#honestly i stand by what i said in that ask a while ago that shiv has the grit none of her brothers have

[pynkhues]

top five "Shiv should shiv her dad for [whatever fuckery he did this time]" moments?

Oh my god, there are literally too many to count, but okay okay okay, ranking these on how much they made my blood boil:

5. In Argestes, when Logan doesn't loop her into what's happening with the cruise scandal and doesn't even bring her to the conference despite her theoretically taking over the company. That in itself would be bad, but when he uses her gender as a shield both in the panel and through having her link arms with him in front of the press - - flames! Flames on the side of my face!

4. As wild as it is to rank it this low, I'm putting him using his attendance at Shiv's wedding as a powerplay here. You could tell it hurt her, but it also gave Connor the opportunity to step up in the moment, so it was defs softened by the fact that Shiv had her brothers (even if one of those brothers was about to, y'know, start a coup and kill a waiter at said wedding, haha).

3. Logan ignoring her political experience during the Republican Candidate Speed Dating session while also ensuring she was in the photograph with Mencken to effectively snuff out any future political career she could have. Logan has his ways of tightening the leash on all of his children, but this has to be one of the cruelest, especially given he effectively told her she'd never had her own career when she did in 3.09.

2. Logan diminishing her role in saving the company at the shareholders meeting and yelling at her in front of everyone. She deserved to murder her father and all three of her brothers that day (but especially Roman), and the fact that she didn't is a testament to her self-control.

1. I could include the whole of the scene with Logan at the end of 3.09, but it'd be a lie. It's all awful of course, but Logan 'imitating' her during the coup when she told him the fact as she knew it then of their shared majority has made me gasp like literally nothing else on this show. We've seen Logan be cruel, but the sheer ugliness of that beat is still something that really, really affects me. I put it up there with boar on the floor - it's not just patronising, it's aggressive and nasty and tells you exactly what, deep down, he actually thinks of his daughter, because you know he'd never do it to one of his sons.

Someone should've passed her a knife on the spot.

My flight has been delayed by eight hours and I'm stuck at the airport, please send me things to rank!

[hopeaterart]

PMTOK HORROR AU: INTRO

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO! Nearly four thousand words! (I’m trying to get back into writing, so if you guys want to see another part of the games translated into the Horror AU, send me an ask!)

The circle was completed.

The Craftsman took a deep breath, raising up and putting the vial of Blue Paint on his nightstand. The blue lines were glowing slightly on his floor, the circle just big enough for one person.

Good enough for him, it was an emergency anyway. The Sailor was already too late by a few days. He walked to it’s middle, bit his thumb, and let the blood drip upon the lines. They glowed brighter.  “Flipflopside.” He muttered, and his world was engulfed in blue.

When colors came back to him, he was at the gate of the town. He entered town, and sighed as he recognized the decorations all around. Had circumstances been better, this festival would’ve been Olly’s first exposure to the outside world.

But Olly having disappeared a week ago, along with some very important supplies, was the reason the Craftsman had scrambled to gather and create the necessary blue paint to teleport.

He stopped at the town square. Where... was everyone? He frowned at all the decorations strewn around. It was like an hurricane had gone through town. He groaned in exasperation, before continuing his way toward the Lady’s Castle. If the town was having problems, then she would be too busy to offer help with finding his son.

He... honestly doubted anyone would’ve been generous enough to help in the first place, which is why he had prepared arguments about why his worry over his son going missing wasn’t just a parent thing (which it wasn’t, but it was the main reason, and they didn’t need to know that), but rumors had it that the current human lord- or in this case, lady- was a generous and kind one.

Yeah, if she was anything like her uncle, then he wasn’t holding onto hope.

He finally arrived to it’s front door, knocking once. He was expecting to have to knock more, and then for someone to come open the door. Instead, the door grinded open, having obviously been left as such. He hummed in concern, looking around, before entering, on-guard.

And just as he entered, the door slammed behind him, making him jump. He hurriedly turned back toward it, trying to open it again in vain. Door locked. He groaned in exasperation. He was getting rusty.

He slowly walked through the corridor, his footsteps echoing around him as he looked around. The place was strangely... dark and silent. For some reason, he felt like he was the only one there. He reached the end of the corridor, opening another door (this one properly closed, but not locked) and arrived at what he could only assume was the lobby.

The door at the top of the stairs opened, and out came the Lady. Long blonde hair, dark skin, and pink eyes... yep, no doubt, it was her, even if there was something... off about her that he wasn’t sure he could place. He had never formally met her, after all.

“How good... to see you...” She said in a discordant voice, and that immediately squashed any doubts the Craftsman had about this being her normal self. There was, at least, hypnosis involved.

“Answer me this... shouldn’t this miserable kingdom be unfolded... and be refolded unto glory?...” He shook his head, a hand reaching into his apron to get his paper scoring tool, the sharper end gleaming like a shiv. Better safe then sorry.

“And what of those... humans?” The venom dripping from her voice surprised him, even if he wasn’t a fan of other humans himself. “Shouldn’t they be silenced forever?” Oh, he didn’t like were this was going. Whoever was pulling the strings on her, they were the kind of scum that would make even the former Count recoil in horror.

“... I see... Last question.” She started as he grind his teeth together. “Will you crease yourself and be reborn, like me-”

“Lady of humans,” He started as he took a step forward. She didn’t react at that, freezing and keeping lifeless pink eyes on him. “You’re not in your right mind right now. Please, let me try to undo whatever magic is making you act like this-”

“Wrong answer.” She started, and the Craftsman realized he had made a mistake. “Right answer. It matters not.” She said, tilting her head in a stilted manner that exposed her shoulder and the thick silver lines on it. No doubt, powerful binding magic was at work. “Your replies are all paper thin.”

The floor suddenly opened under him, a discordant goodbye accompanying the fall. And then his world was wrapped in pain and darkness.

When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on a cold ground, and five faces -or at least what he assumed where faces, what’s with the loss of his glasses- were looking down on him. “Oh, he’s waking up, he’s waking up!” One of them said, making the four others back up as he sat up.

He blinked, blurry. “Have any of you seen my glasses?” He asked. “They’re round with black frames. Their lenses are thick, and they have a retainer with purple and yellow beads.” The retainer was especially important to him, a reminder of the only relationship he remembered fondly. “If any of you are well-versed in magic, they’re also imbued with some pretty powerful protection spells.”

“Is that why they didn’t break?” Someone asked, handing him an object that shone under the dingy dungeons light.

He nodded, taking them in hand on pushing them up his nose. “Yes, thank you.” He then blinked as he regained vision, and looked around. All of those people... “You’re all monsters?”

One of them flinched at that, while another took a defensive stance. “Is that a problem, old man?”

“No, of course not.” He answered, bringing his knees to his chest. “If anything, I sympathize more with monsters than humans. We’re terrible.”

One of the monsters, who looked pretty young, came nearer. “So you don’t hate us?”

The Craftsman chuckled, patting the little plant monster’s head. “When you get my age, you don’t have much energy left for hating everything in sight. So I keep it for people who are truly deserving.” Like the chucklefuck who broke into his home, kidnapped Olly, stole most of his magical supplies and half of his Origami ones.

Suddenly, the door opened. More monsters, but those ones moving just as stiffly as the Lady earlier, entered. “Come with us...” The one standing at the front, who wore a ancient demon mask, ordered. The Craftsman got up, groaning as some of his bones popped, as everyone exited the room. He was about to follow them, when the masked monster held a hand up. Restrained fury was radiating off of the monster. “Not you.”

And just like that, he was alone again. He sighed, sitting down on the ground. What the fuck was he supposed to do now? The wall over there seemed pretty brittle...

He got up the inspect it, gently dragging his palm across it. Hello? A little voice suddenly asked, making him jump back in surprise. Oh no, please don’t leave! It said again. Was it coming... from the wall? 

He caressed the wall again, frowning. “Are you... trapped inside?” He asked, feeling dimensional magic weaved into the wall.

Oh, yes I am! The voice of the young girl started again. I’m in a very strange place, like I’m trapped in-between dimensions!

“You will be delighted to hear to your situation is nowhere that severe, then.” He snarked. “You’re merely the victim of a dimensional spell. Nothing that can’t be broken.”

Really!? The voice exclaimed, it’s (her?) happiness evident. I think there’s some Paint nearby, could you use it to draw a magic circle? I can use my own magic for the rest. He hummed non-committedly as he got up, heading for the boxes pilled in a corner.

After a strong enough push, they toppled, their content spilling. Mostly empty vials of Paint, beside one that seemed to hold enough for one circle. But more importantly, a crack in the wall that was big enough for him to slip through if he tried was there. But just as he was about to leave, the little voice made itself known again. You... you’re not leaving, are you? She asked in a tearful tone.

He stayed frozen for a moment, before groaning in exasperation and turning back toward the wall. He quickly made his way there, emptying the vial over his fingers and drawing a circle around himself. It then started glowing a golden color, the image of a hand appearing within it. “Shapeshifting magic, uh?” He picked at the wound on his finger, opening it again and letting blood drip once more.

The Craftsman watched, bewildered, as his arms flattened and folded like accordions. He then gathered himself, and ripped the wall away, shaking his arm back to normal as whoever was trapped in the wall detached herself. “Whoo! I’m finally free from the wall!” She exclaimed cheerfully as the Craftsman’s eyes widened in disbelief. Blonde hair, golden hair, the hat with two points... and those eyes... “Hi, my name’s Olivia! You-”

“I know who you are, girl.” The Craftsman interrupted, bringing a hand up. “I’m the one who designed you.” That seemed to shock her, her hat flying of her head as her eyes sifted sizes.

“What!?”

“And I must admit, whoever folded you did an excellent job. Almost makes me jealous.” He wasn’t jealous, but fucking furious, but not at her, and that wasn’t important right now.

“But- you- I-”

“Look, for now, let’s focus on getting out of here before those guys come back, alright?” He proposed, grabbing Olivia’s small hand and squeezing them gently. She nodded, an adorably determined pout on her face as they went through the secret passage. “Stay behind me, don’t make a noise, and above all else, do not tell anyone your name, got it?”

Olivia nodded, following the Craftsman as they slipped through the crack. They quickly walked out of the cell, both of their eyes shifting around to make sure no one was coming. The corridor seemed closed off, magic keeping the dungeon isolated from the rest of the castle.

“Unhand me!” As they heard a voice come from the other room, they quickly hid amongst the boxes near said room. The Craftsman flushed himself against the wall near a small crack, chuckling to himself as Olivia imitated him, before peering inside

The sight of the notorious Count folded into what was basically a wet floor sign would’ve made the Craftsman laugh if it wasn’t for the implications behind the type of magic needed to restrain him. There was also the fact that he was being held up by multiple clothespin, and the shadows. Two of the deformed monsters were holding up another above their head, the creature obviously struggling. 

And then it stopped moving, almost flattened as it was folded, powerful magic shifting and contorting it’s body. And then it was brought to a truly humongous shadow, a beast that opened it’s mouth with a mechanical sound. The outline of two sharp fangs was visible as the poor soul was placed within it’s mouth. And then...

KA-CHICK

The Craftsman looked away just as the beast closed it’s mouth, a metallic sound similar to the one of a stapler stapling sounding out. Well, at least he knew where that binding magic came from now, and where one of his supplies went. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to enchant a stapler!?

Poor Olivia was shivering in fear next to him, and he offered her a hand to hold just as the door opened. A horde of monsters, the last one being the demon-mask wearing one, got out. “Alright.” He started. “That was the last of them. Now, there’s only that old bastard left...”

As they left the corridor to go “fetch” him, he quickly made his way inside the room, relieved to find the door unlocked with Olivia still holding his hand. He made his way to the folded up Count, who had a miserable expression on his face. “Sir?” He asked.

The Count opened his red eyes. “Oh, a human!” He exclaimed, a surprised lilt to his voice. “My apologies, with all the chaos happening around here, I forgot that my beloved’s castle was on human grounds.”

“Your beloved’s castle is the middle of Flipflopside.” The Craftsman remarked with a raised eyebrow as he neared, taking the clothespins off. “If she wanted to live amongst humans, this wouldn’t be the place.”

“Ah, touché...” The Count commented as he fell to the ground, quickly figuring out a way to move. He then turned toward Olivia with squinted, and she squeaked. “And this young lady would be...?”

“My daughter.” The Craftsman hissed, not missing the sudden animosity in the Count’s tone.

To his credit, the Count immediately backed off. “... My apologies. Now, I do believe there’s another exit here,” he started, turning toward the other end of the room “but it’s hidden by an illusion spell. I would dispel it myself, but...” He shuffled a bit.

“I’m on it!” Olivia cheerfully declared, floating up to the wall and gently caressing it. Immediately, the surface fell away into Paint particles (which the Count was quick to waddle to and absorb, no doubt he wanted to collect enough magic to try and break out of his binds) as the young girl turned toward the two men.

The Craftsman nodded in approval as Count congratulated her, waddling up to her. “Incredible job, miss! Now, we can get out!” Olivia beamed, bouncing up and down in the air to a rhythm only she could hear as they made their way to a spiral staircase. 

Just before they started climbing, the folded monster turned toward the Craftsman. The older man frowned. “What?” 

“You have a very talented daughter.” The Count answered him as he started making his way up the stairs as fast as his body let him. The Craftsman smiled to himself.

“I know.” He started making his way up the stairs, Olivia’s hand back in his, when he noticed that she seemed unfocused. He stopped. “Is there a problem, girl?” He asked, turning toward her.

The younger girl looked up at .him, smiling. “I’m your daughter?”

A few seconds, then a shrug. “If you want to be,” He wasn’t the one who had folded her, but he was the one who had made the initial plan and cut out a piece of his soul for her, and he couldn’t be much worse than Olly’s kidnapper.

They finally made it back outside, the Craftsman shielding his eyes from the sudden light. They walked along the long balcony for a bit, until another door opened. Out walked the monster from earlier, the one with the demon mask, and the Lady. He heard the Count gasp behind him. 

“Why are you still so... flat?” The brainwashed woman asked him. “Why won’t you join me in folded glory...” She weakly reached her hands out to them. “Come, we can reshape you...” The fear shining through her eyes was yelling at them to run, run as far as you can, and never turn back. 

The Craftsman was very tempted to follow that message, ready to grab Olivia and jump over the balcony fence, before the masked monster opened their mouth. “Patience, Lady. This will do just fine. So...” They turned toward the Craftsman. “Why did you come to this castle, Craftsman?”

His eyes narrowed, pulling the paper scorer out again. “Someone stole what’s mine. I came here to ask help to get it back.” And it seems I’ve found my thief.

The masked monster made a sneering sound. “Is that how you see your son? A mere possession?”

“Wha- don’t talk about what you don’t know!” The Craftsman snapped, hand tightening around the tool in his hand.

“... Last chance, Craftsman.” The monster started. “Volunteer yourself to my cause, and let me fold you into something greater. Simple offer. Yes, or no.” The only thing that stopped the old man from going ‘go fuck yourself’ was Olivia’s presence. He instead shook his head. “Of course, I didn’t expect any less. And I wouldn’t have it any other way...” The monster snapped his fingers.

Another mind-controlled monster came into view. The Craftsman recognized him as one of the monsters from earlier. The Count snarled behind him, a surge of powerful magic catching him off-guard. “What have you done to my people!?”

“Folding them to my will. Look at your precious Lady.” The monster started, gesturing to her. “She’s better this way, don’t you think.” The only answer was a hiss. “Now...” The mask-wearing monster turned back toward the Craftsman, one violet eye glowing. “Prepare to be Folded!”

The monster jumped the Craftsman, hissing and snarling. Caught off-guard, he went down like a sack of potato, falling on his back and barely keeping the monster off-of him. He dropped the scorer, weakly moving his legs as his arms came up to hold the monster’s claws away from him. Olivia gasped in horror. “Dad!”

 “Wait, miss.” The Count started as he watched the Craftsman successfully move one of his hand to the monster’s throat. “I do believe that your father as the situation in hand.”

The Craftsman continued to hold the monster away from him, his hand tightening around his throat, before grabbing the paper scorer and stabbing the monster through his eye. Dark purple blood stained his hand as a pained noise came out of the monster, the scorer getting wringed out. 

The monster was then knee-d into the stomach, the Craftsman successfully throwing the monster off of him and over the fence. He got back up, groaning and doing his best to ignore Olivia’s horrified look. “Is that all you got?” He asked the masked monster, who sighed.

“Of course, how stupid of me. You did go by Mercenary when you were younger.” The masked monster noted as he started floating ominously. “I suppose there’s no point in maintaining this charade any longer...”

The monster shook, his arms raising in the air, before suddenly flattening and unfolding. Colors faded away as the illusion spell was uncast, revealing violets and yellows as a little boy wearing a crown revealed himself. The Craftsman’s eyes widened in disbelief, the Count made a noise of confusion, and Olivia gasped. “BROTHER!”

No... no, no, no, NO! It couldn’t be... “Wh- what are you doing here?” The Craftsman asked, putting his scorer back in his apron as Olivia started shaking.

“Please, brother...” She sobbed. “How many times have I told you you needed to stop? Please! You can’t do this!”

The boy simply sighed. “Why couldn’t the Craftsman have simply left you in that wall where I put you... Sister, I am afraid that if you stand in the way of my ambition, we will not be able to share my glory as family.”

“Brother-”

“I am not your brother anymore.” He stated, flipping his hair. “I am KING OLLY!” He then floated up and out of reach, floating in the sky as he cast a disdainful look to Flipflopside. “By the time I’m done, all those miserable humans will be folded... and those flimsy monster subjects shall be reborn as Folded Soldiers, serving me!” He then turned his look upon the Craftsman and Olivia. “And I shall fold, crease and bend this world to my whim... the birth of an Origami Kingdom!”

Olly snapped his fingers, a bright violet light emanating from his hand. It took a moment for the Craftsman to realize that was a signal, but he quickly dragged Olivia to the floor when he realized. And just in time too, as something yellow and charged with magic razed right past where his head used to be a second ago.

He quickly got up, scanning his surroundings as Olivia held onto him for dear life, the Count screeching right behind him. Streams of binding magic surrounded them, all controlled by Olly, all coming from different directions. “Follow me, you two!” The Count yelled over the rush of magic, hopping on the fence and then on a lower part of the roof. The Craftsman quickly followed him, hand tight around Olivia’s.

“GRA-BLAGH!” The Craftsman turned toward the voice, confused as he saw what was possibly one of the ugliest man he’s ever seen come to them at high speed in a rocket-propelled hot-hair balloon. The Count quickly jumped in, followed by the Craftsman and Olivia. “A’m ‘ere, Count!”

“Thank you, Warrior.” The Count started, smiling for what was probably the first time today. The Craftsman decided to give them as much privacy as he could as he turned toward the Lady’s castle.

There was five streams of magic in total. The red one came from the North, the blue one East, the yellow one South, and the purple one West. As for the green one, it seemed to come from the clouds. They seemed to take material form as they tightened over the castle, similar to shiny ribbons.

To his horror, the Castle was then ripped right off of the ground, the stone floors breaking away with it as it was lifted in the hair and above them. He blankly registered something lilac and yellow falling off of the castle as the other man with them (the Warrior, he thinks?) and the Count shrieked.

He sat on the floor, Olivia joining him and hugging him close as the Warrior yelled something incomprehensible. They then felt the machine machine shake. “What’s going on?” He asked the Count, who had slid next to them.

“They magic streams ur giein’ use some problems.” The Warrior answered for him. “Sae hing oan tiiiiIIAAAAAH!” The machine had collided with the red ribbon, making the Craftsman, Olivia and the Count fly out, with only the last one getting caught by the Warrior. He then tried to reach for the other two, but they were already too far away.

And as they fell, the Craftsman could only look as the ribbons carried the castle away. He closed his eyes as he saw it being placed upon the top of the dormant Sulfur Crater, a single thought circling in his head.

What the fuck did I get myself into this time!?

[joelmillerthirstqz]

marlene, ma’am, i am trying to look respectfully and you are making it difficult. 

Ideal

Extrinsic from all my Joel content but hey, the other Miller is just a different type of pretty and could respectfully get it. Canon leaves Firefly-Tommy pretty open, so I'm electing to believe his idealism saw Marlene's idealism and they mutually went oh, no, they're hot.

-----

Tommy hisses as he lies back against the heap of clothing, cradling a sleeve stiff with the dried blood injured arm beneath.

Marlene paces, hands on her hips in her particular way, the way that said she would be more at ease with her hand on her gun.

Tommy laughs, initially a low chuckle that blooms into a lopsided grin.

“Fucking what, Tommy?” Marlene snaps, irritable and on edge from the night they’d had so far.

Tommy gestures infuriatingly at her whole person, like it explains it, smile not fading. Marlene narrows her eyes to a squint, sizing him up like she’s going to shiv him if he so much as giggles.

“This is a bad situation. We are in a bad situation, because it is snowing, this place is fucking freezing, and you’re laughing,” Marlene lists, gesturing to his splayed legs like they’d particularly offended her.

He adopts a serious face.

“Yes ma’am.”

Marlene gives him an inscrutable look, seeming to take each of his features in one at a time before registering his whole expression.

“C’mon. We’ll be able to get out in the morning. Sure as shit no infected busying themselves with all this,” Tommy encourages, always optimistic. Always a calm different than the edge of control Joel seemed to hold. When Tommy wanted to be at ease, he could still summon it in little bursts. Marlene has been noticing this quality, and how readily he shared it, and biting her own lip to stop noticing it.

Suddenly though, his face darkens.

“Jesus, fine,” he grouses, moving his hands like he’s swatting away a fly.

“Okay, listen,” Marlene gets his attention back.

Tommy looks around as if to indicate his lack of choice.

Marlene pinches the bridge of her nose and looks up at the ceiling like she’s stemming a nosebleed.

“I’m ‘bein’ weird’ because I’m remarkably attracted to you and it is distracting me,” she grits out, like she’s reading off a list. Earlier, he’d thought he murmured the “bein’ weird” comment to himself.

Tommy looks blankly at her and scoffs.

“Fuck, no need to go to that kind of fuss, you can just say it’s a Firefly secret without the theater,” he rumbles.

Yeah, Joel caught him looking and gave him a good-humored nudge earlier in the week. Maybe a few times that week. He didn’t want to fuck this up, so he sat on his hands and overcorrected when he’d slip into flirting with her. He’d gotten intense looks in return, but never the laugh he was hoping to elicit, so he shrugged and assumed she wasn’t noticing or wasn’t interested.

“Hey,” Marlene says, soft offense in her voice. “I’d tell you, if it was that. It’s yours to know, too.” She toys with her pendant, the room incredibly tiny to her now.

Tommy’s eyes widen and he gets to his feet, taking the time afforded by the motion to figure out what to say.

He gestures to himself again, lingering on the blood stains on his shirt, poking the small bun his hair was in, the multiple holsters on his legs. He furrows his brows and raises one as if to ask “you sure?”

Marlene fidgets with her coat, rolling her eyes and trying very hard to look at his eyes.

When her sightline clearly goes to his mouth, Tommy closes the distance and kisses her. He’s gentle, seeming to consider the right way to approach it, but his hand on the back of her neck is firm and makes her shiver. Marlene’s hands fly up to his hair, working her fingers in and dismantling the tie carefully holding his shaggy winter-long hair back.

Tommy advances until Marlene is pinned against the table behind her, each drawing back to catch their breath in the wake of their bodies aligning fully.

“The balls on you to start the night stuck in a storm like that, if you were wrong,” Tommy mumbles against her mouth, getting swatted in the chest for it.

“Texas? Shut up,” Marlene says frankly, nipping his lower lip and going for his coat purposefully.

“Yes ma’am,” he replies, shrugging out of it willingly and kissing her with both hands on either side of her face. She’s nearly a foot shorter than him but all animated, electric force, and he wants to rise to meet her.

Marlene presses her tongue into his mouth and he outright moans. Whether it’s just been too long or his crush being consummated was really that good wasn’t something he could say in the moment.

Tommy’s hands traipse over her body, tugging at layers as he goes to get closer as she does the same. He gets enough of a hold on her tongue to suck it, hard, at the same time he gets one hand under her shirt.

A little gasp and a quiet fuck, Tommy and Marlene pulls back, breathing hard and meeting his eyes.

“This isn’t stupid, right?” she asks with sincerity. Tommy looks at her dumbly, flushed across his high cheekbones, spectacularly hard and now very confused.

“I’d uh, prefer it bein’ weird tomorrow over you stayin’ quiet any longer,” he echoes her earlier words and shifts, hands not fully off of her. His pupils are huge, but he clears his throat and steps back respectfully.

“Not gonna go tellin’ anyone, if that’s it,” he adds, hearing himself near-whine.

“I haven’t had a lot of normal, I’m sorry. I really like you,” Marlene is the most open he’s ever seen her, voice low. He could listen to the woman talk for hours, might honestly be enough after a few minutes the way his heart hammered now.

“I really like you. Dunno ‘bout normal, but I’d like to kiss you now and continue doin’ so later,” he replies quietly, pulling closer to her again and palming her jaw.

Marlene fists a hand in his shirt and crushes their mouths together. Tommy lets her lead him a moment before pulling back again. Marlene grunts in frustration at him, thinking they’d gotten everything out of the way.

“Just don’t want to shoot you,” he explains, disarming and laying out weapons on the shelf in what he was realizing now was a stand-alone guest house. Marlene’s quick tension melts into a laugh as he smiles at her, pretty blue eyes sparkling.

Fuck, that’s going to be hard to ignore around the others, she thinks. Then again, he’d passed the difficult to ignore threshold weeks ago when Luce had shoulder-checked her for incautiously staring at all of him as he walked away. Marlene spent the rest of the day thinking about the breadth of his shoulders every time she’d had a moment to collect her thoughts between issuing orders and keeping a frequently hobbled organization alive, to her extreme chagrin.

Tommy eyes her impatiently as she does the same, unclasping a holster replete with a row of shivs and tossing it aside. He quirks a smile, familiar with her usual arms, but still finding it endearing as hell in this new context. Endearing for a woman orchestrating an insurgent group; endearing for a woman whose proud thrust of the chin made his spine stiffen before he realized the full extent of why. He’d not noticed she was a full head shorter than him before, never felt relevant. Until, tonight, he was relieved of the burden to avoid thinking of ways to please them both.

She barely has time to toss it aside before his hands reach her thighs and haul her up onto the table. Marlene smiles bigger than he’s seen, and it’s almost a shame to cover her mouth with his until he feels her.

Marlene strokes the roof of his mouth pointedly and he leans his weight into her to avoid his knees buckling. Tommy kisses her back with just as much need, yanking her sweatshirt’s metal zipper down so hastily it’s slightly warmed as it goes.

Meanwhile, Marlene gets through his shirt’s buttons with no problem, finding him cooperative in shrugging one shoulder and arm free. She pauses carefully when she gets to his injured arm, looking up at him for permission to finish removing it, irrespective of her ankles locked behind his hips already.

Tommy burrows his forehead into her opposite shoulder, kissing along her clavicle and tugging her shirt to expose the top of her back. Marlene efficiently removes the fabric, avoiding too much contact.

“Tommy, I need to wrap this,” she murmurs into his hair.

“Hmm?” he looks up at her like he hadn’t torn himself open while prone on a broken patch of floor enough to need stitches.

“Let me,” she untwines her legs, Tommy almost pouting, shifting his belt to accommodate the loss of friction.

“Here,” she identifies a packaged sponge from a shelf nearby—close enough to sterile—and tears the bloodied end off of Tommy’s shirt. He watches her with consuming focus, eyes on her neat eyebrows, gorgeous lips…not wincing as she tugs the makeshift bandage tight. Without taking his eyes off of hers, this woman that made him think hope was even conceptually in his grasp, he thinks it might hold through the night.

Marlene looks back up at him when she’s done, and Tommy doesn’t bother to inspect her work, kissing her and pushing her right back where they were on the table. She likes watching him move, and more now, loves the feel of it. His stomach is all wonderful cords of muscle between her thighs, and his callused hands stretch and flex over her abdomen, begging their way higher.

He catches both nipples in his index and thumbs and she bites his lower lip in instant reciprocation, fingers at his belt. Tommy pulls her shirt off without patience, bra following once he accepts that there’s no clasp and it has to go over her head. He runs his fingertips down the length of one leg appreciatively. Marlene adores his complete lack of focus—he’s fully with her, taking the chance to feel everything he can as its presented. She wants to do the same to him.

Tommy grunts in irritation when his fingers find the top of her hiking boots, realizing they both still have boots on and they’d have to pull apart again. He kneels and sits back on his heels, pants open, and pulls one boot into his lap, tearing at the laces. Marlene watches him appreciatively, something remarkably sweet about and absolutely unnecessary—he can absolutely just bend her over the table, now—but he finishes quickly.

“C’mere,” she reaches out to him, intending to be polite. She tugs off her boots with practiced ease, dropping them to the floor.

Tommy steps towards her, jerking one boot off with one hand in a practiced separating of his laces, toeing it with his other foot. He repeats it and doesn’t return to her waist, instead snatching at both ankles and pulling her jeans away in one motion before moving between her knees. Marlene inches close to him, first knuckles hooked greedily in his pants and tugging him closer.

He takes to one knee, urging her leg over his shoulder and kissing her thigh before resting his head on it and giving her a pointed look. Marlene nods, sighing into the warm oscillation of his fingers outside her underwear. He sucks her through them, pulling her lips into his mouth and causing her to jump.

“Fuck!” she hisses, tilting her hips and wriggling closer to the sensation. Tommy hooks his thumb inside and draws them to one side, tongue following closely along his path.

He works slowly, appreciatively, pretty blue eyes watching her face as he slips his tongue just past her entrance. Marlene sighs and shakes, dropping her knee over his shoulder. He huffs a laugh through his ministrations and laps at her openly, bringing his fingers up to stroke her, trying just one at first.

“Tommy—” Marlene starts, temporarily distracted by his fingers finding the right spot to press on all of her nerves, “please, please,” she finishes weakly, losing her train of thought.

Tommy rises suddenly, fingers still playing at her, curling inward once he worked them in fully.

“I’m not planning on stoppin’ tonight,” Tommy starts, cut off by Marlene kissing him again, voracious. He was starting to notice how determined she looked before she’d lunge in at him, and it turned up the corners of his mouth to be the target of it.

Fuck it, Tommy thinks, getting his cock free and lining up to her, reciprocating her kisses all the while. He tries to pull back, ever careful and more mindful this far into the apocalypse to not compromise anyone’s ability to dead-sprint. Marlene scratches the nape of his neck as she tugs his hair, anchoring him back and gripping his shaft to guide him in. They moan together, open-mouthed and adjusting to the angle and each other.

Tommy grips her hips and thrusts a little erratically, hilariously close. Marlene holds onto him, the sensation and stretch of him making her mouth fall open with soft sounds in his ear.

“Get on your back, Miller,” Marlene hisses, nipping his ear.

Barely slowing his pace, Tommy looks amused, then comprehending, then stirred up. He pulls out, breathing hard, and does what he’s told. Marlene strips off her remaining layers before making her way over to him, a nest of their clothing slowly accumulating where he leaned back on his hands.

Tommy’s throat goes dry—she’s scarred from things he witnessed. Composure and strength radiates off of her. He sits forward involuntarily, getting kicked gently in the chest for it. Unlike the relatively well-behaved Southern girls in his past, Marlene wasn’t looking to him to lead the whole time. That, and the intensity of trust between them made him like an animal showing its neck to a superior. His back flattens to the ground as Marlene straddles him, wasting no time to tease him.

Tommy arcs until the top of his skull almost touches the floor behind him, the way she rolls her hips and rides him sincerely unprecedented.

“Marlene—” he groans, reaching for her face, wanting her closer, as good as being fucked into the ground feels.

She gives him a warm conspiratorial smile, hands that should be bracing against him actually just taking the opportunity to feel up what she’d suspected was so nice for months. She rolls her head back, chin tipped up and long neck before him. Tommy fans his fingers over her throat, down her sternum, over her abdomen, mouth open with rapt attention.

Marlene cries out, freezing and shivering above him, hips pounding against him every few seconds like it was beyond her control. The way she clenches down on him and rolls her hips combined with her moving above him, sweat beginning to bead—Tommy surges up and captures her mouth.

Once she begins to slacken with the rush of bliss, Tommy slams her down onto him with his hands digging into her ass, hard enough to bruise. It’s less strokes than he’d admit before he urges her of off him and comes with a shout onto his own chest, Marlene’s hand joining his through it. She kisses him through his peak, lamenting that they can’t just come for each other completely tangled up. Tommy leans into her even as she pulls back for a breath, full of need for her.

The chill of their surroundings takes back over as they come down together over minutes, mouths sliding over each others’ lazily, Tommy holding them up, Marlene’s hands in his hair. He trails one hand down to graze her ass, sucking the tip of her tongue as he does. Marlene makes a small surprised sound.

Against her mouth, Tommy murmurs, “I’m completely ready to see what this is about,” smiling up at her with his eyes sparkling as he gives her a lewd squeeze. Marlene silently reaches for his tossed shirt, pulling it around herself to fend off the cold.

She piques an eyebrow with intent, still breathing deeply and reaching to finish getting him undressed as he leans up to her again.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Coldwave Fic Prompt: Len is, very reluctantly, the DC-verse equivalent of the Sorcerer Supreme. Meaning he is a VERY powerful magic-user, who - tends to ignore magic as hard as he can, for the most part. (Based on that GIF set of Len snapping off handcuffs and sarcastically calling it 'magic').

Fic: Magic Trick (ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, Legends, ConstantinePairing: Leonard Snart/Mick Rory

Summary: “Do you wanna see a magic trick?” Len asks.

“Seriously, Snart?” Barry shoots back, clearly annoyed. “We’ve been captured by an army of - and I still can’t believe I’m saying this - super-intelligent ninja human-dinosaur hybrids in the middle of a rescue mission to save Iris and Mick, and you want to show me a magic trick?!”

(in which Leonard Snart may be the Sorcerer Supreme, charged with protecting the world from horrors that would destroy it, but he hasn’t lost his sense of humor)

A/N: A/N: I’m 100% unfamiliar with Dr. Strange or the Sorcerer Supreme mythos, although I once saw the Dr. Strange trailer a few months ago (and I still don’t know what that movie was about). Long story short: do not expect any accurate Sorcerer Supreme canon here.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you wanna see a magic trick?” Len asks.

“Seriously, Snart?” Barry shoots back, clearly annoyed. “We’ve been captured by an army of - and I still can’t believe I’m saying this - super-intelligent ninja human-dinosaur hybrids in the middle of a rescue mission to save Iris and Mick, and you want to show me a magic trick?!”

“Dead serious,” Len assures him, even though he agrees that the entire situation is rather ridiculous. “And they’re not ninja dinosaurs. They’re pirate dinosaurs. They’re acting like pirates.”

“The costuming is clearly more ninja inspired - you know what? No. We’re not having this argument. Not again. Five times was more than enough!” Barry pauses. “Wait, what were we talking about?”

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks, very patiently.

Barry stares at him incredulously, and then that innate sense of humor, that sense of the ridiculous that lets him keep going, that lets him have hope in every situation, takes over. That’s why Len likes him so much.

“You know what,” Barry says, shaking his head. “Sure. Go ahead. Show me a magic trick.”

Len smiles.

He’d hoped Barry would say that.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” the dying man says.

There’s no one else around, so he must be talking to Len; Len, who was hiding in the trash behind the building in the alleyway because his dad would find him otherwise. He’s really well hidden, though, so he doesn’t know how the dying man - and he is dying, badly, his eyes and ears and nose and mouth all bleeding - knows that he’s there.

“I can see your aura,” the man says. “I know you’re there. I know that you’re as hard and cold as ice on the outside, but I can see -” Here he coughs wetly. “- I can see the gold of you on the inside. You’re a good man, deep down.”

Len doesn’t respond.

“It wouldn’t be my first option, you know,” the man says. “Giving this to a stranger. But the man I chose as my apprentice - he became corrupted by it. By the power of it. When we first met, his aura was so pure, like you wouldn’t believe - though I guess that was part of the problem - I know to look to the core, now, beyond the surface -”

He coughs again.

He’s dying.

Len’s mom died. Len knows what it sounds like.

“My apprentice did this to me,” he says. He sounds - not sad, not really. Resigned. “He was convinced to by the Others.”

The way he says Others sounds pretty ominous.

“Before he could finish me off, I locked away everything he had,” the man says. “Cut him off. But he’ll figure out a way to get it back, and then we’re all going to suffer. He’s angry. Always angry, and when he gets back, he’s only going to be more angry. He’s going to hurt people.”

Len swallows. That sounds like his dad. He’d always been angry, shouting and throwing things and grabbing hard enough to hurt, but when he’d come back from prison he’d been so much more angry.

Things hurt so much more now.

If someone who could kill like this man was dying was that angry…

“If I don’t give it to someone, he’ll get it,” the man says. “And people will be hurt. Please.”

Len doesn’t want to, he’s never wanted anything that might make him more of a target, but he can’t let someone like his dad get power. He doesn’t care what type of power this guy’s talking about - whether it’s politics, or Family, or even just a really powerful gun - he just knows that it can’t be allowed.

He climbs out of the trash.

“You’re just a boy,” the man says, sounding disappointed.

Len’s used to being disappointing. He just stands there and lets the guy make up his mind.

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” the guy sighs. “I don’t got long left. Not long enough to take the time to be picky - and you’re gold on the inside. At least, you are now. Gotta hope for the best. You read a lot of fantasy, kid?”

Fantasy?

“No,” Len says honestly. “I don’t really got time to read.”

He has to steal to keep his dad happy, and he’s got to feed and care for Lisa, and he’s got to go to school and do just enough of the homework there that the state doesn’t come asking any more questions than they already do about the boy who’s in the hospital so much that his dad has started refusing to take him even when it really, really hurts.

“Shit,” the man says, rubbing at his face. “Well, I asked for a worthy successor, and the power brought me here, to you, so I guess I’m just going to have to trust it.”

Len has no idea what the man is talking about. Only that the blood is flowing freer now, from his mouth and his eyes and his ears and his nose. If he keeps bleeding like this, he won’t have any left on his insides.

That may, Len thinks warily, be the point of it.

What a terrible way to die.

“At least it’s unexpected,” the man muses, more to himself than to Len. “They won’t know to look for a child. All right. I’ll do it.” He looks at Len. “You’re ready for this?”

No, Len’s not ready. Not at all. But he can’t let men like his dad win. He can’t.

He nods.

“So, kid,” the man says, and he coughs, long and low and deep, and his voice is kinda weird when he continues, “you wanna see a magic trick?”

Len says yes.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks the boy who’d rescued him.

The boy - Mick Rory, the guards said his name was - just grunts.

There was no way he’d known that the other boys had been seduced by the Others to kill Len, lured in by glittering promises that hid the darkness behind; the Others, trapped in their alternate universe or whatever the pocket that kept them far away was, were only able to reach out in little ways, whispers, promises and lies. They wanted Len to die because then his power would leave him and go to the next best person if Len didn’t name a successor while he was alive, and then they might be able to convince someone to open the door for them at last.

That’s what they wanted: to get out of that pocket of darkness that they’re trapped in, to come into the world of light - and then to devour it, piece by piece.

They’d tried the whispers and the promises on Len first, of course. The voices slithering over him at night, kind and gentle, sad and pathetic, old and wise; they offered him fortune and fame, the love of women and men, power beyond his wildest dreams.

They offered him revenge against the man who hurt him.

Len doesn’t say no to them because he’s the one that nameless dying man chose to save the world, like the chosen ones in those fantasy books he checked out in the library afterwards to try to figure everything out. That wasn’t the reason at all.

He says no because he just doesn’t dream that big.

Len doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want more responsibility than he’s already got. He doesn’t want any more of any of it.

But he doesn’t want to give what he’s got away, either.

It’s Len’s power now.

No one else’s.

So what if he doesn’t use it for anything big, saving the world by stopping some undefinable bad guy?

So what if he only uses it for stupid stuff, like making Lisa smile, or using the portal to walk between worlds just to get away before the cops catch him?

Not that it works that way every time, if he wants to keep his power secret from his dad. He has to keep it a secret, because the only reason the Others haven’t been able to get his dad on their side is because his dad just ever can’t believe Len would ever have any power.

That’s why he got caught on that last job. That’s why he’s in juvie, just after nearly getting shivved by Others-inspired kids.

Len hadn’t realized they’d been taken in by the Others at first, either. He’d feared discovery more than he’d feared the kids, so he hadn’t fought back with everything he had - a mistake. He hadn’t realized how serious the murder attempt was until it was very nearly too late.

Mick jumped in and saved him. He didn’t have to - there was nothing in it for him except trouble - but he did it anyway.

Mick’s a good kid.

Len doesn’t care about the rumors that run through juvie, the rumors that say Mick’s a pyro and an arsonist and that he burned his whole family down. He’s pretty sure it’s all true, and he doesn’t care.

Mick saved him when he didn’t have to.

That’s enough for Len.

He’s recovering in the bottom bunk; he’d been paired up with Mick after it all, because the guards didn’t want someone to try to stab him again and Mick at least had helped, not hurt. Len could’ve told them that any of the six who’d attacked him weren’t likely to try again - when the shiv had scraped Len’s side, drawing blood, the Others had come to watch, unable to stop themselves, pulling themselves as close as they could to the world of light, eyes avid and greedy, and the kids had gotten a glimpse of what the Others that’d made such promises to them really looked like.

They weren’t going to fall for those promises again anytime soon. Even if it was only because their sleep would be too full of nightmares for the sweet words of the Others to penetrate.

Len’s not going to say anything, though. He’d rather have Mick.

Mick. Mick’s an interesting question. Len’s been here, recovering, for a few days now, and he knows the Others whispered all sorts of promises to Mick, all in exchange for him just popping down and smothering Len in his sleep - easy for a big boy like Mick, strong and sneaky - Len knows they’re trying it, because Len can hear them, the stupid fucks, he knows what they’re planning and they know that he knows and they don’t even care that he knows because he wouldn’t be able to stop Mick anyway - but it doesn’t work.

Mick rejected them all without even thinking about it twice.

Mick’s a good guy.

Mick might even be safe.

(like the dying man’s apprentice was safe?)

Still, Len has to try. He can’t do this alone anymore.

So he asks, again, “Do you wanna see a magic trick?”

Mick sighs and pushes his head over the railing to look at Len. There’s a strange, puzzled sort of fondness to his expression, like the kid that’s been irritating him these last few days has actually somehow managed to grow on him; Len’s not sure how, because he doesn’t think he’s ever made a good impression on anyone but Lisa, and she’s just a dumb baby and easily tricked.

“Sure, kid,” he says, shaking his head, like he thinks he’s humoring Len. “Show me a magic trick.”

Len raises his hands, cupped together, to Mick, and summons flame for him - the essence of flame, the magic core of it that hides in every fire, and Len cuts through all the crap to produce the purest version of it he can find, a small flame flickering in his hands, safe and limited and, to a worshipper like Mick, everything.

After that, well, they’re more or less inseparable.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks Lisa, ten years old and sobbing, because for all of Len’s powers, he can’t fight his dad. Blood against blood - if every religion says it’s wrong, it’s gotta be wrong, right?

But Lisa’s bleeding from a broken bottle to her arm, and Len’s bleeding from a hell of a lot more than that, and there’s some Family men who are coming upstairs to, quote, “do as you like with ‘em” because their dad has debts to pay and no means to pay them with.

At least he had shame enough to leave before anything happened.

(are you sure you won’t take our offer, an Other hisses in Len’s ear, we could save you - save her - we could hurt him like you’ve been hurt)

Lisa, though, wonderful Lisa, she just sniffs and nods. “Yeah, Lenny,” she says. “Show me a magic trick.”

And he takes her through the portal of worlds, the great old Doors that he imagined from a book series he’d read to Lisa a million times over the last few years, and he takes her to her favorite place - an elderly dragon’s hoard, where he’s collected all the gold he can find and more besides, where he loves it and cares for it but doesn’t mind visitors since he’s too fat to really care about defending it anymore as long as no one takes any away from him - and he lets her sit and laugh and play, and forget everything that’s happened today.

And he tells the dragon, “Watch her”, and the dragon straightens up his massive body, the size of a train, and nods, taking the duty upon its shoulders, and then Len goes back and makes sure there aren’t any Family men to cause problems anymore.

He’s gotten good at covering his tracks when he does this - bullets not created from nothing, but summoned from the guns of an opposing Family; hairs and nails and blood plucked from other crime scenes; no evidence of his own presence there.

Mick meets him outside when it’s all over, bundling an exhausted Len into the back of his car and driving away.

“You gonna keep doing that?” Mick asks, looking at him through the rearview mirror.

“Doing what?”

“Killing Family,” Mick says. “You’re good at it, and it’s a decent thing to be good at doing.”

Len shakes his head. “I don’t want to be a superhero,” he says, and means it. He has enough trouble with the monsters he already faces: the Others trying to fight their way into their world, the Witchhunters who are searching for anyone with a trace of the Gift, the Order of the Path that worships at the feet of the Sorcerer Supreme and is looking for their lost God - and which don’t really feel like taking ‘no’ for an answer when he doesn’t seem inclined to go with them back to their mountain fortress to let himself be worshipped the way they think is proper. And worst of all, out there, distantly, Len knows that He is there, the dying man’s apprentice, the corrupted one, the one who thinks that Len stole his inheritance when Len accepted the mantle of successorship in his place. He’s looking for Len too, and when he finds him… “I just want to be a thief.”

And that is both true and Len’s greatest defense, because no one suspects the guy who’s robbing ATMs of being the Sorcerer tasked with keeping the world safe from other-dimensional creatures.

He’s even been tossed in jail a few times, a sitting target unable to defend himself, and all his enemies walk straight on by. He’s felt them, searching, but they don’t search Iron Heights.

They’re looking for a hero, not a criminal.

“Where’d you leave Lisa?” Mick asks. “With old Snaketooth?”

“She always did like gold,” Len says, vague enough to answer Mick’s question without actually confirming her location in case some shifter’s taken Mick’s face again.

Mick shakes his head. “Of course she does,” he says, fond as ever. He doesn’t stay by Len’s side just for the flame anymore; he knows the dangers and the risks and everything that could go wrong - much of which already have, in one way or another, all but that final confrontation with Him - and he stays by Len’s side anyway.

There’s a ring on Len’s finger, now. A quiet promise, vows sworn while standing together in the heart of a star - a reminder of the real reason Mick stays.

Sometimes Len curses his misfortune. Other times, like when he looks at Mick and his heart feels so full of joy it could burst, he can’t bring himself to.

“Pigs incoming,” Mick says, glancing out the window, frowning. “You got enough juice to make us incorporeal for a bit?”

“Sure,” Len says. It’s one of the easier tricks, actually - just shift everything you want to affect (here, a car and two men) a half-universe to the right, and suddenly you’re as invisible as a ghost and able to walk or drive through walls just the same.

“Great,” Mick says, and grins. “Show me a magic trick, boss.”

Len does.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks the empty air.

Empty, because he’s alone. He doesn’t like to be alone. Being alone means he has time to see all the awful horrors pushing up against the thin magic wall that protects the world from them, and time to see means time to think, and time to think makes him feel like he ought to be doing more to stop them.

Never mind that he’s the longest lived Sorcerer Supreme in over a century, or that the other practitioners of his craft tell him he’s been remarkably successful at repelling the Others and to keep up the good work.

Never mind the crippled old fortuneteller that he has tea and tequila with on every off-month’s second Thursday, that everyone else rejects because of her history of crimes and Len rather likes for the same reason, who tells Len that it’s his ability to be restrained and discreet about fighting that has helped him survive this long.

“Most of 'em, they’re arrogant snots,” old Madame Xanadu spat out in her creaky old voice, the last time they’d spoken. “I’d know better than most -” She’d been an apprentice to one, years ago, and she’d been corrupted, too, all unknowing, but with dreadful consequences. She hadn’t gotten the power, in the end, but she’d broken the hold of the corruption that’d grabbed her. She was resigned to the fact that she didn’t have it and she’d never have it and honestly she didn’t want it anymore: what she’d lost to the corruption had been so much worse than anything she would have gotten out of it. “- and I tell you, the more you use, the more trouble you’re in. Rescuing the world, pah! It’s bad enough to try to keep it intact. Fix, fix, fix, that’s what you ought to do.”

“Sure, Nims,” Len said, fond of her as ever, even though she kicks him under the table every time he calls her that. She likes to grumble that she told him her history to teach him a lesson, not to get a dumb nickname, to which Len liked to respond: why not both? “I’ll be careful.”

“You can never be too careful,” she replied, her eyes mistier than usual, and that’d been his only warning to start stockpiling power, because the dying man’s apprentice had found him at last and was coming to collect his inheritance.

He’d made the worst sort of contracts, with Others and Witchhunters and deranged Path monks and even worse creatures besides, with those that pretended to be gods and those that might not have been pretending, and he’d pulled back everything he was, bursting through the bindings the dying man had put on him, and he’d come after Len.

They’d fought forever and a day.

It was the worst fight Len had ever been in, magic to magic, weapon to weapon, soul to soul.

The apprentice didn’t make stupid assumptions the way some of Len’s other enemies did, didn’t think Len was going to be foolish and heroic and dumb, and he’d thrown everything he had at Len.

And Len? Len had thrown everything he had back.

His love for Mick and Lisa against the apprentice’s love for his master, however twisted that love had become.

The apprentice’s pain against Len’s own, the perception of a master’s betrayal against the slow, dripping realization that Len’s father never loved and never would love him the way fathers ought.

The apprentice threw the captivity of his magic being bound against Len; Len threw back Iron Heights, that yawning pit of despair and blackness and lives cut off by society long before death took them away.

The apprentice summoned monsters.

Len called upon his friends.

That old bastard Constantine was sober, for once, his eyes flashing as he cast spells and incantations with a fluency Len would never be able to achieve; his own enemies were supporting the other side.

Madame Xanadu did what she could to rebalance her books, her blind eyes no impediment as she reached out hand and will to crush anything that skittered and crawled on a plane different from the one they stood in.

Zatanna - Len still has no idea why Zatanna’s there, after that whole awkward one-sided crush and rejection business. He thinks Constantine may have blackmailed her. The reason is immaterial, though: she’s there.

But it hadn’t all just been magic and darkness.

Len has friends well beyond the realm of magic, and he called upon them, too: Mick, his beloved right hand, and Lisa, of course, but others as well. The man with the knives he’d roomed with at Iron Heights, the mother with the dead eyes and the rifle that lived next door, the strangely friendly cannibal he’d met as a child: they all came to fight by his side, and never mind that they didn’t entirely understand what they were fighting.

Old Snaketooth the Dragon - he’d liked Mick’s name so much, he’d taken it on as one of his own, taken it and treasured it with a dragon’s jealous love - roused himself from his long-guarded hoard and came, the size of a train twice over, long and writhing and bellowing flame and poison gas both with equal ease, batting wing and tail, wielding sharp claw and sharper tooth.

But there were more yet to come, more than even Len had realized.

Len’s crews came for him, he who’d treated them fair and cared for them as long as they obeyed his rules, he who had rescued them when they’d gone astray and disciplined them and given them the wealth they desired without the fear of betrayal.

Len’s neighborhood came for him, he who’d protected them from the Families and paid their debts and told their kids with long-suffering grace to go to school despite everything.

Len’s cities came for him.

Tears streamed down Len’s face for the first time in years, when they came forth into the battle, and even the apprentice’s jaw dropped open in surprise.

The Twins did not rouse themselves lightly.

The Gems, they were called by those that loved them, and whether that was their rough-accented city dwellers’ admiration of their finer qualities or a shortened nickname for the sleeping Gemini, no one yet living knows.

They’ve always been there, ever changing but ever constant, growing and shrinking in size but their attraction eternal: a thousand names they’ve gone through, and a thousand more they’ll go through before the end.

Central is the elder, Keystone the younger, and the great Cities of the Midwest Plains are as mighty as their fellows in the East and the West for all that they were less accustomed to battle.

For the first time in a thousand years, they roused themselves, strengthened by the souls of their residents, of the thousands upon thousands of them that melted together by years and close proximity, and once they were roused, they came: the Cities came forth in all their splendor to do battle for their true-born son who’d always loved them best of all.

Len hadn’t even thought to call for them, but still they came.

Every person he’d put love into over his life, each one and everything: they all came.

And so the battle was won, in the end.

The costs were terrible, the casualties great: Mick burned with starfire and left for dead, unconscious in the hospital bed not far away; Lisa angry and distant; the Dragon slain; the magic scattered.

But they survived.

The world survived.

Len buries his head in his hands and wonders if it was worth it.

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” he whispers to himself.

He doesn’t know.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len shouts, gleeful, as he wields his new weapon, a cold gun, the sister of Mick’s heat gun. They’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder again, just the way it ought to be.

“Even your best magic trick won’t stop me from beating you!” the Flash calls back, superhero bravado unable to disguise how much he’s enjoying their combat.

This is fun.

He’s going to have to bring Lisa in, if she can take time off from her duties as the Dragon’s heir. Old Snaketooth had died knowing that his hoard would be cared for by one who loved it as much as he, and he had been well pleased.

Mick laughs in glee and shoots a line of flame down the street that the Flash dances around in a crackle of lightning.

Len smiles at his cities, who are watching their antics with the fond eyes of mothers gazing upon two favored children playing, and he summons a fire hydrant that was actually located a block away a few minutes before (not that anyone will notice but sanitation, and even that not for a few months - the indifference of government at its finest) and cracks it, the water spurting out all over the streets for him to ice just as the Flash goes by, his eyes going wide, his arms starting to pinwheel as his feet lose their grip.

The way the Flash falls on his ass and slides into a nearby wall is enough slapstick to make his cities (and his Mick) laugh in glee.

“Better luck next time, Flash!” Len calls, pulling Mick and their loot away. They had a car prepped for a getaway.

Mick flicks on the radio, which they’ve set to the Flash’s comm channel.

They drive away safe, listening to the Flash’s helpless laughter at his well-earned and rather hilarious defeat. He’s gotten into full-on hiccups by the end of it, his friends in no better state than him, and even Joe West, who tries to be serious, unable to keep from guffawing.

“And you know what the best part is?” Cisco Ramon asks, voice audible over the line even through the static and his giggles. “I have video.”

Mick twists to look at Len in silent plea.

“Okay, fine,” Len says, still grinning and high on adrenaline. “Our next heist can be to go get a copy of that.”

Now that was magic.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?” Len asks, his hands in the guts of the machine, Time Masters all around him.

Mick is gone away safe, Sara hoisting him onto her back and sealing her promise to keep Mick safe with a kiss for good luck.

Len doesn’t know if even his magic can survive the destruction of the Oculus, but he knows this: the Oculus has to go.

It’s twisting time, hurting it, and each twist tears through that fragile boundary that protects the world just a little bit more.

The Others are the gods here, their dreadful power come too close for human sanity to prevail; Len can see their madness shining in the eyes of the leaders of the Time Masters. He wonders what promises they made to tear these false monks from the path they swore to tread.

He wonders what promises could ever be worth the terrible damage these men have wrought upon themselves and others in the service of the Others.

He doesn’t, at this moment, much care, though.

They tore Mick from his side and tormented him; Len returned to him his sanity and his sense of self, but the scars in his mind remain, just as the scars of starfire burns remain on his shoulders despite Len restoring his mobility as best he could. It doesn’t matter: they made Mick suffer.

The Time Masters have destroyed so much, killed so many, and yet Len is not too proud to say that those many deaths meant less to him than that injuries they did to the one he loves.

He knows he may not survive this, this final explosion, this final battle. Before he made this choice, before he came to this crossroads, he stood with his hands held high and cast the name “Lisa” in the air, naming her his successor should he die - she deserves it more than anyone else, born and raised in the safety of his power and the risk of his love. The Dragon’s heir knows the risk of what he does and will take on the duty that he has borne so long; she does not want it, no, but she will take it, and she will shine like a starburst of gold with it.

He hopes Mick forgives him for dying.

“You bastard,” one of the Time Master shouts, the only reply to Len’s question.

It’s okay.

Len wasn’t really expecting an answer.

He lets the budding explosion he’s been growing between his fingers go.

—————————————————————————————————

“Do you want to see a magic trick?”

Len opens his eyes.

“Thought I was the one who was supposed to say that now,” he grumbles.

He recognizes the man who stands before him, even without the bleeding eyes and ears and mouth, even though it’s been near on forty years since he last saw him.

He never did get the man’s name.

“Old habits die hard,” the man says with a shrug.

He’s not alone. There’s a figure behind him, massive and mammoth and serpentine -

“Snaketooth?!” Len exclaims. “What’re you doing here?”

The man before him chokes. “You named one of the Great Wurms Snaketooth?!” he demands.

“No,” Len says, rolling his eyes. “My husband did. Obviously.”

“You have a -” the man pauses, then shakes his head ruefully. “On second thought, who am I to criticize? You’ve lasted so long and done so much; perhaps it was best, then, that you were never taught the old ways.”

Len’s gotten some idea of that already from Madam Xanadu, all about how he was supposed to forsake all friendships and romances for “their own good”, as if they’d be any less of a target if he loved them from a distance.

Letting a disaffected blinded corrupted former student be one of Len’s teachers would definitely not have been this man’s preference if he’d lived, but hey - it worked out, didn’t it?

“Am I dead?” Len asks. He thinks it’s a reasonable question, given that the two in front of him are definitely dead.

Old Snaketooth laughs, and the world shakes when he does - a Great Wurm, one of the pillars of the rotten apple core of the world; he was so much more powerful than Len, young and bumbling, had ever known he was.

“That,” he lisps through his big front fangs, “is the magic trick.”

—————————————————————————————————

Len’s pretty happy, all told. He’s gathered up all the most powerful of the Flash’s villains (speedsters not invited) into the Rogues and disciplined them to follow his rules - no killing, no going after friends or family of the Flash, and keep your eyes on the prize; his cities rested safer, now, and were supplied with endless entertainment as they fought and helped the Flash in equal measure.

He’s gotten Mick back from the Waverider, and Lisa from her hoard (she’s courting Cisco and some girl name Cynthia, which involves being around a lot), and even Barry’s happy to see him.

So, yeah.

A minor pirate-maybe-ninja invasion aside, Len’s life is looking good.

“Well?” Barry says challengingly, smile curving his lips. “You gonna show me a magic trick or what?”

Len’s smile widens.

“Just you wait,” he tells Barry. “I’m going to blow your mind.”

And then he shows him a magic trick.

Best one he knows.

[birbwrites]

Title: Locked In. Pairing: Leonard Snart x Female!Reader. Words: 1,089. Rating: T.

“Get us out of here!” You hissed at Kendra and Ray, who were looking at you through the glass as you rubbed your arms up and down hoping to gain some friction to warm yourself up.

“Sorry guys, you heard Gideon. The doors aren’t going to open until the haul breach is sealed.” Kendra murmured, her voice coming out muffled through the door. You paced back and forth in front of the door before groaning and walking over to sit against one of the generators in the room. You watch as Snart strode over and sat down next to you.

“This must be like a day at the beach for you.” You joked tilting your head to look at Leonard. “If I had to pick a way to die, freezing wouldn’t be worst.” He shook his head slightly. “Do you fear dying?” He asked suddenly, turning his head to gaze at you.

“Honestly? Not really. Death has always found a way to wrap itself around my life. First my father, the only person that ever cared about me and then someone I once considered a sister, were both taken away from me. Then I almost died during a heist that went sour.” Leonard looked down staring at the floor as you explained to him why you didn’t fear death. “What about you?”

“Closest I ever came to dying was uh… the day I met Mick.” He said. You snorted lightly, shivering slightly as you huddled closer into yourself. Today was a bad day to wear a simple white t-shirt. “Why does that not surprise me?” You asked rhetorically, resting your head on your elbow that was supported on your knee, gazing intently at Leonard.

“I wasn’t like that.” He said quickly shaking his head, smiling a bit at the memory. “It was my first day in juvie. I was 14, and the smallest kid in there by far. Some of the older kids wanted to make sure I knew it. So they jumped me. I fought back, but one of them had a shiv and I figured that was it until Mick stepped in. And they didn’t mess with me after that. He’s been standing up for me ever since.” He finished, returning your gaze.

You hummed in acknowledgment shivering harshly. For a moment, Leonard stared at you before shuffling around to take off his jacket. “What are you doing?” You questioned him, carefully watching his every move. “I’m giving you my jacket. Watching you shiver is annoying.” He sassed.

“No! Absolutely not! You’re going to freeze.” You responded, hugging yourself even tighter. “I’ll manage. Plus we’re already freezing so what difference would it make which one of us wears the jacket.” Leonard reasoned.

You contemplated his argument, opening and closing your mouth, no comeback coming to mind. Suddenly a devilish idea popped into his mind as he smirked. You narrowed your eyes, warily looking at Leonard. “What.” You stated.

“I’ve got a solution to our problem.” Answered Leonard with a drawl in his voice. He opened his thin coat and welcomed you into his semi-warm embrace.

You ended up sitting on his lap, pressed firmly against Leonard, trying to fight the cold. As another wave of chillness rolled down your spine, you huddled closer to him. You could feel his grip around you tighten as you tried to get even closer, the cold freezing you to your core.

You look up to see Leonard already staring at you, a look on his face that probably mirrored your own. You tilted your head slightly and licked your lips, teasing him. Then he slowly leaned in. Your breath hitched in your throat, and for a moment your eyes roamed his face, thinking about the pros and cons and what would happened if this kiss would ensue. But once you caught his gaze again, all that resolve went to hell. 

As he gets closer, your hands reach up and gently cup his face, bringing it down to yours as your lips connect in a sweet kiss. The kiss was softer than you had anticipated, the slow pace and gentle motion making you stomach turn in excitement. Once you pulled away you smiled slight lightly and hummed.

“What are you smiling about?” Snart grumbled, trying to move away from you, but your body heat kept him close. You moved you hands away from his face and onto his shoulders. “I didn’t think Leonard Snart, a notorious criminal, could kiss so gently.” You joked, leaning your head on his chest. His face turned from on of confusion to one of mild annoyance.

“I take what I want, whenever I want and I wanted you, so I took you.” He mumbled, beginning to shuffle away again. He didn’t get far before you raised your head from his shoulder and pulled him into another kiss. This one was a little more hungry and fiercely passionate.

As the kiss became more heated, the two of you warmed up quite nicely. This kiss turned into a hot make out session as opposed to the gentle kiss you shared moments ago.

You pulled away once again, panting harshly to try and regain your breath. The two of you stare at each other for a while, Leonard leaning back in to kiss you again before you put a finger against his lips.

“Did you think I’d let you ‘take what you want, when you want’ so easily?” You smirked, quoting his words. “If you want another kiss Leonard, you’re either gonna have to work for it or do what you do best and steal it.” You whisper before you rest your head against his shoulders once more. He grunted in annoyance, but complied anyways, holding you close. 

Bonus: After the events that had happened today, you found yourself unable to sleep. Wandering the Waverider, you turn to go down another hallway, but the moment you rounded the corner, you were pushed against the wall, a pair of lips smashing against yours as you let out a sound of surprise.

The moment you see the familiar stoic face of the kleptomaniac, you kiss back with the same amount of severity and lust as your arms reached up to wrap around his shoulders and pull him closer.

“Stole it.” He winked at you, a cocky smirk gracing his face, before walking away. You let out a breath as he walked around the corner, a small smile growing on your face as you lightly touched your mouth, the sensation of his lips, lingering.

Alright! Here’s my first attempt at writing a Leonard Snart fanfic! I hope I portrayed his character correctly… Reblogs and like are appreciated, thanks for reading! Sorry if you find any typos!

[sl-walker]

Blackbirds: Year One: Negotiator

The couch was military blue-gray and not particularly long, sitting across from a holo display in the tiny area that one might call a living room, if they were feeling generous.  On the other side of it was the door to his private 'fresher and a very small kitchenette.  On this side of it was the reason why Obi-Wan Kenobi did not turn down the larger quarters afforded to a general: An actual bed, rather than a bunk, with a decent mattress and pillows, and with standard issue bedding in addition to a couple of personal blankets folded at the foot of it.  It even had netting that could be raised that would prevent the sleeper(s) from being knocked onto the floor in the event of an attack.

It was a very comfortable bed.

The reason Obi-Wan was contemplating the couch, however, was because he was pretty sure he was going to be sleeping on it for the forseeable future.

Maul was furious with him.  Not Sith Lord furious, but how dare you furious.

Standing there with arms crossed furious.

I might never let you come back to bed furious.

It didn't honestly matter that Maul had his own assigned quarters on the Negotiator.  As far as Obi-Wan was concerned, home was together and it would never occur to him to have it otherwise.  They hadn't even really discussed it, it was a given; just because he came in through the door and Maul came in through the access hatch didn't make it any less theirs.  They slept in the same bed, they edged past one another in the 'fresher while half-asleep to brush their teeth, they both kept the place tidy and made sure the tea was stocked in the cupboard.

Hell's teeth, they even co-mingled underwear.

"All I'm asking," Obi-Wan said, gentle, "is that you give it a fair shot."

"It's a horrible idea, Kenobi.  I'm not--"  Maul gestured sharply, frustrated. "--leadership material.  I don't even work well with others, I don't know what makes you think I could lead them."

"Intuition, mostly.  But I do have plenty of tactical reasons."

"So you've said."

"I'll be glad to go over them again with you."  Obi-Wan edged a little closer, walking the very fine line there sometimes was between being soothing and being unwittingly patronizing. "The backup alone makes this worthwhile.  But it also widens your mission parameters considerably.  They aren't ARCs, but all of them have good notes for independent thought and decision making, too."

"I don't know the first thing about leading troops.  The closest I've ever come was hiring a mercenary force at Orsis and leading a mock raid at the academy," Maul pointed out, still glaring at him.

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows, imploring. "Given the black ops angle, that's a good foundation."

This wasn't their first argument about it.  The first argument was on the hangar deck, in front of the Blackbirds' newly minted sergeant, Shiv.  Obi-Wan had made a strategic decision not to warn Maul he was about to be given his own squad, mostly because he had wanted to delay sleeping on the couch for as long as possible.  He also hoped that it would be a case where begging forgiveness would ultimately be easier than asking permission would have been.

"I watched you teach Cody some truly diabolical methods for rigging relays and explosives," Obi-Wan said, inching closer still.  "I also caught you teaching some hand-to-hand to those new transfers, remember?  You're not as ill-equipped for this as you think you are."

He could see the wavering resolve; Maul certainly didn't quit glowering, and his posture remained just as closed off, but there was that little flicker of something on his face that suggested he wasn't stone-cold set against the idea.

Frankly, if he really and truly decided not to accept this position, there was no amount of persuasion in the galaxy that would change that.

"Two months," Obi-Wan said, pressing his advantage while he had it.  "Give it two months.  Some training exercises, then missions if they come up.  If you still don't want to do this at the end of seventy days, then that's it; I'll turn the Blackbirds over to someone else."

Maul wrinkled his nose up, the mildest form he had of a snarl, but he didn't say no, either.  He also didn't push Obi-Wan backwards, when Obi-Wan made to creep into his space, which boded well.

Not only for the Blackbirds, but for Obi-Wan's back if he was spared the couch.

"Why name them Blackbirds?" Maul finally asked, which was about as close as Obi-Wan was going to get to a surrender.  And even that was a conditional surrender, he knew.

"Oh.  Well, once long ago," Obi-Wan answered, grin spreading as Maul gave him a flat look for his opening, "my master and I were visiting a world in the Outer Rim and while we were there, I saw these birds flit across the fields of grain, chasing insects.  They were small, but fleet and graceful; I found out later that they were also quite good hunters, eating half their body weight per night.

"But even while they did that, they landed so lightly that they didn't even bend the stalks of grain."  Obi-Wan shrugged, close enough now to duck his head and rub the bridge of his nose against the line of Maul's jaw, and smile to himself when Maul finally uncrossed his arms and rested his hands light on Obi-Wan's hips.  "They're technically called Antarian Red-Barred Blackbirds, but that's a rather cumbersome name for a squad, so Blackbirds it is."

Maul made a vague, noncommittal noise, but then huffed out a quiet sigh. "Two months.  And I'll hear no more about it, if I decide that's all."

"Two months," Obi-Wan confirmed, drawing back enough to capture one of those hands that rested on his hips.

He was still grinning when he kissed the red bars on the backs of Maul's otherwise black fingers, and he didn't stop grinning until he fell asleep.

Particularly because he did so in his own bed.