#i know there are other versions where he also arrests himself by putting handcuffs on and i think it's a really great detail

[lenievi]

Les Misérables (2000)

[firetrucks-fastcars]

Indulgence

Summary: Carlos indulges one of TK's kinks. It turns out really well for them

Inspired by Ronen's tweet about Carlos putting TK in handcuffs

Rating: Explicit, read at your own risk

(seriously this is 2k words of filth)

Cross posted on ao3 here

Carlos Reyes was of the opinion that everything TK did was hot. TK looked hot fighting fires, but he also looked hot tying his damn shoes. It didn’t even matter what he wore. Carlos swore he could walk around wearing a trash bag and still make it work. 

He loved every version of TK but he was particularly partial to dressed up TK. There was something about his boyfriend in a suit that made his knees go weak. 

“You look so good,” Carlos praised as TK met him in the living room, reaching out to straighten his tie. Judd and Grace were hosting a small party at their house in celebration of their tenth wedding anniversary. They’d invited the entire crew, plus Carlos and Judd and Grace’s families. Grace had insisted that they all dress up, which led to suited up TK and drooling Carlos.

“Glad you like it,” TK leaned into his arms, leaning his chin on his chest. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Seriously babe, looking that good should be illegal.”

“Yeah? You gonna arrest me, officer?” TK nipped at his neck playfully.

“I don’t know,” Carlos flipped them around so that TK’s back was to his chest and he was gripping his wrists. “Is that something you’re into?”

TK made a noise in the back of his throat that he didn’t know he was capable of making and his body went limp, leaning back heavily against Carlos.

“Woah,” Carlos gently turned TK back to face him and cupped his cheeks. “Come back to me space cadet.”

TK’s pupils were blown and it took him a minute to refocus on Carlos.

“Sorry. I uh- I don’t know what happened.”

He tried to pull away but Carlos stopped him.

“Hey. It’s okay baby. Look we don’t have a lot of time,” Carlos glanced at the clock. “But I need you to answer me honestly. Is that something you’re seriously into? Is it something you want to try?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Carlos ran his hands up and down TK’s arms soothingly. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. We don’t have time to talk about this as much as we need to. So we’re gonna go to Judd and Grace’s party, and we’re gonna keep our hands to ourselves,” that bit was spoken as a warning. “Then when we get home we’re gonna have a real discussion about this and then we’ll decide together if it’s something we want to try. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good,” Carlos kissed TK”s temple. “Do you need a minute or are you good?”

“I’m good.”

“Okay, let’s get going before we’re late.”

Carlos kept one hand on TK’s thigh as he drove, partially as a grounding point for TK’s still wandering mind and partially as a promise of what was to come.

TK managed to control himself pretty well, at least better than Carlos thought he would. TK was clingy and touchy at the best of times, but especially when they were planning something -sexy-. A few times Carlos had had to pull TK’s hand away when in wandered too far up his leg and give his boyfriend a warning look. Most of the time that look could put him in his place, but sometimes TK liked to test his patience just to see how far he could go. 

After he removed TK’s hand for the fourth time in the middle of dinner he pushed his chair back and stood, “I’m gonna go get another drink.”

He discreetly motioned for TK to follow him and he did, not offering an explanation to everyone else at the table. 

Carlos walked in from the outside patio, going far enough into the house that it looked like he was headed for the kitchen, but out of the way where no one could see them.

He pushed TK against the wall, boxing him in with his arms. 

“Hi,” TK whispered.

“Hi. Baby, what did I tell you before we left?”

“Hands to myself.”

“You’re not doing a great job of that huh?”

“No.”

“You’re trying to get my attention aren’t you?”

TK nodded, pushing closer to get his arms around Carlos.

He returned the hug, rubbing up and down TK’s back.

“I know. I got you keyed up on accident before we came. So here’s my deal for you. If you can behave for the rest of the party, I’ll give you a treat when we get home. That sound good?”

TK nodded against his chest and Carlos shook his head, “Words TK.”

“Yes.”

“Okay good. Take a breath. Calm down.”

TK pulled away and leaned back against the wall, taking deep breaths.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize babe. It’s my fault too. We shouldn’t be here much longer. Just another hour, that’s all I’m asking”

“I can do it.”

“I know you can. Okay, let’s get drinks and get back out there before they come looking for us.”

TK nodded his agreement and they retrieved a glass of water for both of them along with a second glass of wine for Grace before rejoining the party. 

True to his word, they were only there for another hour before they began making their rounds and saying goodbye, telling anyone who asked that Carlos had a shift the next day and headed to the car.

TK was even more jittery on the way home and Carlos had barely put the car in park before TK was getting out and heading to the front door, fumbling with his keys. 

Carlos laughed at his eagerness and followed him, taking the keys from his hands, flipping it the right way around, and unlocking the door. 

“I was good right?”

“Of course you were. You want your prize?”

“Yes please.”

“Okay. Let’s go to the bedroom.”

Carlos led him up to their room and shut the door behind him. He began kissing up and down TK’s neck as he pushed his jacket off his shoulders and worked on unbuttoning his shirt.

“What’s my prize?”

“What’s your favorite thing in the world?”

“You?”

Carlos laughed, “Nice try. Besides that?”

“Uhh, I don’t know. I’m kinda blanking right now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Carlos finished with his upper body and dropped to his knees, getting to work on TK’s pants. “I know you’re gonna love it.”

When TK was fully naked, he climbed on the bed while Carlos undressed.

“Lay on your belly,” he instructed as he climbed on the bed behind him.

He tapped the outside of his thigh and TK’s hips went up on instinct. Carlos spent a few minutes running his hands over the smooth skin of TK’s thighs, kissing and biting at his cheeks.

“Carlos,” he whined.

“What is it, baby?”

TK whined petulantly again, pushing his hips back.

“Do you want me to get on with it?”

“Yes.”

“You should have said something.”

Carlos spread TK’s cheeks with his hands then got to work. 

It took him less than five minutes to have TK moaning and shaking. 

“Carlos please.”

“Please what baby? You’ll get what you want if you can tell me.”

“I wanna cum.”

“Go ahead, baby.”

Like his body had been waiting for the command, no sooner than the words had left his mouth, TK was coming.

TK collapsed face-first on the bed and Carlos rolled him over gently, away from the dirty spot on the sheets. While TK was still out of it, he grabbed a cloth from the bathroom, soaking it in cool water, and used it to clean him off. 

TK whined and reached for him, pulling him down to cuddle with him. They dozed on and off for almost an hour before Carlos woke TK up to drink water and eat something. When he was more awake they changed the sheets then collapsed back into bed together.

“Pretty damn good prize,” TK complimented from his spot on Carlos’ chest.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“You didn’t get off.”

“I don’t need to,” Carlos kissed his head. “It was supposed to be about you.”

“Do you wanna talk now?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Okay go for it.”

“Do you really want me to use my cuffs on you?” “Yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

“I think it would be hot. You know I like it when you’re in control and I guess this is an extension of that. You’re completely in control of me. You’re in control of how much I can move,  if I can touch you. I like that.”

Carlos nodded thoughtfully, “Okay, but I have some conditions.”

“Okay.”

“Only one hand for now. Let’s just try it out and if you hate it it’s easier to get you out fast. If we both enjoy it we can work up to both hands.”

“I can live with that. Anything else?”

“No actual sex.”

“What?”

“Like I said I want to be able to get to you quickly if you don’t like it and I don’t want to hurt you pulling out too fast or something like that.”

“Okay, I guess that makes sense. Anything else?”

“No, I think that’s it. Actually, one more thing, do you want to plan out when we do it, or do you want to be surprised?”

“Surprise me.”

TK hoped that when he told Carlos to surprise him, he wouldn’t be waiting long. Luckily, he wasn’t.

Almost two weeks later he came home from work to find the house seemingly empty and a pair of keys on the coffee table next to a note instructing him to get undressed and come upstairs. 

He left his clothes folded neatly on the couch and proceeded to their bedroom clutching the keys.

Carlos was waiting for him on the bed, one side of the handcuffs already locked into place on the bed.

He pulled him in for a kiss, then gently maneuvered him onto the bed.

“Right arm.”

TK lifted his right arm and Carlos kissed his palm before putting his wrist into the cuff.

“Color?” he asked.

“Green.”

Carlos clicked it into place and TK gave it an experimental tug. It wasn’t tight enough to hurt, but if he pulled hard enough the metal bit into his skin.

“That feel okay?”

“Green,” TK answered again.

Carlos gave him another kiss on the lips before slowly trailing kisses down his neck and chest.

TK wasn’t sure when he had gotten fully hard, but his body was certainly into what was happening. 

Carlos took him in hand, giving him a few gentle strokes before taking the head into his mouth. He stroked the base with a tight grip as he sucked lightly on the first few inches of his cock, flicking his tongue the way TK liked.

“Shit,” TK’s left hand threaded into Carlos’ hair but Carlos pulled off, pushing his hand down on the bed.

“Keep your hand down.”

TK whimpered but didn’t give him any other sign that he was uncomfortable so he resumed what he was doing. 

He switched it up after a few minutes, taking him all the way down, which made TK jerk, handcuffs rattling uselessly against the bed frame.

Carlos hadn’t realized what a turn on it was for him. He knew he liked being dominant and in control, but he hadn’t realized he’d be into rendering TK completely submissive. This was an interesting development for both of them. 

He knew the signs that TK was getting close, his breathing had picked up and he was whining more than moaning at that point, so he decided to speed things up.

He pulled himself off of TK’s cock and moved so that he was hovering over him, one hand supporting his body, the other reaching between them to take both of their dicks in hand. 

Precum and spit made it easier as he jerked them off at a brutal pace, trying to catch up to TK.

TK turned his head to bite at Carlos’ bicep, knowing it would leave a mark. 

“I’m close,” he moaned against the skin of his arm.

“Me too baby. Whenever you’re ready.”

A few more strokes of his hand had TK spilling between them, Carlos following soon after.

Carlos gently lowered himself down on top of TK. They laid there for a few minutes, him rubbing TK’s side and TK’s hand in his hair until his brain cells came back online.

He rolled over and grabbed the keys from the nightstand. He unlocked TK and kissed the faint red mark on his skin, rubbing to make sure the circulation to his hand hadn’t been cut off.

He sat TK up and encouraged him to drink some water while he got them both cleaned up. When he came back, he downed his own bottle of water and they split a power bar between them as they curled up under a blanket. 

“Thoughts?” Carlos asked, stroking his hands through the sweaty mess of TK’s hair.

“So fucking good.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“So that’s something you want to try again?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Good. Me too.”

TK slumped against him, leaning up to kiss his jaw.

“You’re amazing. Thank you for indulging my weird kinks.”

“If they all turn out like that, I’ll indulge whatever you want.”

[afandomroom]

Character File: Sage Brooks

Note- This is the updated version of Sage’s initial “Fact File”

Warning- Brief mentions of parent death, death, abandonment, and bullying. Nothing descriptive or angsty, this isn’t a story just a fact file, but I’m adding warnings anyway. Also uh…I know parts of her story might not be...totally believable or even sorta stretched? But trust me when I say this is much better than her original story.

Also also, it's very very long. So..be prepared. Wish there was a way to sum this all up.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Full Name- Sage Celia Brooks Birthday- August 15th, 2002/1999 Age: Canon: 18 - 21 Future: 26 - 29 Hometown- Eyton, Northern Ninjago 

(Blood) Family- Aster Brooks (father; deceased), Lily Brooks (mother; deceased)

(Found) Family- Asher Woodman (older brother figure), Marion Nettle (younger brother figure)

(Future) Family- Willow Woodman (Niece), Cedar Woodman (Niece), Katlyn Woodman (Sister in law)

Hair- Black, falls to the center of her back, usually pulled into a braid of some form. Eyes- Silver Height- 5”3’ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sage grew up in a small Northern village by the name of Eyton, a traditional, old fashioned place, where the main income was fish and river crustaceans/mussels. 

Sage’s parents moved to Eyton a year before Sage was born, taking an old, partially abandoned house as their own and fixing it to their liking. Aster took a job on the fishing boats, and hunted in the nearby forests both to bring meat home and bring in extra cash. Lily opened a baking business, and sold flowers during festivals. 

While there wasn’t any proof of the matter, people of Eyton whispered about how Aster looked suspiciously similar to a man who’d accompanied a gang that’d caused some trouble a few years prior, until a warrior had chased them off. 

Again, without proof they couldn’t hold a trial or even attempt to kick him and his slowly growing family out, but that didn’t stop the villagers from turning up their noses and even encouraging their kids to stay away from Sage and her parents. 

Despite her social isolation, Sage was a very sweet child, who always tried to be nice to her classmates despite feeling that they hated her. She wasn’t blind to the way adults acted whenever she walked through town with her father.

When she was seven years old, one of the town’s fishermen was found dead on shore, an arrow sticking out from his skull. Aster was the only notable archer in town, and it was noted that he’d had an argument with the man a few nights prior. Given his possible prior gang affiliations, he was placed under house arrest until a proper trial could be put together. 

The trial would be put off when an illness, deadly to adults (when left untreated) but nonlethal for children under seventeen, swept through the village. Lily caught said illness, and despite Aster’s attempts to take care of her, refusal from the village to treat her and inevitably Aster himself led to both of their deaths. 

After burying both her parents within the same week, Sage was kicked from the village after a mostly unanimous decision. 

For two years Sage wandered about alone, until she came to a village with a stone wolf statue in the center. 

On her third day there, she was cornered by a group of town kids, who taunted her and pushed her around until another street kid, a boy with white hair and blue eyes, stepped in and fought of the bullies. 

He only spent a few seconds checking to make sure Sage was ok, before turning to walk off by himself, determined to remain alone. 

Within that same week, a skeleton horde attacked the village. Sage was quick to find an elevated porch to hide under, hoping she could wait out the raid. 

This was when she spotted the white haired boy running, assumedly from the skeletons. Thinking quickly, she grabbed him and dragged him under the porch before he could be spotted. 

After what felt like hours of awkward silence between them, the boy introduced himself as Asher and the two ended up spending the night under the porch. They decided to stick together afterwards, Asher stating that they’d be partners, looking out for each other to survive. 

Sage would grow to care very much for Asher (platonically and soon in a familial way), and while Asher felt the same, he struggled to come to terms with caring for someone other than himself for a long time. 

When Sage was eleven, Asher managed to…find a job. A thief named Ronin offered to hire them for help on a job. Despite Sage feeling the job betrayed her morals, she didn’t was Asher to do the job alone, and so, she agreed to join. 

And this was the beginning of Sage’s long life of crime. As they got older, their names were spread around more and more, and soon a steady enough flow of money began to come in. 

As time went on, certain events started to change Sage’s overall demeanor and personality. At the beginning of her teenage years, anxiety and general depression ran rampant. By sixteen, an apathy started to overtake her. She started losing touch with the caring, over all happy girl she’d once been. 

During the SOG takeover, Sage became a target for UV’s wanted list after shooting some of the gang members. (Reason has yet to be determined). She caught the attention of Mr.E while running over the rooftops, and miraculously escaped with few injuries.

Sometime, early on in the takeover itself, Sage was traveling across the rooftops when she found a boy cornered by SOG members. She didn’t hesitate to shoot the gang members in the head with her bow, only realizing later that there may have been a more merciful way to deal with them. 

After learning that the boy didn’t have a place to go, she brought him with her to the apartment she shared with Asher at the time. He would introduce himself as Marion. 

Something about the rescue inspired her, and from there she would do her best to save other targets of the SOG for the remainder of the takeover. 

This was the start of a change in Sage, one that would reconnect her with herself. She started caring more, smiling again, thinking of different ways out of situations than just...shooting first. She felt severe guilt, but she also felt a form of freedom. She realigned her morals. 

Sage would do her best in the years that followed to provide Marion with a better life than her own, and would become a main supporter in his journey to master his element and become one of Ninjago’s protectors. 

Three years later, Sage ended hiding a young man with a green streak of hair from a team of muggers. Deciding to take a risk, she invited the strange man to their home. She wouldn’t let him know that she recognized him as the Morro until a week or so later. 

While Morro never joined in the thieving business, he did freelance with lifting and loading jobs to pull his weight. He’d also become Marion’s mentor later on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the future- Eventually, Sage would leave the crime life. The guilt of her actions and belief that her parents would be sorely disappointed in the way she’d led her life drove her to quit. 

She would never turn herself in, instead running a branch tea shop with a close friend, volunteering and donating when and where she can as an attempt to give back. 

She’d continue to be a supportive and loving figure in her brothers’ lives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Season by Season:

- Season 1- Sage meets Asher Sage and Asher were in a village that was attacked by the Skeleton Horde She was in Jamanakai with Asher when Lloyd first attempted to raid the place for candy. She was going to offer to help him snag some candy, but got scared off when the ninja arrived. 

- Season 2- Sage and Asher continue their partnership, their loyalty and trust has grown quite a bit.

- Season 3- Sage and Asher begin their lives in crime.

One of the jobs Ronin hired them for was keeping an eye out while he grabbed Zane.

- Season 4- They were in one of the villages attacked by Chen’s cultists. 

- Season 5- Asher and Sage officially refer to each other as siblings.

They were in Styx when the ninja attempted to steal from Ronin. Sage saw them leaping across the roofs.

- Season 6- With the ninja’s rise in fame, stealing becomes both harder and easier. On one hand, they’re too busy to come after them. On the other, cops were alerting the Ninja to every crime. Sage and Asher end up laying low.

- Season 7- When Borg disappears, Sage and Asher are given the job of stealing his tech.

- Season 8- Sage and Asher are offered a job by Harumi, but they ultimately turn it down. 

- Season 9 – Sage is wanted by the SOG, saves Marion, and begins fighting against the SOG. 

- Season 10- Sage, Asher, and Marion hide in an underground bunker during the oni attack. This is when they meet Jerome Rune and Calvin Rune. 

Season 11- Sage, Asher, and Marion were not in the city during Aspheera’s attack. Rather, they were trying to remove Marion’s vengestone cuffs. They spent the rest of the season try to help Marion with his abilities. 

- Season 12- The minute Sage hears about the video game linked disappearances, she drags the boys away from the city and to a rural village. Girl isn’t taking any chances. 

Later that year, Sage meets Morro

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Facts: - Her father taught her the archery basics; she chose to learn how to shoot and uses a bow as her primary weapon because of her father’s prowess with the weapon. - She taught Marion and Asher’s daughters how to use a bow. - Has callused fingers from archery. - Can throw knives like a boss. - She does know a few things about fighting, but it’s not her strong suit and she prefers long range and dodging to melee and hand to hand combat. - Her favorite tea is Passion flower, and her favorite food is puffy pot stickers(or just pot stickers in general) - She has a kill count of 27, and is very closed off when asked about it. - She can pick locks relatively well, including handcuff locks and jail cell locks. - Like Asher, she is notorious for breaking out of holding cells and police custody. - Every year since she was 14, she visits Eyton to update her parents on her life and apologize for the life she is living. - Learned to drive a car and ride a motorcycle at 15. A fellow thief for hire taught Asher and Sage. - Built/repurposed her motorcycle, Asher’s motorcycle, and their pickup by herself. - Her motorcycle is her baby and if you break it she will break you. - Impulse drives her motorcycle when incredibly stressed. - Taught herself mechanics and medical stuff - Got all of her education from libraries, everything she knows about math, history, etc. is self taught - She was 17 when she got her first tattoos. - In total she has four tattoos. A raven carrying a hyacinth on her back, vines around her right arm, an ace flag yin yang on her left, and Edelweiss around a knife in a currently undetermined location. - Each tattoo has some varying form of significance. - She picked up roof running to help with jobs, it became a hobby later on - Tried to teach herself guitar, but they moved around too much for her to focus on it. - Family is everything to her. - A sign that you have her full trust you is that she becomes willing to be more...physical around you. Nudging your arm, playful punches and shoves, hugs, hair ruffling. She also won’t freeze or tense up if you grab her suddenly. -Basically she becomes notably less awkward and anxious, and wary around you. - She is fiercely loyal, and will stay by your side even if it means she might die. - Very tired and frequently has nightmares. Anxiety and guilt also prevents sleep. - Has to have a knife on her person at all times in order to feel safe; even in her own home and while she sleeps. - Crystal necklace is from a friend, a reminder that she isn’t alone and that she has people there for her. - Various scars, each with their own story. - Most people don’t assume Sage is a criminal when they first meet her.

[stealinghero]

SO loves Zenigata but is also not thrilled about him being way so often. So they decide to tease him a bit and send him a pic of themself with a custom made bodypillow with the policeman on it and a message: "As long as you are gone, this guy has to do." Over time they send him more pics and they get increasingly silly: BP and So in bed, BP and So in the car, BP and SO at the beach, BP and SO on a roller coaster etc. Not to be mean, just to show that SO misses him and he should hurry back soon.

Somewhere this request totally went the wrong way and I made myself cry, because I think I like Zenigata more and more. (And want to punch Lupin.)

So get your tissues and punchable Lupin-shaped ballons:

At first he had thought it was a joke. When his phone signalled a new message of his lover, a photo attached, he had smiled at their silliness.

But now this was war.

13 photos. His “replacement” and his s/o doing various things he used to do with them. Eating a healthy breakfast, commuting to work, spending quality time together at the park. His s/o had even put his favourite pyjamas on this damned pillow and slept with it in the same bed he had laid awake in for so long worrying about the future.

 “Are you kidding me?”

Finally, his s/o had taken the call and had answered laughing. The Inspector wasn’t laughing.

“Zeni, what’s up? Are you jealous of a pillow?”

“Trash it before I come home or I will do it.” His voice was strained, he hadn’t got enough sleep, chasing Lupin all around the globe again. That was the reason he was in this museum late at night, waiting for Lupin to show up.

“Relax. It’s not as if I have sex with it.”

“Do you love me?”

Silence on the other end of the line. A sigh.

“Koichi, you know the answer.”

“Then show me some respect.” He hung up and put the phone away.

“Trouble in Heaven, Zeni-chan?”

Without thinking he hit the grinning thief in the face, making him fall down the rope he was attached to.

“Inspector!” A policeman came running, as Zenigata realized what he had done.

“You are arrested!!”

“Tottsan…” handcuffs clicked around the wrists of the knocked out thief.

 “A body pillow?!”

Yes, he knew. Lupin knew his troubles. It was a long trip from this stupid museum to the next station where he could be put in a cell. A long and lonely ride with nothing to talk about besides this phone call from earlier.

Zenigata took out his phone and showed his enemy the photos.

“Your s/o is quite cute, I give you that. But why are you pissed? It’s cute. They miss you.”

“Wipe that grin out of your face, stupid.”

“Careful with the words, you could hurt someone.”

“Shut up, or I will make you!”

Grinning the thief leaned back as far as he could in his tied up position and watched the Inspector with a gleam in his eyes.

The other man pulled his hat in his face and crossed his arms to catch a bit of sleep before he could give Lupin to his colleagues.

“Hey, cutie. I just called to apologize.”

With a shock he shoved his hat back up, only to see the thief unrestrained with his cell phone in his dirty hands and clearly talking to someone on the phone, using Zenigata’s voice.

“About the pillow? It just remembers me it could be me being with you right now.”

With a scream the Inspector wanted to throw himself at the criminal but was stopped by a sharp pain in both wrists. The fucker had cuffed him!!

“Nothing, nothing! I finally caught Lupin and I’m ready to come home as fast as possible. What? You’re proud of me? Oh, I’ll call you back in a second. This stupid thief is making a ruckus.”

He hung up and watched the policeman opposite of him.

“You should call them. I think they want to congratulate you for almost catching me.” With these words Lupin put the cell phone in Zenigata’s coat, got up and with a flick of his wrist opened the door of the police van.

“Don’t make it hard on your lover if you’ve got issues. Or I’ll steal them away.” A short wink and he was gone.

Shit.

 His colleagues had laughed about him failing again. That was just what he needed. Maybe his s/o was better off with this stupid pillow. Maybe everyone was better off without him being stupid and useless again and again.

A soft vibration brought back his senses to the present.

“Yes?” he accepted the call without looking who it was.

“Zeni? You wanted to call back an hour ago.” His s/o sounded worried.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” His mind was clouded with the laughter of the world.

“He escaped, right?” Of course they knew. What other outcome could be there after he had caught Lupin?

“I’m sorry.” Words meant for everyone he had disappointed again.

“Come home, Koichi.”

“Home?” This word had meant comfort, healing, the presence of his beloved s/o. But that was before the thing now filling his place.

“To me.”

”What for? I lost. To Lupin. To a damn stuffed version of me.”

“Just come home.”

With mixed feelings he took his hat and went to get a taxi home to this damned replacement.

 Only to be greeted by another pillow.

“What the…”

His s/o smiled brightly. They had welcomed him with a kiss on the cheek and had brought him to the living room.

“Your own me.”

“My… you?”

“I guess you didn’t quite catch the meaning of the stuffed you?”

He let out a sigh.

“It was clear from the start. I’m not better than a pillow. An empty shell to have fun with.”

His s/o went pale with their eyes growing big.

“But you said…”

“That was Lupin!” he let himself fall on the floor next to the table and eyed the pillow with a picture of his s/o on it. It was kind of cute, he had to admit that.

“Koichi, I want you to listen now. Don’t interrupt, just listen.”

Without strength to fight left, he nodded.

“Everytime you leave, I miss you. If you are going around the world or just going out for grocery shopping. I feel unsafe without you by my side. I can’t sleep because I worry that you are somewhere dark, hurt and dying. I’m afraid of every phone call I receive because it could be your colleagues telling me that you’re dead. And when I get like this I hug this pillow of you, because I can’t hug you. And every time I do that I pray that my hug somehow comes to you and you feel that I’m thinking about you, sending you a thousand kisses and hoping that you come home safe.”

While they were talking, he had turned away.

“The photos?” his voice was toneless.

“To remind you of the fun stuff we did and do everyday when you are with me. And a promise of all the things I want to do with you when you are back home.”

He nodded silently.

The bath, the ghost house, the ice rink, all things they had done before.

The commuting, the breakfast, the shopping, the bed, all depicting the stuff they did together everyday.

The kiss, the hug, the picnic in the park, the things his s/o wanted to do with him.

“Koichi?”

Their soft voice combined with their hand on his shoulder made him jump.

He didn’t want them to see, he didn’t want them to think badly of him.

“I’m sorry.” And with these words, he lost control.

In a fluent motion he turned around and hugged the knees of his s/o, sobbing like the big idiot he was.

“I never meant to make fun of you. You are my big and proud Inspector after all!”

When he heard the crackling voice of his s/o he looked up – only to see them crying too.

“That’s why I got you a pillow too! So I can be with you everywhere!”

How could he be such an idiot?! How could he make such an angel on earth cry?!

With a grunt he got up, wiped the tears away and hugged his s/o softly. When they were crying, he had to be there for them to protect them and to promise them that everything was going to be alright.

“Zeni?”

He murmured a response.

“I think the food is burning.”

 With a broad grin he slurped the burned noodles his s/o had prepared for his return. A slump next to him, let him look in his s/o’s face, as they reached for his noodles with their own chopsticks, sharing his food.

On the table laid their cell phone with the latest photo on it: His s/o sharing a bowl of noodles with the body pillow, a writing underneath it: “Come home soon. I miss you.”

[magicalmischel]

A Time to Act

a merthur fanfic written for the Merlin Memory Month 2019

prompts used: harsh, a time to act

wordcount: 3071

SUMMARY -  Merlin is attacked in the streets and uses magic in defence. Unfortunately, a guard (Lancelot) sees him and arrests him together with the attacker, taking them both to Arthur for a trial. The day started out perfectly, but how will it end now?

also posted on FFN and AO3.

A TIME TO ACT

Ever since Merlin and Arthur's relationship had become public, Merlin had noticed quite a few stares among the people. Yes, he came to the market every other day and always bought the same things for Gaius, so people there knew him. They knew who he was and some of them were even his friends, kind of. But they had never stared at him like this.

He had noticed the way they looked at him was slightly different right the first morning after he and Arthur had informed the kingdom of their relationship. That was two weeks ago, and it still hadn't changed.

There were still a few smiles here and there, but some people stopped smiling. Others were frowning or looked confused or suspicious. A few of them quickly accepted how things were and tried to please Merlin to be on his good side, while others avoided him.

It was strange being this . . . popular.

It certainly wasn't helpful when he needed to use magic, which was becoming very scarce. He couldn't risk anyone seeing him, so now that everyone was constantly watching him, using magic was out of the question. That, and he'd promised Arthur he'd only use his magic for dire situations weeks ago. He intended to keep it, especially now that his dream of magic being welcome in Camelot was so close.

Merlin adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder, walking away from the market with all the ingredients that Gaius had asked him to buy that morning. He was on his way back home, looking forward to Arthur's training session that afternoon. He always had to dress him for the occasion, and now that they were officially together, undressing and dressing that king had become a much more exciting task. Also, he got to watch Arthur fight, which usually involved Arthur trying to impress him and then ending up on the ground. Merlin always made sure to never miss those moments.

He turned the corner of a small house, a smile on his face as he was thinking about all this. When he looked up, he found himself face to face with a man of similar age – he was frowning.

Merlin stopped and looked at his face – he recognised him! It was a former knight. He'd refused to follow Arthur because he didn't agree with the king being in love with his manservant, and unfortunately, after a fight which he'd lost, he lost his knighthood because Arthur couldn't trust him. He wasn't loyal anymore and could turn against Merlin whenever he pleased.

Just like today, it seemed.

Merlin sighed and turned around, walking back towards the market, trying to avoid any sort of conflict. He wasn't going to let anyone ruin this day for him.

"Merlin!"

Too late.

The man followed him and Merlin was forced to pick up his pace. He turned a corner, then another, turned right, and finally found himself in a small street in between two houses that ended in- a wall. Damn it. He should have turned left.

"Merlin!"

Merlin turned around to face him. The man was standing there, slowly walking closer with tiny steps and anger in his face.

"Hi, I think we've met? I mean, you obviously know my name."

"You know exactly who I am," the man gritted through his teeth. "You watched me as I challenged the king and I lost my knighthood because of you!"

Merlin shook his head and pursed his lips. "I'm sorry, but you just said that you challenged the king? So that kind of makes you responsible for what happened afterwards, doesn't it? I had nothing to do with that."

"You bloody know you did!"

Merlin was becoming nervous at this point. Behind him was only the wall, there was no one around, and the man was getting dangerously closer. And he was armed. Merlin wasn't.

"Being a knight meant everything to me!"

"Look, I'm really sorry about what happened, but you swore an oath and you weren't able to keep it."

"I would have been able to if you had known your place and hadn't tried to get close to the king and his power!"

Merlin opened his mouth to say something, anything to calm the man down, but it was too late. He grabbed the hilt of his dagger and unsheathed it from its scabbard at his belt and charged at Merlin, who managed to move away just in time.

"Wait!"

Merlin tried to talk, but the man didn't listen to him. He was blinded by the sadness of losing his title and the hatred that he felt towards Merlin, and he didn't seem likely to stop despite anything. He charged at Merlin again and Merlin managed to duck, but he wasn't a skilled fighter. He couldn't avoid the dagger for much longer and he couldn't run away either because the man was blocking the only way out.

Oh, why did he choose such a narrow street?

"You don't deserve to stand next to him by the throne!" The man shouted. Good, now at least someone might notice them.

Merlin's back hit the wall behind him and the dagger landed just above his shoulder. He moved out of its way, but the man was quicker and fished out another dagger, preparing it on the other side.

It all happened in a second.

The moment Merlin's eyes registered the second dagger aiming at his head, his mind completely shut off and his instinct took over. The dagger stopped in mid-air, mere centimetres away from Merlin's right temple, and the man's eyes widened in horror as he stared into Merlin gold eyes.

"Sorcerer . . . " he uttered, his hand still unable to move.

Merlin's heart was beating and his magic was still holding the man's dagger away from his face.

Then he heard loud steps.

"Hey! You! Stop!"

Merlin blinked, quickly ducked and the dagger hit the wall in the spot where his head had been mere seconds ago. The man prepared to strike again, but a strong hand gripped his forearm, stopping him.

Merlin looked up. It was Lancelot.

"What's happening here?" Lancelot asked, frowning at the man. "Merlin, are you okay?"

Merlin nodded – slowly, quietly, still in shock.

"Drop the daggers!"

The man dropped them. Lancelot took his arms behind his back and put handcuffs on his wrists.

"You attacked an unarmed citizen of Camelot. You're arreste-"

"He's a sorcerer!" The man shouted at Lancelot¨s face. "He used magic on me! He's enchanted the king to follow his orders, he's evil!"

Lancelot's eyes widened as he looked down at Merlin. Merlin just kept looking at him hopelessly and scared, asking himself one question: how did a nice day with a promise of an even better evening turn into such a disaster?

Merlin slowly stood up, swallowed and subtly nodded at Lancelot.

He knew what was going to happen now. He could see it in Lancelot's face - he was trying to apologize to Merlin because he had no control over what he now had to do. And Merlin accepted it. It should have happened so many years ago anyway.

"Merlin . . . "

"What are you waiting for!" The man hissed. "Arrest him!"

With a heavy heart, Lancelot took Merlin by his wrists gently and put another pair of shackles around them.

"Merlin, by the laws of Camelot, you are arrested for using magic."

******************************************

It had been quite a busy day for Arthur so far. He had been working with the council all morning, preparing papers, signing them, discussing with them what he'd discussed with his most trusted knights just a few weeks ago – and that was the issue of bringing magic back into the kingdom and making it safe for everyone – both ordinary people and the druids and people like Merlin.

All his trusted knights – Leon, Gwaine, Lancelot, Elyan and Percival – had already been informed of Merlin's magic on a private meeting where they'd discussed the issue, and now he was working with the council, reading their reviewed versions of his suggested new laws.

It was a lot of work, but he knew it was worth it. Everything was worth it for Merlin's smile. That, and he also had a training session later in the day to look forward to, where he could actually talk to Merlin about the progress he had made with the council today.

They had made big progress – all the papers were already prepared and reviewed, and they were just two or so signatures away from officially legalizing magic in Camelot. Now the last question to answer was – when was the best time to do that? And how should they prepare the people?

Just as Arthur sat down to reread the final version of the first of the laws that had been suggested to him by Merlin (obviously, they both had worked hard on all the laws), the door opened.

Arthur looked up to see Sir Leon's head peeking inside. "My lord."

"What is it?" Arthur asked.

Leon pursed his lips. "It's Sir Lancelot, my lord. He's bringing in two people for a trial . . . one of them is Merlin."

Arthur stared at him for a moment and then closed his eyes briefly, hiding his face in the palms of his hands. He sighed. What exactly did Merlin do this time?

"Bring them in," he finally decided and stood up, looking apologetically at all his council members, one of which was Gaius who seemed equally as confused as Arthur was.

Leon's head disappeared and when the door opened again, Lancelot came in. He was holding two people in shackles, one of them was Merlin and the other was . . . Sir Whatshisname? Arthur frowned. He didn't like where this was going, just last week he had been challenged by this knight and he won, and now he was causing trouble in the streets?

"My apologies," Arthur spoke to the council, "but don't worry, I believe this will not take much time."

He walked away from them to sit on the throne as his father used to do. He watched Merlin with unease as Lancelot brought him closer with the former knight.

"What happened?" Arthur asked, already bracing himself for what he was about to hear.

"I found this man in a back alley with Merlin. He was fighting him with two daggers while Merlin was unarmed."

Arthur didn't like this.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" The man turned to Lancelot. Then he looked at Merlin with hatred in his eyes and smirked up at Arthur. "The boy is a sorcerer! He was trying to kill me!"

"What? No, I wasn't! You attacked me first!" Merlin defended himself.

"Only because you-"

"Quiet!"

Arthur sighed.

He didn't like this one bit.

He glanced at Gaius, who seemed to have been thinking the same thing, and then he looked back at Merlin. He looked nervous and also apologetic. Arthur could only imagine how many times Merlin had dreamed about standing here, accused of magic, with fear consuming him. But at least it wasn't his father sitting on the throne.

What a bad timing, too! He and Merlin had been planning to reveal Merlin's magic to the council in the evening, and now this happened.

Arthur had to take a deep breath.

"Merlin," he looked at him. "Tell me what happened."

The former knight frowned. "Of course he's the first to be asked-"

"I'm sorry, is your name Merlin?" Arthur asked the man, using his best authoritative voice that he could muster. Even Merlin looked taken aback but with a slight smirk at his lips.

The former knight shook his head and was quiet, and Arthur turned back to Merlin, giving him a nod to encourage him to talk.

"Well, I was on my way from the market, when I saw him standing on the street, just staring at me," Merlin started. "And I recognised him and didn't want to start a fight, so I turned back and went back towards the market, but he was following me. I turned the wrong way and found myself in an alley with a dead end, and well, then he attacked me, saying that I cost him his knighthood."

"You did!"

"Quiet!" Arthur frowned. "And then?"

Merlin pursed his lips. "We fought, and I wasn't armed, so I just kept avoiding his blows until one almost hit me and . . . well . . . I accidentally used magic to stop it."

"Accidentally?"

Literally everyone in the room looked at Merlin, who just shrugged as if it was common knowledge. "He was about to kill me, I couldn't help it."

Arthur swallowed down the anger he felt towards the former knight when he realized that he'd almost killed Merlin today, and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. How was he supposed to deal with this? They were so close to lifting the ban on magic, but it wasn't lifted yet and Merlin broke the law! According to the current laws of Camelot, he was supposed to be sentenced to death, but Arthur could never do that. He also couldn't forget the fact that the former knight attacked him first and was also awaiting punishment . . .

"And how do you explain yourself?" Arthur turned to the former knight.

"He's the reason you stripped me of my title. He's got you under his thumb, my lord, I had to do something to save you and the kingdom. He's only bad influence."

Arthur stood up from the throne and went closer to them. "So, what you're trying to say is . . . you tried to kill my boyfriend because you don't like him and accuse him of controlling me – something of which you have no proof, and you blame him for something you brought upon yourself. As I remember it, you were the one who challenged me, you agreed to the rules and you lost. Or was that not what happened, Sir Lancelot?"

"Yes, my lord," Lancelot nodded.

"Thank you." Arthur turned to the former knight again. "There are over two dozens of knights who agree with Sir Lancelot. Merlin never was and isn't the reason why I chose to debase you. I chose to do so because you cannot be trusted, so if you're going to blame anyone, blame yourself."

"But-"

"I've already taken away your knighthood, and I don't wish to do anything else. So consider this your warning. Do not attack Merlin or anyone else in my city again, or you will suffer the consequences."

The former knight stared at him, then at Merlin, and finally at Arthur again. Then he frowned but bowed his head. "Yes, my lord."

"Lancelot," Arthur commanded, "he'll spend the night in the dungeons, release him in the morning and let him go home."

"My lord," Lancelot nodded and tugged at the man's shackles to drag him away.

He protested though and didn't move. "But what about the sorcerer? He's been lying to you, my lord, just as I told you! You may choose to love him, but he might as well have you under a love spell!"

"I don't-"

"Merlin," Arthur stopped him before he could say anything that he'd regret. Merlin closed his mouth and waited for Arthur to say anything. All the members of the council looked at him and did the same.

Arthur swallowed.

"Gaius," he spoke to his most trusted adviser without looking at him. "How far are we from lifting the ban on magic again?"

Gaius raised his eyebrow in an amused way. "Just two more signatures, my lord."

Arthur smiled, still staring at the former knight. "Excellent."

He went over to the table with all the papers again and picked up a quill. He moistened it in the inkwell and signed the two remaining papers that separated him from his desired future. When he was done, he smiled and looked up at the former knight again.

"You seem to be late," he told him. "You see, we've all been planning to lift the ban on magic for weeks, and you would have known that, had you stayed loyal and a knight."

"You can't-"

"Merlin," Arthur went over to him, happy to see a proud grin on his face. "You've been found guilty of breaking the old laws of Camelot, but according to the new laws, you did nothing wrong. You only defended yourself, correct?"

"Yeah, I stopped the dagger from killing me."

"Well, there you have it," Arthur smiled at him. "Nothing wrong." Merlin grinned. "But you did break the old laws, and I can't turn a blind eye to that." Merlin's grin wavered. "You'll also spend one night in the dungeons, but you'll be released in the morning, don't worry."

"But the training session!" Merlin protested.

Arthur put his hand on Merlin's shoulder. "There will be many more training sessions to come, you'll just have to miss this one, sorry."

Merlin sighed, but Arthur could see that he understood. He was the king, and these decisions didn't come lightly to him. But there had to be decisions, and in terms of breaking the law, he let both Merlin and the former knight off easy.

Arthur leaned in and kissed Merlin, just for good measure, and then waved at Lancelot.

Lancelot took Merlin and the former knight out of the room and led them to the dungeons, where they would both spend the night, each in a different cell far away from each other, preferably in a different part of the castle, too.

Once they were gone, Arthur turned back to the council, apologized again, explained that he already knew about Merlin's magic and was planning to tell them that evening, and was surprised when several members of the council told him they'd already suspected.

Now the only thing he needed to do was inform the people. He hoped it would go well.

And then, after the training session, Arthur paid Merlin a visit and spent several hours with him in the cell because, well, because it wasn't really Merlin's fault that he was there and because Arthur loved him and wanted to tell him all about the training session to make up for what Merlin had missed out.

And if both Arthur and Merlin lost a few items of clothing during all the talking, it was only a good thing that all the other cells were empty and that Arthur was the king and had made sure that no one would disturb them.

*the end*

[possiblyimbiassed]

Terror by Night

– analysing John’s blog post ”The Aluminium Crutch”

Two different characters in the show – Harry, the equerry from Buckingham Palace in ASiB, and Dr. Frankland, the murderer in THoB - acknowledge this case on John’s blog as particularly interesting. 

But – surprisingly perhaps – this crime case is never shown or even mentioned by Sherlock or John in the actual show. So why not have a closer look on The Aluminium Crutch here instead? Surely this must have been analysed in metas before, but since I don’t know of any at the moment (forgive me if I’ve missed something!), I’ll give it a try.

The crime case takes place in a theatre where Sherlock watches the play “Terror by Night”. Since John isn’t present (he’s on a date), Sherlock describes the whole case to him on his voice mail, which John then transcribes verbatim to his blog. So this time we have Sherlock’s own account of the case directly in the blog post.

Case summary: There’s a murder committed on stage. The actor Matthew Michael, playing Detective Sidney Paget who in the play is investigating the murder of Lady Margaret Chaplette, gets hit with an aluminium crutch – supposed to be a rubber props - and dies. The actor William Howells, playing Albert Chaplette, the lady’s son and also murderer, is the one who hits Michael with the crutch. 

Since Sherlock’s voice mail account might be a bit complicated to follow, I’ve made a little table to structure it up:

Sherlock narrows down the possible suspects to – surprise – Matthew Michael himself! He had substituted the rubber aluminium crutch for a real one, hoping to get the misbehaving and drunk actor Howells to be fired for breaking his arm or something similar, but his plan backfired and he received a fatal blow to the head. So the point of this is that the victim actually caused his own death.

Some ‘features of interest’:

Sherlock comments on suicide methods in this blog post: ”…there are easier ways of committing suicide - even if you do want to do so dramatically live on stage”. This seems similar to the script with deleted scenes in ASiP, where Sherlock tells Lestrade how he would have killed himself.

This death was not actually intended as a suicide; the crutch was made of aluminium, which is a light metal. According to Sherlock a blow by it wouldn’t normally kill someone. And in this case Michael probably only wanted it to leave enough damage on him for Howells to have to suffer consequences, preferably be fired from the theatre. In the episode corresponding in time to this blog post – ASiB – there’s a car that backfires and also a man who manages to kill himself with his own boomerang. It seems to me that they’re trying to make a point here, and I can’t help thinking of my theory that Sherlock’s possibly comatose state in TLD, TAB and S4 is actually self-inflicted by drugs. Maybe this blog post case is foreshadowing John’s wedding as a crime scene, which I theorized about in these metas (X) (X)?

There’s a crutch playing a central role; an item that appears three times in the show, which all point towards John: 1. John uses a crutch for his psychosomatic limp (before Sherlock cures him from it) in ASiP, 2. Faith (John mirror, both versions of her) in TLD uses one for unknown reasons and 3. Sherlock uses John’s old crutch as a hidden recording device for Culverton’s confessions in TLD (which he has provoked by telling Culverton to kill him by overdose!). 

We’re not told why the Albert Chaplette character needs a crutch, but the actor accidentally kills his colleague who plays the detective of the play with it. Looks a bit like mirrors of Sherlock and John to me. My theory again: If Sherlock did OD after TSoT as a reaction to heartbreak, then this was unknowingly caused by John marrying Mary, right? Just like William Howells unknowingly killed Matthew Michael with his crutch. But the fatal blow was actually self-inflicted.

Sidney Paget is actually the name of ACD’s most famous illustrator for the SH stories – the one who used to draw Holmes in a deerstalker, an item which was never mentioned in ACD’s texts.

(Source: X)

Coincidentally, the only scene in the show that is from an actual theatre is the short sequence in ASiB where Sherlock and John walk across a stage, presumably talking about potential blog titles of their case (a bit like in Sherlock’s MP in TAB): “Belly button murders” or “Navel Treaty”. It’s a bit confusing, because I think I can spot an aluminium crutch in this picture:

But I don’t really get what the Aluminium Crutch case had to do with ‘navels’ or ‘bellybuttons’? And what’s John doing there; wasn’t he supposed to be on a date? Or do they mean ‘navel-gazing’, as in ‘self-indulgent introspection’? Hmm...

Right after that is when Sherlock finds the deerstalker (among some theatre costumes) and puts it on for the first time, wanting to hide himself and John from press photographers. Which of course has the exactly opposite effect and traps him in a stereotyped public Persona.

But what about the title of the play in this blog post, “Terror by Night” – is that simply an invention for BBC Sherlock or does it have other implications? Well, we don’t get to know the actual plot of the play. But as a matter of fact, this title is a Rathbone movie! (I’ll never cease to be overwhelmed by the treasure trove that this show is, with all its accessories :)). “Terror by Night” is an old Sherlock Holmes adaptation from 1946 starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson; a crime drama and film noir directed by Roy William Neill.

Plot summary: A big diamond is stolen on a London-Edinburgh train and the son of its owner is murdered. On board the train are Holmes (who was hired to watch over the diamond), 

Watson, Lestrade and Lady Margaret (diamond owner). Among the suspects are also a grumpy maths professor and a middle-aged couple (possibly brother and sister?). But there’s also Sebastian Moran (disguised as an old military friend of Watson’s) and his henchman Sands.  A train guard is also murdered and Holmes is almost pushed from the train, but manages to survive and figure out who the culprits are; Moran and Sands (whom Moran eventually kills off). A young woman transporting her deceased mother to Scotland in a coffin is also involved. The Scottish police arrive and (apparently) arrest Moran. But there’s a plot twist: Holmes manages to capture Moran for real by using a moment when the lights are turned off to handcuff him, while the false policemen (from Moran’s gang) lead away a disguised Lestrade instead, to their own misfortune.  And the diamond is, of course, recovered.

Some observations:

In the ‘Terror by Night’ movie Lady Margaret’s son is the murder victim, contrary to the play mentioned on John’s blog, where Lady Margaret’s son murders his mother. The array of possible suspects seems a bit similar between the movie and John’s blog case.

There are many train scenes in this movie; in fact most of the story takes place on a train ride to Scotland. In BBC Sherlock there’s no train murder (except for the case “Murder at the ‘Orient Express’”, which is another of John’s blog posts that is never referred to in the show, but that case wasn’t actually about a train but a restaurant. The title, however, refers to a famous story by Agatha Christie that was published over a decade before the Rathbone movie). But there’s still quite a few trains or train references in BBC Sherlock, at least in TEH, TAB and TFP.

There’s a coffin on the train, with a dead body but also with a secret compartment underneath the body. The secret compartment is empty, but Holmes discovers that Moran’s henchman must have been using this space to get on the train unseen. 

Which makes me think of Emilia Ricoletti’s excavated dead body in TAB, where Sherlock tries to find – in vain - a second body underneath Emilia’s coffin. 

And then there’s also the empty coffin in TFP, which Sherlock smashes in frustration.

There’s a train passenger named Vivian Vedder, who is an accomplice to the criminals. She doesn’t actually kill anyone, but the name still makes me think of Vivian Norbury in TST. Both are random characters who appear to be significant, but who later are just left without any kind of aftermath.

I haven’t fully watched any other of the many Rathbone adaptations before, so please forgive me if I’m a bit disrespectful about this one. Rathbone may have been a very good actor, but I’m slightly disappointed by the dialogue and plot line. The whole film is, in my opinion, rather predictable and stereotyped, and both Watson and Lestrade are displaying such an annoying amount of stupidity that it gets frustrating to watch. But maybe that’s just me. :) In any case, I do hope we’ll see Sherlock and John finally get out of that ‘Rathbone Place’ where they got frozen at the end of TFP. ;)

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @sarahthecoat @tjlcisthenewsexy @elldotsee @csi-baker-street-babes

[jinmukangwrites]

Forced to beg, Officer Grayson in front of Batman?

Skull/Completed Meteor/Next Smiley/Requested

Fandom: Nightwing

Rating: Teen

Prompt: Forced to beg

@badthingshappenbingo

This one was so freaking fun to write >:D

-o-o-o-o-

Dick was working over time. Being a cop wasn’t all shooting guns and arresting bad guys, if anything most of it was sitting at a desk and filing paperwork. It was all extremely boring and a huge waste of time, stealing precious hours that could be used cleaning up the only city in the world that would consider Gotham a nice tourist spot. 

In the end, it was probably a pretty good thing he was at the precinct, because he was right there when the captain barged out of his office, red in the face and chest heaving, announcing that two detectives undercover had been discovered by the very gang they were in. 

And that Batman and Robin were there. 

Dick almost snapped the pencil in his hand at that announcement. As he jumped from his desk and rushed with the other cops in the room assigned to go and help get those detectives out, Dick couldn’t help but seethe with annoyance and anger. Of course Bruce would come to Blüdhaven with the new kid and mess everything up for two good people that were good detectives. He had almost forgot that the gang that they were undercover in used to be centered in Gotham. Of course Bruce would follow them to Blüdhaven even though Dick had made it clear he didn’t want him anywhere near his city. 

Especially with the new kid. 

Dick worked on his bullet proof vest and checked over his gun next to half a dozen other officers. Officer Jones turned to Sanchez. “I can’t believe Gotham’s finest are there,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Sanchez replied as he pulled a jacket over his vest, “what are they doing here in Blüdhaven?“ 

Stepping on my toes and rubbing it in my face that Bruce doesn’t need me, Dick almost replied. Instead he grunted and shoved his pistol in his holster before walking out of the precinct. He sprinted into one of the patrol cars with a few other officers, and then sped off into what surely would be a bloodbath. 

-o-o-o-o-

They heard the gunfire a block from where they were heading. In the fifteen minutes the cars had to speed down narrow streets in the wake of flashing red and blue, the situation had escalated to an all out gang war between two different families. Batman and Robin did not help in the least. Reports of injured civilians and casualties. 

No word on detectives Brooks and Delatejera. 

Civilians had gotten word and warnings via cell phones of the gang war, which left the roads thankfully clear in the surrounding area. 

Now all that was left to do was get out of the cars and stop an all out gang war. 

Easier said than done. 

Nonetheless, Officer Grayson jumped out of the car with his gun held up, ready to shoot. There were already SWAT troops and some agents from the FBI building housed in central Blüdhaven, so thankfully most of the fighting had been stopped—while jurisdiction would normally be argued, the situation was serious enough that stopping more bloodshed was more important. There were still the telltale sounds of gunfire further down the block, but it looked like the SWAT team had that covered, with their fancy Shields and big guns and all. Dick and his fellow officers ran through the messy, eerily abandoned streets, arresting stragglers and helping the wounded get to the paramedics stationed a safe distance from the eye of the storm. Dick tried his best to ignore the puddles of red on the ground, the groaning civilians and gangsters alike with red, yellow, green, white, and black tags. The body bags. The sirens. 

He hadn’t seen Batman and Robin, most likely they were held up in the epicenter of this man-made disaster. He desperately wanted to ditch his police uniform and join them, fighting bad guys and using his skills to make the battle shorter. He already heard a few officers ask where Nightwing was, but he knew if Officer Grayson suddenly disappeared, questions would be asked. 

What must have been hours passed until until the gunfire settled down to minutes between each shot, that was also when a young woman was being dragged out with her arm wrapped around the SWAT agent’s shoulder. Detective Delatejera had blood trailing down here forehead from under her hijab and a nasty chunk of flesh missing from her calf, but a look of pure determination was worn on her face as she was helped over to paramedic hands and the captain. Dick hefted up a gangster he caught trying to flee the scene—his hands were zip tied because there were only so many pairs of handcuffs to go around—and followed after Delatejera to hear what she had to say, because from the way her eyes were narrowed and her lips pursed, it was clear she had a lot to get off her chest. 

Dick handed the gangster over to an FBI agent that were stuffing their uninjured perps in those huge trucks that could hold a dozen prisoners, and sprinted back over towards Delatejera and the captain. 

”-in there, we can’t just leave him!“ Delatejera snarled, even as a paramedic worked on her nasty leg wound. 

"What happened?” Dick whispered over to the officer next to him. 

Officer Parker leaned over closer to Dick. “Detective Brooks was taken hostage by Gallo,” he said. 

Martin Gallo, the head boss of Blüdhaven’s version of the mafia. A nasty man who only cared for his family and gold. Betrayal was worse than murder, and he had ways to take out traitors. BCPD had been working for months to take him down, not having any sufficient evidence to put away for as long as he deserved. 

“What is he demanding and why hasn’t the FBI handled it?” The captain growled and glared at the FBI’s Assistant Special Agent. 

“We don’t make deals with terrorists,” the agent growled, “and what he’s demanding is absurd." 

Both the captain and Delatejera looked like they were about to blow a casket. 

"I have a detective in there,” the captain said in a scary calm voice that Dick could just barely put on the level of angry Batman’s voice, “you will tell me the demands and I will tell you if they’re worth the life of Brooks or not." 

"That’s the thing, sir,” the SWAT agent said who had dragged Delatejera over from the heat of gunfire, “he doesn’t want to talk to the FBI or SWAT. He wants to talk with an officer." 

"Which is why I need to go back there!” Delatejera said angrily through clenched teeth. Whatever the paramedic was using to clean her leg must have stung. “I know Gallo, he’ll talk to me." 

"There is no way I’m letting you back in there,” the captain said, switching his glare to the detective. 

Dick stepped forward. “I’ll go." 

All eyes turned to him in various amounts of surprise and annoyance. 

"Grayson-" 

"I have experience in dealing with terrorists,” Dick said, defending himself. Both as a cop and as a vigilante, he had had events with talking down criminals. “I can do this." 

The FBI Assistant Special Agent looked at the captain with a disbelieving look, and then he proceeded to splutter after seeing the captains considering look. "Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking of going through with this." 

"Where are the Bats?” The captain asked slowly. 

Delatejera scoffed. “Disappeared after the last shot was fired." 

"So they’re either gone, or going in to take out Gallo." 

Dick almost wanted to groan in frustration. "Sir, we cannot rely on Batman and Robin, I came from Gotham. I know that they cause just as many problems as they solve. The best bet is to get to Gallo before they do." 

The captain gave Dick a long look before he sighed. "Get better gear on, Grayson, and get my detective out of there." 

"You’ve got to be shitting me,” the Special Agent groaned. 

“Grayson is one of my best, there is no one else I would trust more with this,” the captain said stubbornly. 

“Sir,” Dick said. He nodded down at Delatejera before he turned on his heels and sprinted over to where Gallo would be waiting. 

And probably Batman and Robin too. 

-o-o-o-o-

The SWAT lended him a better bullet proof vest, a communication device, and a helmet. How nice of them. In minutes time, he was briefed on the building Gallo and Brooks were held up in, and then he was marching in, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, wrists crossed. 

He was just barely a few hallways into the building when he saw a flicker of black in his peripheral vision, something any normal person wouldn’t have noticed. Dick made sure his comm was turned off before he talked to the shadow. 

“Please tell me you weren’t the one who gave Delatejera and Brooks away,” he whispered. 

The shadow dropped to the ground in front of him and Dick kept both of his hands up where they were, used the flashlight to better see Batman and used the gun to make a point. It must have irked Batman to see him with a gun. 

“You didn’t tell me they had undercover cops in there,” Batman growled. 

Great. He was pinning the blame on Dick. Typical. 

“I don’t have to tell you that, I told you to stay out of Blüdhaven. You should have respected that." 

"Don’t get your panties in a twist, Goldie,” a new voice said. A boy dressed in red, yellow, and green— Dick’s colors—emerged from the shadows with an easy-going grin on his face. 

Dick felt something angry build up in his chest when he looked at the boy who wore his suit and went by his name. He had to remind himself for the thousandth time that it wasn’t Jason’s fault, it was Bruce’s. 

“Just get out of my way,” Dick said, ignoring Robin’s comment, “and let me save Detective Brooks without you messing things up more." 

With that sentence, he turned back on his comm and shoved himself past Batman and Robin. He heard Robin make a rude remark, but ignored it and went deeper into the building. 

Dick checked each room as he went deeper, and with each one turning up empty, the more unease started to grow. 

”Grayson, report,“ came the voice of the Captain in his ear. 

Dick lifted a hand to his comm and kept the other holding his gun steady. "All clear so far, sir." 

”When you find him, keep communication on so we can talk you through negotiations,“ the SWAT commander said. 

"Yessir." 

There were only a few more rooms left in the building to check besides the roof. He quickly went through the rest of the building with narrowed eyes and sharp ears. He had finally reached the last room when Dick felt the familiar presence of Batman behind him. He was standing back at a respectable distance, as if he were willing to let Officer Dick Grayson take the wheel for a moment. 

Or if he were willing to wait for him to fail. 

Dick ignored him and opened the door to the last room, inside he was met with a livid looking Gallo standing with a few family members, two of which were holding a halfway conscious detective Brooks between them, standing about the room. 

Brooks looked worse for wears. Blood oozed from multiple cuts on his body. There was a worrying amount of blood seeping out from his left shoulder. His wrists were tied behind his back. 

"Officer,” Gallo said, opening his arms wide. “Please, put the weapon down. We’re all friends here." 

”Put it down, Grayson, but keep it close,“ the captain said. 

Dick lowered his gun and flashlight, but didn’t out down his defensive posture. He felt the presence of Batman and Robin enter the room, unseen. 

”Ask him about his terms,“ the SWAT commander said. 

"Your terms?” Dick asked. 

Gallo smiled, but the anger in his eyes shown. “We can’t talk until I know we’re alone." 

One of the Gallo family members walked up to Dick with a nasty gun in one hand and the other one held out expectantly. 

”Officer, do not give- “ 

Dick turned off the comm and pulled it out of his ear. He handed it to the member and then allowed another one to step up and pat him down. Dick was surprised when they didn’t take his gun. It seemed they were more concerned with outside communication. 

"I appreciate your honesty, officer,” Gallo finally said once the search was completed. Dick cleared his throat and let his arms fall stiffly to his side. 

“Your terms?" 

"That depends on what you want." 

Dick swallowed. "All I want is to get detective Brooks and myself out of here." 

Gallo smiled, "you make a hard request, but we can bargain because I want the same thing for me and my brothers and sisters." 

Dick didn’t say anything and waited for Gallo to continue. 

"But, you see, for four months I thought Dian and Jason were apart of my family,” Gallo continued as he began to pace, “they betrayed me, and I do not let traitors off easy." 

"What do you want?” Dick asked through gritted teeth. 

Gallo stopped in place and fixed Dick with a piercing look. “If you want to get yourself and your detective out of this building, you will simply tell your commanding officer to step away. If you want to get yourself and a breathing detective out, you’ll need to do one more thing." 

-o-o-o-o-

This one ended up being super long, so read the rest on AO3

[austinpanda]

Yesterday, The Long Version

The day started out well, because it was Junk Food Day, and we had a plan I was looking forward to (mid-week pepperoni wangs). I get to work, and the boss lady (whom I love) came by to chat with me about an upcoming observation scheduled for next Wednesday. Observations are when someone sits with me and watches/listens to me taking phone calls, to see how it’s done. It’s not unusual for the company to sit someone with me when an observation becomes necessary. The reason it’s interesting this time, is that the person coming to observe me is the third highest-ranking officer in the company. So this is one of those occasions where it’s wise to have my manager come over and (a) make sure I’ll be there, (b) make sure I know who he is, and (c) make sure I’m together with their plan. I will, I do, and I am.

So I’m at work, and my boss is sitting right in front of me, and I need to log in. I start to log in, and fuck it up, because it’s complicated, and my boss is watching me. I try again, and about halfway through, my pocket starts vibrating. I log in successfully, pull out my phone, tell my manager, “This can’t be good; it’s the husband.” And I answer the phone. It’s my husband!

He’s obviously terrified. He tells me he had an accident, and he panicked and left the scene. My boss can tell it’s an emergency just from my end of the conversation and tiptoes a short distance away. My advice to the husband is, roughly, “Enhance your calm. The scary part is over. Call the police. Tell them what happened. It’ll be fine. And don’t sweat it honey, this is what your husband does for a living! We’ll deal with the shit.” His car is fucked up. He may be at fault.

What happened in the accident was this: He pulled to the exit of our apartment complex parking lot on William Cannon. He looked left, didn’t see anyone coming, pulled out, got straightened out in his lane, when a vehicle behind him and to his left hit his little Hyundai Accent on the left front. This means one of two things: the police will think Zach failed to yield the right of way exiting the parking lot, and got hit by the other vehicle, OR that Zach pulled onto William Cannon and then got nailed by someone coming into Zach’s lane. I have no idea which is more accurate, so I don’t know how the police or the insurance folks are going to make that determination, but that’s what happened. I just assume he’ll be cited for failing to yield.

After the impact, Zach was sitting there and the other driver walked up and tapped on the window. This moment here was almost certainly the beginning of the worst part for Zach. He tried to get his insurance out to give to the other driver, but he couldn’t because he kept slapping himself. He left with parts dragging, and with his front bumper and license plate still there at the scene, and came home to yell at and hit himself more. 

I don’t mean to get too dark here, but...can you imagine being trapped in a room, and you can’t get free, and someone’s hitting your spouse in the next room over? It makes you willing to do anything to stop it, but you can’t, so it robs you of your sanity instead. The only good thing about it is that it ends.

By the time Zach and I are done speaking on the phone, he is calmer. His voice is back down into its normal register. He says he’s okay and will call the police. We end our call. I let my head fall to my desk with a small but audible boom, three or four times, and I hear from my manager in the background, “So...is everything okay?” And I tell her what she’s already deduced, husband in accident, panicked, left scene, thinks they might arrest him, isn’t it lucky his spouse works for the claims department of an auto insurance company. I don’t remember what she said in reply, but it amounted to, “Yeah, go.”

I went home and looked at the front of Zach’s car on my way into the apartment. I’ll include a photo here.

I think the car did what it was supposed to do to protect my husband. All the pretty curved plastic shit on the front end just took one for the team and gave up its life, so all the energy from the impact simply left the car, born away by the bumper instead of being transmitted to the driver, causing injuries. I could be wrong about some of the physics, but generally, the more the car gets fucked up, the better you feel after the accident. I’m starting to have a fondness for Hyundais.

So I’m now home with Zach. He’s been kicked in the emotional fork pretty hard, and is trying to make peace with a brain that’s telling him to panic, that he fucked up, that he’s stupid, that he handled it wrong, that he’s going to have to have SO MANY conversations with people in authority who will give him shit about it. So I begin to formulate the new plan for unfucking our situation.

By now, Zach had called 9-1-1, only to be told that he needed to call 3-1-1, which he did, and he reported the accident. He’d been given a case number and a phone number, but little information about the next step, and specifically NO information whether one police officer, or several, might be popping by to handcuff him and take him away to jail. Fortunately, plans like this pretty much write themselves:

Call the phone number provided by the 3-1-1 person and ask, in the humblest and most Texan way possible, complete with ma’ams and sirs, if someone could let us know whether there’s anything we should be doing, or maybe tell us what will happen next.

Get on the computer and file the claim with State Farm. Insurance company won’t care how little info we have; they’ll just want to set up the claim and assign it to an adjuster to get started working on it.

Address the husband’s need for a repair shop, and a tow to that shop, as his car is now strictly decorative cause it’s dragging shit on the ground.

Make sure I know whether a rental car is coming our way while Zach’s car is being fixed.

Calm down. Get under the covers. Order some wangs. If there are drugs about, abuse them.

I call the phone number provided by 3-1-1 and tell the nice lady my husband was in an accident, and might you please be able to tell me if there’s anything we should be doing now, ma’am? It takes a few different searches to find our accident, which she eventually tracked down with husband’s license plate number. She begins to ask me questions to fill in some missing info. What’s the car’s year, make and model? What’s the color, and license plate? Why did he flee?

Why DID he flee? Here’s why he fled, as best as we can figure out. We think he’s somewhere on the autism spectrum. We haven’t the resources to find out for certain, but it explains a lot of shit. Possibly Asperger’s. Reading the symptoms are like reading a description of Zach: He’s quite intelligent, but his social abilities are fucked up. He tends to avoid eye contact and speak in monotone. He hates, hates, hates change. He has a high IQ and superior rote memory. He has depression and anxiety. And the last time he had a regular therapist, that therapist said he thought Zach might have Asperger’s.

Therefore, he fled because he couldn’t handle the overload. Just like I did, when I had a similar accident in my mid-20s, he thought life as he knew it had just ended, only since his car was drivable (mine had not been) he went to ground. He ran home and called me. He fled because he panicked. He fled because he couldn’t stop hitting himself. Poor dude’s circuitry just exploded. I told the lady, “He’s...not very experienced with this type of situation, he’s autistic, he panicked and just went home and called the police.”

The lady I spoke with finished filling in the information she needed, and I even got a soft chuckle or two out of her while I obtained it. “Husband’s phone number? I regret I haven’t committed it to memory...um, honey?” (Husband reads phone number, woman chuckles.) She even made a little sympathetic sound when I explain why he left the scene. She was super nice. She summed up the next steps, which were not what I expected. Since Zach left the scene, the other driver is designated the victim.

Send a letter to the victim, have him get an estimate for the repairs, and mail it back.

That info will be given to a detective who investigates.

They don’t issue a warrant unless you flee the scene, AND they can’t reach you. If you’re in contact with the police, they will not, as a matter of course, send someone out to put you in the pokey.

Zach felt a lot better about things after I made that call. Any time you’re in a scary situation with a lot of unknowns, it helps you feel better by getting answers on those unknowns. Now he could relax a bit, cease panicking, and spend the afternoon quietly condemning himself for being worthless and stupid and whatever else.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. I reported the claim on State Farm’s website, and that also addressed our short-term needs, namely, the choice of repair shop, the beginnings of the towing arrangements, and the beginning of the rental car arrangements. We ended up driving into downtown Austin yesterday--which is the opposite of what husband felt like doing--because we had to pick up the rental car. I checked, and I have coverage for $50 per day of rental car. That’s kind of a lot! Most people have coverage for $30 per day. We went to Hertz. Naturally, its parking lot is punishingly small and cramped. We spoke with a nice lady with long, pointed, avocado-colored fingernails who got us through the process. When it came time for her to give me the keys to the rental, she said, “We have a Chevy Traverse. That sound okay?” I have about as much respect for Chevrolets as I do for chlamydia, so I wasn’t thrilled, but what the hell. It’s a loaner.

Then this guy behind her, who was Asian, and had eyebrows exactly like Zachary Quinto’s, said, “Oh, you have a choice. We also have a Toyota 4-Runner. You can have the Traverse or the 4-Runner.” To which I replied, “Um...4-Runner! 4-Runner! 4-Runner!!!” And since the lady said that we would face a deoderizing fee of $300 if they found any evidence of smoking in the 4-Runner, I gave my cigarettes to Zach and said, “Remove these from mine sight.”

I never drive anything larger than my car, and a brand new 4-Runner, which is the size of an aircraft carrier, felt really, really strange to drive. Yesterday was so very weird. It was a day when I went to work, but only stayed for 17 minutes. Zach wasn’t keen on driving, so I suggested he drive my car home and let me pilot the star destroyer. I found myself listening to NPR while driving in heavy traffic in a very large, expensive vehicle, and all I could think to myself was, “I’m huge! Ohmygod I’m huge! I’m SO HUGE!” Stepping on the gas was like sending away for an authorization to accelerate. And when it was going 70, it felt like it was going half that speed. It has a backup camera, which I find unreasonably exciting.

We got through the rest of the day as best we could. Handling shit like this is primarily just a long series--days, weeks worth-- of phone calls to exchange information. Now it’s the next morning, and we’re getting his car towed from our apartment to the repair shop. It’s taken about eight phone calls so far.

And that’s how we handle it when Zach wants to hurt himself. We get through the moment, then we get through the day, then the next day is usually better. Once the tow truck is gone with his car, he’s going to hop into the star destroyer and drive it around the parking lot a little bit. I don’t know what this will cost us, but between the government shutdown and this, our plan to leave Austin by end of May is pretty much obliterated. So we’re considering changing our move date to December 1 of this year.

December 1 solves a few problems. It gives us more time to save up. It means I’ll be with the company long enough to earn next year’s gainsharing bonus. We can move in the fall, rather than at the start of summer. We can spend Next Christmas there, but we can spend the coming Thanksgiving here. It’s what would happen anyway, if we sign for another six months after our current lease runs out. It seems to be suggesting itself, because it feels right.

The tow is now done. Gonna keep an eye on husband a bit longer. The claim seems to be humming along as it should. Updates to follow. Now would be a good time for the government to reopen. 

[bloodyfangedtiger]

3,825 Days (pt 1)

It started as a miracle cure, a promise that would help humanity. It was supposed to cure the worst virus in human history: The Ebola virus.

First, they infected a cow and then introduced a vaccine to the cow. Afterwards the cow died and the idiots responsible for disposing of the infected deceased animal sold it to some plant. The plant ground up the cow and made it into pellets which was then fed to other cows.

Those cows were then used for food products, such as milk, cheese and meat which were put into supermarkets and fast food restaurants for the public. Hours after consuming this, people started to change. They projectile vomited blood as it seeped from their eyes and ears while their skin blistered into large boils that burst with puss.

The government isolated cities and immediately started to develop a cure, an antivirus. Anything to save the people...

But it only made things worse. The new "cure" only mutated the human DNA further, turning them into grotesque creatures that were straight out from a child's nightmare.

In typical cases, the infected's skin peels off to reveal raw muscle while their mouths enlarge. These beings have been called Titans, in regular cases they're slow but in abnormal cases they're fast and sometimes they can jump.

Then there's the not so normal cases where the mutations are more excessive. Such examples of this are cases of infected being able to climb walls; breathe a concentrated version of the virus into the air; vomit acid; grow large claws; etc.

The people who have encountered these creatures have given them names for identification some from old video games and others from movies. But each person has thought of a different name for them, anything to cope.

Three years after infection

"Eren, don't be afraid. It's just a little shot." A man said as he held down a young boy, his skin was peeling off as his blood dripped on the poor boy's back. He started to pull up the boy's shirt, exposing his bare back. The blood pooled down on the boy's tanned back, making him shiver.

"Le-let me go, sir." the boy squirmed and writhed under the large man who was currently holding him down while wearing a pair of shorts as his skin fell away from his muscle.

The boy let out a silent cry, wondering where his mother was at this time.

Who is he? Oh his name is Eren Yaeger, a boy of roughly eight years old who is living in one of the refugee villages that was formed after the outbreak. He was on his way to the clinic with his mother when this creep attacked him, a nurse who is clearly infected but also seems to have taken a liking to the boy.

Eren screamed when blinding hot pain flashed through his body, turning his senses numb. His head lolled forward as he began to lose consciousness and his vision turned black.

Eren's POV*

I woke up with a start on the copter, shaking my head till the past wasn't flashing before my eyes.

"Sleeping at a time like this, Jaeger?"

I looked up to see Commander Erwin standing over me, his blonde caterpillars furrowed in amusement.

I stifled a yawn and shook myself a little "Sorry, Commander I guess I was a bit tired."

He laughed "Nothing to feel sorry about, although I was concerned when you were whimpering in your sleep and had your eyes scrunched up. Having a nightmare perhaps?"

I bit my lip, feeling shamed that the commander of all people saw me like that. "Just thinking about the past, sir. About when I got bitten by a Titan when I was a kid."

He nodded "I heard about that, it was by a friend of your father's right? A nurse who got infected from a vial of bad blood."

I hung my head and nodded "He was a good guy, practically a member of our family. We didn't know what his real intentions were till I got bit."

I held onto the key around my neck "My mother gave me this key as an heirloom of our family. The diamond in its eye is our family crest she told me, before she was eaten." I relaxed into my seat, the butt of my rifle resting against my shoulder while the muzzle pointed down rage at the floor of the copter.

"Sometimes it's good to talk about the past, Eren. It helps us find closure." the Commander smiled down at me which got me to smile back.

I grabbed my rifle tightly when the floor beneath me began to shake "Are we landing, Commander?"

He shook his head "We shouldn't be for another two hours."

The shaking was getting worse, a few bolts were coming loose from the walls and floor. The seat beneath me was rattling dangerously, making my bite mark active and ache terribly.

Sgt. Kirchstein ran up to us from the cockpit "Commander! The chopper is going down!"

I had a split second to react before the Sgt wrapped his arms around me and shielded me with his body.

Third person POV*

The copter crashed to the ground in a ball of fire, scattering her passengers much so like a dandelion scattering its seeds.

Eren rolled on the ground but was surprisingly unharmed. He got to his feet and immediately got on his radio "SCOUTS here, anybody alive from copter 347?"

"Yeah, I'm alive. How are you suicide bastard?"

"Nothing major, I'm going to look around. See if I can find some supplies or transport."

"Be on the look out for Titans and abnormals. Commander out."

Eren nodded and started walking, finding himself in some woods with lots of saplings surrounding him.

He kept walking till he found a train, feeling a sense of relief he boarded the train and checked his flanks and started to look around. He flipped on the flashlight on his rifle and swept the room, letting his sights fall upon a discarded wrapper.

Curious, he walked over and picked up the wrapper but immediately dropped it. "Shit, this is not good." He contacted his team "SCOUTS here, Agent Eren Jaeger. Commander Erwin we have a situation. Do you read me?"

"Erwin here, what's the problem?"

"I found an abandoned train, and a Happy Giant Burger wrapper." he kept looking around till he found a trolley full of Happy Giant Burger burgers. Only two of them untouched while at least fifty of them were unwrapped and devoured. "Correction, I found more than a dozen wrappers."

"What's Happy Giant Burger?" The Commander asked.

"You don't know sir? Happy Giant bought most of the tainted meat. They're mostly behind all of the outbreaks. If Jaeger found them then he might as well pack it in."

Eren frowned and fixed his rifle "You know, Jean I'm getting really tired of your attitude. Did you forget who beat your record back at the academy?"

There was a snort on the other end, most likely from the Commander. "He's got you there, Kirchstein. Keep an eye out for any infect-" static started to cut through on the radio's channel then suddenly there was nothing but silence. Eren swallowed but kept his guard up, he knew what needed to be done and he didn't need any supervision. He would go on this mission on his own.

He swept his light around the darkened train car, finding nothing except empty wrappers. "And Jean wonders why I don't eat fast food anymore." he murmured to himself. He looked down at the ground and saw something almost gelatinous on the ground of the train car "What the?" he laid down his rifle and bent down to inspect the odd thing when he felt fingers brush against his hair. He looked behind him and saw the most grotesque creature to ever exist. It was tall, bony and had parts of its muscles exposed. Not to mention that it was slimy and appeared to have no tongue; the creature looked to be male and possibly a passenger of this train according to his, or its, civilian attire.

Eren flipped onto his back and started to crawl backwards while he drew his pistol to fire at the creature. Before he could even aim it properly, the creature smacked the weapon out of his hands and sent it flying across the train car. The young SCOUTS agent panicked and let out a cry as the monster bent down to lunge at him.

"Nnngh!" He heard a grunt and looked up just in time to see a man with black hair, silver eyes and pale ivory skin swing from the rafter of the train car and slam his feet dead center into the infected man's chest before landing with a thump on the floor of the train car on his feet. Eren gulped as he caught sight of the handcuffs dangling from the newcomer's left wrist. On his right arm tattooed on his skin is an enormous pair of black wings and the SCOUTS symbol. He wore no shirt and only a pair of jeans.

"Oh right, be on the lookout for this guy." Jean handed Eren a case file "He's ex-military, used to be one of us. If you see him, arrest the fucker."

The young agent grabbed his rifle and pointed it at the man with shaking hands "Yo-you're Captain Levi Ackerman, the escaped prisoner!"

[weekegg2-blog]

A ‘freaking fag revolutionary’ remembers the early years of gay liberation in Chicago

When the annual Pride Parade steps off from the intersection of Broadway and Montrose at noon on Sunday, June 30—with Lori Lightfoot, Chicago's first openly gay mayor, serving as honorary grand marshal—it will represent a very different mind-set from the event that launched the pride parade tradition. This year's parade is expected to draw more than a million participants and onlookers to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion of June 28 and 29, 1969. Thus the theme Stonewall 50: Millions of Moments of Pride.

I was a teenaged member of Chicago Gay Liberation, the loose-knit, short-lived group that organized the first pride parade on Saturday, June 27, 1970. Most of our group thought of ourselves, proudly if irreverently, as members of the "freaking fag revolution"—to borrow the phrase used by Thomas Aquinas Foran, the U.S. attorney who had prosecuted the so-called "Chicago Seven" anti-war activists charged with conspiracy and incitement to riot as a result of their protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

The first parade wasn't even a parade. It was a march, which meant we were allowed to walk on the sidewalks but not in the streets. There were no floats, no cars, no politicians, no crowds, no corporate sponsors pitching their brands to onlookers. The last thing on our minds was the possibility of any mayor, let alone an openly gay one, leading the way; we were happy the city's then-mayor, "Boss" Richard J. Daley, didn't set his cops on us.

The day began at noon with a rally in Washington Square Park across the street from the Newberry Library—known as "Bughouse Square" because of its storied history as a free-speech forum. From there we walked to the historic Water Tower at the intersection of Michigan and Chicago Avenues. Then, instead of dispersing as we had originally planned, we impulsively headed south on Michigan into the Loop, chanting "Out of the closets and into the streets!" as we wended our way through throngs of Mag Mile shoppers. The march ended with another rally in Civic Center Plaza (now Daley Plaza), where the event culminated in a joyous circle dance around the Picasso statue.

Between 150 and 300 people (depending on which account you read) showed up to celebrate what our flyer promoting the event declared (in all capital letters) was: "THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF GAY PEOPLE TELLING THE WARPED, SICK, MALADJUSTED, PURITAN AMERIKAN SOCIETY THAT THEY HAVE HAD ENOUGH SHIT."

That flyer is on display as part of "Out of the Closets & Into the Streets: Power, Pride & Resistance in Chicago's Gay Liberation Movement," a new exhibit at Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, the midwest's largest LGBTQ library and research center. Conceived by the library's director, Wil Brant, and curated by a team of young volunteers including professional librarians Chase Ollis and James Conley and designer Kurt Conley, the display is drawn from Gerber/Hart's extensive archival collection.

The march marked the first anniversary of a riot in New York City on June 28, 1969, when patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay nightclub in Greenwich Village owned by the Genovese crime family, reacted violently to what had begun as a routine police raid. That event, and the events leading up to and following it, are well covered in a new book, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History by Marc Stein (NYU Press).

But that first Stonewall anniversary march wasn't the first activity of Chicago Gay Liberation, which started up in fall 1970 after University of Chicago grad student Henry Wiemhoff placed an ad in the Chicago Maroon student newspaper seeking a gay roommate. Not only did he get a roommate—a female taxicab driver named Michal Brody—he got a discussion group. We met in Wiemhoff and Brody's Hyde Park apartment and then, as our numbers grew, began to gather at the Blue Gargoyle, a community center and coffeehouse in the multicultural, nondenominational University Church on the University of Chicago campus.

Talking soon led to action. The first public Gay Lib event I participated in was a protest four months before the Stonewall march, on the snowy afternoon of Wednesday, February 25, 1970, outside the Loop headquarters of the Women's Bar Association of Illinois. The group was hosting a program on "Youthful Offenders" with a Chicago police officer, Sergeant John Manley, as guest speaker. But for us, the offender was Manley himself. The blond, muscular cop was notorious for entrapping gay men in Lincoln Park restrooms; wearing street clothes, he would pretend to solicit guys for sex and then arrest them if they responded to his invitation. Mattachine Midwest, an established "homophile" organization in town, published Manley's picture in its mimeographed monthly newsletter and mockingly suggested Manley himself was a closet case: "If I were gay and I didn't want anybody to know, and I felt very, very guilty, I think I might get a job where I could cruise in the public interest," wrote David Stienecker, the newsletter's editor. On February 7, 1970, Manley made an early morning appearance at Stienecker's third-floor apartment to arrest him for criminal defamation.

"After I unsuccessfully attempted to make a phone call, Manley called for a police van and I was escorted from my apartment in handcuffs," Stienecker now recalls. "Upon arriving at the precinct house, Manley suggested that if I just pleaded guilty the judge would only give me a slap on the wrist." But Stienecker, represented by the diligent and fierce lesbian attorney Renee Hanover, fought the charges. After several court appearances, most of which Manley missed, the case was thrown out of court, but Stienecker lost his job as an editor at World Book Encyclopedia due to the ensuing publicity—there then being no legal protection against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Manley later rose to the rank of captain in the police force, but his career crashed and burned in the mid-1990s when he was fired for sexually harassing female officers under his supervision. Some 20 years later, his name popped up in the news again when he was ticketed for, of all things, impersonating a government official after he posed as a U.S. Maritime Service "special agent" to avoid a parking ticket. Stienecker, who went on to a successful career writing educational books for children, is credited as a program supporter of Gerber/Hart's "Out of the Closets" exhibit.

In March 1970, we responded to the release of The Boys in the Band, the film version of the 1968 off-Broadway stage hit. Our aim was not to boycott the movie—which used waspish humor to illustrate the pathological, self-hating behavior of a group of gay New York men—but to use it as a teaching opportunity. We handed out flyers on the street outside the Carnegie Theatre on Rush Street (where Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse is now), which read in part: "The pain and cruelty typified by The Boys in the Band should be understood as the expression of human lives damaged by an environment of condemnation, suspicion, job discrimination, and legal harrassment [sic]."

Gay Liberation also organized dances, which drew large crowds from around the city. Though same-sex dancing wasn't illegal, it was forbidden in the mob-owned gay bars in Boss Daley's Chicago, where periodic police raids were a given. The first two Gay Lib dances were held in the protected environs of the University of Chicago campus. (It inspired other LGBTQ student groups to hold their own dances at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle—now UIC—and Northwestern University. At the latter, music was provided by the Siegel-Schwall Band, then one of Chicago's hottest blues-rock bands. )

When the U. of C. demanded that CGL move its dances off campus because the crowds were getting too big, we booked the Coliseum, located on South Wabash between 14th and 16th Streets, a huge venue that had hosted several Republican presidential conventions, sports events, rock concerts, and, a few weeks previously, a congress of Black Muslims. As historian Timothy Stewart-Winter, author of Queer Clout: Chicago and the Rise of Gay Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press), recounts in a Slate article titled "Beyond Stonewall: How Gay History Looks Different From Chicago":

"[T]here was a problem: The venue required an insurance policy, and every insurance agent the organizers approached said the risk was too great that the police would raid the dance, cart the attendees off to jail, and levy fines. Only on the day before the dance did the activists find a broker who'd sell them a policy—a black man whose company had insured the Nation of Islam's annual convention at the same venue."

About 2,000 people showed up at the Coliseum to dance for liberation on April 18, 1970. So did the police. But when the cops entered the hall and came face to face with a phalanx of attorneys—including the formidable Renee Hanover—primed to document any civil liberties violations, they shrugged and went away.

The Gerber/Hart exhibit includes copies of the mimeographed newsletters that Gay Lib used to spread its message in those long-ago pre-Internet days. Also on display is a copy of the Chicago Seed, the city's hippie/radical underground paper, which published an eight-page Gay Liberation supplement in one issue. There's also a well-deserved tribute to the late Frank Robinson, who gave Chicago's LGBTQ community the first professional- quality publications we could call our own. Robinson was a closeted middle-aged editor for Playboy magazine; unable to come out for our demonstrations, he devoted himself to behind-the-scenes messaging. After publishing a one time "Gay Pride" paper to promote the 1971 Pride Parade (which by then had been relocated to the Lincoln Park/Lakeview area on the north side), Robinson put out two editions of The Paper, a 1972 tabloid that covered local LGBTQ arts and politics. The Paper ran interviews with local counterculture celebrities such as painter Ed Paschke, lesbian singer-songwriter Linda Shear, female impersonators Roby Landers and Wanda Lust, and stage director Gary Tucker, aka "Eleven," whose gender-bending Godzilla Rainbow Troupe was then running its hit production of Charles Ludlam and Bill Vehr's outrageous Turds in Hell. A copy of The Paper on display at Gerber/Hart shows a photo from another landmark of Chicago's fledgling off-Loop theater movement, the Organic Theater's sci-fi epic Warp!, featuring André De Shields (who just won a Tony for his performance in the Broadway hit Hadestown) as Xander the Unconquerable. In 1973, Robinson had relocated to San Francisco, where he became the speechwriter for a camera store owner and activist with aspirations to a political career—Harvey Milk. But by then the city had its first (more or less) regularly published newspaper, the Chicago Gay Crusader, edited by activist Michael Bergeron with copy editing supervision by his lover Bill Kelley.

The success of the June 1970 Stonewall anniversary march (no one got arrested!) encouraged members of Gay Liberation to start developing a larger agenda. Inevitably, there were conflicts. Some wanted to merge Gay Lib into a broader leftist coalition; others preferred to keep the focus on LGBTQ issues. GL's women's and Black caucuses went off in their own directions; the Black caucus turned into Third World Gay Revolutionaries, led by Ortez Alderson, who went to prison for destroying draft records in downstate Pontiac. And in September 1970, as reported in a CGL newsletter displayed in the Gerber/Hart exhibit, "Tensions that had been brewing for some weeks finally came to a head . . . with the result that the group suffered a schism and a large number of members announced they were forming a new group—not a new caucus—to be called 'The Chicago Gay Alliance.' . . . Though there . . . were moments of acrimony, the parting was amicable. . . . All present expressed a desire to avoid the infighting of competitive groups in other cities"—a reference to the internecine turf wars that tore at the fabric of New York's gay community around the same time.

The debut issue of the CGA newsletter in November 1970 explained: "The Chicago Gay Alliance is actively interested in alleviating the ghetto (whether spiritual or physical) conditions of homosexuals, in dispelling the psychological and sociological mythology that has grown up about the subject of homosexuality, in providing referral services to homosexuals, in helping homosexuals 'coming out' develop a sense of pride in who they are and courage in facing the generally hostile outside world, to provide additional social outlets so that homosexuals can meet each other as human beings, to change repressive laws and end police and political harassment, and to improve communications between the homosexual and the heterosexual communities."

In 1971 CGA gave Chicago its first LGBTQ community center, a ramshackle red-brick two-story rented house on an Old Town side street at 171 W. Elm. By 1973 the center had closed for lack of financial support, and CGA ceased operations. But the activism continued. A July 1973 issue of the Chicago Gay Crusader reported that 20th Ward alderman Cliff Kelley, working with a group called Illinois Gays for Legislative Action, had introduced legislation in the Chicago City Council to prohibit discrimination in jobs, housing, and public accommodations based on sexual orientation. It took 15 years for the City Council to finally vote an LGBTQ-inclusive Chicago Human Rights Ordinance into law on December 21, 1988.

The Old Town community center paved the way for today's gleaming Center on Halsted. The Gay Crusader was succeeded by the weekly newspaper GayLife, founded in 1975 by the late Grant Ford, and then by Windy City Times, cofounded in 1985 by Tracy Baim, now publisher of the Reader, and still publishing in print and online 34 years later. (I served as editor of both GayLife and WCT in the '80s.)

The Gerber/Hart exhibit's narrative arc climaxes with a major event from 1977, chronicled in an issue of GayLife on display. On June 14 of that year, singer, orange-juice industry spokeswoman, and former Miss America Anita Bryant arrived in Chicago for a concert at the historic Medinah Temple at Wabash and Ohio (it's now a Bloomingdale's home furniture store). The concert had been booked before Bryant achieved national notoriety as leader of an anti-LGBTQ initiative in Dade County, Florida. LGBTQ activists, including me, picketed the Bryant concert in Chicago, despite being cautioned by gay establishment leaders that our action would be an embarrassing failure. By then, it was thought, the activist energy of the early 1970s had waned, and the only time queers turned out en masse was for the Pride Parade. But a spontaneous, unexpected turnout of 3,000 to 5,000 (depending on whom you ask) proved the naysayers wrong.

Chicago Gay Liberation, the Chicago Gay Alliance, and the other groups that sprang up in the wake of Stonewall ran out of steam by the end of the decade, but the sense of empowerment they gave the community—and the lessons we learned from their successes and setbacks—guided us into the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic and the struggle for civil rights at the city, county, and state level drove a new activist spirit. "The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long," notes Gerber/Hart's James Conley. "As transformative as those groups were, they were temporary. But the impact they had in their short span of existence was monumental and lasting."   v

Special thanks to Amber Lewis at Columbia College Chicago

Correction: This article has been revised to reflect that the Siegel-Schwall Band played at a dance held on the campus of Northwestern University, not that of the University of Chicago.

Source: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/gerber-hart-gay-pride-history/Content?oid=70924510