#i played some mortal combat at my friend's house and got my ass handed to me by him

[helladventurers]

Got some more Zooey practice in, I'm almost done practicing her combos 😤👏 I'm having a bit of trouble with the timing of some of them, but I feel like with enough practice I can get good at pulling them off consistently

[gukptune]

baby boy → jungkook

↠ Pairing: jungkook x reader

↠ Genre: sub!jungkook, smut, slice of life

↠ Warnings: explicit language, dirty talk, baby talk, sub jk, switch reader, masturbation, fingering, timid/shy jk, sexual exploration

∴ Plot Summary: Jungkook’s never been one that expresses his emotions very well, but in a moment of awakening, it reveals a lot more about him that he would’ve expected. Finding that for the first time he was attracted to someone in a different way, wanting her to do all sorts of things to him, things he was used to doing to other people.

∷ Words: 5.1k+

∵ a/n: a teeny bit of smut here just to set the tone~

SERIES INDEX: baby boy

        — part one

        — part two

SERIES MASTERLIST

Late into the night, you wouldn’t normally be imagining yourself moping around in an idle kitchen staring into a cluster of bodies squeezing together, trying their best to escape the weather that had forced them all inside. Highly, unexpected and a rather large buzzkill for all the attendees, some soaking wet from the pour and many, including you cringing from the humid, muddy smell people were treading inside the house.

Yet, no one had thought about joining you inside the kitchen, though the living room was spacious, you would’ve assumed someone would try to wash the dirt off their feet in here. You couldn’t even believe the sight of teenagers rubbing their dirty feet against the expensive carpets, god, who even wore shoes in the house, not you.

Well, at this point the party was dead and buried. A few brainless couldn’t get that through their skulls, trying their hardest to lighten the mood and open some music. Of course there were dead drunks recovering on the few couches and floor.

But of course, the man of the house himself pushes through the crowd with his bright and charismatic face, gathering all the attention he needed.

“Everyone, everyone, let’s all settle in okay, we’ll just play a few games and wait for the storm to get past before you all head home,” Jimin suggests, knowing that everyone was going to be pissed that they’d have to walk home in the rain or figure out a way home.

He clearly knew the party was done, but he was kind enough to let the crowd loiter in his home for the how many hours it was going to take for the storm to finish. You looked out behind you, through the window at the sight of massive droplets of rain, trees fighting against the wind, it was loud and sort of scary. You were never a big fan of wind, thunder was fine but something about how wind would literally blow you away and of course all the shit flying all over the place causing a ruckus.

Park-superstar-Jimin, sweet talks the crowd enough to get them on their asses to play typical board games and drink to their heart’s content. But of course, his constant head turning told you he wasn’t exactly done with his satisfaction mission.

You leaned against the countertop, finishing up your tiny can of coke, you snagged out of his fridge. Seeing you murmuring to yourself, his grin stretches out, excusing himself like the gentlemen he is and making his way towards you with a look of mischief.

“Aren’t you just a happy camper?” He exclaims, looking you up and down stopping at the coke can in your hand before his eyebrow arched, he should know by now that you don’t drink yet he always forgets to get you something to drink in this house during parties apart from water.

You tilted your head as your eyebrows curved at him. Silently asking him what he was here to get, he hasn’t exactly ran into you the entire party, you weren’t even one for parties yet you came because he asked and you’re a good friend.

He pouts, nudging his shoulder into yours before saying, “Come on I know I forgot again but! We’re all in the den, come on, you don’t wanna be around all these people.”

That was true, most of these people you didn’t know, a mixture of some students from your school and Jimin’s old school. He was truly a social butterfly. Jimin and you had a rather strange start to your friendship.

Jimin moved during the second semester of your sophomore year, from a public school to a private one. He was quite upset about it, his parents made him move schools because they were moving homes to get closer to their parent’s work place. But a big factor was also how his mother would get shit talked by her book club for having a child in public school when they could clearly afford putting him in a public one.

Jimin loves his friends and always kept them by his side, only during summer of that year did you and him get close through your similar interest in volleyball, having to practice together in the same gym you’d always be in eachother’s space. Finally, you’d both stay back late and practice by yourselves, finding that in the end it was better to practice together and started hanging out casually. You were both similar in traits and character, yet he was truly an extrovert whilst you really wouldn’t put yourself in either category.

“Who’s down there?” You asked, pulling the tab off the coke can before putting the can in his recycle bin. 

Jimin pulled his lips between his teeth, tapping his toes, you could tell he didn’t want to tell you. He was nervous to, “Uhm, a bunch of my best bros? But hey! Some of your girl friends are down there, though Namjoon may have just taken them upstairs?”

The sheer look on Jimin’s face warns you enough. You took it, nodding and pushing past him to get to the ‘den’ as Jimin would call it, knowing that it would be better than being stuck up here with these people.

As soon as you reached the basement room, of which was completely filled with Jimin’s favourite things. Especially, games and his music stuff, since he tries to keep the noise down here mainly to not disturb his parents whenever they’re home, you could kind of remember some of the familiar faces from Jimin’s old school since he always tends to invite them around for his parties.

But then again it had been nearly an entire summer and well you couldn’t exactly place the name to the face.

“Oh, would you look at that, she’s finally made her presence known,” an irritating voice echoed through your ears. Of course, you’d never be able to hide from his goof for too long.

“Taehyung, you’ve finally got a haircut,” you smiled, teasing him as his face twisted into a smile.

“God, I missed you too.” He pulls you into a rather suffocating hug, squeezing you hard. Your eyebrows furrow as you looked over his shoulder at the view, a bunch of his friends sprawled over the couch and bean bag chairs playing a game.

A singular soul caught your eye as his eyes caught yours, hands covering a controller. His attention completely not on that game but you, cocking your eyebrow taking him by surprise he snapping him out of his gaze. His lack of attention made his character die, and the controller vibrate loudly against his hands. Making his friends laugh at him for losing. His eyes leaving yours quickly as he makes up excuses for his lost.

But yet again your attention was taken back towards the brunette in front of your face.

“You know, Jimin does not stop talking about you,” Taehyung teases, knowingly that Jimin’s crush on you was obvious yet it wasn’t going to happen. 

You sighed, pulling away from him, “And I’ve told him many times, I’m not into pretty boys.”

“Does that include me?” Taehyung laughed.

You shrugged, “Maybe.”

He chuckles lightly, before looking behind you and breaking into an overdramatic fit.

“That’s so funny! Oh my god, I’m glad you missed me,” he says loudly, you looked around confused, before seeing Jimin strolling down the stairs with drinks.

His mouth agape with shock, “You said you missed him? You didn’t even miss me!”

As Jimin pretty much throws a tantrum at Taehyung you slip past, making way towards a vacant spot on the couch. Plopping yourself on it you watched the large screen, seeing a rather intense fight going on.

“Suck it, Kook! You’ve lost your fire dude!” A dark haired boy, who looked older than most of us. You’ve seen him a couple times but never caught his name. At this point you looked over to the boy that he spoke to, Kook? Must’ve been a nickname.

“Oh shut up! I’m beating you now!”

They sure love Mortal Combat, though it wasn’t a game you were interested in. He seemed tense now that you were a a metre away from him, his eye wavering towards you every now and then. Jimin seemed to have calmed down, making his way to sit next to you. He waved you to move from the right of the couch, you complied hopping towards the centre of the couch extremely close to that boy.

“Are you guys done? I want to play Overcooked,” Jimin mumbled, taking a sip of his drink.

The boys groaned, nodding as one of them handed Jimin the controller and got off his seat to change the disk.

“Jungkook, move in,” Jimin said, leaning over you to tap on the small space between you and the boy, Jungkook. Jungkook furrowed his eyebrow, confused, allowing Jimin to continue, “Hoseok will sit there, we’ll play teams.”

Jungkook seemed to have let out a deep sigh, he didn’t argue which you assumed meant he was younger than Jimin. He seemed uncomfortable being thigh to thigh with you.

Hoseok quickly popped back onto the couch grabbing two extra controllers and handing one to Jungkook, who stared at the pair in his hands, “Give it to ____.” Hoseok nudged Jungkook, who jumped nodding and handing it to you.

“Here,” He muttered, keeping his voice down.

You took it from him, nonchalantly trying your best to ignore him. His hands were hot when it graced against your skin. He was wearing a dark purple sweater that nearly covered his entire hands.

As the game starts up Jimin speaks up, “Right, Hobi and JK against me and _____, alright?”

Clearly, he was going to team with you. Jungkook lets out a cough which made you turn to look at him, his fluffy brown hair falling over his forehead. You could barely actually look at his face from how dark the room was, the only light coming from some lamps and the tv screen. With the four of you on the main couch and a few others around, Jimin jumps in excitement as the game begins.

“When did I even agree to play?” You questioned, finally realising you’re going to actually have to play.

“Since you took the controller,” Hoseok quipped, readying up.

You scoffed, “I hate games like this.”

You turned to the side to crack your back, your leg brushing up against both males by your side but one took it strangely. Jungkook’s breath hitches when your knee slides up his thigh. You were confused to say the least, leaning towards him trying to see his expression, of which he looks away pretending to talk to Hoseok. God, did Jimin have strange friends.

As we picked our characters and get into the game, you got serious. You’ve literally just said you hated games like this but the reason was mainly because you’d fight with your teammates, hard. Overcooked was not a family-friendly game when you’ve got loud potty-mouths playing, you’ve in for an a ride.

“Quickly, Jungkook! I need a bun! No, a bun not cheese!”

“_____, three bananas, quickly!”

“Jimin, shut up!”

“Uh, Hobi, I can’t find the oven!”

You all butt heads, enemies and friends, screaming at the top of their lungs as a few friends made their way home, it was probably late into the night. A few closer friends of Jimin left, and a few of yours.

“Yes!” Jimin yelled, “And of course, victory goes to the most beautiful duo!” 

He leans over your lap to mock his friends, making baby noises. You push him off your lap as he goes over to Hoseok and teases him, leaving you to stare towards that direction, seeing Jungkook pulling on his sweater awkwardly. At this point you would’ve thought you’d be comfortable with each  other now but, he seemed to have not thought the same. 

“What’s with you?” Your voice seemed to have taken him by surprise, he jumps turning towards you but not meeting your eyes, crossing his arms he said, “Nothing.”

At least he answered, you didn’t really understand why he was so shy towards you, or scared. He had nothing to be scared of, he was much bigger and taller than you. You always found yourself to be quite an outspoken person who sticks up for herself but not a scary one, otherwise how could softy Park Jimin be friends with you never-mind have an actual crush on you. Jungkook, was a muscular tough looking boy with a broody personality. You weren’t going to argue that he wasn’t hot, because he was ever attractive in all ways, face, body, personality- very much so your type.

“Right, your awkwardness towards me totally is nothing, thank you for that,” you jabbed, rolling your eyes as you got up.

He immediately dropped his arms and looked up towards you, his shoulders dropping as well. You side-eyed him, still wanting to see his reaction. Dropping the controller on your seat you stretched, “I’m tired, I’ll head home.”

Jimin’s ear perked before he widened his eyes, “No, it’s late just stay here.”

You looked around at the space, remembering how you guys used to have sleepovers but that was with your classmates but his own friends.

“Uh―I don’t know, Jimin,” You mumbled. Jungkook crossing his legs looking the other way.

“Come on! We’re all staying, I know you don’t know my friends but this is a great opportunity, please?” Jimin pouts, giving you a cute look as he makes paws with his fists and start nudging his head against you. You sighed, thinking about it. It would’ve taken you a while to get a home and they seemed nice.

“Okay,” you agreed, watching as Jimin’s face brightened with joy. He jumps up and down with happiness.

“Yay! Let’s get the mattresses out and settle in,” Jimin wiggles his eyebrows, making a few of his friends cheer.

A reasonable amount of time had passed and the couches had been pushed to the sides of the room, a few people sleeping on them. 

Your choice of layout was indeed interesting, the tv screen was ahead of your ‘bed’. On your left against the wall was Jin, on a couch, already dead asleep. At the end of his bed was Namjoon and one of your girl friend cuddling up, the pair came down only a few minutes ago.

Below them on your left was Jungkook, having an entire mattress for himself, he was on his phone scrolling through instagram. You laid centre of the room, Jimin on the same mattress as you- since he was the closest friend you had apart from the girls who well, wanted the chance to warm up to the boys. On your right was Yoongi and a girl you didn’t know, sleeping soundly, whilst Namjoon and your friend were whispering cutely to each other.

Taehyung and Hoseok were at the back of the room, a few inches from your head playing a game, headphones in to keep it down for those already asleep. Jimin was still upstairs, probably either kicking people out of the house or changing. He gave you a shirt to wear, since you were already wearing a skirt you merely kept the undershorts on with the shirt.

Now with only the beaming light from the television, you looked over to your left at Jungkook. Who kept a large space on his right, seemingly keeping a large distance from you. You sighed loudly, looking towards him again, he hasn’t paid any attention to you. It seemed to have all been on his phone. He turns over on his left, the light of his phone dimmed down now.

Jimin slips back into the room quietly, pulling up your blanket and getting in, you turned over to him raising your eyebrow slightly, silently asking him what’s up.

“Everyone’s gone, the place is a teeny bit messed up, it’s also still raining,” he whispers. Stretching over his pillow before puffing it and laying his head on it.

You nod, noticing him stare mindlessly into your eyes.

“Well, goodnight,” he smiled, turning over and seemingly sleeping. You blinked, comprehending what had just happened. Smiling to yourself as you pulled the covers over your face, knowing that Park Jimin truly was a good guy.

Yet, your mind raced back to the boy behind you. Turning over you saw him in the same position. Taehyung and Hoseok had turned off the game at the point and gotten to sleep, Jungkook on the other hand still had his phone on. You grew curious, quietly pulling the sheets over you hoping Jimin had sort of fallen asleep now. You moved onto Jungkook’s mattress that was connected to your own, peering over to see him watching a rather explicit video.

The colour of the screen was enough to tell you what he was watching, he didn’t even bother to full screen it. Which made you wonder if he was doing something under the blanket right now. You got as close to him as you could without him noticing, his ears were reddened and his breathing shallow, leaning in you whispered, “Aren’t you shameless.”

Your breath against the shell of his ear made him jump, a hand coming to cover his own mouth as he takes deep breaths before replying, “What―I thought―”

“Have you been watching porn since we laid out the beds?” You teased, slipping into his blanket from behind him and placing your chin on his shoulder. He stiffens, his eyes darting left to right nervously.

“No―no,” Jungkook said, before he closes his phone and turns onto his back, pushing you back slightly from his weight.

Laying on your side with your hand holding your head upright you looked into his eyes, for the first time. He blinks finally looking directly at you too, “Nothing’s wrong with watching it but gosh, doing it when all your friends were around. What if your pop a boner, were you going to masturbate right here?”

Jungkook’s cheeks flushed, his lips quivering answering your question. With that, your lips curved into a smirk. Your eyes narrowing with mischief, “Do you have a boner right now?”

He swallows hard, not responding, merely blinking back at you. You wanted to test the theory you had before, feeling an odd sense of dominance over him.

“I asked you a question, Kookie, answer it.” Your voice grovelled in a whisper, trying your best to not get noticed by anyone.

He nods quickly, “Yea, I have a boner.” He looks away, trying his hardest to not catch your gaze. He was melting under you.

“Jungkook―” You lead, your voice lowering.

His features softened, “Yea?”

It wasn’t like you never took notice of him, Jungkook, you never knew his name but you knew he’d always try to avoid you at every event. There were only two explanations you could think of right now, either he hates you or he likes you. You took this opportunity to ask him a bold question.

“Do you like me?”

You asked a bold question, one that would tell you what you can or can’t do in this moment. He stares back at you, a shy smile growing on his lips, “Uhm, yea, I do―”

“Oh,” You grinned, pushing up against him, “Since when?”

“Since a few years ago,” he doesn’t hesitate to answer.

A few years ago was when Jimin moved to your school, that few years ago was the first time you ‘met’ his friends at his birthday party. Jungkook liked you from the first time he set eyes on you, it felt strangely pure.

“Cute,” you said, watching his smile drop and his hand come up and cover his blushing face.

“Stop, you’re making it harder,” Jungkook whines.

You cocked your head, “Making what harder.” You laughed.

“My―my dick, uh,” He mushes his hands into his face in shame. Which was ironic because he was watching porn only a few inches away from you a few seconds ago.

“So you were all awkward around me because, you like me?” You grinned, teasing him again.

He peaked an eye through his fingers and nods, “You were also dressed really cutely.”

“Am I not dressed cutely now?” you joked, wiggling in Jimin’s old shirt.

His lips curved softly, as his hand reached out to grab the fabric of your shirt, “Isn’t this Jimin’s? You look really hot right now.”

Well, he was bold. You didn’t really feel hot but his compliment surely made your cheeks hot, hopefully since your hair covered any light from shining on your face he wouldn’t be able to see that.

“Shut up,” you said, pushing his hand back playfully.

Taking a look around you knew it had been a while and could hear many bodies snoring through their sleep. Maybe this was an opportunity for you to also do something bold.

“Hey―do you mind if I―” you pointed at this spot. Asking him if you could sleep here, he immediately nods, “Of course.”

Cozying up into the blanket, with your body glued to his you knew this was going to be real hard for him, mainly due to something else that was also hard. You wanted to play, wanted to see what he was willing to let you do.

Pretending to start falling asleep you turned over on your side throwing a leg over him. He coughs, trying to hide something. You peaked through your eyelids to see him looking down at you, probably wondering if you were actually sleeping.

You groaned from the comfiness of the pillow that was his chest, trying to get under his skin. Which worked as he breathes heavily and keeps trying to adjust his sweatpants.

Then, you brushed your leg against his crotch, feeling the extremely hard and girthy trouble that was trying to rip through the fabric.

“______, please,” Jungkook breathes out a moan.

You take this opportunity to act clueless, “Please? Please what?”

Jungkook groans in pain, “Please don’t tease me, I―god, I’m going to―”

“I don’t get it?” You batted your lashes, kneading your knee into him.

He struggles to keep himself quiet, pretty much choking on his moans. He shakes his head, as his eyebrows stitch together.

“You’re acting dumb, ______, I can’t do this―” He whines, his face twisting as if he was in pain.

You scoffed, “But, Jungkook―aren’t you a good boy?”

Now he literally chokes, blinking tears out of his eyes as his dick tenses. Cursing out and he calms himself down. So, it is true, he likes this stuff.

“You want to be a good boy but, you’re literally going to cream your pants from me just opening my mouth? That makes you a bad boy―and bad boys don’t get what they want.”

You pull your leg back, watching as he stammers and reaches for your hand, “Please, I will be a good boy, it’s just you’re so pretty and you’ve just got really plump lips and a really raspy voice―it’s just like―fuck―it looks like you just woke up from some hard fucking.”

As much as he acts like a sub, he was extremely dirty in his speech and well it turned you on. God, you were fucking wet, the way he’s talking about you and looking at you was already killing you.

To comprehend exactly what he just told you, tells you that he’s obviously had sex before and knew his ways around things. He seemed like a switch looking to try the other side, and well he was very into you. Yet, if he wanted to play this game you didn’t want him to get his prize so quickly.

“Hmm, I like the way you speak but baby boy, you need to know who’s in charge, right?” You demanded, your voice dripping with sex.

“Yes, you’re in charge,” He repeats and obliges. 

Now it was time to have some fun, you seductively placed your lips on his ear, breathing over it as your eyes closed pleasurably.

“Hmm, touch yourself, baby,” you moaned, suddenly baby had become his pet name and you knew he liked it from his immediate reaction.

Letting out a strangled groan, he pushes his hands straight into his pants and began playing with himself. You couldn’t help but chuckle lightly at his speed, “Slow down, don’t want you to come too fast, right?”

“Right,” he repeats, forcing himself to rub himself slowly.

You knew he wasn’t used to being told what to do but he seemed to like it more than you thought. He went straight into his underwear, thinking of finishing right away but hell, if he wanted to be a submissive when he needs to understand what you’re in charge of what he can or can’t do.

“Listen, I’m letting you off this time, baby, but I tell you what to do and when to do it, I didn’t say to get inside your pants I merely said to touch yourself,” You explained with an authoritative tone which made Jungkook’s ears perk and himself nod quickly, “If you’re confused, then ask, don’t think for yourself, not right now.”

He looks at you directly in the eye the entire time, listening like a well trained puppy. His glimmering eyes, and parted lips telling you that he was feeling good, so good.

“Since it’s the first time, we’ll make it quick,” You said.

Laying on your back, he wonders what you’re doing from the look on his face. You don’t explain yourself, seeing his rather large hand pulling on his wet, red hot cock.

Drenching your core, and hell, you knew you wouldn’t beable to sleep without getting off. Jungkook’s hands moving at a good pace you wondered how wet his dick was, you quirked your eyebrow, rubbing your thighs together to get some sort of friction.

“Baby, could you use your other hand?” you pout, your tone still had a dominance over it.

You knew you’d need to work on it, you just wouldn’t bare being so blunt and mean to him. He just looked so cute.

Jungkook’s eyebrows showed that he was confused yet he did what you told him, struggling with his non dominant hand. You knew it would be painful, not being able to jack off as hard but that was the point.

His precum covered hand, rested palm up against your thigh. You stared at the wetness, imagining where else it could go.

You shakily took his wrist, your palm could barely encase the entire thing. He doesn’t seem to know what you’re doing, but you drag it further up towards your lips. 

Licking them before darting your tongue out to get a taste of the wetness on his fingers, at this point he realises what you’re doing and groans, eyebrows glued together as well as his eyes. Trying to only feel what’s going on.

“Oh―fuck, your mouth, uh,” hes whines, you could feel his legs shake from your side.

You chuckled, “Could you help me out?”

His eyes immediately opening, “With―with what?”

“This―” You take his hand into your mouth, wetting it further before sliding it down your bare stomach. Jimin’s shirt had rose up under your bra at this point, Jungkook’s breath hitching as he feels your soft skin against his wet fingers.

You slide them underneath your underwear, making him shake as his fingers ran over your wet slit, causing you squirm at the coldness yet moaned at the feeling of his wet hand touching you.

“Jungkook, come on, you should be touching yourself,” you ordered, taking control of his hand that was deep inside your pants, not allowing him to touch you for himself but have you guide him.

He must’ve loved the feeling of your wet lips, knowing that he did this, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as his lips parted letting out quiet sounds of pleasure. He speeds up his pace, running his fist up and down his length, sloppy wet quenches low enough for only the ears of you two.

“______, you’re gonna make me cum, fuck,” he mumbles, nudging his head into the side of your head. His hot breath heating up your neck.

You bite your lip, your middle finger over his as you glide it up and down your wetness. If that was enough to get him like this you wondered what else would make him this whiney.

“Baby, keep it down.” At this point he was getting a little more vocal, he must’ve been close.

You were done teasing yourself now, taking him by surprise you thrust his fingers into you. Your hips bucking at intrusion, god even his fingers were so fucking thick.

He couldn’t keep his mouth shut now, “Fuck, shit, you’re so wet, uh and tight!”

You both chased for your highs, him having much more of a struggle with that left hand of his whilst you were nearly there.

“Fuck, baby, I’m so close,” you said, “Cum with me.” 

Ordering him to do so, he squeezes his eyes shut as he spills out into his pants. You squeezing his fingers tight as you came. Both biting your lips to keep quiet, do you were both going to get murdered if they knew what you did in here whilst they slept. Hopefully, it wouldn’t smell like sex by the morning.

Of course you could imagine the other pairs could also be getting up to some naughty stuff but they were exclusive. Taehyung and Jimin may have Jungkook’s head knowing what just happened.

“You did so good,” you purred, patting down his ruffled hair before giving him a light kiss on the cheek, his bright red cheek.

His eyes were half shut, one eye more opened that the other as his mouth gaped for air. God, he looked so content, and fucked out from a mere masturbation session. You couldn’t imagine what he’d look like if you actually fucked him.

Pulling his hands out of you, looking back to see Jimin still asleep you sighed with relief. Pushing against the mattress to move yourself back next to Jimin. With that look on Jungkook’s face you knew he seemed confused, but mostly upset.

You wondered why, he got what he wanted right. This was also to make sure Jimin wouldn’t think something happened.

Adjusting yourself you turned away from Jungkook, getting a whiff of Jimin’s hair, which smelled like baby powder and alcohol. You nuzzled into his back, feeling him stir and turn towards you, wrapping his arms around you as you fell into a deep slumber.

c. 2019

[hi-i-love-u-bitch]

Excuse me! But where is my Sanders Sides Gamer AU???

Voices in my head: Gee Bunny, it seems you have no problem writing a lot of other fics and stuff yet you still haven’t even finished the next chapter of your Spiderverse fic???

Me: SHUT THE FUCK UP DISEMBODIED VOICES IN MY HEAD!!! IF YOU WANT THAT FIC DONE SO BADLY TELL MY LOGIC AND CREATIVITY TO GET THEIR ASSES IN GEAR AND GIVE ME SOME GOD DAMN INSPIRATION!!!!

Voices in my head:.....

Me: Yeah, that’s what I thought! Anyways, idk if I just missed a memo or something but I haven’t seen any Gamer AU of my boys and that is a crime in and of itself! Like, how dare! But fret not, I am here to provide content (Read: headcannons) that you did not ask for! Let us begin! Or should I say start!

(please note that I am not a gaming expert so feel free to add or correct stuff)

NOW WITH A PART 2!!!!

MAIN SQUAD

Roman Rosewood

Obviously loves RPGs! Anything with a good story line really! Or has medieval fantasy aesthetic!

Skyrim, Diablo, Undertale, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, Undertales, Dragon Age, God of War Dark Souls, Assassins Creed, Earthbound, etc.

Played West of Loathing just so he could rip on it but actually ended up loving it and spending way to many hours playing. Then he found out there was a game called Kingdom of Loathing by the same creators and went down that rabbit hole as well.

He was iffy about getting into JRPGs but then Virgil convinced him to play Persona 5 and he absolutely fell in love with the music!

All the music in his phone is either from musicals or Video games!

Also really likes choose your own adventure games like Detroit: Become Human, Life is Strange, and Telltale Games

So much video game merch! Usually figurines because he likes to make little shelves and display cases for them.

He also really likes multiplayer games because he’s a social butterfly and likes to play with his squad.

Sucks at first person shooter games but still willingly plays Fortnight or Call of Duty or Left for Dead with his friends because he doesn’t want to be a drag and complain. But also they sometimes die in game in the most hilarious ways and it just leaves everybody wheezing.

Virgil Dante

Horror games, obvs!

All about that dark aesthetic!

Devil May Cry, Silent Hill, Fran Bow, Sally Face, Resident Evil, The Witch’s House, Amnesia, Little Nightmares, Bendy and The Ink Machine, Alice: Madness Returns, SCP-Containment, Pony Island, etc.

Yes, he’s played all the Five Nights At Freddy’s games. It’s a good series and it isn’t his fault the fandom is bat shit crazy and full of ten year olds! Fuck you Roman!

Every time the Walking Dead comes out he knows he’ll end up crying by the end of it. He and the squad make and event out of it.

Japanese horror games are usually his favorite because they deal more with the psychological aspects of horror instead of the jump scares

So, yes, he’s also a fan of Corps Party and Fatal Frame

Also really good at first person shooters because he has a really steady hand (you usually have to when playing horror games least you want to restart the level) and it pisses Roman off to no end every time Virgil randomly headshots him.

Usually likes to by merch in the form of posters, t-shirts, or beanies. He only buys figurines if it’s a game he really, really likes.

At first didn’t know why people kept bugging him to play Doki Doki Literature Club but then he finally caved and...oh...that’s why.

Logan Mill

My boy loves puzzle and strategy games yo!

Legend of Zelda, Portal, Tetris, Unravel, World of Goo, Inside, Limbo, Pokemon, Shadow of the Colossus, StarCraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empire, Heart of Iron, World of Warcraft, etc.

He likes Overwatch but doesn’t like playing with people online so he usual solos or asks the others to play. But that too usually ends in chaos.

Hates rage games because he gets frustrated easily and has broken at least four keyboards and two controllers

He still plays them anyways because he can beat it damn it! Just give him a minute!

Enjoys the God of War series despite all the mythological inaccuracies

He plays a lot of Minecraft to relax or destress and has build beautiful works of architecture and sometimes entire cities.

He thought it was stupid and childish and was embarrassed about it for a long time until the squad came over to his house one day uninvited and caught him playing. He was getting ready for them to make fun of him but they instead gushed about how AMAZING everything looked and how TALENTED he was for building all himself.

Logan ends up showing them how to play afterwards and they work together to make weird sculptures and complex tunnels underground.

He likes practical merch like backpacks, coffee mugs, pencil holders, notebooks, ect. as well as a few t-shirts and novelty ties.

Yes, he does collect Pokemon cards!

Patton Adley

Silly dating sims, farming games, and any cute game really! Plus a few side scroller games!

Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Slime Rancher, The Sims, Dream Daddy, Animal Crossing, Kirby, Monster Prom, Hatoful Boyfriend, Scribblenauts, Night In The Woods, Ni Nu Kuni, etc.

Big Nintendo fan!

He made the mistake of playing Doki Doki Literature Club without reading the warning tags and regrets it immensely...still a good game though.

He did the same thing with Huni Pop but that one made him laugh more then anything and he kind of got addicted to it. Then he found out there was a sequel called HuniCam so he went down that rabbit hole too.

He likes a lot of phone app games too like Cut the Rope, Neko Atsume, and Candy Crush.

Loves trashy dating app games, he thinks they’re so funny and cheesy

He was addicted to Mystic Messenger for a long while

Just because he has his preference doesn’t mean he won’t try other games too, Logan got him hooked on World of Warcraft (though really he did that to everyone), Virgil showed him Hollow Knight, and Roman suggested he play Undertales.

Prefers merch in the form of plushies and key chains!

He likes to bake and decorate cookies, cakes and pastries in the form of his favorite video game characters.

RED SQUAD

Duncan [Deceit] Adley (Patton’s twin)

A lot of first person shooter and combat games!

Doom Series, Super Smash Bros, Mortal Combat, Halo, Fortnight, Grand Theft Auto, Street Fighter, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Half-Life, Team Fortress, Destiny, Wolfenstein, Bio Shock, Splatoon, PUBg etc.

Patton was the one that introduced him to Splatoon and he won’t admit that it’s actually super fun.

Doesn’t mind story driven games and RPGs but he really just wants something he can zone out to and relax

He likes to troll people online, mainly assholes picking on little kids who just want to play.

He once teamed up with a group of kids on Call of Duty solely for the purpose of collectively kicking the asses of this groups of so called “real gamers” that were being jerks.

Has memorized all the combos! He doesn’t have time to sit and look up a cool finishing move, he needs it now!

Always mains the weakest/most useless character in fighting games and still manages to kick everyone’s ass.

Doesn’t have a preference in merch and usually grabs whatever he likes be it figurines, t-shirts, posters, plushies, or whatever, so long as he likes the game it comes from.

Has several tattoos from his favorite games

Emile Picani

Classic retro games, cartoonish games, and Nintendo are his jam broham!

Mario, Classic Sonic, Paper Boy, Transylvania, Spyro, Pac Man, All the Saga Disney games, Duck Hunt, Mario Kart, Galaga, Mega Man, Donkey Kong, Secret of Mana, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, etc.

Absolutely fell in love with Shovel Knight when it came out!

Remy got him into all the indie pixel games: Towerfall, Terraria, Owlboy, Hotline Miami, Papers Please, Celeste, One Shot, etc.

Duncan was the one that introduced him to Cuphead and the usually play it together and see how far each of them can go without dying.

The game is difficult but the art is still so breathtaking!

Likes the occasional psychological thriller game

Bet Virgil showed him Alice: Madness Returns and Doki Doki Literature Club (after he’s played it of course)

Likes plushies and figurine merch with the occasional poster and coffee mug.

Likes to doodle a lot of his fav video game characters and cartoons and is actually really good at it. He helped design most of Duncan’s tattoos.

Remy Knightly

Likes a lot of indie games and old online flash games!

The Stanley Parables, Oxenfree, Inside, Firewatch, Super MeatBoy, The Binding of Issac, Donut County, Henry Stickman series, Impossible Quiz, Crush the Castle series, Hyper Light Drifter, etc.

He always gets everybody hooked on one game or another

He convinced everyone to play Undertales so for like a month they all went through a HUGE Undertales faze.

Was the actual, ACTUAL one that showed Duncan Cuphead because he knew the dork would be reminded of Emile because of the animation and would want to show it to him and play multiplayer (*cough* subtle matchmaker *cough*)

(Do not be fooled, he is a pinning boy himself)

Is up to date in all the gossip of the latest games and consuls, indie or mainstream! He’s in the know, know and if you need to know something chances are Remy probably knows it.

Weeds out through all the indie horror games for Virgil and recommends what he thinks are the best ones.

Same thing with Logan and his puzzle games, he’s usually is able to find very strange ones and Logan seems to likes those best.

Obviously has a lot of merch in coffee mug and thermal form as well as a few key chains.

Occasionally streams on Twitch with Duncan and Emile (sometimes inviting the main squad too), they’re commentary is usual hilarious.

[dcvalentineexchange]

Those damn hipsters (or How Tim brought Jason back to the family with the power of music)

to @demilover21

from @the-casual-cheesecake

A/N: Happy Valentine Ace! I hope you like your gift <3

______

The first time it happens, Jason doesn’t even pay enough attention to it to notice a pattern.

Jason is on a case in Gotham, which is not a thing he wanted to do in the middle of freezing February. At least his nose is safe in his helmet. Gotham winters suck. He’s alone because Roy decided he’s too creeped out by Gotham to come with, and stayed in California like the asshole he is.

Nevertheless, Jason is on a case. A drug case to be specific, he’s following a gang operating on his turf and has managed to find their money man. He just needs to corner him and make him talk.

Thing is, he’s been surveilling his apartment for the last two hours, and he swears if he sees the teenager on the floor below walk aimlessly to the fridge only to open it and close it again, he will yell. He groans aloud when he catches a glimpse of a shadow moving the apartment only for it to be the cat again.

 “Oh, I love this show.” A voice says to his right and Jason doesn’t jump only because of years of training.

He glances to his left and it’s Tim. Of course, it’s Tim. What could possibly make this night better for Jason. He follows Red Robin’s gaze and finds him snooping on the third-floor apartment where some sort of cartoon is playing.

“Is there something specific you wanted replacement?” Jason asks.

Tim shakes his head at Jason, “Slow night.” He says as an explanation, presumably.

Jason re-settles in his position on the roof and decides he doesn’t care enough to start a fight with Tim right now. He’s also terminally bored, but that’s for him to know.

Tim settles next to him with an air of satisfaction.

They survey the apartment together silently, but the silence feels different around Jason, not better per-say, he thinks, just different.

That is until Tim starts humming.

Jason ignores him at first, but the tune nags at him the longer Red Robin drones on. He almost asks him what the song is, but then his target opens the door to his apartment and comes in alone, and they’re both moving like cats on a hunt.

Jason backs his target against the corner of his living room and starts the scare tactics he knows always works on these types of men. He makes himself tower over the man and deepens his voice to a Batman bass, and starts listing off his offenses.

In the corner of his eye, he sees Tim making friends with the man’s cat. The dork.

Jason forgets the whole thing with the song during patrol the rest of the night, but then he finds himself humming in the shower afterwards and it hits him that he’s singing Duran Duran. He rolls his eyes at Tim in the privacy of his bathroom and resolutely decides to make fun of the little hipster when he sees him next.

***

The second time it happens, Roy is with him.

They’re in a car chase somewhere in middle America, Jason is too focused on the car in front of him to think about where they’re heading.

Roy is yelling ecstatically in the passenger seat and waving an arm out the window, and Jason would be annoyed if he didn’t find it just as fun as the redhead does. He feels a smile make its way across his face as his foot presses harder on the gas pedal.

The thief they’re following has stolen alien tech and he’s not nearly responsible enough to keep it, and well, Kory wants it back. The guy takes a sharp right into a side street and when Jason turns to follow like a maniac, he and Roy both let out a loud whoop.

Jason’s communicator beeps in his ear as they make the next turn and Jason yells for Roy to answer on the speaker of his helmet in the backseat. Roy dutifully does so.

“What?” he yells in answer.

“Jason? Is everything okay? Your com is moving very fast.” Tim’s voice comes through the helmet.

“Since when do you keep tabs on me you little stalker?” Jason answers and speeds as the car in front of him merges into a highway. Roy laughs.

“you set off an alert you megalomaniac.” Tim deadpans, then adds, “are you following someone or are you just being an ass?”

“We’re chasing the black Chrysler 200, little red.” Roy answers, “wanna help?” he adds after a second.

Tim lets out a loud put-upon sigh, but they hear keyboard clicks in the background.

Jason grins; a glance at Roy beside him shows that his friend is just as happy about this new development.

Jason swerves and bypasses a car on the highway, beeping at it in the process.

The perp is still in eyesight but he really doesn’t wanna lose him.

Tim starts humming on the com, it’s impossible not to recognize the song, and when Tim gets to the chorus all three of them start singing,

“One way or another, I’m gonna find ya, I’m gonna getcha getcha getcha!“

The laughter that bursts out of Jason is amplified by the adrenaline from the chase. He drums his hands on the steering wheel with the song. 

They sing the rest of the song accompanied by music that Tim found and broadcasted to him via Helmet. Jason smiles the entire time.

“Got him.” Tim says. Jason and Roy exchange amused looks but don’t point out the pun.

The car in front of them starts slowing down.

The song stays in Jason’s head for days, and he knows for a fact Roy sang it in the shower of their safe house a week later.

***

The third time, they’re all in the manor for Alfred’s birthday.

Dick is sitting on the loveseat with Damian on his armrest, Bruce is on the armchair, Stephanie stealing the loveseat all for herself and Cass, and Tim and Jason are on the couch with Alfred and Alfred the cat.

They’re watching The Breakfast Club, because it was Tim’s turn to pick a movie apparently. Although nobody told Jason there was an order to the picking or he’d have actually shown up on family night before.  

The movie’s good, a little sappy, but not Dick Grayson sappy so it’s okay.

It’s when the song starts playing that Tim starts vibrating in his seat and mouthing to the lyrics. Jason can see his hands drumming on the poor cat, and how he’s not scratched to hell by now Jason has no idea.

Dick catches Jason’s eye across the room and gestures at Tim. Jason shrugs at him, but Dick only shakes his head and frowns at him.

‘what?’ Jason mouths at his big brother.

Dick rolls his eyes in reply and grabs the remote. He rewinds the scene and turns the volume up.

Tim glances up at Dick with the same confusion Jason feels.

Dick gets up, disturbing Damian from his perch, which doesn’t seem to earn him the death penalty from the demon brat, but then again, everyone knows Dick has special allowances not available to mere mortals.

Dick reaches Tim and drags him from the couch by his hands and starts singing as his hips dance to the beat. The hesitant smile on Tim’s lips turns into a full-blown grin as he joins in the spectacle with his own rendition of the song.

From the corner of his eye, Jason sees the satisfied look on Alfred’s face and resolutely catches Steph’s eye and gets up himself.

“Hell yes!” Stephanie say, then quickly follows it with a, “sorry Alf.”

Soon enough, the whole family is dancing around the room. Even Bruce has Cass in his arms and is twirling her around expertly.

Stephanie and Dick are the loudest singers, which bodes well for no one if Jason is being honest.

In the middle of the spectacle Tim grabs Jason’s hand and pulls him up on the table to reenact the scene and Jason has never felt more ridiculous in his life, but Tim’s “Please Jason.” Kills any reluctance left in him.

At the end of the night, Jason sneaks into the Batcave to steal the footage from the security tapes, but before he gets to the computer, he sees Bruce there reviewing the same tape Jason was looking for with a soft smile on his face.

Jason leaves the manor with leftovers from Alfred and no tape.

***

The fourth time is a complete accident.

He’s patrolling his usual route in Gotham. It’s a normal night, nothing major. All the freaks are in Arkham, and the only crime Jason’s stopped so far is the petty kind.

He’s passing by the entrance to a club on a rooftop opposite when he someone catches his eye. He stops and zooms in with his helmet, and holy hell, that’s replacement.

Tim is in leather pants and a red shirt partially unbuttoned, and he’s wearing makeup. He looks grown up. Jason squints, because something’s definitely up. Tim Drake has 0 fashionable bones in his body, and there’s no way the nerd decided to show up to a club in the east end dressed like that with no reason.

Jason looks down at himself and makes a decision. He strips the most recognizable parts of his uniform and hides them with his helmet on the rooftop; he rigs the security for the helmet to alert him for any theft attempt.

He shows up to the entrance of the ‘Red Door’ in his black uniform pants and combat boots and a white tank top. He gives the bouncer a look and gets in without a fuss.

He scans for Tim from the entrance, eyes heading to the bar first, because catching the little shit drinking would be hilarious. Tim isn’t there though, so Jason moves in to the dance floor.

He moves fluidly enough to be considered dancing, if only to get through the crowd of people.

When the beginning of the bass of a familiar song starts playing, he catches Tim a few feet away. He’s dancing with an unfamiliar woman. He looks comfortable, but Jason does not like it.

“so, you’ve got to let me know, should I stay or should I go.”

Tim’s dance moves start getting better, and of course he would enjoy this song, Jason thinks, his brother is such a hipster.

Jason moves behind him with a smirk and yells a loud “Boo!” in his ear.

Tim turns, wide eyed at him, then rolls his eyes and apologizes to his partner before dragging Jason away.

“what’re you doing here?!” He demands.

“Am I not allowed to be curious about my underage brother in a club on my turf?” Jason raises an eyebrow.

Tim looks surprised and Jason realizes that he just called the kid his brother, he groans internally, because he just knows this will get to Dick and the big idiot will be all sappy about it.

“I’m on a case Jason.” Tim explains. And well, Jason should have really figured.

He shrugs at Tim, “need help?”

Tim smiles at him, it’s a deadly smile with all that eyeliner on his face, and starts dancing back to the dancefloor, “name’s Alvin.”

***

The fifth time, the time he stops counting, he’s in one of his safe houses in Gotham.

It’s one of his more comfortable ones because he wasn’t that beat yesterday coming back from patrol and made himself go the extra blocks to wake up in a nicely furnished place on Sunday.

The problem is, he woke up because he heard something move outside the bedroom, and that isn’t normal.

He sighs.

He’s fully awake because his body is used to fight or flight responses, but he really doesn’t want to have to deal with this at, he glances at the clock, 10 am on a Sunday. His sighs deepen.

He gets up nevertheless, and moves with one of his guns towards the door. He pushes it open silently and the music is the first thing he hears. It’s synthetic, and somewhere in the back of his mind a bell chimes in recognition, but he doesn’t focus on it.

When the voice sounds half humming, half singing to the music, “don’t you want me baby, don’t you want me oooh.” Jason sets his gun on the living room table and rubs his face.

“Why?” he asks Tim, who’s by the coffeemaker in his kitchen.

“Oh Hi, good morning.” The kid chimes.

“No. not good morning, explain to me why I’m awake red.” Jason glares.

Tim smiles, and Jason wonders when his glares stopped working on him, he mourns the loss of a very effective method for the second he has before Tim turns the sound up on his phone, since apparently this house is an awake house now.

He goes back to the coffee, and then to steal food out of Jason’s fridge.

Jason glances around the place and notices Tim’s uniform on the couch, and the obviously slept in look the couch has. And considers how weird it is that Tim can sneak into his place in the middle of the night without waking him up.

When he catches himself singing along with Tim unconsciously, he has to admit he lost this strange secret game between them, and as he watches his little brother making breakfast in his kitchen, he has to admit he doesn’t really mind.

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: x

because no episode today and I obviously have many feelings. I am sorry that the quotes above the readmore still look messed up, because tumblr is a stupid website with stupid problems. it should be fine once you click through to the blog, or on mobile, or as a reblog. or just read it on AO3. idek.

part ix/AO3.

In any other circumstances, the fact that Garcia Flynn is presently crushed in the backseat of a vehicle that can only generously be described as “economy size” would be the worst thing about this situation. His knees are practically rammed through his chin, he may develop a permanent crick in his back from hunching, and he suspects, from catching her smirks at him in the rearview mirror, that Emma goddamn Whitmore is thoroughly enjoying watching him suffer. Except, of course, that this isn’t the worst thing about the situation. Emma is in the driver’s seat, left hand on the wheel and right hand cuffed to Lucy’s – she doesn’t have the box cutter blade at her wrist any more, but Flynn can’t try to dive forward and grab the wheel (assuming he could even get up enough leverage to move) without hitting Lucy, and then obviously endangering her in any resulting crash. If it was just him, he might take his chances, but her –

He blinks hard until the memory that has just flashed through his brain goes away, and tries to focus on the task at hand. He doesn’t know where Emma is taking them, or who they might be meeting. He’s still trying to figure out how this just went so terribly, horribly, no-good-very-badly wrong. Should have guessed that Wyatt Logan sending them a too-good-to-be-true willing Rittenhouse defector was some kind of trick – and frankly, Flynn wondered, but ignored it. Getting the files was more important. And now the files turned out to be a fat lot of nothing, and he has no idea what the situation is, much less how to get them out of it. All his training is screaming at him that this is what you avoid, you have no control, and you especially don’t want to get mixed up in it with a non-combatant. Wonderful.

Lucy sits stiffly in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead, as Emma pulls out. They seem to be heading for the interstate – 95, if Flynn had to guess. They drive in silence for several minutes. Too much to ask that she at least put the fucking radio on. Then Lucy says, with admirable composure considering that this is the second time in less than six weeks that she’s been snatched by Rittenhouse, “So where are we going?”

“Just to sort some things out.” Emma accelerates up the merge ramp – yes, 95 northbound, they’re headed somewhere in New England. Flynn’s mind reels feverishly through potential Rittenhouse possibilities or important sites in the area. He isn’t entirely sure that Emma is working for them, as her statement in the library left just enough ambiguity that she could be in this for herself, or Mason Industries, or even as a double or triple agent, but it has to be deemed the most likely. “You’re in no danger, princess, as long as you cooperate.”

“Stop calling me that,” Lucy says through her teeth. Flynn could have warned her that this was a mistake; never show your enemy that they’re getting to you. “And yeah, the threatening me with a box cutter part made me feel really safe.”

“That was just to get his attention.” Emma throws an amused look over her shoulder at the fuming Flynn. “He doesn’t really do subtle. I had to prevent him from doing something stupid. Stupider, that is. It was the most direct.”

“So what was that beforehand?” Flynn barks, not that he has any expectation of a proper answer. “Show up playing the wounded fawn, run away from your evil overlords, want to go to London – that was all a lie?”

“Oh no. I want to go to London. It’s important to get our overseas operation established, just like I said. That was entirely true.”

“Overseas operation meaning Mason Industries or Rittenhouse?”

Emma gives him a demure, nasty little smirk, enjoying even more the fact that she isn’t going to tell him. Flynn curses viciously under his breath. He’s gotten himself into a lot of dicey situations, admittedly, but this ranks up there. He makes a mental note to throttle Wyatt when he sees him again – it won’t fix anything, but it will make him feel better. Assuming he does see him again. It has not escaped Flynn’s attention that Emma has promised Lucy’s safety in exchange for her cooperation, but said nothing about him. Well, he’s been a major pain in Rittenhouse’s ass for several months now, and if he had gotten a proper chance, would in fact have rushed back to the Bay Area with the intention of destroying this purported time machine, no matter what. Great way to make friends with a multi-billionaire tech mogul and all his likewise important buddies, but Flynn has never cared about making friends.

There is silence for another few minutes as they drive. Emma cuts someone off, they honk, and she raises her middle finger without looking back, in a gesture of such utterly unconcerned fuck-you that Flynn almost (almost) can’t help but admire it, considering that is how he operates most of the time. Then Lucy says, “So the turning up and promising to help us research Rittenhouse – that was strategic, wasn’t it? Get a few boxes of unimportant papers, make it look like you were really helping, find out how much we knew, and not actually give anything away. But why bring in the Nicholas Keynes stuff?”

“You might have really learned something, if you looked at those,” Emma remarks lightly. “They were mostly for your benefit, Lucy. But your boyfriend blew it.”

“He’s – not my boyfriend.”

“Oh? So when I walked in and you were about to run into each other with your faces, you just tripped and ended up that way, did you?”

Flynn can make out the flush in Lucy’s cheeks, even without her turning around. He looks down, just because whatever is on his own face, he thinks it’s better if neither of them see it. He clenches his fists, trying to forget the sensation of touching her, after diligently avoiding it for several days, since – well. And then since all his self-control went out the damn window when he did, perhaps it’s for the best, in a sick way, that Emma interrupted them. Definitely not the opportune moment, but when it comes to this, when could it possibly be?

Some interminable time passes in silence. There is obviously not a lot to gab about on a road trip with your mortal enemy, after all. They seem to be heading for New York – there have to be half a dozen Rittenhouse installations there, don’t tell Flynn that Donald Trump isn’t up to his ears in it – but Emma bypasses the city, continuing up 287. Apparently they are headed upstate, though how far isn’t clear. They can’t really do anything (or rather, Flynn can’t do anything) until they arrive, though he refuses to give Emma the satisfaction of asking if they are there yet. (It might annoy her, at least, but still.) Finally they take the freeway exit for West Point, and Flynn’s hackles go up. Are they visiting the academy? What the hell is going on there – target practice, using him? Emma’s got his damn gun. Shit.

Flynn is almost inclined to be relieved when they do not drive through the gates of a heavily secured military facility, but rather down a bumpy dirt road to a stately old house at the end. It looks like a colonial museum, handsomely restored, but the two black cars parked out front makes it clear that they’re not expecting hordes of Nikon-wearing tourists and their sticky-fingered offspring to descend. This is… not necessarily an improvement. If they disappear out here, nobody is likely to be any the wiser.

Emma parks the car and opens the driver door, swinging out. Since her right wrist is still cuffed to Lucy’s left, Lucy obviously cannot get out the passenger door, but is dragged awkwardly after her, banging her shoulder into the gearshift and getting her shoulder wrenched over her head in a way that looks painful. Flynn reminds himself that he needs to be careful, but his blood is boiling and he is sick of being careful. He’s already broken the cardinal rule, has let his enemy transport them from the scene of the crime – even basic police advice tells you that if your assailant takes you somewhere else after they nab you, they’re planning to rape and/or kill you. This is deep on their ground, and Emma has his gun. He is going to have to get that back posthaste.

Flynn yanks the door open and bursts out of the car, wrathful as only a six-foot-four man who has been packed in an orange crate to be kidnapped possibly can be. Emma jerks Lucy pointedly in front of her. “Watch it with the sudden moves.”

The whites of Lucy’s eyes are showing, but she’s calm. Coldly she says, “What was that about how I was in no danger as long as I cooperated?”

“Are you cooperating?” Emma asks – fairly enough, Flynn supposes, but he still hates this woman with every inch of him. “I’m not sure.”

“Yes, well, you people don’t really make it easy to like you, do you?” Lucy explodes. “At least Cahill tried the sweet-talking approach, get me a dream job, see the world, all the stuff that an ordinary human might like! This, now – ” she rattles the handcuff – “just went straight for the ropes and chains, didn’t you?”

“Look.” Emma seems impatient. “Just tell him not to make any trouble, and this can be a lot easier for everyone. Like I said, it’s really him we want. You just happened to get in the way. I can’t release you just yet, because you would run off and call someone and make it messy, but stop fighting me. You might not believe it, but this is the gloves on. I have orders to treat you gently. But out here – ” she waves at the house – “who knows if I do?”

A chill goes down Flynn’s spine. He’s met a lot of people in a lot of wars, some of whom like killing and some who do it because it’s their job, and he is belatedly realizing that yes, that wounded-fawn act, even if it didn’t entirely take him in, has blinded him to Emma Whitmore’s full danger. Not because she’s a woman; it has nothing to do with that. Just that she straight-up wants power (he thinks that’s Rittenhouse’s lure on her, at any rate), wants control, wants pain, and she has been given plenty of enjoyable opportunities to explore her talents. He doesn’t know what she has in there. He has to get Lucy out of this.

“Fine,” Flynn says in a growl. “I’ll play nice, for the time being.” The tone of his voice leaves it clear that if Emma takes her eyes off him for an instant, she’s dead, but she probably expected that. “Now let’s get this over with, huh?”

Emma smirks primly, then turns and starts toward the door, Lucy perforce accompanying her. She enters a code in a secret keypad, too many digits for Flynn to follow, and the door swings open, leading them into a dim, dusty front hall. An elegant chandelier tumbles crystal droplets from the ceiling, a grand staircase leads off into the gloom, and by the reverent look on Emma’s face, they might be walking into some old cathedral, some hallowed hall of power. Flynn doesn’t know what this is, but when Emma opens a glassed French door and they step into a study crammed to the brim with clocks, his stomach begins to turn. Clocks of every description, large and small, ancient mahogany grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks, handsome brass navigation instruments, ornate gilded ones that look as if they’ve been ripped from a fin-de-siècle train station, fancy golden pocket watches in various stages of assembly and repair… a mad clockmaker’s lair. And the thing David Rittenhouse was known for, aside from astronomy, was –

“Yes.” Emma seems to have been following the process of realization on his face. “This is Rittenhouse’s house. You don’t realize how lucky you are, you both are, getting to see a special place like this. Ah, Millerson, Vincent. About time, boys.”

Flynn glances up to see two men, clearly the owners of the cars outside, entering the study from the other side. They both are wearing suits and have sidearms strapped to their torsos, as well as any other possible number of hidden weaponry, and they are not here to appreciate the historical value of the place. (Well, maybe, but still.) These are clearly Emma’s Rittenhouse cohorts, the muscle of the goon squad, and they come to a halt, looking at her for orders. It’s clear that she isn’t just some random piece in the system, but one of its essential and high-ranking cogs. Of course, they’d want their agent in Mason Industries, right next to the time machine, to be one of their best and brightest. Flynn feels sick.

“Got him,” Emma says briefly, jerking her head at Flynn. “It wasn’t even that hard. Like I said, don’t send a man to do a woman’s job. Boys, you take him upstairs to debrief him. We need a full and complete account of everything he knows, everyone he might have passed intel to, all his sources of information, how long he’s been on the case – everywhere. We need to make sure we have it airtight, any more leaks cut off. I know about Logan, we’ll be dealing with him, but anything else – remember you need him to talk.”

“Good luck with that,” Flynn snarls. “I’m not going to.”

Emma eyes him again, then rattles her handcuffed wrist, making Lucy’s arm shake. “Are you?”

That takes him like a punch in the gut. They can beat up on him all they want, but if they go after Lucy – and these people are exactly the kind who would do that – he doesn’t know if Emma is bluffing, if Lucy’s pureblood status (and where has he heard that before?) is enough to protect her. Lucy has rejected Rittenhouse, after all, and made things plenty difficult on her own. But if – but if –

For the moment while Flynn’s defenses are down, Millerson and Vincent swoop in on either side, grabbing hold of his arms and twisting them behind his back. They march him away – they’re good-sized gents, but it’s still taking considerable effort from them both – and up toward the stairs. He doesn’t know whether to fight. He thinks he hears Lucy yell, but then the door slams behind him, and he is in darkness.

Once the women are alone in the creepy clockmaker parlor from nightmare land, Emma undoes the cuff from her own wrist, fastens it to the old sofa instead, and obliges Lucy to sit down with a short push. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Be real,” Lucy snaps. “Like I’m drinking anything you’d give me.”

“What, princess? Think I’d give you a poisoned apple?”

“I don’t know, wicked stepsister. You might.”

“Wicked stepsister?” Emma laughs. “That’s the best you can come up with? It’s almost kind of adorable. As I said, you’re still safe, for now. But it might be a long wait.”

Lucy doesn’t answer, because she is straining with every inch of her to hear any sound from beyond the door, or from upstairs. Flynn was shot barely a month ago, she saw the wounds herself, they’re not totally healed. If they start hitting him in his bad shoulder, or pulling out the waterboard or the pliers or whatever other terrible idea they have – Rittenhouse’s idea of debriefing him is clearly not going to be a pleasant and gentle experience. This must be a major Rittenhouse black site. If she ever did get back to a godforsaken normal life, could she call someone and tell them to check David Rittenhouse’s mansion in West Point – Lucy never knew he lived in New York, what was he doing here? Or would they get here and find nothing but a handsome old historical house, all illicit tracks expertly covered, or a Rittenhouse agent waiting to shoot them and hide the corpse in the root cellar? It might be a regular Cask of Amontillado situation down there. Her heart is hammering in her ears. Oh God, oh God, this is bad. She has not the first idea of how to fight her way out of this.

“So,” Emma says at last. “You and Flynn, huh? Garcia Flynn. I suppose he’s cute in a tall-dark-and-psycho Eastern European way, but really, what else does he have going for him?”

Lucy cannot believe that Emma really thinks they will sit here and girlfriend-gossip about boys (she probably doesn’t, she’s just trying to get under Lucy’s skin) and thus maintains a dignified silence. It’s broken by a distinct thump from overhead, and Emma’s eyes swing up toward the ceiling. In that, despite the fact that she very much is still handcuffed to an antique piece of furniture, has only that Krav Maga class going for her, and is terrified out of her wits, Lucy Preston lurches (it is not nearly anything as graceful as leaps) into action.

She jumps up, wrenching her wrist in the cuff, but manages to headbutt Emma solidly under the chin, hard enough to make her teeth click. Lucy shoves a hand into Emma’s jacket and her groping fingers find the butt of Flynn’s gun, which she hauls out, trying to find the safety and switch it off. She somehow manages it, clicks the trigger to cock it, points it at the chain, and shoots.

The sound of the gunshot at close range is deafening, making her madly flash back to seeing Flynn shot in front of her in the car, and it’s like using a flamethrower to kill an ant, but it does the job. Lucy pulls her freed wrist out of the blown-apart couch, feathers floating everywhere, just in time to hear another heavy clunk, and freeze. Emma has recovered herself enough to grab a spare gun from a nearby drawer, which she is pointing dead at Lucy’s head with hands far steadier and more accurate than Lucy’s own. “I wouldn’t do that. Princess.”

The tension crackles almost unbearably as they stare at each other, as Lucy struggles with the idea of pointing it at Emma, at some vital part of her, and actually doing it. Not that there is any guarantee she’d make it, since it would be the grand total of a second time she has fired a gun and beginner’s luck is nothing to count on in this situation, but still. She feels nauseous even trying to train it on Emma’s arm or shoulder, much less her head or heart. She is not Annie Oakley, cannot shoot the gun deftly out of Emma’s grip without hurting her. And frankly – Emma has hurt them, has her thugs upstairs probably beating holy hell out of Flynn, works for an incredibly evil organization and enjoys it remorselessly – does she deserve to be treated nicely? Does she deserve to die?

Lucy can’t breathe, can’t focus, feels like she’s having a panic attack, which is obviously not conducive to firing a gun in any circumstance, much less this one. Her hands rattle hard enough to make the muzzle wobble crazily in all directions. Emma clearly doesn’t think she can or will do it, but she’s not an amateur; she’s not going to laugh off someone with motive to want her dead pointing a heavy Glock at her. Her eyes don’t leave Lucy, waiting to see what she’s going to do, what she’ll possibly –

And just then, there’s a sound at the door, it opens. One of the goons has clearly heard the gunshot and rushed down here. “Emma?” It’s Millerson. “Emma, are you – ”

“Ryan, you idiot, don’t – ”

Lucy swings around, brings the gun up, and fires in the direction of the door. There is a yell and a heavy stumbling sound, and she ducks low and sprints across the parlor. There’s another door on the far side, she doesn’t know if it leads upstairs as well – Emma is shouting, swearing – Lucy hit Millerson somewhere, he doesn’t sound like he’s dead, but she shot him, put the gun against his head pulled the trigger now he’s – no, she didn’t, he’s not, not Bohemian Rhapsody, not now, this is stupid, this is demented, this is –

There’s a staircase on the far side, which Lucy hurtles up, not sure what she’s going to find at the top and not sure she wants to, but driven on with blind panic. Halfway up, she runs very hard into someone coming down, screams (or tries – it gets choked in her throat as a gurgling squeal) and raises the gun again, just as they grab it. “Lucy! Jesus!”

She almost faints again, for a different reason. It’s Flynn, blood running down his face and shirt torn, as he wrenches what is, after all, his own gun out of her hand. This is probably a wise idea, as he can be much more effective with it, and by the looks of things, he caught Vincent in a moment of distraction after Millerson had hurried downstairs to check the gunshot. Vincent is probably soundly unconscious on the floor, if Flynn didn’t have time to do anything else, Lucy hopes he’s dead, with a savage, burning need that scares her. She hopes he's fucking dead.

There is a lot of banging and crashing behind them, and Flynn grabs Lucy’s hand, half-throws her over his shoulder (they seem to spend a lot of time escaping from Rittenhouse-owned properties in this fashion) and runs down the back corridor. They reach a door, which he wrenches open, and they spill out abruptly into the muggy spring afternoon beyond, into the thick tangles of untrimmed greenery that abut the back of the house. They bash and barge through it, branches lashing at Lucy’s face as Flynn does his best to break a path, feet slipping out from beneath them in six inches of mud. Nonetheless, they keep running, sliding down gravel and splashing through a murky green rivulet, through more trees on the far side, and finally out into an abandoned play park, which is exactly as creepy as it sounds, but looks like a warm and sunny daycare after the Rittenhouse of Rittenhorrors. Graffiti defaces the slide, the swings hang off their chains, and by the looks of things, local teenagers or junkies come here at night to get high. Lucy sways, grips hold of the monkey bar post, and goes to her knees, hoping not to stab herself on a stray heroin needle. Then she is very sick.

Flynn is likewise breathing as if they have been chased by a train, but he crouches next to her, almost but not quite putting a hand on her back, as if she is still a piece of dangerous ordnance that will explode if approached unwisely. “Lucy,” he says hoarsely. “Lucy?”

Lucy can’t answer, because she’s still throwing up, but finally spits and shudders, remaining on her knees, hair hanging loose in her face. She can feel herself shaking, a fine and constant tremor, and doesn’t know how to make herself stop. Her wrist is still in the cuff, the broken chain dangling. She feels half as if she is watching this remotely from above. Shock, she thinks. This is called shock. It’s entirely understandable, but you should have a blanket and somewhere to put your feet up. Probably also liquids and deep breathing.

All of those things seem as far away as Mars at the moment, and she retches once more, but doesn’t bring up anything except a dribble of sour bile. She wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. Her voice is hoarse and deep when she speaks. “What’re… we going to do?”

“We need to get out of here.” Flynn glances edgily back in search of pursuit. If Vincent is unconscious or dead, and Millerson is shot, hopefully Emma has been delayed, but they would clearly be foolish to think it was forever, and they’re still far too close. “Can you walk?”

Lucy obediently tries to struggle to her feet, but her knees immediately give out, and Flynn catches her, swinging her across his chest as he did on their escape from the first Rittenhouse shindig back in Marin County. (That one looks much more civilized and preferable, really – maybe Cahill is not so bad after all.) She can feel him shaking too, ever so slightly, as she tucks her head under his chin and buries her face in his shoulder. There is a wet spot of fresh blood on his shirt where the thugs must have broken his scab, and she shifts restlessly, pressing her hand to it. “Garcia, you’re…”

“Shh.” Flynn doesn’t break stride. “It’s fine, it’s nothing.”

“What did they – did they – ?” To judge from that and the blood on his head, he must have taken at least a few good licks, but thank God they didn’t get enough time to really dig in and go to town. “Are they – did you – ”

“I didn’t tell them.” Flynn hesitates. “Much.”

In that, Lucy can sense that whatever he did tell them, however deliberately misleading and unhelpful, was to make it sound as if he was cooperating, so they would not have any occasion to try to hurt her. Her abused heart clenches almost unbearably. They have crossed some kind of Rubicon here, some point of no return. Rittenhouse is not going to stop. They are going to keep looking for Flynn – and for Lucy, and probably for Wyatt, by the sounds of things. They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop.

Lucy falls into a fevered half-doze despite herself, worn out with exhaustion and terror, as Flynn keeps going. Finally, she stirs as he is stepping into the parking lot of some backwoods motel, two-story whitewashed cinderblock with garish pink doors. Flynn goes in and tells the receptionist there’s been a hiking accident, his wife is hurt, they really could use a room, at least for a few hours. He will take care of phoning the emergency services, and he has a little money, but still – if she could find it in her heart –

The receptionist, clearly alarmed by their appearance and hoping this is not the start of a TV horror series, quickly agrees. Five minutes later, Flynn is awkwardly unlocking the door of the end second-story room, carrying Lucy through, and setting her down on the bed with its polyester floral bedspread. The portable air conditioner wheezes in the grey, stuffy air. He shuts the door and swears, for which Lucy can’t really blame him in the least.

“Is this going to be our life now?” she asks weakly, eyes closed. “Hiding out in shitty hotel rooms from Rittenhouse? Running from one to the next? Having to hope we don’t get caught and do it all over again?”

Flynn doesn’t answer. It’s plain that he can’t, that he has no idea, that he has not had anything to recommend him at keeping her safe – that every time he reappears in her life, trouble and danger inevitably follows. Lucy cracks an eye to see him still standing there, staring down at her. Then he sits down on the bed and carefully picks the handcuff off her wrist, smoothing his callused fingers lightly along the abrasion. “Did Emma hurt you?”

“No, she…” Lucy feels her stomach revolting again, even though there’s nothing left to bring up, and pushes herself clumsily upright. Flynn is looking down at her hand, very small between both of his, still not quite meeting her eyes. “She just. . . she said I was safe for the time being, and gloated. I… startled her, I stole your gun and got the chain off, and…” Her words stutter to a stop. “I shot Millerson.”

At that, Flynn does lift his gaze, startled and pained. He looks at her for a very long moment, the way she can’t stop her lip from trembling, the way her eyes are wet, how she feels as fragile as porcelain. It’s clear he can’t quite decide how he wants to respond to that. He lifts one of his hands as if to tuck her hair behind her ear, still not entirely touching her. At last he says, “Did you kill him?”

“I don’t think so.” Lucy’s stomach turns over once more – and then, weirdly, it stops. She should be feeling worse about this. She, like any godless liberal academic, has plenty of opinions about American gun culture, about gun control (or lack thereof), about all the ways it’s ridiculously easy to kill someone in this country even if you aren’t part of an evil secret society. And while she does feel bad, obviously, it’s a worryingly less degree than she should. She might be able to do it again. She might be able to shoot somewhere less easily mended. This is not, is not, how Lucy wants to feel about it. And yet.

Flynn glances at her under his eyelashes again, her hand still in his, which Lucy feels as if she shouldn’t remind him of in case he pulls back. Finally he says, gruff and awkward, “Well. Good – good job. Getting away from them. Someone should teach you how to properly shoot, though. In case it happens again.”

Lucy does not want to know how to properly shoot. She wants to go home to her books and her papers and the safe, ordered, settled nature of her old life, which might have had its problems but at least was not an active turd volcano. She doesn’t know why Flynn still won’t entirely touch her or why she even wants him to, doesn’t know, doesn’t know. She is the one to pull her hand loose this time, and stands up. Has an overwhelming urge to wash until her skin comes off. “I think  I’m going to take a shower.”

Flynn glances at her with a pained and haunted expression. All he can fucking bring himself to say, however, until she almost wants to slap him, is, “Should I go look for some food?”

“If you want. I’m not really hungry.” Lucy sits up, and her head reels. He automatically reaches out to steady her, and their fingers lock. His tension is clearly evident, and after a dumbstruck instant – as if they haven’t been holding hands this entire time, because he has to make everything as difficult as possible, always – he tries to pull back.

Lucy, just then, has had enough. He clearly cares about her, gave up his gun when Emma had a box cutter at her throat, and even before that, in the reading room, he wasn’t exactly cringing in horror from her ugliness. But with this and everything, she isn’t in the mood to just patiently and graciously overlook his inexplicable, yo-yoing behavior one more time. This is not really a smart or healthy thing to do, but neither has been the rest of it. Lucy leans forward, catches his chin clumsily in her hand, and kisses him.

After all this time, and their multiple near misses, it’s – well, it’s as exactly as awkward as kissing someone you can’t decide if you love or hate for the first time, angry and messed up and just off a near-death experience, can possibly be. Lucy almost misses his mouth, and their teeth scrape, their noses knock, his head is not at quite the right angle and he momentarily seems to have had a heart attack anyway. His hand floats up, ghosting over her hair. The angle gets adjusted, and she cups her free hand at the back of his neck. His lips open. It turns into a proper kiss for five or ten glorious seconds, Lucy sliding forward on her knees and leaning down into him, eyes half-closed. It feels so much better than shouting at him. Then, since he must have gone too long without making a clanking emotional gaffe, he pulls back, turning his head just enough to separate their mouths. “Lucy. . .”

“Can’t we just. . .” Lucy slides up on him again, knees on either side of his hips. She has solid evidence, if you will, that he does not mind this at all. “For once, can’t we just. . .”

Flynn glances up at her with that same expression from earlier, that almost-anguished, disbelieving, tender, adoring look, that contains all the emotion he is such utter crap at articulating aloud. “You’re not in the right – ” he starts, then stops. “You’re angry, and you’re feeling like you want to lash out, and – you need a shower, Lucy. A shower, and maybe some food, and to sleep. You do.”

This may be, and indeed probably is, entirely true. Lucy, however, is aggravated beyond belief that the one time he’s able to come up with a mature, rational emotional response is the one time she doesn’t want him to. She also can’t tell if this is the “this isn’t the right moment, but we’ll get to it later” kind of gentle shutdown, or the “you’ve definitely read it wrong and I’m trying to let you down nicely” kind. You wouldn’t think so, given everything else, but she has given up on his guessing games. Fine. This has already been the worst day of her life, what else can really go wrong at this point?

Face burning, Lucy collects herself, slides off him, and retreats to the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror until her eyes cross and the image blurs. Then she undresses and turns on the tap, trying to get it past a tepid trickle. The ancient boiler seems incapable of running properly hot, and the water pressure isn’t great either. It feels like standing under a dribble of warm spit, which is far from the soothing deluge that Lucy envisioned, and isn’t helping her tension or her frustration. She runs her hands over her face, through her wet hair, still possessed of the phantom urge to scrub. There’s a hard bar of blue soap that feels like gravel when she scrapes it over her skin. She sits down and watches the water circle the drain. She would like to think she’s handling this relatively well, but she has no idea.

Lucy remains where she is until the water has run completely cold, then gets out of the shower and dries herself with another sandpapery towel. She looks at her clothes and can’t really stomach the idea of putting them back on, doesn’t feel released or relaxed. Finally, she just struggles them back on, fingers fumbling. She doesn’t look at herself in the mirror this time. She’d rather not see.

Flynn is gone when she emerges back into the room, and she goes tense, staring out the window at the mostly-empty motel parking lot. There aren’t either of the black cars that must have belonged to Millerson and Vincent, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have stolen the decrepit seventies RV parked at the end and turned it into a mobile surveillance unit. Did Flynn leave his gun here? No, that would be stupid. After what just happened, he will probably only be parted from it on pain of literal death. The world is turning out from under her, it feels like the walls are closing in. This isn’t nearly a small enough room to trigger her claustrophobia in the ordinary course of things, but –

Breathe, Lucy instructs herself firmly, locking her knees. You’re fine. You’re fine.

And in fact, since she is, in some terrible way, fine, things level out the next moment. There’s a rattling at the door, and Flynn enters with a brown grocery bag, probably from the general store down the road – this seems like the kind of place that has a general store down the road. He sets it down, regarding her cautiously. “Dinner.”

“I’m – not very hungry.” Lucy turns away, crossing her arms over herself. “If you were thinking of a shower, it’s terrible.”

Flynn raises one eyebrow, but doesn’t immediately respond. The tension in the room is thick as maple syrup, but much less enjoyably so. They have reached the limit of their polarities, cannot continue to be forced apart without some sort of major explosion, but it’s less certain if it would not then be a bigger one if they came closer. The way Flynn is standing just inside the door, watching her warily, is proof of that. They don’t know if they are arguing or on the verge of making out or slapping each other or sobbing (or perhaps that’s only Lucy). She feels like a rack of dishes tilted over and slammed on the floor. Whatever is in the bag smells good, but she can’t get herself worked up to actually eating.

At last, after another painfully awkward silence, Flynn penguin-shuffles closer, digs the food out – looks like a deli chicken special, some rolls, a couple prepackaged Caesar salads and two bottles of fruit juice – and sets it on the table. “Hey,” he says, in that gruff but gentle voice. “Come here, Lucy.”

She pauses, then walks closer, feeling rather light on her feet and glad to sit down. Flynn opens the chicken box and pulls out a leg, then hands it to her. Despite herself, Lucy almost laughs, as he reminds her of a concerned mother bird anxiously testing out the juiciest worm for an ailing nestling and trying to force it down her beak. She nibbles a little, just to placate him, as he stubbornly keeps up the process with torn bits of the bread roll and salad, handing her the juice every so often as if to get her sugars up. As food tends to do, it helps. Lucy’s head settles a little, she feels less fragile and off the handle, able to breathe more deeply and clear out the knot in her chest. “Thanks,” she manages at last. “Thank you.”

He inclines his head, watching her carefully. “Better?”

“Yes.” Lucy lets out a long sigh, then nods timidly at his cooling portion; he’s barely paid any attention to it, too involved with feeding her. “You should eat yours too.”

Flynn shrugs, then economically dispatches it, clearly as an afterthought. The silence has tipped toward the easier, and there is less chance of a stray spark blowing the whole room sky-high, but the conversation is still not bountiful. At last he says, “I still think this is too close, but without a car, we can’t move anywhere tonight. That piece of shit is not worth it.” He aims a disparaging look at the RV. “Tomorrow, when there’s daylight, I’ll find something else.”

By the sound of things, Lucy thinks, Flynn is going to steal a car. This is possibly something she should talk him out of, but she can’t be arsed. She eats a final bite of salad and then pushes it away. “So. . . I’m guessing interviewing at Kenyon would be out?”

“I think you should.” Flynn swigs the last of his juice and tosses it across the room into the garbage, with a casual skill that Lucy can’t help but admire. “Get out of California. Away from all this. It might be safer.”

“And you?” Lucy tries to speak as offhandedly as she can, but her voice trembles. “What are you going to do?”

Flynn’s eyes are shadows beneath his drawn brows. “I’m going to fight them.”

Lucy was afraid of that. She doesn’t know that she expected anything different, or that Flynn would be content to go back to whatever life he used to have before this, but it still turns something over cold in her stomach to hear it confirmed. “Garcia. . . this thing with the time machine, whatever’s going on at Mason Industries, I don’t pretend to understand it, but if that’s the scale of what you’re up against, how can you. . .” How can you do it alone?

Flynn looks back at her steadily, gently, very sadly. “Do I have a choice?”

Lucy doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, doesn’t know if they are both fooling themselves with the comfortable, comforting delusion that she can take the job at Kenyon and recuse herself from all of this. As if moving to Ohio would be any kind of deterrent to Rittenhouse, if they were determined to catch up to her. She could change her name (ha, like that’s a foolproof method). She could move to Australia. She could run. It’s all possible.

And yet. Lucy has tried to run away from Flynn enough times by now, for whatever reasons, that she’s not altogether sure there’s going to be any different result this time. And she doesn’t want to, she still doesn’t want. Yet going with him down this path is unimaginably dark and dangerous, so far out of her comfort zone that it can’t even be spotted with the Hubble Telescope. She doesn’t owe this to him. She doesn’t have to risk it.

And yet.

Lucy leans forward slowly and takes Flynn’s hand where it lies on the table, clenched and tense. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, doesn’t know what the answer is, other than that she wants their stars to align for a little while. She doesn’t want to try another move on him and get shut down again, doesn’t know what his problem (rather, problems) are. Just links their fingers and lets them rest together on the table. It is getting dark in the room. Headlights waver past on the country highway outside, a brief flash of illumination, and fade.

At last, Flynn stirs from his reverie, gently lets go of Lucy’s hand, and stands up. He strips off his shoes and belt, then shucks his shirt, revealing his undershirt beneath. There is more bruising around his wounded shoulder, deep in the muscle and continuing down the arm where Millerson and Vincent must have hit him, and Lucy sucks in a breath. It’s not like there’s much she can actually do for it, but she makes half a move to get up. “Garcia. . .?”

“It’s all right, Lucy.” He prods at it, and grimaces. “You should get some sleep.”

As there is again only one bed in the room, Lucy does not feel up to facing another bizarre repeat of the Sheraton incident, where he insisted on sleeping on the floor and then wouldn’t look at her. Her pulse is fluttering in her throat as she pulls off her own shoes and socks. Taking off her own shirt would leave her in just her bra, and that definitely seems a little too forward. Is he going to flip out again? He’s managing to act remotely normal right now, but who knows. It’s as if he can be a disaster all he pleases, but the instant she’s in worse distress, he somehow acquires the magical ability to pull himself together and try to support her. It’s almost cute, in a tragic way.

Tentative and careful, they get into bed, still in their clothes. Flynn is not insisting on the floor, so there is that, at least. The sheets smell slightly musty, and the pillows are not the most robust item of bedding ever produced. They lie there side by side, staring up at the ceiling, neither of them clearly getting much sleep given the way they jump at small noises. Then very slowly, Lucy lifts her head and moves it to his good shoulder, settling into the broadness of his chest. It’s more comfortable than the scanty pillow, and it makes her feel safer to be close to him (his gun has been left in easy reach on the bedside table). She listens to the beat of his heart, deep and strong and slow, and rests her hand lightly on his arm.

Slowly, tentatively, Flynn wraps his own arm around her, gathering her closer. Lucy edges close against him, curled into his side, still afraid of him going haywire again and doing something else regrettable. But for now, the fragile, unspoken truce is holding, and she could swear he presses the ghost of a kiss to her hair. If she’s not dreaming already. It’s the same way they spent last night (God, was it just last night?) in the same hotel bed, and yet something, yet again, has changed. Later. She’ll work it out later.

Lucy closes her eyes, and although she hears screaming in her head, she sleeps.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Supernatural: Stuck in the Middle (With You) (12x12)

Woah... Reservoir Dogs + Supernatural + Richard Speight Jr. in the director's chair = amazing episode. Damn.

Cons:

I was having a little trouble with Mary in this episode, honestly. The premise is that the British Men of Letters ask Mary to help them retrieve an item. So, she recruits a friend and has the friend tell Sam, Dean, and Cas that he's calling them in to help kill a demon. Easy, or so Mary thinks, but she doesn't want to tell the boys that she's working with the British. The only trouble is, once she steals the item from this demon's house, everything starts going terribly wrong - her hunter friend is killed, and Cas is mortally wounded, and Ramiel, Prince of Hell, threatens to kill them all unless his stolen item is returned to him. And Mary... does nothing. She doesn't give the item up. She doesn't tell anybody what she's done. And then at the end, she talks to the British Men of Letters, yells at them for throwing her in over her head, but still continues to work with them! She even hands over the thing she stole without a second thought!

Now, I'm all about giving Mary a meatier story line, and having her be at odds with the boys in some way. But it's like Dean says, when they're all discussing the British MOL. "Yeah, they got the gear, but they tried to kill my brother, so..." It's crazy to me that Mary would seriously work with them after this. I'm mighty disappointed in her.

Pros:

That might seem like a big complaint, but in an episode this awesome it's actually just a nitpick.

So, this was a very Quentin Tarantino-esque episode. Lots of really creative editing, lots of moving through time and repeating little bits of scenes with added context. So for example we often see the same conversation twice, once from Cas' perspective and then again from Mary's with added information to deepen our understanding. The fight choreography may be the very best this show has ever done. Fast, dramatic, a little off-kilter, with some crazy kills and one hell of a climax.

Ramiel is an excellent villain. He reminded me a little bit of Cain, in that he was all about his privacy. He's a big, bad-ass powerful demon with yellow eyes - brother, in fact, of the infamous Yellow-Eyes himself, Azazel. But he doesn't want anything to do with the politics of Hell, or with the human world. He just wants to collect old weapons and hang out by himself. When challenged, he's supremely confident in his ability to get what he wants. He'd just rather not have to go through the trouble. That's a pretty cool villain, right there! Sam kills him as this episode ends, but we get some not-so-subtle hints that he has a brother and a sister out there, both of whom I'm sure we'll be meeting soon.

So, the plot is pretty basic, as I discussed above. The one key emotional aspect to all of this is that Cas gets stabbed with a magical weapon by Ramiel: The Lance of Michael. It's basically rotting him to death, and there's no known cure. Cas spends most of the episode lying down and groaning in pain, as black web-like markings cover his skin, and blood oozes out of a gaping stomach wound. Through his pain, he has only one objective: get the Winchesters to leave so that Ramiel won't kill them as well. He makes a speech that I know will go down as one of the most iconic Cas moments in all of Supernatural. He thanks the Winchesters for everything. He says knowing them has been the best part of his life, and that the things they accomplished together have changed him. They're his family. And he actually says it: "I love you. I love you all." Of course, Sam, Dean, and Mary refuse to leave, insisting that they won't leave family behind. Cas starts crying, and let me tell you - Misha gave one hell of a performance. You can tell that Cas is absurdly grateful and honored to have this family, but he's also devastated because he doesn't want his last moments to be spent watching them die. It's a truly stellar moment.

The hits just keep on coming - the reactions of the three Winchesters as Cas slowly dies are just heartbreaking. With Mary, you have the guilt and conflicting feelings. She barely knows Cas, but clearly already considers him family: she even calls him "one of my boys." With Sam, you see his grief quite clearly as he starts to mourn the loss of one of his closest friends. And Dean, quite predictably, gets angry and closed off, refusing to accept the reality of what's happening. He insists there must be a cure, and tells Cas that it's not that bad and he'll be okay in no time. As Cas gasps out what seem to be his final breaths, black goo oozing from his mouth, the Winchesters surround him, each touching him and hoping for a miracle. Sam asks Dean "what do we do?" and Dean just looks down in defeat. Of course, that's when you get the deus ex machina. Or... demon ex machina?

Anyhow. Crowley. There's a part of me that wants to give Sam the MVP for this episode, since he is clearly the most bad-ass when it comes to physical combat, and he's the one who gets to strike the death blow and take out Ramiel. But all things being equal, we've got to give the award to Crowley here.

This episode totally buried the lead, in that I had no idea Crowley was even going to be in it until he just showed up as a scene-break cliffhanger. In a flashback, we see Crowley going to Ramiel several years ago to offer him the throne to Hell, since at this point Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer, and all other serious contenders had been taken out. Ramiel, true to his exclusionary attitude, wants nothing to do with it, and instead says Crowley should just take over. Opportunist that he is, Crowley accepts, after just a moment of stunned hesitation. We also see in these flashbacks that Crowley gives Ramiel two gifts: the Lance of Michael, which we see Ramiel use throughout the episode, and another smaller package, the same one that Mary later steals from Ramiel to give to the Men of Letters. We don't see what's in that one until the end.

Crowley shows up because he promised Ramiel back in the day that he'd keep people away from the Princes of Hell. Now that the Winchesters have meddled, Crowley is in trouble. So what does he do? He tries to save Cas and the Winchesters. He tells Ramiel that the Winchesters are a valuable asset, and he asks Ramiel not to kill them. It was honestly a thing of beauty to hear Crowley talk like that. And he was only just getting started. Crowley is knocked out for the climactic fight with Ramiel, but after Sam kills the Prince of Hell, Crowley awakens, walks over to the fallen Lance of Michael, and breaks the shaft, releasing its powers and curing Cas' cursed wounds. He remembered Ramiel's words about the magic being in the craftsmanship. You might think this is a bit of a quick fix, considering how close Cas was to dying, but I actually really liked it. There's something so unexpected about Crowley being the one to swoop in and save the day. This episode spends a lot of time showing you Crowley's complicated feelings about the Winchesters and Cas. He calls Cas "feathers" at one point, but later says, quite sincerely, "I'm sorry, Castiel," when he reveals that there's no cure. I just love that he saves Cas. There was no real reason to. This might have been a nice way for him to get rid of a powerful frenemy. Instead, he saves his life. It was awesome.

Discussing Crowley leads us nicely into our two big reveals as the episode ends. First of all, Crowley is keeping Lucifer in a cage in Hell. Mark Pellegrino! He's back! Yay. He should be the only person allowed to play Lucifer for more than an episode or two. I'm very excited to see where this goes.

That item that Mary stole from Ramiel to give to the British MOL? The Colt! A gun that can kill any but five living creatures. Oh. My. God. I'm so excited about this. I love how we're bringing back elements from the early days. All of this fits in with the show's goal of scaling things down, while still remaining heavily myth-based. I'm thrilled.

I guess that's it. I love stylized episodes of Supernatural. I love the episodes that take a concept and run with it. I'm not a Tarantino expert or anything, but I really loved this homage to his style.

9.5/10

[thetradeway]

Session 44 5 Jun 2021: “My hands are quicker than a shark!”

Like a dog at a disco, Joe has snuck into Matthew and Sophie’s house! It’s allowed now! There’s a lot of talk about the vaccine, and Karens.

Duncan’s internet is giving him trouble, so we go ahead without him. Brother Charity has an owl now, called Admiral Pancakes. He is social distancing, we are to understand.

Ed asks to be placed at the bottom of the order as he has to go and do something, and doesn't want to miss his turn. He'll be back before the end of the round.

Melaina is up. She fell 15 feet (rounded down to ten for damage calculation purposes) last week when she was knocked out of the crow’s nest. Can she climb back up? Yes, but one of the sea devils will get an attack of opportunity on her. Also the mast is still greasy on one side. She gets up, using half her movement, and the DM rules that she can use the rest to get the 15 feet up to the crow’s nest again if she passes a DEX check. She rolls a 13 - and the sea devil bites her but only does 3 whole damage (“That’s actually a good portion of my remaining hit points…”). She rolls to hide from the Priestess with an 18. She hates the vajazzle, so she has a shot at the Priestess - 21 to hit, and 37 damage with her Sharpshooter. How-de-do-dis!

“She will collapse and her vajazzle will twinkle away.”

We all roll Insight checks. Tarragon knows that these creatures are Sahuagin; she has heard tales of them. They are usually found in warm water. From what she knows, they should flee once the Priestess is killed. Usually they would try to protect her, but they don’t seem to be doing that.

(Ed, pleased, upon finding out he’s actually popped back in just as he comes up in the order in his original place: “A wizard is never late!”)

He’s trying to cast Fireball, but the spell template is giving him trouble. He pulls it out finally and discovers that it’s much bigger than he thought. Now he can’t delete it, so he drags it into the sea instead. He changes his mind and calls forth an undead spirit - Matthew, OOC, delighted: “Rusty!!”

Ed, OOC: “He’s back, bitches!”

He can choose between ghostly, putrid or skeletal; Gideon is terrified of ghosts so it won’t be that. He chooses Putrid.

“Behold, feeble mortals, Rusty’s weird cousin!”

He decides it’s called Gonzo the Putrid. Any creature within 5 feet of him can become poisoned. “So you might not want to go too near him!” He also has a Rotting Claw he can use. He thought he had some healing items he could use but it turns out he’s given them away; “If I wasn’t such a fucking saint I’d be a lot better off.”

Gonzo responds to commands with a “BLEAARGHHH”, which is nice for Carl because he’s fluent in “BLEAARGHHH”.

Gonzo poisons the Baron, yay! He makes a Rotting Claw attack against him as well - 15 to hit, which is a miss.

Gideon: “That sucks, I hate that! We’ll get him next time Gonzo.”

Gonzo: “BLEAARGHHH!”

Carl’s turn. Is Carl moving at half speed? Yes. (There’s a lot of scrunching on their end and I can’t hear what happens next.)

Carl does a slam attack - I think? - and pushes one of the sea devils into the mast. 9 bludgeoning damage, yeah! He hears something crunch, and he and it make contested STR checks; Carl wins and grapples the thing.

Tarragon Rages and whacks the sea devil in front of her with Reckless Attack - she hits, and hears something crunch. She cackles to herself.

Charity repeats his DEX save, but fails it again. He has just been in the belly of a shark, so. He does Life Transference on Melaina, who gets 36 HP back - which was exactly what she needed to get her back to full health. “Do I know it was from you?”

She likely doesn’t, so she thanks Tarragon.

Tarragon: “Any time!”

The sahuagin bites and claws at Carl and hits with both. He has no proficiencies with any kind of armour, so his AC is in single digits.

We are still Duncan-less, so Sophie takes Ahleqs for him. He does an Eldritch Blast on the one standing near Kessler. He hits with one but misses with the other for 9 Force damage. He shuffles his feet a bit, until we remember he can Teleport on his turn thanks to Tides of Chaos from last week - Sophie decides he would teleport away from the action if he possibly could so she moves him somewhere safer.

The sahuagin in the crow’s nest with Melaina is pissed off to discover that she’s back to full health, so it no longer has Advantage on its attacks against her. It hits anyway, doing 7 damage.

Sophie, OOC: “How dare.”

The Baron makes a CON save versus Gonzo’s poison; he makes the save. “Boooh!”

Kessler is injured, yes? Yes. The Baron makes a multiattack against her; if Joe’s really lucky, one of those might actually hit her. She casts Shield against the first one which would otherwise have hit her, so the others miss as well.

Another sahuagin attacks the bosun (I think? Whichever one the dwarf is) and does 7 damage.

Lolo’s turn, and we all wait patiently while Joe plays D&D with himself. She hits with her ladle for 3 damage. Yeah! (We imagine Lolo as a sort of Nanny Ogg character in gnome form.)

We all make DEX saves as the shark slams into the ship again. Charity and Kessler are knocked off their feet, but the rest of us are fine.

Kessler’s turn. She rolls over and stands up in a combat position in front of “Mr. Multi-Arms”. The Baron makes an attack on her, rolls a 24 and misses because of her Shield. She punches him in the kneecaps with her Thunder Gauntlets for 6 Thunder damage.

Melaina does a Scorching Ray on the three sahuagin around her - “because I hate each of them, equally.” She doesn’t bother hiding, as that won’t give her advantage with a spell attack. She rolls a 16, a 13, and a 25 - all hit. “Nice.” The one cuddling Carl takes 9 fire damage, the next takes 5, and the last - the one in the crow’s nest with her - takes 6.

Joe: “You’ve murdered Carl’s lover.”

Matthew: “That’s okay, he’ll take another one.”

Melaina hides with a 29.

There follows a few more minutes of Joe playing D&D against himself; he scores a crit, interestingly.

The sahuagin hits Aegea - it shrieks “Sea elf!” at her.

The sahuagin nearest Tarragon takes the Disengage action (Tarragon, incensed: “Rude!”) and crosses Gideon’s Grease spell to get away - it makes a DEX save and rolls a 9, falling immediately on its ass. Excellent.

Girton axes one of the Sahuagin, yeah. Gideon’s turn - he Chill Touches “this little bastard. 18 - consider yourself Chilled.” How de do dis! The Chill Touch hand grabs him by the throat and he ages instantly and turns to dust. Gideon did miss his chance to do a one-liner, as Mina points out. “You should have said ‘Chill out’ as you attacked him.”

Gideon hands over to Gonzo. “Gonzo, attack!”

“BLEAARGHHH!���

He misses. “Gonzo, pull yourself together!”

Carl’s turn - he introduces a sahuagin to a flight of stairs - slam attack and a natty 20. For the first time in his delicious career, Carl gets to roll on the crit table: Stunning blow. Max damage and the target must make a DC14 CON save. On fail, the target is stunned. And how de do dis! Carl smashes into his shoulders, picks him up and batters him into the mast, then flings him down the stairs.

DM: “Brother Chastity - I mean Charity. It’s your turn.”

He’s on an elevated bit of boat. He does an Eldritch Blast, and another, against the Baron. Twelvesies total, and the Baron is officially ropey.

Ardvack wants to bonus action inject himself with adrenaline. Sophie, OOC: “You can’t do that, we’re on ye olde boate!”

Sophie as Ahleqs was going to do Shatter on the Baron, but if he’s ropey then she’ll do an Eldritch Blast instead. Except no she won’t, because she rolls too low. “Then I won’t, I’ll wet myself instead.”

She decides to do Tides of Chaos and have another go - she rolls a 23 and a 16 - twelvesies again, and how de do dis!

“He sort of explodes and lands in a pile of sushi.” Ahleqs can’t believe he’s done it, and just stares at his hands. Sophie rolls on the Table of Joy - 96. “I’d have thought that by 96 they’d be running out of ideas.” Matthew immediately: “No they didn’t…”

You and all creatures within 30 feet of you gain vulnerability to piercing damage. That includes Gideon and Tarragon; the former is very upset about it, the latter barely notices.

Another sahuagin takes an attack against Melaina and hits. She's very annoyed. DM: “Well, you did just kill Vajazzle, and her four hundred friends.” Melaina takes 5 slashing damage.

Another decides Girton looks a bit tough, so it tries going for Lolo instead but misses even though she’s not wearing armour. Joe thinks it must be the alcohol aura. She attacks it back, and misses.

We all make DEX saves again - Tarragon rolls a 5. She now has to roll a D4 - she gets a 3 and slides back a bit and hits the railing. (Phew.) Ardvack crit-fails and goes back in the sea. He wants to get back into the Bag of Holding. Ed, OOC: “You can’t tread water if all of your limbs are in a bag!” He sees the shark; it looks hungry, and he looks delicious. He makes a noise that would be a war-cry if he was three inches tall. "Like, if it came from a pixie, you’d be terrified."

Tarragon notices that the sahuagin still haven’t fled, even though we’ve now killed their Baron as well as the Priestess, but she doesn’t know what to do with this information.

Carl had to roll as well to see where he goes - and he too goes overboard.

DM: “This is good. My poor shark hasn’t got to eat any of you yet. It’s really annoying when you eat your food and then it disappears!”

Upon seeing Carl go over, Kessler wants to use her reaction to add her INT mod to his roll. The DM allows it and Carl is not in the drink after all, but on his bum on the deck. Yeah!

Kessler wants to move to try and see the shark. “Can I see it?”

DM: “I don’t know… it is only thirty foot long…”

She could hold her action and cast Shatter once it’s eaten Brother Charity…? (She would, but she’s not that much of a bitch.) She shoots her crossbow at the shark instead. 17 hits, for 8 piercing damage. She shoots again with a dirty 20 and 11 piercing damage. She shouts to Brother Charity to get back up here and help us but his ears are full of water and he can’t hear her.

Melaina shoots at the shark. DM, appalled: “What would Attenborough say?”

Melaina: “Uhhh… ‘Don’t miss’?”

18 hits, for 34 damage. (Tarragon, to herself, watching Melaina be a superhero yet again: "Man, I should have been a rogue.”)

Girton attacks with his hand axe again for 9 damage. A sahuagin makes a shove attack against Buckler - who topples overboard. (He came up partway through the fight so he missed Tarragon's Water Breathing spell. Good luck, buddy.)

Gideon, upon seeing the shark and deciding to Fireball the shit out of it: “Guys, I’m about to make a lot of steam, does anyone have a problem with that?” No-one does except Ardvack, who is five feet away from the perimeter.

Matthew: “Surely it (the shark) will just dip below the water?”

Gideon: “No, it can’t react that fast. My hands are quicker than a shark!”

Matthew, to me: “That has to go in the notes.”

Gideon commands Gonzo to leap over the side and grab onto the shark to harass it from up close.

Gonzo, doing as he’s told: “BLEAARGHHH!”

Ardvack: “Let me assure you that’s not as fun as it looks.”

Gideon, rushing to the edge to watch Gonzo: “Yes! Yes, now dig your rotten claws in!”

Carl wants to climb the mast to get to the sahuagin in the crow’s nest. He clambers in and ‘batters the shit out of it’. Melaina is now sharing her space with a cadaver as well as a monster. Carl makes a contested STR check versus the sahuagin - he rolls an 8, and the sahuagin rolls a 17. Annoyed, Carl will persist in this behaviour next round.

Tarragon uses half her movement to get up - this leaves her just ten feet so she dashes to get in range of the sahuagin next to Girton and flank it.

Brother Fish Food uses his Inspiration cards - one gives him Advantage on his next d20 roll so he uses it for Holy Eldritch Blast on the shark. 9 damage and he will use the other inspiration card to deal 2d6 necrotic damage on it as well. Second Holy Eldritch Blast does 3 more damage.

Sophie-as-Ahleqs uses Tides of Chaos to get Advantage on Shatter against the shark. Only she doesn’t because it forces a CON save, it’s not a spell attack. (Everyone within 30 feet of him breathes a sigh of relief.) Joe’s 'poor shark' only got an 8, so it fails - 16 Thunder damage, yeah!

The sahuagin in the crow’s nest attacks the corpse next to it - Carl takes 8 damage.

Joe is playing more D&D against himself. “Now I’m trying to murderise Lolo.” The sahuagin misses both times, once is a crit fail.

Matthew, excited: “Does it hit itself in the face? Or bite its own cock off?”

Lolo hits her sahuagin again, and we all cheer. She’s the only one of the crew who doesn’t have a hero class. She’s just a cook, and she’s doing some decent damage.

Now it’s Sharky-Woo. It goes after Brother Fish Food. Ardvack, half screaming and terrified: “... Smile, you son of a bitch?” It crunches him for 25 damage. Somehow, he survives.

Kessler sees this happen - she runs along the deck and leaps at the shark screaming “CANNONBALL!!” She rolls a DEX check - a ten. She’s towards the tail, but she’s on its back and attacks it with her Thunder Gauntlets with a 26 - 12 Thunder damage.

DM, put out: “Rude.”

Only a 14 to attack with her second hit, which hits. Good to know. Ten more Thunder damage.

Melaina hides - she only rolls 14, but she’s hiding from the shark so that’s enough. 17 hits, for 37 damage with Sharpshooter.

DM, laughing: “Not enough, but fuck!”

Buckler decides he’s getting the fuck out of Dodge, and starts to climb back on board the ship. Ardvack, from between the shark's jaws: “Coward!”

Gideon, save the day! Does a shark biting people count as a weapon attack? DM, after a moment: “… Yeah.” Gideon casts Ray of Enfeeblement - 24 to hit. Ardvack: “No, you’re just drawing it out!” The shark is now Enfeebled and can only do half damage.

“Gonzo, sic ‘em!”

“BLEAARGHHH!”

Twelve to hit with the rotting claw, which doesn’t.

Carl is up. He batters the sahuagin, as promised. 7 to hit with his slam attack, which misses. He was going to make a witty quip, but he’s not going to bother now.

Tarragon’s Rage has ended as she hasn't attacked or taken damage in the last round, so she casts Moonbeam on the shark; it fails the save and takes 16 Radiant damage.

It’s Charity’s turn. (The DM says he was going to roll to see which bit of him got bitten, but he decided that was too much.) He’s not in a good way; he’s leaking. A lot. He has a go at bopping it on the nose. He remembers reading somewhere that when you do that, they freak out and let you go so he Sheleldfbbllbslsgsljlbbleh’s it for 9 bludgeoning and 8 fire damage. “Can I bonus action heal myself?" Then, "Carl, damn you, you’ve got all the healing potions! Fuck!”

Sophie: “Ahleqs is going to…”

Joe: “Cast Shatter on Brother Charity?”

Matthew: “Brother Charity bursts!”

He casts Eldritch Blast with Tides of Chaos on the shark and does 8 points of damage. Sophie rolls on the Table of Joy - 42.

It’s Matthew’s favourite one: “You turn into a potted plant until the start of your next turn.”

Sophie: “Oh for fuck’s sake!”

9 hits Carl, as does 22; he takes 8 damage from the sahuagin. Another one attacks Lolo. She attacks back but misses.

Aegea kills one of them; we all cheer.

It’s the shark’s turn; Charity braces himself. It has to equal a 13 to hit him - and rolls a 22. Joe, entirely too delighted: “Yay!” It does 27 damage.

Matthew, adjusting Ardvack’s HP to zero: “… K…”

Kessler fails her STR save to stay on the shark’s back as it swims away with Ardvack’s body in its mouth leaving a lovely red trail behind it. She was going to try to cast Spare the Dying, but it’s a touch spell. She could summon her modron and have it deliver the spell for her, if it can get to him.

(Matthew says he has a plan for this round, so she can summon it this round and cast the spell next round if she wants.)

Mina, OOC: “It’ll come back for us and bring him back with it eventually, right?”

Matthew: “Yeah, in chunks.”

She wants to tie some rope to a crossbow bolt; but we’ve seen Ardvack fail to hit it with a dagger so it has quite a strong hide, that might not work.

Sophie, OOC: “I think it would be less ‘stopping it getting away’ and more ‘taking you with it’…”

Kessler opts for Magic Missile in the end, as it’s a guaranteed hit. 12 total, and how-de-do-dis!

The missiles skim the water and slam into the shark’s hide, it thrashes and releases Charity, 'with a sad look on its face'. For her movement, Kessler climbs back aboard. Charity rolls a death save - an 11 so a success.

He rolls a d8 and can bring himself back with four hit points. “I am horribly alive.”

Melaina stabs the sahuagin in the crow’s nest, with Sneak Attack since Carl is in melee with it; she does 26 damage.

Joe, laughing: “Even at full health, it only has 22 hit points!”

We’ve killed everything, yeah! Gideon snaps his fingers and dismisses Gonzo. “Away with you.”

Ardvack begins a weak, soggy, bloody doggy paddle back to the boat.

The storm begins to clear, and we drag Ardvack back on board. Just as with the sirens, the crew look horrified. This shouldn’t have happened; the ocean here is far too cold for creatures like that.

Buckler asks us if there’s something we aren’t telling him. He’s never seen creatures like this in this area. Ardvack spits up blood, beckons Carl and goes to the surgery, leaking as he goes.

Before he goes below deck, Ardvack asks who the ‘honoured one’ was; Buckler wasn’t here for that, and is confused. So are we - we have no idea who they meant by that either.

The Captain was looking ill, right? Tarragon asks him if he remembers going to sleep. He says he remembers eating dinner with some paying guests on board and feeling very sleepy. Then he remembers being awoken by Aegea.

Ahleqs is bunking in with Sparks as they’re both sorcerers and Ardvack spends most of his time in the surgery so neither of them have seen the guests. The rest of us have seen the guests, but it was during the daytime. (There goes that theory.) Buckler is happy for us to investigate these guests - “within reason,” he adds, side-eyeing Kessler - if it will get to the bottom of what’s going on.

Joe calls it there, but Buckler says we will drop anchor and not move until we’ve got to the bottom of this. We will have an Investigation next week!