his cock with his tongue, swallowing occasionally and making Alec’s head spin all over again.

His balls tightened and he spread his legs wider, instinctively opening himself to Sebastien.

The vampire moaned against his cock and Alec whimpered. Pulling off him, an obscenely inviting thread of saliva and pre-come connecting them briefly, Sebastien sat up and reached for the top drawer of the bedside table. “Vampires neither catch nor transmit diseases,” he said, “But if you still wish to use protection —”

“— I haven’t been with anyone since you,” he rasped. “And I’m clean anyway…”

“As you wish,” Sebastien smiled, withdrawing an almost-new bottle of lube and sitting back down between his legs. Alec eyed it and Sebastien laughed shyly. “I opened it last night…” he admitted and Alec grinned.

That smirk shattered into an open-mouthed groan as Sebastien’s finger slid inside him and he began to prepare him. There was nothing perfunctory about it either. Sebastien took his time to work him open, his fingers fucking into him slowly, almost reverently, until he crooked them and Alec yelled as white-hot pleasure shot through him.

“Still so sensitive,” Sebastien crooned and Alec just shivered in response. His thighs were quivering too now from the effort of not bucking upwards into the empty air, his cock drooling freely over his slightly soft stomach with each futile twitch. He knew he was a wanton mess, and he couldn’t quite find it within himself to care. It seem to drive Sebastien wild anyway.

When Sebastien added a third finger, still stroking up and down his thigh with his other hand, Alec broke.

“Please, please, please,” he whimpered, out of breath and desperate. He cracked his eyes open and looked down at Sebastien to find that his red eyes had been almost eclipsed by his blown pupils. He gave a weak buck of his hips to try and encourage Sebastien to get on with it, but the vampire seemed utterly transfixed by him. He worked his fingers over Alec’s prostate gently but with absolute precision, and it was going to make Alec lose his mind altogether.

“Pleasepleaseplease, I need you, please…” he wailed as Sebastien’s mercifully short and blunt fingernail caught him just so and sent another jolt through him.

Finally the vampire moved, but as he withdrew completely, the loss almost shattered him. “Shh,” he smiled, stroking a soothing circle at Alec’s hipbone. “I’m still here…”

Alec whimpered like a wounded animal but his foggy brain accepted that the loss was only temporary, and he watched as Sebastien took his own flushed cock in his hands and slicked lube up the length of it in a couple of efficient strokes, head bowing under the attention it was receiving at last. He’d focused solely, completely, on Alec’s pleasure for all that time, and the realisation sent a fresh wave of lust rolling through Alec’s entire body.

He spread his legs, but Sebastien caught Alec under his left thigh and raised his leg easily, exposing Alec completely. Before Alec could process anything, his tip was nudging at Alec’s entrance, and then he had sunk all the way in to the hilt.

Sebastien froze then, bowed forwards over Alec like a supplicant, canines openly bared, eyes screwed shut, not even breathing.

“Sebastien… please…” Alec grunted. He’d never felt as full and whole as he had with Sebastien inside him, and yet this wasn’t enough. He’d ached for this. For months, he’d ached for it, and still it wasn’t enough. “Bast, please…”

Finally, the vampire opened his searing red eyes and began to move.

Slowly at first, he picked up his pace until Alec’s back was arching and his fingers clawed great furrows in the sheet beneath him. With each thrust, Alec saw stars at let out little fractured, broken gasps. Sebastien was quiet, almost silent, while Alec himself was unable to stop the sounds from tumbling out of him. He moaned and whimpered, gasped and cursed and begged until Sebastien yanked him further down the bed and lifted his hips a little way off the mattress entirely.

From this new angle, it was so blindingly good that Alec went alternately taut and limp with ecstasy. “I’m close,” he gasped over the slap of Sebastien’s hips meeting his skin.

The vampire snarled then; an inhuman sound that sent the hairs prickling all down Alec’s body.

“Come for me,” Alec begged in a whisper, opening his eyes and watching as Sebastien chased his release with a ferocity he’d never shown before. He wasn’t careless with his strength, but he was certainly forceful. Had Alec wanted to grunt ‘stop’, he knew the vampire would halt, but that was the furthest thing from his mind as he watched the flawless perfection of this man above him. “God you’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “Come for me, Bast…”

And at the sound of his name, uttered in little more than an abbreviated wheeze, Sebastien went still, hips spasming as his spine arched back like a bow at full draw, mouth open, head thrown back, fangs bared, eyes rammed shut, a sheen of sweat covering his perfect, bronze chest, his silver hair falling around him like a veil.

The sight of him like that wrenched Alec’s orgasm from him with such sudden force that he almost blacked out, and he clenched around Sebastien’s still-twitching cock as he spilled all over himself. Vaguely, he felt Sebastien trying to withdraw, but he grunted, “Don't… not yet… please… I… unngghh…” Unable to finish the sentence as the last shock waves fluttered through him, Alec went limp against the bed, breathing hard, his blood roaring in his ears.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before Sebastien did finally move, but eventually he slid his softening cock out of him and Alec grunted at the cool slide of the vampire’s release down his thigh. He was too spent and exhausted to care about the mess though, and as Sebastien collapsed onto the bed beside him, he cracked one eye open.

Sebastien lay on his left side with his cheek pillowed on his bicep, facing Alec with his eyes closed, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Tentatively, clumsily in the daze of his recent, mind-blowing orgasm, Alec reached out and touched the delicate skin on the inside of his arm. Sebastien jolted like he’d received an electric shock, and opened his eyes. They still burned bright red, but the rest of his face seemed a little softer somehow.

“You alright?” Alec asked.

Sebastien nodded.

“Been a while too, huh?” Alec grinned, flopping back down to stare at the ceiling where little points of light still sparkled across his vision every now and again.

“Not since that last night with you,” he said, words slurred with exhaustion. “Unless you count my rather pathetic climax alone last night, which I certainly don’t.”

“Not at all?”

He shook his head but didn’t speak again. The vampire lay perfectly still — perfectly undead — and perfectly vulnerable beside him without even a sheet to cover him. His cock now lay soft across the top of his right thigh, still drooling a little and making a mess on his olive skin. Not half as much mess as Alec was currently sporting over his torso, he mused with another smile.

With Sebastien showing no sign of stirring, Alec rolled carefully off the bed and headed on shaky legs to the shower. When he returned, Sebastien hadn’t moved, and he slid in beside him, drawing the sheets up around them and lying there to stare at him in the dimness of the unlit room, processing everything. Sebastien was back, and apparently wanted to stay. He could hardly believe how well that day had gone.

Waking the next morning with a cool, lean body pressed against him, Alec sighed, relieved that it hadn’t all been some kind of fever dream brought on by the stress of the exhibition.

The fact that the man next to him was an undead vampire who didn’t breathe in his sleep was a bit unnerving, and the way he had his cheek now resting on Alec’s collarbone and his nose pressed against his neck should also probably have been a bit of a warning, but Alec couldn’t bring himself to move, except to place a soft kiss on his forehead.

Suddenly, as if surfacing from boundless depths, Sebastien’s body heaved and he drew in a great, sucking, rasping inhale through his mouth. His lips brushed against Alec’s pulse and Sebastien began breathing heavily there for a moment.

“That will never not be weird,” Alec murmured.

“Apologies,” Sebastien muttered, trying to roll away. He paused, freezing, and then whispered, “I fell asleep…” as if that was something miraculous.

“Yeah, you passed out almost as soon as we both finished,” he snickered.

Sebastien turned his big, dark, doe eyes on Alec and said, “No, you don’t understand. Vampires don’t just shut down like that the way humans do. We only sleep somewhere we know is secure and safe…”

“Oh,” Alec said significantly as the realisation plunged through him. He tucked his arm under Sebastien’s head and tugged him closer so that their bodies were once again flush with one another. “I’m glad you felt safe…”

Sebastien sighed, trailing his fingertips across Alec’s chest in absent circles. His cock twitched too, and Alec shot him a look.

With a bashful smile, Sebastien said, “I can’t help that I find you attractive, Alec…”

“Wasn't complaining,” he grinned.

It was a long time before they rolled off each other that morning, with the sun well up and the sheets damp with sweat and tangled around their ankles. Vampires, it seemed, had a longer refractory period than humans, but Sebastien also came so big when he did that Alec wasn’t surprised. He gave everything to Alec when he came that Alec could quite happily lie there all day just staring at him as he came down afterwards.

The room was chilly, however, and when Sebastien seemed to have dozed off again around ten o’clock, he headed to clean up. Again.

As the steam billowed around him, he tipped his head back into the stream of searing water and nearly yelped as the shower door opened and let in a rush of cold air as Sebastien stepped into the stall as well. Cool hands found his waist and then strong fingers kneaded his arse appreciatively before Sebastien kissed and nibbled up his shoulder and traps to his neck. Instinctively, Alec tilted his head to one side and Sebastien moaned, pressing open-mouthed kisses there over and over as the hot water coursed around his lips.

The sensation must have been too much for him because he pulled back sharply with a hiss and Alec turned to face him, water still streaming down around them. Sebastien stood frozen, eyes red, staring at Alec’s neck. “I shouldn’t…” he began. “That was stupid of me… I…”

“What happens to the treaty if the human is willing?” Alec found himself asking. He’d thought about it a lot before drifting off the previous night. If Sebastien had wanted to drink from him, to feed on him, what would happen to the tenuous peace between hunters and vampires like him.

“Don’t,” Sebastien said through gritted teeth. His canines were elongated, Alec noted.

“What happens?”

“The only way it’s permitted is if the human agrees by written contract to become the vampire’s source.”

“‘Source’?” he asked. “That sounds like an official title.”

“It is,” Sebastien said, relaxing a fraction and putting his hands back on Alec’s hips. His cock stirred with interest and Sebastien smiled. He leaned back in, as if proving to both of them that he could do this, and kissed down Alec’s neck again from the junction of his jaw all the way to his collarbones. He ground his hips against Alec and they both began to harden again.

Alec’s hand went to Sebastien’s cock and he started to stroke him gently, knowing he was still sensitive from their last round. Sebastien let out a ragged exhale, the cool breath making Alec shiver slightly in the heat of the water.

“So…” Alec pressed gently, thumbing across the top of Sebastien’s flushed cock.

“Hmm?” he asked, a little stunned.

“What is a source?”

“A human becoming a vampire’s source means that the vampire drinks only from that human. It’s… an ancient - ah - custom,” he said, gripping Alec’s shoulders as Alec upped the speed and adjusted his grip to tighten just a little around his now fully hard cock. ��Rarely used today, but still… nngh…”

“Mmm?” Alec grinned, loving that the vampire’s thoughts were unravelling under his touch. “Go on.”

“You’re a menace,” he laughed breathily, nipping playfully at his neck and then kissing him hard. Alec’s back suddenly hit the icy tiles behind him and he yelped, rearing into Sebastien who wasn’t all that much warmer, though the heat of the water was raising his body temperature from the ambient temperature of the room.

“So if…” Alec began, somewhat distracted as Sebastien’s kisses continued and the vampire raked his fingers through Alec’s wet hair, scraping luxuriantly across his scalp hard enough to make him break off and groan. “If… if I wanted to become your…”

“Don’t,” Sebastien whispered. “Not yet. Not so soon after… all this time.”

The subtext was clear. Let’s see if this is going to last before I risk my life with the hunters guild and your family, shall we?

“Fair enough. Nothing to say I can’t suck you off now though, right?”

“Nothing at all,” he whispered and then immediately cursed as Alec sank to his knees and did just that.

It was only as he was handing in his own letter of resignation that the truth really sank in for Alec. He’d gone from post-grad assistant in the department to a full lecturer, where he’d stayed for six years, and now he was moving a little way out of the city, and moving in with his boyfriend of a year. A vampire, nonetheless. His life had gone from miserable to wonderful in that relatively short time.

Sebastien met him at the edge of campus after he’d handed the letter personally to the head of department. Standing under the verdant cherry trees, Sebastien looked like a vision. He wore tight, dark jeans and a loose shirt, half untucked, with his long hair tied back in a loose plait, fly-aways wisping around his head like mist. Alec walked straight up to him as the vampire opened his arms, flung his own arms around Sebastien’s neck, and hugged him.

“All done?” Sebastien asked without pulling back.

He nodded and popped back down from his toes. They were both tall men, but Sebastien had a few inches on him still. With a slightly doe-eyed expression, Sebastien smiled and kissed him gently. “I love you,” he said softly between kisses.

“Come on, you big sap,” Alec said. “I’ve got to be out of my apartment at four.”

“Such a romantic,” Sebastien sighed melodramatically.

With Sebastien’s supernatural strength, loading up the little van they’d hired for his stuff didn’t take long, and after giving his keys back to the landlord and signing the final bits and bobs, they were on the road.

The old farmhouse had been a find of Sebastien’s, and it needed some work. “Well, what else am I going to do on long, impossibly sunny summer days while you’re running your own business from the little art studio at the bottom of the garden?” Sebastien had laughed when they’d first viewed it, the back of his hand pressed to his forehead in a terribly ‘put upon’ gesture. “I might as well spruce the place up.”

“It needs more than a light ‘sprucing up’,” Alec had said, brows raised at the rotten wooden beam and the tired 1950’s kitchen. “And don’t tell me you made your wealth flipping houses back in the day.”

“Would you rather I told you I robbed the Bank of England and they still haven’t noticed?” he replied archly before planting a kiss squarely on Alec’s scratchy, stubble-darkened cheek.

With a scowl, Alec had shot him a look. “I honestly don’t know whether that’s a lie or not…”

“It’s a lie,” Sebastien snorted. “I can’t believe you think I’m a criminal.”

“You’re a vampire,” he’d retorted. “You could probably have just walked in there and demanded a small fortune in gold ingots and they wouldn’t have objected…”

“Please. I do have some scruples. And besides, I only use my charms on poor, miserable artists to get into their pants…”

“And their hearts too, apparently,” he’d scoffed as they’d left the dilapidated house with Sebastien’s hand in Alec’s back pocket, fingers firmly cupped around his arse.

It took another six months for the work to be completed, and even with Sebastien’s not inconsiderable talents in the DIY and home improvement departments, they still had to call in a team of builders to fix the pointing in one wall and to sort out a few other structural issues. But by the end of the work, the farmhouse was quite frankly the most stunning place Alec could ever have dreamed of living. Exposed oak beams and a fireplace big enough to park a tractor in were only half of the best features of the place.

One clear, frosty evening in late October, the pair sat outside on the recently finished patio, a small cast iron fire-pit crackling away and sending sparks and heat twisting up into the night sky, a glass of wine each in one hand and their free hand clasped around the other’s.

“Bastien…?” Alec said, not taking his eyes from the mother-of-pearl points of light in the sky above.

“Mmm?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about… about becoming your source.” He didn’t miss the sharp inhale from his partner, nor the way Sebastien went completely still in the wooden chair beside him. He also didn’t say anything. “I’d… I’d like to ask how often you’d need to feed from me, and… what the repercussions would be for me as the human…”

Still Sebastien didn’t speak for a long time, and Alec worried he’d spoilt the serenity of their evening with the sensitive question. Finally, the vampire cleared his throat and Alec realised with a jolt that he was near tears.

“Bast?”

At the sound of the pet-name, Sebastien blinked rapidly and two mirroring tears tracked down his cheeks in perfect synchrony. “I thought you’d forgotten all about it,” he said in a hoarse croak. “I didn’t want to bring it up again.”

“You should have done, silly,” Alec groused, and he was met with a watery smile that didn’t meet his eyes at all.

“Well, to answer your questions,” he said, trying to sound unaffected even if he clearly was. “Every three months is safe enough, so long as you take an iron supplement. If you don’t, you might feel a little more tired right afterwards. We generally take slightly less than a person would give at a blood donation, if that helps put it into context.”

Alec turned and frowned at him.

“What?”

“You’ve gone all clinical,” he said, shuffling a little and setting his wine glass down on the edge of the stone fire pit. “Do you not want this anymore?”

Sebastien swallowed thickly and looked away. In the ochre and copper flicker of the flames before them, his suddenly red eyes seemed to glow like coals. “More than you know…” he rasped.

“Then what’s the problem?”

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment before turning back to face Alec with glassy eyes. “I’m frightened.”

Alec’s scowl deepened and he rose from his chair to straddle and sink down into Sebastien’s lap. Settled in his new position, he kissed Bast’s lips and stroked his loose, white-blond hair out of his eyes. “Of what?”

“Losing control. It’s been… decades since… If I hurt you, Alec… it would break me.”

“How about we start small? Just a taste?”

Sebastien looked so young then in the firelight. He suddenly looked like the twenty year old man he had been when he’d been conscripted into the army and sent out to battle to die, only to be turned at the eleventh hour by a nurse in a field hospital who’d seen something special in him. Thank god she had, Alec mused.

Alec leaned back a little and brought his index finger slowly to Sebastien’s lips. The vampire swallowed, red gaze drifting down to watch its approach before looking back at Alec’s face, searching, questioning, doubting.

Alec nodded and slid his fingertip a few millimetres into Sebastien’s mouth. The vampire inhaled, closed his eyes, and then opened his mouth properly. Alec brought the pad of his fingertip to the underside of his right canine, and pressed.

After a moment, the pressure gave way and a prick of pain like a needle pierced his skin. A bead of blood welled there instantly and he withdrew to let it swell. Sebastien clearly smelled the blood because his pupils dilated and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Easy,” Alec said. “It’s only a drop.” And with that, he turned his finger over and held it above the tip of Sebastien’s tongue.

Paralysed in a heartbeat of terror, Sebastien sat rigid, frozen, wide eyed, but Alec lowered his finger to meet the slight roughness of his tongue, and Sebastien’s eyes rolled. He moaned and let his tongue play across the tiny pinprick wound, fingers digging into Alec’s hips. The tiny wound had already stopped bleeding, but he sucked gently, drawing a little taste more. Then he released Alec and stared at him, a look of stunned awe on his beautiful face.

“How was that?” Alec asked, briefly thumbing a fond arc across Sebastien’s cheekbone before dropping his hand.

“Manageable,” Sebastien murmured.

“Ok, I have to ask, do I taste good?”

The tense spell that encapsulated both of them broke and Sebastien cracked a smile, fangs and all. “Yes,” he rasped.

“So… I can become your source?”

“If you wish it, yes. You can withdraw the honour at any time. I won’t hold you to it.”

“Good to know,” he said, only half laughing. A moment later, he said, “When… When do you want to start… you know… properly. Formally?”

Sebastien’s eyes had drifted to the rabbiting pulse in his neck.

“Now?” he asked. “It’s only been a few weeks since you went to the blood bank though…”

“That’s…” he said, hands finding Alec’s waist and holding him gently. “That probably works in my favour this time. Are you sure you want this?”

“To be ‘yours’ on your terms as well as mine? Of course,” he smiled, and watched as another tear rolled down his perfect olive cheek. He tilted his head to one side, feeling a little sheepish, and said in barely a whisper, “Whenever you like.”

“Really? Now?” Sebastien hissed, chest suddenly heaving. “Just like that?”

Alec laughed quietly. “It’s not as if we’ve just met. I know you, Bast. I trust you. I wouldn’t offer this to just any old vampire, you know?”

Unable to stop the smile from twisting his lips, Sebastien finally relented with a nod. “Alright. But not here. You’re going to want to be more comfortable.”

“But I’m already comfortable here,” he whined playfully, wiggling his hips in Sebastien’s lap, eliciting a deep, rumbling groan.

With a roll of his red eyes, Sebastien sighed. “Stubborn arse,” he grumbled without sting.

“You love my arse.”

“Yes, you’re right. I do,” he said.

Tenderly he ran his thumb down the line of Alec’s carotid and inhaled deeply. “I love you,” he whispered. And then he leaned close. He took his time kissing Alec’s neck until he was gasping and rocking his hips against Sebastien.

“Please…”

“Last chance,” Sebastien said against the skin of his throat.

Alec shook his head. “I want this. I’m yours.”

So the vampire sank his fangs into the artery. After the initial surprise and sting, Alec’s whole body lit up as the venom hit his bloodstream, and he bucked into Sebastien who held him still with what should have been frightening ease. There was no fear behind the gesture, only longing and love and sweet, aching, rolling, unending pleasure.

“Oh fuck,” Alec moaned, going limp in his arms as Sebastien began to feed, withdrawing his fangs to draw more deeply on him while he held him easily in his arms. The vampire moaned, lips locked against his skin so as not to spill anything. The motion of his throat suddenly fascinated Alec as he swallowed down his own life-force, but before he could raise his hand to touch fingertips to his Adam’s apple, pleasure exploded in his mind and he forgot everything.

When he came back to himself, he was inside, lying on their bed, with a small, soft dressing over his neck, and Sebastien sitting quietly on the bed beside him, staring down at him and holding his hand. As he blinked his eyes, he frowned. “What…?”

“It’s intense the first time,” Sebastien murmured fondly. “I did say you’d want to be somewhere more comfortable.”

“ S’perfect,” he slurred. “Fuck me…” he added, more curse than command.

“Maybe later, hmm?” Sebastien smiled. There was a flush to his cheeks that Alec had never seen before, and a brightness to his eyes.

“C’mere,” Alec said, patting the bed beside him. With Sebastien lying silently next to him, Alec rolled over and hooked one leg over Bast’s thigh. “Love you,” he mumbled, sinking into a deep and exhausted sleep, even as Sebastien’s hand came up to cradle his head.

The vampire smiled, kissing his forehead. “I love you too.”

___

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florrickandassociates · 3 years ago

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TGF Thoughts: 5x06- And the two partners had a fight...

I’ve been waiting for this episode for nearly a decade, and I didn’t even realize it. More under the cut.

(This is very long! Please fight me on stuff and disagree because I just wrote all these words about this episode and I STILL want to talk about it more, it was that interesting!)

This is the second episode in a row to start off with a TikTok video. 5x02 and 5x03 both ended with elevators. Is there some sort of pattern they’re going for here?

This case—which is, it’s important to note, in Wackner’s court—is about TikTok content creators and copyright laws. Probably not enough material for a full case, but definitely an interesting theme to explore.

Marissa doesn’t have her laptop volume off (which I suppose makes sense; she was just playing the TikTok videos) and a notification sounds. She shuts the laptop.

Wackner rules that the profits made from the TikTok dance must be split evenly between the guy who stole the dance for his video game and the creator. The thief does not like this, removes his moose costume (oh, yeah, did I mention they’re in costumes again?), and starts shouting that he’s going to sue and then moons the whole court. Okay!

He follows through on his threat, and next thing we know, Liz, Cord, Wackner, and Marissa are meeting to discuss strategy.

Liz’s computer makes the same noise Marissa’s did; she punches some keys.

Liz points out that Wackner’s biggest problem is that real judges are not going to like Wackner playacting as a judge. “I’m not playing a judge. I am a judge,” Wackner says. Liz notes that Wackner’s court lacks any way of forcing people to comply with his rulings, but real court can shut him down.

I guess whatever keys Liz punched did not silence the annoying notification sound.

She asks Wackner to try not to become the focus of the court case, since that’s how they’ll lose. “This is why I started a court,” Wackner says after Liz instructs him to only answer yes or no and to wear a suit.

Liz asks Marissa to keep Wackner in line. She says she’ll try.

Now we are at the Black Lawyers Association, where there’s a panel with leaders from Chicago’s four top black law firms. For reasons passing understanding, DIANE is on this panel. This makes absolutely no sense (I mean, unless only white people were involved in this decision, and even then!) and I’ll only excuse it because they mention later that it makes no sense for Diane to have been on this panel.

I wonder why everyone else’s firm gets named but not Diane’s.

Diane also gets the first question, which is, pointedly, about opportunities for black lawyers. Her phone starts making the annoying notification sound. Ever heard of silent mode??

The annoying sound happens every five seconds at the RL offices. According to David Lee, it happens twenty times an hour, but it seems like more than that! He, for some reason, goes to Carmen to ask how to stop the sound. He also wants to know what it is. Carmen explains that it is “Dawnk” which is a new messaging system within the company.

On Dawnk, you can talk about anything you want and be anonymous. Who approved this?! In one frame, I can see there’s someone complaining about someone being promoted too fast because of “the future is female bs.” In another, someone is upset that they are anonymous and wants to use their real name (only Jay, who is otherwise absent from this episode, seems to have figured out how to turn this anon mode off).

Sorry, before I can get on board with this plot, I just need to note for the record how phenomenally stupid the idea of using anonymous messaging software within a company is. This was obviously not going to end well! It’s like workplace YikYak... (remember YikYak?!)

David Lee hates the idea of a messaging software; Carmen says the associates prefer this.

Jay is being very nice in the chat and defends the person who was promoted “too fast”.

“Who’s ‘Anonymous Crab’?” David Lee asks. Well, I think the fact they are “anonymous” should be a bit of a hint there, David.

Anonymous Crab asks, “How the hell did this happen??! How did Diane end up at a Black Conference speaking for our firm?” Good question, Anonymous Crab.

Anon Crab also shares a video and David Lee doesn’t understand how to press play. Carmen plays it for him. Diane looks really awful on the panel. No shit! David Lee seems to enjoy Diane looking bad, even though he should be able to connect the dots between Diane looking bad and potential for bad things to come for the firm...

Not only does Diane get quizzed about why she’s running a firm that is still insisting on calling itself a black firm, she also gets questions about her insurrectionist husband. “He was completely cleared of those charges,” Diane notes. Oh, hey!!!!! Remember how last week I said I’d be more surprised if that was the end of the FBI nonsense than if it continued? I am surprised!! And relieved. Mostly relieved. Dealing with the consequences of that high profile, relationship-straining ordeal is so much more interesting to me than any FBI machinations.

Next Diane is asked if Kurt just took a job to revitalize the NRA. She hasn’t heard of this yet. I’m glad she’s getting grilled on this stuff... it is about time.

There’s a hint that Carmen will be representing Mr. Rapey next week. I assume that’s why there’s a line where David checks in with Carmen on Mr. Rapey’s case?

Anon Platypus says, “I heard she didn’t even have seniority. She just jumped past other black partners to become our name partner. It’s crazy!!!” Anon Platypus is correct—technically. Diane was a name partner at one of Chicago’s top firms before joining RL, so while she skipped the line... that doesn’t seem to me like the PRIMARY issue in bringing her on. The primary issue is that bringing on someone that senior from outside the company is more similar to a merger than a promotion, and Diane’s partnership meant changes for the firm.

Other anonymous animals also don’t like Diane. One calls her clueless; another says that “Liz needs to do something about this.” Someone responds to that, “Liz will never do it on her own,” which is an interesting sentiment I want to come back to in a little bit.

“What is Black Twitter?” David Lee asks Liz out of the blue. “People on Twitter who are black and talk to each other,” Liz responds. David Lee asks how he can find it. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” Liz jokes. And to think Jay said Liz wasn’t funny!

The Dawnk conversation shifts and now everyone’s ragging on Julius for representing Kurt and just generally being a Trump voter. There’s a lot of heated and racial language I’m not going to type here, enough to make Julius spit out his coffee and storm down to the associate floor.

He goes to Devin, who I’m not sure if we’ve seen before but is high ranking enough to have Lucca’s old office, to get information on the anonymous posts.

Anonymous Bison says, “Unpopular opinion: I blame Adrian.” Hey, Anon Bison, let’s be friends! I am with you. Adrian is the one who brought Diane on, who encouraged them to lean into Julius’s Trump connections, and who pushed the firm to pursue profit over everything else. Diane and Julius aren’t blameless (though I don’t actually think defending Kurt is a bad thing) but if there’s someone who actively strategized to make RL what it is today? Adrian all the way.

In what world does noting that Julius is pissed in an anonymous message do ANYTHING to stop people who are pissed at him? If they were that concerned about him being pissed they wouldn’t have said anything in the first place.

Liz and opposing counsel talk over each other in court until the judge makes them stop. I think we’ve seen both the judge and opposing counsel this season, making me wonder if there’s a bit of a COVID bubble situation going on here with the guest stars.

Judge Farley jokes about “contempt cards” that go up in value and Wackner, of course, is all, “Wow, I really love that.”

Liz, whose entire strategy was to not let on that anyone calls Wackner a judge, refers to Wackner as “Judge Wackner.” Come on, Liz! (I buy that she’d slip up—there's no one in the world I wouldn’t believe slipping up—but ugh!)

How did the opposition not realize that they could make this about Wackner’s “crazy court” by referring to him as Judge Wackner? You’d think they’d be all over that.

Judge Farley looks SO unhappy that Wackner would refer to himself as a judge; it’s phenomenal.

Now Marissa stumbles over stuff because she’s, for some reason, speaking in court. I bought Liz’s dumb moment more.

The plaintiff’s strategy is to make it look like Wackner is of unsound mind, and they’ve got video evidence. Remember how Del, Cord, and Wackner all chatted in the RL elevator? Well, turns out that lead to a reality show about Wackner for Del’s streaming service. Sounds about right.

I don’t really think Wackner cares about attention or anyone else’s motivations... I think he just likes the idea of budget and an audience and a platform.

Liz meets Del for a romantic dinner and asks him when he was going to tell her about Wackner’s show. Del doesn’t understand why she’s upset. He doesn’t get why he would’ve needed her permission to go into business with Wackner. (I don’t think he’s wrong from a business POV, but from a relationship POV, he totally should’ve let her know!)

Liz says he should’ve asked because they’re using it against her in court. “That is unfortunate, baby, but this streaming show could be really good for Wackner. It’ll draw attention to his court. And... as I say that...that sounds... okay, look I’m sorry,” Del realizes. I like that he sees that Liz has a point. He goes on to note that he would be totally open to Liz trying to go into business with any of his acquaintances, and I think he genuinely means it.

Del notes that this is what “power couples” do. Oh? So they’re an official couple? Don’t power couples also associate in public and not hide their relationship from their colleagues?

This is the place where I note, yet again, that it is always going to be more interesting to see a relationship that feels realistic than to see a relationship that feels like it takes place in a vacuum.

Liz doesn’t want Wackner becoming popular. Del argues someone else would’ve made the show if he didn’t, and that “disrupters gotta disrupt.” Oh God.

Are we going to remember that Liz has a child at any point this season?

Diane is reading the Dawnk discussion at home. It’s still lively even after work hours. The associates appear to be discussing the vaccine before someone changes the topic to “the Diane situation.”

One associate notes that the partners probably aren’t happy about Diane either and just have to vote her out. Kurt arrives home as Diane reads this, reacts to the loud music Diane has playing, the open alcohol, and her general demeanor and asks if they’re getting drunk. “Are we getting a job with the NRA?” she counters.

Turns out it’s not entirely untrue about Kurt and the NRA. They want him for a new role. It would pay $167,000. I can’t decide if I think that’s a lot (objectively that’s a high salary) or not very much at all (isn’t Kurt the top of his field?)

Kurt notes he doesn’t have a job so he’s considering it. “Diane, our politics are very different,” he starts. “I know,” Diane says. “I’m, lately, struck by just how different they are.”

“I would just like one week when I don’t have to defend you,” Diane says in frustration. Kurt doesn’t even know what that means at the current moment.

“You’ll tell me when they offer you the job?” Diane asks. “They may not offer it,” Kurt says. “No, they will,” Diane says, because she knows that it’s basically a done deal already.

In the middle of the night, Diane turns to Kurt and tries to ask him a question. That wakes him up. She asks who he voted for in 2020 and he doesn’t answer. Uh oh.

Dreaming now, Diane sits up and asks, “Hello? What do I do?” More on that later...

The HR nightmare known as Dawnk is still going wild the next day at the office. (Seriously, with HR that strict, the anon feature would’ve been disabled the second the first semi-controversial comment was posted.) Everyone’s obsessed.

The partners, minus Diane, all gather in Liz’s office to discuss Dawnk (and the topics of conversation on Dawnk). Madeline says they should ignore it. I say they should make STR Laurie shut it down and be the bad guy. It is nonsensical that this workplace would continue to allow Dawnk to continue! In addition to being an HR nightmare, it’s also a drain on productivity if everyone’s constantly glued to it, and I imagine STR Laurie cares about profit more than anything else.

But like I really don’t get why Madeline says they can’t censor their associates. Of course they can shut down the app if they want to! Someone put the app there in the first place, no? I do understand not wanting to look like you’re violating free speech (even though taking away anonymous commenting in the workplace would not be a violation of free speech) but I highly doubt it would be only the partners complaining. Tina, whose promotion was called into question, would be complaining too. Anyone trying to get work done, or anyone who didn’t like the toxic culture, or anyone who was uncomfortable with a joke made, would be complaining. There are more than enough reasons it would be perfectly acceptable to take the anon commenting away.

Now the partners are fighting about Kurt’s case too. “Diane is not responsible for her husband,” Liz says when Madeline says that Diane should’ve known better than to get involved. Um, Liz, Madeline is right. Diane isn’t responsible for Kurt’s actions but she’s sure as hell responsible for volunteering to represent him.

“In the real world of this firm, Diane’s billable hours speak for themselves,” Liz notes when a partner tries to call Diane’s unsavory associations into question.

“The rest of us put in the hours too, for the record,” notes another partner. I’m sure... but do you put in DIANE’S hours and have DIANE’S client list? My guess is no. If Diane weren’t the biggest earner at the firm we wouldn’t be having this debate. She’d just be gone. She’d never have been at the firm to begin with.

“Liz, when I joined this firm, it was because of your father’s legacy. It was about Black civil rights, activism, justice. That’s what people talked about in meetings. Now, people talk about billable hours, million-dollar clients, corporate payouts. Now, I know it’s not your fault. That was Boseman’s vision and we were trying to survive the Trump years by bringing in white lawyers, but those days are gone. They’re done with. And I miss being a strong black firm,” Madeline says. Everyone but Liz (and probably Julius) seems to agree with that.

This is one of many interesting facets of this issue. When Madeline argues against Diane, she’s not just arguing that she wants a black person running the firm for optics. She’s not saying that Diane-but-black would be an acceptable choice. She is saying she wants RL to be the firm it was at the very very start of the show—a firm committed to social justice, not maximizing revenue. A firm that didn’t just accept every client that came their way because they love profit. A firm that stood for something. So my question is: Does Liz want that firm?

Liz is hard to read throughout this whole plot, and I think that may be intentional. Liz isn’t a manager by training—she was an AUSA who suddenly became a name partner at a firm (if you want to talk about seniority and skipping the line, Liz is a way better example than Diane—you can even through some nepotism, twice over, in there). She doesn’t seem to have a clear goal for her firm other than maintaining the status quo and keeping power. Liz not taking a stronger stance from the start (either accepting that they are no longer going to be a social justice-oriented firm or pushing to get them back to that place) allows these kinds of questions to fester. It’s my hope that this becomes text instead of subtext pretty soon, ‘cause this is the kind of thing that if it’s subtext for too long will start to feel like bad writing/Liz being conveniently clueless. It’s way more interesting if Liz is just not yet good at being a manager... because she is learning on the job.

Anyway. I think the ideal solution here is probably that Diane and Liz continue to run RL: A STR Laurie Company (the fact they’re owned by corporate overlords kind of makes any decision about RL’s mission moot) since Diane wants to do that and Liz seems to be content where she is. Madeline and the other partners, instead of trying to force STRL to let them pursue the cases they want, can accept pay cuts and go start their own firm. Maybe they can even team up with Barbara Kolstad!

None of that’s to say that the dilemma here is easily solvable, nor is it to say that Diane shouldn’t consider stepping down. I’ll say more on that later. My point here is just that this issue is much deeper than just if Diane is on the letterhead or not. As long as they’re owned by STR Laurie and have clients like Rivi, Diane stepping aside would just be a band-aid.

(And that, I think, is intentional... they’ve been building the “why are we even representing x?” tension pretty consistently this season, so I imagine it’s on the writers’ minds.)

Diane stumbles across the secret partner’s meeting and knows something’s up.

“You gotta handle this, Liz. You cannot have a white partner leading a black firm. We’ll lose clients with that kind of hypocrisy” Madeline insists after Diane heads back to her office. I’ve already said it, but just to say it in a less rambly way: Madeline is right, but she’s right IF AND ONLY IF the goal is to be a black firm. So, Liz, is it?

(They’ll lose clients, sure, but which ones? They’ll lose the clients Madeline wants while Diane continues to keep bringing in business and Rivi and Cord and Wolfe-Colman and their elk* stay put.)

*I know this is not the correct word; see 6x17 of TGW

David Lee has also noticed the meeting in Liz’s office and thinks this may be the “beginning of the end.” Diane glares at him and he says he was just joking.

Diane schedules a meeting with Liz. Liz’s assistant doesn’t know Diane by voice, adding to her frustration.

Credits! We are 22 minutes in! This might be a record if 5x01 hadn’t saved the credits til the very end!

I’ve already written more than I did last week by a couple hundred words.

Two interesting things about the credits. First, this episode was written by Aurin Squire. Forgive me if I’ve mentioned this in a prior recap (I know I thought about it but can’t remember if I deleted), but I think Aurin Squire and Davita Scarlett are key to why TGF and Evil are both always so good. They’re the two writers other than the Kings who are in both the TGF and Evil rooms, and they both REALLY seem to be on the same wavelength as the Kings. I imagine that having four people who are in both rooms helps with managing both at basically the same time.

(This isn’t where I wanted to go with this bullet point, but I may as well shout out how great Evil is this season, too! It also just aired an episode by Aurin Squire about the lead white female character realizing her privilege!)

Second, this episode was directed by Brooke Kennedy. I didn’t know that going in, but seconds before the director credit popped up, I was thinking to myself, “this episode feels like it’s going to be a very important one. I bet Brooke directed it.” I was very pleased to see her name appear.

(For anyone who doesn’t know, Brooke is an EP who’s been involved in nearly every episode of both Wife and Fight and she tends to direct important episodes that require a lot of familiarity with the characters. She directed 5x15 of The Good Wife and she’s done a bunch of the premieres and finales that Robert King hasn’t claimed for himself.)

Diane and Liz meet in a bar to catch up. Diane’s still staring at Dawnk. Liz takes her phone and silences the notifications. “Who thought that sound was pleasing?” Diane complains. “All day in court today,” Liz commiserates. Carmen had to teach her how to silence the notifications. Liz, you’re using an iPhone, there is a very easy to use switch that silences your phone, like you would need to for court. I know you know this.

(I think Diane, despite her complaining about the sound, is captivated by Dawnk.)

Liz orders soda water instead of a drink. I assume that’s intentional, perhaps because she knows this isn’t going to be an easy conversation or a long night of drinking? She has wine in an earlier scene.

I love that Liz and Diane chat about Dawnk even though there’s no real plot reason for them to spend this much time discussing it. Little moments like this make me believe Liz and Diane are actually colleagues who get along well and make management decisions together.

Diane asks if Liz thinks Dawnk actually increases productivity. Liz laughs—she does not. But she knows the associates would “riot” if they got rid of it. She’s right. I still think they can get rid of it without too much blowback. But at least they’re acknowledging this.

“What do the partners think?” Diane asks, very intentionally shifting the subject. You can hear it in Christine’s voice and see it in her body language—Diane is looking for an opportunity to talk about what she wants to talk about.

“God, Madeline can’t even open it. She’s lost her password three times. She finally just gave up,” Liz says. This is concerning! Madeline should know how to open an app! Probably not unrealistic, though. When you’re that senior, you probably don’t need to know how to use a messaging app. And messaging apps can be confusing sometimes. Like, I still don’t understand how to use Discord.

The captions have a line I can’t hear in this scene—Liz (I presume?) saying “You know, ‘cause it’s Madeline.” This makes it sound like Madeline is a little less than competent, no?

“Thanks for sitting down with me, Liz,” Diane says in a quite serious tone. “Of course. So, you’re wondering about the meeting today?” Liz immediately understands. “I am.” “Yeah. Uh, it was about Julius. He’s being harassed on Dawnk,” Liz explains.

“Okay, and I couldn’t be a part of that?” Diane wants to know. “He’s being harassed because he’s defending your husband,” Liz explains. Diane doesn’t seem surprised (perhaps because she, too, would have read these messages?). “Well, that’s unfortunate. We’ve represented people far worse than Kurt, who, by the way, was found innocent,” Diane argues like they’re having a very different conversation. It’s one thing to represent rapists and murderers and drug lords—and I’d argue that the same people pissed about Kurt are also pissed about them!-- and another for your leadership to be married to/close friends with someone who you believe participated in the events of 1/6.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t. But, January 6th. I mean, we watched the Confederate flag make its way into the Capitol building. You know, those people that Kurt didn’t want to turn over to the FBI, those people. They don’t even want us alive,” Liz says better than I ever could. I think it’s important that Liz mentions a POV that likely wouldn’t have ever crossed Diane’s mind here. This is a small glimpse of why it could be so important to have black leadership at a black firm. Would Diane be thinking about the implications of having the Confederate flag in the Capitol? Probably not in the same way that Liz instantly does.

“Well, not all of them,” Diane Lockhart, who is suddenly an idiot, says. Liz looks at her drink and grimaces, and Diane realizes she’s said something wrong. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m certainly not defending those people. They’re all despicable traitors.”

“And now, that’s what people are saying about Julius,” Liz explains. “And me?” Diane asks, though she already knows the answer. Liz doesn’t want to answer that. Before she can say anything, Diane asks if she’s being pushed out.

“No. Not pushed out. You’re a name partner. You can’t be pushed out,” Liz clarifies. Diane knows there’s a but. “The partners just think you should do the right thing,” Liz adds.

“And step aside?” Diane asks. “No. Stay in the firm. Stay as an equity partner, just step back from your managerial role,” Liz says. Diane pauses. “Liz, I... I pull in the big clients. I... I get the billable hours. But still, ‘maybe you should step aside.’ Weren’t we going to form a firm led by women?” Diane argues. Oh, wow, I have so much to say.

First, I completely understand why Diane doesn’t want to give up her title or her power. She's Diane Lockhart! She’s been one of the best in her field for decades. She’s not wrong about the clients and billable hours. It’s just that every time Diane decides to be at this firm, making arguments about how she should retain her role in power, she’s saying that she values her own career/appearance more than the values she claims to care about. And every time she refuses to take a back seat or threatens to walk rather than sacrifice, she’s saying she’ll only through her weight behind her colleagues and their mission if she gets credit for it. To be clear, I don’t think it would be the shittiest decision in the world if Diane decided to walk, to take her clients to a new firm and to let RL become the firm Madeline and the rest envision. It’s asking a lot of her to give up that power and prestige. The interesting part of this dilemma is, to me, that Diane claims to value working for RL and to be active in the fight against racism... but the second she’s forced to choose between that fight and her own power, we all know what Diane is going to choose. There was never really any doubt. Diane doesn’t have to be on the forefront of this fight if she doesn’t want to... but she can’t claim to be invested in the fight if she isn’t willing to sacrifice, at all.

Second, LMAO at this firm led by women idea. Every time Diane talks about her firm led by women idea it sounds sillier! Not because a firm led by women is silly, but because Diane has a habit of saying this like it is a shared goal and each time she references it, it sounds less and less intersectional. For example, when she says it here, she’s essentially saying a firm led by women only has meaning if one of those women is a white woman (specifically a white woman named Diane Lockhart). Who’s to say that Madeline wouldn’t be made partner in Diane’s absence? Or Barbara (haha) or someone else we haven’t met? There is a very real possibility that Liz and another woman could run the firm and Diane would still be unhappy about it. Diane doesn’t ask Liz for a commitment that if she does step aside, her replacement would be female (idk if it’s legal to make this commitment but you get my point). Diane acts like asking her to step aside is already a betrayal of the female led firm.

“And I hope that it will be,” Liz says, basically hinting to Diane that there are women in the world besides her.

“But black women?” Diane says, agitatedly. “Diane, I... am not voting against you. I promised you that I wouldn’t. But there is growing anger here. They want to address it at the next partners' meeting. So just think about it,” Liz responds.

I think Liz is totally fair and forthcoming in this scene and strikes pretty much the right tone for this initial conversation. She gives Diane a choice and is honest with her.

“You’re a good person,” Liz adds. Diane does a double-take, understanding that Liz is actually telling her “You are a good person, so you know that you absolutely need to step aside.”

“No, I’m not!” Diane responds. As I said: Diane already knows what she is going to do. She needs to do mental gymnastics to excuse her actions, but her mind was made up before the question was even raised. (She did warn Liz in 5x01 she was going to fight any attempt to push her out.)

“Yes, you are,” Liz says again. She may as well be saying, “No, don’t try this. Everyone will think you’re in the wrong if you push this.”

Later, at home, Diane is doing some stretches on the floor and groaning. I don’t know if this scene is meant to show her age, but it does remind me that Diane is nearly 70 and started off this show by planning to retire. Retirement doesn’t seem to be an option for her here. (That’s fine by me; she is a workaholic whose career is her life.)

Kurt asks Diane what she wants to do. She says she wants to keep her name on the letterhead and “keep what I fought for.” Heh, I was just re-reading something I wrote about Cary a while ago and I’d pointed out that when Alicia and Cary discuss merging with what’s left of LG, Cary is also concerned about his name on the letterhead because even though he wants to change the world, he also cares about having power. It’s almost like Diane and Cary are really similar characters! (They are! That’s why the Diane/Cary moment in Hitting the Fan is so good!)

Diane calls her position as name partner a fight against “gender and then age discrimination.” She isn’t wrong, especially when you consider how meaningful it likely was when she and Stern went into business together. It’s very easy for me to forget that when Diane has such an attachment to fighting for white women’s rights, it’s not just because she’s out of touch and selfish: it’s because that was something she personally had to fight for. That doesn’t make it okay that she seems to forget the concept of intersectionality (which she’s definitely aware of) the second anything challenges her own power, but it does explain why a firm run by women is so important to her.

Diane is not wrong that she deserves name partnership and she’s not wrong to not want to step aside. Yet, starting a war to retain her position as name partner is a CHOICE. The best thing for Diane to do here (morally, I mean) would be for her to step aside and throw her resources behind the firm’s new leadership, using her experiences and stature to benefit the firm (this would also be a way for her to cement her legacy and mentor a new generation of leaders). The best compromise, I think, would be for someone to leave the current firm—either Diane or the dissenting partners, probably Diane since Liz seems to agree with Madeline—without any hard feelings. The worst possible choice is for Diane to insist that this firm is hers and force every single tension at the firm to come to a head, screwing over Liz in the process and potentially permanently ruining the firm’s status as a black firm. Sooo... yeah.

(I say it could ruin the firm’s status as a black firm because if Diane’s a white partner who happens to be there and the firm is mostly black, that’s one thing. If Diane is a white partner who fought all of the black partners to assert her own dominance over their firm... that’s hard to come back from. She can’t really call herself an ally, can she?)

“Diane, this is the first time I’ve ever heard you sound defeated,” Kurt says. “Because I can’t win this,” she says. She insists she can’t even after Kurt tries to cheer her on (of course he does, he probably thinks having an all black firm is just identity politics and therefore worthless).

“You just don’t want to,” Kurt says. He is not wrong. This is a winnable fight for Diane. Liz is smart but Diane has the experience, the clients, the power, and her own reputation to use in this fight. Liz has her dad’s name (and I don’t think it would come to this, but Diane knows how she can pretty easily destroy Liz’s dad’s reputation). (Liz is great, don’t get me wrong. Liz is also someone who happened into a name partnership because her dad was important.)

“It’s bigger than that. To fight this would go against every fiber of my being,” Diane says. “Every fiber in your being is about winning,” Kurt counters. Oh, damn. That’s a succinct way of putting it. He is completely right. Diane would love to think that every fiber of her being is about her commitment to social justice and women’s rights. It is not. If that were the case, would she really be a lawyer with clients like ChumHum, Bishop, Sweeney, Rivi, and Wolfe-Colman? We all know the answer to this. We all know Diane likes social justice a lot but winning, wealth, and power far more.

When I first watched TGW, now nearly a decade ago, I was a high schooler and my media diet mostly consisted of Desperate Housewives and a bunch of procedurals like Bones and Castle. The thing that hooked me about TGW—more than Alicia’s journey, more than anything—was that TGW never had easy answers to anything. Will tells Diane in 1x07 that “nothing here is pure and nothing here is simple” and that basically blew my mind. TGW always made it obvious that Will was morally gray, which fascinated me. But I struggled with Diane. Here was this woman who looked like she should be someone so impressive and inspirational I could write a college admissions essay about her (I did not, but that was my frame of reference at the time)… but the decisions she made... never seemed all that great?? I couldn’t comprehend it.

When Blue Ribbon Panel aired in March 2012, I wrote to a friend, “Diane confused me a little bit tonight. She didn’t approve of Alicia standing up to the panel, and yet, she’s supposed to care about people, the truth, morality, etc etc. I never understand Diane’s motivations– is her philosophy to help others whenever it wouldn’t hurt her, personally, to do so?”

At that point, Diane compromising her values struck me as something confusing because I wanted to think of her as a powerful role model and icon, and I didn’t know what to do with someone who looked like and often was role model material who also sometimes betrayed her values for her own self-interest. I had my analysis of Diane down: she her motivations ARE to help others whenever it wouldn’t hurt her, personally, to do so. All I needed to do was remove my question mark from the end of that thought.

I promise I’ll move on from quoting myself, but I also want to share a paragraph I wrote about Diane in March 2014 (during season five of Wife) because it says what I want to say now as well as anything I could write today:

Diane is driven and ambitious. Her initial actions can come as the result of intense emotions, but given enough time and space, Diane will always be strategic and pragmatic when it comes to business. She’s spent her entire life putting her career first, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. That she found love is just icing. Kurt aside, the two most important things to Diane are advancing her own self-interest and doing good in the world. These objectives appear to be a contradiction, and often, they are. Nine times out of ten, when it comes down to it, she’ll choose herself. I mean no judgment here: another central aspect of Diane’s character is that she’s upfront about her choices and stands by them, and this sort of moral ambiguity makes for a great character.

The reason I quote myself here is not to be like, ha ha, I was right. It's because I think this episode is even more powerful because I can copy/paste in stuff I wrote nine years ago or seven years ago (oh god, 2014 was seven years ago?) verbatim and it can hold up as analysis. Both Fight and Wife have always implied Diane’s selfish side and given more than enough evidence to make a convincing argument about it, but they’ve never really engaged with it directly (and if you ask the social media teams for either show, Diane is a #queen who can never do wrong). This episode interrogates something that’s always been an unpleasant part of Diane’s character, and I’m so fucking glad about it.

(I don’t think anyone’s accusing Diane of not growing as a person but it crossed my mind that this could be seen as lack of growth. I don’t think it is. I wouldn’t expect Diane to change. Her life and career are so set that growth on this without a LOT of struggle on her part would feel like a cop out.)

Another reason I quote myself is to highlight how friggin’ character driven this episode is. I’ve seen a lot of people saying this episode felt like old-school TGW—and it absolutely does; that’s also how I felt—and I think that’s because it’s so character focused and meaty.

But back to this scene. Kurt tells Diane that if she doesn’t try to win she should just give up entirely. Seems like bad advice.

“Kurt, I appreciate the pep talk, but I don’t think the way you think. I cannot put my interests above a whole group of people—black people—just so I can keep my position.” Sure you can, Diane. You just don’t like to believe that about yourself. You know how Diane says to Kurt earlier that she knows the NRA will offer him the job? That is how I feel about this scene. The writers go to great lengths to explain where Diane’s head is at when she decides to fight for her partnership, but they’d have needed to do ten times more to get me to believe Diane would step aside voluntarily.

Kurt basically thinks that Diane should fight because if her competition is actually talented enough to deserve name partnership, they should fight her for it. He’s missing the point here.

“But a black person’s talent has always been valued less than mine,” Diane counters. The fact she knows and understands this makes her decision even less forgivable.

Kurt knows he’s going to lose this argument and tries the same strategy he did on 5x01: telling Diane she’s right and should just give up and leave the firm. Diane doesn’t like that answer either.

Given how much I loathed Jay’s hallucinations, I was expecting that when Diane asks Kurt in the middle of the night if he believes the election was stolen and then sits down at her fireplace to have a chat with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I’d loathe what happened next. I did not! I actually really liked it!

I think this is more effective than Jay’s hallucinations, at least for me, because it's less gimmicky. It isn’t played for humor or quirk, and it gets to the character-driven point a LOT faster. This feels more similar to Alicia imagining Gloria Steinem is telling her she’s good enough to be on the Supreme Court in 6x03 than it does to Jay’s hallucinations.

I LOVE that Diane would dream that RBG would advise her on her work dilemma. Dream!RBG tells Diane that “any law firm would be insane to let you go.” (I don’t wanna spend too much time fighting dream logic, but I feel like the operative phrase here is ‘let you go’. Are the RL partners seeing this as letting Diane go? Or are they just trying to get at a different goal and Diane is in the way, and they don’t really care if Diane has top connections or billable hours? It’s almost like the other RL partners want a firm that stands for something and all Diane has stood for thus far at the firm is profit...)

Diane pushes back on RBG and RBG shares her “real” thoughts. This is where this sequence clicks into place for me, because it’s working on a LOT of levels. Obviously, Diane is going to imagine that her hero tells her to do exactly what she wants to do (the aforementioned mental gymnastics). But without losing the level on which this is dream!RBG and filtered through Diane’s POV, the writers are also... criticizing RBG for not stepping down herself!? It’s fascinating and pointed and makes her the exact right choice to play Diane’s conscience.

Dream!RBG shares her life story and notes how she was always asked to step aside, but she didn’t and that’s how she got to be RBG. “Don’t step aside because someone wants you to. Don’t step aside for politics. Men are always asking women to step aside so a man can go first,” RBG advises Diane. Even Diane knows that this isn’t exactly equal to her current situation-- “Even though I’m being asked to step aside so that a black person can take my place?” she counters.

So RBG asks if Diane can still do something “for women” if she says. Diane says yes, and RBG says Diane should do that instead of stepping aside—she should do whatever it takes. That’s the wrong takeaway, Diane! If you want to do something for women then a) you could do something for the black women at your firm lol or b) you could politely remove yourself from the firm, encourage your most profitable clients to stay on if they are wanted by the other partners or and/or c) you could choose to bring your talent and your stature to a non-profit. But, of course, these options aren’t on the table. There’s a reason the options are leave and lose everything or stay and fight for name partnership, and it’s that Diane cares about maintaining control of what she sees as hers and winning more than she cares about anything else, including or even especially her desire to help women.

And also what women is she even helping at RL? Herself? She’s certainly not helping Wolfe-Coleman's rape victim. The closest she’s recently come to helping women is when she told off Weinstein’s lawyer and tried to start #MeToo... in a DREAM.

The score for the next sequence sounds so familiar and I can’t place it. At first, I thought it was Hitting the Fan, but I’m not sure if that’s the right reference (also, damn, the Hitting the Fan score is REALLY GOOD!). I think it might be similar to 5x14 when Alicia’s pacing back and forth in the hotel room.

Anyway, Diane starts meeting with her (white, male) clients to tell them about how she’s stepping aside. She hasn’t run this past any of the other partners, of course. She’s doing exactly what they want, in the most malicious and calculated way possible.

One of her clients is a fracking client who wants to win over democrats by being a RL client.

Diane is so sneaky here! No one said that if Diane steps aside as partner she can’t handle the day to day on her cases... yet that’s what Diane tells this client since she knows it’ll make him mad!

Diane makes a point of showing her fracking client that his new representation will be Madeline. He doesn’t know anything about Madeline, and, as Diane was likely counting on, he isn’t confident in having a black woman he’s less “comfortable” with on his cases. I don’t know if Diane was going for the racial element here, but... if you’re really concerned about continuity, you don’t have this meeting without having Madeline ready to jump in and show she’s read up on the client. I’m sure it’s possible that Diane meant nothing in giving this client only Madeline’s name, title, gender, and race to go off of, but is that likely?

She hands another (white, male) client off to Julius, whom she describes as a “very competent lawyer.” What an introduction. She says she’s not retiring and the firm “just wants to let some other people step forward into a name partner position.” Diane knows how to sell clients on changes they won’t like. She knows this isn’t how you do it.

That phrase, “comfortable with you” is doing a lot of work, no? Both clients so far have said it, and while it might not be racially coded... it’s racially coded.

“Who should we call about it?” the clients ask. Diane can barely keep herself from smiling.

They call David Lee, immediately. He takes the call in the middle of a meeting, while someone else is talking—he is David Lee, after all.

The information on the screen in David’s meeting is quite interesting. It’s about STRL’s plans for RL. Here’s how the firm is described: “RL is a high-end mid-sized Chicago law firm that can consolidate its specialized brand within the American POC community and expand its national and global brand with STR Laure.” Soooo... yeah. For the corporate overloards, RL needs it to be just black enough that it appears like a black firm, but they care more about appearances and branding than anything of substance. (Notice how it says “POC” and not black? Notice how there’s this mention of national and global presence that doesn’t seem to be on the RL partners’ mind?)

There’s an area called room for growth, listing top clients—entertainment law, fracking, the DNC, and civil cases against CPD. Interestingly, two of these are Liz’s clients (entertainment and DNC), one is Adrian’s (civil cases against CPD), and only fracking is Diane’s... so maybe I didn’t give Liz enough credit earlier.

There’s also a plan of action that includes partners working with STRL and the 15-20% layoffs we already know about. I don’t think this text is meant to include any new info, but I assume one of the writers had a hand in writing it and it’s a good way of confirming things that had been subtext.

Wackner’s reality show looks... well, like his court, because his court always looked like a reality show. Cutting together the most out-there moments (audience reaction cards, Wackner singing “Come on defense!”, Wackner renaming himself Judge Shmuley for a day) makes Wackner look pretty bad.

Hey Liz, I thought you figured out how to silence your notifications for Dawnk permanently. (It’s not all high-stakes controversy over on the “R&L General” channel—the anon animals are now discussing a broken coffee maker.) (Though even this discussion is a bit political! Anon Owl says they bet STR’s coffee machine works, and Anon Dolphin wants to know why they don’t have more coffee maters at RL.)

There’s also a dance party—which Marissa participates in—in the footage of Wackner.

Hey, wouldn’t Marissa have reported the cameras to Diane and Liz? I feel like she’d know they’d want to know.

Wackner ends up on the stand to offer context for the strange-looking clips. In a smart move, Liz offers to just let Judge Farley ask questions—she knows that’s what Farley is really after.

Unsurprisingly, Wackner’s context makes his outrageous practices seem much more reasonable. There’s a scoreboard to keep lawyers aware of where they’re standing so they can gauge instead of guess at Wackner’s thought process. Shmuley is to honor a recently deceased relative. The costumes are to prevent bias and cut down entitlement.

Plaintiff’s counsel argues that Wackner is biased and the case continues even though Wackner’s (mostly) won over Farley.

The case next turns to something about copyright law that sounds downright silly—the point is to underline that Wackner’s court makes more sense than real court on some things. It makes more common sense and it’s less racist.

Del gets called into court. It’s interesting how these scenes are blocked together rather than spread out. The same is true of Diane’s scenes—after credits, we have Diane and Liz at the bar, Diane at home, Diane talking to RBG, Diane making moves, and then David Lee becoming aware of the situation. Then we have several consecutive court scenes (all of which feel like they have natural break points) of Wackner stuff. If I had to guess, I would guess that it’s to keep the momentum going. The Diane stuff plays better when it feels like a continuous chain rather than a subplot.

(The only thing that suffers is that I have no idea why there’s a court scene about copyright law right after the plaintiff argues they have evidence about Wackner’s bias? I probably wouldn’t have even noticed if the scenes had been spread out more.)

Now Cord’s involvement with Wackner’s court becomes an issue. It’s funny they need a witness to bring up Cord when Cord is SITTING IN THE COURT ROOM.

Apparently Cord is financing a company that would compete with the plaintiff’s company and this means Wackner is biased. As the next scene will explain, Cord wasn’t even aware of his investment in the rival company, and Wackner certainly wasn’t. But, regardless, it’s going to be challenging to prove that neither Wackner nor Cord knew about the investment, and the opposition is going to go after Cord’s financial records, which no one wants. Liz suggests a continuance, which would give Wackner about a year to keep working on his court before they have to come back to this issue.

Wackner HATES the idea of delays and is all, THIS IS WHY I HAVE MY OWN COURT and again, he isn’t wrong.

David Lee needs to see Liz, now. Liz and Diane meet in David Lee’s office and stare at their phones. Diane says she has no idea what the meeting is about, even though she basically set up the meeting herself.

“What the fuck is going on?” David Lee says. Diane feigns surprise and asks for more specifics. David Lee reveals that four top clients have called with issues about their representation shifting.

Liz knows what’s going on and aggressively says, “Diane, thoughts?” “Nothing from me. I met with my clients. I just told them of a restructuring that I was being told about,” Diane says like it’s no big deal. Liz and Diane both know that Diane forced this meeting.

“Is this a power play on your part?” Liz asks Diane. “No, it’s just updating my clients,” Diane says for David Lee’s benefit or commitment to the bit or something. It is definitely a power play, and a nearly unforgivable one done to an ally.

“David, Diane was told about frustration at the partner level about a white woman being a name partner in a black firm. And apparently, this is her response,” Liz explains. “I just told our clients what was going on,” Diane defends. David Lee doesn’t really care about what happened: he cares about one thing, and that thing is money.

“Diane’s a fucking name partner until STR Laurie says she’s not. No one decides until I decide. Now stick your race war back in its bottle,” David Lee says. I mean, basically, yeah, that’s what happens when you merge with a huge firm that only cares about profit.

I like that this ends up coming back to STRL. You can’t really have a conversation about RL’s identity without also acknowledging that RL is not independently owned. Sure, STRL will care at some point if RL loses its clout with the black community—but like most companies, they care about guaranteed loss of profit and the short term more than long-term what-ifs. It may sound cynical, but if Madeline and all of the other partners quit, STRL would simply put all their effort into keeping Liz or even just the Reddick name and would then hire black lawyers who think more like Julius than Madeline to keep the reputation. STRL does not give a shit about helping anyone, and that’s what Diane counts on.

I do not believe the version of RL that Madeline wants can exist when they’re under STRL’s control. I believe the version Diane wants (not really a black firm) can, and I believe the version Liz seems to want (one that’s mostly black and occasionally social justice focused) can, but this issue won’t go away until STRL does.

Sure, Diane, keep telling yourself you’re fighting the good fight out here.

(Perhaps “The Good Fight” is a more ironic and fraught title than it originally seemed.)

“That was a mistake. I am on your side, and you don’t even realize it,” Liz tells Diane afterwards. Interesting that Liz says “I am” and not “I was.” I would love to know what Liz really thinks about this situation and hope we get more from her POV next week. I think Liz wants to run a black firm, but I also think she wants to run a successful firm and likes working with Diane. Liz is on Diane’s side about as much as she can be while still advocating for Diane to step down.

Pissing off Liz is a very interesting move for Diane here, too. Diane wants to fight the one person who is on her side for control of a firm that doesn’t want her there, and she’s convinced herself this is the smart move! Kind of wild. What does Diane think the day to day will look like? I think I said this above, but in forcing this war, Diane is all but guaranteeing that if she wins, RL will only be a black firm in that STRL will say it’s one to make more money.

Julius and Diane chat next. Julius says he wants to start his own firm—with Diane. Her only reaction is laughter, but, like, this is probably happening. I’m not sure why she laughs. It’s not quite a case of unfortunate timing (Diane could’ve done this before she blew things up, and it’s not quite too late for Diane to commit to leaving and smooth things over with Liz), so maybe it’s just a “well, this sounds familiar!” laugh.

(If you think of Previously On as 5x00 instead of 5x01, that would make this episode 5x05, which would make this a Hitting the Fan callback. I can also do mental gymnastics!)

The episode could end there, but it doesn’t. We’ve still got a Wackner plot to resolve. Cord has some people beat up the plaintiff as a way of enforcing Wackner’s verdict and getting the real court case to go away. Marissa picks up on what’s happened faster than Wackner does, unless Wackner just doesn’t care.

It’s subtle, but throughout this episode, there’s a little bit of a trend towards Marissa becoming more skeptical of Wackner. She tries to keep him under control in court, tries to reason with him about the continuance, and in this scene, she just looks entirely displeased and alarmed every time she’s on camera.

We get another scene with RBG. “It’s different for me than it was for you,” Diane says. She notes that unlike RBG, she herself is up against another “dominated culture.” This other dominated culture is “black lawyers.” (I’m sorry, I just find the way she says “black lawyers” funny, partially because she says “lawyers” instead of people and partially because Diane seems insistent on only occasionally remembering that Liz is both black and female.)

I can’t tell if this scene was originally intended to close the episode or not. The blocks of scenes, the way the episode seems like it should’ve ended with Julius’s laugh but instead has three more scenes (guy getting beat up, Wackner’s court, this one), and the fact the Kings said this episode had to be almost totally rethought because both Christine and Audra had concerns about the original script all suggest to me that maybe some of the scenes in this episode got shuffled around to keep momentum and hit the right notes at the right time.

Diane acknowledges that RBG could’ve stepped down and we wouldn’t have a conservative majority on the court now if she had. RBG insists that she wouldn’t have stepped aside even if Obama had guaranteed that her replacement would be black. She says it’s because she only knows what she can do—not what others would do. And “what you know is always better than what might happen.”

Even if this was originally supposed to happen earlier (Diane saying she doesn’t know what to do makes me feel like it way), I like that we get to see it’s still weighing on Diane after the fact.

(Also, I have seen some comments about, for lack of a better phrase, the girl power energy of these Diane and RBG scenes. No! These scenes aren’t a tribute to RBG! She’s in these scenes because she didn’t step down and can thus help Diane excuse her own actions! These scenes aren’t exactly anti-RBG, but they are certainly critical of some of her choices!)

The topic shifts to Diane and Kurt’s relationship (another reason to put this somewhere other than the main part of the episode; this would slow down the momentum of the middle part of the episode) and its similarity to RBG’s friendship with Scalia.

Tbh, I don’t think a friendship and a marriage are all that similar on this front and I’d be curious to see Diane think about RBG/Scalia in the context of her potential partnership with Julius rather than her marriage.

RBG basically tells Diane to stay with Kurt. Diane thanks her, and then, back in reality, tells Kurt to take the NRA job so he’ll be happy—and then she’ll just sue him. Okay, that feels like an episode ending, so I am REALLY curious about all the re-writing and re-structuring that happened in this episode and what did/didn’t get touched. I can’t make up my mind about what feels out of place.

So we start out with Diane feeling like it might be the right thing to explore whether or not it still makes sense for her to be with Kurt, a suspected insurrectionist and future NRA employee, and Diane feeling like she wants to help her friends and partners at her mostly black firm do good in the world. And we end with Diane doubling down on her relationship with Kurt, giving her blessing for the NRA job, and fucking over her colleagues because she wants to keep her own power. Dark! I love it.

This episode does this all without making Diane entirely unsympathetic, which is astounding. While I think Diane knowingly makes choices that further her self-interest over the values she (claims to?) hold and I am definitely NOT Team Diane on her decisions in this episode, this episode could easily have been less interesting and complex. It’s understandable that Diane would not want to step aside from a firm she’s helped build—who would? It’s understandable that Diane might not feel the passion for a black firm the way she does for a female firm. It’s understandable that Diane might not want to blow up her marriage, despite her political differences from Kurt. This episode allows Diane to be just sympathetic enough she never becomes a flat villain, but never sympathetic enough that someone could mistake this episode for one that shows Diane as a morally pure hero. Personally, I love that in a TV show. That’s the exact kind of writing that made me love Alicia Florrick enough that I still spend a considerable amount of time thinking about her character arc even though TGW ended half a decade ago. It’s what’s been missing from a lot of TGF episodes for me, and why I’ve said that TGF seems like a show more about theme than character. It’s why I’ve written—oh god, TEN THOUSAND words—about this episode.

I have no clue what’s going to happen next, but I hope it includes more character-driven drama (ideally with a lot of good material for Liz) and not a lot of firm-jumping shenanigans.

#tgf thoughts #the good fight

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chickawah23 · 3 years ago

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Hello! You're my favorite kaylor&gaylor blog. And I have to ask: in your opinion what's the most likely reason she had to give toe a grammy??? I thought she really valued grammy but this sleight of hand....😭😭

Thank you for those kind words anon! 🥲💜🎄

Your question is one many of us in this corner of the interweb have wondered. I have two rambly theories that intersect.

Theory 1: this was part of an artist-wide plan to expose the hole in the voting process. I feel like we have watched for years (decades even) as the recording academy snubbed various artists. We also saw a huge shift in the industry over fair compensation and recognition for all those who worked on an album. I think Taylor agreed to be part of a plan to expose the recording academy’s flawed system. And choosing someone like her to do it when she has benefitted so much from that award show is smart pull. It’s one of the reasons why I think Taylor sharing the Beyoncé floral arrangement was something more than what it was. Beyoncé stopped supporting the grammys years ago but she came literally just for her and Meg’s award then left. Whatever is going on behind the scenes I think it was major artists and top producers planning to taint the public’s view of the award show more explicitly.

Theory 2: now Taylor doesn’t do anything career-wise just because someone asked. She and her team work hard to make sure whatever comes of it it is a mutually beneficial arrangement. I think she saw crediting JA as a pr move for solidifying her fake relationship as well as a way to show how easy it is to credit people who don’t deserve it so they can get a trophy. But mostly it legitimizes a relationship when she can’t pap walk during a pandemic. There was also probably pressure from JA’s team who realized that this arrangement wasn’t benefitting him either. For the record JA still isn’t credited on the copyright. So most of what Taylor did feels like it was for public perception rather than reality.

These theories intersect in a weird way because from the outside looking in all taylor did was give people like scootscoot the right to throw their name on an artist (they basically own)’s song credits when they did absolutely nothing artistically to deserve it so they can get a trophy and maybe even cut into the royalty distribution. This to me runs completely counter to her position during her billboard woman of the decade speech. In that speech and in many discussions she has said private equity is killing artists and we need to find a way to credit creators fairly. Because without artists there is no money for the private equity folks to take. But maybe it is part of a long game to show that it’s never been about art or talent it’s about who has enough money and power to get the recording academy to ignore everything else. The grammys is an award show. Most of it is about ensuring viewership. And many major artists don’t go unless they are guaranteed a win because they know the Grammy’s use their appearance to boost viewership from their fandoms. It’s a weird power dynamic. Maybe this is all just a way to open the public’s eyes so they realize they have the power to change this kind of stuff. As the consumer you are what all these rich people need in order to stay rich.

This is very rambly because I really don’t know. All I know is that her reason for doing it really messed up my entire view of her pr and the value of her art to her. She gave it away to a non-artist like it meant nothing to her. Maybe folklore and evermore really meant nothing to her. Maybe it was just a fun little pastime she didn’t care to lose. Idk. But for someone like me who can laugh at all the pr because I love the art and the artist, it made this tough.

Idk what is happening behind the scenes but we saw taylor swift and friend’s nominations for Olivia Rodrigo’s song removed after it was announced. So it definitely feels like it’s still a work in progress. Maybe they should cancel the show all together. Lol Idk.

But yeah that’s what I think. Sorry this is so long. I hope it makes some sense lol

#anons #they are called the scammies for a reason #scammies

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 4 years ago

Text

Another One?!, Part 4

First > Previous > Next

At first, Adrien didn’t really know whether or not they were being followed.

There are a lot of kids with black hair and blue eyes, and he had a tendency to patrol certain areas. It was entirely plausible that he could just be paranoid or imagining things.

But there was a point where you had to step back and say ‘no, that’s definitely not normal’.

And Adrien hit that point when he had started counting the times he spotted the kid and ended up with eleven times by the end of the week.

He stopped in the middle of patrol and sat down on his favorite gargoyle for a short break to text the family about his findings. They deserved to know what was going on...

ChatoNoir: I think there's a person following us.

HelmetRights: Lol

ChatoNoir: This is serious!

Buginette: is it the scrawny kid with black hair and blue eyes

ChatoNoir: You’ve seen him, too?

RockinRobin: we all have????

HelmetRights: Lol

Buginette: their fine if you wanna get rid of them just wave they get all blushy and hide

HelmetRights: *They’re

Buginette: bitch lets see you type in french

HelmetRights: Qu'est-ce que je devrais dire

RockinRobin: alkdjfskdjfksdl

There was a few seconds while Marinette typed, and then apparently deleted her message because it never came through.

Adrien almost smiled but then he remembered what they were supposed to be talking about.

ChatoNoir: Can we get back on subject?

HelmetRights: Lame

Buginette: whats the point its just a fan

HelmetRights: I just wish he’d go back to not taking pictures I’ve missed so many shots because of his stupid flash going off

RockinRobin: i think it’s flattering

HelmetRights: Lol

Buginette: relax its whatever as long as he doesnt get hurt watching us

He sighed and closed his eyes. Fair enough. It’s a kid, those aren’t exactly a threat.

Still, he was a bit concerned. Not for them, they’d be fine, but for the kid. Adrien and Dick were the only ones with some kind of schedule for patrolling because of his job and Dick’s schooling, but Marinette and Jason apparently saw him pretty consistently, too. Just where were this kid’s parents? Were they okay with him being out all the time?

But he figured he must have been overreacting. Maybe they were a street kid like Jason…

No, they had decent clothes.

Adrien frowned to himself. Weird.

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. After all, he only had another hour for patrols before he would need to go home to get ready for work. The kid would still be a problem in a few days, anyways...

It turned out Adrien was right to worry, because Marinette spotted the kid a few days later… while she was a civilian.

She had been in her favorite cafe, sipping at a cup of coffee as she read through the newspaper. It was an article about the vigilantes, debating things like ‘What the fuck were they thinking letting kids join them?’ and ‘Why can’t the kids name themselves?’

She found it amusing, even if it was calling her and her family out.

But then she’d felt someone’s eyes on her.

She slowly looked up, expecting a person who wanted to sit or a guy who wanted to flirt…

Only to see the kid.

They locked eyes for a few seconds.

Did he know? Surely, he couldn’t. They did everything from applying makeup to using codenames to hide their identities…

But that was the same starstruck look he wore whenever he looked at their vigilante identities…

She gave him a tiny wave and watched him blush and slump a little in his chair to hide.

Huh.

“Hey, so heads up, I think stalker kid might know who we are.”

Adrien dropped the textbook he was scanning for a refresher on algebra. Dick fell from the ceiling. Jason just looked up in surprise.

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, I don’t know for sure, though. He could just have a thing for people who look like us. Somehow, I doubt it, though. We can’t all be his type.”

“We don’t know how desperate he is,” Jason pointed out.

Marinette hesitated, then gave a tiny shrug as if to say ‘you’re right, I guess…’

“Hello?” Adrien waved his hands to get their attention. “Could you guys please take this seriously? A kid knows our identities!”

“We don’t even know that for sure, though,” said Dick as he started climbing onto the nearest ceiling light. “And, if he does, so what? It’s a kid. People hardly listen to kids.”

He sighed. “Yes, but if he found out then other people might be able to, too. Shouldn’t we ask?”

The family considered this for a minute…

And then Marinette shrugged. “We need to know for sure if he knows our civilian identities, first, though. Everyone keep a lookout?”

Everyone nodded, bored and reluctant.

Adrien frowned. He loved his family, he just wished they’d take things more seriously sometimes… or, at least, not brush past things so quickly...

His watch beeped and he sighed. He pushed the thought aside. He needed to get ready for work.

After everyone had spotted them in their civilian forms several times, they decided to call it: the kid knew who they were.

(At least he wasn’t taking pictures of them as civilians, they thought, because that would be uncomfortable.)

So, for the first time in ages, the four of them were spotted doing a casual patrol together. It was kind of fun, actually. Dick and Marinette practiced some old circus acts that they remembered, Jason and Adrien raced. Maybe they should do it more often…

Marinette and Dick were walking along some power lines when Dick suddenly stopped to point down.

Her eyes followed to find the kid and she whistled for Adrien and Jason’s attention.

The kid was alone on a rooftop. He didn’t seem concerned that they were all pointing at him, though maybe a little flustered…

But then he did freak out.

Because the vigilantes jumped down in a loose circle around him.

Their stalker spun around anxiously as if he wasn’t sure who to look at.

Dick cleared his throat. “Right, do you know why we’re here?”

“I…” The kid finally stopped spinning to look at Marinette and Adrien. “Because I know your identities?”

“Yes. How exactly did you do that?” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

The kid cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, I’m a big Haly’s circus fan --.”

“Ah, shoot,” Dick muttered.

“And… I was looking through some old footage of you guys on Youtube… and I realized that Robin did a move that only Dick Grayson would know. And, if Dick Grayson was Robin, then you guys all had to be vigilantes.”

The entire family was glaring at Dick.

The man in question just awkwardly looked to the side.

Marinette clicked her tongue and then looked back at the kid. “Okay, what was the url of the footage you got? I’ll see if we can give them a copyright strike. Youtube’s system is broken so it’d probably work.”

The kid in question shook his head. “You don’t have to. I got rid of it myself.”

“Oh… thanks. Is it anywhere else that you know of?”

“No, I got rid of everything on the internet that could trace back to you guys.”

The family looked at each other, confusion on all of their faces. How…? This kid was fifteen, max, there was no way…

Well, maybe he was bluffing so he could keep the footage. They’d check later.

Jason was apparently done with caring about what was going on, because he had sat down and started checking his guns to make sure they were all okay.

Marinette was feeling much the same, leaning on her cane. “Great, well, thanks for that, I guess… could you maybe stop stalking us as civilians, though?”

“Don’t worry, I’m just doing that to get enough proof to clear your names and then I’ll go back to just watching you as vigilantes.”

“Oh, ok -- wait, what?” Said Dick, frowning a little bit.

The kid frowned as well. “I’m clearing your name… do you not know?”

The four looked at each other before shaking their heads in unison.

He sighed and brought out his phone to pull up an article. He passed it to Jason because he was closest and he cursed quietly.

“The gist of it is people are starting to wonder if you’ve gone bad,” explained the kid as Jason scrolled through the article. “It’s just a gossip column thing right now but I figured I should get proof you guys are still good in case it gained traction.”

Marinette frowned. “I’d understand if they thought we were just bad, not everyone understands that we kill people for the greater good, but saying we’ve gone bad implies that we’ve somehow gotten worse…?”

The phone was passed to her and her first instinct, much like Jason’s, had been to curse.

“Well, there’s been rumors of you and Riddler being friends for years now --.”

“WE’RE NOT,” Marinette hissed, and it took a lot of mental power to not crush the phone in her hands. She passed it on to Dick just in case. “He’s just helpful on some cases is all.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.

The kid sighed lightly. “And, on top of that, all of your most recent high-level takeouts have helped a particular mob boss, Antony Agoura, gain power.”

Her first instinct was ‘cool, thanks for the name, let’s kill him’, but then she forced herself to reconsider.

It seemed that taking down people just helped someone else take their place, which didn’t really surprise her. The moment anything was freed from someone’s hold, there would always be people who would do their best to grab it…

But then what was the solution? The situation with Agoura itself was proof that just murdering the head and saying ‘alright, next thing’ wasn’t working. Someone would just pop up to take his place --.

Adrien met her eyes and they shared anxious frowns.

Fuck, they were actually going to have to think about this one, huh?

He fell back on the couch and closed his eyes.

He listened to his family mull about. He could hear the quiet creaking of Dick getting on a light, could hear Marinette pulling out baking pans, could hear the clinking of Jason’s rings.

He sighed.

What could they do?

They had had a rule that they would never kill henchmen because they often weren’t working just for fun, they had a family to feed or hadn’t been able to get a job elsewhere.

Besides, with the mobster gone, there would be little reason for the police to let them go. They’d serve hard time and then, hopefully, come out a better person.

(Probably not. The prison system needed work.)

But…

He had remembered the name Agoura. He had been under Zucco at some point. He wasn’t sure whether he’d been a mob boss or a henchman at the time, though it didn’t really matter. There were a lot of people who had started out as henchmen that had somehow gotten power.

He sighed. He hated systemic issues.

The main problem, he thought, was that mobsters didn’t fear death as much as they should. Sure, everyone fears death on some level, but the people of Gotham knew what they were doing when they decided to get to that point. They would die if they got caught, and they were willing to take the risk in order to get the money and power that came along with being mobsters.

What did they fear? What weren’t they prepared to face?

He opened his eyes and looked over at Dick, who was currently reviewing for final exams from the ceiling.

The law, maybe? Serving actual hard time?

Well, it was worth a shot.

Dick was about to be a lawyer, so they had someone who would be able to try them in court…

But they needed a police officer to arrest them…

Marinette walked into the room and started looking for her shoes, cursing out brownies.

“Chocolate sauce. How did I forget that? Kwami!” She clicked her tongue. “Son of a -- where are my shoes?”

“Shoes are under the couch,” said Dick calmly.

Marinette gave the world’s angriest “Thank you!” as she ducked down and grabbed them.

“M’lady,” said Adrien.

She paused, looking over at him. “Yes, Chaton?”

“I have an idea for what to do about our newest problem, if you’d like to hear it.”

She tipped her head to the side a little, smiling.

“Sure, but make it quick, I can only keep Dick and Jason away from the batter for so long.”

Hey, New Jersey, what the fuck?

It had literally been easier to get into the circus than it had been to become a police officer.

She’d already gotten a degree in criminal justice a few years back. Why? Because she was really bored.

(Also, she’d wanted to mess with Officer Ross and she had decided that it would be funny to memorize as many laws as possible to point out when his buddies weren’t abiding by them.)

The test had been almost painfully easy. She spoke English as a second language and she’d thought that she was reading almost every question wrong. Some of these people would be detectives one day, you’d think they’d ask for more than basic reading comprehension. The most difficult question she’d gotten was one about license plates, and even then it was multiple choice so she’d had a 20% chance of guessing right.

And then getting a job in the GCPD was somehow easier.

Though she figured out why that last part had happened the first day she walked into work.

Can someone say ‘diversity hire’?

She hugged herself awkwardly. Really? Was she the only person of color in this place?

Wait, there was a singular black guy. She was wrong. She was just the only woman of color. Yay.

But, it seemed, her day was about to get worse.

“Marinette Agreste?”

Her nails dug into her arms and she turned to look at Officer Ross. “That’s me.”

“I’m here to give you a tour of the place. Ready?”

Asshole. Chienne. Motherfucker. Other swear words she couldn’t think of she was so mad.

She forced a smile to her face. “Sure!”

Yay. Galas. He always loved those.

He reached out and helped Jason with his tie and then ruffled his red curls. “What’s the rule?”

Jason grinned. “If you absolutely have to ruin someone’s life, do it discreetly.”

“Good.” He met Dick’s eyes in the mirror. “And what’s your rule?”

“... no hanging and/or swinging from chandeliers.”

“Thank you.” He looked at Tikki. “Please, just let us have one easy gala. No press, no kids getting their hands on wine, no people talking to Mari so we don’t have to leave early.”

Tikki shrugged.

He sighed. Yeah, he’d expected that. Worth a shot, though.

So, the four of them all head off. They told themselves that, hey, even if Tikki couldn’t promise that things will go okay, they could make it happen.

The peace lasted about ten seconds.

Because then Marinette hissed a curse and nodded her head to point out the kid.

He sighed. They hadn’t seen the kid in a while as civilians, so they’d thought that he had actually ended up agreeing that stalking them while they were civilians was taking it too far, but apparently not.

Wait a minute, galas were private events. How did he get in?

They started looking around for the kid’s parents, because obviously they had to be around, but they were nowhere near him.

Marinette and Adrien exchanged frowns.

And then their frowns deepened. Because they glanced behind themselves to look at their kids and found that they weren’t there anymore.

She clicked her tongue and looked around. “You deal with the stalker, I’ll go find the kids. I’m sure that one of them has found a loophole to their rule by now --.” Her eyes widened and she rushed away. “RICHARD JUST BECAUSE THAT’S NOT A CHANDELIER DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN CLIMB IT --.”

Adrien sighed.

He grabbed a glass of wine and then headed over to the kid. “Hey, kiddo, where are your parents?”

He shrugged and pointed over to the small crowd of people watching Marinette attempt to pry a glass of wine from Jason’s hands while they cursed each other out in French.

“Probably over there.”

Adrien winced. “Fun.”

“Your family is a disaster,” said the kid.

“Thanks,” Adrien muttered.

“I think it’s nice. When you’re vigilantes you’re basically gods, it’s nice to know you’re just people.”

He considered this for a second.

“Also, it’s really funny to watch,” added the kid.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

After a few minutes of watching the Agreste family crash and burn, the kid looked back over at him.

“Why are you still here?”

“Here with you, here at the gala, or here on Earth?” Adrien half-joked.

They shrugged. “Here with me. Your family needs you right now.”

“Marinette is the better problem solver of the both of us. Besides, you’re a kid, you shouldn’t be left alone.”

“I’m alone all the time, I’ll live.”

Adrien frowned. “What do you --?”

He was cut off when he spotted Marinette dragging Jason over by the back of his suit.

“Hold onto him, will you? I need to catch Dick before he breaks --.” There was a crashing sound nearby. She clicked her tongue. “... before he breaks that hedge. I’ll be back.”

Adrien absently held a hand out and Jason put his arm in it so he could keep a hold on him. His wife gave a tired smile before turning on her heel and stalking off to the hedge maze.

He sighed and looked back at the stalker. “Right, where were we…? Oh, what do you mean by you’re alone all the time?”

Jason’s eyes narrowed a little bit.

“My parents… go on a lot of trips.”

“Without you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“What…? Why…?”

“You wouldn’t understand, you guys never go anywhere.”

Adrien opened his mouth and then closed it again. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but…

“Okay, point, but how often are you alone? Is that why you’re always following us? Do you go to school? Do --?”

He frowned and held up a hand. “That’s a lot of questions at once.” He started to count off on his fingers. “They’re never gone for longer than a month at a time but they only come back for a few days at most. Yes, it’s why I’m always able to follow you. And I’m homeschooled.”

Adrien’s frown was deepening more and more by the second. “Who are your parents, exactly? Or, I guess, who are you?”

“I’m Tim Drake.”

Drake. His eyes flicked to Jack and Janet Drake. He had talked to them a few times because they had a tendency to ask Marinette for commissions (or, at least, they did until Dick and Jason came along and kept their parents distracted for the entire time they were there). Still, he hadn’t even known that they had a kid…

Jason suddenly tugged on his arm, pulling Adrien’s attention back to him.

“Dad, it looks like Dickwad and Mom are wanting to go.”

He frowned and looked up to find that, yes, Marinette had managed to catch Dick and was now waving for their attention from the door.

He winced and looked back over at the kid. “Tim…”

Jason tugged harder on his arm. “Dad, let’s go.”

Adrien gave an apologetic look but allowed Jason to pull him out the door.

The silence in the car was deafening that night, everyone lost in their thoughts.

Marinette was now constantly fighting the urge to punch someone.

Why are all cops just… the absolute worst? Sure, some of them aren’t directly beating up the teenagers that are brought in for information or planting evidence, but they weren’t exactly saying anything about it.

And then there was the fact that she’d been paired with Officer Ross.

Really, she should have expected it. She’d known that his partner had recently passed away in the field, and that he would need another.

If she’d known that she’d have ended up the lucky officer, she would have said fuck it to the whole trying something new thing and just gone after Agoura’s head like normal.

Now she’d gotten too far to just give up...

Didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be bitter about it.

As a way to vent her anger, she’d wanted to ask what happened to his old partner but then this stupid thing called ‘morals’ got in the way. Really unfortunate, because now all she could really do was glare at the stack of paperwork that she was being forced to make a digital copy for over her cup of coffee.

She felt an arm rest on her shoulder and cursed internally. She forced a smile to her face as she looked up to see…

Dick. Oh, thank the kwamis.

Marinette grinned. “Hey, sweetie, how did finals go?”

“I don’t want to jinx it.”

She hummed her understanding and moved on. “No problems?”

Dick gave a tiny shrug. “There was a few problems, there was a really annoying kid next to me that apparently still hasn’t learned how to breathe through his nose, but… they actually listened to the doctors and gave me extra time, so that’s good.”

She got up and wrapped him in a hug. “So, out of college officially. How’s it feel?”

He hugged her back, absolutely beaming. “If I passed.”

She clicked her tongue. “Right. But, let’s say you did. Then you’re out.”

“Then I’m out!” He said, pulling back and resting his hands on his hips. “Now all I have to do is find a job.”

“How horrible,” she said sarcastically.

“Yeah. Speaking of horrible jobs, wanna leave?”

“I do, but I have to finish this.” She sat back down and pulled up the daunting task in front of her. She had to type up another few pages and she was not eager to do so. Still, the commissioner had asked to get her email by the end of her shift and, if Dick was here, she was already behind. “I’ll need around an hour, I think.”

He groaned and pulled out his phone.

She smiled faintly and went back to working.

Or, at least, she tried to.

Officer Ross was talking to Dick.

“So, you’re her kid?”

“One of two!”

Ross laughed. “Tell me, is she always so angry at home?”

“Not really. Our family doesn’t really get angry in general, at least not at home. I think we all vent our anger at work, though.”

“Hm. Weird.”

Dick gave a tiny shrug.

“So, just graduated, then?”

“Mhmm! I just finished law school! I’m gonna be a lawyer!”

Ross’s eyes narrowed a little bit. “A lawyer, huh? Are you going to be the one doing the persecuting or defending?”

“Um…” said Dick, who seemed to be just now remembering that cops and lawyers didn’t exactly get along if the way his smile was dropping was any indication. He looked to the side and brought a smile to his face again. “Persecuting. I’m on your side. It would be kind of embarrassing to go against my mom in court, don’t you think?”

He relaxed, nodding. “Good.”

They lapsed into an awkward silence after that and Marinette was finally able to concentrate…

For the two seconds of silence she got before Commissioner Gordon walked over to ask her when she’d be done.

She fought the urge to bang her head on the desk.

She turned around, about to throw Officer Ross under the bus, but it turned out she didn’t need to.

Because then his daughter showed up with some dinner for him.

Gordon turned around to greet her. Thank kwami, finally something was going right. Hopefully he’d forget about what he was doing (he was old, after all) and she’d have until he was back at his desk before he remembered. She’d have around half an hour.

Not enough time to do well but she could probably get away with it because she was still a relatively new hire...

She managed to hit send the second the commissioner turned away from his daughter and slumped in her chair. It wasn’t on time but at least she’d done it.

She looked at her empty coffee cup and clicked her tongue. She glanced at Dick. “I’ll be right back, I’m getting some of the free coffee before I go.”

“Didn’t you say it was awful?”

“Yeah but it’s free.”

“... we’re rich.”

“And?”

Dick grinned. “Whatever. Go ahead. I’ve waited this long.”

She sent him a wave and then disappeared to the break room, clocking out on the way.

When she came back out she found Dick flirting with the commissioner's daughter. She would have been proud if that wasn’t, y’know, her boss’s daughter oh my god she was screwed she was going to lose her job and then the mission would be compromised and --.

She practically ran over to sling her arm around her kid.

(She didn’t actually run, she had a mug of coffee in her hand and she thought that was much more important than any mission, but she was close to it.)

“Sweetie! Hi! We should be getting home, it’s your celebration-dinner-thingy-can’t-remember-the-English-word -- PARTY tonight! I can’t keep you any longer or there won’t be time to bake the cake.”

Dick gave her a bit of side-eye and she gave him a smile in return.

“But…”

Barbara laughed a little. “Go ahead. It’s cake, you can’t just pass up on cake.” She smiled. “Congrats on whatever it is, Dick.”

He looked to the side, smiling. “Thanks. I’d invite you because my mom’s a great baker… but it’s kind of a family thing.”

Barbara shrugged. “It’s fine. I doubt that my dad would be too thrilled about me getting lured into a house with cake, anyways. It’s not that far off from getting lured into the car with candy.” She broke into a grin. “Promise to bring some of her cake by sometime?”

“Sure. I’ll be by tomorrow with as much as I can save.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Dick finally allowed Marinette to pull him out of the police station, sending Barbara a wave over his shoulder long after she was out of view.

She clicked her tongue as they climbed into the car. “If I lose my job it’s on you.”

“Who knows, the commissioner might be mad at you because you got between us. Depends on what kind of dad he is.” His face split into a fox-like grin. “Besides, you should be thanking me. I just got us a backup plan. If you get fired, knowing the commissioner’s daughter would be useful.”

Marinette hummed thoughtfully. “Smart.”

“Thanks, I have my moments.”

“Yeah, ‘moments’ is definitely the word for it.”

He gasped and took a hand off the wheel to give her shoulder a tiny shove. “Rude!”

She just laughed.

It was inevitable that it would happen at some point, but that doesn’t mean that they were happy about it.

Adrien had made a stupid mistake.

He had been alone on patrol. It had been a standard street fight, after all.

He’d seen the flash of Tim’s camera out of the corner of his eyes and looked up at the wrong time. Now he had a bullet in his shoulder, his staff was rolling across the floor, and he’d had to duck for cover behind a car to ensure that the one bullet didn’t turn to twenty.

So the night was already going great.

But then he realized that some of the people had also noticed the flash going off and were now going to investigate.

His day just kept getting better.

He pulled out his phone.

ChatoNoir: H! E8th, Eads. LW, 1?C-K.

HelmetRights: I’m close I’ll help

He breathed out a sigh of relief. His miraculous was the most useful for situations like this.

He brought a hand to his shoulder and flinched a little bit. He had a few minutes before he bled out.

Adrien slowly poked his head around the car. They were all distracted fighting each other...

Good?

He slowly reached out and pulled a nearby body over to him and peeled their shirt off. He needed it more than them right now, anyways. He bandaged his wound and then looked around again, this time searching the ground for his staff.

Ah. It was pretty much in the exact center of all the fighting. Fun.

How about no?

He looked around wildly for inspiration. What to do, what to do, what to do…

He ran out from behind the car and made his way over to the building where he had last seen Tim’s flash. The gang members would likely be there for a while, probably until Jason could come over, and Tim’s situation would get worse by the second. Hopefully the kid had enough sense to hide…

He stepped inside the old office building. Abandoned, probably, there was a thin coating of dust on everything and the only light in the place was a result of the sunlight streaming in through open windows.

He listened in for anyone and winced when he heard a metallic clang above him. He ran up the stairs and looked around.

A kid… was trying to fight… five fully grown gang members…

It was going about as well as you’d expect.

Would it kill people to have even a scrap of common sense?

He flinched when he heard a bone crunch.

Adrien grabbed the nearest desk lamp and looked around. He hooked it around a light and tested the strength…

Not great.

Whatever, he was already injured.

He heard a gunshot outside and breathed a sigh of relief. Jason, probably.

Hopefully...

The gang members looked up at the sound and Adrien took his chance, pressing his hand to the floor and mumbling a Cataclysm.

Black webbed along the floor and it crumbled beneath everyone.

He swung over and grabbed Tim from thin air. Much like he’d expected, the cord snapped under their combined weight and they were in free fall. Adrien pulled the kid to his stomach and flipped them around in the air to make sure he was the only one to actually hit the ground.

Adrien hit the floor and tried not to think about the piece of rubble now lodged in his back and the way the bullet in his shoulder was definitely displaced now and he was bleeding faster and OW.

He released his grip on Tim so his claws wouldn’t dig into him and rested his head back on the cold floor.

“You alright, Tim?”

“Not really.”

He wheezed out a laugh. “Same here.”

He felt Tim shift his weight on top of him and winced mentally at the rubble digging into him, and looked over. It was dark, the sunlight had been clouded by the dust drawn up by the collapse of the second floor. He didn’t know if Tim could see but that was fine. Adrien could.

He slowly pushed himself up and looked for any sign of movement.

He could see a couple of the gang members stirring. He shook his head a little bit and rested a hand on top of Tim’s head. “Stay. I’ll be back.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“Don’t care. Stay. Here.”

Tim looked annoyed but he sat himself down and rested his head on his hand. Adrien glanced him over. One of his legs was definitely broken and he was littered with thin cuts and bruises but he seemed otherwise fine.

Maybe his definition of ‘fine’ needed some work…

He pulled his attention back to the people that were getting up and he grabbed a nearby blunt object: a rock!

Well, a piece of the floor, but it was pretty much a rock.

Adrien made his way around with his rock and made sure that everyone would stay down. He didn’t exactly aim to kill but he wasn’t exactly concerned if he ended up doing so.

After a few minutes he walked back over to Tim and he slowly helped him to his feet, letting him sling an arm over him for support as he helped him walk out.

Jason was outside, checking bodies for extra bullets.

He looked up and frowned. “You look awful.”

“Thanks. I have a photoshoot tomorrow and I was really hoping that I would like ‘awful’ for it.”

“No problem.” His eyes found their way to Tim and he rolled his eyes. “So, what, are you adopting him, now?”

Tim frowned. “I… have parents.”

“Barely,” muttered Adrien.

“Mom will kill you if you adopt another kid.”

“I’m not scared of Mari.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Yes, I am.”

He sighed and closed his eyes.

He didn’t just want to leave a kid in a bad situation, but Marinette had been annoyed by him adopting Jason…

He peeked an eye open and looked at the kid next to him.

“I have a plan.”

“Oh no,” mumbled Jason.

Adrien looked at Tim. “Would you like to live with us?”

Tim thought for a minute, then shrugged. “It would be cool to actually have someone in the house with me.”

“Oh no,” Jason mumbled again, starting to mess with his rings.

Adrien broke into a grin.

“Awesome. Let’s get you home.”

Marinette noticed Tim the moment she walked into the kitchen.

She gave her husband a tired look. “Please tell me you didn’t adopt another one.”

“I didn’t. He has parents, I can’t adopt him.”

Her eyes found Dick’s for confirmation. He gave a small shrug.

She relaxed a little bit. “Good. Why’s he here?”

“He got hurt stalking me, his leg’s all busted up.”

Tim showed her his leg and she winced. They’d set it back into place but all the bandages said that it couldn’t have been a nice experience.

“Sorry about that, sweetie, do you want a cake or something? I can make one.”

Tim smiled. “No, thank you.”

Marinette, who had already been pulling out pans, gave him a confused look. She slowly put the pans back. “Oh… okay.”

“I have a dietician. She’d kill me if I went too far off,” he explained. “But I’ve heard good things about your baking.”

She nodded slowly. “Right.”

Adrien met her eyes hesitantly and she knew that whatever he was going to say she wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m going to train him in self-defense.”

She clicked her tongue. She knew what that meant by now. “You are not making this random child a vigilante. It’s bad enough when we let our own kids do it, he isn’t ours.”

Adrien held up his hands. “He got hurt stalking us. I just don’t want a repeat. I won’t give him a miraculous, okay?”

She frowned suspiciously but nodded that he could do that.

Adrien visibly relaxed.

Marinette took in the bandaging on her husband and she frowned. “How bad is it?”

“Uh… one bullet to the shoulder and some shrapnel got me in the back. Not that bad.”

She nodded and leaned over, pressing a kiss to his lips. “No patrol for a month.”

“But --.”

“No.”

He pouted a little bit but nodded. “Fine. I can still help this kid learn self-defense, though, right?”

She considered this for a minute and then nodded. “Since you’re teaching basics you’re not going to be doing much physically… so, yes. But get help from someone if you want to do anything strenuous.”

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah.”

Marinette hummed lightly. She glanced at the time. She had a few hours to patrol before Dick confirmed she hadn’t slept in a few days and came to physically knock her out…

She started up the coffee machine.

(Dick narrowed his eyes in the background and started trying to remember when the last time she’d gone to sleep was.)

“Ew, you drink coffee?” Said Tim.

Marinette slowly turned on him, her eyes narrowing. “It keeps you awake.”

Adrien and Dick looked hopeful, probably thinking that Tim would make her realize her caffeine addiction and tendency not to sleep was unhealthy.

And then he spoke: “Sure, but have you tried energy drinks? They taste better and have sugar.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Not enough caffeine.”

“You haven’t found Bam, then. Once you get past their political donations they’re GREAT. A 16 ounce can has almost three times as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.”

The other guys went pale.

She broke into a wide grin. “I like you.”

“This was a mistake,” mumbled Adrien.

“Yep! C’mon, Tim, we’re going to the store. I'll help you walk.”

Listen, opening a portal to a pocket dimension wasn’t easy… but he was perfectly willing to do it for his kid.

No. His soon-to-be kid. His wife still hadn’t said yes.

No. His soon-to-be younger housemate. Tim still had legal parents.

Whatever.

It was good, too, the portal was hidden to the naked eye for everyone but him, so there was no worries of Marinette finding out too early.

(Unless she just decided to randomly lean against the wall in the hallway.)

And, as far as pocket dimensions go, it was decent. Empty outside of a few things that Tim had brought over from his house and a lot smaller than any other room in the house... but decent. It didn’t have a single monster living in it, that’s pretty good by pocket dimension standards.

Jason and Dick had both complained when they realized that Tim got a room of his own, even though they knew the circumstances. Adrien was forced to make another.

Was Adrien a little worried that the dimension that they were currently in would become unstable if he opened two portals in close proximity to each other? Yes. But it didn’t collapse on them when he did it, so it’s all good.

There had been a monster in that one.

Adrien was going to be feeling that bite on his arm for the next few years, he thought.

But, hey, at least now everyone had their own rooms. And all the boys seemed happier for it.

Well, Jason still seemed a little annoyed that there was now another kid in the house and Dick was clearly anxious that Marinette would find out and get mad at them and Tim was clearly struggling to understand the whole ‘no longer an only child that lives mostly alone and therefore needs to at least wear pants around the house’ thing, but shhhhhhh avoiding problems is the Agreste forte.

Yes, even Tim Drake was in the practice of avoiding problems.

Adrien figured that if he adopted enough kids eventually one of them would have a good coping mechanism and they could steal that.

But, until then, avoiding problems would have to work.

A routine was forming, and she hated it.

She’d go to work for a large part of the day, and then get picked up by Dick. She’d spend about two hours in the break room drinking the free coffee and scrolling through her phone so her son could chat up the commissioner’s daughter. She’d grab him by the arm with some vague excuse about how they needed to get home. She’d get dropped off at random places in Gotham and start on patrols. She’d get home early in the morning and chug another few cans of Bam with Tim.

Then she’d start it all over again.

But she’d hated it more when the routine was suddenly broken.

She felt a hand rest on her shoulder and nearly tore the file she was looking through in half in her surprise. It surely couldn’t be time for Dick to pick her up yet…

She looked over at her computer for the time and her eyes caught the reflection of Barbara on the black screen.

Marinette slowly turned around. “Hey.”

“Can I talk with you in private?”

She tried not to tense up. Most of the time when people say that you’re in trouble. She didn’t want to get in trouble with the boss’s daughter.

“Mhmm!” She handed the file over to Ross to hold onto and then followed Barbara down a few halls and up to the roof. She sent Tikki out to check for people and relaxed a little bit when the kwami shook their head no. Maybe this could just be about Dick --.

“Do you not like me?”

She blanked. “Huh? I… what? No. Do you think I’d stay after to let my son flirt with you every day if I didn’t?”

“No, but then I have to question why you always cut us short.”

“We have stuff to do at home.”

She shrugged. “But you hardly ever go home.”

Marinette took a cautious step back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you and Dick never seem to go the same way twice when you leave.”

“You watch that?”

She shrugged again. “Of course. At first I thought it had something to do with traffic or errands, but then why would you always list a home activity?”

“Because what we do at our house is none of your concern,” said Marinette.

Barbara smiled. “You know, I work at the library.”

She tried not to frown at the change of subject. It was weird, but at least it had moved away from where she went at night.

“Alright.”

“I know your other son, Jason. He comes by pretty frequently with his dad.”

“Alright.”

“Want to tell me why he and I have had long conversations about how we hate cops?”

Marinette wanted to punch something. Still, she forced a smile. “It’s perfectly normal for kids to take opposite stances about things than their parents. Just like you and your dad.”

“Sure, but then why do you act like you hate cops?”

Wow. Even the commissioner's daughter knew she hated being a cop. She really needed to brush up on her acting skills… or get new ones. She didn’t know if she’d ever been good at acting.

“Listen, I know you’re planning to take this place down, I’m not stupid. I won’t rat you out, I want in.”

Well, that was a development.

Marinette narrowed her eyes slightly. “Really? Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m dating your son, maybe?”

“YOU’RE DATING?!”

“YOU DIDN’T KNOW?!”

Both women immediately pulled out their phones and started texting Dick. Nothing bonds people better than anger and they were both ready to kill.

MA: come to the precinct please

#1Sweetie: kjsklfjdskfjdks does this have anything to do with barbara texting me at the same time

MA: yes

#1Sweetie: i’ll be right there

MA: were on the roof

Dick deleted and then retyped his message four times before sending:

#1Sweetie: fun can’t wait

For someone who ‘can’t wait’ he sure took his sweet time, though.

Now, if it was only Marinette that was mad, it probably would have just blown over. However, Barbara wasn’t an Agreste. She actually knew how to deal with problems.

When Dick finally managed to get up to the roof, he found the two women glaring at him.

“So, care to explain why you didn’t tell me you were dating Barbara?” Marinette said with a bright smile.

Dick looked to the side and then brought a smile to his face. “I was just waiting for the right time to announce it.”

They both shared skeptical looks and then looked back at him.

“Okay, fine. It’s because I didn’t want to be the one to bring another person into the house, Mari would’ve killed me.”

Marinette accepted that answer. Fair enough. She would have. If Marinette and Adrien not had jobs they might have been able to keep up with three (and a half including Tim, who was around enough because of his stalking and self-defense lessons for her to somewhat count him) other people in their house, but she doubted that they could fully parent three kids with both their civilian and vigilante jobs.

Dick relaxed a little and walked over to the women, taking a seat in front of them. “Are we alright?”

They both gave him nods, then gave each other wary looks.

Marinette glanced at the time. “I’ll be back to talk more about this after work. Meet us at the car?”

A few hours later, they all filed into the car. Dick and Barbara took the back seat and Marinette angled her mirror to watch them just in case.

“Right, where are you on your investigation?” Asked Barbara.

“She knows --?”

“Yep, you’re behind, sweetie.” Marinette glanced at the mirror and found Dick messing with a rubix cube and Barbara listening intently. “Right now we’re searching for proof of corruption in the police force. The higher up I can get the easier it will be to actually have people prosecuted.”

“... are you having any trouble with getting proof?”

She shrugged. “Unfortunately. It’s not like they document when they let someone go and it’s way too easy to claim that people were all bloody before they got there.”

Barbara frowned. “Take pictures.”

“Cops are stupid, but they’re not that stupid. If I take out a camera they’re going to notice.”

“Write it down yourself, then.”

“It’s my word against theirs.”

Barbara groaned. Marinette could relate. She’d been struggling to find any kind of proof that wouldn’t immediately be traced back to her for over a month now.

And all she needed was proof, really. She knew that Barbara’s dad, at least, wasn’t a bad cop. He was just, somehow, painfully unaware of the corruption in his precinct. If given proof of a person’s corruption he would, at the very least, fire them.

“Doesn’t help that the kind of people that the police let go are usually killed by one of the vigilantes before they get to the police,” added Dick.

“And, even if we were the kind of people that vigilantes talked to, it’s not like they could stop killing those people without everyone getting suspicious.”

“... I’m beginning to think this might be impossible.”

She gave a quiet laugh. “Yeah. Probably.” She pulled up in her driveway and blinked a few times. “Um… sorry for kidnapping you.”

“It’s cool, I wanted to ask Jason about some of his books.”

“Are they overdue?”

Barbara smiled. “Yep. I need to know if he lost it or if I should just recheck it out for him.”

Marinette nodded absently. “Cool. Dick, drive her home when she’s done? I need to go grocery shopping.”

She waved at them and then got out of the car, tossing the keys to Dick without either of them glancing over. With that, she head off for patrols.

Adrien blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing this.

Dick had a girlfriend. Who was the commissioner's daughter. Who was also a librarian at the library that he and Jason frequented.

And she knew about the whole ‘trying to take down random people in the police force so Marinette can advance and prosecute people properly’ thing.

But not the vigilante thing. The vigilante thing was too far, apparently.

He needed to sit down for a minute.

Adrien pulled a knee to his chest from his spot on the counter.

Jason had been the most blunt: “Did dad adopt you, too?”

“I have parents.”

“That didn’t stop him from adopting Tim.”

“I’m also dating your brother, that would mess things up.”

Jason relaxed a little bit when he realized that Adrien wouldn’t adopt her… and then he laughed. “Wait, you’re dating Dickwad?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you had taste.”

Barbara and Jason grinned at each other, much to Dick’s annoyance.

“Adrien! They’re being rude!” He complained.

He shrugged absently. “I don’t control them.”

“You can control Jason! He’s your kid! Take away his trust fund or something!”

“WAIT WHAT NO --.”

Adrien cut him off by laughing. “That would be funny but I doubt Mari would be alright with that.”

Tim walked in with a can of Bam and some instant coffee mix. Everyone watched in horror as he started pouring the Bam into the water part of the coffee maker.

“Hey, Timmy, whatcha doing?” Asked Adrien, despite being very sure he did not want to hear the answer.

Tim looked up. “Experiment.”

“I thought you didn’t like the taste of coffee, though…”

“It’ll be worth it for the extra caffeine.”

Jason laughed a little bit. “You’re going to die. Go ahead, though, I want to see it happen.”

Dick and Adrien met eyes. They needed to destroy that thing and also maybe find a way to block Marinette and Tim from getting to the store.

They nodded at each other before getting to work pulling Tim away from his creation.

Marinette hummed as she finished off the fourth cake she’d baked and decorated with a flourish.

She started washing the dishes she’d just used because she had run out of free pans to bake with and she couldn’t restart until they were washed.

Dick groaned from the doorway, holding his head as he slowly made his way inside.

“Good morning, sweetie.”

He groaned again and then apparently caught sight of the cakes on the table. He frowned a little bit. “Um…”

“I made a vanilla cake for you. It’s the one with the buttercream flowers.”

Dick hesitated for a minute before shrugging and sitting down with the cake. “Thanks, mom, but are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“... mom… as much as I love your cakes, you only bake this much when you’re stressed.”

She clicked her tongue. “Sweetie… I doubt you’ll be able to think of a solution if Adrien, Barbara, and I couldn’t think of something.”

“You went to Barbara and not me? Come on! At least let me try.”

She doubted that he could be of any help but whatever. If she told him and he couldn’t come up with something then he’d leave the subject alone, and if he came up with something then they’d have a solution. Win-win. Kinda.

“I have no clue how we’re going to get proof that people are corrupt.”

Dick thought for a minute, then shrugged. “Have someone join the mob. Any mob. There has to be at least a few moles. Take a few pictures or collect names and then take them to the commissioner.”

Marinette shook her head slowly. “Can’t, no one has enough time.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but you’re a kid and we’re not letting a kid join the mob.”

Dick huffed. “I’m twenty-three.”

“You don’t have any skills that the mob is looking for.”

“I’m a lawyer, they’d love to have me.”

“No.”

“But --!”

“NO, RICHARD!”

Dick flinched a little bit and looked down. He gave a quiet groan of irritation and pushed himself out of his chair. He took his cake to his room.

She closed her eyes. The problem would be gone by morning, but that didn’t mean that she liked that they’d fought.

She opened her eyes again and started pulling down ingredients.

Adrien knew that Marinette would catch on soon. It had been months since the incident, Tim was more than capable of taking care of himself. He was pretty sure the only reason that she hadn’t noticed anything was because her schedule was so messed up that she wasn’t registering time right.

He knew he should tell her but he couldn’t bring himself to. What if she kicked Tim out? What if she made him stop seeing the kid entirely? He couldn’t let that happen, the kid had gone through enough. No, he would have to wait for the perfect moment.

If she didn’t find out first.

Marinette walked into the kitchen in the morning and everyone tensed and glanced at Tim, who was casually playing a video game and definitely not learning self-defense.

Adrien sighed. Could he say he was just making sure Tim ate so he wouldn’t pass out? Would she believe that?

She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a can of Bam and then glanced back at the boys, her eyes glazed with exhaustion.

Then she gave every boy in the room a kiss on the cheek.

Yes, even Tim.

“I’ll be back after work. Are you picking me up like usual, sweetie?”

Dick blinked a few times and then stifled laughter with his hand. Once he’d managed to get his voice under control, he spoke: “Yep! I can’t wait to see Babs.”

“Gross. Right, I’m heading out.”

Everyone watched in stunned silence as she walked out.

Jason’s face soured.

And then he snapped his fingers. “I got it… HEY, MOM! YOU FORGOT THAT ROSS BROKE THE COFFEE MACHINE AT WORK!”

There was a beat.

“Jay, what the heck?” Hissed Adrien.

Marinette walked back in. “Guess who has been promoted to favorite.”

Dick gasped. “Wait, I was favorite beforehand?”

“No, Adrien was. I’m not telling you which kid was winning.”

“Hold up, I’ve been replaced as favorite over caffeine?”

Marinette nodded. She stole Tim’s laptop bag from him and then set three cans of the energy drink inside.

“Great, I’m off for real now.”

Jason slammed his head on the table, partially pulling his mother out of her stupor. “OH MY KWAMI. Mom. Tim has been living with us --.”

Adrien had clamped his hand over the kid’s mouth, but it was too late.

Marinette’s eyes slowly found their way to Tim and her face shifted from bored to angry in half a second.

He swallowed thickly. “M’lady, I can explain.”

“Please do.”

He hesitated. He hadn’t thought he’d get this far.

Her grip tightened on the strap of her bag when her phone went off in her pocket. She bit her lip and shook her head. She told her boss that she would be late because of a family matter, her eyes never leaving his.

He gave his most award-winning smile.

The kids filed out, though they both knew that they were going to just stand outside the door to listen in.

“Adrien, Tim has parents. You realize you essentially kidnapped that kid.”

“He went willingly!”

“Tell that to the cops!” She gave a bitter laugh. “Wait, you already are!”

He winced. “I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t just leave him with his parents, though, they suck.”

Marinette clicked her tongue. “We can’t keep him. He isn’t ours and, even if he was, we hardly have the time to take care of three kids!”

“Dick can take care of himself, he’s an adult. So we’re back down to two! Actually, he can help take care of Tim, too, so less than two!”

“Remember when we said we wouldn’t have any?!”

“But we did fine!”

She groaned. “You’re not getting my point!”

“And you’re not getting mine! We can’t just leave that kid to suffer!”

“He’d suffer if he was with us, too!”

“He deserves people that love him to take care of him!”

“So does every kid on Earth! Are you going to adopt them all?!”

He rolled his eyes. “I want to but we have a limit... but this isn’t it! We’ve been doing just fine so far! He’s attached to us, we can’t just throw him out now!”

“I can’t let this one slide because I keep letting kids come in. It has to stop.”

“This is the last one,” he promised.

“I’ve heard that one before.”

“But I mean it this time.”

She scrutinized him for a long time, her lips pressed tightly together.

And then she clicked her tongue.

“Last one,” she muttered, pulling a new can from her bag and then turning. “I’ll see you after work.”

He watched her leave. He should say something, he should call her back and apologize, he should at least admit that what he was doing was wrong…

The front door slammed.

He slowly fell back into a chair and rested his face in his hands… only to realize it was wet. How long had he been crying? He breathed out a sigh.

He could feel eyes on him. He peeked between his fingers and saw the kids standing in the doorway, mouths slightly agape. He wiped his face on his sleeve and brought a smile back to his face.

Jason messed with his rings as he turned around and walked to his room.

“You didn’t want kids?” Asked Dick quietly.

His smile slid from his face.

“Not exactly. We wanted kids, but we figured we’d never be able to have them. I’m sorry it came out that way.”

Dick relaxed a little bit.

Adrien pushed himself up and walked over to Tim, resting a hand on top of his head.

“Right, welcome to the family, officially.”

Marinette rested her head on her desk.

“Um…?” Began Ross.

“Don’t. I’m not in the mood.”

“Okay.”

She heard his fingers get back to work on his keyboard and closed her eyes.

She’d officially hit a wall. What she needed was to get her hands on the security camera’s footage but she knew that they simply turned off the cameras when they let someone go.

Her mind wandered to Tim.

She bit her lip and sat up, pulling up a new tab and searching up “Haly’s Circus Dick Grayson” but, to her surprise, she found that any footage of her son during his time there had been scrubbed clean.

So, the kid had been telling the truth?

Well, he might be able to fix her current problem…

And, honestly, she was pretty much desensitized to the idea of a kid vigilante at this point. Partially because their family was up to four people who started being vigilantes as kids and partially because Dick and Jason had saved Marinette and Adrien quite a few times.

Besides, like it or not Tim was in the family now. That’s pretty much the main requirement, it seems.

That night she approached Tim about hacking.

“Right, what exactly would you need to hack into the police station security cameras?”

He frowned. “Probably a new computer that isn’t linked to me as a person. And I’d probably need to be inside the security room for a while, or at least the building.”

She thought about this for a minute and nodded. “Okay. I can get you that. Anything else?”

“Can I have a miraculous?”

She waved her hand vaguely. “Yeah, I was going to give you one anyways so we don’t have to do as much to delete footage… I was thinking the horse miraculous. Then you could get in and out of rooms pretty easily.”

“Cool. What are we trying to do, anyways?”

“Keep them from turning off the cameras when they need to do…” She trailed off, pursing her lips tightly. She knew this kid was around thirteen or fourteen, surely he knew all the kinds of things that went down at the GCPD, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. “... stuff.”

Tim nodded slightly. “I can do that, but I’d need to hide some kind of generator in the room. They might be unplugging the cameras to turn them off, I’d need to change some plugs around.”

“Great.”

They clinked their cans of energy drink together in a sort of toast.

Adrien should have expected something to go wrong.

Barbara and Dick had convinced the commissioner to go out to eat with them. Dick was now stressed for two reasons: the mission and the fact that he was officially meeting the parents.

Marinette had cleared a good amount of the precinct by offering to buy drinks. Even if her relationship with the precinct was… less than friendly, few people said no to free drinks paid for by the richest person there. This was mostly just to make sure people weren’t going to do overtime.

And Jason had drawn away the people currently on shift by ‘accidentally’ bowling over an abandoned building while on patrols.

Now it was just up to Adrien and Tim.

There was obviously a few people still there, it would have been too much to hope that the entire place would be empty. It didn’t matter, though, no one was suspicious of them. After all, Marinette would need a ride home and it wasn’t as if he could take Tim to a bar to wait.

And no one was suspicious of the fact that Tim had quickly pulled out his computer to ‘play some games’. Adrien had pulled out his phone as well, mostly to monitor the chats and make sure everyone was doing alright but also because he was bored.

A half hour later he got a tiny tug on his sleeve and looked down to see Tim shaking his head.

Great. On to plan B.

“Does anyone know where the bathroom is?”

They transformed in the bathroom and looked at each other nervously. They’d wanted plan A to work because it wouldn’t draw any attention to the security room…

Tim opened a portal inside and they stepped through. It was only two guys, and Adrien made quick work of them. He tied them up in some spare cables he found and pushed himself back to his feet.

Tim just waved him off and opened a portal for him.

He grinned as he dropped onto the floor of the main room. He looked around casually at the ten people that were still there. One of them was in just charge of guarding the prison, but the other nine were cops.

He tipped his head from side to side, weighing his chances as the cops began pulling out their guns.

Hm. This was much scarier when they could actually see him.

“Don’t move from that spot!”

Adrien raised his eyebrows, glancing at the officer who’d said it. Officer Ross. Of course.

He gave a tiny shrug. “If you say so.”

He extended his staff and smiled when it hit the cop nearest him in the face.

Then Adrien hooked it under a desk and tossed it at Ross.

Great. Now that he had spited that guy, he swung his weapon in a wide arc and took out the lights.

He smiled brightly at the now dark room and looked around as the cops scrambled. Some had already done this before and others had heard the story, but no one was looking for a repeat except for Adrien. He extended his staff to get to the ceiling and considered the people below...

A few of them shot blindly at where he had just been, which was a terrible idea but whatever.

He made his way through the room. He wasn’t killing anyone, though it was tempting after hearing some of Marinette’s stories, just opting to their weapons and moving onto the next person.

He also maybe broke some bones in the process. It happens.

A few minutes later he started making his way back to the security room and he grinned when he saw Tim coming out. He had his laptop under his arm. They’d succeeded.

Adrien took a quick look around and spotted a security camera. “Got it?”

“No, they deleted everything,” he lied.

He forced himself to frown (it was surprisingly hard to do after years of smiling for every camera he saw). “Dang. Guess we’ll need a new plan then. Let’s get home.”

Tim opened a portal back to the bathroom and they detransformed. They waited a few minutes before Adrien slowly peeked his head out the door. He held Tim behind him protectively as they walked through the precinct.

They got to the main room and found everyone groaning. A few of them had found flashlights or had turned on computers for lights.

“Is everyone okay? I heard gunshots!” Said Adrien, frowning.

Officer Ross, whose arm was bent at an odd angle, gave the kindest smile he could. “It’s fine, we just had a vigilante come by. It seems like everything is done, now, though.”

Adrien nodded a little bit.

“Good. Everything’s done.”

Marinette was one of ten people who didn’t get a jail sentence.

Now, she eyed the two-weeks notice on her desk. No one would be suspicious if she decided to leave. Fifty people had gone to jail, no one wants to stick around to see if they’re next.

Commissioner Gordon had resigned, too. Something about how he was disgusted about being so blind.

She bit her lip as she sat there at her desk, her computer on a How To video on quitting if you technically had no boss. Unfortunately, it seemed that she had phrased the question wrong because now it was telling her how to shut down a sole proprietorship.

“Agreste?”

She paused the video and looked up, her head tipping to the side as she took the man in. She knew that she knew him from somewhere, but her brain couldn’t seem to place a name to the face. “That’s me.”

“Could I speak to you alone for a minute?”

“Uh… sure. I’d love to.”

“I was thinking the roof? That’s a pretty private place, don’t you think?”

She pursed her lips tightly. She did not like where this was going in the slightest. “Well, sometimes people take their smoke break up there --.”

“Don’t worry, I know there’s no one up there.”

“Oh. Great.”

“Isn’t it?”

She nodded, letting him lead the way to the roof.

Her hand dipped into her back pocket and she cursed herself out mentally when she realized it was still on her desk. She wondered if she could get away with asking to go back for it. Somehow, she doubted it.

Marinette closed the door behind them.

She smiled at the man. “You wanted to talk?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Agreste.” He turned and flashed her a blinding smile. “Why don’t you guess what’s going on?”

“Well… I assume I’m in trouble,” she said carefully. Her eyes searched nearby rooftops and windows. “And that you have at least one person around that could kill me, probably a sniper since you chose a rooftop and not an alley.”

“Correct!” He said. He turned away from her and started pacing around. “What do you think you’re in trouble for?”

She hummed as if in thought. “You seem to be the one asking all the questions. Mind if I at least know who you are?”

“I asked you a question first.”

She forced a tiny laugh. “Sure, but no one likes admitting when they do things wrong. Besides, what if I fess up to the wrong thing? Then I have two reasons for you to want to kill me.”

“Just. Guess.”

Hm…

He couldn’t know about her being Ladybug, they’d done too much to make sure no one knew her identity. No one outside of Dick had ever done anything that could be traced back to them, and all that footage was gone from the internet forever.

Then what could he have found out about?

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

He scrutinized her face for a minute before frowning and shaking his head. “Agoura.”

“Huh?”

“My name. It’s Antony Agoura.”

Oh. Oh fuck.

Well, at least now she knew where she’d seen him before?

He folded his hands in front of him, smiling at her. “I see you know me.”

“Of course I do.”

He nodded. “Good. Now, I want to ask you a question.”

“Another one?” She said quietly.

“Mhmm. I’d like to know if you think I’m stupid.”

“Of course not.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “You know, the day that Chat Noir bust into the police station was odd.”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“Yep! Odd, don’t you think? Someone who previously didn’t get along with her coworkers suddenly decides to take them all out for free drinks. That same night, her son takes the commissioner out to dinner. The precinct was almost completely empty thanks to your family.”

Great. That was why that was plan B. She was screwed.

She nodded slightly, her throat tightening. “You don’t say…”

“And, on top of that, the vigilantes were acting weird! I mean, they were all set on distracting people and keeping them as far away as possible!”

“That’s… odd.”

“Mhmm!” He smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder. “An interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”

She nodded again, fighting the urge to shrug him off. “Yeah.”

He steered her to the door. “I’d like to congratulate you on your promotion, by the way.”

“The…?”

“Being commissioner is such an honor!”

She scoffed. “You couldn’t get away with that. I’m the newest person here, it’s too suspicious.”

“You think?”

“Yeah --.”

He opened the door and she fought the urge to flinch at all the cameras suddenly flashing in her face.

“Congratulations!”

“How do you feel about being the first commissioner of asian descent?”

Her eyes widened. Oh. So, it turns out Agoura definitely could get away with that.

She glanced to the side to see the cops who had been there longer clapping with sarcastic smiles on their faces. “Congrats!” Said one in a tone that definitely said that she was dead.

The mob boss moved his grip to hug her to his side, smiling brightly and waving at the press.

“Smile for the cameras, Agreste.”

~~~

Taglist

@i-am-ironic @nathleigh @mialuvscats @golden-promises @sassakitty @deathwishy @toodaloo-kangaroo @ladythugs @moonlightstar64 @dahjokester @jjmjjktth

#adrienette #adrien agreste #chat noir #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #maribat #dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #cassandra cain #orphan #damian wayne #robin

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kyndaris · 3 years ago

Text

Pray Forgive this Discourtesy of an Impression

Many of my friends - and by extension, I also include you dear readers of this blog - know, I have been a fan of the Ace Attorney series for a very long time. It began in the days of my youth, when I discovered Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney for the Nintendo DS. As someone that was interested in legal proceedings but was unsure of actually taking the step of becoming an actual barrister in court, it helped feed my very unique itch of shouting OBJECTION! and pointing at the counsel opposite me.

That and the fact that the lawyers of the franchise were also amateur sleuths, piecing together the truth of whatever crime had actually been perpetrated and denouncing the witnesses brought in to testify as the actual masterminds.

Honestly, I wish court cases in real life were this exciting.

Even back then, the idea of acting the sleuth and figuring out the intricacies behind a complex plot of murder had me salivating. It did not help that I had read Arthur Conan Doyle’s collection of stories about a world-renowned detective and hoped to emulate his ability to make rapid deductions based on simple observation.

So, when The Great Ace Attorney was first announced, I was justifiable excited. To play as the ancestor of the great Phoenx Wright? Interact with Sherlock Holmes in 19th century London? WHERE DO I SELL MY SOUL TO?

To my great dismay, however, there were no immediate plans to release the games in the West. In fact, I even pondered on whether or not I should indulge in obtaining a fan translated copy (or watch a playthrough).

As the years passed, I lost hope that there would ever be a release of The Great Ace Attorney games in the West. And so, life went on.

UNTIL OF COURSE, THEY ANNOUNCED THAT IT WOULD BE RELEASED! IN JULY 2021! AND THOUGH MY SPIRIT WAS A LITTLE CRUSHED TO HEAR THAT THERE WOULD BE NO PHYSICAL RELEASE IN AUSTRALIA, I QUICKLY PUT THE GAME ON MY NINTENDO ESTORE WISHLIST, READY FOR PURCHASE!

When release day came, I was pumped to dive into the world of finger-pointing and strange reversals where the defence attorney had to prove their client innocent beyond all reasonable doubt. The game itself begins with Ryunosuke Naruhodo, a student of Yumei University being accused of murdering a visiting professor: John H. Wilson. At his side is his best friend: Kazuma Asogi, a practicing law student.

Wishing not to dash his friend’s dreams of travelling to Britain (should the trial not be won), Ryunosuke steps up to represent himself. Valiantly, he battles against Prosecutor Auchi. And just like his descendant, fumbles his way through to the inevitable truth. That he was setup and that the actual culprit was a person hidden under plain view: an English gentlewoman by the name of Jezaille Brett. She had murdered the esteemed professor through the use of a special poison that could not be identified by the technology at the time before shooting the victim to pin the blame on our hapless student.

It was a tale as old as time for those that have played the Ace Attorney series. What I liked, however, was the fact that this time round, there were multiple witnesses in the stand and how they would play off each other. Their reactions to what someone else said were great ways to enliven up the gameplay and helped move the story along when I seemed stuck on where to present my piece of crucial evidence to highlight an inconsistency.

By the end of the first trial, however, the game sees our protagonists on the way to the United Kingdom. Having stowed away in his friend’s trunk, Ryunosuke is accused once again of murder. This time, of his friend. And by the great Herlock Sholmes, no less! Unfortunately, due to copyright infringements, the translation team was forced to change the name of the character. Still, this adaption of one of the best literary detectives served to be a breath of fresh air. He was an enjoyable and lively companion.

I also very much liked how they inserted so many references to the actual stories that were penned by Arthur Conan Doyle: the Red-Headed League, Speckled Band, Hound of the Baskervilles, the Man with the Twisted Lip...

The reinterpretations of so many beloved characters also helped to put a spin on what I would have expected. Truth be told, I never thought I would become so protective of diver-turned-inspector-apprentice Gina Lestrade. She is a precious cinnamon roll! How dare anyone think she would actually murder anyone when it’s clear that she’s a misunderstood tsundere with a heart of gold!

After finishing the first game: The Great Ace Attorney Adventures I could not help but feel that the story was incomplete. In many ways, just like with Trails of Sky, it served as a prelude to things that would come. There were plenty of hints of what Ryunosuke, with plenty of dangling and tantalising mysteries. A few characters that were introduced, such as William Shamspeare, never got to see the limelight until the second entry: The Great Ace Attorney Resolve.

Why have such a uniquely dressed character walk by in passing without putting them into a case? It made no sense. It was as if Chekhov’s gun, placed in clear view, remained unused.

As such, when the credits rolled, I immediately dived into the sequel. The cases that I played through in the second entry seemed much more connected and provided a more cohesive overarching plot. In fact, while I thought the first game was a good addition in its own right - what with its stereoscopic images (which was very difficult to try and make 3D on a huge television), I thought Resolve was much better at tying up all the loose ends that players were left with.

That and we also got to enjoy the return of multi-day trials, with a mixture of investigation and court appearance, rather than ones that seemed concentrated on a single day (and were quite tiring to endure). I will say that the final episode being a continuation of the fourth was a little suspect, but didn’t mind it because of how much was revealed and discussed in those last few moments.

In saying that, the games are not without their flaws. As always, sometimes it takes a while to make the connection on what evidence needs to be presented to which statement. There were times in the first case of the second game where the hints provided to the the player once they had gone through the testimony, made me focus on a completely different area than I should have.

I also floundered a little because the clues relied more on memory of what Ryunosuke and Susato had been discussing when they were examining the evidence, but which was not updated in the actual information. As such, it took quite a while to figure out the SS Grouse inconsistency during the fourth case in the second game.

Then, of course, there were the the inconsistencies or unexplained plot points in the games themselves. In the first case of the first game, one of the key evidences that was used to highlight who the real murderer in the John H. Wilson case was blood on a serving of beef steak. The blood was on the left of the platter. The victim however, had a bullet hole on the right hand side of the chest. Given that he had been facing the table at the time he was shot, why would the the blood be on the left side of the serving platter?

Also, how did the reporter Menimemo even get a knife to stab Jezaille Brett in the first case of the second game? Did he already have it on his person? Also, since it had been first established that the victim had been stabbed, why go through all the rigmarole of having to also prove that the reporter had both poisoned and stabbed the victim? Talk about overkill.

And someone please explain how anyone could serve as a prosecutor in a case when they have a CLEAR CONFLICT OF INTEREST! A court of law is not a place where someone can slake their thirst for vengeance. And it was clear from the start that Kazuma Asogi should have been removed because of his misguided vendetta against Barok van Zieks.

The same could also be extended to the jurors. I don’t think anyone who knows the accused or the victim personally is allowed to serve as a jury member because of implicit bias. Then again, this is a game and I should probably just enjoy the game for what it is.

Despite these little quibbles with the narrative and the fact that there seem to be a very limited number of prosecutors and defence attorneys in Britain and Japan (along with jurors), I had a fun time playing through both games. After all, never in my wildest dreams did I think that they would be released out in the West. Even the summation examinations and pitting the jury members against each other was something fresh and different. While the Mood Matrix and Apollo’s ability to perceive have given new ways to solve cases, there’s still little that’s been done to shake up the formula of cross-examining a witness.

The Dance of Deduction between Herlock and Ryunosuke was also a brilliant piece of change that made some of the investigations more fun. While I’ll miss the psyche-locks, perhaps it’s a good thing that The Great Ace Attorney has moved away from mysticism and spirit channelling to focus more on Herlock’s wacky hijinks.

And before I forget, I need to throw out a special mention to Iris Wilson, the ten-year-old child genius that puts us all to shame. Growing up in an Asian household, I’m sure my mother wishes I could have got a doctorate in medicine by that time.

On a side note, it was fun voicing a few of the characters as I played. I’m sure my family were quite confused as to why these terrible accents were petering down to the kitchen.

Do I have any regrets?

Some.

But it’s always fun giving voice to these wacky characters and bringing them all to life with a few flamboyant performances.

#video games #the great ace attorney #ace attorney #gina lestrade is a precious cinnamon roll!

11 notes · View notes

calpops · 4 years ago

Text

falling facade | c.h.

part three: falling fears

part one: falling flowers || part two: falling freedom

5k words

<< >>

“This is why I don’t visit.”

Arden’s voice brought Calum back to the moment. They sat in his car, parked just off from a coffee shop he and Ashton frequented for paparazzi walks. Calum turned to look at her; she kept her eyes straight ahead, staring at the two paparazzi that lingered on the sidewalk, ready and waiting to snap some photos for press. Calum swallowed down a lump in his throat. She’d just given him an answer to a question that drifted through his thoughts from time to time; unprompted and said with annoyance evident in her tone. She was stoic, a facade of calm covering her features as she lapsed into silence, offering no further explanation to her statement.

“You don’t visit Michael because of paparazzi?” Calum asked, trying to make sense of her reasoning.

“Among other reasons,” she said and turned to him. “There’s no privacy out here. It’s like they’re everywhere.”

Calum tapped his fingers on the wheel, still gripping it, even still buckled in although they parked minutes ago. Neither seemed in a rush to live their first contractual agreement. He contemplated her words and thought how best to respond. He understood where she was coming from, especially when cameras were ready to capture their every move lingering just in front of them. But there was more to it than that; a different side she didn’t know and hadn’t seen.

“Can I tell you a secret?” He asked and released his grip on the wheel, hand rubbing at his jaw then settling on his lap as she nodded; eyes interested and waiting. “Paparazzi rarely ever find us. It’s almost always set up. Called in and tipped off. Prearranged, just like this. They don’t get to have all of us. Not all of the time.”

Arden pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side, deep in thought at the shared secret. Calum waited with bated breath to know her thoughts. To see if she understood the implications he was trying to lay before her.

“I guess that’s true,” she said but then shook her head, deciding against it. “Except, if it isn’t paparazzi then its fans and if it isn’t fans then it’s management and social media and interviews and social climbers and everything is so invasive. Even when it’s all constructed and contrived. There’s always someone or something that’s in your face, using your name, controlling your life.”

Calum didn’t have a response for that. He frowned. Her words settled under his skin and spun his thoughts, bringing them to places he hardly ever ventured to. He had always done his best to live authentically past the glistening temptations of fame and the control that management hung over his head and heart. She was right in some aspects. But he didn’t want her to go into this situation feeling like she was already losing herself before even starting the game. He wanted to redefine it all; play by their own rules and stay themselves in the face of something fake. He blew out a breath and unbuckled his seat but Arden made no move to do the same. Her eyes just flitted up and down Calum, still waiting for his response to her truth.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he finally replied, the seatbelt sliding up and away from him, his hand reaching for the door handle.

“I’m pretty sure we just learned the hard way it is exactly that way.”

Calum watched her right hand settle on her left to twist the fake engagement ring around. It was a new nervous habit and a pointed reminder that her words were valid and they were living under a state of control. Her nose twitched and a sigh escaped her lips and for just a second Calum allowed himself to remember the sweetness he knew they tasted of. They hadn’t talked about that yet, or the fact they woke in the same bed with only underclothes on and no memories to speak of how they ended up that way. There was so much to contend with already it didn’t feel right to arouse new troubles and complications. Calum didn’t know how to get her out of the car but he could see the paparazzi were getting bored waiting; they’d stick around for the money shot of the ring, being the first to capture it would be considered an accomplishment in their world. But the longer they waited the worse the shots would be, the more invasive and irritated they’d get.

“Then let’s not let them have all of us,” Calum suggested and slipped her sunglasses down to cover her eyes. “Show the ring, give them that much. Let’s keep whatever’s real for just the two of us.”

That was the closest Calum had come to admitting there might be something more than a fake engagement in his thoughts. That only two nights ago he had felt like he was falling in ways he probably shouldn’t. That one friendly date and a fleeting kiss had worked their ways into his mind in unrelenting ways. He couldn’t tell her that, not when he wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, and not when they were supposed to be pretending. Not when he didn’t know where she was; if she was okay or not as okay. He could ask her but her ability to evade time and questions and circumstances was daunting. He caught the slight smile she gave him and although her eyes were blocked by the dark lenses of the sunglasses he could imagine they were softening. That the inhibitions she had might be calmed by his efforts.

She finally reached for her door handle and Calum took it as a statement of being ready to face it all. They exited the car and Calum didn’t just reach his hand out for hers this time; not like he did at the wedding. He slung an arm over her shoulders, pulled her close and kept her as hidden from the cameras as he could manage. Her hand came up to hold his, showing off the diamond in the afternoon sun. They wanted the ring, and they could have it. But they couldn’t have her.

They heard the snaps of the cameras, the distant calls of the paparazzi making mild remarks about their sudden engagement. They asked a few probing questions they knew they wouldn’t get answers to. Why haven’t we seen you together before? How long has this been going on? What does Michael think of it? Those were questions they would have to answer eventually. But conversing with paparazzi was never a good idea. Management would likely have them answered in a controlled environment and in any case he didn’t have the answers they wanted. Somehow, answering with it was a drunken accident didn’t seem like it would go over well in any sense. Calum could see the two men on the sidewalk, spared them one glance for a good face shot and tried to drown them and any remarks out as they entered the coffee house. Arden stayed tucked into his side and he hoped the cameras hadn’t gotten much of her face and that she was able to let their words fall away from her.

The line to order was long but it gave them a chance to step away from the cameras and find some semblance of privacy. Venetian blinds covered the windows to keep outside eyes from peering into the establishment. Even though they were out of the way of cameras Calum kept his arm around Arden and she kept herself glued to his side. They moved along slowly and Calum looked down at her and maybe she could feel his gaze and that’s why she looked up, or maybe she was looking up to find him just as he had looked down to find her. She was blushing and biting her lip.

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought,” she whispered, going on tiptoes to better whisper in his ear. To a passerby it might have come off as affectionate. To Calum, with the way her lips nearly brushed his cheek again, it felt intimate. “It’s like… a game.”

He smirked but also felt a pull of remorse in his chest. He was glad it wasn’t so bad for her; it possibly even being in the okay category. But how quickly she was suckered into the game and picked up on it was disheartening. He refused to let them be pawns in a wider scheme more than was necessary. He had fleeting thoughts of shaking the groundwork of public relation stunts. He wanted to play exclusively by their rules while staying within the lines of the contract and meeting all the obligations. When listening ears were no longer around he’d mention it; among other things that needed to be brought up.

“We don’t have to play it their way, we can play it our way,” he suggested in an equally as soft whisper, pretending he was just placing a kiss on her temple.

All of these new forms of contact were coming quickly and winding Calum. His arm around her, hands held, lips brushing soft skin leaving him a bit breathless. The juxtaposition between such intimate embraces coming so quickly and two nights ago of such languid movements guiding them through uncertain territories was astounding. Arden nodded and tipped her sunglasses down, questioning him with an inquisitive look in her eyes. Calum didn’t have time to answer as the line moved along and they were suddenly at the front placing their orders.

With drinks in hand and the exit ahead of them Calum slowed his pace and brought Arden back into his side, knowing the paparazzi would be waiting outside for more. He knew damn well what they had given them so far was enough for a headline; something about the ring being in bold. But the photos were less than expected with her hidden face and his general lack of interest and enthusiasm. The pictures would likely zero in on the ring to catch interest and garner clicks. The walk back to the car came with a bit more vigor from the paparazzi as they realized the lackluster photos they got on the way in. They said things to try and rile Calum up, to get reactions and turn faces. But they remained calm and collected, trying not to make the obligatory event a spectacle. Calum was content to keep it that way until a fear struck through him and stopped him dead in his tracks.

“We need to give them something more,” he blurted out in a hushed tone and it was enough to have Arden pulling away from his hold. “They’ll spin this into something bad.” And they’ll make it your fault sat on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t dare say that.

He could already see the photos of his indifference—towards the paparazzi—being pegged as indifference to Arden. And she’d be dubbed as clingy for sticking to his side though that had been of Calum’s doing. They never showed the whole story, they rarely ever knew the whole story, much more content to run wild with wrong perceptions and lies veiled by half truths. Arden seemed to pick up on what he was implying and gave a small nod to show she was okay with whatever needed to be done. Calum didn’t want to give them too much, still wanting the power in their hands, determined to afford Arden at least a small margin of privacy. Her back was to the cameras when Calum gazed down at her, trying to convey love and admiration, and maybe not finding it all that hard to be convincing, as one snapped more photos and the other began filming the exchange. He pushed hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. Fingertips tingled at the contact.

In a quick and bold movement Calum tilted her face up, pressed his lips to her forehead and nearly forgot about the cameras on them. Playing and pretending was much easier than the nerves at the meeting predicted it would be. It almost felt real. If it weren’t for the incessant clicks of the camera and the blinding flashes he was met with when his eyes opened, he may have been able to convince himself it was just for them. That it was another moment where he could feel the wind at his back and know he was falling. He put another kiss to her cheek and was tempted to give her another real kiss, one more brief moment of sugar sweet bliss, but stole himself and backed away from that want.

“That should be enough,” he whispered and wished dark lenses didn’t guard her eyes. He would bet they would be glistening in the sunlight.

He took her back into his side and finished the walk to the car, helped her into the passenger seat and got himself behind the wheel. An eerie trepidation made way through him. He wondered if it would be enough. Surely, they would use the photos and video of the kisses. Rarely did he show affection in public with past girlfriends. The media would eat it up. The fans would react. Management would be satisfied and unable to turn words and views against her; for now. A new thought struck him, one born of the need to have something other than pretending between them. One that might afford them a chance to speak of all those things that felt unmentionable.

“You wanna go somewhere? Do something real?” He asked as he turned the key in the ignition and the paparazzi began to back off, noting it was time to pack up and head home.

“What did you have in mind?” Arden asked as she pulled her sunglasses up to rest on her head and Calum was met with sparkling and curious eyes.

“Can show you where I go when I wanna get away from everything,” he offered, he had never shared this place with anyone. It was a tiny solace and getaway; a secret offering of peace and quiet. He was inclined to share it with her, to show the pieces of himself that no one else was allowed.

“If all of this is going to last a year I think I’ll need a place like that.”

Calum lost his breath for just a moment at that statement. He had grappled with most of the arrangement in the moment and that night as he laid awake in bed. A year of publicity for him seemed minimal. He was used to the ebb and flow of press and stunts. Arden wasn’t. It was a sudden realization that she would have to put the rest of her life on pause for this. She wouldn’t be able to keep chasing her wanderlust and travel, he wasn’t sure where she stood with a job and education. But those would likely take a backseat. He asked her to do this and now he wasn’t sure if he was okay with all of those stipulations. And for a moment he wondered where she would stay, thought that maybe it should be with him to make things easier until he remembered Michael and the fact he would never be okay with it.

“We can share it,” Calum offered and hoped she would be able to find some semblance of peace and solace too.

“I’d hope my fiancé would share with me,” she joked with a touch of a smirk on her lips and a wave of her hand to flash her ring.

Calum laughed, feeling just a bit of the pressure for her life altering changes lifting from his chest. Making light of it felt good. Mocking it made it even faker than it already was. There was truth in jest but the facade of those truths made words easier and realities a bit less to handle. They went back and forth as he peeled out of the parking spot and headed for privacy.

“So you’ll take my last name when we get married, right?” He asked around a grin that hurt his cheeks.

They were pretending and joking and making each other feel better.

“Oh I don’t know, isn’t that a little old fashioned?” Arden said with a tilt of her head. “And it would ruin my perfect initials.”

Arden Brooke Clifford. Miss ABC. Calum shook his head through laughter as memories flooded his mind. He had forgotten of the times he teased her for it, melodies rolling off his tongue to get a rise out of her. He didn’t know how he could forget and he didn’t know why she reminded him; clearly, he was going to use that in the future. For now he just smiled and turned into his piece of heaven on earth. It wasn’t much by any means but he had a feeling Arden might appreciate it anyway. One of few reasons he never shared it was because he didn’t think anyone would make much of it. But with Arden’s outlook on all that LA was and entailed he knew her perspective would be different than people from his past. It wouldn’t be much compared to the places she’d travelled and everything she had experienced in those adventures but he knew it could hold its own—especially when she was seeking something real.

A run down diner with the best food Calum could find sat before them. He found it charming with its slightly crooked windows and doors that said push though they needed to be pulled. He could usually find a seat within the always nearly empty establishment. He typically picked one in the back where windows left the city behind him. He couldn’t hear past brick walls and the din of radio noise with patches of static. It helped drown out everything and bring him back to a time when a place like this was all he could afford; chump change in his pocket and notebooks with dreams written in lyrics in his hands. Arden was smiling fondly in the passenger seat and that told Calum his hunch was right.

This time she didn’t hesitate to get out of the car and Calum had to race to keep up with her. She made her way to the very last booth at the back and slid into the seat that viewed the wall and not the windows on the opposite side. It was exactly where Calum sat his first time stumbling into the diner. He settled for the other side where the window was in his line of sight and found it to not be so bad when Arden was backlit by a starting sunset. Afternoon had come and gone quickly and evening replaced it in soft glows. Their coffee was left behind in the car and menus placated their now realized hunger.

“I like it here,” Arden said after the waiter took their orders. “Reminds me of my first semester in university.”

Calum loved to learn more about her in way of her offhanded comments. He was learning the less he asked the more he could find out. It was as if the pieces of her puzzle fell together on their own. It was more experience and less questions that prompted her to share. He recalled she was dating Brett, the groom from the wedding, during that time. A silent jealousy simmered under the surface.

“You and Brett went to places like this a lot?” He asked and knew it was selfish that his place—now their place—could feel like it might be tainted by the thought of it. But he was such a Brett and it was hard not to hate the guy, especially when finding out he’d dumped Arden. Typical Brett behavior.

Her eyes shot up at the question and she shrank back in her seat as she shook her head in minute bursts. Calum didn’t expect such a visceral reaction to the question; felt a little guilty about causing it but it was swept away in the blink of hazel eyes.

“No. I went to places like this to not be around him, actually. Sometimes I just needed to get away,” she said as she looked up at him from under her lashes with knowing eyes. “I’d just find some hole in the wall away from campus to sit and sketch.”

New waves of memories came back to Calum and he was beginning to realize he did know her from the past better than he thought. He could picture the drawings hanging on the fridge and as time passed and her art grew it moved from magnets to frames in the hallway. He never saw her working on them, they merely appeared from visit to visit, a collection of colors dominating space in the house. The only way he knew they were hers was the tiny signature hidden within the shapes. There was one in particular that jumped to the forefront of his mind. Sunset on the beach; or that was what he took away from it. It was more on the abstract and impressionist side. But the warm colors came back in swirls of memories and made him smile. Her art was a pivotal piece of her and her heart. Rediscovering her made him warm, getting to know her now filled him with something unknown yet somehow familiar.

“When the band was first taking off it was places like this that I’d come to to write,” Calum said, enjoying the fact that even though their pasts were separated and distant they felt connected and intertwined.

“If you hadn’t brought me here, I’d find that hard to believe.”

“How so?”

She shrugged. “I guess it’s just surprising. I thought you would’ve been partying or… something.”

Calum huffed out a breath and shook his head. Those days came later and at times he wished they hadn’t come at all. He licked his lips and let his teeth sink into his lower lip as he tried to figure out what to say. Those days were plastered online and in tabloids, he couldn’t exactly hide from them but he felt so removed from it; as if that person wasn’t him. He didn’t know how to answer.

“I guess I was wrong,” she said and gave him an easy out from where the conversation could head.

Calum appreciated her ability to pick up on when to ease up. There were people that came in and out of his life that didn’t understand that sometimes the past needed to stay in the past. Arden’s peg of social climbers clung to his past. He’d gotten rid of those people, cut back on partying and focused more on himself. It wasn’t a time he loved revisiting. He supposed Arden being so hard of opening up made her understand his outlook on that perspective.

They sat in silence for a few moments, Arden’s gaze never breaking from his. His fingers tapped the table. Paper placemats with advertisements and crossword puzzles sat in front of them, a small pile of multicolored crayons were deserted on the far corner of the table. Arden flipped her placemat to the blank side and reached for a crayon, giving Calum a smile before dipping her head down to concentrate on drawing. Her arm came up to block Calum’s view.

“Keeping secrets?” He asked, thankful for the sudden shift but couldn’t help but feel the double entendre of the simple question directed back to him and the silence they had lapsed into.

She nodded but didn’t look up at him; kept her eyes on her work. Her eyebrows furrowed and nose slightly twitched in her concentration. He asked if she would at least tell him what she was drawing.

“You,” she admitted nonchalantly and left Calum winded and grinning and wanting more than ever to take a sneak peek. “Sit still, no peeking.”

Calum went still as a statue at her command. A relaxed smile formed on his face as he watched her work. He couldn’t see the drawing but the red crayon in her grip was an interesting choice. Though the few different shades of blue and yellow still laying on the table would have been just as bold. It didn’t take her long to finish and look up with bashful eyes and blushing cheeks. He knew she was modest about it but her unrelenting hold of eye contact as she pulled her arm away to reveal the piece mimicked confidence so well he nearly bought it.

With just the couple of minutes she had taken to draw him she managed to make him recognizable and interesting. It was sharp and quick lines, angular connections and somehow soft eyes. Calum’s hand came up and hovered over it, eyes asking if it was okay for him to take. She gave her permission in the form of another nod and pulled the abandoned crayon off the paper. Just as Calum was bringing it to himself their waiter came out with their meals and broke the moment of awe he found himself in. He wordlessly and carefully folded it to fit in his wallet and tucked it away so it’d be safe from the food.

“Have you told your parents yet?” Arden asked as they started to eat. Her expression was guarded and her voice shook through the syllables. “About… us?”

“Not yet,” Calum answered quickly. “I didn’t know what to say when my mum called so I said I’d call her back. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with however we tell them. Maybe we should do it together.”

“Tell them about our drunken escapades together?” She asked with an incredulous arch to her brow as she shook her head. “I don’t want to disappoint my parents anymore than I already have.”

That statement caught Calum’s attention tenfold but much like Arden hadn’t pressed him, he wouldn’t pry; noting the restless fidget of her fingers bouncing her fork up and down. He figured she would tell him when she was ready. Just like at the wedding and in the car and even sat here at the booth. She was no open book but her pages could be read in small bursts of allowance.

“We can tell them whatever you’re okay with,” Calum offered.

“I’m not sure what I’m okay with.”

The contracts they signed included non disclosure agreements; to keep the facade from being known. In most cases Calum disregarded those when it came to family and the band if it ever didn’t concern the rest, knowing they wouldn’t share secrets. But if it was a secret Arden wasn’t comfortable sharing then he needed to consider her reasons. Michael knew but Calum didn’t know the circumstances between Michael and Arden and any discussions that may have taken place with them. Ashton and Luke had questions; enough to flood Calum’s phone with dozens of texts and voice memos. He hadn’t replied yet; once again wanting to be sure Arden was okay with the secrets being shared. He wouldn’t mind family and the band knowing. The contemplative expression on her face told him it wasn’t as cut and dry for her; he wondered why she didn’t want to tell the whole truth but in an effort to preserve the light mood and getaway they had found he changed the subject.

“We can figure it out later,” he suggested and the downtrodden mood suddenly dispersed as she broke from a haze of thoughts he didn’t understand. “Right now let's just enjoy some time away.”

She agreed to that with a timid smile and a whispered thank you. They spent the rest of the meal with idle chit chat and a determination to keep conversation away from the fears and troubles their situation plagued them with. They left when the sun was nearly set and the sky was dark purple, the air crisp and cool. Calum, without thinking, offered his jacket to her—never knowing how she could run around in tank tops and shorts when the temperature made him shiver past leather. With a blush and a shrug she accepted as they made their way back to the car.

“It was nice to do something real with you,” she said as they cruised down the highway, his jacket wrapped around her shoulders.

Calum couldn’t help but think of how real it had been and felt. His arm wrapped around her, lips brushing her face, sharing secrets and a special place, red lines on a placemat and tumbling fears shooting through both of them. It was calm and exhilarating. A perfect balance between the charade they put on for the paparazzi and the authenticity the diner brought them. Calum wanted to do something real in place of anything staged; wanted to find their own path to walk while simultaneously fulfilling written requirements. The next would be a social media post and thoughts of how to keep themselves real in the face of something so tailored and constructed were already surfacing in Calum’s mind.

Michael was outside when they pulled into his driveway and Arden slipped Calum’s jacket off. She gave it back with a bashful smile and leaned over for just a moment, another gratitude brushing across his cheek in a split second. He didn’t know why she was thanking him but he appreciated the feel of her words against his skin and the warm scent of honey and peaches that infiltrated his senses. He watched her leave, saw Michael lead her past the door and waited until it shut before peeling out. The quick drive to his place was silent aside from the hum of the engine. A hundred thoughts consumed him, some confusing and some that felt okay. The chance that something real—something more than a contract could control and define—might be blooming between them left Calum’s falling fears in a warm and airy embrace.

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (155/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Hey, it’s the Hero Lab!

[1 July, Age 726. Planet Plant.]

The latest reports from the frontlines were very encouraging. The Tuffles were a stubborn enemy, but the Saiyans had managed to drive them out of the north quarter of Orange City, while the Truffle pushback in Cidertown had slowed to a virtual standstill. Nappa smiled as he laid the report down and enjoyed the view from his new penthouse. The blood of the previous owner still stained the walls and floors, but he rather enjoyed the scent of dead Tuffles. It gave the place some much-needed personality.

"You seem to be in a good mood today."

Nappa looked up from the balcony and spotted a young Saiyan floating overhead. He didn't recognize the man, but judged him to be part-alien from the color of his hair and the strange clothes that he wore. He looked more like a Tuffle than a Saiyan, but the scent was proof enough that he wasn't Nappa's enemy. Whatever the young man's parentage, his blood was nothing like the kind that decorated his new home.

"Why wouldn't I be happy?" Nappa asked. His thin mustache framed his smile as he crossed his arms over his massive chest. "The Tuffles have been lording over us for years, and now we're finally taking over this planet, just as easily as I took over this apartment. Before long, the Tuffles will be the ones begging us to let them stay on Planet Plant."

"I guess you're right," the man said. "At least until someone stronger comes along and takes it all away from you."

"I like you, kid," Nappa said with a gravely laugh. "You sure do know how to tell a joke. What brings you here?"

"I had some questions," he said as he alighted on the balcony. "I need information, and I heard you knew my father, so I thought I'd start with you."

Nappa eyed the man suspiciously. "I know a lot of fathers," he said. "None of them wore long black coats, or carried a sword, though. What's your dad's name, kid?"

"Vegeta," he said.

Nappa laughed. Then he looked at the young man more carefully, doing his best to ignore the blue eyes and the lavender hair that hung around his face. Then he laughed harder.

"Something funny about that?" the man asked.

"I do see a bit of a resemblance," Nappa said. "Guess King Vegeta II had a few 'unofficial' heirs over the years, huh? Who knew he had it in him? So which is it? You want to blackmail the royal family? Or were you hoping they'd give you a cushy civil service job?"

"Nothing like that," the man said. "I just wanted to ask you some questions. Nothing personal, just general background stuff."

"Yeah? Well why should I help you?" Nappa asked. "For that matter, killing you would probably be a smarter play. One less would-be usurper for the king to worry about, right? I’m sure your old man would make it worth my while."

"Oh, I probably should have been more specific," the young man said. "My father isn't Vegeta the Second. It's Vegeta the Fourth."

Nappa gave him a sidelong glance. "There is no Vegeta IV," he said warily.

"Not yet, anyway," the man said with a knowing smile.

"That's it, I don't know what your game is, punk, but I'm through playing!" Nappa said. "You can tell your lies in hell!"

He drew back his arm and threw a punch that would have killed most Saiyans on contact. Nappa had made a name for himself on the battlefield for defeating entire companies of Tuffle mechatroops all by himself. He fully expected to turn the young man's head into a cloud of red mist.

Instead, the man blocked his strike with such incredible speed that Nappa couldn't even tell that he had moved. In one instant, the man had been standing with his hands in his pockets. And then in the next, the man was now gripping Nappa's palm with his thumb and index finger. He squeezed slightly, and Nappa nearly dropped to his knees from the pain.

"Nnnghhh!" was the noise he made as he struggled not to show how much it hurt. His free hand reached up for his scalp, where he tugged at the tuft of thick black hair on his head.

"Look, let's cut to the chase, all right? For you, this'll only take a few minutes, but I might be doing these interviews all night, so don't waste my time, okay? Those Tuffles you're fighting might be pushovers, but I'm not. So now that you know that you can't brute force your way out of this, what'll it be?"

He released Nappa's hand, and Nappa gasped with relief as he cradled it in his other palm. He stared at his hands for a moment, then at the man. Then he paused to consider the sword, and how much worse it would get if the young man decided to make use of it.

"Heh. Uh, yeah, sorry, Your Majesty. I-I should have recognized you sooner. Anything you want, just let me know, Prince... uh... Prince... What'd you say your name was?"

"I didn't," he replied. "So, let's start with a simple one. Have you ever heard of a Saiyan named Luffa?"

*******

[1 December Age 893, Earth.]

"Honestly, I didn't expect him to know Luffa. Nappa didn't recognize her when she faced him on a Time Patrol mission, but he did fill me in on a few things."

By Age 889, the arcade game Super Dragon Ball Heroes had become a popular pastime, and the city of Hero Town became the global headquarters for the craze. Gaming enthusiasts from around the world traveled to Hero Town to partake in the game, which was based upon actual events from the previous century. Trunks had logged many hours in front of an SDBH cabinet, though his reasons had nothing to do with recreation. For all its popularity, the game had a very strange secret. It was the Capsule Corporation who developed the software, but the world within the game was actually made possible by the Time Patrol. Deep beneath Hero Tower was the Hero Lab, where the Time Patrol occasionally conducted secret research and reconnaissance.

"I don't get it, Master," said a teenage girl standing near one of the main computer terminals that surrounded nearly every surface of the Hero Lab. "You formed the Dragon Ball Heroes Team to help you defeat Sealas, right? So why didn't you come to us on this Towa situation?"

"Note's right, Trunks!" said a teenage boy eating mochi from a bag. "I'm Goku's descendant, after all! It's not fair to leave me out of a case like this."

Trunks deactivated the Hero Switch device and handed it to Anne, one of the scientists who maintained the lab. His black trenchcoat and sword hung next to several labcoats on a metal rack in the corner, revealing the olive-green sweater he wore underneath. He smiled at Note and Beat, and then Dr. Leggings, the project director of the Hero Lab, who was programming the next simulation.

"I understand where you're coming from, kids," Trunks said, "and I appreciate the offer, but it's not that simple."

"Why not?" Beat asked. "From what you've told us, Luffa's a Saiyan, right? If that's all you needed, then I could have tackled these missions for you. I'm a Saiyan, too."

"Oh, here we go..." Note grumbled. She made sure to roll her eyes dramatically enough for everyone in the room to see.

"What?" Beat asked. "It's true, isn't it?"

"Beat, even I have Saiyan ancestry," Dr. Leggings said without looking up from her computer terminal. "After a hundred and thirty years of Saiyans living on Earth, it's not as uncommon as you might think."

"She's right," Trunks said. "We have a lot of Saiyan-Earthling Time Patrollers back in Toki Toki City from the next century. A few of the stranger ones call me 'Your Highness', but I try not to hold it against them. Besides, if all I cared about was Saiyan blood, I'd go to my father for help. So that's not why I recruited you, or Luffa, for that matter."

"Then why did you recruit Luffa instead of coming to us?" Beat asked.

"Listen,” Trunks said. “In my timeline, No. 17 and 18 had destroyed much of the world. Son Gohan was the only Z-fighter left, and he was reluctant to train me. He needed the help, but he was worried about me getting hurt. I think eventually he decided he didn't have a choice. He knew that if anything happened to him, there would have been no one else to defeat the Cyborgs. But now I understand how his reluctance. After he... well.... Later on, when I was on my own, I was determined to defeat them alone. I wanted no part of my mother's plan to use her Time Machine to get help from Goku."

"But, Master, if you hadn't gone back in time," Note said, then you never would have joined the Time Patrol, or formed the Dragon Ball Heroes Team!"

"Exactly," Trunks said. "Working with Goku and his friends in the past, I learned how valuable it can be to have allies. It's not just about having extra hands to help with the hard work. You can learn from each new friend you make. And they can learn from you, as well. I think that's why the Supreme Kai of Time created the Time Patrol in the first place. So it wouldn't be right to keep turning to the same handful of allies every time. Besides, I need you guys here, keeping an eye on things in Hero Town."

"Well, yeah," Beat said. "I guess that makes sense. But it's been so dull around here lately."

"Tell you what," Trunks offered. "Once things settle down in Toki Toki City, I'll pull a few strings, maybe bring you guys in on a Time Patrol mission. How's that sound?"

"Really?!" Note cheered. She jumped into the air and kicked her heels behind her with excitement.

"Awesome!" Beat said.

"Don't get too carried away," Trunks said. "I can't make any promises. Ultimately, it's up to the Supreme Kai of Time. But I think we can manage something."

"I think we're ready for the next session, sir," Leggings said. "Assuming these coordinates you gave us are valid. Are you sure we can trust Nappa?"

"She's right, Master," Note added. "He's bad news. Just because you're stronger than he is doesn't mean he would have had any reason to tell you the truth."

"Which is exactly why I'm using Hero Lab to access the game world instead of traveling back in time," Trunks explained. "Our research teams back in Toki Toki City are constantly using time machines to observe historical events, but they can't interact with anything or ask questions, because it might alter history."

"But the SDBH game is a simulation based upon the Scroll of Eternity itself," Dr. Leggings said. "Meaning it's a nearly perfect copy of the real world, one that you can tamper with and not have to worry about permanently changing anything."

"Of course!" Note said. "It's like how Sealas used the game to learn what changes he could make to alter history. He used the game like a practice run for the real thing."

"Only, instead of changing the way things happened in the past," Beat said, "you're using the game to find out how things are supposed to have turned out. But how does that help you learn anything about Luffa?"

"I asked Shenron to bring me a powerful ally," Trunks said. "I should have been more specific about the wish, but I was kind of desperate for the help. Shenron sent me Luffa, but she had no idea what was going on, and neither of us knows how to get her back where she came from. She talked to one of our historians, and it's starting to sound like she's from some other part of the universe, or maybe from another timeline. But wherever she's from, she's still a Saiyan, and not a descendant of Goku or Vegeta, like we are. So I think if I go far enough into the past, I'll find some historical information we have in common, and maybe I can follow that thread back to her home."

"Phew!" Beat said. "That sounds like a lot of work! I'm worn out just thinking about it."

"You're not even doing anything," Note muttered.

"There's no telling what kind of trouble I might run into in the simulated history," Trunks said. Dr. Leggings has only ever run the simulation in a very narrow time range. A few centuries at most. I may end up taking the simulation into uncharted territory, and everything I know about Saiyans tells me that they had plenty of enemies to fight. If things get hairy, I'll need some backup, and that's where you two come in. I can't think of anyone better qualified than my two top students."

"Gosh...!" Note said.

"Yeah! Now you're talking!" Beat cheered.

Anne handed the Hero Switch back to Trunks. The device was a powerful computer, but it looked like a black bracelet covered in glowing blue lights and a Capsule Corp. logo. Trunks placed it onto his right wrist and prepared to activate it.

"In the game world," he said, "Nappa told me that "Saiya" was a name for several planets colonized by Saiyans throughout history. The most recent one was destroyed around four hundred years ago. Hopefully, someone there will know more about King Rehval, or the Camelian Empire, or this Planet Nagaoka that Luffa once mentioned."

"What if they don't know, sir?" Anne asked.

"Then I'll have to keep traveling backward until I find someone who does," Trunks said. "Wish me luck."

"Wait, Trunks, one more thing before you go!" Dr. Leggings said urgently.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Trunks asked. He held up the Hero Switch on his wrist and pointed at it. "Everything looks good on this end."

"It's just... are you sure you don't want to wear the Great Saiyaman 3 outfit for this mission?" she asked.

"I'm positive," Trunks said. Before anyone could object, he activated the bracelet, and vanished into the game world.

*******

[12 May, Age 513. Planet Saiya.]

"You picked a fine time to ask about the weather, stranger."

The Saiyan’s name was Reeque, and Trunks had no idea how old she was. The small settlement he found on Saiya was it's largest population center, and they directed him to an old hag who lived in the wastelands. Trunks found her easily enough, but then the blood-wraiths attacked, and they had to take their conversation on the run. Powerful as Trunks was, his technology and ki were useless against the intangible creatures, and Reeque's warnings were enough to convince him that he should keep his distance.

"They become solid every seven months," Reeque told him. "Then we pay them back a thousandfold, but in the meantime, we run and hide until dawn. They say the storms left them behind, but I doubt that. Not even Luffa would be so cruel."

She carried a walking stick carved from some gnarled length of driftwood, but Trunks was impressed with how swiftly she crossed the rough terrain. Her dark red robes flapped behind her back like the wings of some great ugly hawk.

"I apologize for not making myself clear, ma'am," Trunks said as he hopped over a rock. "The Luffa I asked about is a Saiyan, not a storm system."

"Well that's perfectly clear to me, boy," Reeque said, "but it doesn't change the fact that you're mistaken. Only Luffa I've ever heard of is the one my great grandmother told me about. Wiped out the entire Kingdom of Saiya in a single day. The smart ones fled while they could. The rest stayed, but only the hardiest few survived. The environment here was harsh before Luffa, and it only got worse from there. Without the supplies from allied worlds... well, you learn to savor the taste of roast blood-wraith."

"Then where did the Saiyans go when they abandoned this planet?" Trunks asked.

"Hell," Reeque said. "If there's any justice, they went to hell. Otherwise they scattered across the galaxy. There was a kingdom on Sadala, but my life wouldn't be worth a zinc coin on that forsaken place. My parents were banished, and they joined the usurper kings during the civil wars. Fifty years ago, they tried to rebuild Saiya, like the name alone would restore their fortunes. But there's nothing left here. Nothing but blood-wraiths and ruin."

None of this was surprising to Trunks, since Nappa had told him this planet would eventually be destroyed altogether. He had tried to arrive on Saiya well before that day, but it seemed like the destruction of Saiya had been set into motion long before whatever warrior finally put it out of its misery.

"And King Rehval?" Trunks asked. "What became of him?"

"Why should you care, boy?" Reeque asked. "You've come a long way in search of the dead."

"I think he's my ancestor," Trunks said. "I, uh, I'm trying to settle a dowry on another planet, and they're very interested in genealogies."

"Social climber, huh?" Reeque said. "Well, I can't help you with that. Anything else you wanted to know?"

"The Camelian Empire," Trunks said. "Do you know where I can find it? I don't need exact coordinates, just a general idea will do. Er, is something wrong, ma'am?"

She began to make a sort of rhythmic coughing sound from her throat, and Trunks eventually figured out that it was laughter. "You're an amusing fellow," Reeque finally said. "When I saw that purple hair of yours, I thought I might be seeing things, but my imagination isn't wild enough to dream up such silly questions. Oh, I've spent countless nights like this one, running from bloodwraiths, but I think I'll remember tonight for a long time to come."

"Then you can't tell me about Camelia either," Trunks said.

"There's nothing to tell, boy," Reeque said with a rasping chuckle. "The Camelian Empire fell more than three hundred years ago!"

*******

[23 February, 238 Before Age. Chai I.]

"The ‘Super Saiyan’? Now what in the world is that, Trunks?"

"It's a legend I heard when I was a boy," Trunks said. "According to my father, once every thousand years, there's a Saiyan who surpasses the limits of what Saiyans can do. They're considered the ultimate warriors. Powerful, invincible, and with an insatiable craving for battle."

Rehval III considered this tale for a moment while admiring the bouquet of his wine. At last, he took a sip from his glass, and sampled a bite of his fish entree. Trunks waited patiently at the other side of the table. The restaurant looked fancier than any Trunks had ever seen on Earth, in any century. And this was merely a section of a minor administrative building in the Camelian capitol.

"I'll be blunt, Trunks,” Rehval finally said. “You seem like the kind of man who likes to get to the point, so I won’t keep you in suspense. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I see," Trunks said.

"Do you believe in this legend yourself?" Rehval asked.

"No," Trunks said after a pause. "In my experience there's no such thing as an invincible warrior. There are extraordinary Saiyans, but not necessarily one every thousand years. There could be two or three, or a hundred, or none at all."

"I'll tell you what I think," Rehval said. "I have heard tall tales of ancient Saiyan heroes. Chanisp was said to have lived about a thousand years ago. For all I know, they've been saying "a thousand years ago" for centuries. I mean, a year ago, was anyone saying Chanisp lived 'nine-hundred and ninety-nine years ago'? Of course not. The round numbers make for better storytelling, but I deal in precision."

Rehval paused his meal to point at a gold watch on his left wrist. "My summit with the Camelian Imperial College begins in three hours and twenty-two minutes, Trunks. I can't afford to offend the Camelians by rounding up. Time can be a strict mistress."

"I take your point," Trunks said. "And I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me."

"Not at all," Rehval said. "There aren't many Saiyans in this part of the galaxy, besides common raiders, I mean. And you're a man of unusual manners and poise, Trunks. You're exactly the sort of citizen I want in the Kingdom of Saiya. I think you'd find life very prosperous under my rule."

"I am... interested in hearing more," Trunks said. "Let's put it that way."

"Well, then, it's a good thing you found me during this gap in my schedule," Rehval said. "I have all afternoon to convince you to come home with me."

Trunks smiled as though amused by his remark. In fact, this had been his third attempt to speak with King Rehval III. An earlier visit to the Camelian capital world gave him access to important diplomatic records, which showed him the exact date and time of an official visit by the Saiyan King. Trunks found him on the first try, but he was too busy to talk. Trunks reset the game world simulation and tried again, approaching Rehval three hours earlier, but wasn't able to catch the man's interest. This time, he figured out that the key to Rehval's attention was to show interest in joining his cause. Rehval’s Kingdom was the most powerful Saiyan faction in this era, but his subjects made up less than half of the Saiyan population, and Rehval was very keen on getting more Saiyans to rally to his flag. Even half-aliens like Trunks were welcome, apparently.

"Where did you say your mother was from?" Rehval asked. Trunks was pretty sure Rehval had aims for establishing diplomatic ties with Earth, even if he had no idea where it was or if it was worth his time.

"The Yajirobe System," Trunks lied. "It's pretty far off the beaten path. But what were you saying about Chanisp?"

"Well, there are lower classes in every society, Trunks," Rehval explained. "It's not something Saiyans think about much, but other civilizations have demonstrated it time and time again. The problem is that, in disorganized societies, these lesser citizens don't understand that they have a duty to follow their betters. And so, in their confusion, they turn to superstitions."

"Go on..." Trunks said. He took a bite of his salad and chewed thoroughly.

"They say Chanisp defeated a mighty demon and liberated the entire Saiyan race from slavery. Did it actually happen? Maybe. Was he one of your father's 'Super Saiyans'? He might have been. How does any of that prove that there should be another one like him ten centuries later? Oh, and the cycle just happens to reset in the present day. So the tale expects us to believe that, at any moment, any one of us might miraculously transform into an invincible, demon-slaying superhero. How convenient."

"Well, when you put it that way..." Trunks said.

"I'm not one to brag, Trunks, but as far as I know, the strongest Saiyan alive is sitting across the table from you. That's not a challenge, or a demand for respect, just a statement of fact. I'd have to be stronger to be the king, or I wouldn't be the king for very long, now would I?"

"Makes sense to me," Trunks lied again.

He only brought up the legend to gain historical context. Rehval seemed to enjoy discussing it, so that worked to Trunks’ favor, but what he had truly wanted to know was whether Rehval had heard of a golden-haired cryptid running amok in the galaxy. He had not, which meant that there had been no Super Saiyan in this era, or that the Super Saiyan hadn’t appeared yet.

"These legends are just stories people invent to convince themselves that there's a way out of their reality. When the thousandth year passes, they move the goalpost, or invent a new story to replace the old. 'Oh, the Super Saiyan is real, he's just invisible and working in secret, but he really is here to help us all.' That sort of thing."

"And that's why you're pursuing diplomatic ties with Camelia," Trunks concluded. "You can't afford to wait for a messiah."

"The Saiyans are at a crossroads, Trunks," Rehval said. "If our race is going to survive, we need to follow the same well-tread path as the Camelian Empire. Statecraft. National unity. It's not as romantic as your father's legend, but it works. It's a path that leads to prosperity. If we all unite as one kingdom, under one law, then we grow stronger as a people. That means forming alliances, brokering treaties, and all the other minutiae that goes with it."

"Well, this has been a very interesting discussion, but I'm afraid I need to get going," Trunks said. He stood up from his chair and gestured to the waiter to bring his coat and sword. "It's been a pleasure, Your Majesty."

"Wait," Rehval said. "I thought you wanted to hear more about Planet Saiya. The great society that I'm building there. I'd like you to be a part of that society, Trunks."

"I'm sure you would," Trunks said as he put his arms through the sleeves of his coat. "But I've already seen how Saiya turns out, and I'm already a part of the society you envisioned. What's left of it, anyway."

"I don't understand."

"It's simple. Your vision isn't all that visionary, Rehval. No matter how strong you think you are, there's always someone stronger who'll come along to challenge you. That's not a leader, that's a gunfighter daring someone to come along and defeat him. I've grew up in a world ruled by strength alone, and you're half-right. It is a well-worn path, but it doesn't lead to prosperity."

"What do mean you've already seen Saiya?" Rehval asked. "Who are you?"

Trunks activated the bracelet on his arm, and vanished from the game world. The simulated Rehval who existed within it was left with more questions than answers, though he would not ponder them for long. Soon enough, the simulation would be refreshed, and he would have no memory of this encounter.

NEXT: Burning Questions

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #trunks #beat #note #dr leggings #anne #nappa #rehval iii #reeque

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linklethehistorian · 4 years ago

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New Working Link to DarkestJay’s English Translation of Fifteen & Commentary on the Discrepancies Therein (PLEASE READ)

Information below the cut for length, as well as spoiler information relating to my article.

If recently you’ve tried to access DarkestJay8686’s English Translation of Fifteen on WattPad through the link I provided at the beginning of my article, you’ve probably already noticed that that link is, unfortunately, very dead; the reason that this has happened is because, sadly, as of late, they — and other translators in the fandom who also post their works to WattPad — have been facing a struggle with their works constantly being flagged on the site and forcibly removed for copyright reasons multiple times over, forcing them to eventually give up and move their content somewhere else where it would be safe from harm.

Upon learning of their arrival on a new, safer platform, I had considered simply exchanging the old link out for the new one at the beginning of my article, where it was before, and altering my notes to reflect this, and I’m sure that I still will as soon as I can find the time to rework everything properly, but in the meanwhile, there’s something I’ve also badly needed to discuss with you all about these translations for some time, and what better time and way, I thought, than to do it in this post where I provide you with the new link?

I’m sure that many of you reading both my article and their translation have noticed that back in the Arcade scene, there was something I had mentioned happening in the novel that didn’t quite match up with DarkestJay’s presentation of those events — namely, Sheep being the first to leave the building, instead of Dazai and Chuuya; well, that difference is actually quite important as one of the main reasons why, while their work may overall be excellent and I do encourage everyone to read it regardless, I still personally would never recommend making it the only thing you read if you want to truly understand Fifteen and all of its events 100% correctly.

Yes, I am saying exactly what you think I’m saying: my information within my article was NOT incorrect — Jay’s translation of the scene, however, was, and if you don’t believe me, you can go read Lea’s translation of the scene and see it for yourself.

Now, before I say anything else, I want to make this 100% clear: I in no way am intending to imply that Jay’s work on the whole is anything but exceptional, nor am I even remotely saying that you shouldn’t read at all; in fact, I highly recommend you do read it in its entirety, because despite a few small mis-steps, as someone who owns two copies of the original Japanese light novel, has read many an English translation, and knows this story extensively well, I will be the first to very enthusiastically say that this translation is actually quite good and very, very helpful overall — an absolutely essential resource for anyone who does not speak the original language but still wants to read, experience and understand Fifteen as if they could. I am extremely, extremely grateful and appreciative of their hard work in making that possible for all English speakers, and I don’t ever want to come across as anything else or make it seem like any of that is any less than true.

That being said, though, it nevertheless absolutely cannot and should not be your only resource on the matter, because if it is, you will unavoidably end up being misled on some matters — unintentionally, of course, but still misled all the same.

Because this was translated well after the anime came out — unlike Lea’s partial but nonetheless equally wonderful translation, which came into existence very shortly after the novel was first handed out in theaters alongside DEAD APPLE, a whole year before the animated adaption was even a concept — DarkestJay’s translation does have some points where it is extremely clear that said television show’s rather poorly handled and highly inaccurate interpretation very heavily affected the OP’s perception of things, and thus caused the OP, Jay, to incorrectly interpret and translate certain parts of some scenes and/or dialogue that otherwise might not have been super clear to someone not fully, extensively familiar with the language.

Specifically, as I mentioned above, there is the one particular instance among the many that I can easily point out: due to the pre-knowledge of the anime’s awful take on the story, there is a point in this translation where Jay simply assumes it to be true that Dazai and Chuuya were the ones to leave the Arcade, with Sheep calling out to their retreating backs, and thus incorrectly translates it as such, when in fact it unfolds in exactly the opposite manner in the original version of the tale; likewise, there are also many bits of dialogue throughout the entirety of the book where the perceived “understanding” of the characters’ nature’s as the show wrongly presented them caused Jay to take the liberty of wording things in certain different ways, or make certain alterations to the type of punctuation used that Jay believed suited them, rather than leaving them in their unaltered states, as they were intended to be read.

This is the major issue with going into a project like this with this kind of confirmation bias; no matter how good your intentions may be, because you expect that you already understand something or know what’s going to happen, you’re much more likely to think it’s safe to cut corners, and rather than carefully researching the context, tone, and other specifics and particulars of every line before you write it out and post it — the way you would if you started with a completely blank slate and no idea of what would happen in it — you will more often than not just assume that it plays out in the way you expect it to if it seems close enough, and quickly go with that presumption as if it is fact without bothering to make 100% sure of it.

Again, no offense to OP, because translation work is very hard, and as I said, overall, it is a wonderful translation and I do think it’s well worth the read, but problems like this are why I personally recommend anyone reading this to also check out Lea’s translated summary with excerpts and translation of the bonus chapter in conjunction with Jay’s, as Lea’s came out long before a Fifteen anime was even a concept and, as such, was completely unbiased — therefore being an excellent source to check facts against where possible.

Of course, there are definitely also some points where both translations are different but neither is actually wrong — as while Lea’s is less literal about every phrasing so it’s not super awkward sounding in English and flows better to read, Jay’s is almost always more literal instead, and thus differences in personal preference for wording can easily diverge while still getting the point across fine in both — but these instances are much different from the ones where it is clear Jay actually slipped up, so I’m sure you won’t have trouble defining them. As much as I would like to be of help in this regard, I must sadly inform you that I will not personally be pointing out all of these slip-ups here at this time, nor do I have any plan to do so at any time in the foreseeable future. for I have neither the time nor the desire to go about critiquing a fellow fan’s work when I’m already dedicating enough time and energy just to writing about the mountain of mistakes that the anime made without also adding more difficult and unnecessary extra work onto that.

If you have any questions about a particular line in the translation and if it indeed is correct, you can absolutely feel free to send me an ask about it and I will try to help you with it to the best of my ability, but beyond that, I will not be engaging with the matter much farther than I already have.

(However, on one last note, I will, for now, add that — as I expect this might become a point of much contention and is something that will come up in my article later on, anyway — the “it must be because I love you” scene that you will find in Jay’s translation is actually not exactly one such instance where a mistake was made, at least in regards to the “‘I love you” bit; if you’re curious about the exact details of how that all works, you can read about it in my post here. So yes, that does indeed exist, and you are free to take it in whatever way you want. I’m not personally an SKK shipper myself, but if that’s your thing, then good for you — go for it and enjoy it; it can be canon support for your ship if you want it to be.)

Thank you for reading, and, as promised, here is the link to Jay’s new account, as well as their Twitter, and where you can currently access their translation of Fifteen. Enjoy.

[See the recent related addendum]

[View the masterlist of my article]

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dessarious · 5 years ago

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Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt77

Inspired by @ozmav Maribat AU

AO3 Beginning Previous Next

Damian spent the next day with Marinette at the hotel. Chloe and Luka both had school and Mari needed someone to keep her calm before the meeting with the Justice League. Not to mention Damian did not want to be stuck in the apartment with Drake. When Hawkmoth was unmasked it created a lot of ripples that everyone was still reeling from. Françoise Dupont was one more casualty. Between the ongoing investigation that was happening because of what happened to Marinette and the fact that Hawkmoth’s son went there the school was shut down until they found new staff at the very least. Since Damian hadn’t transferred yet he was off until it went through.

“So how’s your family taking the announcement?” He figured she’d ask eventually but it had taken her three hours so he’d give her points for restraint.

“The same way they take everything. It’s just one more thing for them to make fun of and overanalyze.” He saw her expression go hard and when she spoke there was a dangerous edge to her voice.

“They’re making fun of your sexuality?” He actually shivered at her tone. This was why Batman himself was terrified of this tiny girl.

“No. More making jokes about me having a significant other at all. Apparently they all decided that if I was ever to show interest in someone it would definitely not be reciprocated. At the moment they seem to be debating whether I’m making the whole thing up or holding my boyfriend’s family hostage to get dates.” It was their usual nonsense and he was used to it. Marinette however looked ready to transform and go back to Gotham to ‘talk’ to them.

“You should tell them that’s not okay. You shouldn’t be so worried about dealing with them that you’re afraid of living your life.” Damian just scowled at her in annoyance.

“I’m not afraid of those idiots.” She rolled her eyes and sighed.

“I didn’t say you were. But how many times do you decide to not do something because you don’t want to deal with the fallout? How often do you debate whether it’s worth it to do something that actually makes you happy because you think they’ll give you shit for it? They need to know that’s not okay. You should be able to live your life without being concerned about what they’ll say or do.” That made sense, to a point anyway. When he really considered it he realized she was right. It never would have occurred to him to ask to go to an arts school because he didn’t want to listen to their comments. At the same time, it was how they acted with everyone in the family.

“They don’t just do it to me you know. They constantly harass each other just as much. I could just ignore it and not let it control my actions.” He hadn’t realized how much it did control his actions if he was being honest. That was one of the many things he’d learned about himself because of his friendship with Marinette. Not that he’d ever tell her that.

“That doesn’t make it alright. Just because they don’t discriminate in their stupidity doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be called out on it. Just like when I call you out for being an asshole.” He gave her a flat look but she just smiled at him. It was becoming harder to keep a straight face around her and he couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

“Any idea what you’re going to say to the Justice League?” All else fails, redirect the conversation. Marinette grimaced at the question before blowing out an annoyed breath.

“I assume that Superman is going to start before I can get a word in edgewise so having an actual speech planned out is pointless. There’s only a few things I want to make clear. First that the ban to travel to Paris will be lifted at the end of the week in case of ‘loose ends’. Mainly I just want them to stew about the fact that they can’t do whatever they please.” Damian let out a snort of laughter at that. Given the way they’d all tried to descend on Paris the moment Hawkmoth’s capture hit the news he understood why she was doing it. They didn’t wait to confirm she had in fact caught the real villain and could have just been putting Paris at risk. “Second, that they still have absolutely no authority over the Miraculous themselves. Having Wonder Woman’s backing should help with that but I wouldn’t be surprised if one or more of them try to tell me to give them the Miraculous. And third, if any of them think tracking us down to take them is a good idea they’ll get the full force of the wrath the Kwami are capable of. Given that Plagg destroyed the dinosaurs in an ‘oops’ moment they should probably be worried about what he can do when angered.”

“As much as I would like to believe words will work, you may have to do another demonstration.” Marinette just nodded at him. She knew as well as he did that this wasn’t going to be easy. It was highly probable that they’d spend the next six months or so showing various members of the League that they needed to back off. Yet another reason for him to stay in Paris. Damian still didn’t understand why Marinette didn’t just ask him for the civilian identities of the heroes so she could deal with them herself. “Did you figure out which wheelchair you want to get? My father said he’d pay the difference if you need something out of your price range.”

“That’s a kind offer but I’m not struggling for money. My business has actually gotten even better since the fashion show. I might actually have to hire some people to make the clothing so I can concentrate on design if I don’t want to start turning people away. I’m also getting a lot of interest from clothing manufacturers about designing discount clothing to market to a broad audience. Honestly just doing one of those would likely have me set for life. I’m just glad I’m at the point where this won’t completely destroy my parents financially. While it’s nice to know they love me enough to sell the bakery and move somewhere that’s accessible to me I would never want them to have to.”

“Well if you need tips or names of people to help with that, Drake would be a good source. I know that you have Jagged stone but global manufacturing is different from music in a lot of ways. Wayne Enterprises deals with a lot more of the problems you’re likely to see.” She nodded thoughtfully before offering him a bright smile.

“Thanks, I might just do that. It’ll be helpful to talk to someone who knows the ins and outs of things. I was actually going to ask you since I have a feeling you know a lot more about your father’s business than you let on.” Damian just blinked at her for a moment before giving out a sigh and pulled out his phone to send her a list he’d put together. It was names and numbers of people in the company who could help her along with various laws, specifically intellectual copyright laws, and some other things to do with business. She just gave him another bright smile before she started drawing in her sketchbook again. He really wished he could figure out how she did that.

AO3 Beginning Previous Next

Ko-Fi

Tag List

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#maribat #marinette dupen chang #Damian Wayne #bffmaridami

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adam-t-cox · 3 years ago

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Self Publishing Overview

Alrighty,

Time to talk about self-publishing. What is it? How do I start? And why on earth would I want to do all that work?

In self-publishing you are going to wear all the hats. Every. Single. One. unless you pay someone else to wear one for you ie. a professional cover artist or designer. So, this will be very labour intensive for you and take a lot of your time. If you are working full-time like I was going into this, then be prepared for a lot of late nights or very early mornings to get the work done.

You are responsible for every step through the process and the very first one might seem like a nonstarter for most of you, but I’ll explain why its very important later in this post. Here’s the list of steps:

1. Read and understand the legal agreements for each service of each platform you are planning on publishing on!

2. Commission a professional copyeditor.

3. Commission a professional artist or cover designer, possibly both. And get the process started, this could take a month or more to complete.

4. Create accounts with all of your platforms.

5. Create an account with your countries ISBN regulatory body.

6. Get the ISBN numbers.

7. Format your paperback and save it as a print-ready PDF.

8. Order proof copies of the paperback version of your book.

9. Format your eBook and compile it into a .ePub file.

10. Make sure all of your materials for publishing are ready. (All artwork, covers, and text files)

11. Review and make any necessary changes on each format.

12. Publish your work and celebrate all of your hard work. You’ll deserve a weeklong vacation by the end of it.

13. Apply for your copyright! it’s cheap and easy compared to the alternative legal fight you may have if you don’t!

Now I’ll be going into more detail on each of these (excluding #1) in later posts but for now I’ll give a brief overview of what to expect from each one.

First, reading that damned legalese. This is something you want to do with a large pot of coffee, and a giant bag of peanut M&M’s. I won’t sugar coat it, reading this crap sucks. I hated it, but I’m glad I did read it. This is the binding agreement between you and the platform you will be using. It details the terms of the agreement, the rights and responsibilities of each party involved in the agreement, and any penalties that will be incurred if the agreement is broken. The penalty part is for you, none of these entities are going to be held liable for anything that happens to you or your work. Read these agreements carefully! The three platforms I used have agreements that were easy to read, understand, and had nothing I didn’t expect to see in them. One platform, who I won’t name because their legal department can be a bunch of dicks most of the time* was super sketchy in their agreement. It was about three times the length of the others, and basically gave them a lot of rights they shouldn’t have when it comes to your work.

On the positive note, there was some great stuff in there detailing DRM or Digital Rights Management and how each platform would take steps to ensure your work is protected online. Two of the platforms also have programs in place to ensure your book is accessible to libraries around the world, which is pretty cool and great because who doesn’t love libraries. They’re awesome.

Next a copyeditor. This one is easy. You suck at editing, admit it, and move on. Hire a professional and your work will be 10x better.

Probably at the same time as the copy editor, commission a cover from an artist or designer or both. I’ll go into more detail later, but this is important for obvious reasons as it’s the face of your book. Its going to take a while to make so start the process early on.

Next, while you are waiting, create the accounts with all of your chosen platforms. It may take up to two weeks for your account and banking information for payments and tax forms to be processed and approved. So again, get this done early.

Also find your country’s ISBN regulatory body. US: Bowker. Canada: Library and Archives Canada. Create an account and wait for it to be approved. Again, this can take you to two weeks. When its approved request (Canada) or buy (US) your ISBN numbers. You’ll need one for each format you publish your work in. Hardcover, paperback, and eBook all need their own numbers.

Now onto formatting. This is easily a weeks worth of work for each edition (I’m talking outside of your normal life responsibilities here work, family, sleep etc.). My suggestion is once you get back the copyeditor’s notes start this for your paperback version first.

Once the paperback is formatted you’ll need to submit your PDF’s for the cover design and body of the book and order proof copies so that you can check the look. Artwork brightness or colour profile might need tweaking, or the margins may need adjusting. Depending on which country you are in this can be a hassle. Thanks to Covid and the Canada-US border being shut down it took nearly two weeks to get my copy whereas someone in the US could have theirs in two days.

While you wait for the proof copies you’ll need to format your eBook. This process is complicated, and a total pain in your butt, be prepared for the suck. I’ll have a very detailed post on this later on. Long story short: Use Scrivener it’s the cheapest option to get the job done, they have good articles, and the finished product looks great.

Now let’s say you didn’t snap your laptop in half and throw it over a bridge after all of those frustrations and what is now probably months of work. You’ve got everything organized, and ready to publish. What’s next? What are you forgetting? What do I do now?

PUBLISH IT!

Your work will be up for review on each platform, some will go live before others, but it’s done. Congrats. Apply for your copyrights update your ISBN logbook and call it a day. Take a week off, you deserve it.

Now after all that you might ask: Is this really worth it?

Yes, yes it is.

At the end of the day, I am biased on this subject. I loved and hated the process of getting this thing done, but I was so happy when I was holding a copy of my book in my hands after eight years of work. If you want specific reasons how about these:

1. Full Creative Control:

You are in charge and have full rights to do whatever you want with your work. You get to publish it with every little amazing thing you put into your book, and no one can tell you to change it. Your cover art is your choice, the fonts are your choice. This book will feel completely and wholly yours from cover to cover.

2. Bigger Royalties:

As a self-published author you set your prices for each of your works. You also get a bigger share of the profits. Traditional may give you up to $1 if you are lucky and a damn good author. Self-publishing even with your prices sitting well below sale prices in brick and mortar stores you’ll see a bigger margin then that.

3. Bragging Rights:

Self explanatory really, at this point you are amazing, no one can deny that. If they try, stuff a copy of your book in their mouth.

And again, that’s enough typing for one afternoon.

Hope this enlightens you a bit, more good stuff to follow in later posts,

-Adam

P.S. The next post will be focused on starting the search for a literary agent.

P.P.S. *Hint: it rhymes with schnapple.

#writer #writersofinstagram #writers on tumblr #writing #writing advice #publishing #publish #how to publish your book #first time author #how to #manuscript #what do i do now #writing help #blog post

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theotherackerman · 3 years ago

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My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore

NOTES:

Sunday January 10th- Friday, January 15th

chapter sixteen: faster than you could say sabotage

On Sunday, the doorbell echoed through the house.

The equipment arrived.

Levi opened the door to see Mr. Grice and a very terrified Colt.

“Captain Ackerman! So great to see you!” Mr. Grice said as he brought in one of the many boxes from the truck.

“Hello, Mr. Grice,” Levi said as he continued to hold the door open.

“Where would you like these?” Mr. Grice asked.

“Just behind the couch for now. We’re still working on the basement.”

“Wonderful!”

Colt looked terrified the entire time. He never spoke.

They left after Mr. Grice thanked Levi again.

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

The Ackerman household fell into their own normalcy the Monday everyone headed back to work.

Sasha and Historia went to the indoor farmer’s market every weekday morning to work for Sasha’s father.

Annie shut herself away into her room to work until 5:00 pm but she did come out for an hour at lunch.

Mikasa had taken up most of the household chores since she didn’t have a job.

Ymir had worked at the bar for two days before getting fired.

“Do I even want to know why you got fired?” Levi asked as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“This guy was not taking no for an answer for this girl. So I poured both of their drinks on him,” Ymir shrugged as she collapsed on the couch.

“I’m impressed!” Mikasa called from the kitchen.

“Fine, whatever. You better pull your weight,” Levi said before returning to reading his newspaper.

So Mikasa and Ymir became the main two to work in the basement.

They started that on Wednesday.

The basement was huge.

It had to be as large as the entire house, if not bigger.

“Boxes of important shit can go to the attic,” Levi had instructed them on their first day truly cleaning it.

“There’s an attic?” Ymir asked.

“Pull string is hanging in the hallway but just barely. You’ll need a ladder to pull it down,” He told them. “I’m taking the dogs on a walk. Don’t die before I get back.”

“He has such little faith in us,” Ymir commented.

Mikasa and Ymir went through boxes to sort out what was important and what wasn’t.

“Nope!” Ymir shouted before closing a box. “Fuck this. Nope. Someone else can look in this box.”

“Porn?” Mikasa asked as she sat down to go through her own box.

“I wish but no. Come see for yourself,” Ymir moved away from the box.

Mikasa sighed as she stood back up. She walked over to the box. She slowly opened the box up.

Inside the box were a bunch of jars.

“Why are you freaking out about glass jars?” Mikasa asked as she rolled her eyes.

“Pick one up,” Ymir told Mikasa as she crossed her arms across her chest.

Mikasa did and there was some sort of strange large bug in it. Mikasa immediately sat it down back in the box and closed the lid of the box.

“Yeah, I told you.”

“I don’t know what that is. Let’s leave it in the box and let Levi deal with it.”

It wasn’t long before Levi had returned with the dogs.

The puppies ran down the stairs. They happily barked at the girls as they ran around the basement and demanded pets from both Ymir and Mikasa.

Levi came down shortly after.

“Open that box,” Ymir said pointing to the box.

“Why?” Levi asked.

“Just do it.”

Levi sighed before he walked over and opened the box. He pulled out the same jar that Mikasa had.

“I thought I got rid of all these,” he sighed.

“What is that in there?” Mikasa asked.

“Some tailless whip scorpion or something. Kenny liked to collect these things and keep them in his office,” Levi scoffed.

“Why?” Ymir asked.

“I don’t know. Kenny was weird sometimes,” Levi shrugged as he put the jar back into the box.

“Did Kenny use to torture people down here?” Ymir asked.

Levi froze.

“Why would you ask something like that?” he asked.

“Well, there’s the jars of creepy bugs and the chains still hanging on the wall. So unless you and Hange are having a sexy fun time down here, then that’s what I’m going with.”

“I’m going to go see if Hange wants these for class,” Levi said as he walked away, disappearing back up stairs.

“Your uncle totally tortured people down here,” Ymir said as she looked over at Mikasa.

“I think so too. Before he got sick. It makes sense. Shows why everyone is afraid of Kenny,” Mikasa said with a shrug.

“That and the shady shit Historia told us her dad was involved in. So are all Ackermans born this badass or what?”

“I don’t know. I was nine when my dad died. My dad just went hunting every once and a while. I never met Levi’s mom. I don’t know what she is like,” Mikasa replied.

“Hunting is pretty badass. I’m sure Levi’s mom was, it’s just in the genetics.”

Ymir started through another box.

“This box looks like all stuff from you’ve done in school, Mikasa.” Ymir said as she stood up and picked up the box.

“Levi saved it?” Mikasa was shocked. Levi didn’t seem like the type of person to save this stuff.

“Yeah, looks like everything since you moved here. Art projects, reports, anything he hung on the fridge is in the box. Probably should go to the attic.”

“I don’t know if Levi thinks this is important,” Mikasa went back to sorting through her own box of papers.

“If he’s saved your handprint turkey from when you were ten, I think it’s important to him.”

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

Historia’s twenty third birthday was drawing close.

She seemed to be getting more depressed as time went on. If anyone asked her about it, she waved them off pretending to be okay. She began to go to bed earlier and earlier in the day.

“I think we should have a small party for her. Just us though,” Ymir suggested.

“Oh! I could make a cake!” Sasha exclaimed.

“I can decorate while she’s at work,” Mikasa added.

“I can help with dinner,” Annie decided.

“What are you going to do, Levi?” Ymir asked.

“Pretend not to be here,” He said before he got up and left the kitchen.

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

It was the morning of Historia’s twenty third birthday.

Historia had not been looking forward to her birthday.

When she lived at the Reiss House, it had always been huge parties filled with people Historia didn’t know. She didn’t even get time to spend with her friends as she was always being whisked away by Rod to speak to someone else he found important.

Though she had left the Reiss house, Historia’s sense of dread and annoyance was still there.

It was no surprise to her when she woke up and her phone had been disconnected.

“Give me that,” Levi said at breakfast before snatching the phone out of Historia’s hand. “Might as well put you on the plan too with Ymir and Mikasa. Too dangerous not to have a phone.”

“You’re so our dad,” Ymir laughed.

“Shut up, you get to do dishes.” He walked into the other room with Historia's phone.

The doorbell rang and it was followed by a loud pounding at the front door.

Sawney and Bean immediately began barking.

Mikasa and Ymir left the kitchen to go into the living room.

“Get back in there. Take the dogs,” Levi hissed.

Mikasa and Ymir scooped the dogs up and went into the kitchen.

“Who was it?” Sasha asked.

“I don’t know,” Mikasa said.

Silence fell over the kitchen.

“I have a letter here that I must deliver directly to Miss Historia Reiss,” a deep voice from the other room said. “We have good reason to believe she’s staying at this residence.”

“She is. Why is that illegal? Oh wait, you’re not a cop. I don’t have to answer to you,” Levi’s voice was filled with venom.

“No, but I do work for the Reiss family,” the deep voice replied.

“And I’m Kenny Ackerman’s nephew.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realize you were Captain Ackerman.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Give me the letter and get off my doorstep.”

The door slammed so hard it shook the house.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Levi asked as he entered the kitchen. “Shows up early in the morning with a letter that isn’t even closed. This isn’t a letter. It’s a piece of paper.”

Historia took the letter from Levi.

Miss Historia Reiss and No Name,

We regret to inform you that all music performed at The Battle of the Bands is property of Fritz Pharmaceuticals.

You must return by 5:00 pm tonight.

If you do not, we take that as your understanding that those songs played at Battle of the Bands are truly the property of Fritz Pharmaceuticals and its subsidies and that you will not perform them ever again.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Freida Reiss

Rod Reiss

Historia began crying after she read the letter and passed to Ymir. After Ymir read it, she passed it to Annie. The letter went around the table until it ended back with Levi.

“Unfortunately, you signed the contract, they can do that,” Levi said as he sat down at the table.

“Well, I better get packing,” Historia stood up.

“What?” Annie asked.

“Why?” Sasha added.

“Those songs aren’t ours anymore,” Historia pushed her chair back in.

“Okay, so? You’re not going to sell your soul to Rod Reiss for a few songs,” Ymir said.

“Mikasa worked hard on those songs. You three worked hard on those songs. I’m not going to throw that away.” Historia made her way out of the kitchen.

Ymir stood up and followed her. “And you did too!”

“Exactly!”

“Historia, you’re not going back there,” Ymir cut her off and blocked her way to the stairs.

“I don’t have a choice!”

“So you’re just going to throw us away? You’re just going to throw away the recording equipment that Levi spent thousands of dollars away? All the songs you and Mikasa wrote? And what about our relationship?”

“This isn’t about us! And you’ll all end up hating me if I don’t!”

“We won’t,” Mikasa said as she walked up behind Historia.

“Does it suck? Yeah, but it’s not worth it,” Annie added.

“We’ve got better stuff now!” Sasha exclaimed.

“But those songs…” Historia cried.

“It’s what? Maybe ten songs?” Ymir asked.

“I don’t even think it’s that many. Plus, we haven’t played them since then. I kind of forgot about them,” Mikasa laughed.

“See? Ask them if you don’t believe me. Let’s take a vote,” Ymir said.

“Mikasa, your lyrics are….”

Mikasa cut Historia off, “not worth you going back to that manipulative, soul crushing man. I vote no.”

“Annie?” Historia asked.

“Fuck Rod Reiss,” Annie answered.

“Sasha?”

“No. I vote no going back.” Sasha smiled.

“Ymir?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Ymir crossed her arms across her chest.

“You said to take a vote.”

“No. I vote no. I started the Fuck Rod Reiss club, thank you very much.”

The group moved together, hugging Historia as she cried. She didn’t know what she did to deserve these friends.

“You’ve got to go to work,” Ymir said as they broke out of their group hug.

“Yeah, we should get going,” Historia wiped the tears from her eyes.

Historia had not been surprised when she had dropped a crate of eggs at work seeing how her day had started.

Turning twenty three felt cursed.

When she and Sasha returned home from the farmer’s market, she had not been expecting the house to have been decorated. A big pink banner that said Happy Birthday hung from the ceiling.

There were balloons everywhere.

“Surprise!” Ymir yelled.

Historia immediately started crying.

Ymir quickly rushed to Historia and just hugged her.

“I’m sorry. You all still did all this after what happened this morning? You’re really not mad? I just….it was always big parties with a lot of people I didn’t even like besides you all when you came. I just...no one asks me what I wanted.”

Ymir held her tighter.

“Come on, I made dinner,” Annie said.

They all sat at the table, including Sawney and Bean. The humans had steak and potatoes.

Everyone pretended not to see Levi giving them potatoes and pieces of steak.

“And cake!” Sasha pulled a large pink cake out of the fridge.

“When did you make that?” Historia asked.

“At 4:00 am this morning,” Sasha smiled as she sat the cake on the table.

“Candles are in the drawer over there,” Levi pointed in the general direction of the drawer holding the candles.

Ymir got up and grabbed them. Then she handed them to Sasha who put the candles into the cake.

Levi pulled a lighter out of his pocket and handed it to Sasha who lit the candles.

“Make a wish,” Mikasa said.

Historia closed her eyes for a moment and then blew out the candles.

“Knife?” Sasha asked as she looked to Levi.

“There’s a cake knife and server over in the knife drawer,” He answered as he began to clear the table.

“You’re so fancy, Levi,” Ymir laughed.

“Grab some of these plates. You’re on dish duty,” Levi’s voice was completely monotone.

“Why am I always on dish duty?” Ymir grumbled.

“Because you always have something smart to say,” Annie smirked.

“Fine….” Ymir gave in and picked the rest of the plates up.

“After cake,” Levi clarified as he put his part of the plates into the sink.

Sasha returned with the cake knife, server, and cake plates. She handed the knife to Historia as Levi and Ymir returned to the table.

Historia cut into the cake.

“It’s strawberry! My favorite!” Historia smile grew.

After dinner, Ymir did dishes while Mikasa and Annie got the gifts they had wrapped earlier in the day.

“Wait, you...you...you didn’t. You didn’t have to get me anything,” Historia said as she sat down in the middle of the couch.

Historia was very surprised. Gifts were not something she expected after everything. The dinner, cake, and decorations had been enough.

The gifts were sat down on the table while Levi and Sasha had grabbed two chairs from the sun room. They were much more comfortable than the chairs in the kitchen.

“We need a bigger couch,” Mikasa said as she sat down in one of the chairs from the sun room.

“There’s not enough room for Sawney and Bean,” Sasha said as she sat down on the couch.

“Are you saying we need a new couch because my dogs don’t fit with you or because you all can’t curl up into it like you did when you were thirteen?” Levi asked as he sat down in his chair.

“Both,” Annie answered before sitting on the other end of the couch.

Sawney and Bean chased one another so they didn’t seem to care about there not being any room on the couch for them.

“Ymir! Hurry up!” Sasha yelled.

“I’m trying!” A voice called from the kitchen.

Ymir finally finished cleaning the dishes and sat down into the empty chair.

“This one is from me,” Annie said as she handed Historia a gift bag.

Historia reached in and pulled out a bottle of her favorite perfume. It was very expensive and she was running out of it. She had been thinking about switching to something else.

“Annie…”

“Still more in there.”

Historia went through the rest of the gift bag. She pulled out a makeup pallet, several lipsticks, and other cosmetics.

“Wait, is this...it is! It’s the Powers of Light and Dark collection!” Historia squealed.

“That makeup set you kept tagging us in for contests?” Sasha asked.

“Yes! It’s been sold out everywhere. Annie, how did you get this?” Historia asked as she opened the makeup pallet.

“Hitch works at that makeup store in the mall. She saved me the collection,” Annie said with a shrug.

“I thought they weren’t allowed to,” Historia said before closing the pallet.

“Not supposed to but she may have put them in a different section of the store no one visits. I happened to find them there.”

“Thank you, Annie. Really. You should have saved your money though. I mean you’re having a kid…”

Annie waved her hand. “My insurance is great. It’s covering almost everything. Besides, I got to use Hitch’s discount. Don’t worry about it. You deserve it. You’re welcome.”

“Why is that such a popular item?” Levi asked. “It looks like every other makeup pallet I’ve seen.”

“How many makeup pallets have you seen, Levi?” Ymir asked.

“How many do the five of you own?”

“Touché.”

“Well it’s the names of the products. Half are named after powers of the Light, like goddess and angel. The other half are named after powers of Dark, like devil or demon. The pigment in them is absolutely amazing,” Historia explained as she put the makeup and perfume back into the gift bag.

“My turn!” Sasha said excitedly as she picked up one of the boxes. She handed it to Historia.

Historia was careful as she ripped the wrapping paper off of the gift. There was a beautiful box under the wrapping paper. Historia slowly opened the box and pulled the shoes out. There were a pair of pink stilettos that had spikes that one would see on a necklace or dog collar on them.

“I thought for our next concert, you could wear them on stage,” Sasha smiled.

“I love them,” Historia was about to cry again. Most of her shoe collection had been left behind at Reiss mansion.

“ My turn!” Mikasa said, not allowing Historia to start crying. She picked up the other box on the table and handed it to Historia.

“You didn’t...this has been enough,” Historia said.

“Well, we did. Just open it,” Ymir said.

“I’m with Ymir on this,” Mikasa said.

Historia nodded before she unwrapped and opened the box. She pulled out a pink studded designer leather purse. Historia stared at it and then looked at Mikasa.

“ It matches your shoes,” Mikasa smiled.

“I’m going to use it everyday,” Historia clutched her shoes and matching purse to her chest. “I’m going to wear these shoes everyday too.”

“Alright, this is from me,” Levi said as he used his foot to nudge the gift bag left on the table.

“You got me something?” Historia asked.

“It’s not a big deal,” He shrugged.

Historia reached into the bag and pulled out a new phone and a new case.

“It has all your old stuff on it too!” Mikasa added.

To say Historia hadn’t been expecting anything from Levi was an understatement. It was a beautiful rose gold phone, a newer model of her old phone. The case was pink and had floating glitter in it.

“Your old phone was out of date. They said you liked pink,” Levi shrugged.

“Thank you,” Historia whispered. She wasn’t used to having a parent figure care about her. Rod gave her things that made HIM look good. It was never in her favorite color.

“And we saved the best for last. It’s my turn,” Ymir said picking up the small box that was left on the table.

“So even after this morning…”Historia started.

“I give you a free pass because your biological father is a dick. Open it.”

Historia popped the box open to reveal a beautiful silver charm bracelet. It had music notes and treble clefs hanging from it.

“Ymir….” Historia started.

“Nope, your birthday. None of that,” Ymir smiled. “Stop crying, turn that new phone on. We’ve got to all take some selfies! That includes you, Levi.”

“Why would I do that?” Levi scoffed.

“Just one! It’ll be our family photo!” Sasha pleaded.

“Hange would probably like it if you sent it to her, “Annie shrugged.

“Come on, Levi. One picture isn’t going to kill you,” Mikasa said.

“Fine, but only one,” he gave in.

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

Levi wasn’t surprised that when he walked by 11:00 pm, the girls were asleep in Mikasa’s room with a movie still playing on the tv. How all five of them slept in that bed together was a mystery to him. It could not have been comfortable. He shook his head as he made his way into his room with Sawney and Bean following him.

His phone rang.

It was Hange.

“How was Historia’s birthday?” They asked.

“It went well. Rod Reiss is a dick,” he replied as he sat down on the bed.

“I thought we knew that,” Hange replied.

“We did but...he messed with the kids’ music. He used their contract against them. I know they’re hurt. I’m thinking about contacting you know who,” Levi sighed.

“Make copies. Don’t give him an original copy of anything,” Hange instructed him.

“I know that much. You know once I do this, there’s no going back. If you think it’s a bad idea…”

“I don’t. Take Rod Reiss down or sleep on it and then take him down.”

Levi sighed again.

“Anything else happen today?” Hange asked.

“I forgot to tell you the other day, Ymir asked if Kenny tortured people. She said the chains were either for that or we had a sex dungeon.”

Hange’s laughter was uncontrollable on the other end of the phone.

“It’s not that funny.”

“No, it’s hilarious. What did you tell her?”

“Nothing. I just walked away. I’ve still got all these dead bugs from Kenny left for you.”

“I’ll be over tomorrow!”

#mmtylif #my writing

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gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights · 5 years ago

Link

Rating: G

Summary: It comes down to Viperion and a kazoo to save an akumatized XY. Hopefully Bob Roth will be the only one who gets hurt. A Luka/XY fic

Word Count: 4154

Notes: Written for @janaikam through the @mlbforblm charity drive! The donations go directly to Color of Change, an organization for racial justice. I highly recommend checking them out and reblogging/donating the mlbforblm posts if you’re able! I have two fic request slots left as of 7/10/2020, and many other talented writers and artists are offering incentives as well!

XXX

“Lyre, I am Hawk—”

“Liar?” XY scoffed. His vision had gone all pinky-purple, which was weird. Wasn’t anger supposed to be red? Maybe all the tears in his eyes were blurring the color. “I didn’t lie. It was Dad who lied and said it was my idea to steal music again. It wasn’t even my idea the first time! He knows I never have any ideas!”

Hawksloth sighed in XY’s mind. Weird. XY didn’t know that telepathy could include sounds like that.

“I meant lyre as in the instrument.”

“But it’s a pun on liar. And that’s Viperion’s weapon, anyway. It’s probably copyrighted or something. Which I would know, because I don’t steal music anymore.”

Luka had offered to collab with him. And Dad had liked Kitty Section’s music before, so why did he throw such a fit when Luka and XY made something together now? Dad had told him to go back to his algorithm-generated music, but that didn’t have half the sexy vibes of his new tracks.

“Fine,” Hawkbroth growled. “Your name can be—”

“Ooh, ooh, let me pick! I’ve got the perfect one!”

“Somehow I doubt that…”

“Synthpathetic!”

Hawkmoth’s voice went silent. Was XY’s akuma name so amazing it had intimidated the supervillain?

“You know, because your stupid butterfly flew into my synth?” He pressed down on the keys, which had gone all purple-black and bubbly, like toxic ooze. Ooh, that might make a good idea for a song…

“I’m beginning to regret this already,” Hawkmoth muttered.

“Hey, no take backs! At least not until I deck my dad.” This day had already mega sucked, but he was gonna get something good out of it.

“And then you will bring me Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculouses.”

“Sure, sure, whatever. Think you’ll need a bit more jewelry than that to make up for your ugly wrestler costume though.” XY has never seen Hawkgoth in person, but the animation in the Larybug movie made him look stupid. Did Hawkflop’s teeth really look like that? They’d given him nightmares.

“Ugly—! No, let’s just get this over with, and then I can drop this facade.” Hawkroth seemed to be talking to himself, but XY could still hear him. Awkward. “Synthpathetic! I give you the power to expose your enemies as the liars they are. In return I ask for—”

“Yeah, yeah, some tacky jewelry. You sure you don’t want Viperion’s bracelet? That thing’s way cooler and has a better power than, I dunno, making polka dot desk lamps.”

Somehow XY had the image of Hawkfrost’s eye twitching.

“I will show you tacky.”

Then the purple-black swallowed XY up, leaving only Synthpathetic in his place.

XXX

“Synthpathetic. Hawkmoth must really hate you, huh,” Luka deadpanned while watching the Ladyblog stream on his phone. The screen showed a villain in a short gray coat and tall hair and… Luka pulled his eyes away from those tight golden shorts. He refocused his attention on the keyboard that seemed to be growing out of the akuma’s forearm. Wires connected the keyboard to a metal cuff over his bicep. Was one of those objects where the akuma was hiding? Or maybe it was in the sharp pink sunglasses. Heck, it even could’ve been in the hot pink XY-themed boots.

Even if it weren’t for those gaudy pumps, Luka would’ve known it was XY. No one else could pull off such a ridiculous outfit.

And of course, there was als the fact that Bob Roth had just gone on live television and “announced” that XY’s latest music was stolen.

Luka’s chest felt hollow. He should’ve been there for XY. It was Luka who’d told him to stand up to his dad, that XY should be able to express himself through whatever music he wanted. Clearly, that had backfired.

“Yo, Bob Roth! Does this sound stolen to you?” Synthpathetic stared into the camera as he pressed a chord with his left hand, and music burst from the instrument attached to his arm. The camera shook, and Alya’s hair whipped across the screen as she was blown across the street.

“Okay, so we have confirmation of this akuma’s target,” she announced, breathing heavily. The camera refocused; she must have stood up. “That’s weird, I’m feeling kind of—”

Suddenly her voice cut off. And then she burst out singing.

“Rena Rouge is my hero name, I said it out loud! Nino is my boyfriend and I love his Soundcloud!”

That didn’t sound right. Not that it wasn’t true—but why would Alya say that on her Ladyblog livestream, much less sing it? Unless—

“Oh no,” Alya whispered. The camera flipped around to show her face. “I wish I could say that was a lie, but I’m committed to bringing you only the truth. It seems like Synthpathetic’s power makes you sing something important to you. Maybe even something secret. Ladybug and Chat Noir aren’t yet on the scene—”

Luka clicked off the screen and jumped on his bike. He just hoped he’d be able to make it downtown in time.

XXX

“Ladybug!” Luka shouted, leaping off his bike. It kept going and crashed into the side of the hotel. He winced. Hopefully Ladybug’s miracle cure would take care of that. Not that the state of his bike was important compared to saving XY.

“Luka?” She gasped before handspringing away from one of Synthpathetic’s musical blasts. “What are you doing here? I already told Alya to clear the area!”

Luka had biked past the Ladyblogger to quickly for her to stop him. No one else had gotten past though, not that they’d want to. He’d briefly noticed Bob Roth cowering against the side of a building, Nino standing guard over him.

In the street Synthpathetic had already ravaged, it was just him and Ladybug, and Chat Noir and the villain. Chat was currently distracting him by waving his baton in a ¾ time signature.

“Not cool, man! That doesn’t match my 4/4 beats at all!” Sythnpathetic pouted, but Luka couldn’t focus on him yet.

“I need the snake miraculous,” he told Ladybug.

She yanked him around the corner of the hotel as a wave of music notes nearly struck them.

“If he hits you, you’ll be forced to give up your identity, just like Rena Rouge,” he continued quickly. “You and Chat Noir can’t risk that.”

He didn’t bring up the other reason why he was here. He wasn’t sure he could’ve put it into words, anyway. He just… he needed to be here.

If only he could’ve Second Chanced and stopped himself from giving XY that stupid advice in the first place.

“I know. That’s why I just got back from asking the Guardian for this.” She pulled the bracelet out of her yo-yo. “I was planning on giving it to Nino as soon as he took care of Bob Roth, but since you’re here—”

“Great.” He slipped on the bracelet. His kwami barely had the chance to materialize before he shouted, “Sass, scales slither!”

Ladybug gasped as the bright turquoise light washed over him. He barely heard it over the sound of Synthpathetic’s beats. Was Chat Noir doing okay? Luka hadn’t heard him sing yet, at least.

“Did anyone see that?” Ladybug’s brow furrowed beneath her mask. “I think we’re hidden enough behind this corner, but if anyone saw you transform, you won’t be able to be a hero again.”

That hardly mattered. Ladybug could always find someone else to wield the snake miraculous. She’d planned to give it to Nino, anyway. No, what mattered right now was making sure XY didn’t reveal the real heroes’ identities.

And making sure that XY would be okay when all this was over.

“Do you have your Lucky Charm yet?” He asked.

She spun her yo-yo in the air, and a polka-dotted kazoo fell into her hands. What she was going to do with that, Luka had no idea. But that was why he was Viperion and not Ladybug. His job was just to stay out of the way and buy the real heroes some time.

“Second Chance,” he whispered, tugging at the snake bracelet’s tongue.

Five minutes. Hopefully they wouldn’t need it.

XXX

They needed it.

Hawkmoth must have given XY extra agility on top of his magical music. Synthpathetic backflipped through the air as he blasted out chord after chord, even some arpeggios and scale for good measure. The melodies reminded Luka of the time they’d spent writing songs together in Luka’s room, humming back and forth. XY would make up senseless lyrics that made them both laugh. Luka would improv a harmony, while XY put each note in careful place.

They made a good team. It was too bad they were fighting on opposite sides now.

Each time a wave of translucent music hit Ladybug or Chat Noir, Luka was forced to reset before they began to sing. He couldn’t risk learning the heroes’ identities, even if they would never know he knew.

Through it all, Ladybug never seemed to find a use for her kazoo. She tried playing it, but Synthpathetic couldn’t hear over his own music. She tried throwing it, but it just got stuck in Synthpathetic’s tall mass of hair. She even strung it on her yo-yo, which made Chat Noir laugh and get hit with a musical blast.

She’ll come up with something. She’s Ladybug.

“Why don’t you guys attack Bob Roth instead of me? I’m way more sympathetic!” XY whined for the eleventh time. Sometimes Luka found XY’s nasally voice endearing, but right now it just made him grimace.

“I’m still surprised he knows what that word means,” Luka muttered before scooping up his lyre and scrambling to his feet. The most recent blast of notes hadn’t hit him directly, but it had taken out of a corner of the hotel and knocked him back. Dust made it hard to tell if Ladybug or Chat Noir had been hit. But he’d already reset so many times; he didn’t want to waste any more chances than he had to, especially since every time he had to explain to Ladybug what tactics they’d already tried.

Every time, she insisted that he stay hidden. He’d be too much of a target for the villain if he was in the open, she said. And besides, what else could he do? His weapon was a lyre. Even a guitar would’ve been easier to attack villains with.

Not that he really wanted to attack XY. Synthpathetic. They weren’t the same—he had to remember that. This blue-skinned villain wasn’t his friend. Luka had come to help Ladybug knowing that he would have to fight him, so why did the thought of it turn his stomach?

“Don’t worry, XY. We’ll save you… somehow.”

XXX

“We need a new strategy,” Ladybug said after Luka (for the twelfth time) explained what went wrong. “The time we defeated Desperada, you used your lyre to distract her. XY was a musician too, right? Maybe that will work again.”

Luka swallowed. “So you want him to know I’m here?”

“We don’t have anything to lose. He’ll forget once you Second Chance if this doesn’t work. Do you think you can do it?”

“I… yeah. I can.” He tried to sound more confident than he felt.

“Perfect. Chat and I will hide on two of the hotel balconies, where we can drop on him when he’s not expecting it. Here.” She pressed the kazoo into his hand. “I have a feeling this is supposed to be for you.”

“Um… alright.” He pulled off one of his lyre’s strings, then used it to string the kazoo around his neck.

She didn’t give him any more instructions other than “Good luck, Viperion.”

With that, she swung towards Chat Noir and scooped him up in her arms. The faint sound of their banter drifted in between Synthpathetic’s blasts. Then they were gone, disappearing over the railing of a high balcony.

“What the—hey! Why are you running? You finally realize how scary I am?” Synthpathetic shouted up from the street.

“In that shade of pink and those shorts? Terrifying,” Luka deadpanned while stepping out from behind the corner.

Synthpathetic’s pointed shades slipped off his nose as he gaped. Beneath, his blue eyes were practically bulging out of his head.

Guess that’s not the akumatized object, Luka mused as the glasses cracked on the pavement.

“Viperion!” Synthpathetic ran forward, clapping his hands together like he’d just won tickets to a concert. “You’re like, my favorite superhero! Can you sign my forehead?”

Luka’s jaw went slack. This wasn’t part of his plan. He was just supposed to distract Synthpathetic while Ladybug and Chat Noir dropped on the villain from above.

“You know it’ll just wear off once we beat you, right?”

XY—Synthpathetic—pouted. Geez, it was hard to remember this wasn’t his friend when his eyes looked like that. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to do it, aren’t you? Of course you wouldn’t like me. I’m still just a villain, even if I’m a sympathetic one.”

He crossed his arms, accidentally pressing a few keys on the synth plugged into his arm. A soft minor chord blurred the air around his feet.

“Hey, I never said that,” Luka replied, but Synthpathetic just frowned.

“Did you know I always wanted to fight on your side?”

Luka blinked. “No, I can’t say I did.”

“Yeah. I never thought I’d meet you like this.” He chuckled sadly before wincing and digging a finger in his ear. “Hawksloth is yelling at me again. He wants me to take your bracelet. I think it looks better on you than me, though.”

Warmth coursed through Luka at the compliment, even if it shouldn’t have meant anything coming from someone wearing such eye-stabbing colors.

“You’re still in there, aren’t you? XY.”

“You—you know his name?” His eyes sparkled. “I mean—of course you do, he’s famous. But no, I’m not him. I just want to beat up his dad.”

You and me both, he wanted to say. But siding with an akuma probably wasn’t the best strategy.

Distraction. That was his only job. Where were Ladybug and Chat Noir? He scanned the side of the hotel, but didn’t see either of them. Better keep Synthpathetic talking, then.

“What did he do to you—I mean, to XY?”

Synthpathetic groaned. “Man, he was not cash money at all. He hated XY and Kitty Section’s collab cause it was like, too awesome and gay or something, I don’t even know. So anyway, he told everyone XY just stole the songs when he wrote them himself and—ngh!”

Synthpathetic clutched his head. “Hawkbroth—shut up! I’m trying to talk to my idol here!”

Luka’s heart felt fuzzy in spite of himself. He should take a note from Hawkmoth and start fighting too. There was no telling how long Chat and Ladybug were going to take, and his miraculous only showed two minutes left.

Suddenly Synthpathetic straightened. “Sorry, bro. I hope this doesn't hurt.”

Luka twisted his bracelet right before the keyboard bashed into his head.

XXX

“Viperion! You’re like, my favorite superhero! Can you sign my forehead?”

Luka couldn't help laughing. Even hearing it for the second time, XY was just too cute.

Not XY. Don’t get distracted this time.

“Sure. I’ll just need to know where your akuma is in return.”

“Deal! The dumb butterfly flew into—” He cried out and clutched his head again. Guess Hawkmoth wouldn’t let Luka win that easy.

“You’re mean,” Synthpathetic said, but Luka wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or Hawkmoth.

Either way, Luka had to act on his distraction. He lunged forward, crashing his lyre against the keyboard. The resulting blast of music blew them both towards opposite sides of the street.

Luka gritted his teeth against the song building in his lungs, and he twisted his bracelet.

XXX

“Viperion! You’re like, my favorite superhero! Can you sign my forehead? Wha—hey!”

This time, Luka ran in swinging. A lyre wasn’t as useful a weapon as a baton or yo-yo, but it could still hurt if it connected right.

Unfortunately, Luka didn’t know how to make it connect right. He again wished he could replace his weapon with a guitar. But as it was, Synthpathetic parried easily and leapt back.

“I wanted to fight with you, not against you!”

“Hawkmoth didn’t give you much of a choice, did he?”

Luka ran in again. It was a stupid strategy for him—Chat Noir was the only one who could carelessly run into danger and get away with it.

But by now, he was mad. XY was his friend. Luka had never seen him get more upset than when Luka had eaten the last slice of pizza. Bob Roth’s betrayal must have cut deep.

Really, Luka would rather be fighting that sleazebag than this akuma, but XY wouldn’t come back until Synthpathetic was gone.

So he punched, and kicked, and ignored Synthpathetic’s pleas to leave him alone.

“Give him a left hook! No, a right elbow! Come on kid, who taught you how to fight, some little Tinkerbell?”

Luka glanced over his shoulder, where Bob Roth had shoved past Nino and Alya.

“Sorry, I tried to stop him!” Nino said.

“LIAR!” Synthpathetic shouted, sprinting at full speed towards the older man.

Nino and Alya dove out of the way just in time for Synthpathetic’s fist to connect with Bob Roth’s jaw. Luka winced appreciatively at the crack.

“That was for insulting Viperion’s fighting.”

Then Synthpathetic kicked Bob in the crotch.

“And that was for calling XY a thief.”

Bob dropped to the ground with a high-pitched whine.

“You’re not going to play your music on him?” Alya asked. Her phone was out and filming again despite being a mere meter from the akuma. It wasn’t surprising that Ladybug had picked her to be Rena Rouge; she certainly had the guts for it.

“Nah.” Synthpathetic picked at something between his teeth, and the keyboard attached to his arm knocked against his chin. “Wouldn’t do any good. He’d make up some kinda lie later, like he did to Lu before.”

Synthpathetic had a point there. More importantly, though, he was still distracted enough for Luka to slice his lyre through the wires connecting the keyboard to his arm.

“Ow!” Synthpathetic cried out as sparks flew from the wires. Unfortunately though, no black butterfly flew out with it. “Look, I really didn’t even want to fight you. Hawkcrotch doesn’t care about your bracelet that much. Plus, you’ve got a cute face. Wouldn’t want to bruise it or anything.”

Luka blushed at that, but shook it off. He didn’t have much time. The responsible thing to do would be to Second Chance now, but the selfish part of him didn’t want to undo Bob Roth’s humiliation.

Plus, he finally caught sight of Chat Noir perched on the roof.

“You don’t have to hurt me, you know.” Luka spread his arms wide. “You could always just play your music. If you like me so much, you’d want to know my deep, dark secrets, wouldn’t you?”

Synthpathetic’s grin showed all of his perfect white teeth. “Great idea! You’re hot and smart!”

Luka’s bracelet began to beep, but he didn’t flinch. Ladybug, you better be ready…

Synthpathetic’s fingers flashed across the keys. The chorus from Mr. Brightside boomed like a shot from a canon. It took Luka in the chest, but he dug his heels into the concrete and remained standing as he skidded back.

The song built in his chest. Chat Noir jumped from the roof.

Right before Luka was forced to sing, he shoved the kazoo in his mouth.

“What? No fair!” Synthpathetic whined as a rhythmic buzzing was the only sound from Luka.

The only sound out loud, anyway. In his heart, Luka felt the words that Synthpathetic couldn’t hear.

“Cataclysm!” Chat Noir shouted. Synthpathetic barely had time to look up before the hero’s outstretched hand pressed down on the keyboard.

Everything happened at once. Ladybug’s yo-yo caught Chat Noir by the ankle, stopping him from splatting into the pavement. The synth disintegrated around XY’s arm, and violet light bubbled around him. Ladybug lowered Chat to the ground before snapping up the dark butterfly. Then, finally, she swung herself down the street.

She landed between Luka and XY and held out her hand. Luka stared at it blankly for a moment before spitting out the kazoo and handing it over.

She grimaced as Chat Noir’s cheeks puffed with laughter.

“Ah, er, thanks… uh, Miraculous Ladybug!”

Pink light exploded in the sky. Buildings repaired themselves; chunks of rubble disappeared. Bob Roth was still lying on the ground, but Chat Noir hefted him up and deposited him on the hotel’s front steps.

That taken care of, Luka crouched down beside XY, who was rubbing his head.

“Ngh, what…? Viperion!” XY’s whole face lit up like Christmas. “You’re like, my favorite superhero! Can you sign my forehead?”

Luka laughed. “Of course, XY. Do you have a pen on you?”

“You know my name!” He beamed at Ladybug and Chat Noir, who was jogging back already. He probably didn’t want to be around Bob any longer than he had to. “Did you hear that? My favorite superhero knows my name!”

“Seems like he’s got you taken care of then.” Chat Noir winked at XY. “What do you say, my Lady? Should we leave them to it?”

“Don’t forget about your timer,” Ladybug told Luka. “And meet me around the corner when you’re done.”

“Right.” He nodded. One minute left. He could handle that, even if he wished he had more time.

Particularly now that he knew what truth had been buried so deep in his heart, only the akuma’s magic could release it.

XY giggled as Luka accepted his pink sharpie and signed Viperion in curling script across his forehead. He left a second signature on his purple headband for good measure.

“I’m never washing my face again,” XY swooned.

“You know, clean faces get more kisses,” Luka replied seriously.

XY’s eyes widened. “You—wait, would you actually—?”

Luka smiled and pressed a kiss to XY’s cheek.

“Please don’t forget to wash that, too.”

Then he saluted and dashed towards where Ladybug had disappeared. As he ran, the synth-driven song still beat in his heart:

My real name’s Luka, that’s not new. But did you know I’ve got a crush on you?

XXX

XY replayed the Ladyblog footage of Synthpathetic punching his dad. Each crack was like music to his ears. Maybe he could remix that into a new track.

“I wonder if Ladybug’s magic dust fixed that.”

Luka snorted, strumming his guitar from where he sat on his bed. It was a relaxing tune, one XY hadn’t heard before. “I hope not. He deserved it after he lied about you.”

XY smiled. It was nice to have a friend on his side, for once. Luka had been there to pick him up and take him back to the Liberty after Viperion had left. Dad had tried to stop them from leaving together, but there wasn’t much he could do when XY sat on Luka’s bike handlebars, stuck his tongue out, and let Luka pedal them away. It wasn’t quite as romantic as being carried by Viperion would’ve been, but it was a close second.

Luka’s quiet music faltered, his hands fumbling on the strings. “Hey, XY…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I gave you that advice. To stand up to you dad, I mean. I should’ve known he’d just end up hurting you.”

XY shrugged. “Honestly, man? I’d do it all again. I got to punch him and I got a kiss from Viperion.” He touched his cheek, sighing dreamily. That kiss had been after he was brought back to normal, so he could still remember it perfectly.

Of course, having replayed it seventy-eight times on the Ladyblog helped, too.

“I’m glad you’re happy, but… what are you going to do now? Aren’t you worried about your career?”

“Nah.” XY leaned his head back against the side of Luka’s bed and closed his eyes. “I’ve made enough money to break off from Dad, even if I have to get a slummy apartment. But I bet Viperion’s gonna fly me off into the sunset before I have to worry about that.”

Luka laughed. “Viperion doesn’t fly, you know—”

“He would for me.”

“—and he doesn’t always have his miraculous. Maybe he wants to come rescue you, but he can’t.”

XY frowned. With the power of Second Chance, he doubted there was anything Viperion couldn’t do.

“Doesn’t matter,” XY decided. “I’ll wait for him. I know I’ll see him again.”

Luka’s melody picked up again, bringing another smile to XY’s face. Could Viperion play the guitar that well? XY daydreamed that he could.

Luka’s whisper blended with the music.

“I know you will, too.”

#tali writes #miraculous ladybug #luxy #luka #xy #ml #fic tag #mlbforblm

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