#hack the box help machine hint

[heartofsnark]

Can You Feel The Sun? (Chapter Twelve): Your Demon, Never Leaving

Notes: Soooo, its been a minute, like I said, been kind of sick. And I've been sitting on this chapter for a while, I was gonna wait until I finish the next. But decided, fuck it. We're still rocking around the angst train with this and I'm sure some of you are like, when is Johnny gonna be let out of brain jail and the answer is soon, next chapter, promise. Our girl just needs some time to process and what better way to do so, then to get into a fist fight and talk to some folks.

Word Count: 11873

Warnings: Suicidal thoughts and mentions, bit of blood and violence, general angst, some talks of sex but no actual in chapter sex. 

If you haven’t yet, you can read the previous chapter here!~

V finds herself in Westbrook next, kicking herself for forgetting that Wakako never paid for the Dorsett job. The sun’s barely been up but an hour by the time she makes it to Jig Jig street, the merc preoccupying her time by pouring more energy drinks from a vending machine into her thermos. A quick hack used to get them for free. 

She leans against the wall of the pachinko parlor while she waits, someone passing by offers to sell her drugs and a joytoy tries to flirt with her in the meantime. Both swiftly denied and the merc jumps when she sees the parlor lighting up, Wakako likely already tucked in her back room. She slides on her mask as discreetly as she can before she walks across the blue tiled floors and past the desk clerk, who shoots her a dirty look. 

Past a beaded curtain, she sees Wakako at her back desk. A slick black and gold color scheme that seems completely at odds with the gaudy vibrancy of Jig Jig street. Wakako is one of the older fixers, V would wager to guess she’s at least Padre’s age, with long gray hair pulled back off her face and cold shrewd eyes. 

“Well, well,” the fixer greets, “who do I spy but V, in my humble parlor no less.” 

“Here in the flesh, never did answer my call,” V can’t help but sign, thankful her bitter smile is hidden behind her mask. 

“I must have been busy, I’m sure.” 

“Of course.” 

“So, what brings you here?” Wakako asks, tapping her red nails across the wood of her desk. 

“Last gig, said I had to swing by to grab my payment, remember?” 

“I don’t forget such things, V. Here is your reward, it comes with a fairly ample bonus. Go to Cassius Ryder in Watson, he’ll weave you a derma-imprint with smart-gun compatibility, a Tyger Claws special. You did good work, you and that… friend of yours.” 

“Appreciate it,” V signs, feeling her muscles tighten at the mention of Jackie. Then the money comes in, over three thousand, not bad at all. But, she could still use a bit more before she pays back Vik. If she completely drains her bank account for him, Vik will throw a fit. 

“And V,” Wakako calls out before the merc can leave, “I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for your calls from now on.” 

V simply nods, unsure of how to take the comment as she leaves the pachinko parlor. Wakako is hard to read, that much she knows. Everything the woman says seems to drip with poison and sarcasm. She could wish V could morning and the merc would wonder if it’s a veiled death threat. Kindness and cruelty sound the same coming from Wakako. Meaning the statement could be a cruel taunt regarding V’s ruined reputation or it could be genuine, that somehow the merc has built back some of it. She has been going hard the past three or four days, refusing to do much else. Deciphering Wakako will only drive her crazy, V determines, leaving Jig-Jig street and climbing in her stolen MaiMai. 

The fight in Kabuki is worth at least two grand, meaning if V’s lucky enough she can finish it up and pay Vik back while still leaving around… two grand in her bank account. Not much, but she’s worked with less. If she loses, she’ll just have to make it back in more scanner jobs, she supposes. Or start selling some stuff. 

She parks near the coordinates Coach Fred sent her. V pulls off her mask, it could be considered unfair, fighting with a face cover. When she gets out of the car, she catches a flash of something in the side mirror, breath catching in her throat. Thinking it’s a flash of dark hair and a beard, think it’s him, she looks again. But only sees her reflection, granted, she looks like she’s already been fucked up in a fight. 

Her hygiene has… suffered during this ordeal. Nose bruised to hell and back, looking a little crooked she realizes. There’s blood and dirt on her face, the worse of it down her lips and chin. She smells like sweat, blood, and still vague hints of stagnant water. Wakako probably smelled V before seeing her. 

The merc first takes a deep breath, grabs her nose and cracks it back into place, setting it as pain shoots through her face and tears blur her vision. . She curses, giving herself a moment before she goes looking through her bag for wet wipes or antiseptic ones, something to give herself a quick whore’s bath. But finds nothing, her supplies needing a restock. 

In a pathetic attempt at something, she spits onto her hoodie sleeve and tries to scrub some blood off with the drool. Only managing to smear the dirt and blood into a new pattern. As far as she knows, no one she cares about will be at the fight. She’ll shower before she sees Vik. For now, she’ll just be gross. Too exhausted and overwhelmed to care about how strangers view her hygiene.  

She takes three heavy drinks of energy drink and makes her way to the feet, down a set of stairs that run next to the overpass, walking across cracked cement through patch work metal shacks. Up a little yellow ladder and climbing over air conditioning units. Even getting to the fight has to be an ordeal it seems. 

V can see the backs of people, on one of the other rooftops involved in this little parkour endeavor. A crowd gathered around and she has to assume that’s where the fight is. A little set of metal steps up to the slightly higher platform. When she walks up the stairs she can see the crowd is around a clearing on the roof; two identical men squaring off. She half expected a Tyger Claw gang member, given the area is their turf. But the men look fairly nondescript, twins who box, she supposes. 

“This is pointless, I know where I’m gonna strike before I do it,” one of the men say, fist raised to his brother, though the wording seems off. Of course, one would know where they’re going to strike. Brain damage too many blows to the head, maybe. 

“Typical, I knew I’d say that.” 

She raises an eyebrow but shakes her head, and clears her throat. The men straighten up, two pairs of brown eyes staring straight at V. They’re older than her, which isn’t saying much, with bald head and implants around their heads. Completely identical, only thing to separate them out is their clothing; one is a tee shirt and the other in a tank top. 

“Was told I have a fight here,” V signs, “so, which one of you is it?” 

“Me,” the men speak in unison and V blinks, confused. 

“Didn’t know it was a tag team fight, but alright, who’s up first?” 

“No, no,” the one in the t-shirt waves his hand, “you don’t get it. That body and his one, I’m the same person.” 

“I’m seeing shit then?” 

“I used to be twins, which you could probably guess. The twins had a close bond, but they wanted to be closer, stronger. “

“So they installed neural oscillation synchs. And now they’re… well.” 

“Me, one person, two bodies,” the twins finish in unison again. 

And here she is, two persons, one body. Whether she likes it or not. The whole tale is horrific to the merc, unable to understand why anyone would willingly undergo something like that. She has a twin, Eira, and despite everything that’s happened, V loves her sister dearly. But, she can’t imagine ever wanting to merge themselves together, to want to lose herself. Its part of why what’s happening with the chip is… horrifying. She doesn’t want to be something else, someone else. V is far from perfect, but, she’s her. As many times as she’s wished to be better, she’s always wanted to still be her. 

These two willingly signed up for the horror show, V’s enduring, just split across two bodies. They wanted to be someone else, to morph into some new amalgamation of who they once were. 

“So, I’m fighting you both at once?” She asks, trying to get out of her own head, to focus on the here and now. 

“My bodies do everything together. Everything,” the pair speak with finality and V can’t help but smirk at the implication. How far does everything go?

“Everything? Even in the bedroom?” She signs, waggling a brow and can feel the immediate annoyance. 

“I have one girlfriend for both bodies, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Shared between both.” 

And it takes everything in her not to laugh, a smile pulling at her lips and face flushed at how stupid it is. 

“So, what. she gets a daily double teaming?” 

“No. She’s with one body from Monday through Wednesday and the other Wednesday through Sunday. Bitch.” 

“You take shifts?!” V bursts, the entire ridiculous nature of it is exactly what she needed, cracking up at their whole situation. 

And maybe it’s mean to laugh, but she can’t help it, holding her stomach as she cackles. The insult more than worth it to know these two have their girlfriend on a sex schedule, that they take shifts for fucking. They have fuck shifts, how is she meant to handle that information?

“We doing this or what?” The twins yell, obviously not amused by her outburst. 

“Yeah, yeah,” she signs as she comes down, “but we’re doubling this, four grand.” 

She was already at a size disadvantage, the twins not huge, but taller than her. And now they’re outnumbering her as well, it’s already high risk, so she needs higher reward. The twins consider her deal for a moment, before nodding to each other. 

“Fine, see no problem there. So, can we get started?” 

“Show me what you got.” 

And three pairs of fist raise. The twin the tee shirt moves towards her first and she steps up to meet his charge, swinging the first punch and knocking her knuckles into his head. And then she steps back, grin on her face. Its been a long time since she’s sparred, a good clean fight with just fists and no weapons, it feels good.

She throws another punch and misses, the same twin comes back in to hit her, but she connects another punch first. He staggers back, but swings at her, a hard pain wracking her jaw when he connects. V blocks the next swing and momentum makes him twist around, letting the merc get a cheap shot against his back. Then another as he twists then she connects a right hook to his jaw; three hits in rapid succession, he stumbles back. He hits the ground. Then the other twin comes charging. 

V throws a right hook into the force of his run, catching just the right way to make his nose bleed. She swings for a left jab but the tank top wearing twin ducks and steps back, the one in the t-shirt is back on his feet.  

Tank-top comes at her again, right fist hitting her temple and she throws her own in return, knuckles catching his ear. She misses with her left and he brings a knee up, knocking it into her chin, making her teeth clang together as she bites her tongue in the force. He swings another punch and she deflects with her left forearm, punching her right into his face. He falls back. 

T-shirt comes at her next and gets punched in the eye, blackening under her fist. She connects the next punch to the opposite cheek, knocking into his nose. He stumbles back and wipes blood from his nose. 

The other twin swoops in, he acts like he’s going to knee her again, then swings a fist and catches her already injured nose. Pain cracks through her, but she laughs and throws a punch in return, connecting two more hits against him. Twins switch out again, t-shirt twin kicking her in the gut before throwing three quick hits. Then he shoves her back, only for her to push back and throw two more punches. And he’s down. One half done, she turns her attention back to the twin in the tank top. 

He tries to keep distance from her and she waits him out, fist raised. And after a quick moment of dancing around each other, he runs at her. A punch to her head, a swing to his own, and she connects one more to his chest.  And he hits his knees. V stares for a moment, unsure if she really just won a bare knuckle fist fight against two grown men? 

“Stop, stop, I give up!” One twin yells and gets up, face bloody as he walks to the railing. V looks down at the other twin. 

“You got more fight in you or had enough like your brother?” 

“That ain’t my brother,” he yells as he gets up, “that’s me. Jesus, what’s so hard to understand?” 

One leans against the railing and the other sits on a table by a couch, each with fresh blood and bruises on their faces. She finds herself standing before them, mind still revisiting the twin’s dynamic and situation. Melding yourself with someone else, even someone so close, she can’t even imagine being that close to someone. Even her own sister, she has a strained relationship with. She’s going into this situation with the chip kicking and screaming. 

“Here, your winnings,” the twins eyes glow as they transfer four grand into V’s bank account. 

“Not bad at all.” 

“Don’t worry, there’s always the next fight,” one twin tells the other. 

“Stop talking to yourself!” 

V can’t help but smile at the odd exchange, “Thanks for the fight, it was fun just sparring for once, I’m V. By the way.” 

“Certo,” the one in the tee introduced himself. 

“Esquerdo,” the other chimes in. 

“I know I kind of razzed on you earlier, just your situation is… interesting to me,” she admits, genuinely a part of her just wanting to ask a bit more about it. The twins must not have been perfectly alike, not anyone is, then they melded together. She can’t help but think of the ghost in her head, the man she’ll meld into, the fear of it. 

“If you’re here to pry more into my sex life, piss off.” 

“No, no, not that. Do you two read each other’s thoughts?” She asks, Johnny responded to her thoughts in the subway, assuming it was him and not an exhaustion induced hallucination. 

“No. Same person. Same thoughts.” 

“If that weren’t the case, I’d be on schizoid meds.” 

“Yeah, be weird having someone else's thoughts in your head… Would drive anyone crazy. Speaking of, wasn’t that, I don’t know… scary.” 

“What?” 

“Melding together like that, becoming one person. Because like… you’re no longer you, right? You’re a new combo, wasn’t that terrifying, to lose yourself?” 

“Not really, everyone’s always becoming someone new. Brothers knew each other well enough, loved each other enough, they knew they didn’t mind becoming each other.” 

“Strange… no offense.” 

“Why you so curious about it?” 

“I don’t know,” she stumbles for a response that makes sense, can’t explain she’s thinking about the ghost in her head, “I got a twin myself, actually. Love her, but life took us to different places. Can’t imagine… becoming part her, part me.” 

“You don’t though, you just become something new, the best of both of you.” 

“Interesting, uh, I won’t hold you up any longer. See you around.” 

V heads off and makes her way back home, guzzling energy drinks along the way, stinging the new bite mark in her tongue. She passes by Barry’s apartment on the way to her own, she’ll grab a shower, she decides before she talks to him either. Showing up at a former cop’s doorstep covered in blood and sweat sounds like a bad idea. 

The merc strips down as soon as she’s in the privacy of her apartment and makes a beeline for the shower, Hot water a godsend even as it stings her cuts and bruises, the heat relaxing her tightly wound muscles and the ache in her head. Her eyes drifting shut, body relaxing. A blink that lasts a second, maybe a minute, or two too long. 

Then pain shoots through her tailbone as she crashes to the wet shower floor, falling right onto her ass. She curses beneath her breath and gets back onto her feet, finishing her shower quickly before she falls asleep again.  The energy drinks are cutting it less and less, three days without any sleep, other than long blinks. 

She checks her tongue in the mirror thankful the bite didn’t tear at her piercing, and sighs as she takes a look at herself. Still bruised, but no longer bloody or dirty, dark bags have formed under her eyes and she’s paler than before. Her headache has become a constant throb she can’t get rid of, ears irritated from the rub of her hearing aids, the pain in her joints is equal parts overexertion and neglecting her immunosuppressants, the familiar burn of her disease flaring up. 

If Vik and Misty see her like this she’ll never hear the end of it. It feels like lying as she grabs up her foundation and concealer. She laves on a heavier layer of makeup than she’d usually do, applying it until she looks a little more human, a little more awake and put together. After everything she’s put them through the last thing she needs is to cause them any more worry. 

V throws on some clothes and makes up a new fresh batch of her caffeine cocktail before she leaves out again, fiddling with her bullet pendant as she makes her way down the stairs. She knocks on Barry’s door, trying to get the neighbors attention. 

“Hey, you home?” She signs, turning the volume up a little on her translator, hoping he’ll hear. 

“Who is it?!” A rough voice yells out. 

“V, your neighbor, remember? We talked about rides, You were all worked up over the newest Mizutani. I said it was for flash-posers.” 

“Heh,” he chuckles behind the door, “you don’t forget a gonk thing like that.” 

“You gave me this look, I was about to run back to the Badlands right then and there.” 

The door finally opens, showing Barry, just as she remembers the older man. Dark crew cut, over a foot taller than her, with tattoos across his biceps. He leans against the door frame, looking down at her by necessity. 

“I remember, what do ya want?” 

“To talk, I know that’s what you need right now, even if you don’t realize it. I can’t turn back time or magically make everything okay, would if I could, promise. But.. if nothing else, I’m good for a chat, hear you out as best I can,  and make sure you know you’re not alone.” 

“Now hold on a sec,” he makes her pause, the heaviness of it taking him off guard, “we barely know each other, and you just rock up here talkin’ to me about my problems? Where’d you get the idea something with me was up? You watchin’ me? Somebody send you?”

“You got me, your buds from the station asked me to drop in. I figured, why not, decent guy even if he’s got shit taste in rides,” she signs, with a teasing smile. 

“Come back just to get your ass kicked?” His grin makes her snicker, “man, you really know how to cheer a guy up. Maybe those two asshats really are worried about me… All right, come on in. You wanna talk, let's talk.” 

Barry leads her into the apartment, it’s layout a little different than her own. Most notably where her window stretches across the wall, he has none, with a couch against it instead. The apartment dark and gloomy without the sun being able to touch it, her boot knocks into an empty can, one of many. There’s trash across his floor, discarded takeout boxes, bottles, cans.  Has he left the apartment since she spoke with his friends? Has he locked himself up in here for the past three days? 

He sits down on the couch and V plops herself on the table in front of it, careful not to sit on his ashtray or nearly empty pizza box. She wants to be able to make eye contact and she knows human voices are far more comforting than AI ones, turning off her translator. 

“I lost someone, too,” she hates the scratch in her throat, the slight widening in Barry’s expression as he hears her speak for the first time, “he was my best friend, a good man.” 

“What do you mean ‘too’? Wait, this about Andrew? They… told you about him…”

“Yeah, I know it ain’t easy, losing someone like that.” 

 “Best bud I ever had… known him my whole life. Only person I could spill to without being judged.” 

“Take it Petrova and Mendez weren’t that great at listening?” She raises an eyebrow, Mendez seemed like a genuine dickhead, but Petrova was nice. Surely, she wouldn’t have minded hearing Barry out, given how worried she seemed. Barry shrugs his shoulders. 

“Petrova’s a decent gal, but she’s not good with this stuff. Mendez just doesn’t get it He thinks us blues need to be tough. Can bear the sight of a kid getting murdered? Born with pussy genes, according to him,” Barry tells her, the crestfallen expression telling her those are exact words from Mendez. 

“You told them about Andrew, though?” 

“Honestly? I thought about it a lot. Anyway… they don’t know everything. Better that way,” his soft nearly whispered tone tells her there’s more to this, something he doesn’t want them to know Or maybe he’s just like her and prefers to keep his cards close to his heart. 

“What exactly happened with Andrew? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Does it matter? Uh,” he rethinks when he looks at V’s face, “old age took him…. No wonder, seeing as he was only a few years younger than my grandma.” 

“I know it doesn’t make it hurt any less. But, Andrew had a long life with a good friend like you sticking by him through most of it. No better way to go, if you got to. And in Night City of all fuckin’ places? That alone deserves a fuckin’ monument.” 

That makes Barry smile, a soft laugh tumbling from his lips, “ashbox in a niche will have to do.” 

“So, was Andrew like a grandpa to you?” 

“Hm. Wouldn’t go that far. He was like… egh. I don’t know. A window into the past or… something. He reminded me of my gram-grams, about our little talks… time when everything had its proper place, y’know? He was the last living record of those times.” 

“He clearly meant a lot to you, it’s only natural losing him is gonna hurt. Mendez is full of shit, to be blunt. Life and loss is hard, really fuckin’ hard. And feeling that hurt doesn’t make you weak, makes you human.” 

Her throat feels tight as she speaks, each word making her feel more and more like a hypocrite. Preaching the importance of feeling out your hurt while hiding from her own. She can still taste gunmetal, feel the weight of the barrel on her tongue as she willed herself to pull the trigger. Talking a man off a ledge she tiptoed no more than a few hours before. And it’s not that she doesn’t mean what she says, but she can’t give herself the same kindness she affords him. 

“What if he’s right though?” Barry asks, eyes big with worry, “maybe my genes are soft? Don’t only the strongest survive?” 

“Losing people hurts. And that’s okay, doesn’t make you weak, and ignoring it don’t make you strong. If you felt nothing at all, then his loss wouldn’t have any meaning. You lost someone you cared about, who was there for you most of your life; anyone with a heart would be hurting right now.” 

“I guess… so. Thanks for the talk. I, uh, need time to take all this in.” 

“Alright, take care of yourself,” she stands from the table, “and if you need anything else, you know where to find me.” 

She leaves Barry’s apartment and lets out a soft sigh, rethinking what she told Barry, wondering if she handled it well. Taking in how it applies to her. The words she can easily speak to someone else, but not to herself. Feeling hurt doesn’t make her weak, just human. Painfully, disgustingly, revoltingly human.  

V shakes her head, making her way out of the apartment complex and taking the NCART down to Buran and Bradbury. Walking down the family little cluster of storefronts, pass strippers dancing in windows, where Gary the wannabe prophet sleeps on some abandoned filthy mattress, and into Misty’s store. Her heart jumping in her throat when she sees the older woman. 

“V!” Misty calls out, green eyes brightening and a breath of relief leaving her chest, “its been a minute, got worried about you.” 

“Nothing to worry about, just been, busy… Actually, wanted to see Vik, got a debt to pay back.” 

“Hmmm, c’mon then, I’ll walk you back.” 

“I think I know the way by now,” V signs with a raised eyebrow. Misty isn’t going to start babying her now, is she?  Sure, V got hurt and is in the shit right now, but that doesn’t make her any less of a grown adult. 

“You’re the first customer to walk in today and I’m bored out of my mind, just give me this,” Misty jokes and V feels bad for doubting her intentions, though there's still something in the way the older woman looks at the merc. More akin to a worrying mother than a friend. 

“Alright, whatever you want.” 

The two women leave out the back of Misty’s store and into the back alley, V searches for the bald little cat she pet last time she was here, but it’s gone now. Misty leads the way down the stairs to Vik’s clinic, the ripper doc in his usual spot at his desk. 

“Someone’s here to see you, Vik,” Misty announces as they walk through, the older man looking up to see V. A smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes pulls across his face, more of pity than happiness. 

“Hey, kid, how you’ve been?” 

“Getting by,” she shrugs, “more importantly, I got the eddies to pay you back.” 

“What is this?” He asks as she starts to transfer the seventy thousand. 

“Optics, mantis blades, and the launcher; all adds up. That’s the best estimate I could ge. If they cost more than that I-” 

“Hold onto ‘em,” he waves her off, “just in case. You need ‘em more than me.” 

“Not taking them to my grave, Vik, please, it’s the least I can do.” 

His jaw clenches, gaze dropping; “twenty-five thousand, I’ll won’t take a dollar more” 

“What? That’s not even half?” V blinks incredulously, can see Misty smiling at the exchange.

“Covers the mantis blades; you didn’t ask for the optics or launcher, seems fair to me.” 

“Even if I didn’t ask for ‘em, doesn’t mean they didn’t cost you a pretty penny.” 

“Not worried ‘bout it, spend the money on yourself.” 

“Vik, seriously, there’s no point in me keeping it.” 

“Six months is longer than you think, V,” his voices rises, a hint of frustration, “I’m not letting you throw that kind of cash away just because your-” 

And he stops himself, before he can says what they all know. Just because she’s dying. Her jaw clenches and she swallows hard. Trying to search for how to respond, how to deal with that. 

“I know you wanna pay him back, but Vik’s just trying to look out for you, V. Never hurts to keep some money in your account and besides, you’ve got way more than six months left in your,” Misty says, trying to smooth over everything. Her concern and worry always softer spoken than Vik’s. 

“It’s not just because I’m dying, you’ve done a lot for me over the years, want you to have something to show for it.” 

“That’s what friends are for, V.” 

“Fine, fine, never had to beg someone to take my money,” she jokes, sending a transfer for the twenty-five thousand instead.

“Other than that, how have you been?” 

“Already told you, getting through, not much to report.” 

V shrugs her shoulders again, wondering why he’d ask the same question twice. And she can the clench in Vik’s jaw, the somber downward pull on Misty’s expression. They don’t believe her. And she can’t blame them for it, because she knows its not true. 

“And how are you really feeling?” Misty asks, softly. 

“I… is there anyway we could talk about Silverhand and the chip?” 

“I’m no expert, but fire away, I’ll see what I can do.” Vik tells her. 

“I’m seeing him, I saw him, again. And I hear him, even without my hearing aids, is that? Is that normal, I none of this is fucking normal what am I talking about…” She rakes a hand through her hair, cleaning her jaw. 

“Well, that biochip is designed for users to communicate with constructs. It's just doin' its job. As far as hearing goes… Johnny’s in your brain, not your ears. You're deaf because the autoimmune disease destroyed your inner ear, but the Relic bypasses that and stimulates the auditory processing part of your brain like he’s actually there talking to you.” 

“So, my brain treats him like he’s real, even though he’s not?” 

“I mean, he is real, he’s a person,” Misty softly corrects, “just a person in your brain.” 

“He’s data on a chip,” Vik corrects Misty in return, earning an eye roll for his troubles. V can’t say she gives too much of a shit about the philosophical aspect, more just wanting Johnny not to choke her out. 

“He… tried to kill me,” V admits, both Vik and Misty’s eyes going wide. 

“What!?” 

“Oh… V.” 

“Tried to put my head through my window. It… he… felt real as anyone else. He wants to kill me, I think, I don’t know what to do.” V can feel her eyes stinging again, tears threatening to escape, as she finally puts her anxiety out into the world.

“Well... long as you don't give him control, can't do too much harm. 'Course that won't necessarily be possible after some time.” 

“And… what then?” 

“What do you say, we don’t let things get that far? Find a way to get rid of Silverhand and fast.” 

“What about his memories, why can I see them?

“You two share a brain now,” Vik says matter of fact and she wants to scream, “he has access to your senses, perceptions, even memories. Likewise, you get a look into his. After a while, won’t even know whose is whose.” 

“Right…” 

“V…” Misty says the merc’s name in a soft voice, “if you need to talk, we’re here for you. ” 

“I need to go,” V signs and shakes her head. 

She doesn’t want to deal with this. Hasn’t wanted to deal with it for days and she has no idea where she’s even going or what she’s going to do. But she hurries through the clinic gate and up the stairs, getting ready to cut through the backdoor of Misty’s shop. 

“V!” Misty yells out and grabs V’s shoulder, all too reminiscent of the merc’s exchange with Cecelia the night before. Women who’d be better off worrying about someone else, spending their time worried about V. 

“I can’t do this right now, Misty, I’m sorry.” 

“You can’t run yourself ragged, honey, you’ll kill yourself before the chip does.” 

“And is that really such a bad idea?!”  She blurts out without truly meaning too, at her ropes end, because she can’t do this anymore. 

“You don’t mean that, V.” 

“Why not? I can’t fuckin’ live like this! I haven’t slept in three days, I’m fuckin’ terrified that I’m gonna wake up and it’s not gonna be me!  That he’s gonna take over and kill me in my sleep or, or, if it’s not him, it’s gonna be his memories, his life, that I’m gonna lose a piece of me and not even know which one! I survived, but maybe… I shouldn’t have… ”

Her voice trails off, becoming choked and pathetic as a dam threatens to burst. Tears collecting in the corners of her eyes, threatening to break lose. But she doesn’t want to break down in front of someone. A few people in the alleyway give her side eyes, looking at her like she’s already lost her last scrap of sanity. 

“C’mon, V, we can talk more up on the roof, okay?” 

Misty wraps her hand around V’s, gently tugging the merc into the elevator. And V doesn’t have the energy to fight her, holding Misty’s hand in return and following along. The warmth and kindness of the touch sinking into her bones, making her squeeze tighter just to hold on to the small gesture of affection. As the elevator starts to shake and rattle upward, V can feel her limbs getting heavier, her exhaustion pushing her to lean her weight onto Misy. 

To the merc’s surprise, Misty doesn’t seem to mind her weight, doesn’t even flinch when V lays her head onto Misty’s shoulder. Instead she lays her own head over V’s for the short moment, short wispy hair tickling the shorter woman’s cheek.  Misty’s warmth and affection feels like a lifeboat, rather than the innocuous touch V knows it to be. 

The elevator comes to a stop and Misty pulls V up the stairs up to the roof. A place V has visited so many times with Misty, Jackie, and Vik. A cool September breeze rolling through, cooling V’s skin while the sun works to warm it. The two women sit in the little plastic lawn chairs that are put around a table. V feels like she’s sinking into it. She feels heavy and like she’s dragging her own weight. Her emotional outburst just compounding her physical exhaustion. 

“I meant what I said, V. That as long as your alive there’s still hope.” 

“Misty...I-” 

“I can’t imagine how hard this is, I don’t think anyone could. But… I don’t think it has to be this terrible hell, you think it is. Fate doesn’t act without reason and there has to be a reason for this, for all of it. But if you…end it all like that, you’ll never know.”

“You think this is fate…?” 

“I do, your soul and Johnny’s were brought together for a reason, I think you owe it to yourself and Johnny to find out why.” 

“So, what, everything that happened is fate, I’m supposed to blame fate for all of this, for the heist, for Jackie, for-?” 

“Better than blaming yourself, isn’t it?” 

The question takes the winds out of her sails for a moment. She’s never put much stock into fate and the idea that things are meant to be, meant to happen. It sounds ridiculous to her. That the fates or some mystical pull in the universe put them in that hotel, an excuse to take blame off her own shoulders, a way to avoid accountability. 

“I already had a bad feeling before you and Jackie left, the heist was on the anniversary of the tower going down, and it just happened to be Johnny on the chip. And theres your tarot reading… there’s more to this, V, I know there is. There has to be,” Misty tries to implore her to understand, to accept the idea that this was meant to be. And all at once V is reminded of something she’s wanted to forget. 

“I’m sending you something,” V says softly, watching Misty’s brow furrow as she sends her the image of that SID profile, that night her door wouldn’t unlock. 

“What is… is that?” 

“His SID data.” 

“How’d you get it?” 

“Night before the heist, I tried to unlock my apartment door. Wouldn’t work, mainteance guy comes down, says my SID chip is reading as someone else’s. Sends me the data, it’s him… How the hell does that happen? We hadn’t gone near Konpeki yet, I… “ 

And she’s said it, put out that maybe there is a little something to this fate thing, that she doesn’t want to admit, doesn’t want to acknowledge. How cruel can the world be if this was all intended? But, she can’t quite come up with a logical reason for it. It could just be the mother of all coincidences, but that feels like a cheap explanation at best. 

“V... “ a small almost incredulous smile comes across her black stained lips, “this was meant to be. You and him, merging, it’s fate. There's something the world wants from you two, just got to figure out what.” 

“Its… a hell of a coincidence… “ 

“A higher power is screaming at you and you’re gonna turn a deaf ear?” 

“Only kind I got.” 

“Smartass,” Misty teases, “have you talked to him?” 

“Who? Takemura?” 

“No, Johnny.” 

“No,” V blinks in disbelief, has Misty lost her mind, “strangely enough I didn’t feel like striking up a convo while he was trying to kill me.” 

“You should.” 

“And why the absolute fuck would I do that?” 

“Like it or not, V, his fate and yours are one now. This is as much about what the world has planned for him as it does for you.” 

“He tried to kill me!” 

“And?” 

“And!?” V flails her arms out exaggeratedly, the flippant response taking her back, “I didn’t appreciate it!? I…?” 

Misty laughs at V’s shocked reaction and the merc can’t help but chuckle too, the entire thing sounding and feeling ridiculous. 

“Did you appreciate it when Jackie put a gun to your head?” 

“That’s different, Jack was just doing a job.” 

“So, it’d have been better if he was being paid to do it?” 

“Yes, least Jackie had a reason, dipshit just wanted to hurt me.” 

“Is that what you think?” Misty raises an eyebrow and tilts her head softly to the side, halo of blonde hair bouncing with the movement. 

“Is there anything else to think?” 

“Not saying it makes it okay, but, Johnny woke up fifty years in the future, in the head of a stranger. Feeling your feelings, your memories, and last thing he remembers is whatever the hell Arasaka did to him.” 

“And?” 

“And maybe, the fear you felt that night, wasn’t all yours.” 

V hums, rubbing her hands together, “I’ll think about it. Still kinda think offing myself is the easiest move, though.” 

“What would Jackie say if he heard you talking like that?” 

“He’d kill me first for even talkin’ like that. Tell me to pull myself together, that it’ll all work out in the end.” 

“And it will, don’t know how, but it will. Just need you to want to live long enough to see that happen.’ 

“Fine, fine,” V sighs, “no blowing my brains out on this fine day, happy?” 

“Wanting to live is about more than just not killing yourself, V. You need to sleep, eat, drink something other than energy drinks and booze. Take care of yourself and actually deal with your shit” 

“But that sounds hard.” 

“Is it harder than running yourself ragged and no sleeping?” 

“Maybe.” 

“V…” 

“I’m just… scared, of seeing his memories, his past. Or, him getting a hold of me in my sleep.” 

“I could watch over you, make sure nothing happens.” 

“And what if he hurts you?” 

“He’s still in your body, V.” 

“Doesn’t mean he can’t use it to hurt you, I’m not risking that,” V tells Misty, shaking her head emphatically. 

“You could sleep in Vik’s clinic, no offense, but pretty sure Vik could stop your body if Johnny uses it to do anything.” 

“Nah, this is my demon, no one else’s. I appreciate the chat, really, I think I need to be going though.” 

“V… please.” 

“I’ll sleep tonight, in my own bed, alone. Just in case, but I’ll sleep, promise,” V reassures Misty as the merc gets up out of her seat, a few ideas already fluttering around in her head. 

“C’mon, I’ll get you set up with something to help you sleep, alright?” 

V’s soul feels a little lighter as she follows Misty back into her shop. The older woman getting a little sleeping kit put together for the merc. Lavender oils, tea, and spray. Moonstones meant to relieve emotional tension and help her relax. V can’t help but smile at the kindness of it all, Her money refused for the second time when she offers to pay Misty for it. 

“Take care of yourself, please,” Misty begs again, ruffling her hand through V’s hair. 

“I’ll give it a shot, thanks again, for everything.” 

“Wait,” Misty calls out, stopping V before she can head out, “you mentioned Takemura earlier, did you and him talk?” 

“He called me, morning after I got back to my place, wanted me to meet him for a chat.”

“What about?” 

“Don’t know, not meeting up with him.” 

“V…” 

“You know you keep saying my name like that it’s going to start hurting my feelings.” 

“Why haven’t you talked to him?” 

V shrugs, “He’s a corporate rat, can’t trust him.” 

“He saved your life.” 

“He also tried to kill me, which I think balances itself out.” 

“If he wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be here, V.” 

“Corpos are tricky bitches, guy probably has some scheme up his sleeves, kept me alive so the wolves would have fresh meat or some shit.” 

“V… “

“My name is starting to feel like an insult.” 

“Talk to him, what’s the worse that can happen?” 

“You really want me to answer that?” 

Misty rolls her eyes and the two part with a quick goodbye, V feeling a little more energized, despite still being sleep deprived. She still has a few things she wants to cover before she goes home and sleep. Misty brought up something important, what Jackie would tell V if he were here to tell it. He’d want her to at least try and she owes him that much. 

It's a longshot, she knows, but she pulls out her holo. Evelyn, the client, claimed she knew how to remove the chip. That was before it was damaged and V’s not entirely sure Evelyn knew half as much as she claimed too. But it’s worth a shot, prefers it to anything a corpo suit like Takemura might be offering.  She calls Evelyn’s number, but an automated message tells her it’s not avaliable at the moment, V opts to leave a message anyway. 

“Hey… this is V. Got the chip, I know the heist had a few… hiccups, but if you could call me back, that’d be cool.” 

V huffs as she hangs up, blowing hair out of her face. She still doesn’t want to risk talking to a corpo, so she opts for her next idea. Learning more about Johnny, which feels weird to even think about. She’s not sure she buys the fate angle, not sure she really wants to ever have a chat with the man who bashed her head against a window. But, if nothing else, she wants to know more of who she’s dealing with. And while she gets his memories, she doesn’t have a good grasp on accessing them.  She could look him up online and fully intends to. But, she has some other ideas in mind. 

Dino is in the rockerboy scene, would know a bit about Samurai and Johnny. And despite what his faceplate looks like, he may actually be old enough to have crossed paths once or twice with the guy. The fixer may not be offering her jobs right now, but he only knows her as a V the merc when she’s wearing her mask. Without it, she’s just the girl he fucked in a bathroom stall once. Not her proudest moment, but hey, means he may entertain a conversation with her. 

The trickier one is Rogue, who she knows was close with Johnny, was too close. V grimaces at a few choice memories that stand out to her. But Rogue’s the queen of fixers and has never so much as looked V’s way. It's doubtful the older woman would want some no-name merc asking about her ex from fifty years back. But, that’d be her best source to try to get some solid first hand info of how the beast in her brain operates. 

The Afterlife is closer, but Dino is more the sure bet as far as talking to her goes. So, she catches the NCART into City Center. She gets off at the nearest stop, making her way through the crowd as she walks to his bar; Electric Orgasm. Because the man can’t name anything without sex being involved. The humiliation of fucking a bassist who named his band Gloryhole Bandits will truly never leave. 

Her boots scuff across the black and white dirty tiles, music blaring in the bar, making her turn her hearing aid volume down. She walks past the arcade and vending machines on her left, the stage with a band playing on her right. Dino is in his usual spot, leaning against the red bar. 

The fixer is taller than her by a ways, as most men are, prominent muscled biceps, one plated with bolts in an implant. Chrome in his jaw and along the back of his head, a mohawk of teal dreads and eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. An energy that suddenly seems all too familiar, a rockerboy wearing sunglasses indoors with a smug air, the attitude of a man convinced it’s his world and everyone else is just living in it. 

“Hey, you,” Dino greets her with a smirk she’s never seen him without, the drag of his tone telling her he remembers her face. Or maybe he’s just remembering what her throat feels like. 

“Hey,” she signs and she can see his brows furrowing, thinking for a moment. ASL and translators aren’t… particularly common.  She’s the only person she knows who uses them, but Dino seems less confident in that fact. 

“You finally decide you didn’t get enough of ole Dino?” 

“Maybe I did, but turns out men speaking in third person makes me dryer than a desert,” she teases, climbing onto the stool next to him. 

“Oh, c’mon, girl,” he wraps an arm around her shoulders, leaning in close, “don’t break my heart like that.”  

“I don’t think your heart is what you’re most concerned about,” she ends her signing by tapping her finger to his chromed chin, “so any news in the music scene?” 

“Nothing too exciting, a few new baby faced wannabes. We’re planning another show here in a few weeks, if you wanna pay me another visit, that is.” 

“What, not a fan of the newer crowd, prefer the classics?” She pointedly ignores his invitation, she can’t deny she’s attracted to him, but fucking a bassist in a public bathroom needs to be a one time experience in her life. 

“‘Course, new bands ain’t got style or soul, just young pissants hoping a guitar will help them get their dick wet.” 

“Because you’re so much better than that,” she rolls her eyes and he smirks, “old school bands, like, I don’t know… Samurai, more your thing I take it?” 

“Oh fuck yeah, you wanna talk style, Johnny Silverhand had fuckin’ style.” 

“You ever meet him?” She signs, stomach drop at the mention of that name. 

“Pssh, c’mon, little young for that. Did hit one of his gigs once.” 

“So, not that young, actually,” she taunts him, because she can’t resist. 

“Only as old as you feel, but...” he seems to to drift off for a moment, remembering, “that gig was fucked up, remember that much.” 

“They play that good?” 

“Eh, played normo. But Johnny, ‘parently he had some ‘saka suit tied up backstage. Said if they didn’t get at least three encores, he’d bash the poor bastard’s faceplate in.  Like I said, he had style, kid.”

“Firstly, you don’t get to call me kid after your dick has been inside me. Secondly, that all you know about the guy?”  

“What? You a Silverhand fangirl?” 

“I would actually enjoy killing you for saying that,” she signs and forces a smile to her lips, to make it seem lighthearted. But just the notion of being that man’s fan has left her stomach churning and her skin crawling. 

“Hehe, well how about I buy you a drink to make up for it?” 

“I actually got to head out now, bye.” 

V is out the door before Dino can say another word or stop her.  Sex isn’t exactly a prority right now, dying taking precedent.  Though she’d be lying if she said a part of her didn’t want to take Dino up on his offer. Her sex drive truly knowing no bounds. 

Additionally, the merc tries to limit her amount of repeat partners; Cece and Jake the exceptions because of her own odd logic. Cece and Jake are both in their forties with kids. They’d have to be out of their mind to want anything more out of V, considering a twenty-year old merc isn’t exactly step-mom material, at least not if you give a damn about your kids.Means less worries about them wanting… more. 

While less tethered than them,  Dino is a grade A fuckboy with the same love them and leave them attitude, so he’s low risk as far as that’s concerned. Maybe another time, when there’s not a bomb in her head. 

She takes the NCART back towards Watson, feeling a little silly for pinging back and forth between the areas. But as expected, Dino was ready to spill his limited knowledge on the rockerboy with only a little bit of needling, probably just happy to oogle the merc. Rogue will be her own problem of getting information out of, given the Queen of Fixers is a little over V’s head. Maybe she can pretend she’s looking for work, granted she knows Rogue would never work with her after her reputation tanked. But, could at least get her into Rogue’s booth and a chance to have a convo. 

There’s an odd, bittersweet sense of nostalgia as she gets off a stop near the club, slides her mask on,  and reaches the little enclosed alleyway that leads there. Stuck in one spot in the alley, remembering the night she met up with Jackie here, half expecting to hear him on the phone with his mother. But there’s only chatter of other mercs. She takes a deep breath and curses beneath her breath when she sees the flashy red and blue poster pinned to the alley wall, graffitied over. But the band is clear, bright red flaming oni face and Samurai underneath it. 

Childish as it may be, she scratches her nail up under the corner of the poster and gets a hold of it, ripping it from the wall. An odd little sense of satisfaction at the way it tears half assedly, destroying the logo and oni head. Mild act of vandalism completed, she drops the piece she ripped up and continues on her way. 

Turns the corner, through the doorway, down a set of stairs, through a pair of double doors and down another set of stairs. Fellow mercs are scattered in the hallway outside of the main doors, a few stare at her, seem to be whispering. Must be her imagination, flashbacks of the other kids in The Herd mocking her start to flicker in her mind. They’re all adults here, though,way above schoolyard rumors and bullying, right?

The same bodyguard from that night is blocking the entrance to the bar, he looks down at her and scoffs. Her jaw clenches behind her mask and her stomach drops, she really is a fucking laughing stock here now, isn’t she? 

“And what do you think you’re doing here?” He mocks her and she hears some snickers, a cold sweat breaking out on her skin. 

“Here to drink and talk shop like anyone else,” she signs, hoping he can’t see the nervous twitch in her fingers. 

“After the shitshow at Konpeki? Not happening, get lost.” 

Her face burns hot with shame behind her mask and it takes every ounce of self control not to kick him. She forces herself to turn around and walk out instead, trying to behave. Trying to ignore the side glances or the soft snickers as people watch her get turned away, mocking the pathetic little merc who thought she could still have a rep after that shitshow. The fuck-up they all blame for the heist gone bad; for Jackie and Bug being gone. 

When she reaches the alleyway, alone, she pulls off her mask and puts it into her bag, tugging at her hair. Her feet stomp, anger and shame hot under her skin as she walks. She wanted to prove she was strong, capable, worthy of respect, worthy of something. And all she did was prove she’s as worthless as she always thought, as her supposed clan thought. 

“Fuck!” V screams her anger out as she reaches the end of the alley, and slams her fist into the wall, feeling her knuckles split open against the wall. She follows up by kicking it, she needs another boxing match something to get the anger out. 

“Need a smoke?” A sly female voice asks and leaning against the wall around the corner is Rogue. V still recognizes the much older woman from when Jackie pointed her out. And her face is still recognizable from Johnny’s memories, just more wrinkled with time. Her teal fluffed up mohawk of hair now traded for long gray hair shaved on one side. Cyberware notches along her cheeks and chrome peeking out over the neckline of her shirt. She’s puffing away on a cigarette, eyebrow raised  as she watches the merc like a cat watches a mouse. Rogue is exceptionally tall for a woman and casually even in her older age, V can see the maintained muscle of her abs around a chrome inset. 

Dumb luck seems to be on V’s side. Rogue, if she knows V at all, knows her as the masked merc. Which means V may be able to pass as a random civilian. She double checks and casually musses with her hair, making sure her hearing aids are covered. Rubbing at her neck but turning off her choker translator. 

“Appreciate the offer, but I don’t smoke,” V tells her, shrugging her shoulders and leans against the wall, hoping her body language is as casual as she intends. Even if her own voice is grinding to the ears. 

“Sure looks like you need something to take the edge off.” 

“Eh, I’ll survive, always do.” V picks dirt from her bleeding knuckles, “you’re Rogue, right?” 

“We know each other?” 

“Boss of the Afterlife, everyone knows you,” V opts for stroking the older woman’s ego, on the off chance it makes her lips even a little looser.

“Ugh,” the older woman scoffs, V’s praise not quite hitting how she wished. 

“Not all it’s cracked up to be?” 

“You don’t know the half of it, but ain’t too keen on that label. ‘Boss’,” she roll her eyes, ''Makes it sound like I've got an army of greasy henchmen.” 

“I mean, guy inside didn’t look that greasy.” 

“Cute.” A soft sarcastic lilt colors her tone, but the slight hint of an almost smile lets V know she’s at least amused by the merc. 

“So, what’d you rather be called?” 

“Hmm,” she hums, taking a drag off her cigarettes before breathing out the smoke,  “Good question. I'd have to think about that one…”

“Mind if I shoot another question your way?” 

“Why not? But ask at your own risk.” 

There’s an almost condescending bite to her voice, making it clear if V doesn’t traverse this next question carefully, she may find herself back in the landfill. Something about it… attractive, if the merc is being honest. And she’s not sure if that’s a physical attraction to the much older woman or that Rogue is… what V wanted to be. Exudes the confidence, commands respect, and is a legend in Night City; no one questions her strength or her competence. Rogue truly made it in Night City, something V can only dream of now. 

“You use to run with Silverhand back in the day, right? What was he like?” 

“Johnny...? Where’d that come from?” 

“Seem to be as many rumors about him as there were fifty years ago. And not all of 'em gel together, figured this be one of my few chances to ask someone who actually knew the guy.” 

“You a media, now?” 

The ‘now’ hits V’s ear the wrong way, maybe just a slip of the older woman’s tongue. But, Rogue doesn’t know V, especially not without her mask, just some random stranger striking up a conversation. For all Rogue knows the stranger could be a media, maybe V’s worrying for nothing. 

“Just curious, ain’t got to answer if you don’t wanna, both know I can’t make you do shit.” 

“It's good you know that,” Rogue smirks, “Johnny was… strong, arrogant, uncompromising. He'd burn down half the city just to prove he was right. And burn the other half just for fun.” 

“Sounds like…” V trails off, not completely sure of what she wants to say. 

“Like a kid with a box o' matches and a can of CHOOH2.”

“Still stuck by him, though, didn’t you?” V can’t help but ask, more to herself than to Rogue, but the question bugs her. Even back in the day, Rogue was a certifiable badass, hot as all hell to boot. Yet she wasted her time on some greasy manchild?

“And how exactly would you know that?” 

“Lucky guess,” V quickly covers her ass, “called him a kid, but way you say it, sounds more fond than mad, ya know?” 

“Maybe, doesn’t matter, won’t speak ill of the dead, anymore burning questions or can I get on with my life?” 

“I ain’t stopping you,” V says, shrugging her shoulders as she watches Rogue stomp out her cigarette and walk back down the alley towards the club. 

V lets out a heavy sigh, she didn’t exactly get a great deal of information. She didn’t expect to get a biopic of the guy’s life. At the very least she got a bit of a better idea of his personality, but it’s done nothing to put her at ease. Anti-corp rockerboy, reckless, unpredictable, and destructive. It doesn’t give her much more of an idea of how to handle the guy. Misty is saying to give the guy a chance to at least talk, but god knows what he’d do if he had half a chance to hurt her again. V shakes her head, she knows Misty means well, but whether it’s fate or shitty luck, being stuck with this asshole can only mean bad news. She’d be better off keeping him under lock and key. It’s not worth the risk. 

She makes her way back to her apartment at that, remembering her promise to sleep. She grabs a shower as soon as she gets home, letting the hot water relax her for a moment. Ther merc changes into comfy pajama, throwing on her slightly silly but cute plush golden brown hoodie, with little bear ears. It’s ridiculous and childish, but she loves it. The softness of it making her want to burrow under the sheets and never come up. Already exhausted and ready to sleep by the time she’s placed the moonstone in the shelves at the end of her bed cubby and sprayed lavender mist over the pillows. 

Her eyes are already heavy when she lays down, half asleep already, she grabs her holo, deciding to try one more time. Evelyn hasn’t called back at all, so V sends her a quick text message. Right now, the blue haired woman is her only real lead on anything that could help. Other than speaking to Takemura and… that’s a road she’d rather not travel if she doesn’t have to. 

V: We need to talk, it’s important!

[Unable to deliver message. Recipient may be temporarily unavailable.]

The merc blinks at her phone screen, yawning as she puts it aside, what on earth is going on with Evelyn? There’s no way Arasaka could have linked the heist to her is there? They wouldn’t have had a chance to track V’s call, Jackie’s phone had no correspondence with Evelyn if they got it, the bot couldn’t be linked back to her. Maybe Evelyn changed numbers and ditched town? V hopes the fuck not, but it would have been the smartest thing to do. But if so, V’s one lead is gone. 

Thoughts and worries flicker through her mind, but exhaustion crashes down on her before they can run rampant, slipping into sleep. Darknesss flooding her vision. 

A blanket of black then neon begins to bleeds through, brighter and brighter until it blinds. 

World around her shifts and she’s no longer her but him. 

Bright lights in a dingy club, the cling of sweat on skin, the weight of a guitar. Hands of flesh and chrome strum the strings, vocal chords straining as his voice screams out his lyrics. Kerry not far off to the side, the rest of Samurai behind him as they play through Blistering Love. A decent sized crowd screaming and dancing along to every note they play. 

And its a soft thrum at first, the chaos that starts to erupt, but not because of the music. A steady murmur thats something is wrong, then chaos bursting forth as security starts running through the crowd. Trying to push through people, shouting over the music for someone to stop, unable to draw their guns in the sea of bodies without risk of hitting someone else. 

Johnny’s gaze looks over to Kerry, confirmation that his friend is seeing this too, that the attention on them is shifting elsewhere. Samurai forced to play second fiddle to the growing commotion and when he looks back to the crowd he sees her, a woman cutting her way through the audience. Sweat stuck to her brow, a split lip with a steady drip of blood, and a wild mused mohawk of teal hair. Bloody lips pulled into a smug sneer as she ducks and dodges through the crowd, away from security. 

Then that soft thrum explodes into something more, someone in the crowd throws a punch at a shoving bouncer and they throw one right back. The audience breaks out into a brawl as drunk idiots start attacking the bouncers or each other; blood spraying and teeth knocked clean out. Music stopping as they know the audience is done giving a shit about them. 

“Jesus fuckin’ christ,” Kerry curses as a beer bottle smashes at the back wall behind the band, nearly nailing him right in the head. 

“We better delta before the pigs get called.” 

“Take care of this for me, Ker,” Johnny ignores Nancy’s warning, handing Kerry his guitar. He can see her making her way towards the door, trying to slip out in the commotion with a bouncer still on her heels. He’s not letting her go without making damn sure she knows who he is. An undeniable pull of attraction to her, to the kind of woman who can turn a crowd of drunk club goers into a battle royale.

“The fuck are you doing?” 

Kerry questions him, but Johnny’s already jumped off stage and into the fray, shoving and pushing his way through people. He walks surefooted, head held high and no shame as he cuts his way through. Shutting down anyone who gets in his way however he has too; a solid left hook, silver knuckles leaving their nose a cracked mess. Slamming an elbow into someone's jaw and hearing the crack of it over the noise of the crowd. All with his eyes staying focused on her, on the flash of teal hair under neon lights. 

She's nearly to the backdoor, Johnny not far behind, when a heavy wraps around her upper arm. One of the bouncers finally gaining ground and trying to wrench her backwards, though he can't manage to drag the amazon of a woman back.

"Think you'd get away with this, bitch!"

Her hand pulls back to throw a punch at the bouncer, but Johnny's hands are faster, stepping in to save the day. He slams his fist onto the bouncer's face, nose cracking and teeth gnashing under the force of the blow. The man is knocked back, the woman's green eyes glaring at Johnny, she looks pissed. Lips bloody and sneering, eyes dark with distrust. Domineering and angry in her demeanor, even while he's playing hero.

He reaches over her to wrench the door open, an excuse to be in her space, taking what advantage he can of the small height difference. She's only around an inch shorter than him, the heels of his boots extending that difference slightly. 

"C'mon, no reason to stick around," he says, hand on her back as he pushes her through the door into the alley. 

The night air cools his sweat slick skin, the woman quick to move away from his touch as the door shuts behind him. Silence enveloping them with the noise of the club is shut out. Johnny just takes her in for a moment; hot as all hell. Sweat clinging to her skin, freckles across her cheeks, split lip, and dyed hair falling into her face. A face cold and cruel in its expression, contrasted against the flush of exertion on her skin. 

"The fuck do you want?" She asks him, glaring. Tone and attitude nasty, making him smirk. Always did like the bitchy types, more fun when someone's got a bite to them. 

"Just saved your ass, wouldn't kill you to say thanks," he returns, already thinking of tasting the blood on her split lip and  grabbing a handful of her ass. 

"Don't need your help, rockerboy." She rolls her eyes at him, if he gets half a chance he could have her eating out of the palm of his hand by daybreak. Or better yet, could find himself between her legs before the sun comes up. 

Johnny's not stupid, knows damn well the effect he has. The way he can draw people in, only reason Kerry still hangs around, maybe the only reason Samurai still exists at all. 

"How 'bout a drink then?" He offers, smirk on his lips. And she groans, pissed off by the littlest thing.  

"Fuck off."

He watches her stomp off, eyes drawn to her ass and the swing of her hips. But he doesn't go after her. Not giving her the satisfaction of seeing him chase after her twice in one night, instead lighting himself a cigarette. He's seen her type before, runs with the Atlantis crowd; no doubt in his mind. They'll run into each other again. 

And as he breathes out a cloud of smoke, the world around him obscures. Gray filling his vision, flooding it, choking him on it. Until his throat itches, his stomach churns, pain cracking through her head… her head. 

A migraine wakes V up, every single cell in her body on fire, a sharp pang in the back of her skull. Her stomach clenches and twists, tighter and tighter. When she opens her eyes, the world is shifting and glitching, swimming before her, eyes unable to focus. Every muscle in her body winds itself into knots and can’t get a deep enough breath, lungs struggling to take anything in. 

Relic Malfunction Detected

The words flash across her optics as she flops out of bed onto her knees, gasping for air and retching to vomit all at once. Body unsure of what to do while everything seems to fall apart at once. She clutches at her chest, claws at her rib cage desperate to feel if her heart is even still beating, begging herself to just breathe, to just breathe. 

And it starts to pass, her stomach calming down, her breathing evening out. Her muscles starting to release some of the tension. She’s still dizzy and the world is still wobbly as she wipes spittle from her lips, forces herself to stand up. V needs to do something, speak to Vik, maybe he can give her something. Do something for it, but he’s made it clear he has no idea how to save her. 

She trips over herself on the way to her bathroom, grabbing at her sink for some balance. Looking down with her eyes closed as she breathes, steadying herself, waiting for the new fresh wave of nausea to pass before she looks up into her sink mirror. 

But it’s not her she sees. Johnny fucking Silverhand reflected back at her, leaning his hands against her sink and staring into her eyes; glare harsh with that barely contained anger he brims with. Always looking a moment away from lashing out. And when she twists her head, his follows, as natural as a reflection. Like she’s really him. 

“Jesus fuck!” 

She curses and jerks back, falling back onto her ass, not even minding so long as she doesn’t have to see him. V grabs at herself again, feeling that’s her. Soft flesh, not hard muscle, skin where his chrome is. Her blue painted nails, her dumb bear hoodie, her bleached hair, and her smooth face; that’s it her. That she’s still herself. And she is; for now, But for how long? 

V can’t keep doing this, can’t just wait until Evelyn answers her calls or texts back, she needs to do something. Anything. Even with popping the blockers like candy, she’s seeing him, living his memories. He’s bleeding into everything and she’ll lose herself to him before long. She can’t hide away, Jackie would want her to save herself, would want her to live. And she if she intends to do that she needs to move. 

The merc rises, as she’s had to so many times before. Her reflection is her own again, still woozy from the aftermath of the relic malfunction, but she pushes through to shower and change. Collecting all she needs before she leaves the apartment, marching out of the apartment building with single minded determination towards Tom’s Diner. She’s got a date with a corpo. Maybe it’s a trick and maybe he can’t help, but he’s something. As he put it so elegantly, if she intends to live, she’s got to get back in the ring and she’s been fucking around in the sidelines for too long. 

[katiebugwrites24]

My Very ScientificTM Breakdown of Parker and Hardison’s Relationship

Someone asked me to explain how I’ve charted out Parker and Hardison’s relationship across all five seasons of Leverage, so here you go. All of this is off the top of my head, I literally just sat down and wrote this in a few hours, but I’d love to hear any responses y’all have to it! Do you agree? Disagree? Did I leave something out? Let me know!

It begins in Nigerian Job with Hardison finding Parker attractive (because, of course, she’s amazing). He offers her the whole box of earbuds and Eliot notices and teases him about it. So we know from the beginning he’s attracted to her, which isn’t that surprising.

 In Homecoming Job (episode 2), while Hardison and Nate are watching Parker ‘steal a law,’ Hardison calls her “sexiness” and Nate tells him to maybe ease up on that. Again, Hardison is commenting on his more surface-level attraction to Parker, and on his appreciation for her skills (because competence porn). Nate has noticed, rightfully, that Hardison doesn’t appear to have that much experience with girls, and therefore might not realize that his comments about Parker being sexy might make her uncomfortable (which I think they definitely would at this stage). So Nate is trying to help Hardison out by saying, “hey, maybe chill with that especially if she can hear you.” Let’s face it, Parker would probably not want her appearance commented on in that way at that point.

 Which leads to Wedding Job, when Hardison casually says that she looks “much better in the same dress” than the maid of honor, and Parker is kind of confused and asks “You really think I look good?” He does think she looks good, obviously, he has from the beginning, but this more casual way to approach it was the much smarter move given her skittishness. I think that exchange is what prompts Parker to tell Hardison that she’d pretended to be meeting him for sex in the screening room. I don’t know if it’s what gave her the idea to use that excuse in the first place, but I definitely think it’s why she told him about it when he asked. I think it was an acknowledgement to say “I hear you, and I appreciate that you find me attractive, but I’m not prepared to do anything with that, so I’m just gonna tease you about it a little and never mention it again.” Basically, she’s not shutting him down, but she’s not prepared to encourage him, or take the relationship any further at this stage.

 (There’s another little quip in Mile High Job about how if Parker was a geek she’d be really turned on by Hardison’s hacking, and she just kind of rolls her eyes, which I think is a fair response. It’s similar to the way she rolls her eyes when Eliot talks about some of his relationships. I don’t really read to much into that.)

 By Bank Shot Job, we see them becoming closer friends. They work well together as the undercover agents (which they also did in Wedding Job, but they anticipate and riff off each other really nicely in Bank Shot, indicating that they’ve worked together long enough to be a well-oiled machine). Also they’re obviously hanging out in the van together when the episode starts, and they mention they’ve been in Juan for a few weeks by that point, so I think it’s fair to say they’ve definitely reached friend territory by now.

 Regardless, once we get to Stork Job, they’re “a little more than a team.” That episode is a lot for Parker, and has a lot of her personal growth in it, obviously. It also shows Hardison opening up about his own past for the first time, and it shows how deeply Hardison cares for Parker and her safety. Personally, I also think the scene when What’s-His-Face is flirting with Parker and Hardison keeps making Parker laugh by saying stuff like “do my cape and fangs frighten you” is a sweet moment because he makes her laugh. I don’t really read this moment as jealousy, though I’ve seen that some people do, but I just think he was commenting on how ridiculous What’s-His-Face is. (I forgot the character’s name because he’s always just gonna be Moriarty from the Librarians to me).

 Juror # 6 Job is also great, and I really didn’t want to make this an episode by episode break down, I was really just going for broad overall themes, but I’m in too deep at this point. In Juror #6 we have Hardison who initially brushes off Parker’s concerns just like the rest of them, but he does come around and convinces Nate to listen to what Parker is saying. He also has the insight to say that Parker never had experience with people, etc. I like this scene because it mimics the previously mentioned scene in Homecoming Job with Hardison and Nate sitting in that same spot discussing Parker. Obviously at the end, we also have that sweet moment where Parker is proud of Hardison for his closing statements and also proud of herself for acting ‘normal’ (and I think he’s proud of her too).

 Then in First David, we get the first kiss. Obviously there are different ways to read this one. Either Parker is only focused on the job, and only kissed him because it helped her break in, OR she used the break-in as an opportunity to get to kiss him without actually having to follow through with anything else because she could just play it off. I like to believe the second option, because I think her awareness of his feelings is high enough that she’s starting to question her own feelings at this point, but isn’t consciously ready to go there. So I think she wanted to kiss him and she got to use this as an excuse, and then shut that door again immediately and pretend it never happened. Because later in Second David she was obviously just pretending to not know what Hardison was talking about. She just wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

 I do also think that small moment in Second David is really telling when Hardison says something like  “no calls no texts for three months, I don’t need y’all” and Parker is seriously offended—like seriously offended, and says “What do you mean ‘you don’t need us’?” In her mind, not only does he obviously need her (they’re more than a team at this point, after all), she stayed away and didn’t contact him because she was protecting him. That was the safest thing to do, it doesn’t mean she didn’t want to talk to him. But Hardison is less . . . emotionally equipped to have to split up from his new family for months without contact, so it makes him feel like they never cared about him in the first place.

 Then we reach season 2, where we have the “people are like locks. You have to have patience and be fiddly” conversation. (By the way y’all, literally all of these quotes are off the top of my head, so if I misquote stuff please forgive me). Anyway, here Hardison wants Parker to know that he did look for her because he wants to be sure she knows he cares about her enough to try (I think she’s perfectly aware he was looking and has been intentionally not letting him succeed because she wasn’t ready for that yet, but who knows). And Parker encourages him with the fiddly message, but is again emphasizing that she’s not really ready yet. This encouragement is different from the acknowledgement she gave in Wedding Job in season one, when she was just saying “I see you.” Here, she’s saying “I see you, and continue, maybe one day it will work out.” Importantly, though, she still hasn’t addressed within herself her own feelings for Hardison.

 Skipping forward a bunch, because this is already 1200 words long and I’m only on season 2, we’ve got other small things, like them pretending to be a couple several times, and Hardison getting kind of jealous of McSweeten in Fairy Godparents Job. Parker also gets mad at Hardison in Ice Man Job, but that doesn’t really advance their relationship that much. The main thing we are seeing over the course of this season is Parker’s willingness to touch Hardison more and more. She holds him in that arm bar for a long time in Tap Out Job, and she pulls him close in the safe in Ice Man. Again, these can all be written off as being part of the con or for a bigger purpose, though, because she doesn’t want to admit to Hardison or to herself that she likes touching/being close to him.

 This similar thing is clear in Jailhouse Job, when he says “see, I like when we pretend to kiss” and she goes “pretend?” and scrunches up her nose. (also, is it just me, or did it look like they were trying to imply something other than kissing? Were they also kissing too? What was happening?) Because Parker may be pretending that kissing him doesn’t mean anything, but she’s not pretending to kiss him. The kisses themselves are real. Also, we see her in this episode once again get naked in front of Hardison, and once again it could be interpreted as Parker doesn’t really view her own body as sexual (perhaps hinting at being on the asexual spectrum here) or it could be interpreted as Parker wanting to mess with Hardison, or wanting to see how he’d respond. I think it kind of could be more of the latter, though I do maintain that Parker doesn’t naturally view her body as inherently sexual regardless. I think that she may have gotten naked because she knew it would make Hardison flustered, and she likes that she can make him flustered, but again she doesn’t want to examine why she likes it.

 In Reunion Job we have the sweet dance, which I think is one step further than what we saw with the touching in season 2, where this time there’s no “excuse” for her to dance with him, she just does it because she wants too, which is great. But I don’t think at this point if he’d tried to talk to her about it directly that she’d be willing to. For the most part, Hardison is really doing as she asked and being patient, but it’s still clear he’s eager to see where things go.

 (BTW, I started writing fic set in this time because there’s so much in these episodes in season three that I want to explore, so if you’re interested here’s the link but be warned I never finished it: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707019/chapters/28977393)

 In Inside Job, obviously Hardison is super concerned about Parker, and I really think it’s so nice that he’s the one she calls when she gets to a phone. I also like that this is the first (?) instance of Hardison calling her “mama” that I can think of which is personally one of my favorite nicknames of his. I also think it was really eye-opening to Hardison to see how Parker lived and what her warehouse looked like. I think even though he knew all that stuff about her, it was different to see it in person.

 In Scheherazade Job, Parker sides with Hardison against Nate about the whole hypnotism thing, which I think is really interesting especially given that Nate says Hardison doesn’t have the ruthlessness needed to run a crew, but he leaves Parker as the mastermind at the end of the show, indicating that she does have that ruthlessness (which she does) but here she is still on Hardison’s side. I also doubt she’d be able to con her own team the way Nate does unless it was absolutely necessary for their survival, not just for the con. Like, she’d con them to save them from jail or to save their lives, but I don’t think she’d con them just to get a job done the way Nate did with Hardison here.

 ANYWAY, we come to the biggest development, which is the Pretzels conversation in Double Blind Job. One thing I love about this is that Hardison is in no way trying to make Parker jealous in this episode. That would be really kind of manipulative of him given what he knows about her, etc. That said, I think he does a good job of pointing out that there’s no reason for him not to date someone else. Parker hasn’t said anything concrete to him about her feelings one way or another, so if someone like Ashley came along and he wanted to date her, Parker would have no reason to object. Parker realizes this too, which is why I think she actually does say something, even if she can’t actually say the words in the end. This is when Parker realizes that not only does she like Hardison’s attention and get upset when it’s given to someone else, she likes it because she likes him back. So she tells him she has feelings for pretzels, and he understands that it means “I like you but I’m not ready yet so please don’t move on to anyone else” and he accepts that and says “they’ll be here for you when you want them” essentially saying that he’s not going to move on now that he knows she really does have some feelings for him. That allows him to justify to himself waiting on her because he has something concrete, and it allows her to work through her feelings for him without having to worry that he’ll move on to someone else before she’s ready for it to go anywhere.

 There are further moments this season where they grow together and are comfortable together, until finally, in Big Bang Job when they almost get blown up on the train and they manage to work together and disarm the bomb, she realizes that she is ready for pretzels. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline of the situation or what, but somewhere in that she realizes she does want to move forward. How they’re going to do that is unclear, and doesn’t come up in San Lorenzo because they’re busy with Moreau and then they have to split up for a few months, so none of this comes up again until Long Way Down Job.

 In Long Way Down Job, Hardison is coming in kind of expecting a relationship at this point. Parker has said she wants pretzels, and this is the first time they’re seeing each other in the months since then. Parker, on the other hand, has used those few months to kind of get cold feet. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be with him anymore, it’s that she’s kind of gotten into her own head about being good enough for him or being able to handle a relationship in a way that’s fair to Hardison. That’s why she reverts to pretending not to see his obvious advances, and responding with “this isn’t going to be a thing, is it?” when he’s concerned for her. She’s trying to push back again, and again he respects that, but it’s obviously really upsetting for him. But after her whole experience in the crevasse with Eliot, she understands that it’s okay to be herself while she’s trying to be a better version of herself, and as long as Hardison knows that, then it’s okay. So in the end when she says “you know this isn’t going to be normal, right?” she’s admitting that she is, in fact, ready for “this.” That’s what they have in season four, a kind of limbo thing where they’re not saying they’re dating, but they’ve admitted that they like each other and they’re going on very date-like outings together. I always refer to season 4 as when they have their thing because of how Parker said, “this isn’t going to be a thing, is it?” and then turned around and said it is a thing, it’s just not normal.

 We of course get more great moments in episodes like Carnival Job and Grave Danger Job where Hardison expresses that he would never replace Parker and Parker expresses that she needs Alec. I don’t think they would have said ‘I love you’ yet at this point, but I think these things are essentially saying that in different words. In Queen’s Gambit, again we get that assurance from Hardison that he’s got Parker and he’s not going to let anything bad happen to her, and he proves it.

 In Experimental Job, Parker kisses him again, first on the cheek after she tells him that he’s really cool, and then on the lips to convince Zilgram that Hardison is worth having in the Dustmen. The ease with which she kisses him on the cheek indicates to me at least that a) she doesn’t mind showing him that kind of affection at this point, and that b) she doesn’t mind doing so in public. You could argue back and forth on the second kiss because it is for the job, but also I think she just really wanted to kiss him and knew she had an excuse to do so. Obviously she was acting for Zilgram’s benefit before and after the kiss, but there’s a spot in the kiss where they’re body language changes, and I think in that moment it’s a “real” kiss and not just for the con.

 Parker and Hardison both have some doubts again in Girl’s Night and Boy’s Night, but again those are pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t go into them. But it’s also interesting that the team does see them as basically dating at this point regardless of whether they use that terminology. Sophie references “early relationship jitters” and it’s clear by the way Eliot gives Hardison advice that he knows what’s going on (not that they were that subtle with it, lol). It’s clear enough by the end of the season that they’re together even if they haven’t officially said anything.

 They spend the 6 month break between season 4 and 5 together traveling the world, and then they finally admit to the team that they’re dating. The traveling the world time is when I really think they kind of hammered things out and actually talked not in code, which lead to their official admission to the team. I think this official admission really just means that they’ve become more comfortable talking about their relationship with others. So now they’ll refer to each other as babe (or, memorably “my santa baby”) in front of the team, etc, and refer to things as dates instead of just hanging out or activities together. They’ll spend the night together in the apartment above the brew pub, etc. But if you notice, their behavior around each other doesn’t really change that much between season 4 and 5, which I think is just more proof that they were just as much in a relationship in season 4 as they were in season 5, they just weren’t calling it that yet.

 So, to break it down:

Season 1: Hardison likes Parker; Parker realizes this, and experiments with kissing him

Season 2: Parker encourages Hardison’s advances, but warns him to be patient and fiddly; she begins to touch him more

Season 3: They have the pretzels conversation, and Parker confirms she has feelings for Hardison but asks him to wait for her and he agrees

Season 4: She’s ready for Pretzels now so they have a ‘thing’ where they’re basically dating/in the early stages of dating, but they don’t call it that.

Season 5: They’re finally comfortable admitting to everybody that they’re together, and acting like a couple in public. They’ve gotten over most of their doubts/insecurities about their relationship and are mainly just being happy together as a couple.

[fanfictrashdump]

Universe in a Jar, 2 - Phase 4 fic

Recap: Some days ago, I reblogged this post about the magical trio. And then my brain went off on a monumental tangent and, I wrote Universe in a Jar.

Characters: Stephen Strange, Loki, Wanda Maximoff, OC

Rating: T? 

Warnings: Language! Embarrassing use of euphemisms, mourning, grief, mention of parent death, flirting is you squint, neurological disorders, attempted accidental murder, and typos probs.

Summary: Baby-sitting beings arguably more powerful than him goes awry for Doctor Strange. He knows one person who can possibly keep them isolated and out of trouble. Well, he knew someone who could… he hasn’t seen them in decades and for stupid reasons. 

XX

Persephone paused at the kitchen entrance, steeling her resolve and gathering the courage to walk past the table to get herself a cup of coffee. The notion that she would have to make herself brave enough to get something in her own home was ridiculous, but her kitchen was currently full of magic beings, as it had been every day for the past week. That wasn't the bit that made her hesitant, not being strictly ordinary herself. It was the man bent over a bowl of blackberries, freshly plucked off of a bush out back, that made her anxious. It was the superimposition of the familiar sight, her friend picking out twigs, leaves and the occasional caterpillar from the fruit, with the dull memory of a storybook villain who laid her whole feelings to waste.

"Morning! There's coffee and I'm making pancakes!" Wanda announced, much more cheery than she had been in a long while. The silence and lack of activities of their little haven in rural Nebraska had given her plenty of time to deal with unpleasant feelings. The witch tossed a half dozen pancakes in the air, all of them flipping perfectly back onto the griddle with no mess. Some people were blessed with better magic than her, Seph realized a little bitterly. "They have blaaackberries!"

"Oh. I, um, yeah–"

Stephen made a small noise of amusement. "I got strawberries for you. I know you think blackberries taste too purple."

She was forced to look up at the face she had been dreading for a whole week. The corner of Stephen's mouth twitched upwards briefly in a not unkind manner. Purple splotches stained the front of his t-shirt, a sight that took her back to days of youth when they would fill their shirts with berries and stuff themselves under a shady tree. Clearly, he had not yet learned another method to carry produce.

"That is not a thing, I assure you," Loki quipped with a smirk. He had helped himself to a book from Seph's library and had kicked his feet up on another chair, watching as the other two tinkered with breakfast.

"I have synesthesia. So, it is, actually, a thing."

She skirted past the men to the coffee maker, pouring herself a fresh cup and helping herself to the milk and sugar that had been left beside it. Wanda was good at this homemaker lark, considering Seph felt like she was an esteemed guest in her own home. Wanda had remarked several times that she liked to make people feel welcome and that she felt guilty for dropping in with the 'Magic Castle rejects' and causing 'unwarranted levels of trauma'. Seph had reassured her that she was fine with the company and it wasn't even bad to have Stephen around, but there was always an edge in her voice and a hint of mistruth in her voice that failed to convince the other woman.

"What in this Midgardian Hel is synesthesia?"

"Mis-wired sensory neurons." Stephen and Persephone answered in unison, startling each other and sharing a long, tense look before she continued. "My taste and sight are a little crossed."

"So your brain is broken." Despite the bluntness of his statement, Loki did not sound mean, more curious.

"More like it perceives differently."

"Mm." He was quiet for a long time after that one hum. The only noise in the kitchen being the sizzle of pancakes and the occasional sip of coffee. "How do you perceive portals? Do you feel the energy and shape it?"

Seph tilted her head in thought. She knocked Loki's legs from the chair and sank into the seat. Stephen and Wanda pretended to be engrossed in their task of making pancakes while they eavesdropped on the conversation. "No. It's like… have you ever seen those forests in a bottle? With like the microplants and worms, and you water it and close it. And it'll basically a self-sustaining entity as long as you don't open it? I see it like that, but the bottle is very flexible and bigger on the inside. Like the TARDIS."

"The what?"

"Time and relative dimension in space. It's a space and time travel machine. It's bigger on the inside," Stephen explained, mixing his fourth cup of coffee of the morning, which did not help with the shaking of his hands but it did wonders to quell his nauseous anxiety.

Loki's eyes widened with excitement. "Where can we acquire one?"

Seph smiled, reaching over to pat Loki's hand. "It's a television show, buddy. It's not real."

"Then why bring it into the conversation?"

"It was a good comparison. I didn't know quality entertainment was so lacking in Asgard." The atmosphere shifted subtly and Seph looked up from her cup of coffee to see all three magicians tense. "What?" More silence followed. Stephen's eyes flittered to Loki and everything made sense. This Loki had not lived through the chaos of moving his people to Earth. She then remembered Wanda giving her an update on everyone a few days ago and how he had not really taken everything all too well… fuck. "Oh. Oh, shit, I'm sorry, Loki."

The Asgardian smiled, a calm, bright expression that looked a little forced. "No worries."

Pushing the coffee away, she angled her body to Loki's and grasped his hand. "It's OK to be sad about losing a home that never truly accepted you, Lo–"

Stephen rolled his eyes and muttered. "Here we go."

Seph groaned, closing her eyes to settle herself. "No one's talking to you, Stephen!"

"Bleeding heart."

"Scalpel jockey."

He scoffed. "You could've done any specialty, chosen any residency–"

"And that's what I did. Not all of us are content hacking into people's heads."

"Not content in making a real difference, you mean?"

"Yes, tell me how that surgical career is working for you right now, Strange!" It was a low blow, she knew, and there was almost a feeling of guilt as he closed his fists to mask the shuddering of his hands self-consciously.

"I'm sure your business is booming. A couple of global catastrophes have probably got the nutjobs flocking to the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Hale."

Seph let out a disdainful laugh. "Considering most of my patients are kids who can suddenly levitate shit around their room or accidentally set things on fire, yes. My business is booming. If only the Earth had a protector that would keep global catastrophes from happening and triggering powers in scared kids." She swigged from her coffee and leaned back in her chair. "At least they have someone to talk to."

He slammed his own cup onto the kitchen table and chuckled. "And there it is! We talked almost twenty minutes without you bringing it up, Seph. Good job! You're getting bett–"

His cutting remarks were cut off abruptly, leaving only an odd mutter and the thumping of fist on glass. Around him, walls of a shimmery energy created a box and closed off all noise from the Sorcerer Supreme. His protests sounded like they were coming from underwater, though the walls were clear and solid to the touch. It almost looked like a specimen jar for entomologists–a killing jar.

"He's quiet, at the very least," Loki remarked, turning to give Seph a smile only to find her hazel eyes glowing as if they were leaking light, contrasting starkly with her dark skin. Her hands were shoulder width apart. Distractedly, she tilted her head, curls shifting slightly, and brought her hands closer together. The box rippled, and with it Strange coughed, suddenly panting for breath as he thumped his fist on the wall. "Persephone. Seph. Seph!" The woman showed no signs of hearing him, intensely focused on just the box and her prey. "Wanda!"

Wanda turned from the stove, midway through an eye roll before she dropped her spatula and swirling a large red orb in her hands and directing it towards the glass. The barrier shimmered but barely moved. Loki worked green and golden magic over Seph, trying to break through the blocks in her mind, but was becoming continually distracted by Stephen trying to magic his way out of the enclosure until he slumped forward, breathing shallowly.

"Come on, Seph. You need to let him go. It's not going to help." His eyes drifted to Strange. The sling ring had his magic flicker shortly before dying. Something about that box was not letting him enchant. "Persephone, killing him won't make it better. Believe me. Knowing the person who made you suffer is dead only gives you more grievances."

Wanda surrounded the bottle with her magic. It deformed and shifted, but was no closer to breaking apart to when she started. "I need help and Strange doesn't have long."

"Switch!" Loki turned his attention to the box, his magic making the whole thing shudder.

Wanda had taken his place and was fluttering her fingers beside Seph's temple, red tendrils flowing between them in an effort to access the other's mind. She frowned. "She's… she's keeping me out. How is she doing this? This shouldn’t be possible."

"Impossible is our specialty. Just keep trying." Loki grit his teeth, drawing and gathering his magic and concentrating it in one small, brilliant pebble. With a grunt of effort, he shot the projectile at the glass and a small crack appeared. "Oh for fuck's sake!" 

He repeated the process several times until the crack extended and opened just enough for air to flow in. Stephen breathed a little easier but was still looking weak, his skin sallow and pale; lips a sickly purple. With one last growl, Loki’s magic exploded outward, and the box shattered with a spine-quivering screech. He barely had the time to snatch the Sorcerer before he collapsed on the ground.

Seph inhaled sharply, shaking her head to clear the cobwebs from her mind, and opened her eyes to find all three guests staring at her with furrowed brows and narrowed gazes. Her gaze connected with Wanda, who still had her magic at the ready, to Stephen who was hanging off Loki's shoulder, desperately moving air into his lungs, to Loki who just looked concerned. On the floor, shards of shimmering glass rested, shaking to some unknown Universal vibration pattern before disappearing.

"Well, at the very least, he'll know not to antagonize you, now," Loki quipped, breaking the tense silence.

"Loki, no–" Stephen groaned, watching Seph disappearing from the kitchen, her footsteps echoing up the stairs.

About an hour later, Seph heard her bedroom door squeak open. She sat up like a shot and shuffled back against the headboard. Stephen closed the door behind him, his eyes fixed on her shaking form.

"Don't. Just, go back outside. I'll stay here. I–I can't be anywhere near any of you," she rambled, eyes wide and glittering with tears.

"It's a house full of magicians, we'll survive." He placed a stack of strawberry pancakes soaked in syrup on the bedside table. "You should eat. That kind of display… you should be exhausted right now. Why aren't you exhausted?" The question he tacked onto the end sounded rhetorical.

Reluctantly, she grabbed the plate just as her stomach growled. She picked at the pancakes before taking a bite. She winced at the taste, the color was too vibrant, too in-your-face. Stephen had definitely not had a hand in making these. He was terrible, but he remembered details like it was no one's business. Swallowing the bite, she put the plate back, wincing. With little warning, Stephen had pulled her hand towards him, a handful of long scratches etched into her palm, like the shattering of the box had recoiled into her hands.

"What? You hurt yourself and you don't say anything?" He tutted under his breath, bringing the other hand to his inspection to find similar scratches.

"Stop."

"I'll have to get the First Aid kit–"

"Loki, stop!"

Stephen frowned, eyes narrowing. "Loki?"

"Loki. Stop. Now."

The Sorcerer stared for another minute, face tight, before the glamour shimmered and faded in its entirety. "How did you know?"

She turned her hands to tap on his palms, held out steadily to hold hers. "He lets them shake when he's focused on something else. And the food was a little too bright."

"I knew I should've asked him to make it." He sighed, shrugging before gesturing for her hands back. "Let's have a look, pet." After a second's hesitation, she returned her hands and left them to his mercy. His magic stung her palms, but she remained still, occasionally sucking air through her teeth at the sensation of rapid healing.

"I thought you didn't like him." She said, out of the blue, but he immediately understood.

"He's been decent enough." He paused for another moment. "I'm also certain there is some sort of cosmic balance that would gravely suffer if that bother of a human is killed.” He waved his hands in a flourish and grinned. “There we go." 

"I'm sorry."

Loki frowned. "What ever for?"

"You guys are supposed to be laying low and recuperating not dealing with a fool with no sense of control."

"No control? Persephone, you wanted to kill Strange."

"Exactly! I–"

"No. You misunderstand me." He leaned down to level their stared. "You wanted to kill Strange. I could see it in your mind but I couldn't break through. You have excellent control. Which is why I had to go for the box and not your mind. I would've had to kill you to break the magic, if I had."

"So, I'm a psychopath?"

He laughed, bringing her hands to his lips and kissing her knuckles. "No, dear. You're just very angry at him. I hate to say it, but you might have to talk this through like adults."

Seph frowned. "Have you ever tried to have a conversation with Stephen Strange?"

"Yes. It was painful." He laughed. "He's not unreasonable, though. He's just a bit of a…"

"Control freak?"

He smirked and nodded. "Your adjective is kinder."

"Usually is." The pair glanced over at the door to see Stephen leaning against the frame, arms crossed. "I was always the asshole in the duo."

Seph made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat. "Do none of you knock? Were you all raised in a barn?"

Stephen snorted. "We grew up in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, where we, quite literally, spent most of our free time in a barn. You're lucky we speak in complete sentences given the public education system here."

"I know your mother taught you how to knock, Stephen Strange."

He rolled his eyes, quickly getting frustrated. "And yours taught you how to be polite. We both failed our mothers, it seems."

Seph's eyes flashed briefly and Loki made a warning noise loud enough to break her out of the glowing trance. "Have you learned nothing, you idiot?" Turning back to her, he smiled. "What he means to say is, memories have made him miserable and pent up all week and it’s making him snarky, but he is ready to give up the torture of having you angry at him."

"I haven't been miserable and pent up." Stephen’s tone was indignant and his chin jutted out defiantly. Loki was there to match his haughty tone with one of his own.

"Oh, so the self-immolation in her name was a coincidence?"

"I wasn't–"

She mouthed the phrase to herself several times, turning it over in her mind. Stephen looked fine, little scratches and scars from attempting to wrangle the other two, aside. Her doctorly instincts were not sounding any alarm bells that usually came on when she suspected any type of self harm. Was he maybe mentally torturing himself? "Self-immola–? Oh my god." She could barely look at either of the men. She definitely did not have to know what any of them got up to in the privacy of their own rooms. "Stephen!"

"I wasn't! Are you seriously listening to him about this?" He defended, though there was a jerky sort of nervousness in his movements and his cheeks blazed red.

Loki mouthed 'he was' at her and Seph covered her face with a pillow because suffocating in the fabric was a better alternative to this conversation. "Midgardians are such prudes, honestly. You're a beautiful woman and what I can presume is a source of comfort to him. He was very respectful of you in his thoughts–"

"How long were you watching me?"

"Long enough to respect your endurance.” Movement caught his attention. “Darling, where are you going?" Seph had thrown herself out of bed and was marching towards her closet, only to find that the door wouldn't budge. Same happened to the main door, en suite, wardrobe, even the drawers in her dresser. She wasn't going anywhere and Loki had made sure that every avenue of escape was unavailable.

Stephen scoffed. "Well, I can still lea–" He patted down his pockets and let out a groan. "Loki!"

"Looking for this?" The god held Stephen's sling ring between his thumb and index. "You can have it back when you've made nice."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I am done being in the middle of conflicts. I didn't like it five hundred years ago and I don't like it now. I detest having to scramble to keep her from killing you. This is the third time this week. Every time you anger her, the response is stronger." Stephen opened his mouth to protest, but Loki marched on. "What happens when her emotion and rage outweigh her control? I barely freed you today. Next time, she will succeed."

The Sorcerer rolled his eyes, ever the dramatic soul. "Yes, tell me how you'll weep."

"It'll barely register in my mind but it will destroy her, Strange!" The men’s argument was catching momentum fast, complete with random pointing in her direction and very colorful expletives.

"Could you not talk about me like I'm not in the room?" She murmured, just as the screaming match between the two started to elevate, scuffing her feet on the ground with a pout.

Loki swallowed the, no doubt acidic, retort he had poised on his tongue. "Apologies, flower. I meant no disrespect." He gave her an encouraging smile, holding his hand out to her. "But this is an issue that must be resolved sooner rather than later." After a moment's hesitation, she slapped her hand into his with a sigh and he chuckled. "Don't seem so enthusiastic."

"It's not about holding your hand–," she defended quickly, her eyes rounding with sadness as she fell back into her spot on the mattress.

"I was kidding, darling." He glanced at the Sorcerer. "Stephen."

"I'm not holding your hand, dude," he retorted instantly.

"Good. I've seen where it's been, I don't want it near me at the moment." Seph giggled quietly and Loki looked extremely pleased with himself at the sound. Stephen frowned, jealousy gnawing at his stomach. "Stop pouting, Strange. It's unbecoming."

"He doesn't deal well with negative emotions. So, he pouts a lot."

"I do not!"

"And denies negative feelings. Acknowledging them means he didn't successfully lock them into a tiny chest, wrapped them in chains and dropped them into the ocean."

"You're making me sound like a sociopath."

Seph fixed him with a raised brow look. "Where's the lie?"

Irritation clouded his speckled blue gaze, expression falling into the bored mask he usually wore. "Alright, this was a mistake. Loki, let me out."

"When's the last time you cried, Stephen?"

"Don't analyze me, Hale." His hissed tone would have intimidated a lesser human, but she remained as passive as ever. 

"It's a simple question, bud. I want to know how irritating you're going to be through this conversation."

"Does it matter?"

"It makes my point. You've always been awful with expressing yourself because you've convinced yourself that whatever asshole mask you put on makes you seem more mature. If you–"

"Match day."

"What?"

"Match day. I haven't really cried since residency match day. We weren't talking and you went off to Chicago and I stayed in New York. That's when I knew I lost you."

Loki leaned into her and asked under his breath. "When was that?"

"Decade and a half ago."

His eyes bugged out at her before turning back to Strange. "Decad–what is wrong with you?"

"You've had ample crying in the last decade and a half, have you?"

"I've had ample crying in the last ten and a half days. What the fuck is broken inside you?"

"Hey! Be nice!" Seph snapped, glaring at the god.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Abandoned you for your powers when you were at your lowest?"

"Oh. Right."

A long pause followed.

"I didn't know how to go back," Stephen admitted quietly. "I stood outside your building for three months. I could never knock. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the look on your face when I blew up at you… I knew I couldn't fix it. I still do."

Despite the ice that flowed through his veins, he couldn’t not stare back at the accusatory glare in her eyes. "I flew back home alone."

"I know."

"I identified her body alone."

"I know."

"I buried her alone. She loved you like you were hers and you didn't show up to her funeral, Stephen. I just…" Tears cut off the rest of her sentence, a sob gripping her throat. After a long while, she sniffled, wiping messily at her face. She chanced a look at him, his expression hard and his left eye twitching the same way it did when he was particularly upset about something. Twenty years and she could still tell when he was shoving his guilt down. "You're the one who leaves her flowers." Seph sighed, thinking about the bouquet of violets that were always there whenever she visited her mother's grave, and the fact that in recent times, it seemed like the visits had risen exponentially. Which made sense, since he could open a portal to the other side of the country at any given time.

He shrugged. "You leave mine flowers, too." He sighed, glancing hard at the floor. "I didn't forget my whole damn life just because you weren't speaking to me, Seph."

"To not have been speaking to you requires an effort for you to speak to me, wouldn't there?"

"She has a point."

"Shut up, Loki."

"Just moderating, Strange."

"I was stupid and scared. I went to you for everything. Feeling happy, feeling sad, stressed–you were the go-to for advice. Ironically, the person I would've asked for advice on how to approach you… was you." He forced a chuckle, feeling ridiculous. "Much like, full disclosure, the person I asked dating advice for was also you."

She cackled. "Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. I asked you what your mystery girl liked and it sounded like you were reading from my diary. You weren't exactly subtle."

"I threw in some bad information."

"You said she might be into girls."

Stephen's mouth flapped open several times before he dragged a hand down his face. "In retrospect, yeah, I pretty much described you, but I wasn't sure if you were into both."

"We went on three separate dates, you just didn't fucking notice!"

"And you were attracted to him?" Loki interrupted, eyes narrowed and looking between the two. "Were there no other options in lovers?"

"Shut up, Loki!" They replied in unison.

Seph smiled sadly, her fingers absently trailing over Loki's in an effort to distract her mind. "I would've forgiven you the second you knocked on my door if you had just apologized and meant it. Not something out of obligation or because I was literally your last resort."

"I'm not good at admitting when I'm wrong. You know that."

"Truly a tragedy, considering you're wrong a lot of the time, even if you swear up and down that you’re right," she teased, sounding like a well-practiced jab.

There was a bit of amusement lighting up Stephen's face. "I get one question wrong on a test, thirty years ago and it's all you ever talk about the rest of our lives."

"I also got a better score than you on the MCAT, so…"

He barked out a laugh. "I hate you so much." The smile slowly melted from his face, leaving behind a passive expression. He felt relaxed, less uptight. Whether that was due to the tension in the air lifting the slightest bit or the fact that he could feel her familiar aura as he had for so much of his life, he didn't know. "I'm really sorry, Peep. Leaving you is a regret I'll take to my grave."

Her nose scrunched at the long-forgotten nickname and shook her head, deciding that she knew better than to tell him to forget that endearment ever existed. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you, I guess. In my defense, you were asking for it."

"That's fair."

"Did I hurt you?"

He smirked. "Crushed my lungs a bit. Nothing permanent." He tilted his head. “Why? Is it going to become a common occurrence?”

Persephone's face clouded. "I don’t know, Stephen. It’s a process. I can’t just–”"

“You can’t just forgive him like nothing happened. He understands.” Loki pinched her cheek playfully, leaving her to bat it away with an irritated pout. "Hold your grudge. Keep it for as long as you need, but don't let it poison you. Stupid things happen when you let grief color your perception."

"Whatever. I promise not to murder him, at the least.” Heavy expression fell on the Asgardian, next. “Also, if you ever use the phrase self-immolate in your name, again, I will punch you in the face. I didn't need to know that."

"I WASN'T!"

"I don't care if you did. I don't want to know while I'm still really pissed at you. Got it?"

Both of the men mumbled a "fine" under their breaths before a collective click resounded around the room. They were free once more. Stephen hesitated at the door, his demeanor giving off the impression that he was building up to say something. Seph watched him expectantly only to have him drop his shoulders and turn on his heel, twisting the doorknob to make a hasty retreat.

"Him? Of all people? Really?"

Seph laughed, rolling her eyes. "He was the boy next door. And he's always been pretty hot."

"You can do better." His voice was smooth and rumbly and made her raise her eyebrows.

"I think you mean I can do worse."

Loki smirked. "Norns, I hope you do."

[found--family]

watchnotes for 15x16: 

🎶 ..If I didn't care more than words can say.. If I didn't care, would I feel this way? If this isn't love then why do I thrill? And what makes my head go 'round and 'round.. While my heart stands still?.. 🎶

Rooster's Sunrise motel 🐓 *rubs hands together for impending meta* 

Travis kinda reminds me of Dean 🥃 

looking forward to the meta on Gwen's wardrobe.. 👀

no other show does funky-fugly motel chic like SPN does 😂 

*HEAVY SIGH* yet another Cas-absent episode w. lazy 'splainer writing 🙄 Sam thinking that Cas just "bailed" is OOC + Dean's "Cas just being Cas" like.. REALLY?!? they've done this scene a dozen times over the years and it always grates on my sanity 🤬 

HOWEVER: i can buy Dean wanting to keep The Thing™ a secret for now (as long as we get hints at his reasoning) + *delighted squeal!* Dean checking the text from the Cas mid-drive 😅 Cas wants Sam to know, it seems. i hope Sam finds out by the end of the ep 🤞

what IS on your Bucket List, Dean? 👂

KID!CHESTERS! 😍 (wardrobe!meta = 🙏) 

kid!Sam looking @ college stuff, he just wants to be normal 😭💔 

reminded how much i love the fact kid!Sam had an "imaginary" friend that turned out to be a Supe #ZannaAreFriends 🤗 

Kid!Dean projecting onto kid!Sam 🥺 

🎶 it's THE SCORE™ 🎶

kid!Dean knowing how to hack a 90s vending machine 🍫😎 

so the MoTW takes on the visage of its victims? 

facing one's fears in order to heal #Relevant

monster grabbing a kid trying to steal candy.. hmm.. 

kid!Chesters working the case w. other kids 👏 why didn't we have this content year's ago?? 

"You've changed, Dean" .. and not in a good way 😖 (reminds of Billie 13x05) 

it's an interesting ep so far: the case being mostly in flashbacks w. older!Dean not believing in a present-day-monster. i think they've done something similar a few times but not exactly. 

"This ain't the friggin' Goonies" and yet.. 

"Let's Boggle™" 😅 

kid!Dean being nervous + posturing on a hunt *nods solemnly* 

107 (room key) x 2 = 214 (room) 🔑🤔 

Dean being confronted by his dead kid (monster) self 👏 

also: that camera move where Dean seems to shrink as he goes to his knees + kid!Dean looms over him.. 🎥🏆 

is it a revenge-killing thing? 

this is the 3rd episode in a row w. focus on Fingers 🖐️ 

Second Chances™ 

*Jack's* neon sign in the bar over Dean's shoulder as they discuss a case w. dead kids 💡

way to scar kid!Dean on his first unsupervised hunt, but it's insightful: the Worst/Scariest Thing™ wasn't the monster itself but what it did, the sight of the damage done 😢 

kid!Dean "shoved it down the ol' memory hole" and "had nightmares about that [dead kids] for the longest time" reminds us of what Sam said in 15x14 about how "ignoring your trauma doesn't make you healthy" 😔 

kid!Dean keeping the visual horror to himself to protect kid!Sam 😭 

SAM: We used to keep a lot secrets from each other. DEAN: 😳 (Jack) 

BILLIE! comin' in w. sound logic #Priorities? 📋 

another Star Wars ref by Dean for compilation gifsets 🙃🛸 

UHOH 🌎 Chuck's done deleting other worlds + shit's about to hit the fan 

Billie lays it out plain (i love her): Jack chose self-sacrifice for Dean's freedom + hopefully forgiveness; even if Cas finds A Better Way™ to defeat Chuck, Jack would probably refuse. Dean's anger is playing a big role this season. 👀 

Sam reflects on Normality™, how his wants/view changed since childhood because they help people. 

can't help but see Billie as being on Destiny's side ie. somewhat The Enemy whose plans never quite work out: the Soul Bomb™ in s11, Ma'lak Box in s14, even Rowena's "death" saw her survive in a way. She speaks of adhering to Chuck's Book™ ie. what is already written/fate, reminding us of Writer!Chuck/the absence of Free Will 🤔 

Dean is willing to let Jack sacrifice himself ☹️ which is why he hasn't told Sam ☹️ because he knows Sam would want to help Cas find A Better Way™ (which is the synopsis for 15x17!!!) 👀 

DEAN: I want Chuck dead, I need him dead. (he's being selfish because it's personal, letting his anger drive him. If TFW 2.0 is going to win Dean will have to deal w. his anger before then). 😠 

another Ring for season 15 💍 and more heart/power symbology ❤️ 

LoTR ref from Dean 👏 

Gwen + her bong in the store room 😂 

"You have changed, Dean." .. in a good way; being truthful about being scared 💗 not that he thinks it's a good thing, but Caitlin does: "What do they say about getting older? You tell the truth more because you know that lies don't make anything better." (i think we all know where this is leading..) 👀 

hug Hello + Goodbye; platonic, despite kid!Dean initially crushing on Caitlin. Trauma + truth overshadows things. 👤 

kid!Dean being truthful w. kid!Sam in the end (not about the horrors of the hunt but about Life™: he "doesn't know" about Sam+college but he no longer shuts the idea down; says they make a good team in any case) 👨‍👦‍👦

Dean comes clean to Sam - rather than him finding out from Cas that he's been lying - about Jack and the fact Cas told him, not Billie. It's A Good Thing™. #CharacterGrowth 🌱 

.. what's not a good thing is the resulting argument shining a light on #AngryDean not caring about the Ethics™ of Billie's plan (hello callback to season 6 Castiel) and saying they "don't get a choice" #WhatHappenedToTeamFreeWill ??? 😧 

Sam lashing out @ Dean = YES. GO SAM GO. 😡 ... 🥺 

BONUS: 15x17 promo has Dean + Jack working together! 👏 

[d-i-y--projects]

Stop Throwing Out Your Used Tea Bags

They’re surprising useful. Here are 12 things they can do post-brew.

Apartment Therapy   Shifrah Combiths

It feels so good to be able to do something with the things we’d normally discard. Coffee grounds as rose fertilizer and clementine peels saved for DIY candles come to mind, not to mention composting in general.

If you’re a regular or occasional tea drinker, you can add your tea bags to the list of garbage you shouldn’t throw out just yet. Here are some ways to re-use them post brew:            

Add a hint of flavor to rice or grains. Hang your used tea bags in boiling water to infuse your food with a touch of flavor. Think jasmine tea with rice or chai tea with oatmeal.

Protect house plants from fungal disease by re-brewing a used tea bag and using the weak tea (cooled) to water your plants.

Neutralize odors naturally. Spread dried tea leaves in stinky spots like the cat litter box or in the bottom of your garbage bags.

Make cleaning the fireplace safer and easier. Dump the damp contents of tea bags onto the ash to weigh it down before sweeping out the fireplace.

De-grease pots and pans. Soak hard-to-clean dishes in water with a used tea bag tossed in. The tea will help loosen stuck-on food and break up grease.

Add them to your bath. The antioxidants in tea are good for your skin and the gentle scent will add some aromatherapy to your soak.

Take the sting out of insect bites and sunburns. Using a cool compress will reduce pain and inflammation of the affected areas.

Make a hair rinse. Remove product buildup without using another product. Soak 3-4 used tea bags in warm water and pour it over your head after shampooing and conditioning as usual. Don’t rinse. Pro tip: Chamomile brightens blondes and black tea adds a coppery shimmer to brunettes, according to Housewife How-Tos.

Deodorize carpets by scattering the dried contents of several teabags over your rugs before you vacuum.

Depuff tired eyes. Place cool tea bags over your eyes, cucumber style. According to Chasing Green, the tannins in the tea leaves may reduce bags and dark circles.

Clean leather shoes by buffing with a damp teabag.

Wash stinky hands, using a tea bag as you would a bar of soap to help eradicate garlic, onion, or fish odors.

hifrah Combiths has been writing professionally for twenty years. She loves lifestyle photography, memory keeping, gardening, reading, and going to the beach with her husband and children.

More Stories from Pocket

Six Things You Should Throw Out Immediately

The 30 Most Brilliant Cleaning Hacks of All Time

From Ketchup to Pineapples: The Food That Should Never Be Kept in a Fridge

Stop Cooking with Coconut Oil

Great Time to Try: Pickling

More from Apartment Therapy

Why You Should Take Hydrogen Peroxide Out of Your First Aid Kit

Here’s a Simple and Food-Safe Way to Get Rid of Ants in Your Kitchen

Stop the Smell: How To Clean a Front-Loading Washing Machine

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/stop-throwing-out-your-used-tea-bags?utm_source=pocket-newtab

[spideythot]

Control

This is a Superior Iron Man au, I guess. I’ve been into that lately. I don’t know a lot about those comics but I do know dark!Tony is hot, hot, hot

Anyway, enjoy — (this features dubious consent , Daddy stuff and some brainwashing)

——•——

Peter couldn’t believe he was doing this - sneaking into Stark Tower in search of evidence against the Iron Man. It was crazy; suicidal. But this mission was important, Steve needed him. And he was already at the top of the building. Peter dropped down to the penthouse balcony and scanned the windows. It was dark and still inside. Perfect. Peter attached his small device to the door lock and ran a series of codes until it opened. He slipped inside. This was clearly the living space - sleek lounge furniture, large entertainment system and connected to the dining area.

Peter cautiously stepped across the floor, his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. All he needed was access to Stark’s mainframe, he’d hack in and escape. With the program he designed, Peter and the rest of his team would be able to access Stark’s data anywhere and at anytime (as long as he could do this and remain undetected).

Peter focused on the large television. It was definitely Starktech, so it had to be connected. He moved closer, wires and hacking tools in hand. Suddenly, the TV set flickered to life, illuminating the room in a soft blue glow. Peter froze and stared up at the hazy white-blue screen. He could see his silhouette, and the glass of his eyepiece in the mask on the surface of the TV. The glowing screen then began to hum. It flickered again, this time revealing odd patterns. The screen blinked at Peter, the patterns moving faster and swirling together. Peter stared confused and... intrigued. This was odd. Starktech was at the forefront of technology - and yet Mr. Stark’s television was malfunctioning?

Peter kept his eyes on the screen, his ears now filled with the hum of the dying appliance. He couldn’t remember what he was doing here now. It had something to do with the TV he was sure. Maybe if he kept looking, his memory would come back...

“Drop the device,” A smooth, deep voice ordered.

Peter tilted his head toward it, but he was unable to drag his eyes from the screen. He dropped his hack box, and barely heard it clatter to the ground.

He felt hands on his waist, and they slid up the length of his torso. “You’re skinnier than I thought,” the man said, “But I’m sure it’s all lean muscle.”

Peter opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. Iron Man stepped in front of him, towering over him, sleek silver armor glimmering in the television light. “Still under?” He asked.

Peter again didn’t have the will respond. He was staring up into those icy blue eyes, completely transfixed.

“Good,” Tony purred, “Take the mask off, Parker, let me see how pretty you are.”

Peter should have been concerned when Tony Stark - the Tony Stark, world’s most dangerous man - said his name. But he didn’t care at all. He tugged his mask off and handed it to Tony. The man took it, dark grin playing on his lips. “Good boy,” he praised.

Peter shivered. God, he liked the way Tony spoke to him, low and hungry... His became fuzzy when Tony had called him a good boy. His whole body tingled with a buzzing warmth that sat deep in his gut.

Tony ran his fingers through Peter’s soft hair, admiring the dazed expression on the boy’s face. He had grown since his last school picture, didn’t wear glasses anymore either, presenting an even more stunning prize.

“Adorable,” Tony whispered.

Peter leaned into his touch and bit back a whimper. Tony glanced down to where Peter was pressing his thighs together.

“Oh, you like that?” Tony asked. He pulled Peter’s hair, tipping the boy’s head back and exposing his neck. Tony leaned forward and nipped Peter’s throat, eliciting another soft moan from him.

“I have plans for you, Peter,” he promised, “I’ll give you exactly what you need, but you’ll have to make it worth my while.”

Peter’s eyes darted to his then, wide with a hint of fear, but still enthralled. “Speak,” Tony prompted.

“Mr. Stark...” Peter gasped, finally able to form words. “I... I can’t.”

Tony frowned, his eyes lit ominously by the suit’s arc reactor. The liquid metal of his armor shifted, reaching out for Peter and dragging him closer to the man. “That’s not what good boys say,” Tony scolded.

Peter bit his lower lip and whined. Tony curled a hand around his throat, the nanotech of his armor, binding the boy’s limbs simultaneously. “You want to be good for me, don’t you?” He asked.

Peter nodded. He did, he very much wanted to be good, but he was sure he wasn’t supposed to give up his allies. He heard Tony sigh, and then the man stepped to the side. He stood directly behind his captive, pressing his body against Peter’s back. Tony tangled his fingers in Peter’s hair and held the boy still as the program on his television continued to run.

Peter opened his mouth, likely trying to protest, but only made a soft panting cry. “Let’s try again,” Tony spoke in his ear, “Be a good boy and give me a name. Who sent you?”

“S-Steve...” Peter breathed, “Steve Rogers.”

Tony released his hair and slid his hands over Peter’s body. The nano-machines of his armor began stripping Peter’s costume off. Tony rewarded him with a soft kiss on throat. Peter leaned into the touch. He was hot where Tony touched him, body sparking in pleasure at the man’s hands.

Tony held Peter’s hips, his fingers rubbing small circles on his skin. “You’re with him now?” He asked, “You want to play with the big boys?”

“N-no sir,” Peter whimpered, “I was just helping...”

“Ah, I see,” Tony said. He dragged blunt fingertips up Peter’s abs and chest, relishing in the boy’s squirming. “They sent you here as a test, Peter. They knew you’d be caught.”

“No,” Peter shook his head, eyes attempting to tear away from the screen. No, they were counting on him to... to do something. And they’d come for him if he was in trouble.

“They’ve led you to slaughter,” Tony continued, “No one to rescue you.” Tony held Peter’s chin forcing him to keep staring. Peter tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn’t listen.

“They call themselves a team, but no one cares about you,” Tony said, “You’re disposable.”

Peter felt tears slipping down his cheeks. That couldn’t be right. No, Steve had said he was an important part of the team. They wouldn’t just throw him away, right? But he was here... trapped in the lion’s den. He had no way to contact his team at all.

“Sshh, it’s alright,” Tony cooed onto Peter’s ear, “I have you now, Peter.”

Peter melted into Tony’s body. That’s right. Tony had promised to treat him well. And the man was already making him feel so good. His dick had been hard since Tony fist spoke to him. It was leaking precum all over.

“I’ll take care of you, Peter,” Tony said, hand hovering just above Peter’s cock. “Just become mine.”

Peter nodded. “Please, Mr. Stark,” he pleaded. He hadn’t noticed, but the Tv had gone dark. Tony bit Peter’s throat and wrapped his hand around the boy’s little dick. He pumped it quite harshly, delighted by the strangled moans Peter gave him. He sucked a deep red hickey to Peter’s throat. He added more and began to grind his own cock into Peter’s ass. Peter moaned again, knees buckling slightly. Tony’s suit extended again and pulled Peter’s ankles out from under him, holding the boy against Tony and spreading his legs open.

“Mr. Stark!” The boy moaned. Tony’s cock pressed against Peter’s hole in their new position. It felt huge against him, but Peter wanted to feel it inside. He pushed back against it.

Tony tightened his hand around the base of Peter’s cocklet. Peter whined, his hips bucking forward. “More...” he begged. His whole body was flushed, neck and shoulders littered with hickeys. Tony thrust his hips forward, finally splitting Peter open on his dick.

Peter screamed. Tony was big - and Peter had only ever done this with his fingers before. He was being stretched so impossibly wide. It burned, and Peter cried out, more tears spilling from his eyes. He tried to close his legs, but more tendrils from the suit curled around him and held them open.

“Say you’re mine,” Tony demanded, “And I’ll make sure the pain goes away.”

“I’m yours!” Peter agreed without hesitation. He wanted to cum with Tony inside him, he wanted Tony to fill him completely.

“Good boy,” Tony praised, forcing his cock deeper into Peter. “Good, Good boy.”

Peter keened. Tony released his grip from

Peter’s dick and thrust up into him. “Oh! Oh God!” Peter moaned.

“That’s right, baby,” Tony said, his full length buried deep inside Peter, “I’m your God now.”

Peter whimpered and clenched around the cock in him. Tony thrust into his body, hard and fast. Peter begged and moaned as Tony drove into him, each thrust was stabbing at his prostate.

“Say you obey me, and I’ll let you cum,” Tony purred.

“I-I-ah, Mr. Stark!” Peter cried.

“Say it, Peter.”

“I obey,” the boy moaned, “I obey, I’m yours! Please!”

Tony buried his cock as deep as he could in the soft body he held. “You may cum,” he said.

Peter’s body shook violently as he came with a gasping shout. Tony grabbed the boy’s dick and pumped it, milking Peter. The boy whined and tried to twist away in his restraints, “Mr. Stark!” He whined.

“Cum again,” Tony ordered, rubbing the sensitive head of Peter’s little cock. He thrust his own dick in and out of Peter more slowly. Peter, as over sensitive as he was, obeyed. He shot again, cum spurting into Tony’s hand.

Tony pulled out of the boy’s warm, trembling body. The armor lowered Peter to the floor, where he panted and shivered. Tony moved to the sofa and sat, his legs spread, cock still hard. Time to see if his program had throughly worked.

“Peter,” he called, “Daddy isn’t finished.”

Peter dragged himself into a sitting position, his eyes snapping to Tony’s cock. He blushed and then raised his gaze to Tony’s eyes. “Sorry, Daddy,” he murmured.

Perfect. Peter was still in trance, the subliminal prompts working perfectly. Tony beckoned to Peter, who instantly crawled across the floor and settled between his legs. “Be good and Daddy will cum inside your slutty little hole next time,” he said.

“Yes, Daddy,” Peter replied. He smiled up at Tony, hands stroking and massaging the man’s balls, “Thank you, Daddy.” He opened his mouth and swallowed Tony’s cock down. Peter’s eyes fluttered closed, reveling in the pleasure that coursed through him.

Tony smirked. The kid was a natural, sucking and swirling his tongue around Tony’s dick with ease. Tony was going to enjoy taking Peter apart. The kid had eagerly responded to the program; fallen right into the trap. Tony considered making a video of his mesmerized new pet. He could send it to Rogers, show him the cockslut Spider-man has become.

Tony gazed down at the sight between his legs. Peter ran his tongue along the length of Tony’s cock, head bobbing up and down. His hips were rolling against the carpet on the floor, cocklet hard again. His happy little cumslut. Tony couldn’t wait to continue conditioning the boy. Peter was going to be his most obedient little plaything.

——•– End

[random-imagines-blog]

All This and Heaven Too (James McAvoy x Reader Oneshot)

Requested by: @h-a-j-i-m-e-ru Wordcount: 2203 Synopsis: You surprise James with tickets to a Florence and the Machine concert.

If there was one thing that you and James had in common, it was a mutual love of music. Whilst at the beginning of your relationship together, you went to smaller bars where there were bands playing on Friday nights, and where James hid under a ballcap and a large sweater to hide his identity. An acoustic set one night brought you both to your feet in a slowdance beneath the dim lights, and lead to your very first kiss together. An electronic night had him doing the robot, and you laughing off to the side, watching him do his own thing. Apparently, any type of music would do to get James moving, and your tastes evolved to match his. Although the two of you very often went to bar gigs, you had never been to a large show before. He had gone with his castmates while shooting movies in other locations, but never the two of you. When you  heard that one of your favorite musicians was playing a show,, you knew that was about to change.

You eagerly waited by your laptop for the tickets to go on sale, and the second that they were, you scooped up two in the standing area. As they were closest to the stage, they were rather expensive but every penny was going to be worth it. Every time that James came home from meeting with film executives and casting calls, you felt the urge to tell him about the concert. You had decided, though, that you were going to let it be a huge surprise.

One day before the show, you did something that every partner has thought about doing, but few had the guts to do. James had left his phone charging on the counter while he got into the shower, and so you managed to hack into it, his password being his son’s birthday. When you got in, you didn’t bother to go through the texts or messages - you trusted him with your whole heart, but instead, you went to his schedule. You scrolled through and found that the only thing that he had on his docket for tomorrow was to drop by the P.O. box and pick up his mail. Your evening plans wouldn’t interfere with that, thankfully.

Thirty minutes later, since James did adore taking long showers, he came out in just a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair damp and hanging in his eyes. You had put his phone back where it was long before then, but were laying on the bed, going through your own phone.

“The weather is supposed to be great tomorrow,” You smiled, looking him over as you always did, for you never got tired of the sight of his body. The towel could be a little lower in your opinion, or off entirely. “You up for a date night tomorrow?” Little did  he know that he didn’t have a choice because you were taking him whether he liked it or not.

James grinned over at you as he sauntered towards his dresser to get out a pair of jeans for the day. “In London? A day of nice weather?” You laughed at his mock-surprise and nodded your head. “For some reason, I feel like you have something planned, so yes darling, I’d love to have a date night.” He dropped the towel to the ground, giving you an eyeful, then proceeded to put his pants on. The brief sight was good enough for now, but you’d make sure to get a longer one later that night.

The next night took it’s sweet time to arrive, mainly due to the excitement that you were feeling for it. You knew James could be a bit clueless to events happening outside of the theater and movie world, so you felt no worry about him stumbling across your plan. He had even dressed up for the night in a nice tie, which made you chuckle. So being the best partner that you could be, you slowly undid the tie and slid it off from around his neck.

Anyone who might have been watching would be able to tell how simply in love with you James was, from the stars in his blue eyes that appeared whenever you were close like this. Everyone was always telling you how lucky you were to find a good man who felt that way about you, and you always had to agree. It always made you feel like the luckiest person in the world when you looked into his eyes. “You don’t need to be so formal tonight, love. That is just going to make you very sweaty.”

“You’re planning something,” James mused, raising a bushy eyebrow at you. “You aren’t very good at hiding things, you know. You pick then, what should I wear for you tonight?”

The closet was at your disposal. James had plenty of clothes in here, but you went straight for a blue button up shirt with sleeves just to the elbow because it would bring out his eye color spectacularly. You then went with a pair of simple jeans that was sure to make his toosh look good. Once you had that planned out, you tossed it into his hands then left the room to finish getting ready yourself. Again, it was hard to keep it a surprise what the plans were tonight. Florence and the Machine always had ways of getting stuck in your head and you had to bite down on your lips to make sure you weren’t humming.

You did your usual bathroom routine, brushing your hair and then styling it, but with extra product so that despite the heat of the concert, and all the moving around, it wouldn’t get ruined.

James walked in a few minutes later, dressed in the way that you had picked, and as expected - he looked amazing. “About tonight - should I wear comfortable shoes?”

“But of course, you always should.” You smiled at him through the mirror, reflection to reflection. Your own outfit was comfortable and casual, and you would be able to dance in it without issue. It was a particularly warm day today, and the night was sure to follow in its footsteps. It always seemed to be sunny when a good thing happened to you.

You carefully put the tickets inside of your wallet, making sure that they wouldn’t get crushed nor fall out before the show. You slipped on a jacket, for though it may be warm now, it may not be so later. You held onto James’s hand as soon as the two of you were outside the door, and leaned into him, resting your head against his shoulder. “We’re going to have a good time tonight, I promise.”

“I trust you,” James said, pecking the top of your head. “Though it would be nice to have some idea of where we’re going.”

“That would ruin the surprise, now wouldn’t it?” You teased.

With a wave of your hand once the two of you were on the main road, you managed to hail a cab and climbed into the back. You had to learn forward to whisper to the driver where you wanted to go, then leaned back against the seats.

“You really want this to be a surprise, don’t you?” All you have done was confuse James, but he was excited nonetheless.

“You said you trust me, so just trust me, we’re going to have an amazing time.” The taxi soon pulled up in front of a busy looking arena, with cars milling about and people having cigarettes before the show would start. The sign flashed who was playing tonight, along with pictures of Florence to go along with her name. “So ... I might have gotten us some pretty good tickets.” You said, as the cab came to a stop behind five others that were letting people out.

But before you could step out of it, the driver was kind enough to get out, come around and open the doors. You smiled in thanks at him, and James slid out first, his mouth slightly agape as he realized what you had planned. James was still enough of a gentleman to offer his hand to you and help you out of the cab, but he didn’t let go of it once you were outside, and the driver had been slipped a nice tip.

“And you managed to keep this a secret?” He asked, leaning in close to you since there was enough noise that he worried about not being heard.

“Why, would you rather I tell you?” You grinned against his shirt. “Why would I go and ruin this surprise - we’re on the floor, by the way.”

Florence put on the most amazing show that you had ever seen. It was one of the best nights of your life, without a doubt, and a big part of that was because of who was with you. It was still rather nice outside as the two of you left the arena, and felt the breeze against your sweaty skin. James took hold of your hand and pulled you away from the venue, to a more secluded spot where you could hear each other talk. Quite frankly, both your ears were ringing from the close proximity to the speakers, but it was well worth it. Not once did you feel a moment of regret for arranging all of this.

“You are ... amazing, love.” James breathed, leaning his forehead against yours. “If you were any better, I’d think that you weren’t real.”

At that, you leaned in further, and kissed his soft pink lips, flattered beyond words by the compliment so you could only give an action. James returned it eagerly, hand on the small of your back now. The two of you probably looked like teenagers, ducking around the corner of a building to make out. The thought made you smile into the kiss, which made James do the same, though after a moment, he pulled away.

“Only thing that will make this night even better is dinner,” You hinted, putting your around around his shoulder. Instead of answering with words, he gave a big grin, and turned his back towards you, then patted his shoulder. You squealed and jumped onto his back, straddling him from behind, and with the muscles that he had developed for Split and Glass, he held your weight up and walked down the street to find a place to grab a bite to eat. Few people looked at you two lovebirds, but all the ones who did smiled at you. The wind blew through your hair and made you feel as if you were flying - you felt entirely safe with James, you always had.

For two blocks you sped along like this until you found a pizza place that was still open. The smell of the garlicky sauce enticed you in right away. You barely had to motion to James, he smelt it too and went right in that direction.

There were hardly any people in the place, three small booths, then four stools that were by the window, looking to the streets outside. In a flash, James had his wallet out and told you to go and pick a seat while he’d buy a couple of slices. Others had taken over the stools, so you slid into one of the booths, the vinyl covers being the same color as the sauce that you were looking forward to devouring. James felt your eyes on him as his back was turned, and he cocked his hip to put on a little show for you, making you smile. That’s one of the reasons you adored him so much - he was utterly ridiculous at times, and hardly ever embarrassed to do little things like that.

It didn’t take long for him to get two large slices of pizza, your favorite kind of course, and slip into the booth across from you. After the concert, in these lights, his skin seemed to glow. You knew that it was sweat of course, but you didn’t mind at all. You liked the way that it seemed to accentuate his cute nose somehow.

“There were only two slices left, lucky for us.” He said, putting he two paper plates on the table. “Always lucky around you, aren’t I?”

The flush from the adrenaline of being on his back was wearing away, and he brought a new kind to your cheeks. “You might even be getting lucky tonight,” You winked at him, making him choke on the bite that he was taking.

“Best you not be saying that unless you mean it,” He said, taking a swig of his soda. You smiled and took a bite of your food, careful to eat it slow so you wouldn’t get a stomachache later. If the two of you were going to have your fun tonight, you really didn’t want indigestion spoiling it.

“Would I ever lie to you?”

[honestsycrets]

Behind the Door

↳ modern au

Author’s Notes | for @lisinfleur

❛ pairing | hvitserk x reader, abusive!oc x reader

❛ word count | 4750

❛ genre | oneshot with some angst

❛ summary | the girl in the hall, he wants to know her. the only one in his way? her abusive boyfriend.

❛  warnings | emotional abuse, physical abuse, abusive relationships, some violence

Money talked.

Hvitserk knew that it did and he had gotten lucky with his father’s reputation. His job was to play and travel; kicking his soccer ball across a dewy field every day. It was something natural and freeing to him, almost like if he was flying like mother’s falcon across the field. A pop and twist of his foot and he could whizz a ball with the soaring wind into a white knit net.

A life of salads, long practice days and a flight from Copenhagen out half way across the world led up to this moment carrying up suitcases to his new apartment. Luckily, the furniture was all moved in a few days before but-- fuck, he was preparing to be here for the long haul. That meant lots and lots of clothes being brought up this metal box of an elevator.

Ding! Fourteenth floor. The doors whizz open.

“--Really? You don’t think that’s too short?”

“I-- I thought it would look nice. I made it myself.”

Couple scuffles-- it wouldn’t be the first time he walked in on one. Usually, no one had the balls to do them in the open. Especially not in a well to do area like this. Hvitserk turns his huge suitcase in a circle and throws the dark duffel bag over his shoulder. As he passes the plasticy tags with black numbers of each door, he realizes that he’s getting painfully close to the couple-- and painfully close to his own apartment.

The man leans over into his girl’s face, tugging the hem of her mid-thigh length dress made of some comfortable sweater fabric. Hvitserk wore sweaters just like the one she had made into a dress-- complete with buttons down to her belly button. The richness of her choice in green made his mouth salivate with a burst of energy.

His synaesthesia was acting up today.

“Hey man, would you let your girl go out looking like this?” The man says harmlessly enough and true, Hvitserk thinks-- he might have been jealous too. Not because something was too short but because the girl looks too good. Dressed to the nines, manicured fingers flirtatiously in her hair and a pair of heels with a strap across cute toes painted black. Edgy. A hint of kinky past her preppy appearance. She must have been a hell of a fuck.

She stares straight ahead, over his shoulder and the nape length blonde hair that tickled the sides of her face. The man stands upright, several inches taller than her. Every once in a while, she would glance to Hvitserk’s jawline, running over the curling hairs of his jaw and then back to her blond haired, sea-eyed boyfriend. Or husband, god forbid. This guy was a complete ass.

“Uh.” He runs his tongue over his tooth. With a vapid smile, he shrugs his shoulders. “I can’t help you, man. Women like what they like.”

It’s the safest bet. The wheels of his suitcases clack as he stops in front of his plain door, draping the duffel bag on his suitcase. If he wasn’t being stupid, he could have sworn she flashed him an adorably belligerent smile, a bit of tooth peeking out from her lips. He shuffles in the pocket of his joggers, knocking away his leather wallet until he found the ring of his new keys.

“Yeah, yeah guess that’s the truth.” The man says looking to Hvitserk who opens the door, balancing with his foot. “You need help, dude?”

“Weren’t you going out?” Hvitserk asks. The woman shifts, a light shake in her head. She opens the door to their apartment and slides out of sight into the ill-lighted apartment.

“Na, I don’t think so.” The man jogs forward and takes ahold of his suitcase. He wheels it in. “I’m Jesper Sørensen.”

“Uh, Hvitserk.” He mutters.

“Number 10! Hvitserk Ragnarsson?”

Shit.

“I knew I recognized you from somewhere, man.” He comes into his crisp apartment. It’s white-- dusty on his tongue as he walks in. He appreciates the calmness of the grey walls and matching dark hardwood floors. Had it been more than that, he might actually get triggered.

“You’re fucking lucky to do work like that. I do pharmaceuticals. Let you in on a secret brother, it’s some boring shit!”

I’m not your brother, Hvitserk thinks. He lets it go, stretching his back out and looking out toward the bright beach outside his window. He catalogues the bend of the beach in his eye knowing that he would most likely spend a lot of time here in the future. Then as to not ignore his new visitor, he turns back toward the column of stacked boxes.

“What can I say? I’m a lucky man.” Hvitserk beams a tall tale fake smile, pulling open a box. One of many, many boxes. Jesper takes a step toward the door— then stops.

“Hey uh, you need some help around here?”

Hvitserk looks toward him, dusting off a picture of his mother modeling.

“I mean you’ll be here forever man unless you got yourself a lady to do this.” Jesper scratches his head. Hvitserk finds it almost cute-- any of the women that he had in the past would only do it for sake of doing it so that they could rub it in his face that, ha! She got it done!

Hvitserk laughs. “Nah, my picker is broke. I get chicks that want me for my money.”

“Beats wanting attention all the time, right?” Jesper picks up a box and settles it on the ragged leather of his couch. “Shit, (Y/N) will be pissed at me all day.”

“She always like that?” Hvitserk makes small talk. He pulls a picture of Björn and he backpacking through Spain— his brother’s idea.

“Yeah. She needs attention all the time man. That’s why she wants to be a model even though her legs are short as shit.” Hvitserk remains quiet for some time debating whether to continue on that or not.

“She’s pretty.”

Jesper looks up, a small shake in his head even with his newfound friend’s words. Pretty, he can see the man think. It’s almost as if he feels threatened by those words. Hvitserk knew how men thought-- he had to. Ivar had a temper worse than this sack of shit.

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s pretty.”

Most days Hvitserk thought nothing of it.

He sat on his metal balcony looking out toward the beachside front. Fluffy clouds blocked most of the hot sun. There was a light breeze carrying on the wind. The people here are strange flying their thin kites on tangled strings or chasing each other on the sandy beach. Sometimes some dumbasses would explode fireworks by accident and other times, he might see something as outrageous as a scarved pug on a beach blue skateboard.

His favourite sight, when he was home, was her.

Jesper’s girl who would go out in a strappy bikini, a sheer midnight blue wrap on her round hips and an adorable straw hat complete with a matching bow. For hours she would walk the moist shoreline of the beach, bend down and go on her way.

Seashells, he theorized.

Then she would come up the stairs before Jesper would get home, slapping black flip flops with wet cracks up the stairs. Sometimes he made it a point to go to the front door where she was, just like today.

“I see you have some sea-- seashells there sweetheart.” The older ladies there made it a point to talk to her. She stood with one, holding the back of her hat while drops of water trembled down sunbaked skin. Her hair would crust with the salty hair time after time.

“Oh, yes.” She says sweetly. “I am making a new dress.”

“A dress of shells?” The old lady croons curiously.

“My niece loves shells.” Her lips purse together, fresh with a perfect cherry chapstick. Hvitserk peeks his head out enough that the older women knew he was there listening. “I was thinking of making her a dress. I don’t see her often.”

“I’m so sorry dear.”

At the end of the conversation, Hvitserk made it a point to gather his ring of jingling keys and jam his phone, a little too fat, in his pocket. He could pick up dinner-- and have an excuse to talk to her more than with Jesper’s presence over her. For a girl walking the beach, he had to wonder what more there was to her when Jesper wasn’t looking.

“H-- Hey (Y/N).” He steps out just as she jangles with a ring of keys. She glances over her freckled shoulder, fluttering long lashes at him. His favourite part are the sun freckles that are baked onto her skin.

“Mr. Ragnarsson.” She says, turning around after popping the door open. Her foot keeps the door ajar while she stands there, now fiddling with a piece of hair. A small flirt-- women always fiddle with their hair when flirting.

“It’s Hvitserk.” He locks the door behind him, hands now in his pockets.

“Hvitserk. I should be going now. I’m not really… free today.”

It always lasts far too little. She slips into her door to go on about sewing her beautiful things. He gathers that by the fabric she totes up the stairs on occasion. Then, just as always, he goes on about his way down the stairs. It was lunch… and Hvitserk? Hvitserk had another salad on his mind.

If only he waited a while longer, he might have heard her sewing machine hit the floor.

Something was different.

He couldn’t place it but… she no longer spent time on the beach. Every night he had available he would look out expecting to see her in her cute bikini, plucking sand crusted shells and rushing home with flopping flipflops before the sun broke past the horizon.

Number 10, Hvitserk Ragnarsson does it again! Another stunning shot!

He flicks the buzzing television off. It was nothing but them pumping him up all the time. It would have been nice-- but he in no way wanted to be ostracized by the rest of his teammates. Perhaps that’s why him being sick, hacking and coughing up some mucky yellowish crap up his throat was for the best.

This way someone else could have the spotlight.

Ding-Dong!

Hm? Hvitserk’s feet shift between the leather and the soft white throw covering his feet. The hardwood floors are cool to the touch, so he hops the whole way into the door. One look on the peep hole revealed her. She stood barefoot against the dull blue carpet in the hall, looking down. He draws the heavy door apart.

“(Y/N)?” He asks, eyes looking down to a lime coloured bowl covered in sticky plastic wrap. Her long hair tumbles around half of her face-- obscuring one eye. She shifts in her jaunty yellow sundress.

“You didn’t go to practice.” She states. “I thought maybe you weren’t feeling well.”

He didn’t know she noticed-- he practiced most days, went to games when he needed to and flew out the country on a regular schedule. It was almost as good as having Ubbe to notice when he was home and when he wasn’t.

“Yeah, stomach flu or something.” He comments, stepping aside. “You wanna come in?”

“Oh no I-- I shouldn’t.” She says so abruptly that he thinks that she might have a conniption. He looks around the vanilla walls of the hall.

“I don’t think he’s out there.” Hvitserk says almost knowingly. He didn’t know the intimate details of their relationship. Yet when it was game day, not for soccer, he had noticed how harshly Jesper spoke of her.

The amount of time she spent sewing-- when in his words, she should have been cleaning and cooking. She should have been on her knees waiting to suck him off. If he were honest, not even he would spend his time degrading himself on the ground for a sack of shit like him.

Hvitserk brings the bowl to the milky countertop of his kitchen just around the corner. She shyly ambles around, stopping short of the breakfast bar. He unwraps the bowl, looking at her warm chicken soup with doughy noodles.

“Is that another of (Y/N)’s creations?” He looks back to her.

“Oh I worked in a Chinese restaurant once--”

“No.” Hvitserk laughs, motioning his finger in a twirl. “The dress.”

She glances down and slaps her hands against the beautiful a-line skirt. Her hands slip down from covering the v-neckline to gently pull out the flowy skirt. Then playfully she twirls around in a quick spin, her skirt becoming nice and full. When she stops, she doesn’t realize that her hair sways away from her normally perfectly made up face. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was a blotch on her cheekbone.

“It is!” She says all at once with a cute little laugh. “Jesper said it was too short.”

“Shorter the better for me.” Hvitserk reaches for a black ladle inside the milky drawer. “It looks like something mor would like.”

“Aslaug?” She leans over the countertop with one hand propping up her cheek. He has to force himself to look away from the fingerprint bruises and cigarette burns littering her arms.

“No other!” Hvitserk spoons a bowl for her and then one for him. “Your designs-- they’re exactly the sort of thing she’d like. Uh, this way.” He sets the ladle into the stainless steel stink and motions her out toward his favourite place in the entire apartment-- the balcony.

She daintily sits upon the ottoman that usually he sets his sneakers upon. Almost like a doll-- because she sits there effortlessly. He notices the fine detail of her skirt, glimmering with crushed shells. Or what he thinks might be the crushed shells. She takes a sip of the salty soup she’s made, looking out toward the lapsing waves on the grainy shore.

“Maybe you could give me your portfolio.” Hvitserk says. “I know you have one with all the pieces you make. She might be interested.”

“You think so?!”

“Yeah, of course.” He says, sniffling. “Plus when you model them, it makes it that much better.”

“Oh I don’t know about that.”

“You’re gorgeous.” Hvitserk blurts out, then realizes his words promptly. He runs his tongue up over the honey coloured hairs of his moustache, trying to decide why exactly he said what he said. She doesn’t seem exactly off put, gazing out at the sun setting behind the line of the horizon.

“I haven’t heard that in a long time.”

“If you had someone who was worth a shit, maybe they would tell you. I know I would.” He glances up from his doughy noodles off to her, she brightens into a smile-- a lying smile when she promptly loses it to the tune of her phone vibrating intensely. He wonders if that dress has pockets when she swipes it out from her bra, eradicating that thought the second he had it.

“Jesper?” He asks.

“Yeah I-- he’s probably hungry. He doesn’t like it when I leave his food out.” She murmurs, silencing the phone with a click of the button on the side.

Hvitserk clears his throat. “Yeah, listen (Y/N), the mark across your cheek--”

“I fell in the bathroom.”

This must have happened a million times with her because she had an answer before he could even formulate a complete answer for him. He recalls what his mother said over the phone about women in abuse. Fighting them, it would just make it that much easier to stay. If she left him, it would be endlessly better than seeing her body littered in bruises.

“Right.” He says. “Just uh… make sure to watch out for yourself. Sharp corners, right?”

Although she doesn’t say anything as she gets up, she gleams a sweet, apologetic look in her eye. She straightens out her beautiful dress and takes the bowl to the kitchen. Somewhere behind him, he hears:

“Thank you, Hvitserk.”

Then, like usual-- she’s out the door.

In Hvitserk’s life, he was never exactly sure of anything. He wasn’t sure if Ivar really loved him. He wasn’t sure if moving across the world was the right choice-- but he was sure of one thing. Those weren’t lovemaking screams.

“Where were you!” It’s muffled. “You were with that fuckin’ Ragnarsson again!”

He wasn’t dumb. He knew when a duck was a duck and that frantic screaming-- her intermittent “please” was definitely not something anyone should be ignoring. The apartment complex is eerily silent other than the crashing of objects within her apartment.

“Let go!”

Brinnng. Brinnng.

“Hvit?” It’s like six in the morning there-- he knows. His brother’s voice is weighed down heavy on the other line. Heavier than his usual husk and groan that he always teased Ubbe about growing up. “It’s--”

“Six, I know.” He whispers. His voice almost sotto voce it has gone so low. “Listen I--”

“FUCKING WHORE!”

“Hvit?”

“Yeah, no I’m here, sorry.” Hvitserk considers his brother once again, tearing his eyes from the heavy door that separates him from the hallway. “My neighbors are fighting.”

“Are you scared?” Ubbe says from across the line. He feels almost six again, holding onto the tails of Ubbe’s shirt while they sought out cold waters to escape the endless pain mother put them through… together.

“No, I uh-- It might be my fault.”

“Your fault?” Ubbe shuffles on the other line. He can tell that his brother is sitting upright now. “What do you mean?”

“I should’ve put a goddamn bullet in your head the first time, fat fucking skank ass bitch!”

Hvitserk’s hand is at his mouth now that he stands in the hall closest to the door. The closer he got, the more audible her screams became. The door almost seems to vibrate underneath them. Or perhaps, in a way, that’s his chest that is buzzing with every moment of uncertainty sinking under his skin like the pricks of pins.

“I invited her in.”

For any ordinary man, harmless. Truly harmless. For a man that was considered more successful than Jesper, treason. He should have never said that he did not see Jesper down the hall. The man had ears in the walls and eyes constantly following her every little move.

Then, there’s silence. Nothing but the smoothness of a cello quartet that she typically would play when she was creating late at night with her hair up in a gorgeous midnight blue ribbon. He only knew as much because on occasions that she took her art book upon the beach, she drew. She would draw her hair up in a ribbon. Salty drawings of sexy, cute and even hopeful pieces would be in her hands when she came up the stairs.

It was supposed to be a soothing place for her. He ruined that too, as he quickly comes to the conclusion that Jesper caught onto Hvitserk’s haplessly excited expression every time she came up the stairs. Hvitserk shifts the waistband of his joggers, mind foggy and heavy with the headache that had been beating his head all day.

“Hvit you know better than that.” Ubbe says. “I told you not to let her in.”

He couldn’t help it. There was no way that he could have known the mood that Jesper would be and staring accusingly to the door, he paces to it. Then, popping the door open, he steps out into the soft, dimly lit hall.

“I know.” Hvitserk says wearily to even his own ears. His heart rate quickens, he can feel it beating against his skin, leaping like his mother’s stupid teacup pomeranian nipping at his ankles when he came home from high school with his brothers. “I’m sorry.”

His knuckles rasp at the last door, reaching to whoever is behind it. The susurration behind the door fills Hvitserk with premature anxiety, bubbling under his skin. Hvitserk slips his phone in his pocket and replaces a bud in his ear.

“Hvitr?” Ubbe shifts. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t say anything.” He says. “Just stay with me.”

The door opens.

“Hvitserk! Hvitserk!”

It smelled like bleach. The kind that his mother threw upon the carport floor after Ivar took a baseball bat to that kid’s head. So bad that he remembers his skin prickling with the sear of chemicals, his whole respiratory system bursting into hacks that he couldn’t control. He thought that he might not recover, wheezing for his mother.

It’s just a little burn, she said. You’ll recover. Do it for him.

The little boy and his parents were gone now. If he waited much longer, something told him that she would be too. The door opens-- but only slightly. Enough that Hvitserk catches Jesper’s cloudy blue eyes in the crack of the door. His lips pull into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Hvitserrrrkkk.” He slurs in one long, jittery breath.

Hvitserk’s hand curls in the space between the door and the metal frame, yanking the door of his fingers to crack it back against Jesper’s forehead. This was crazy-- having Ubbe on the line, barking at him.

Got damn it Hvitserk!

He dips into the house, kicking the door shut behind him. With a scraping, rough voice he darts from Jesper’s lurch toward him, drawing out the gun from his waistband. Jesper jerks back, holding up his hands.

“Don’t fuck with me.” Hvitserk says, his chest tightening. He’s not breathing-- or so, he thinks he isn’t breathing. Jesper’s motions slow to a stop, dropping the heavy blade from his fat fingertips. It falls with a clatter on the hardwood floors.

“Where is she?” He says.

“It wasn’t my fault.” Jesper says again. This time, his words made his skin prickle. It only serves to aggravate him-- pushing his anger to bubble over the surface so quickly that he can feel himself gnashing his teeth already.

“You wouldn’t shoot me.” Jesper asks, his eye narrowing upon him. It’s the last he can take, turning his hand up from the outstretched position. The whole time he had been calling a bluff, and there it was, Jesper would have thought. Moments later, Hvitserk brought the butt of his gun down upon Jesper’s cheek, knocking him off balance and onto the ground.

“Where the fuck is she?!” He demands. He loses the control over his voice, raising in his tone when Ubbe reminds him. Check yourself, Hvitserk. He never wanted this life-- but he’s as much a Ragnarsson as any of his brothers sporting a blinding intense rage and in case of fight versus flight, well, they would always fight.

“The bathroom!”

Hvitserk makes a grunt of approval somewhere deep in the back of his throat, and then, his pistol comes upon him again. It’s a blur of slams, knocking him across the face with force until he drops to his satisfaction. In all his promises of what he wouldn’t be, he never thought that this would be him.

Rushing to clear the apartment on the way to the bathroom. Like Bjorn as a police officer showed him how to clear out his own home. In case anyone was ever snooping. Which… this was obviously not his case today.

Ssshhh…

It sounds like the ocean. The water coming in with great, swelling force. But instead of crashing and pulling back into the endless depths, Hvitserk’s bare feet squish. It’s… water. He cuts the corner into the master bathroom. Blood streaks with thin water over the bathroom floor, filling his tongue with the taste of iron before anything else. The red, red blood throws his heart into a pulsing overdrive. He follows the blood to her slashed calve. Her body draped over the edge of the tub. Not moving-- not… not…. Nothing.

“Hvitserk talk to me.” Ubbe calls out to him.

“Help me, Ubbe.”

Ten more minutes.

That was all Ubbe and she had left before he would be back. A litany of the counting down of seconds falls from her lips as she stands there, waiting warily for him to arrive. No guests were allowed at the plane gates and so they waited just outside the baggage claim for him.

Flight number 135, arrival from Los Angeles.

“He’s almost here.” Ubbe whispers from behind her. She stands there on a full stomach, knowing just that Hvitserk is going to want to eat anyway! Excitedly she refreshes her phone not just once-- but a hundred times.

Hvitserk I’m finally here! My numb ass isn’t yet, tho.

She looks over the calendar again, a barrel of excitement. It had been months since she last saw him. When she finally sees him darting down the stairs, ignoring the escalator-- she rushes to grasp her crutches at either side of her arms, standing up with a great amount of force.

“There’s my baby!” Hvitserk yells through the great open space of the baggage claim. Everyone had to have heard that. She hobbles forward, a beautiful deep blue dress hugging down to her knees. Hvitserk sweeps her off the ground, twirling her around while enjoying her brilliant laughter.

“Hvitserk!”

When he puts her down again, she sways, narrowly falling if not for her sweet Hvitserk dipping down to pick up her crutch. He supports her while she takes into her hand, limping in time with him.

“How was the flight?” She asks sweetly.

“It was good.” He responds in turn, looking down to her before over to Ubbe. The three slowly amble over to the metal baggage claim. The bags don’t come down the metal slide just yet. Hvitserk glances to the shifting plates and then finally chooses to say something.

“I heard that Mor approved your clothing line.” He says, slurring a little with loss of sleep on the plane. He couldn’t sleep an inch since he got on there. “The press seems to like your pieces in the line for uh, “adaptive” needs. Did you have to tell them about what happened?”

“Of course I had to.” She says. “My leg wasn’t like this when I met you, right? Modeling pretty bikinis and sundresses all day...”

Hvitserk shifts uncomfortably-- looking over to Ubbe who stands with his hands folded one over another. Her relationship wasn’t the only thing that ended that day. The dream of being some big supermodel like the Aslaug, queen of the supermodels, also died. Whether anyone said it or not-- no one wanted a model with a limp.

“(Y/N).” Ubbe prompts, thick and slurry. It's laughable to her now but for a congested airport where passengers are tightly clustered around their baggage claim, she knows that more than one has turned to look at her. The metal plates shift around the machine. Ubbe moves forward to go find Hvitserk’s bags.

“It wasn’t your fault okay?” She says. “Who knew a silly achilles tendon could make such a fuss.” She almost makes a joke of it. Maybe its to bite back the pain she was in on a constant basis. Just like his brother Ivar told him once.

“So you’re doing this for you, then?”

“I’m doing it because all women deserve to be sexy. All of them. My clothes will bring them that.” She leans against his arm. “Ivar understands.”

Ivar was also, oh, Hvitserk didn’t know-- born like that. Hvitserk worries what might happen from this new narrative of abuse. Not for his sake but for hers. His mother promised this would be done carefully to keep her safe.

“Yeah, you know, I do too.” Hvitserk swallows. “It’s good. It’s just--”

“You’re worried about me.” She shifts around, looking outside of large arching windows that bring in bright light. A radiant light that fills the airport with hope, and for her, as Hvitserk discovers… a new chance at life. Outside, Ivar reclines against the car with his hand upon his own crutch. It was only a loading zone but hey, being a cripple did have its benefits!

“Yeah.” Hvitserk swallows.

“You don’t have to be.”

Then as he opens his mouth again, she leans up to his lips. She places a closed lipped kiss upon his lips. Then as she turns, shouting at Ubbe to hurry up, Hvitserk smiles. This... this girl, the loud one with beautiful dresses and vibrant makeup, this was the real her.

“Because Hvitserk-- I’m finally free.”

@two-unbeatable-beaters, @igetcarriedawaywithyou, @kylobien, @titty-teetee, @breathlessouls, @nejijjeoroo, @bcat1291, @readsalot73, @mslothbrok (no mix), @romanchronicles, @captstefanbrandt, @ailucascen, @michaeliskindahot, @naaladareia, @cbouvier23, @the-geeky-engineer, @dorned, @lisinfleur, @tephi101, @akamaiden, @ethereallysimple, @venusloviing, @happylittlepuppydog, @beyond-the-ashes, @slutforrpg, @hipsternoionlylikeunicorns, @mixedwiththemoon, @sparklemichele, @alicedopey, @lif3snotouttogetyou, @rubyquartzshades, @noregretsandyeteveryregret, @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol, @deathbyarabbit, @unacceptabletatertots, @beyond-the-ashes (no sig), @babypink224221, @titty-teetee, @ivarandersen, @queen-see-ya-in-valhalla, @moose-squirrel-asstiel, @icarus-fell-in-spring, @piebytheocean, @strangunddurm, @atequilahead, @rekdreams247, @justacrush, @ivarswonderlust, @peachesnpisces, @elenawrit, @equalstrashflavoredtrash, @roxxck, @dylanowhyyien, @ilvebeenabad, @vikingsmania, @huntingbears, @my-little-wolfe, @seize-the-droid, @moondustmemories, @colourmeinblue, @ilvebeenabad, @queenmissfit,  @hallowed-heathen, @neeadinghugs, @mblaqgi, , @triumphantreturnofpies, @dmv49, @attorneyl, @iconicvaleria-blog, @lovelynerdytraveler, @tierneygonzalez, @zabee113, @meganjudee, @sdcyumyum, @ms-allenbrown, @pancake-blonde, @ivarswickedqueen, @starkiddreamer, @austenkingmylady, @thisisparadisemylove, @pinkrockstar19, @jeowjungkook, @end-of-night, @yaminax-kuss-a , @gruffle1, @arses21434@natalie-rdr, @tempt-ress, @thevikingsheaux, @poisonedjoinery, @smokealone, @chewythecatus, @laughinglikenialler, @lefrenchfrye, @mybarnesmyhero, @vengefulflange, @imcreepininyourheartbabe, @therealmrshale, @that-goodgirl, @supernaturalvikingwhore, @athroatfullofglass @igetcarriedawaywithyou, @kylobien, @titty-teetee, @breathlessouls, @nejijjeoroo, @bcat1291, @readsalot73, @mslothbrok, @romanchronicles, @captstefanbrandt, @ailucascen, @michaeliskindahot, @cbouvier23, @naaladareia, @cbouvier23, @the-geeky-engineer, @dorned, @lisinfleur, @funmadnessandbadassvikings, @tephi101, @akamaiden, @ethereallysimple, @venusloviing, @happylittlepuppydog, @beyond-the-ashes, @slutforrpg, @hipsternoionlylikeunicorns, @mixedwiththemoon, @sparklemichele, @alicedopey, @lif3snotouttogetyou, @rubyquartzshades, @noregretsandyeteveryregret, @dangerous-like-a-loaded-pistol, @deathbyarabbit, @unacceptabletatertots, @beyond-the-ashes (no sig), @babypink224221, @ivarandersen, @queen-see-ya-in-valhalla, @moose-squirrel-asstiel, @icarus-fell-in-spring, @end-of-night, @gruffle1, @lol-haha-joke @arses21434,  @smileyparrots, @Moosemittens13, @miss-artemis-wild, @two-unbeatable-beaters, @wonderwoman292, @wish-i-was-a-mermaid, @fangirls94, @mcuimxgine, @killerb00sdeath, @heartbeats-wildly, @boo20017, @acacheofstrange, @shaelyn102, @astoryoffireandlight, @smokealone, @shaelyn102 @laketaj24, @peaceisadirtyword, @ly--canthrope

[sibillascribbles08]

Red Blue Chartreuse

Little E and Frigidus drabble for oc x canon day in which I attempt to not massively spoil my fics lmao

(Title from the song Chartreuse by Capital Cities)

“Just what do you see in that nerd anyway?” Harumi asked him when he told her he was heading out to Borg tower yet again. They were jobless right now, after all. At least until Ronin found something else to steal from another realm.

And what else was E to do with his freetime these days? He could train, of course, but he always felt much better spending his afternoons hanging around Frigidus’s lab, watching him work, helping out when he could. Sometimes the hacker would ask him to hang onto some information and E would hold his hand against his face, wondering what it would feel like.

Frigidus still thought that was the only way to transfer data into his systems. E almost felt bad for lying but no harm no foul, right?

What did he see in Frigidus? It was as simple as the fact that he was always happy to see E, right?

Most people were frightened of him, probably rightfully so. The only exceptions were Dareth, Ronin and Harumi, all of which were his family now. He always did his best to give off a gentle impression in public but it never lasted. He had trouble emoting. His dark sunglasses were intimidating, but the red glowing eyes underneath weren’t any less so. Sometimes he thinks he has a chance, picking up things someone dropped or holding open the door. Their thankful smiles would always vanish when they caught a glimpse of his eyes underneath his glasses.

People still didn’t trust nindroids after all, even if Zane and Echo were an exception. Perhaps Pixal as well, but no one outside of the ninja knew the identity of Samurai X.

People were afraid of him. It was a fact E knew from the start, and one he accepted, mostly.

It was still frustrating from time to time.

But Frigidus wasn’t like that. The hacker’s face would light up whenever he entered the room, already prattling on about his current project. It was surprising how much he could talk, but maybe he just didn’t like the silence, as E mainly communicated with sign language or by texting.

There wasn’t a hint of fear or intimidation. He didn’t hesitate to get close, look him in the eye, complain that the sunglasses made it to hard to read what E was thinking. E would take them off, or put them on top of his head, wondering how the intense red didn’t bother him.

Even when they first met Frigidus hadn’t been scared of him. Nervous, of course, but anyone would have been considering the situation. Ninjago was falling apart and he’d suddenly been slammed with the responsibility to patch up a broken nindroid he’d never seen before.

It was a blessing he knew sign language, made it a little easier for E to communicate.

E entered Borg Tower with the visitor pass that Frigidus had finally gotten for him. Borg had been hesitant, but Frigidus said it was either that or E would keep breaking in by hacking the system or slipping in from the roof. E gave a polite nod to the receptionist at the desk, who just eyed him with caution.

The usual.

He got stuck in the elevator with another poor employee. The man stayed pressed against the back corner, never taking his eyes off E. If the nindroid turned up his hearing he’d knew he’d hear the man’s racing heartbeat.

When they reached the man’s floor, he scrambled out of the elevator. The pair of women who were waiting just gave him an awkward smile. One said, “We’re going down so we’ll wait for the next one.”

Probably a lie, E didn’t argue. He just let the doors close without a word.

When he reached his destination there was a crowd waiting. They completely split apart as he exited the elevator, giving him more than enough room to move down the hall. He didn’t glance at them, or apologize, it’d only make them more nervous. Every now and then he’d hear the people who worked here gossiping to each other, asking why he was here, what did he want. Today they were silent.

He used his pass again to open the door to Frigidus’s lab. The room was fairly impressive, huge, despite Frigidus’s insistence that he didn’t need all this space. He was a programmer first, inventor second. Anything he did with machine parts was out of necessity rather than curiosity.

Despite that it was fairly crowded, boxes of spare parts and old files. His work desk was littered with with his current projects, still trying to design weapons that could tap into elemental powers. He’d made breakthroughs with them ages ago, but still refused to release it.

“You know the villains of this country.” He’d said. “You build something like this and they flock to it like desperate parents during a holiday sale at the department store.”

E laughed at the analogy, and Frigidus’s face lit up at the sound.

“E!”

That same expression was on his face now as he slid his chair away from the computer.

“Man, you’re just in time. I’ve got a big surprise for you today.”

E tilted his head.

“Well, you know.” Frigidus got up and headed over to him. “I asked Ronin if you had some kind of birthday and he said not really? But he gave me the date he activated you after repairing you so I guess today counts? I mean, maybe you don’t really celebrate it but…” He was rubbing the side of his head, pushing his hair out of his face only for it to bounce back.

“You got me a present?” E signed.

“Well sure, I think you earned one if nothing else.” Frigidus smiled at him, blue eyes glittering behind his glasses.

E wanted to be happy but he was confused. He was still so confused. “Why aren’t you scared of me?”

Frigidus’s smile dropped. “Huh? Should I be? I mean, I know you have the whole death biker look going on.” He gestured to E’s jacket. “And I know you can tear the shit out of almost anyone, but you’ve been nothing but polite to me since day one.”

That was true but… “Most people are still frightened of me, regardless of how nice I act.”

“Cause they’re stupid.” Frigidus glared for a moment. “Did some other jackass from the engineering department talk shit about you? I’ll flood their email with awful heavy metal covers.”

E smiled and shook his head.

“Fine, just keep me posted on that. Don’t worry about it right now anyway, come on.” Frigidus grabbed his hand and pulled him to the corner of the room. There was a blue sheet covering something that was domed on top. “Now I can’t take all the credit for this, Zane gave me the idea, but I thought it could help you out, you know?”

Zane had the idea? What could that possibly mean? E prayed it had nothing to do with his ridiculous hairstyle.

“Alright, here she is.” Frigidus ripped the sheet off.

Underneath was a bird cage, a fairly large one, and perched in the center was a… vulture? No. E blinked, trying to get a closer look at it. The shape indicated a vulture, but not a real one. It’s black and red feathers were synthetic. It’s face looked more like a skull, eyes glowing red. Its head tilted with a click. It shifted on its mechanical feet, long claws curled around the post.

“I named her Cherry Berry, or just Cherry.” Frigidus snickered. “Not that you have to tell anyone that. Figured if Zane had a bird companion you could too, something more fitting to your style. I programmed her system to work almost effortlessly with yours. She’s built with heat vision, infrared, and can even shoot lasers out of her eyes.” Frigidus pointed to his own and grinned. “I tried to give her a flamethrower too but it kept causing her feathers to burn so I’m working on that.”

Frigidus opened the cage and gestured to her. The huge bird hopped out, landing on his arm. She seemed to be almost too heavy for him to manage.

“Claws are already sharp.” Frigidus cringed. “But they can extend some too, latch on tighter. Built her out of light material but still durable so she can take a few hits.” He tapped on her chest. “Go on, see if you can connect to her and communicate a bit, get her up and running.”

E wasn’t entirely sure about this, but he trusted Frigidus. He did a quick scan for nearby signals, picking the bird’s up right away. There seemed to be security clearance for it, but he must have already been added in as it let him through with no trouble.

“Hello, E.” The bird’s voice was soothing, gentle, far different from her appearance. “It is nice to meet you.”

E wasn’t sure what to do at first. Eventually he held out his arm, much how Frigidus was. Cherry hopped over to him immediately. Her weight didn’t mean much to him, but she was lighter than he expected.

“Let me know when you start taking her out for test runs, send me some data. I can make improvements from there.” Frigidus grinned at him. “Think she’ll be pretty handy next time you and Harumi stake out a place. She’s got a bunch of other features but I think I’ll let you figure them out as you go.”

“If you like I can go ahead and build a map of the city.” Cherry tilted her head. She moved so much like a bird.

E figured that was a good idea, and Frigidus’s eagerness to test her out only pushed him further. They rode the elevator up to the roof of the building. The hacker was practically skipping around before finally settling against the railing.

Dork.

“Don’t strain yourself.” E told the bird. “If something isn’t functioning correctly you should come back.”

“Of course.” She nibbled at his ear before she jumped off his arm and over the side. Her wings caught her, sturdy and well put together. The wind lifted her back into the air and she flew on over the city.

“Awesome,” Frigidus grinned. “We tested flying in the lab but it’s so much better seeing it out here. I was a bit worried how her wings would handle the outside air.” He opened the holoscreen from his jacket, taking a few notes.

E waved to get his attention before signing, “Thank you.”

Frigidus shut the screen down, still smiling. “No need to thank me. About time I returned the favor for all those times you saved my ass.”

E decided to be bold, taking a step forward. “I will save it as many times as I need to.”

“Come on, I can’t be that special.”

He shook his head. He wanted to tell him that he was, that he was wonderful, that E wouldn’t know what to do if he stopped being a part of his life.

But he wasn’t sure how, and maybe it would take too long to sign it out, so instead he just brought up his hand to say, “I love you.”

Frigidus’s cheeks turned pink, then his ears. His eyes glanced away but he was still smiling. “Yeah, love you too.”

“Just what do you see in that nerd anyway?” Harumi had asked. It really wasn’t anything thrilling or complicated. E just loved being around him, because the feeling was mutual, and that was that.

His hand moved slowly to Frigidus’s face, cupping his cheek, tilting his head up. E always hesitated with things like this because he didn’t want to spook him. He didn’t want to do something that would push Frigidus away for good. But maybe now–

A light clack interrupted them. They both turned to see Cherry sitting there, red eyes fixed on them.

“Oh, don’t stop on my account.” If she had the ability to smile no doubt she would be.

E felt his system heat up as he let go. Frigidus’s face turned even more red.

Cherry’s laughter echoed in the back of his mind.

[renewja649]

T Rex Game Inspect Cheats

T Rex Game Inspect Cheats Codes

T Rex Game Inspect Cheats Ps2

Corey Feldman Interview

You must inspect the dinosaur game by right clicking and clicking inspect. (On chromebook it is a two finger click) Or hit simultaneously; Ctrl Shift I. In the top left of the new box it will say: Elements. To the right of that, it says console. Written by Uri Shaked and edited by Aaron Careaga. This year, for the Chrome Dev Summit, I built a real-life version of the Chrome T-Rex offline game.I have already told the story of how the project was born, and the hardware challenges we faced while building it in my previous blog post, I Saw a Dinosaur, or How I Built a Real-Life Version of Chrome T-Rex Game. Made the t-rex game. 10 points Ranked 73,235th. 16 medals 1 legendary 2 rare. Uploaded this mod.

T Rex Game Inspect Cheats Codes

Steam achievements

Successfully complete the indicated task to unlock the corresponding achievement. To view your achievements and stats in Steam, select 'Community', 'My profile', 'View all my games', then the game and view stats.

T Rex Game Inspect Cheats Ps2

Hacking Google Chrome’s T-Rex Game! Google Chrome, like all other Google products, has an interesting easter egg — the dino game! It appears as an 8-bit dinosaur on the no internet connection. Game of war cheat book. Chrome T-Rex game high score cheat To access the T-Rex game, either turn off your internet connection and search something on Chrome or type chrome://dino in the address bar and hit Enter if you don’t want to go offline. Now right-click anywhere and select “Inspect” from the context menu. Dinosaur Island: T-Rex tricks hints guides reviews promo codes easter eggs and more for android application. Avoid Dinosaur Island: T-Rex hack cheats for your own safety, choose our tips and advices confirmed by pro players, testers and users like you. Ask a question or add answers, watch video tutorials & submit own opinion about this game/app. Spongebob ds game cheats xbox 360. Get exclusive T-Rex Time Machine trainers and cheats at Cheat Happens; Get exclusive T-Rex Time Machine trainers and cheats at Cheat Happens. KNOW SOMETHING WE DON'T? You can submit new cheats for this game and help our users gain an edge.

1.21 Gigawatts!!!: Defeat the Electro-Bot.

A Walking Armory: Obtain every weapon in the game.

All about the lore!: Collect all 80 info nodes.

All day err day: Complete the game without using a continue.

Almost only counts with horseshoes: Collect all 7 grenade expansions.

Bigger, Faster, Stronger!: Collect 15 health expansions.

Catch!: Obtain grenades.

Chatterbox!: Talk to 100 NPCs.

Clean up in Lower Decks: Defeat the Slime Boss.

Crusher the Crusher: Defeat the Crusher-Bot.

Down in front!: Find the Grenade Launcher.

Enforce this!: Defeat the Enforcer-Bot.

FULLY LOADED: Collect all 40 ammo expansions.

Grew up playing these: Complete the game without dying more than 10 times.

Hasta La Vista: Defeat the Commando-Bot.

Hold still a sec!: Defeat the Teleport-Bot.

I <3 books: Find all 3 missing books.

I'm not cleaning that up: Defeat 5000 terra-oozlings.

It always comes back: Find the Boomerang.

It's harder than it looks: Die 25 times.

Like a missile with a brain: Find the Tracking gun.

Makin' Rex pancakes: Get crushed.

More firepower!: Collect 15 ammo expansions.

Play that funky music space boy!: Find all 18 missing records.

Pumped Up!: Collect all 40 health expansions.

Rad Moonmaster!: Complete the game and become a hero again.

Run, Rex, Run!: Find the Air-Talarias.

Someone invent this already!: Obtain the jet pack.

The goggles do nothing!: Die in acid.

Things to do, AI's to destroy: Complete the game in less than 3 hours.

This is my ship!: Defeat LAUREN.

Tl;dr: Collect 40 info nodes.

Took out the space trash!: Defeat the Waste-Bot.

TRYHARD: Defeat a boss without taking any damage.

What the hell is an energon?: Collect 5000 energons.

Where can I get one of those?: Defeat the Slime-Mech.

Who put those there?: Die from spikes.

Why can't we be friends: Defeat 1000 helperBots.

You got mad hops: Preform 200 charge jumps.

You have been terminated: Defeat 5000 helperBots.

You've got something on your boot: Destroy 1000 terra-oozlings.

[poweredbycoffeeandwine]

If you have any spots left, I'd love love love to see Tavrien and Kaidan and the secret Santa prompt. :)

Here is the aforementioned angst @lechatrouge673! This one is for you, love! Hope you enjoy it. Sorry it got away from me.

Have some Tavrien x Kaidan feels, set in my “I Don’t Mean To” verse. This takes place during the events of ME2 after Horizon. Is spoilery if you haven’t played The Shadow Broker DLC.

Shepard’s Not-So Secret Santa

Everything was different, but should have been the same. It didn’t matter how evidence pointed to the contrary. Two years. She had lost two years…and yet, Tavrien Shepard felt as though no time had passed at all. Despite the obvious missing scars, and advanced cybernetics infused throughout her body, she felt the same. She might be faster and stronger, but she was confused as hell. Her battle prowess, experience and uncanny ability to strategize in any given situation hadn’t failed her; causing those around her to believe that she was the same old Commander Shepard, maybe a medical miracle, but the same nonetheless.

The conversations that swirled around her indicated just how much she had missed, and she fought to remain impassive as her insides screamed at having no idea what was being alluded to. When Cerberus first revived her, she spent most of the night cycle researching important details in a gap the past held. Alternatively, she attempted to hack her way past EDI’s firewall to contact anyone off ship, Anderson, Hackett, but most of all Kaidan. All to no avail. Then she was sent to Horizon and what hopes she held for normalcy crumbled to dust in her outstretched hands.

The man she trusted, the one person who promised her the world, looked at her with such scorn and contempt. Alenko had actually accused her of betraying the Alliance. Him! As if she would ever have faked her own death to join an organization hell-bent only on advancement of themselves. Not the human race, as they claimed, but the sole person in charge of their disturbed cells. Sick and twisted experiments scattered across the galaxy. The universe had an odd sense of humor. She was brought back from the dead to work with the rabid dogs she had sworn to put down.

She was frazzled, utterly exhausted, and a touch paranoid; she had very few friends to confide in. True friends. Not these Cerberus loyalists attempting to gain her confidence. More of The Illusive Man’s lackeys. Tali remained standoffish, unable to reconcile her friend with the person she saw before her. She was starting to come around, but Shepard didn’t know if it would be the same as it was before. Joker still flew the ship, and she knew where his loyalties lay, but he never left his chair, not trusting the AI so integral to the Normandy SR-2. She felt defeated knowing that all their conversations were likely recorded, and played back for The Illusive Tit.

“Shepard,” EDI’s smooth robotic voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Yes, EDI, what is it?”

“I have an important message from Liara T’Soni.”

“And?” she barked at the AI. She was still angry at her once friend. After discovering what part the new Shadow Broker played in Cerberus acquiring her remains, she was finding it hard to trust her. Everything really was different.

“She requests your presence on her base.”

“Tell Joker to set a course for Hagalaz. Inform me when we are close.”

“Commander Shepard, I feel I should remind you, The Illusive Man is expecting you to collect the Reaper IFF. We are, in fact, closer to our initial destination that Hagalaz.”

“EDI, I honestly don’t care. Set a new course.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Commander,” Joker replied, hanging up the line, but not before she heard the continued argument between her pilot and the machine he despised so much.

Tavrien made her way to the desk to check her email. Hoping against hope that Kaidan had contacted her. She had answered his email. The one she left in her inbox and read so often she knew it by heart. It didn’t stop her from feeling foolish when she remembered everything she said and did on Horizon. The way she flung herself into his arms, as if he could set to rights all the wrongs that had happened with one hug. Like he could make all that she had gone through a bad dream. She finally realized she would never wake from this nightmare. At least she found herself outnumbered and about to embark on a suicide mission. Maybe this time it would take.

She stared at his photograph. She didn’t know the person responsible for it being in her personal quarters, and she would likely never thank them, but it was a comfort in times like these. She had believed in karma, once. Had thought that if she lived life respectfully, treaded carefully, treated others with tact, she would have a relatively gratifying life. Instead she was the butt of every cosmic joke. She barely lived through the attack on Elysium, she survived the Battle of the Citadel, but hearing that Kaidan had moved on killed her. Sure she was walking, talking, breathing, fighting the good fight, but she was still a husk.

She sighed, rubbing circles into her temples, and glanced at her console. She really should attempt to rest before she heard Liara’s news. No doubt it would be a difficult meeting, no matter the reason for the request to see her, it was the first since she helped her gain the title of Shadow Broker. She moved to lay on her bed, not bothering with much beside pulling a sheet over her body, praying to any diety listening to grant her one night of dreamless sleep.

Tavrien stood at the airlock, mentally preparing to meet Liara. She hadn’t seen the need to gear up, or bring anyone along. The base would be safe enough or the Asari would have informed her otherwise. Walking the hallways, it was obvious Feron and Liara had been clearing rubble from their fight through the ship. She was obviously taking to her new role well.

“Shepard, I’m glad you came. I was not sure you would come back, even if I asked nicely.” Liara’s gentle voice washed over her. She had been waiting for her to come over the threshold, and Taviren had to admit it was nice that she she found time to meet her at the door. She had been expecting Feron.

“I have discovered that being KIA for two years, and coming back looking younger than ever, is rather unsettling for most old friends.” She smirked, a hint of bitterness seeping through in her tone. “It makes keeping those that will still associate with me a necessity.”

“About that,” Liara glanced at her nervously, ‘you must understand that I will stand by my decision. You were the only one who could save us from the Reaper threat. The universe would be lost without you.”

“Damn it, Liara,” Shepard shouted, rage unchecked, “don’t you hear how crazy that sounds! All the people in the entire galaxy, and nobody else can possibly do anything!”

“Shepard, I apologize. I did not bring you here to ease my conscience. I hope you know that.” Tavrien stood, silent, manicured brow arched, waiting. Realizing that Shepard had nothing to say she sighed and continued, “Kaidan contacted me. I heard about what happened on Horizon, and I’m sorry.”

“What did he want?” she asked impatiently.

“He asked to meet me on the Citadel. I still hold an office there. It helps as a front to go on as much as I ever did.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, I met the Lieutenant.”

“Staff Commander. He was promoted…while I was dead. Just another reminder.”

Liara tentatively reached out, squeezed her hand comfortingly before letting it drop. “Right, anyhow, I met Kaidan. He initially acted out, the way you did when I told him the truth. I told him everything, gave him files to look over. I owed him, and you, that much.”

Shepard looked out the window, stared out into the stars. He knew. He knew for a fact that she hadn’t been lying, and he hadn’t bothered to contact her. Instead of relief, she felt the weight settle more firmly on her shoulders.

“He asked me to deliver something. Well, several things. He asked me to tell you they were from your Secret Santa?” she sounded unsure, probably not aware of human holidays, but wasn’t going to question.

“Please, send them to the ship.” She turned to walk away, and thought better of it. “Liara?” her friend looked up, eyes vulnerable, “It’s good to see you. Once I’ve had more time we will talk, ok?”

“Anytime, Tavrien. You know where to find me.”

She nodded, and retreated back to the SR-2, anticipation and dread filling her stomach.

She found herself at her desk again. This time three carefully wrapped boxes sat in front of her. Two had been mistreated more than the other, but she could see Kaidan’s block print on each tag. Christmas. It had come and gone three times. Twice during her death, and once hardly a month past. He had remembered her for each one. She hugged a package to her chest and cried. She had no idea how much time had past, she was only grateful she had not been disturbed. After the tears dried up, all she felt was numb. The boxes showing just how much he had cared. The grief he had felt, all that he had gone through during the two years she had been dead to the world.

With shaking hands she reached for the most worn box. She unwrapped it delicately. Determined to save the ribbon and the cheerful paper it came in. He had chosen this paper for her, and she would keep it for whatever time she had left. The box held a single, old fashioned skeleton key, and a holograph. She knew the picture instantly, all the time they spent talking about the shore leave they would share in his cabin. They fantasized, they whispered secrets, hopes, dreams, and in the end, would never have the opportunity.

Determined to make it through, she grabbed the next box. It was smaller than the first, her heart pounding after removing the paper to discover a ring box. Fresh tears came unbidden to her eyes as she pried it open. Pillowed in the soft velvet was a solid gold band, but not just any band. Upon closer inspection she found the quote “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars” engraved on the inside. He read the book. She had told him to find it, begged him to read it. She choked on her tears, sobs racking her body. The box was meant for two rings, the twin missing from it’s spot. She didn’t know what it meant, if he kept it or not, but she knew to her core, that he had meant to marry her before Alchera had claimed her. She removed her chain, and slid the ring to rest alongside her dog tags, and tucked them into her shirt near her heart.

The last box sat in front of her, but she set it aside. Choosing instead to open the envelope attached to it.

Tavrien,

I don’t know if you received my email as you haven’t replied. I also wouldn’t put it past Cerberus to keep you from seeing it. This is my best bet, and all I can hope is that Liara didn’t let you down as I did.

I said terrible things to you on Horizon, Shep, and I live with regret everyday. Still, I trust you know that I never could have joined you when you asked. I hate Cerberus with every fiber of my being, but I know that if you had any other options, you wouldn’t be with them now.

Things are desperate with the Alliance, nobody wants to remember the Reapers, and nobody is listening to me about the Collectors. I’m feeling more helpless than ever, and I just found out you are headed to the Omega-4 Relay. I held you in my arms again, changed tune… practically suggesting you might be a clone, then finally realized I should have believed you were real, only to discover you are running headlong into a mission you may not survive.

I am holding out hope for you. Hope that you might return, hope that you might give me a chance to rectify my mistakes, hope that you might still feel the same way I do about you.

Come back to me, Tavrien.

All my love, Kaidan.

Tavrien’s hand covered her mouth, reigning in mournful sounds threatening to tear from her chest. Now, more than ever before, she had to survive. She would survive. Kaidan still loved her. She glanced at the final box, and tucked it into her desk. She made a promise to open it when she defeated the Collectors. She would open it with Kaidan. She would open it, but not until she was back home, where she belonged.

[startaryat]

So, I just finished Cyberpunk 2077.

A lot of folks are riffing on this game because of the bugs, so I may as well get that out of the way.  Yes, there are bugs.  Yes, they are frustrating.  Yes, I've had to reload once or twice because of one.  Finally, yes, there were some quests I was unable to finish because of them.  In the end, it reminded me of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.  You know what people don't talk about from VtM: B?  The bugs.  They'll get a passing mention, but more people go on to talk about how the game's story riveted them... So...  The story... Cyberpunk 2077 made me realize something rather harsh about the Cyberpunk genre as a whole:  It is VERY racist against the Japanese.  The core of the genre was built when the Japanese looked like an economic powerhouse.  The TV Trope for it is called "Japan Takes Over the World."  In the late 70s, throughout the 80s and early 90s, it really looked like Japan was going to buy everything.  Despite that not looking like the case anymore, the fear people had of a world like that, that global society would be forcefully regressed to having to endure the society of Edo Period for some strange reason, inundates every facet of the Cyberpunk genre.  You can see it in Cyberpunk 2020, the tabletop RPG 2077 is based on.  You can see it in the game's contemporaries, like Shadowrun.  You can see it in the writing of William Gibson, such as Johnny Mnemonic, and even hints of it crop up in The Matrix or Strange Days.  Cyberpunk 2077 hits you with it full-force, as one of the major factions is a Megacorporation that, according to the game's backstory, has largely taken over the world and is very, VERY Japanese, replete with their founder being a WW2 veteran with a chip on his shoulder about the Nuclear Bombs and likes to wear traditional Japanese clothing, adhere to Japanese traditions and looks down his nose at everybody who isn't Japanese.  *sigh*.  You wind up having to deal with his bodyguard some and he's constantly complaining about people's lack of honor or that the food sucks and how much he wishes he was back in Japan, where people are civilized...  Never mind that's not how Japan was at the time the genre got its feet under it...  Never mind that's not how Japan is now... But I digress. The first bulk of the game is the sidequests.  There are all sorts of random fights you can get into, sometimes even saving the random passersby.  The city's police wire you bounties for the thugs you kill and bonuses for resolving the issues ("resolving" here meaning "Loot the bag everybody was fighting over.").  Some also involve a little more searching to find out where the rest of the loot is.  Read the little notes you pick up while doing these, and they help paint the picture of what you just interrupted.  Sometimes you're stopping a mugging, sometimes you arrive just after one.  Sometimes you're avenging a labor union that just got slaughtered, sometimes you're diving into a nearby harbor to pull the loot from a van the bad guys accidentally remote-controlled over the side of the pier. The second bulk of the game is the contracts and gigs, stuff your fixers (people who find you work) hire you to do.  These are dotted all over the map like the random fights.  These missions are often just more hardcore versions of the sidequests, but a few stand out for encouraging better tactical and strategic thinking.  Usually, these will exercise your stealth skills, or your out-of-the-box thinking (such as liberally exploiting your ability to hack the nearby electronics).  Most, though, have a much more decent story attached to them.  A few stand out in my memory...  One, you have to get a recording from a location.  The people who have it are editing it, and others, into essentially a high-tech snuff film.  Worse, it's a father-son operation doing this, and the more you dig into what's going on, the more horrifying the situation.  I normally don't inflict violence on these digital sprites when I'm playing these games, but this time I could tell the old man was clearly stalling for time...  So I shot him.  Reading the note I picked up off of him...  I have no regrets.  Dude contracts a gang to protect him while he edits recordings and distribute the product.  Said gang is a group of people so heavily mechanized, you can barely tell where the body ends and the machine begins.  The note is a recorded conversation between him and one of the gang's leaders, with the gangleader being thoroughly disgusted with the old man's behavior.  Somebody who WANTED to be inhuman was disturbed by this guy's inhumanity.  Chilling. Finally, the game's main stories provide some of the more interesting moments in the game, but then, they should.  Like most games, the main story is where the most effort has gone.  Some of the most fun I have is working with the nomads, helping one get her stuff back (and some revenge on the guy who took it from her), rescuing their leader from a rival gang, even pulling a heist and driving a hover tank.  The other main quests involve getting revenge for a killed contact on behalf of one of her friends and trying to clear the air about the botched job that kicks the whole game off, with each one having its own share of difficult choices and a staggering reminder of the consequences of engaging in such actions.  It's stuff that can actually make you stop and think. There are a couple odd "social" missions that are mostly you talking to some of the people.  The two I found were a doomsayer out near the first Ripperdoc the game introduces you to ("Ripperdoc" read: surgeon who installs your cybernetic upgrades, like a blend of cosmetic surgeon, physician and mechanic) and a talking vending machine that's a little too smart for its own good.  The doomsayer is an interesting interpretation of such a character, with him eventually pointing out that one of his implants has been picking up transmissions, leaving you to infer that he has trouble parsing the information he's getting, so he rants it out to people in what seems like conspiracy theory nonsense.  However, he does send you somewhere to deal with one of the things he's heard...  And you find he's not entirely bonkers...  The talking vending machine, on the other hand, is probably a statement on where talk bots and data collection algorithms are going to lead future advertising, and it's creepy and unusually heartwarming. |And all the while you've got Keanu Reeves talking in your ear, his low tone reminding you of Johnny Mnemonic, his clothing a dark reprise of Ted Logan, his cybernetic arm a reminder of Neo...  Though his pistol handling in the segments where you play through his memories would probably make John Wick shake his head in irritation.  Seriously, could anybody ELSE have played this character?  This was absolutely perfect casting, and Reeves does an excellent job of playing this rocker-turned-mercenary-turned-revolutionary-turned-digital ghost. All in all, it's a fun game.  It's not a massive, revolutionary thing, no, but I enjoyed it all the same.  It had its moments, like Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines did, like Fallout 3 did, like Fallout New Vegas did, like a lot of our favorites do, and like any good piece of media does.  It's not perfect, but I had fun.

[kapanbenernya]

Deus Ex -- The First One

I’ve been slowly but steadily running out of single player games lately, the story driven, rich with character arcs, 30 hour campaign kind of single player games. And by the time I’m writing this entry, I’m really really REALLY scraping the bottom of my barrel. But this barrel scraping condition might be the push I needed to finally go retro and explore the legendary PC games our forefathers played. One of them was available on my steam family sharing list, which is Deus Ex. 

Yes, THAT Deus Ex

Now, of course I never played the original Deus Ex when it first came out. It was 2002, I wasn’t even 10 years old yet and might have still pissed my own pants. I didn’t even knew there was a game called Deus Ex that was available on PC. My first exposure to Deus Ex was Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The Adam Jensen one, of the “I never asked for this” fame.

I remember playing DE:HR for a while, I went with the shooty-shooty bang bang style because that’s what I’m familiar with. Of course I got shot to death every time, because being an augmented super soldier means you’re still weak to bullets. I then took it as a kind of subtle hint from the game telling me to be stealthy. I proceed to fuck right off because I used to hate stealth tactics in FPS RPGs. It’s not until my second playthrough of Skyrim and Fallout 3 that I started to favor stealthy approach in these kind of games. By the way I can already start feeling the death stares of old timey purists that comes from me comparing Deus Ex with Bethesda RPGs, so I’m gonna stop.

yeah, kinda like that

Look, point is, all I’m saying is that I used to dislike stealth approaches, but now I kinda like it. So that’s how I plan on approaching this game.

Now that I’ve spent two paragraphs justifying why I haven’t played the game, time to actually talk about it.

The moment I booted it, it truly feels like early 2000s PC game, with the really boring main menu and a thousand controls that you can remap freely. There’s even keys for you to look using the keyboard. This makes me google to find out if mouse-look simply wasn’t a thing in the early age of PC FPS games. To my surprise, it wasn’t. Holy hell, old people are fucking hardcore. Well maybe it’s just leftover from the age of DOOM, but I can’t imagine a fully 3D FPS without mouse-look. But all of those is managed by simple remaps. Let’s see if I can handle everything else.

On my first play, I fucked up. A lot. The training session ended with me crawling in fear behind a box after my limbs got shot to hell by the robot. I couldn’t reload an older save because there is no auto save or checkpoints. The fact that I didn’t bother saving manually didn’t help either. I decide to power on through, wriggling my way over the bridge and to the next area. The hologram man then proceeded to nonchalantly compliment and brief the bleeding torso, and send me off to the first mission.

My first try on the first mission ended with me getting poisoned to death by the first two enemies. Thing is, I didn’t know what gave me the poison status nor did the training prepare me for it. All I know is that my guy is coughing and the screen is flashing, and then he keeled over in pain. Hell, I’m not even sure it was poison that killed me. I just concluded that from the fact that you can invest some training in poison resistance, which means there is poison damage in the game. I could’ve died from some augmented Avian Flu for all I know, those damned augmented seagulls.

Science HAS gone too far

The next try ended with me getting shot by two guards because my prod was out of charge and I ended up patting the guards with a puny stick. OK, I was careless, that was fair. The next try ended because I got ROFLstomped by a robot shaped like a photocopier, although this one is armed with two machine guns instead of overpriced ink cartridges. So much for me trying to be stealthy.

After doing the equivalent of free-style faceplants, I decide to get back to my roots. To the good old-fashioned shotgun diplomacy. Good thing I am supplemented with a pistol and a badass sniper rifle. I then went in, confident as hell, and I die anyway because the photocopier is gun proof. But at least I learned that enemies from far away didn’t hear the gunshot rumble happening out front, so I can combine stealth and non-stealth approach next.

Third approach, I shot and prodded a few guards, made it to the gate, hacked it open, only to find out that the photocopier is already turning my ass into Swiss cheese. I rushed in and hid behind a cardboard box, and the photocopier says it’s lost my track. Thankfully the training session has prepared me for cowering behind cardboard boxes from killer robots. The photocopier then decides to go back and disappoint all the office workers by jamming on A4 papers. I was breathing free for a while, I even had the time to patch up all the extra anus on my ass. The moment lasted until I saw a guard had spotted me and ran towards the alarm. At that point, I just gave up and let the guards shoot me back to the main menu.

I then gave up on playing the game, and decide to reflect on the lessons I learned

This experience got me thinking; have I really taken all modern gaming features and simplicity for granted? I’m so used to autosaving everytime I go through a door. A checkpoint before and after a tough encounter. UIs that explains everything that’s happening. Big great objective indicators floating on the horizon. Now that I played a game from the pioneer era, I’m really feeling all the crutches I had all these time, yanked violently, and left me falling flat on the face.

But is that all there is to it? Did I truly dislike it because of all the clunky old tech this game was built on? To seek the answer, I have to imagine this game, built on the marvels of modern technology and renewed design principles. Oh wait, I don’t have to, they’ve made two of those already! So I just have to remember my experience of playing DE:HR which I actually already discussed on an earlier paragraph. And if you remember it, you’ll know that I also didn’t like it that much. I might try it again one day, but I guess I can’t do stealth unless it’s the Bethesda brand of stealth. You know, where everyone has cataracts as long as you crouch and think it must’ve been the wind responsible for the 27 arrows on their neck

In Brief

Whatever legendary depth and complexity and RPG elements this game had, I couldn’t enjoy it because I couldn’t get into the game. It’s not the game, it’s me. Everything is too clunky or complicated for me. This truly got me thinking if all the hand holding and railroading is a natural evolution of gaming. Maybe it was needed to make gaming easier and more accessible, and all around more comfortable. Maybe the current gen has pushed it too far and made things too simple, losing all challenge in the process, but I wouldn’t know. The evolution crept so gradually that only after jumping 18 years back that I truly notice such significant difference.

I think all the people who protest too much about these modern linear ways need to play this kind of old game to straighten their viewpoint. For those of you who found out you disliked the old ways, come join the club. For those of you who preferred and excelled in the old ways, come beat the club with a stick.

8/4/2018

[necromantic13]

[5] Moira O’Deorain - Game Point

PART FIVE of SPIDERFIGHTS. This is the last installation of Moira vs. Sombra/Widowmaker. Let’s get deep into some sabotage, shall we?

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four

Sombra plays her favorite game. She is very, very good at it.

“I’m worried about Lacroix,” Moira said, sipping at her drink while Akande looked over his computer. That morning, Sombra had seen her making her way toward his office, and in a decision born of caprice and bitterness, decided to follow her.

Now the hacker found herself pressed awkwardly against the wall by the door, listening to Moira talk with her boss and wondering what fresh level of shit she was about to land herself in.

Moira, ever a picture of poise and composure under the pressure of inventing new ways to ruin lives, steepled her fingers as Akande pursed his lips, saved his work, and looked up at her.

“How do you mean?” he asked, face impassive as ever. Sombra still couldn’t read him reliably, which was probably why he was the boss.

“She and your new hacker have become,” Moira paused, nails pressed against her chin, “close.”

Akande shrugged, unconcerned. “It does not matter to me what they do in their spare time so long as they still do their jobs. Lacroix can still hit a man between the eyes from 500 feet and Sombra delivers better intel than anyone I have ever worked with. Their performance does not suffer. In some aspects, it has even become more reliable.” He shrugged, leaning back in his chair to regard the woman before him. “I fail to see the problem.”

“With all due respect, Akande, the entire purpose of Lacroix’s reconditioning was to remove the capacity for emotional connection. If she’s somehow establishing one with this Sombra, well,” she shrugged, hands raised in helplessness. “Isn’t it only a matter of time before the rest of the house comes crumbling down?”

Akande’s eyes shifted ever so slightly as he mulled over Moira’s words, and Sombra felt as though she had ice in her veins as her mind raced to beat the geneticist's request to its inevitable conclusion.

“What are you suggesting, Moira?” Akande asked, hands clasped professionally before him.

“Let me reevaluate her. Let me make sure there are no cracks in the glass, so to speak.” Moira smiled, her expression sharp like a reptile’s. Sombra bit her lower lip to keep from calling her bluff, checking her camo to make certain it was still active.

Akande sighed, but Sombra could see that he was considering her argument. “If Lacroix consents to it,” he said at last, “then I can see no harm in it.” He pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up, indicating it was time for Moira to leave. “I expect you to comport yourself professionally?”

“Akande,” Moira purred, bowing in an overblown display of regality. “Have I ever deceived you?”

Akande grunted noncommittally and Moira took her leave. As the door closed slowly behind her, Sombra slipped out carefully in her wake.

She sped across the mansion, making it from the offices to the kitchen before dropping her camo and taking a breath. So this was how Moira O’Deorain played? She had almost - almost - seen it coming, and in the light of this development, felt the familiar spark of confidence take hold in her soul.

Now she understood the rules of the game, and Moira had unknowingly moved the pieces onto her side of the board.

“My move, doc.”

“Please, Widow. I - I know I’m asking a lot.”

“You are,” was the sniper’s somber reply. She was perusing the endless, ancient collection of books held in the vast library of the Venetian mansion, looking for some dry tome she’d yet to crack open. Sombra kept offering to download her any electronic source she might want, but the spider always declined, preferring to spend hours among the dusty books looking for something to help pass the time.

“She’s not going to stop if you object,” Sombra pressed, following her down the row of books she was scanning. “She might even use it as ammo to make you do it later on, and then I don’t know if I can help.” She had promised to keep her in the loop; promised to continue watching her back and let her know if the geneticist had any machinations in the works. It didn’t make the conversation any easier.

“What does she intend on doing?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Not in detail. Just that she wants to check for ‘cracks in the glass,’” Sombra replied, rolling her eyes. “I assume run a diagnostic. At least that’s what I would do with a program I thought might be running faulty.”

“I am not a computer program,” Widow replied, a familiar bitterness creeping into her tone.

“I know that,” Sombra said, placing an apologetic hand on the small of her back, “but Moira certainly thinks you are.”

Widow had no response to that; the geneticist had demonstrably proven, over and over, that she viewed Widowmaker as a project of her own creation rather than a woman whose life she had irreparably altered. “What if the data shows something?” she asked, concern floating behind her eyes, hidden by her hold on apathy. “I have...I feel. Sometimes.”

“Do you trust me?” Sombra asked, tugging at Widowmaker’s hand and prompting her to make eye contact.

“I hate it when you ask me that,” she frowned, impassive.

“Yeah but do you?” she asked again.

“Yes.”

“Then let me do what I do best.”

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow. “Get yourself into trouble?”

Sombra smirked. “No - figure it out as I go along.” Widowmaker smiled weakly, tired beyond reason, stress affecting her in ways different from most people, but affecting her nonetheless. “I don’t know what she has in mind, but I have my suspicions, and I swear to god I’ll shoot her in the head before I watch her rewind you.”

Widowmaker laughed at this, and Sombra frowned, surprised at the response.

“You will have to beat me to it, cherie,” she said, and Sombra grinned as she leaned forward to kiss her.

Widowmaker sat in a large metal chair flanked by flat screen and hard light monitors spanning nearly every color of the rainbow. Moira had rigged her up to an EKG machine designed to, as she patronizingly explained to Widowmaker, track her emotional responses to stimuli and questions. Akande had joined them as well, which spoke volumes as to how much he trusted her to work unsupervised with his prize assassin. Sombra hadn’t accounted for his presence, but that’s why she didn’t like to make plans: they always got gunked up in the thick of it and had to be reworked on the fly, anyway, so why waste the time?

That plus she hadn’t entirely narrowed down what her point of focus was yet. The room was filled with tech; a den of temptation, and despite the rather dire circumstances presented, it took all Sombra’s willpower not to hack into every single beeping metal object in the room. Moira couldn’t have booby-trapped the place better if she’d tried: she felt like a kid in a candy store being told that she could only pick one thing to eat.

Luckily, after surveying the room for a bit, she was pretty sure she knew what that thing was.

Sombra stood perched in the back, balanced on a mostly-empty table of unemptied boxes that she was wagering on Moira not requiring the use of, as the doctor fussed over Widow’s neural connections and began to get a baseline on her readout.

“What is your name?” Widowmaker looked at her askance; Moira amended her question. “What was your name?”

“Amélie. Lacroix, maiden name Guillard.”

The machine flashed, a low tone emanating. Moira seemed pleased; Akande seemed nonplussed, allowing the doctor space to work with his oversight.

“Who is your employer?”

“I work for Talon.”

“And what is your role?”

“I am an assassin; a sniper.”

Sombra watched the proceedings from her vantage point, less interested in the content of her questions and more in watching the rapid flow of data between computers. The EKG wires glowed a deep blue as she watched them with her cybernetics engaged, shooting flashes of binary at the screen Moira was watching. What was most interesting, however, was that the majority of this processing was taking place via some mechanized middleman in a large tower to her left, a mainframe comprised of stacks of server trays, parsing the feedback from Widowmaker’s body almost immediately upon receiving it and sending that data back to the viewing screen.

This was the nexus, and it was where Sombra’s work would need to be done. To properly hack the computer, however, she would need to drop her camouflage.

She jumped from the table as gingerly as she could and made her way around the room, taking care not to catch her jacket on any wayward flasks or paperwork. Brushing past Widow, she ran a hand gently against her back. The sniper stiffened slightly, and as Akande and Moira turned to watch the screen blip in response to her surprise, Sombra appeared across the room from them.

Holding up one finger against her lips, she nodded toward the duo.

Widowmaker took the hint without missing a beat.

“Pardonnez-moi?” she asked as Moira nearly turned around, an action that would have set her attention directly on the exposed hacker as she worked. “Can I ask what you are reviewing?”

Moira, unable to resist answering a question about her own work, smiled.

“We’re reviewing your neural impulses and checking for synaptic growth.” She gestured at the strange spiderlike mapping across the screen. Some areas were lit up, and others stayed dark. “Some is to be expected, but in excess it could prove,” she paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully, “damaging.”

“Damaging?” Widow asked innocently, doing her best to avoid looking at Sombra. The hacker had latched into the network easily enough, hooking her own system into Moira’s with a flick of her wrist. The data within was endless and teeming with distractions, and it was with no small force of will that she steeled herself against them to locate what it was she needed to find: the processing core.

As the sniper made small talk with Moira and Akande monitored the screen, Sombra worked on peeling herself free from the mainframe, one byte of data at a time, in order to leave no residual trace of her presence. A quick look at Widow showed she was struggling to keep the scientist’s attention; Sombra took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and disconnected.

Widowmaker faltered, unable to come up with any more questions to ask Moira to distract her. As the geneticist turned, satisfied with the trajectory of her work, Sombra stepped behind the large computer system and vanished.

Perfect timing, she thought to herself, and she saw Widowmaker smile almost imperceptibly as she disappeared.

The rest of the testing went by quickly - Moira inflicting emotional pain on Widow as she expertly answered, deadpan and apathetic, the blips on the screen registering only the most remedial of emotional responses. Her responses were impeccable, and when Moira posed her final question, Widowmaker was more than prepared to answer.

“I understand there have been some instances of,” she paused, pretending to consider her words, “internal conflict of motivations. Should Sombra attempt to sabotage another mission with her personal whims, would you hesitate to neutralize her?”

The spider sighed dramatically and canted her head to the side.

“No.”

The machine didn’t register a single reaction; simply a flat, uninteresting tone indicating only the barest of reticence at killing her colleague. It was so realistic that Sombra might have even believed it had she not been viewing the actual results of the test on her own screen. Her heart skipped a beat with the twitching line of Widow’s synapses on the hard light screen, and she smiled.

“I think we’re done here, yes?” Akande said, having the temerity to look inconvenienced. He didn’t have to say that Moira had wasted his time; the implication was in his tone of voice.

Moira, a picture of grace under fire in normal circumstances, was having a hard time maintaining her composure. “I suppose so,” she replied, looking over the machine carefully. If she suspected something, she wouldn’t find anything. Not this time.

Fool me once, Sombra grinned from her corner.

“It looks as though your work is as impeccable as ever,” Widowmaker offered drily, and Moira latched onto her words in order to save face.

“I suppose I shouldn’t second guess myself.” Laughing superficially, she gestured toward the door out of the room. “You may go now.” Widowmaker stood, and Sombra took her leave, translocating to the beacon she’d left outside the laboratory for a quick escape.

When the trio emerged, Sombra was waiting outside, leaning casually against one of the whitewashed clinic walls, gazing at her nails in boredom.

“You pass, spider?” she asked, looking at Widowmaker.

The sniper nodded. “Yes,” she replied perfunctorily, walking to meet the hacker.

“I do not wish to hear of this again,” Akande said to Moira, his voice soft but easily heard across the room. Nodding at Widow and Sombra, he took his leave, turning too quickly to see the flush across Moira’s face.

“Guess the good doctor shouldn’t second guess herself, should she?” Sombra said, her words an innocent repetition of Moira’s a moment before.

A shadow crossed the geneticist’s face. She knew.

Good.

“Hasta tarde,” Sombra said, smiling sweetly and waving her fingers at Moira. Joining her other hand with Widow’s, she tugged gently, and the two of them left Moira’s office.

Sombra smiled to herself and disconnected her wireless link to Moira’s computer. For a moment she considered keeping Widow’s data for herself; another piece of blackmail she could save to hold over the geneticist’s head in a moment of need...but the implications therein were too damning, too bold, and the only one who would suffer if they were recovered was Widowmaker.

Instead, she pressed the fingers of her left hand together and deleted it, permanently, from her memory.

I win, doc.

[wealthyaffiliates]

[Download] Evaldo Albuquerque – 7 Figure Copy Camp

Evaldo Albuquerque 7 Figure Copy Camp: You’re just moments away from claiming access to the 7-Figure Copy Camp… And discover a new way of writing copy that has sold over $120 million in the last two years alone. It’s 30 modules that will revolutionize the way you write copy. What You Will Learn From This Course: The 2-step formula to generate million-dollar ideas. It’s so simple you’ll think it can’t be true… but it’s why people around our office call Evaldo “an idea machine.” Have an idea but don’t know if it’s any good? It’s simple… if it checks these 3 boxes, it’s a good idea. If it fails to check even one of them, it’s a guaranteed bomb and you’re wasting your time! How to turn any bland, boring and ordinary thing into an exciting new mechanism that will basically FORCE your prospect to open their wallet and give you their credit card. (Hint: one of the copywriters in Evaldo’s team used this secret to turn a failed sales letter into a huge $9,200,000+ blockbuster) How a productivity hack used in every single major Navy Seal mission can help you write copy faster than you ever thought possible. I’ve seen Evaldo writing blockbuster copy in as little as one week using this trick. How to write the entire structure of your sales letter in less than 5 minutes. Read the full article

[nierly-amazing]

no offense and idk if you want to talk about this subject (and if not feel free to ignore) but the way 9S treated 2B and A2 was garbo, he was a cool character in the start of the game but eventually becoming a raving lunatic who betrayed his core values kinda works against him

Ok this ended up being a lot longer than I thought and I hope this doesn’t come off as aggressive or anything but I love 9S and his character and I wanted to tangent and dump my feelings about all my android children because aagh.

Spoilers for literally everything. A-E and all of the supplementary materials:

I mean, considering all that’s happened to him it’s completely understandable. He was created as an extremely emotional person and thrust into a war he didn’t sign up for and forbidden to show those emotions. He was partnered with someone who [seemingly] is emotionless and cold who he cares deeply about but doesn’t know why. 

He was still kind and respectful to her from what I remember. Like, he was a sassy little shit when she ordered him around but I would be too in that situation. 

He wasn’t pushy with her about the Nines thing, only asking her twice, probably weeks apart. He was always looking out for her health, trying to get her to rest up when she was pushing herself too hard. But whenever she said no, he didn’t push it. He might have complained a bit but dropped it afterwards.

And as for A2. I don’t blame him at all for the way he acted towards her. The only thing he saw was her killing the most important person right in front of him, and making no move whatsoever to try to explain things to him. She had multiple chances to safely let him know that 2B was infected and wanted her to kill her but took none of them. 

But instead, the first time she said anything to him regarding was when he was waay off the deep end drowning in pain and sorrow about everything that was happening, right after killing his mom(ish). “2B told me, she wanted you to become a good person.” And then nothing, no “oh yeah she was also infected and asked me to kill her btw.” I’m not sure what she was expecting or trying to get out of that.

Don’t get me wrong. I love A2 and she’s a great character and has gone through a TON of shit herself with both 2B and 9S trying to kill her in the past multiple times (even though they don’t remember) and 9S was a huge ass to her in concert script 2. So it’s almost understandable that she didn’t tell him because she didn’t owe either of them shit and the only reason she did was 2B asked was because she felt compelled to. 

But then again she did care about 9S on some level since her memories did mix with 2B’s when she took her sword, which was apparent when she gently stroked 9S’s face and said “I’ll take care of this” and sacrificed herself to save him at the end of route C.

Maybe she felt he wouldn’t have believed her if she tried (which he might not have) so she didn’t think it was worth her time?

So yeah, in the end I have no idea really why she didn’t at least try to contact him early on and I’m not sure if there’s a reason or the writers just fucked up there or something.

But anyway, there were three main things he needed to chill out on still (well there might be more but I’m too tired to think of more rn).

1) His racism towards machines and denying the evidence that some of them do feel pain and have emotions. Although that’s also somewhat understandable as well, since they’ve been fighting these machines for 6000 years and only recently did a small handful of them actually gain emotions. It’s easy to think that it’s fake and they’re just trying to fuck with you to get the upper hand.

And hell, even tough some of them did have emotions, they still attacked and killed androids. So it would be kind of unreasonable to expect 9S and the others to be like “welp they can feel pain now lets just let them run rampant and keep killing other androids”

But even so, Anemone and it seems like the rest of the Resistance learned to coexist with Pascal’s village so 9S (and 2B too, she wasn’t far behind him) probably could have acted better towards the peaceful ones. (Especially Pascal, he was definitely a dick to my precious trans robot and I want to smack him upside the head for that). They both did start warming up to them and helping out over the course of A/B. But then that went down the drain with 9S after he started on his downward spiral. 

So yeah, 9S’s hatred towards machines and denial of their new emotions was something he def needed to work on, but was also mostly understandable.

2) His possessiveness towards 2B. It wasn’t really clear in the game, but in the new novel:

I’ll kill anyone who hurts 2B. I’ll kill anyone who touches 2B. I’ll kill anyone who gets close to 2B. I’ll kill anyone who looks at 2B. Because the only one who’s allowed to look at 2B is me. The only one who’s allowed to get close to 2B is me. The only one who’s allowed to touch 2B is me. The only one who’s allowed to hurt 2B is me. The only one allowed to…

9S pls. 

Although it’s not clear to me when he started acting like this since only bits of the novel is translated and it wasn’t really hinted at in game until mid to late route C when his aggression was turned towards the 2B clones and the one in his hacking space during the soul box. It’s not like he was acting jealous at all whenever 2B interacted with anyone else, especially since it was kinda clear that 6O had a crush on her.  Ok so after getting more information it seems he wasn’t violently possessive like that until after she died.

Either way that is defo not healthy way to think in any sort of relationship and I hope he will be able to work through that with her after they’re revived.

3) His denial of the fact that 2B was infected. Although this one is more speculative because we don’t know for sure, but it seemed like he knew, at least on some level, that 2B was infected. He’s super smart and good at piecing things together so even if A2 didn’t straight up tell him, he could have been able to figure it out on his own.

Like with 2B’s flight unit message. That is not something someone who plans on seeing you soon would say. That was clearly a goodbye message because she knew she was going to die even before she crashed.

So yeah, it’s likely he knew but denied it and used A2 as a scapegoat for his anger. He might not have even believed her if she did tell him.

9S was by no means a perfect person, but he was realistic and reacted how so many people would if they were shoved in a horrible situation like him. Which is why I love his character so much.