#i still have nightmares of the rookie press page

[911bts]

Hi! Random question and you might not know but, do you know when new Bio photos for the cast members might be going up on the abc site? It seems like 911 and only one other shows cast don’t have any up yet for their actors.

They have released the photos but haven't updated the bios page to include them. I've posted them but they're admittedly buried in the last few days chaos.

One thing to know is while ABC isn't Fox level bad, they're not great about keeping up on their press sites either 😂

[narraboths]

“You got anything to tell me about yesterday’s interview, Ponytail?”

Being cornered by one’s editor is rarely a good sign. Being cornered by a harried Snapper Carr one month into her tenure as a rookie reporter would be enough to give others nightmares for a month. Maybe ulcers. Kara, though, she’s been having a great week, and she’s not about to let anyone ruin it.

“Nope.” She pops the p a little. Something about Snapper’s moroseness always pushes her to be spitefully chipper.

“Nothing out of the ordinary?”

“Not at all.”

“Hm.” Snapper nurses the thought with that dour, toothachey look that Kara’s come to learn is directed at her just as much as it is a sign of his general displeasure with the world. He pulls out his phone, jabbing at the screen. “So do you mind explaining to me why my cub reporter is on the front page of every gossip rag from here to Metropolis as the Mystery Blonde Caught in Luthor’s Web?”

That can’t be right is immediately the tip of Kara’s tongue but it freezes there, along with the incredulous laugh threatening to burst out of her, because Snapper is shoving his phone in her face and–

“It’s not what it looks like,” she blurts out, instinctively, then winces at her own choice of words. Great save. “I was just being considerate.”

It’s true, really. She was only holding the door open for Lena as they left L-Corp (Lena was on the move the whole day, they did half of the interview in the back of her Range Rover, flitting between offices), and it only happened that Lena’s hand fell to her forearm, a completely innocent gesture, as innocent as Lena’s smile, as the way she swayed a little closer, saying thank you as she strode by. And sure, Kara may have felt mesmerized for a single, fleeting moment, suddenly so deeply flustered by the gentle weight of Lena’s hand that she almost cracked the door handle in two, but who wouldn’t? Lena Luthor just has a remarkable presence. Why are they letting paparazzi camp out at the L-Corp doorstep, anyways?

“I’ve never seen Luthor that affectionate with anyone.” Snapper eyes Kara suspiciously, his face screaming why you of all people, bumbling rookie who can barely even spell?. “I’ve never seen any of the Luthors affectionate with anyone at all.”

“Guess it’s just my natural charm, sir.” Kara flashes the most annoyingly innocent smile she can, then squares her shoulders. “Did you actually read my article?”

There’s a beat of silence, Snapper staring daggers at her. Then finally, finally, he lets out an annoyed huff.

“Of course I read it. It’s going out first thing tomorrow.” He pockets his phone, then rubs his face with a tired motion. “Make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“You got it, boss.”

-

It happens again.

It happens again a bunch, really. (Kara at the L-Corp gala, at Lena’s table, the two of them in lively conversation, shoulders pressed together – she was telling me about L-Corp’s new green energy initiative, sir –, the fond smile and almost-teasing tone when Lena calls “yes, Miss Danvers?” at her press conference – she’s just nice! It’s not a crime! –, the candid of them on the CatCo balcony when Lena’s in house for her cover shoot, Kara gesturing excitedly and Lena leaning against the railing, hanging onto every word, a jacket two sizes too big wrapped around her shoulders – you know it gets cold out there. At least there’s no photos of her wrapping the jacket around Lena, their hands brushing together, the faint blush along the lines of Lena’s throat. That’d probably look pretty suspicious.) Snapper’s face takes on increasingly vivid shades of purplish red.

“Do we need to go over the meaning of journalistic integrity again, Danvers?”

Kara decides to take graduating from “Ponytail” as a win.

“We’re not– it’s not anything untoward,” she shoots back, arms crossed, only slightly blushing. In anger, certainly. “I’m doing my job. I grilled her on L-Corp still holding a contract with the government for anti-alien defense systems that Lex negotiated, just last week. There’s footage.”

“Yeah,” Snapper grinds his teeth so vehemently that Kara’s afraid he might crack a crown. “Footage of her hugging you in the hallway afterwards, too. What the hell were you doing?”

“She just thanked me, sir.” The vein on Snapper’s neck looks ready to burst. Kara makes a mental note to recommend meditation at a less belligerent time. “She said my question made it possible for her to make a public stance and really send a message.”

Snapper looks like he’s nearing an aneurysm.

“Hell, Danvers, that sounds even worse!”

It sounded pretty great, actually, Kara thinks, after the borderline unprofessional row they had in Lena’s office when Kara first broached the subject. It felt pretty great, too, not just Lena’s declaration, her renewed commitment to reject everything Lex and Lillian stand for, but the warmth of Lena’s pressed against her, her lips brushing against Kara’s cheek, the low murmur of “you’re such a wonderful friend” in her ear that gave her such a strange shiver. At least that much thankfully escaped the prying eyes and cameras.

“Either I don’t go near her, or CatCo continues to have the leading stories on one of National City’s most high-profile citizens.” She gives Snapper the steeliest look she can muster without letting her heat vision flare up. “And my covers are currently bringing in our biggest numbers. Sir.”

Snapper grinds his teeth again, but his shoulders sag just a touch, and Kara knows she’s won this round.

“You’re on thin ice, Danvers. Back to your desk.”

Kara complies with a grin and a thumbs up, and decides to take a break half an hour later, when Alex forwards her an article titled Bosom Buddies: Lena Luthor Out And About With CatCo Gal Pal with a subtle mix of skull, knife, and eyeroll emojis. She does save one of the photos, though, the one where Lena’s head’s thrown back in adorable, delightful laughter.

-

“Can you explain this one, Danvers?”

Snapper doesn’t look angry this time. No, he’s strangely calm, somewhat elated, even, slamming a whole bundle of newspapers down on her desk, jolting Kara out of her reverie. Half of them are National City publications, Kara vaguely notes, but there’s Metropolis and Gotham and Central City in the mix, too, as if it was the story of the century. Must be a slow news day.

“Of course, sir. I think the proper term is ‘first date’?”

To her greatest surprise, Snapper barks out a laugh, loud and gruff.

“You’re now barred from any future reporting on the Luthors or L-Corp,” he tells her, not without a touch of satisfaction. If Kara hadn’t been walking on sunshine for the past thirteen hours, twenty-eight minutes and forty-one seconds, since the first tentative press of Lena’s lips against her own, she might’ve felt a bit miffed. “Cat Grant’s setting aside a little time later in the afternoon to chew you out personally.”

Kara nods happily along. Withering tones and grim disapproval, the usual spiel, as if anything could dull that buzzing, electrifying feeling coursing through her body since last night, the weightless, feverish joy that grips her every time she thinks of Lena’s last text and everything can’t wait to see you again tonight could possibly entail.

“Yessir.”

“Congratulations, Danvers.” Snapper raps his knuckles against her desk. “Let’s spare each other the heartburn from now on.”

- 

(Kara shows up with a hickey on her neck and the headlines of Lena Luthor Packs PDA With New Girlfriend the next day. Snapper refuses to look her in the eyes for the rest of the week.) 

[gazs-blue-hat]

Whumptober Day 3: “Make it stop” (Kyle Garrick x Reader)

Summary: After being considered MIA for three weeks, the 141 receives a CD, where Kyle must face his worst nightmare.

Word Count: 1,084

Tw: Mentions of torture, Brainwashing, Emotional Abuse (LMK if I missed any)

Gaz was beside himself with anger when the rookie told him that you had been left behind. It was a simple mission, not even the most dangerous one you’ve been on! But the rookie was spooked and saw you get shot in the vest and fall. They had run to exfil and said you were lost.

Your radio still worked and there was a whole slurry of messages left by you after the exfil team had left. Because of one stupid mistake of a rookie too fresh for the field, you were now considered MIA.

When he had gone to the place you said you would be, there was the note. It was scribbled in poor English but the message was clear enough.

“Five hundred thousand Euros or she dies.” There was a written on the bottom of the page, a bank account they could wire the money to. Of course…141 doesn’t make deals with terrorists, much less petty pirates. They trusted you to escape them.

Big mistake.

141 wasn’t the only group they had messaged. AQ units were more than happy to pay the pirates their ransom for a great prize such as yourself. A member of 141 and someone they knew helped put down their old leader, Hadir.

They worked as quickly as they could to find you, calling in favors and pulling on threads. It was week three of you missing that the CD came to base. There was no address on it, no clear sign of where it had come from, but it was clear WHO it came from.

The team all knew what was on the disk. It was pretty clear what horrific thing was etched on that little silver circle.

Price brought everybody into his office, the monitors turned around to face the room. A small ‘play’ button was etched on the screen. Kyle felt his heart drop into his stomach.

No…not his star. Not his shooting star.

These videos were reserved for political figures and tragic prisoners of war. Not…you.

“Kyle…you don’t have to be here for this son.” Price said in the most gentle voice 141 had heard from him. Kyle shook his head, he had to be there. He had to see you. Just…one last time.

Simon put his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything but he didn’t even have to. Kyle understood what the man from Manchester was trying to say. He understood, what it was like to watch someone you love fade away. He would stand with Kyle until Kyle couldn’t anymore.

Simon squeezed gently on his shoulder as Kyle took a deep breath and pressed the play button.

The video was done with startling quality. Cinematic lighting illuminated your face and Kyle had to take a step back at the sight.

Your face was bruised and broken so badly it didn’t even look like you anymore. One of your eyes was swollen completely shut and your nose looked more like someone had smushed ground beef on your face.

“141…Captain Price. I never expected one of your pets to be caught so easily. I also never expected you to NOT want them back. Usually, masters are protective over pets as well as they are. The Spectre…almost as good as having the Ghost, no?” The voice was automated, sent through a scrambler to warp and shift the voice. However, the Russian accent was clearly understood even through the tech.

Kyle was trembling, his fists balled at his side. He could see how weak you were, how much they had hurt you. Scabs and half-healed scars covered your exposed body, marking it so deeply that hardly any of your original skin color was visible.

The skin he loves to touch, to caress, and to kiss. Skin he once marked with hickeys and love bites where nobody else could see. It broke him deep inside to see various marks on your body that would look like the ones you begged HIM to give you.

Your torture had been extensive.

“Well…any last words for your companions?” The voice warbled behind you. You firmly clamped your jaw shut and it was obviously out of place.

“Kyle…” Johnny’s voice, another hand on his shoulder. Kyle didn’t move, didn’t look away from the screen. He had to watch. He had to.

“They could have made it stop…” The words spoken from your mouth were slurred and exhausted. You looked utterly broken, tired, and done.

“That’s right Angel. They could have made it stop. But they didn’t, and for that…you’ll make them pay..” there was a shift in your demeanor then, a loosening in your body as a shadowed figure came behind you, running their hands over your weary shoulders.

Kyle bit his cheek so hard he tasted copper. Simon’s hand tightened on his shoulder as Kyle shook with hardly-contained rage. He had his brothers next to him, he would be able to get through this.

“Son…if you want to step out, nobody is going to “

“I have to, Sir. I owe it to them…” The response came out sharper than he intended it to but Price didn’t comment on it. He knew about the relationship he had with you, and he knew how Kyle needed this experience no matter how much it was going to hurt.

It was then that you looked up at the camera and started to blink. It seemed rather nonsensical at first but after a while, he was able to make sense of it.

“They’re…blinking in Morse…” he said softly. Price nodded, already writing down your message.

“Murmansk. Facility in the ice. Brainwashing.” Before Price could continue, Johnny had already stormed out of the room, making a verbal list of all the materials he would need to ‘blow that place sky high’.

The shadowy figure caressed your shoulders, pressing kisses along your neck. Kyle felt his nails pierce his palms. He didn’t like anybody looking at you, much less TOUCHING you.

“Easy…they’re still talking…” Simon grumbled in his ear. Kyle looked up at the screen and his caramel eyes met yours.

“Love you. See you soon, K.G.G.”

That name made butterflies flutter in Kyle’s torso. You weren’t broken, you were just pretending to be. He could see the fire burning in your eyes and that fire sparked his own.

He would get you back. He would get you back and remind you how much he loved you.

He was coming, and you knew he would get you.

He always came to get you.

[terrm9]

17!

Thank you so much for the ask, anon!

This is an alternative version of events in Chapter 11 (Book 2) in which Chiara slips into coma before the antidote is created.

Prompt request: “There are people who love you, you know”

Warnings: angst, mentions of dying, deathbed confessions, ugh I never thought I would write something like this

*** *** ***

All her life Chiara believed that leaning into someone, with her head on their chest and her palm pressed into the part of their body beneath which their heart laid, all she could be was relaxed.

Only now, with maitotoxin playing the main role in her body, she was proven wrong. As she leaned into Ethan, her arm wrapped around his chest, she could feel the muscles in her body protest. The little muscles she usually paid no attention to, those were now screaming with pain, the tension in them unbearable.

And so as much as she hated to do so, she asked Ethan is he could just sit next to her so that her whole body could lay down on a flat mattress, without any of her annoying little muscles burning.

Chiara was weak. She could feel her strength leaving her body with every soft ‘tick’ coming from the clock on the wall.

Ethan would never say it out loud, but he could see it too. He could see her energy, the energy that made her his Rookie, disappearing into the thick air surrounding them.

“You can’t give up now, Chiara, okay? You are going to be okay.”

He didn’t believe himself at this point. There was not a single indication of the possibility that she could every be okay again.

Looking down at Chiara’s rueful smile, he knew that she didn’t believe his words either.

However, even then, while seeing the finish line of her life, she was capable of the graciousness so typical for her and nodded.

“I am going to be okay,” she whispered and they both knew that she wasn’t talking about being alive.

“I am serious, Ray. There are people who need you. People who rely on you. People who love you. You need to be okay and be there for them.”

Ethan could see how much pain she was in and how she didn’t want to go on anymore. He despised himself for pushing her into staying awake and alive by playing with her emotions, but if it helped, if Chiara pulled through this because she didn’t want to let others down, he could live with despising himself.

“Are you one of those people? Who love me?”

She wouldn’t normally ask him. But what did she have to lose now?

Ethan didn’t want to response.

Saying that he wasn’t one of those people would be a lie and a damnable one.

Confessing his love to her while she was on her deathbed was something that never occurred to him, not even in his worst nightmares.

“I am,” he nodded after a moment of silence, squeezing her hand softly.

God, how he wished she could feel his skin.

“I’ve gotten Ethan Ramsey confess his love for me,” Chiara grinned with her last remnant of strength. “What a way to go.”

“I will take that back in an instant if it helps you hold onto your life longer.”

Chiara shook her head slightly and wanted to smirk at his rude remark, but she couldn’t anymore. Everything just hurt so damn much.

“In your life, there are people who love you, you know,” she managed to whisper after taking several ragged breaths. “I need you to remember it when-“

“Stop it,” he warned her.

Ethan knew where she was going and he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t let her say it.

Chiara looked him straight into the eyes and for a moment, the world felt normal. Her whole body was damaged and pained, but not her eyes. Her eyes were as determined and bright as ever.

The blue of his eyes was the last thing she wished to see before she closed her own eyes without an expectation to open them again.

“I need you to rely on the people who love you when I-“ he voice was a whisper now. Whisper full of both, physical and emotional pain.

“Chiara, please, stop,” Ethan’s voice cracked as he pleaded.

He failed her. He failed her mother and her sister and her friends. He failed himself. She was dying and he, the great Ethan Ramsey, had no tool in his hands that could reverse that sick reality.

“…when I am not here to remind you that I am one of those people.”

She finished it. He begged her not to and she finished the sentence.

Her hand slipped out of his and fell down on the bed with a soft thud. Her lips were parted and if he squinted his eyes just right, his mind could still create the image that she was smiling softly.

Ethan knew what was happening. He knew what he was supposed to do, he knew he should have paged the team, he knew.

But he didn’t do any of it.

“Chiara, no. No, no, no… Chiara. Chiara!”

Instead, he gripped her shoulders and started to shake Chiara’s motionless body violently, much more violently than he normally would.

He kept shaking her form and screaming her name until the back of his throat burned, until June and Baz stepped into the room and took her away.

Until he was left alone and the realization of his ominous failure downed on him.

And Ethan Ramsey has never hated anyone as much as he hated himself at that moment.

 *** *** ***

before you hate me, she sliped into coma, she didn’t die okay, I am not that angsty

[fvrxdrm]

City of the Living Dead

Chapter 5

Leon had pulled a lever right beside a metal door that was contained inside a box with packaging tapes sealing it and the said door slowly slid up to let us in. The room looked bright and comfortable. If you disregard the dust that caked the couches and tables and the dirt that was scattered all over the floor, it would've been a good resting area. Everything was organized and nothing was out of place.

"Y/N?" You heard the young man call your name. As soon as you turned around after picking up a potted green herb that was resting on top of a box, you were immediately caged in a tight embrace, the smell of Leon's newly-made uniform meeting your nostrils. "I thought we lost you, Y/N. We thought you were killed. Claire and I went to your house one day and saw your parents lying on the floor. I-we..." Tears began to drench your shoulder as Leon started sobbing at the mere thought of you being physically out of his life.

He nearly lost his shit when he saw the state of your home and he would've if he saw your body just laying somewhere in or out of the house and the poor guy hasn't told you everything he wanted to get out of his chest.

His sudden breakdown didn't go unnoticed by you. When you felt something hot soak your jacket and neck, you pulled away from the hug and cradled his cheeks before letting your eyes linger on his face. It was covered in tears and they seemed to continue to fall the more you stared at him.

"Hey, I'm here now. You didn't lose me." You pressed a gentle kiss on his nose and the gesture caused more tears to stream down Leon's face.

"I was so scared, Y/N," Leon whimpered. He held one of your hands in his and pressed his forehead against yours.

"Shh...I know, I know. I'm sorry." You both stayed like that for a moment, holding onto each other as you relished each other's presence after one year of absence. You knew that wasn't enough but you took what you could get and decided it would be best to catch up after you got out of the city. "Come on, let's go. We have some escaping to do." You placed one last kiss on his nose again before heading towards the door where the nightmare truly began.

Behind the door was a hallway.

A hallway.

A hallway where blood and grime embellished every wall and floor. Infinite darkness flooded the room and the smell was over-the-top unbearable.

You can do this, Y/N, you can do this. After you get out of the city you'll be living happily ever after again. It's just tonight.

At the end of the hall was an officer. He was slumped against the corner of a wall and if none of you knew what was happening that night, one could only guess it was not somebody who pulled a prank or died because of something less absurd than monsters and creatures.

"This is 73-Bird---------for rescue. Touchdown at R.P.D.----------minutes. I repeat----------" You managed to make out through the static from the radio of the officer.

You and Leon looked at each other, gulping down the lumps in your throats, before making your way towards the seemingly dead man with your flashlights guiding your way through the tenebrosity. Your eyes were glued to the officer the whole time, fearing that he might be one of the undead just waiting for his first or next prey. He didn't move though and that eased the two of you a little bit.

"Wanna...check on him? You know, just to make sure," You muttered as you gestured towards the body.

"Are you kidding? That's fucking suicide!" He whisper-yelled back. Though you heard Leon, your curiosity got the better of you, and no matter how much he told you not to touch the fucking body you still did it and you suddenly regretted your decision. Curiosity killed the cat, am I right?

When you slowly rose the man's head by its forehead, you were immediately met with the most delicious sight. The tissues that connected his jaw to the rest of his head stretched like slightly-hardened slime. Smelly blood dripped down to the officer's thighs and floor and the sound of you stretching the flesh a bit more sounded like somebody playing with wet and raw meat. Yuck!

"Oh...oh, fuck!" You whispered.

"I told you, Y/N. You didn't have to do this," Leon said as he suppressed the urge to gag and vomit at the repulsive sight.

Suddenly, the sound of something dropping to the floor was heard from another end of a hallway and it immediately got you to take your eyes off the officer.  

"Huh?"

"What was that?" You pointed your lights to where you heard the noise and as soon as the light hit the end of the hallway, two things abruptly caught your attention: another body of an officer that was impaled on a pipe going through his mouth and a tin can that went tumbling around. Nobody, or perhaps, nothing was at the end of the corridor so what caused it to fall?

You and Leon exchanged glances again before proceeding to walk through the eerily quiet  corridor and as soon as the two of you nearly reached the end of the hallway, a fucking zombie slammed itself on the window, growling and clawing against the glass to get her bloody hands on you and devour you. It might've been the scariest jumpscare you had that night so far.

"Holy fuck!"

"Shit!" You and Leon cursed at the same time after nearly getting a heart attack.

"I hope you can't bust through the window!" You exclaimed as you yanked Leon's arm towards a corner where a wooden double door was just waiting patiently for you to open and get a safe place while storing some more stuff that could be proven useful to you behind it.

Just as you pushed the door open with your hand that was holding your flashlight, the window that the zombie had given its attention to suddenly shattered and the sound of it breaking caused more panic to erupt inside of you, fearing that some unwanted people had heard it, and you immediately rushed inside the room.

"They can bust through windows, Y/N."

"Then we'll need something to board every window up if we don't want any hindrance while we find these things," You replied as you grabbed the small journal Marvin handed to you earlier and studied the symbols that were drawn on two blank pages while Leon snatched a map that was laying on a table.

As you were finishing with studying the notebook you had in your hands and picking up a box of ammo you had found just resting and blending in with the mess in the other corner of the room, you promptly heard the rookie cop mumbling to himself and made your way towards him to see a piece of paper pinned in between his thumbs and index fingers -- a record of events to be exact.

September 25th

We're turning the station into a temporary shelter due to the massive sudden outbreak. All police personnel have been instructed to make the safety of the citizens their top priority as we try to accommodate as many of them as possible.

September 25th (addendum)

One of the refugees attacked us in the middle of the night, resulting in the death of 1 officer and injuring 3 others. The person in question was quickly restrained. We believe this was simply a case of someone snapping under intense stress.

September 26th

A mob attacked the station today, resulting in a number of casualties. A few survivors were able to make it safely behind the emergency shutters, but surrounded as we are, it'll be hard for any of us to escape this place. We're not sure we can fix any of our comm equipment, so we remain cut off from the outside world.

September 27th

There was another clash on the west side of the station around 1pm. Twelve people died, and there is only a handful of survivors left. Everything is falling into disarray in here.

David Ford

"Well, that explains why the police station isn't a safe place either," You broke the silence after taking in what you just read. Leon set the note back on the table before leaning forward with his arms supporting his weight and let out a big sigh. That concerned you.

"Hey, what's wrong?" You softly asked him as you placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. You guessed the stress, anxiety, and fear were taking a toll on him and you wanted to ease him up a little bit at least with your touch. You get it, the nightmare you were in was already too overwhelming.

"I just...I wish I came here earlier, you know. I was about to start working here last week until I got a call to stay away. Now...I really wish I got here earlier. I could've-" You immediately cut Leon off, knowing he would say something along the lines of 'I could've saved them' and made him turn around to face you with the palm of your hand resting against his cheek.

"Hey, this isn't your fault. Even if you were here a week earlier, who knows how many are already infected. There's nothing any of us can do, Leon." Leon pulled away from you and your gaze in frustration for himself. He knew there was nothing he could do but somehow his emotions got the better of him.

"Y/N, I-maybe we could've saved the others from getting infected. I don't know. I just-" You took Leon's hands in yours, stopping him from pacing around so much before looking him in the eyes again.

"Leon, there is nothing we could do. I know you wish things were different -- I wish things were different. But they ain't. I would've graduated by now. You would've been buying donuts and patrolling across the city by now, just like how you always told me. But we aren't. Everything happens for a reason, Leon. If this whole ordeal is going to lead us up to something then we'll take it. Unless you're ready to give up and let your emotions get the better of you again. Everything I said might not be the answer you want but you gotta know that...we can't save everybody... Fuck, I don't even know what the hell I'm saying. I'm just rambling right now but...I hope you understand, Leon." The said boy let out a huge sigh again and looked down to the ground in hopes of getting himself together and not let his brain get himself killed tonight. He'll deal with his own demons later once you get out of the city but for now, escaping is all that matters.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. I'm...just...I'm scared and I don't know what's gotten into me."

"It's okay, Chipmunk. We all have our moments," You whispered as you carressed his cheekbone with your thumb. You almost forgot where you were until a thud coming from the door suddenly broke you out of your trances and you immediately grabbed everything you needed before jumping out of a broken window.

---***---

Well, how was it? I just wrote shit in this and didn't proofread this. Lolz

Edit: did yall see the easter egg?👀👀👀

[alostsock]

You shouldn’t have (1/2?)

"Shit," Eddie swore under his breath. Buck quirked an eyebrow, looking up at him from where he was slumped on the couch, reading a book. "My phone just died, I was about to call Carla to tell her to drop Chris off at Pepa's instead of Abuela's."

"I told you you need to stop playing Candy Crush," Buck said with a smirk. Eddie sent him a pleading look and Buck rolled his eyes, handing over his own phone before turning back to his book.

“Password?” Eddie questioned. Buck wordlessly held out his thumb for Eddie to unlock the phone, not looking up from his page. Eddie pressed the unlock button to Buck’s thumb, opening up the phone app as soon as it was unlocked. He snorted, and Buck looked up with a frown.

“Who you been calling, Buck? You called this 1-800 number three times this week.”

Buck paled. “Uh, nobody. Just... tech support.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Come on Buck, we’re with the same carrier, this isn’t their customer service number.

“Was thinking of switching,” Buck retorted.

“These calls are all time-stamped the middle of the night, Buckley.” Buck opened and closed his mouth several times, desperately looking for something to say. “And they’re long, too.” Eddie raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “What’s got you so defensive, Buck? This a sex line or something?”

Buck spluttered. “No! No, just...”

Eddie snorted. “I get it, Buck, we’ve all got needs. And I mean it has been a while since Ali. But like...” he looked back at the phone, scrolling a bit through the call history, “isn’t this a bit much? We need to find you a real girl, man.”

If Eddie didn’t know better, he’d have said that Buck’s lip quivered, but Buck didn’t respond to the jabs. He rolled his eyes and got up with a huff, telling Eddie to “just make the call already,” before saying he was going to the bathroom and heading off.

Eddie quickly called Carla, hoping to catch her before she left home to pick Chris up from school. Message relayed, he thanked her with a grateful “I seriously don’t know what we’d do without you,” before hanging up. Pressing the end button brought him back to the recent calls list, and he chuckled to himself, shaking his head. His thumb hovered over the most recent call to the mysterious number. Should he? It was almost definitely some sort of violation of privacy, especially since he knew what the number was for already. But this was Buck, and what kind of friend would he be if he didn’t pass up this prime opportunity for teasing material? Besides, he’d make sure to take Buck out later. He was a pretty good wingman, if he did say so himself. Decision made, he pressed the number, biting back his laughter as the phone rang.

When the automated voice started giving him menu options, however, Eddie blanched and nearly dropped the phone in surprise. He frantically looked around the firehouse loft, but Buck was nowhere to be seen.

---

Buck didn’t really need to use the bathroom, but he definitely did need to leave before Eddie made any more jokes about him calling a sex line. Despite the fact that it wasn’t actually a sex line, not clearing his call history before giving someone his phone to use was a stupid, rookie move. He splashed some water on his face before sitting down heavily on one of the locker room benches, dropping his head into his hands. His ears were still burning in embarrassment, but he forced himself to take a deep breath. He could do this. A sex line was pretty in-character for Buck 1.0, wasn’t it? He could play this off as a joke. He could laugh about it. It was better than Eddie knowing the truth, anyway.

He felt his anxiety building despite himself, and he tried to settle his racing heart, desperately trying to think of things to say when he went back to get his phone from Eddie. Should he make a joke? Should he pretend Eddie never saw anything? Buck was very much lost in his thoughts and starting to feel a little woozy as he was startled out of his reverie by the sound of someone clearing their throat. He looked up to see Eddie looking back at him with a strange look on his face. Buck was almost sure he looked nervous. What did Eddie have to be nervous about? Buck hadn’t even decided what he was going to say, this was too soon, he needed a few more minutes to himself -

“Buck...” Eddie cut off Buck’s spinning thoughts. “Buck... I’m... I’m sorry.” Buck frowned. “It was an invasion of privacy, for me to look at your call history like that.”

Oh. Right. Yeah. Buck could work with that.

“Yeah, it was Eddie. Thank you for -” but Eddie cut him off again with a shake of his head.

“I called the number, Buck.”

Buck’s heart picked up the pace again. He wondered if he was going to throw up.

“You... you what?”

“I um... I thought it would be funny. I thought I could make fun of you for whatever cheesy voice answered but then we could go out for some drinks and just have a guys’ night out, or something. I didn’t meant to...”

“You didn’t mean to what, Eddie? You didn’t mean to look? You didn’t mean to call? I don’t think either of those things were accidents.” Anger - Buck could do anger. It was better than the awful hollowness that he’d been drowning in lately. “But I’m glad you got a laugh out of it.” Buck got up off the bench, ready to storm off, when Eddie put a hand on his shoulder. Buck couldn’t help it, he flinched. Eddie took a step back, hands held up apologetically.

“I... I know what kind of phone line it is, Buck. I heard the message, I...”

“Great, Eddie. Now you know. Can I please have my phone back so I can leave, already?”

Buck still had a few hours left in his shift, but anywhere would be better than stuck in the locker room with Eddie. Maybe Hen would be willing to play Mario Kart with him. He needed a distraction.

Eddie made no move to give back the phone clutched tightly in his hand, so Buck huffed out a breath, turning to leave anyway. He couldn’t deal with this.

“I know it was a suicide helpline, Buck,” Eddie blurted out. Buck was now almost certain he was going to throw up. He blinked furiously, trying to clear the tears that were building in his eyes, before he made to leave again. Eddie grabbed his wrist. “Can we please... talk? Please, Buck? Just for a minute?”

Buck sighed. With the nausea that was building, maybe it was best he stayed close to the bathrooms anyway. So, he reluctantly sat back down on the bench, keeping his gaze determinedly on the ground as Eddie sat down next to him. The other man was silent for a moment, before he held out Buck’s phone to him. Buck snatched it back, shoving it in his pocket without saying anything. If Eddie wanted to talk, well then Eddie could talk. Buck had nothing to say.

“Why’d you call a suicide helpline, Buck?” Buck snorted. Wasn’t it obvious?

Eddie ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “No, I know that’s a dumb question. How... how long have you been feeling like... like this, Buck?”

Buck shrugged. Even if he had wanted to answer, it was honestly hard to remember a time in his life when he hadn’t felt like this in some way. The intensity of the hopelessness seemed to rise and fall, but he was very familiar with the sleepless nights. Eddie hovered his hand as if he wanted to put it on Buck’s knee, but when he saw Buck tense he put it back on his own with a sigh.

“I... I know this year has been hard, Buck. But why didn’t you just... call? You have to know you can call me.”

Buck snorted. “At four in the fucking morning, Eddie?”

“We call you at 4am all the time, Buck. You’re always willing to talk to Chris after a nightmare, I know you love him so much, you have to know he feels the same? That he’d do the same?” The I’d do the same went unsaid, but Eddie hoped Buck heard it anyway. (He didn’t.)

“I do know that actually. I know that Chris would be willing to talk on the phone if I called him in the middle of the night. Somehow that kid is the best person I’ve ever met, but I’m not going to call your nine-year-old to tell him that I can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to kill myself.”

Eddie flinched. Buck was breathing hard, and despite himself he felt a tear slip down his cheek before he wiped it away furiously. “I hope you called Carla. You should charge your phone.”

With that Buck was gone, the locker room door swinging angrily shut behind him as he stormed off. Eddie could do nothing but sit as he blinked in shock, trying to think of what he could say to Buck - to his friend who was clearly hurting. But, before he could form a coherent thought, the bell rang and they were off.

[holdin-out-for-a-hero]

Rookie (Leon Kennedy X Reader) Chapter 10/?

Words: 2631

Warnings: None

A/N: Sorry it took so long! I had the draft written for over a month before I got around to editing it

You looked down at the Licker's body before you; Its blood and tissue stained your clothes and the floor below. Disgusting. Although the sight before you was truly revolting, you took an audible sign of relief. They're better dead and gross then alive and slightly less gross. Killing the lickers wasn't easy, it required a lot of planning and a rather dramatic gesturing argument with Leon. Your plan was to call them over, and take one out each. Leon wasn't too happy to see those things again, but without a plan of his own, he gave in.

"You're a good shot." He said, still breathless from the adrenaline rush.

"I know," A small smile formed on your lips

"Like a REALLY good shot." he exclaimed "You killed that thing mid-air!"

"My father taught me," the smile on your lips fell away. You missed your dad. And everyone else, too. But this was not the time, you thought.

Leon stepped over both of the carcasses and then waited for you. You took a large step over the first carcass, but then your foot slipped in the pool of blood. Leon tried to catch you, but failed. Instead of falling onto the tile floor, though, you fell face first onto the second licker's corpse. A fate truly worse than death.

"Are you ok?" Leon asked, helping you up. Feeling the blood and goop on your face, you immediately felt like throwing up and crying. Leon wiped away the gore with his gloved hand as you tried hard to swallow what was coming up your throat.

"Do me a favor and shoot me," You said. He chuckled. "I'm not kidding."

"After we get that sample" he held your wrist and the two of you started walking down the hall. Those words stung, though you realize they shouldn’t have. Leon just couldn’t stop thinking about Ada, could he?

"She's really got a hold you, huh?" You remarked under your breath. Leon turned to you.

"This is for the government. This is so raccoon city never happens again. You know it’s the truth.” His words echoed though the hall, they stung as well.

"Never mind, forget I said it."

The two of you walked in an uncomfortable silence, around a corner, and down another hall.

"Would you feel better if I let you kiss me too?" Leon spoke up, that devious grin on his lips.

"No!"

You eventually found the nap room. And yes, it was a literal nap room. The right side of the room had a few pods built into the walls for sleeping. Most of them were open, except for one. A decaying hand dangled out of the only closed pod, dripping blood onto the floor. Was this the person who never checked out of the nap room, Wayne Li?

Leon slowly opened the pod because he too was curious (and he was running low on bullets and really hoped this person had a few with them). The body slumped out of the pod, falling face first on the floor and making a sickening splat sound. You couldn't look at it, not after the noise it just made, so you looked into the pod instead. There, you found a journal. Flipping through a few pages, you confirmed your suspicions. This was Wayne Li, and apparently he had a god complex. Man, scientists are really big headed, you thought. Was it wrong to insult the dead like that? Probably.

"Yes!" Leon whispered.

You looked over. He pried a gun from the dead man's hand and a package of bullets from the lab coat pocket. You noted how wrong this looked, two people stealing loot from dead bodies. And two cops, no less. It's funny how a zombie apocalypse can completely change your values. Then you noticed the blue flashing chip on his wristband. A security chip, high clearance, no doubt. So you took that too.

The two of you continued through the lab, entering a large, central area. It had a bridge that led to an elevator and a platform that you assumed would activate the bridges to the other parts of the lab. You looked down below the bridge, darkness shrouded the bottom, if there even was one. A fall from there would definitely be deadly, you though. But now is not the time for your fear of heights.

"Ada said it's in the west area," Leon said, you looked up at him. “You’re holding onto that rail pretty tight.” That was when you noticed your white knuckles.

Leon held his hand out to you and his eyes met yours. Slowly, you uncurled your fingers from the rail and grabbed his hand. He smiled at you, leading you across the bridge and to the platform. He needs to stop being so nice and cute all the time, you thought, because you could tell you were falling for him fast.

Leon scanned Ada’s wristband against the sensor, but unfortunately the security level wasn't high enough for the West area. He scanned it against the other sensor, and it unlocked the East area. Hopefully you'd find a higher clearance chip somewhere in the East area.

The two of you walked to the very back of the lab and scanned your wristband against the door's sensor. You were not prepared for what was inside. As the double doors slid away, all you could see was green. Though most of the foliage was behind a glass, it looked as though it was pouring out of any crack it could find, leaving stray vines hanging from the ceiling and coming up through the floor. Then you saw it, how could you have missed it? Right in the middle of the room, a man in a hazmat suit was pressed up against the cracked glass by whatever plant was overtaking the lab. A purple light flashed from the man's wrist. Your heart sunk. As much as you didn't want to retrieve the wristband from that death trap, there was no other chip: you had already checked the rest of the lab.

You looked over to Leon, and he to you.

"Well, you know what that means," he chuckled nervously. You groaned.

"Could this night get any worse?" You asked. Yes, it could. And it would.

You and Leon fought your way into the chamber with a can of gasoline and a lighter you found. Then you realized you couldn't reach the guy with the wristband, so you fooled around with some of the lab stuff and accidentally sprayed pesticides into the entire chamber. Luckily that solved your problem, and the corpse fell to the floor of the chamber. All the while, you were collecting emails and records from the computers around the lab. And now, with the wristband and a newfound fear of bushes, you headed towards the west area.

You held your wristband up to the door, and it buzzed open. This side of the lab, or at least what you had seen of it, was way different from the first side. There was a sanitation station at the entrance along with a cart full of hazmat suits. You could tell that whatever was in this side of the lab was probably not something you’d want to mess with.

You were right. The west side of the lab was far more interesting that the East, and not in a good way. The files you found on the computers detailed the disturbing experiments carried out on real human beings, and pods on the wall held some of their “successes,” which were mutated mounds of flesh and body parts. This, you knew, would haunt your nightmares for a long time.

The two of you reached the back of the lab, where one vial was left in a large centrifuge. Leon picked it out of the container. He observed the label, noticing the large letter G.

"That was easy," he said, looking back to you.

"Don't speak too soon, I have a bad feeling about this," you replied. As if on cue, the intercoms played a message:

"Attention: Unauthorized removal of a level 4 virus detected. Facility lockdown initiated. Self destruct sequence will begin when lockdown is complete."

Leon's heart sank when he heard the message. Of course this would happen, because nothing was gonna be easy in raccoon city. In fact, nothing has been easy all night. He questioned whether the universe wanted him to make it out alive since so many curveballs have come his way.

"Let's find Ada!" He said to you as he ran down the hall. You followed behind, trying to keep pace with him. You entered another platform room that led to the other side of the lab, running across the metal and praying to God you would be fast enough. You were so close to the next door, getting closer, and closer.

Then the ceiling behind you fell in. And a familiar face rose from the dust. Or rather, what was left of his mutating face. Birkin.

"You again," Leon clenched his jaw, glaring back at the creature that just wouldn't die. He raised his gun. Then the door behind him beeped open

"Move. He's mine!" A woman's voice yelled. You looked around. It was Annette. She limped in front of Leon, holding out a strange gun of her own. "This has to end."

She shot him. Not with a bullet, but a strange acid or serum. Whatever it was, it had Birkin writing on the ground in pain.

"What's going on?" Leon said, but it fell on deaf ears. Annette took another step forward towards the creature.

"Sorry William, you gave me no choice," She said to it. The creature stopped moving, and Leon walked around the creature with his gun trained on it. You walked behind him, pulling out your own in the process. When Leon was content it wouldn't be getting up any time soon, he squatted to take a better look at the monster in front of him.

"You called this thing 'William,' why?"

Annette didn't acknowledge him. She shook her head, looking down.

"It shouldn't have ended like this," she whispered.

"Shouldn't have ended like what?" You spoke up.

"It's Umbrella's fault, this whole mess!" She seethed. You don't know if she was answering your question or not, she didn't seem like she was listening.

"You're Umbrella too." Leon said.

"Yeah, and YOU made this virus," you added.

"William and I made the virus, but we never meant for this to happen!" He voice cracked as she yelled and you notice the tears running down her face.

There was a pause in the conversation. Annette's fierce eyes burned into your soul as she tried to control her ragged breathing. This took you by surprise, because in your first interaction with her, she didn't act very human. But now, you could feel her guilt, and you could feel her loss. Whoever William was, he was important to her.

"Tell us everything that happened— every detail," Leon said calmly and firmly. He definitely had the mannerisms of a cop, you thought. She took a couple deep breaths, and began to speak.

"The government was onto Umbrella, they have been for a while now," she paused, putting together her thoughts, "William was going to turn G in to the government for immunity. Umbrella heard about it and sent their special ops team in to take him down. When they raided the lab, I knew what they were there for, so I ran to find William," she choked down a sob, "I was too late, they had shot him and he had just injected himself with G.”

"So this is your fault? You created this monstrosity?" Leon accused.

"We made the G-Virus, but we never intended for this to happen!" She replied in a venomous tone.

You were listening to them argue, when you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Something moved, something in William's direction. It took you a second to piece together what was happening, it was a second too long.

"You could spin it anyway you want, you're still responsible,"

The monster rose, grabbing Annette with its clawed hand. He squeezed her tight, as she struggled to get out of his grasp. Then, he threw her against the opposite door. Her body crumpled to the ground.

The creature turned, looking at you with its many eyes. Then, it lunged at you, trying to grab you too. You screamed as you fell backwards into the floor, your abdomen grazed by it's claws. Your stomach burned as you felt your shirt grow wet, you looked down to see the tear that traveled from your bra to top of your pants.

"Y/N, get out of the way!" Leon yelled. Then you saw its claws coming at you again. You backed away as quickly as you could, though the shock of your wound kicked in, making it hard to focus on anything but the searing pain.

"Over here you ugly bastard!" Leon yelled, trying to get William away from you.

Anette slowly got up from the ground, holding her bloody side. Using all the strength she had, she trudged over to a control panel and pressed a button.

"He can't get away," she said to herself.

Suddenly, red flashed through the room and the platform you were on descended to the bottom of the lab. The lights, the pain, and the panic disoriented you.

But then you saw Leon. He was using the last of his shotgun shells to take down the monster, to keep it away from you. And then you realized:

You had feelings for him.

You had only known him for a night, but what had happened—and is still happening— in that night would surely keep you bonded for life. Maybe it was an adrenaline-fueled infatuation, you didn't care. You knew how you felt.

The platform was floor lever now, so you stepped off, one hand clutching your bleeding stomach and one hand wielding your gun.

Whatever it was, it was getting too close to Leon for your liking.

"Hey ugly! Over hee-ere!" You yelled in a sing-song voice. The creature turned around, stomping over towards you. Thank God you were a good shot.

"What are you doing?!" Leon yelled.

"I'm not letting it hurt you!" You yelled back.

"But that's what I was doing for you!"

Then you thought of a plan.

"Leon, divide and conquer!" You yelled.

So the two of you bombarded the creature on both sides, filling him with bullets and trying to light him on fire with your gasoline and lighter. Don't get me wrong, though, this was not a fair fight. William was fast and had inhuman strength He tore equipment from the ground to throw at the two of of you like it was nothing. You were also at a disadvantage with your injury, making your pace slower. Still, somehow the two of you remained unscathed. And by the grace of God, you defeated it. As you watched Williams body crumble to the floor, you made a note to go to church again after all this was over.

"You still in one piece? How’s your stomach?” Leon asked, walking past William and over to you.

"It’s just a scratch,” you replied, looking down at your would. The bleeding had stopped, and it looked like it was already scabbing up.

Leon grinned at you, still breathing heavily. That stupid smile of his. Perhaps it was best that you never got to work with him, because you knew if you had seen that smile at the precinct, you would have fallen helplessly in love. You could even hear Marvin yelling at you for it.

“Then lets get going”

[morphituu]

Milagro

Chapter 7: “Déjà Vu”

Ch: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Ward had expected to see the blue haired elf upon entering the room, but was only met with Montehugh’s lackluster self, turning to nod at Daryl with a classification folder in hand.

“Where’s Kandomere?”

“Busy,” he slapped the folder onto the table surface, and that was Ward’s cue to shut the door. “Take a look,”

Daryl opened the folder before he was sat, and a small pile of photos slipped out. The CCTV shots were of poor quality, but enough was legible from the blurs shaped like people and light radiating from their extended arms.

“That’s Tikka,” Ward mumbled, pointing with his pinky. If it hadn’t been for the small blob of lighter color on this fuzzy shapes head, she could’ve gone unidentified.

“Correct,” Montehugh announced, pouring himself coffee. “So who’s the other fucker?”

“The fuck should I know?”

“I’m not asking you,” Montehugh sat before him, a hard exhale coming forth. “Now I’m sure you know what’s about to go down,”

“Haven’t seen or heard shit,” Ward shook his head, carefully overlooking all the photos obtained from the destroyed bazaar. There was something off-putting about the opponent she was clearly battling. It’s form was too unfamiliar, something he couldn’t label as elf or human. Though it appeared to be showing it’s face and arms, it was dark, and no hair seemed to adorn it’s head from what he could make out.

“Could this be an Orc?” Daryl asked.

“Not likely,” he sipped his steaming drink.

“But not impossible?”

“Do you know how rare it is for there to be Orc Brights?” Montehugh laughed.

“Cut the shit- could it be an Orc?” Ward demanded, and the heavyset detective sighed.

“The chances are stacked against that assumption,”

“Regardless. Maybe bringing this to the table and lookin’ for Brights outside of elves and humans would mean this shit could be taken care of sooner,” the officer rattled out accusingly, a clear jab at their lack of success during the weeks this had dragged on.

“You wanna take that sad excuse of a photo out and start interrogating Orcs on the street? Asking to see their wands? Be my fucking guest if you think it’s so simple,”

“It’d be more than whatever the fuck you two are doing. All you’ve told us is we can’t leave the city and that she’s on the loose, so what the fuck are you guys doing?” Ward was sitting forward, his face twisted with rage.

“We’re keeping you fuckers on a short leash in case you two decide to run off with another wand,” Montehugh spat back just as aggressively. “Where the fuck is your Orc?”

“Fuck you-”

“Where?”

Daryl sat back, crossing his arms. “Not here,”

“Get him here. Starting tomorrow you two are taking a leave of absence,”

“The fuck-”

“Shut the fuck up and let me finish,” The red head interjected, raising his hand. Ward had stood angrily, his chair kicked back, and it took a few seconds of audible fuming to get him to back down, still glaring hatefully.

“If you’d bothered to read the report that’s in front of you you’d know that there were spikes in activity,” he flipped a few pages, shoving the report across the table. “And look what neighborhoods they’re moving through,”

Reluctantly, Ward looked it over, but was poor at masking his alarm. The spikes across the map read like sonar, all the recorded battles and wand activity moving in a steady line across LA, directly towards his neighborhood. He tossed it away from him.

“I need to leave with my family,”

“No. You’re both going to stay put, and stay close to home, and not bitch and whine when you have a few extra guests keeping watch outside of your houses,” Monteugh explained slowly, his voice having come down to a reasonable level.

“How’re a bunch of agents gonna protect my family against a wand?” His voice betrayed him. It shook, his eyes downcast; Ward was scared.

“Bright’s aren’t always renegades,”

Ward looked up, repeating that a few times over in his head. MTF proved itself shiftier with every encounter.

“Call Jakoby. He needs to be briefed.” Montehugh instructed, sitting back in his seat.

Daryl pulled his phone out, finding Nick in his call log before keeping the phone’s edge against his temple. “Is this leave of absence paid?”

“That all you care about?”

“Yeah so does my wife and mortgage,” Ward snapped. Why are you so fucking unpleasant…

The line trilled, but only fell to his voicemail. “Not answering,”

“Call again,” Montehugh ordered.

“Cause that always works…” but he still did so, looking at the detective sarcastically when the call went to voicemail once again.

Over and over he tried, even sending a few heated messages, but nothing came of it despite Montehugh’s insistence. It was shortening Ward’s patience everytime he barked out another demand without even looking up from his own tasks, seemingly unbothered by any of this.

“I’m done, he’s not gonna answer,” the phone was slammed down; that probably broke my screen.

Montehugh turned, stirring another cup. “Then go get him,”

It wasn’t actually having to go seek out Nick, it was the manner in which the overweight detective expected him to, and the way he spoke to him, like Ward was a rookie and didn’t know how things were done. That being said, things weren’t done like this.

Still, with a clenched jaw and fingernails that dug into his palm sharply from the force of his tightened fists, Ward left, slamming the door bitterly behind him as he stomped through the busy halls of the precinct. He blew off conversations and hellos, uncaring of who he bumped into.

Before his eyes was a film, and it displayed countless options that all lead back to dire ends.

Ward wanted to scoop his family up and run far away, but he also just wanted to leave by himself if it meant no harm would befall them. He wanted this to be over just as much as he wanted to go back to that night four years ago and let the call pass onto someone else. What he wouldn’t give to let some other chump carry the blood on his hands and this nightmare that had become his life. He’d give anything to go back and never know he’s a Bright.

↠

She could feel her heart thrumming in her ribs as she looked up at the ceiling, her breath coming forth in harsh pants. A dull quake radiated all over, her arms starting to tremble where she supported herself against his thighs that tensed severely under her grip.

“Nick,” she gasped, looking down at his face lined with rapt attention.

“Almost,” he puffed, his hold on her hips brutal.

She glanced behind herself. “You didn’t pause th- ah! You didn’t pause the show!”

“We’ll go back,” he grunted. “Wasn’t that interesting anyways,”

Callie gasped, and he looked up to smile at her purely shocked face. “You said you liked it so far!”

Nick’s thrusting stopped, his mien amiss. “There’s so much talking,” he admitted, his eyes rolling slowly.

“Cause it’s about profiling murderers,”

“They could add in some shootouts or the actual murders or something,”

“You need to get over that CSI is over, chato,” she shook her head, holding his shoulders.

“It was the best-”

“And now it’s over so we’re gonna go back and rewatch this,” she pointed back to the TV. “And you’re not gonna compare them,”

Nick chuffed loudly at her, but she only punched his chest, bracing herself when he scooted down the cushion to continue where he’d left off. A few pumps in, and her head rolled back, his merciless grip returning to her waist.

“It’s so good,” he exhaled, intensifying his momentum. Callie cried out, back arching as he 'punished her pussy'. Pffft, that could get her going again. She’d long since stopped bouncing as dutifully, but her extra weight or stomach didn’t hinder his effectiveness in this position anyway, and adding his heat cycle that had just kicked in a day ago meant there’d be nothing stopping him until he climaxed.

But she was getting sore, as well as her back which already was from a morning of waddling around the house.

“Baby-”

“I’m almost there,” he snarled, his hips snapping upward harshly. She hissed, her face scrunching, but let her head drop back as she moved to hang off his shoulder. He was growling, and she suspected he was also eyeing the next spot he wanted to dig his teeth into. Since that first bite that scarred her breast, he’d taken cautionary nibbles across her body, calculating where he wanted to leave his next mark, and it both excited and terrified her.

Turn-ons aside, it hurt like a bitch.

“Nick I’m tired,” she exhaled, the little energy left in her draining rapidly. “We’re supposed to be Netflix and chilling,”

Nick laughed out then, face in a tight snarl- but also a smile?- as he looked up at her. “That’s exactly what we’re doing,”

Callie rolled her eyes, figuring if she wanted this over with, she’d better put her back into it, or get back into it. With her hands clasped behind his neck, she squatted onto her feet, snapping her hips forcefully. He keened loudly, head suddenly pressing back into the cushions and his thrusts shortening as she took over. “I’m gonna cum-”

The front door swung open, startling Pucca in their room to come running and barking.

“Ni- holy fuck,” Ward bellowed, spinning quickly with a hand sheilding his eyes.

Callie shrieked, her arms crossed over her breasts and falling into Nick’s chest as he carefully pushed her aside and off his lap before spinning in his seat.

“Daryl what the fuck!” Nick hollered, watching him try and push a jumping Pucca down, keeping his eyes covered.

“Fuck I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you gotta com- you gotta go, we gotta go,” Ward stumbled, already moving out of the house in embarassment. “My bad, Callie,”

The door closed, and Nick understood then. He groaned. Another fucking briefing?

He looked at Callie who was pressed deep into the cushions, a hand over her mouth, and still spread enough to see where he’d once been before.

“Sounds like you need to go,” she cracked, and his brows flattened.

“I didn’t get to finish,”

“Good thing you did three times last night,” she smiled before sitting up to give him a quick kiss, then struggling to stand until Nick offered a hand. She mindfully stepped around him, giggling when his arms circled her thighs to nip playfully at her bare hip. With shaking legs she scooted to the bathroom, leaving him pent up and irritable… and still hard.

Nick exhaled harshly, flinging himself back into the couch. He waited a minute, but the hard-on wasn’t going anywhere. Upon snatching his phone from the ground, he noted the calls from Ward he’d ignored while pounding Callie into oblivion, and instead scrolled until he found his favorite video of them. With a shimmy of his shoulders against the cushions, he took matters into his own hand.

“Don’t forget to call me when you’re done,” Nick kissed into her cheek, grabbing the lunch she handed off.

“I know. Be safe- I love you,” Callie giggled and grunted in his tight embrace, smacking his back when a hand started to venture downwards. “Get outta here,”

“Yeah yeah,” he cracked, one last rub across her stomach before slipping on his Clubmasters and leaving, still quite unsatisfied. There was a lingering heat set in his skin despite the particularly cool day, and it made him all the more irritable. Now having to go in and deal with MTF- ugh.

Ward didn’t look at him once Nick climbed into the cruiser bitterly, but the Orc didn’t budge until his partner finally glanced over, meeting his irritated scowl.

“I’m sorry-”

“Ever heard of knocking?” Nick barked, and Daryl’s hands raised in guilt.

“You didn’t answer my calls,” Ward defended, but Nick only had another sarcastic glare.

“Now you know why,” he grumbled, sitting back in the passenger seat. “What does Kandomere want now?”

“I’ll let them be the ones to spill the beans.” Ward mumbled, pulling out onto the street.

He looked over suspiciously, but didn’t have the patience to question him further. Any little he had left needed to be saved for an encounter with their favorite agent.

↠

“Leave of absence my ass,” Nick cursed under his breath, folding the papers given to them in angry jerks as they left the briefing room that Montehugh still occupied, just as put-off by the officers as they were of him. “They have witness protection program and hideouts for politicians but they can’t be bothered to let us out of the fucking city ourselves?”

“At least it’s paid, brother,” Ward tried, but he was just as irked.

“Callie isn’t gonna buy accumulated vacation hours as an excuse if we end up sitting around for weeks,”

“Neither will Sher,”

The two both sighed, already exhausted and heading for the lockers.

Truly, the two wished they could look forward to this unknown amount of time they got to spend at home, but keeping a cautious eye out for angry Brights, extra surveillance around their homes and keeping it from their girls was a few things that were too much to be contemplated with ease.

Sergey was already there, smoothing down the velcro flaps of his vest against his ribs when he spotted the disgruntled officers trudging in.

“Bad day before it’s started?” the rookie asked, and Nick only grumbled, having to re-enter his locker combination a few times in his impatience. A couple whiffs when he had walked by told him everything, and Sergey’s nose scrunched. “That time of the month, ha?”

Nick glanced at the young Orc cheerily looping his belt around himself, but now avoiding his glower.

It hadn’t occurred to Nick that his leave of absence would put him in the hands of another officers patrol, and not many of them had warmed up to his presence yet. It unsettled him further; what if he was stuck with one of the particularly crueler officers? Imagining them trying to frame Sergey for something outlandish wasn’t outlandish itself- it had almost happened to Nick, who says it couldn’t happen to the young one?

“Malinka,” Nick started after pulling his jacket off. “Starting tomorrow I’m going on an extended… vacation, which means you’re gonna be partnered with someone else,”

“Lucky man,” Sergey grinned; clearly he didn’t understand the gravity of Nick’s words yet. “Now I won’t be able to steal pieces of your lunch,”

“Sergey, pay attention,” Nick snapped quietly, stepping over as he buttoned his uniform. Sergey looked up, humor draining from his face. “You know how people here can be. They’re no different from the bastards on the outside, but here they have power. Do everything by the books while I’m gone. Don’t put yourself into a situation they can use against you,”

“That won’t happen,” Sergey tried, but Nick shook his head, silencing him.

“It can happen, though. What have I always told you?”

“Keep my temper even and make sure I go home to Dura,”

“Don’t forget any of that, you hear? They won’t treat you the same without me here,” Nick added, and the young one nodded, his curiosity peaking at the sudden concern coming forth.

“Everything okay old man?”

Nick scoffed, hitting his shoulder as he turned back to his locker. “Just keeping an eye out for you,” he answered without looking, but it wasn’t just that. The thought of something dire happening to Sergey troubled him tremendously. The guilt that would inevitably befall him would surely be crushing if it was announced that he’d been injured or accused of partaking in something based on Clan Law like Nick had been.

“Maybe I’ll do so well they’ll give me my own patrol early,” Sergey cracked, giving a wide, toothy grin that made Nick’s eyes roll.

“Yeah, maybe.”

↠

“Woah shit,” Callie cursed under her breath, steadying herself against the truck door after sliding down the seat. A hand remained on her impressive baby bulge as she waited for the dizzy rush to subside, blinking away the color storm before her eyes.

A gentle shake of her head seemed to toss away the last of that one, and she grunted, stretching sideways over the high drivers seat to grab her purse and book from the center console before swinging the heavy door closed and locking Nick’s big Dodge Ram. With a hard puff and slipping her bag over her shoulder, she set to waddling through the parking lot, pulling her long hair up when she started to heat up a couple minutes into the trek to the entrance of the high risk clinic.

Pregnant woman in every shape and size all exchanged kind and understanding smiles with her as she made her way through the lobby, almost all of them fanning their faces with another hand at the bend of their miserable backs.

She boarded the elevator with another woman that had a little one already in tow alongside her late term belly, dropped low and looking as if she couple pop any day. The thin woman pushed her pretty red locks off her shoulder, smiling down at the little girl who’s curly hair matched her mothers, but hid behind her arm when Callie smiled at her.

“Hi,” the little one piped.

“Hola hermosa,” Callie said softly. “She’s too cute,”

“Thanks, lucky for me she’s sweet too otherwise I don’t know if I could handle another,” her mother chuckled, her raspy voice reminding her of Rosie. “How far along are you?”

“20 weeks,”

“Second?”

“First,” Callie grinned, and the woman's brows perked up.

“Big for 20 weeks,” she observed. “Husband an Orc or something?”

Callie swallowed. “He’s also like 2 heads taller than me,”

The woman pulled air through her teeth, wincing. “Have fun pushing that one out,”

The tension in Callie’s shoulders eased; revealing she was carrying an Orcs child was always a hit or miss, and thankfully this time the stranger had been kind and uncaring enough to not lecture or damn her. The elevator opened, and the woman tugged her pretty daughter along gently.

“Have a nice day.” she called back to Callie, who in turn waved to the little one waving shyly.

The heavy doors slid shut, and she pressed her floor again, grinning to herself.

“Husband,” she said lowly, rubbing her stomach affectionately. “Think daddy will lose his mind if I start calling him that?” she questioned silently, but the insistent kicker that kept her up at night was slumbering, at least until she sat down somewhere.

When she finally came to her floor, Callie wandered down the lonesome hallway, turning here and there before strolling into the waiting room. The plush seats were a welcome relief after waiting a bit for someone to come up to the counter, and after setting her bag and book down and crossing her knees with some difficulty, she went about filling out the extensive paperwork.

Halfling forms were vastly different from normal check-up sheets, according to Rosie who’d accompanied her once before. They wanted to know about Nick just as much as her, right down to his overall physical condition.

It bugged her some once comparing these to normal human pregnancy forms; the numerous and sometimes oddly specific questions carried closely to that of questions you’d expect to see on breeding forms for animals then it did for a mother bringing life into the world.

Regardless, she filled it all out, having memorized everything about Nick so she didn’t have to bother him while he was working.

“Flores?”

She nearly dropped her clipboard in her haste to rise awkwardly and grab her belongings once called.

Callie almost couldn’t bare to look down at the scale after she kicked off her sandals, but still did, groaning when a few more pounds had appeared.

“When does the gaining stop?” she whined, stepping off the scale.

“When you pop ‘em out.”

Her heels bounced softly off the examination table, looking down at the coflex tape holding the gauze in place after the blood draw, also eyeing the cookies and juice they’d given to compensate.

Eat the banana in your purse instead, you cow.

A soft knock at the door drew her attention, and in walked Dr. Sangiu, her luscious coils pulled back into a sleek bun.

“Afternoon Miss Flores, how are we feeling today?” she asked cheerfully, pulling in an ultrasound machine behind herself.

“A little deflated after that blood draw,” Callie cracked, and her doctor grinned guiltily.

“I apologize for that, but how about we take a look at that baby?” she asked, and Callie perked up. All other tests and pokes could be forgotten if it meant she got a small glimpse of their tiny life every week.

“Do I have to have another transvaginal one?” Callie asked, accepting Dr. Sangui’s hand in lowering her back onto the examination bed.

“Every week, I’m afraid,” she answered, stepping to turn the lights off and jerking the probe jelly downwards before wiggling some onto Callie’s stomach. She went on to ask her the usual round of questions; how she was feeling, any bleeding, the usual. “Remind me how far along we are?”

“20 weeks,” Callie answered, fixing the tissue over her lap and crossing her ankles.

“So you should be well over feeling kicks by now. Developed your linea nigra I see,” she followed the dark line down her stomach with her finger.

“Cocoa butter only lightened it,”

“That’s common, actually. Okay let’s see how we’re doing,”

It took only a few twists of the probe against her slippery stomach to find the baby, who as it turns out was just starting to wake from its afternoon nap.

“Still upright, that’s good. Look at that big yawn,” her doctor smiled, holding the probe still so Callie could see it’s little mouth open, and even the fuzzy definition of a tongue before it wiggled it’s small hands before it’s face.

“Nick would’ve killed to see that,” Callie whined lovingly, arms beneath her head and watching her nudger swirl and wiggle. “Still growing fast?”

Dr. Sangiu nodded, fingers flying over the keys to take shots and measurements. “Rounding out at a little over a pound and almost a foot long. Impressive size for this little guy at only 20 weeks,” she grinned, more tapping over the keys.

Callie smiled, but then realization dawned on her, and she looked to the screen. “Little guy?”

Immediately, the doctors hand flew over her mouth, motionless a moment as she stared at Callie. “I am- I am so sorry, I’ve never made that mistake in my 8 years of practice,”

But Callie’s eyes were still glued to the screen, no readable expression across her placid brows or lips.

“Miss Flores-”

“Can I see?”

She stuttered a moment, before saying, “Of course!” and moving back to the machine.

It took some clever pressing and turns of the probe, but eventually they found the baby’s little butt and moved up where she pointed and explained the anatomy. “You’ve got a baby boy on the way,” she still smiled, reserved that was.

Callie’s big eyes welled, and she fought the tremble in her bottom lip she hid behind her fingertips as a torrent of excitement overtook her alongside bounding love she hadn’t experienced so strongly until that moment. All this time she’d tread cautiously around her own pregnancy, only allowing small moments of daydreaming here and there, but now knowing they were expecting a Leo had her hands covering her face, hiding a teary, beaming smile.

“Please accept my deepest apologies Callie, I truly-”

“No, no,” Callie sniffled, wiping her eyes. “Please don’t be sorry. We were close to buckling anyways,” she laughed. “I’m just excited,”

“I’m still so sorry. I can’t believe I did that,” the graceful doctor mumbled to herself, continuing on with the ultrasound.

“Does he look good?” Callie asked, and she nodded encouragingly.

“Still growing like an Orc, right along with the projections estimated,” she explained, but Callie noted the concern in her tone. “Let’s sit you up,”

Stiffly she sat upright, wiping her stomach with her eyes kept on Dr. Sangui as she moved the machine aside and grabbed for her chart to sit in the stool before her.

“Do you remember your appointment a few weeks back when we spoke about the baby growing to full term before your body is ready?” she asked. Callie nodded. “Based on my projections and your ultrasounds, I’d expect your little boy to be ready to pop at about 34 weeks,”

“Not too early,” Callie figured. Still enough time to get the rest of the furniture.

“That’s not what I’m concerned about. He’s also a very big baby- I wouldn’t be surprised if he was easily a 10 pounder at birth or bigger, and if your body doesn’t happen to be in sync when he’s ready, a vaginal delivery could be extremely risky for a baby that big going over it’s due date,”

Her heart dropped into her gut. “Risky how?” Callie asked, a little forlornly.

“He could become stuck in your pelvis leading to suffocation, or you could hemorrhage seeing as your uterine wall is already thin and full of scar tissue. I’d even recommend an episiotomy to prevent tissue from tearing,” she went on, but clasped her hands before herself. “But right now, we need to discuss a plan of action to avoid all of that if your body isn’t ready for labor by the time he is,”

“What would that be?” the expectant mother asked hesitantly.

“If you’ve not started labor shortly after 34 weeks, I’d like to induce you, but have an OR on standby in case you need a cesarean,”

“That fast? It wouldn’t even be okay for him to cook a week more?”

“At the rate he grows, it could be the difference between a generally smooth labor or an extremely difficult one; one which we wouldn’t know the outcome for either of you,”

Callie looked away, trying to make sense of it all. “What if I refused this?”

“You could be putting yourself and your sons life in danger if it came to that,” she answered bluntly.

Your son.

My son.

It put things into perspective a little better. What she carried inside wasn’t just a baby, but her child- her son. Their son.

Nick would be furious if she so easily refused the doctors advice and put her and their son at risk after all they’d gone through, simply because she had something more ideal in mind.

“I’m sorry to have to burden you with this,” Dr. Sangui redressed, but Callie shook her head and waved away her apology.

“It’s just a little scary,”

“Remember that this is a back-up plan. There’s just as much a chance your body will do everything it needs to and you’ll have the delivery you want, so we’ll deal with that when we get to it, yes?” she grinned, the gentle squeeze of her hand around Callie’s comforting.

Surely she wouldn’t shake the overall worry until she had him in her arms no matter what delivery befell her, but for that moment, she was okay with her doctors reassurance.

“Have you started feeling Braxton Hicks yet?”

Callie blinked from her daze. “Yeah, but they’re completely random,”

“Good, we want them to stay irregular, and it means your body is well aware of what’s going on if it’s doing test runs,” she explained.

“They freak Nick out,” she grinned, and Dr. Sangui laughed.

“Wait until labor starts, he’ll be spinning. Okay,” another pat her on hand before she wheeled away. “Time for the other ultrasound,”

Trying to withhold her groan was useless as she scooted down the table and fixed the thin tissue covering her lap.

“Do you have any names picked out?” Dr. Sangui asked as she lifted the stirrups.

“We do for a boy, actually,” Callie grinned, laying back.

“Oh let’s hear it,” the elegant woman piped, snapping new gloves on.

She cleared her throat in hopes her voice wouldn’t waver when she tenderly said, “Leonardo.”

↠

The door swung open wildly, and Callie stumbled through without spilling her Jamba Juice and kimchi stew take-out, or her purse that had plummeted from her shoulder and into the crook of her arm. Her phone still rang wildly in her purse, but trying to shove the door closed with her foot and ward off a jumping Pucca was near impossible.

“Parra de brincar!” she snapped, and Pucca dropped her head, staring up sadly with pretty almond eyes. It took some close calls and almost throwing her smoothie, but finally she emptied her arms enough to angrily yank her phone out and answer in time.

“Hey baby,” she exhaled, leaning against the counter. Trying to steady her breath with a baby attached was like trying to inhale with someone sitting on her back.

“You alright?” Nick asked anxiously.

“Yeah, almost dropped my dinner and crushed Pucca but I’m good,” Callie smiled, pinching the phone between her cheek and shoulder. “How’s work?”

“Pfft forget that, how’d the appointment go?” he asked in laughter, and Callie tensed up. She fought not to scream it at him.

“It was good, everything is going good so far,” her voice was still bubbly.

“Yeah? How’s the baby growing?”

“Yeah, about that,” she started.

“Oh fuck what?” he panicked.

“No calm down, everything is okay. My doctor thinks I’ll be full term by 34 weeks, not the full 40,”

“Oh. That’s definitely sooner,” he paused, and she could hear him counting under his breath. “That’s only 3 months away, holy shit. What’s the due date?”

“July 21st. She also said that if I don’t basically go into labor myself at 34 weeks, she wants to induce me,”

“That fast?” he asked, and she ‘mhm-ed’. “Is she that worried about the labor?”

“She is. She said L-” oh, that was close. “That the baby could get stuck or I could hemorrhage,”

“Well fuck,” Nick sighed. “Fuck, baby,”

“That’s just a back-up plan. I’m gonna do everything I can to push this thing outta me on my own, without a bunch of meds,” Callie said firmly, confidently, placing her Jamba Juice down hotly.

“When do you have to make a decision?”

“No- I don’t. It’s a back-up plan, in case something happens. Either way I don’t have much of a choice anyways. If I didn’t accept the help if it came to that, it could kill us both,”

“Jesus christ-”

“But that’s not happening, okay? So far everything is growing good and going good,” Callie affirmed, but could hear him sigh, and could just see him running his hand over his head; it was his nervous tick. “I got more ultrasounds. Got to see it yawn today too, it was so cute,”

“Of course I miss the good stuff. My little girl look anything like me yet?” he played, and Callie bit her bottom lip when she smiled, holding the phone against her chest a moment.

The shaky breath she took did nothing to calm her thumping heart.

“About that-”

She could tell Nick was away from the phone when she heard him talking, and then the distinct shrill of the sirens from over the phone also. “Yeah, this one- yeah that. Cal I gotta go, but I’ll call soon, yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah of course, be safe,” she grinned.

“Yep, love you,” he returned.

“I love you, bye.” she wiggled her phone into her hand, ending the call and Nick’s photo of a Snapchat cat filter over him while he slept faded from her screen.

She placed her phone down, going back to the takeout that had been knocked around quite a bit.

“When do you think I should tell him?” she asked out loud, but in a hushed tone, glancing down at her stomach. She’d felt the swirls start some time ago, after a few words passed between her and Nick that had stayed active, stirring further when her stomach growled.

“Do you think daddy would be upset to find out even though he wasn’t there?” she asked, giggling. “Nah, he’ll be excited no matter what. I can rub it in his face a little, too,”

Everyone’s face, actually.

Pucca’s head tilted side to side, listening intently to Callie’s soft words.

“My little Leo,” lovingly she declared, her cheeks starting to ache from the constant smile plastered across her face. “We’ll tell him when he gets home.”

With her food sorted and ready, Callie moved from the kitchen to change, but Pucca’s typical trotting beside her stopped abruptly when she looked at the door, her ears pointed forward. Low, half barks started bubbling from her, and she even moved closer, her tail wagging slowly.

Callie glanced back before moving down the hall. “Don’t you start.”

Her fist raised several times, her fingers resituating in her palm, but Tikka couldn’t bring herself to knock on the front door. Weeks of failed attempts and trying to find Ward on her own had brought her to this, her only cover being the dark of night and a wide hood over her platinum locks and pointed ears, but that wouldn’t work for long in a neighborhood like this; she was too out of place. She was at her wits end and still incredibly reluctant to involve Nick, but she didn’t know what else to do.

She looked down as her hand dropped, the other pinching the bridge of her nose.

Why was this so hard?

Again her fist lifted, but all she could muster was her hand rested on the door, her head hung. The conflicts in her heart and mind battled relentlessly. It exhausted her, leaving her desiring a full night's rest more than anything.

A few low barks from the other side of the door made her flinch back, stanced and ready to bolt.

“Don’t you start.” She heard a female voice say from inside, the barks heightening when Tikka stepped back quietly.

His wife… what if he’s not even home?

That doubt alone was enough to draw her away from the door, across the front yard and walking briskly down the sidewalk. She drew her hands into her pockets, her hood still drawn over head. With one option left, she started to reason with herself.

This last ditch effort could end only 2 ways: she could finally find Ward, or she’d be taken in by MTF, leaving Fero, and an unleashed Makhel to set LA ablaze, eventually uncovering the last of the Bright’s whereabouts and ending them. Still, these were met with more uncertainty. Anything could happen, or worsen. But with little advancements in the passing weeks, drastic measures needed to be taken if there was any chance left at stopping him.

↠

“Do you got ‘em all?” Nick asked, his grip tightening around the arm of the vivacious teen they’d arrested that kept trying to jerk away. Nick scoffed, taunting, “Do you think you’re gonna run out of here?”

“Yeah- meet you at the pumps?” Sergey asked, and Nick nodded, walking into the station with the cursing teen who he could’ve easily picked up by the ankle and carried.

The rookie didn’t envy Nick. Intakes were the dull part of the process, and he’d already lost his cool once trying to cuff that little shithead, resulting in a serious reprimand from Nick about not becoming one of the cops that let anger turn an easy arrest into next mornings newest scandal about the LAPD. Sergey chuffed, climbing back into the cruiser and swinging it around the few confusing turns to the back corner of the precinct where their gas pumps were stationed.

Empty that night after another cruiser took off, and Sergey still waved despite the officer behind the wheel ignoring him. He did so more to bug them than actually expecting a return gesture.

With the cruiser parked and tank filling after roaming around on empty a while, he leaned against its side, looking down at his phone that had a few messages from Dura he’d not been able to answer a few hours prior. He chuckled; her paranoia when he didn’t answer promptly was cute.

Quick clopping of heels pulled his attention up, and he quickly found the hooded figure moving a little conspicuously around the cruisers, her hands shoved into the pockets of the elegant trench coat she wore.

“Are you lost, ma’am?” Sergey called out kindly.

The rate at which she spun made him flinch, nearly dropping his phone, but by the time he’d gathered himself, a glowing, humming wand was pointed right at him.

“Don’t,” the blue eyed girl snapped when he reached for his gun, the wand warbling louder in her hold.

Sergey struggled to calm the pulse thundering in his ears, his palms turned up and trembling.

Everything he’d been taught about de-escalation techniques had flown from his mind in the wake of panic, his mouth running drier than his confidence. Add in a Bright to the equation, he was downright terrified. He’d heard rumor of ‘trigger’ happy wand wavers and their ruthlessness; how was he gonna get out of this one?

“Where’s Jakoby?” she asked, but Sergy didn’t know how to answer.

“Not here,” he forced out, and she took an intimidating step towards him.

“Where!?”

“He- he’s booking someone!” Sergey’s back hit the cruiser.

She looked around fleetingly, her fingers adjusting and tightening around the wand, a few side to side shuffles showing she wasn’t entirely confident in her actions, either. During one long look over their surroundings, he let his hand rest on his gun, and thankfully she didn’t notice when glaring back at him.

“Call him,” she ordered. “Call him!”

Inwardly he cursed himself for flinching, slowly reaching for his shoulder walkie.

“Jakoby, can you come to the pumps ASAP?” he spoke as evenly as possible, but also hoped his tone was enough to bring his partner to them quickly before this woman decided she didn’t need him anymore.

“Gimme a few minutes kid,” the radio sounded, and both of them showed clear annoyance with his response.

But it also got Sergey thinking that it might’ve been enough time for someone else to come along and at least scare her off.

Keep your temper even and go home to Dura.

“Maybe I can help you with what you need,” Sergey tried, but her expression was unmoving, as was the creaking wand.

“No. Not you,” she ground out, but he still caught her accent, which brought together the alarming brightness of her eyes.

He took a few low inhales, but couldn’t hide the scrunching of his nose. He hated how elves smelled. All of them sickly sweet; it leaked from their pores so pungently.

“If you’re looking for an Officer I can assure you I can help-”

“I said not you!” she screamed, her voice breaking.

“Tikka!”

Nick knew it was her before she even spun to face him. This had been long awaited, no matter how much he wanted to avoid or deny the possibility of ever seeing her again. His heart plummeted into his stomach, his eyes meeting Sergey’s fleetingly.

“Jakoby,” she whimpered, face tightening with restraint. “Where’s Ward?”

“What’re you doing here Tikka?” Nick asked, his voice brought down to a plea as he approached her, his hands held up with the wand still pointed at him.

“It doesn’t concern you,” she wavered.

“You broke into my truck-”

“Where is he!?” she demanded, and when Nick’s eyes flew behind her, she again spun.

“Sergey!” Nick yelled, but he’d already drawn his gun and pointed, but bullets were no match against magic. The attack wasn’t as loud as it was powerful, so much that Nick felt the kick-back from the blast after the concentrated, vibrating sphere of force hit the rookie at the center of his chest, throwing him back against the cruiser effortlessly.

The wand pointed back to Nick, meeting his own raised glock, but he was having trouble telling if he could see Sergey breathing on the ground, his gun still in hand, otherwise motionless.

Nick struggled to control his ragged breathing, ire shooting to every ending of his body. Get up, Sergey. Get up.

Tikka’s hood had blown back, and he could finally see her entirely. What he could guess was years of hardship showed evident on her still youthful face, but the light in her eyes had dulled considerably since seeing her all that time ago.

They stood, armed and ready to fire, but both unwilling.

“Just tell me where he is,” she begged, her face sorrowing.

“I can’t,” Nick’s tone was desperate, but his aim was steady.

“Tell me! I can’t be here!”

“Then go! Get out of here, just leave!”

“No! I need him! I’ve been trying to find you all day now just tell me where Ward is!” she yelled, both hands moving to the wand. Don’t make me do this.

Nick’s ears twitched, his eyes narrowing. “Where have you-”

“Answer me! I’m being followed I can’t stay here!”

His blood ran cold, his gun dropping to his side as he stepped forward, uncaring of the shrill ringing of the wand that was only inches from his chest. “Have you been to my home?”

“Jakoby please-”

“Have you!?” he hollered, and she flinched.

“I was only there a moment-”

Nick didn’t wait to hear anymore. He spun on his heel while his gun was holstered, ripping the walkie off his shoulder and tossing aside the one from his belt. Everything was forgotten, his thoughts tunneling; he had to get home immediately. Fuck the leave of absence tomorrow or reporting to Kandomere- fuck Tikka. If she’d just compromised Callie’s safety, it was best he wasn’t around her. He couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t lash out with all the anger that’d built over the weeks if he still stayed back there.

He hadn’t smelled blood from Sergey upon leaving, and desperately hoped he was alive.

He could feel panic coursing through him as he ran to his truck, throwing himself into the driver's seat.

The engine turned hotly, but he wasn’t prepared for Tikka to be gracefully slipping into the passenger seat just as he’d started to back-up.

“Get out,” he snapped.

“No-”

“GET OUT!” he bellowed, his head shaking with rage.

“If he’s there you’re going to need me!” she bit back just as viciously, and with confusion, and great reluctance, he went on to whip the truck wildly in reverse before the tires screeched across the pavement out of the parking lot.

↠

Her tongue was pinched between her teeth, carefully and delicately, for the 8th time, writing Leo’s full name across another sticky note she planned to stick besides the one on the door that would be his room. Callie still wasn’t totally satisfied with her poor handwriting, but it was the best of the bunch so far.

“That looks good, right?” she asked Pucca, holding it before her. The merle pit sniffed diligently, but lost interest when there was no treats hidden in her palms. “It looks decent at best, huh?” she went on, inspecting it closer.

“Do you think he’ll even notice?” she also asked, but Pucca had trotted from the table to paw at her chew toy stuck under the couch, leaving Callie before a small pile of crumpled sticky notes and a mess of colored pens littered across the tables surface.

Leo somersaulted, and she could imagine his impatience growing to be rocked again since she’d first sat at the table an hour ago to put together the little surprise.

“Calmase, Leo,” she pleaded, sitting straighter. It felt like he was trying to stand up inside her stomach. Still, she couldn’t help smiling every time his name made it past her lips. She’d only dared saying it a few times since that appointment, more so not to antagonize her own dark thoughts that kept reminding her: something could still go wrong.

A loud, vicious bark from Pucca turned Callie with a hand against her chest, finding the pitbull stood beside the couch, her head in line with her spine and ears perked forward, staring at the door.

“You know you’re gonna have to get over you obsession with opossums by the time Leo gets here,” Callie rolled her eyes, but then she noted the fur standing on her back, and the rippling, low growls emitting from her. Callie glanced at the door.

“Pucca?” she said softer, standing. “What is it mija?”

Even when Callie leaned over to pat her side, Pucca continued growling, her lips pulled back over her impressive rows of sharp teeth.

There was a harsh shuffle outside the door, and Callie flinched as Pucca lurched forward, barking wildly.

Dread flooded her, as well as recollections of her past attack flying before her eyes.

Of burning light coming in through a broken door, and the stinging pull of tape around her wrists while shattering blows struck her head. She could still recall the agonizing pain in her stomach, and the moment the doctors told her she’d miscarried.

Her head felt light, her breathing rapid with her hand clutching her stomach.

No, not again.

A small wave of energy swam through the home, and everything around her went dark. TV, lights- even her phone on the table she'd been listening to music on, it all turned off.

“Pucca, Pucca! C’mon!” she hissed, moving back towards the hall as a low glow started to shine through the cracks of the front door. Her brows furrowed, her back hitting the entrance to the hallway.

When a loud whirring sounded from outside, Callie bolted, swinging around the doorframe to their room just as the door flung open with a thundering boom, bouncing harshly against the wall as wood splinters and smoke billowed in from outside.

————————————————————————————————

Uh-oh. 

[all-blue-headcanons]

Good day, lovely person! I just bumped in to leave a smol request. A scenario, if possible. Although your specified writing makes it already scenario like... But Law, with a little dig into his though process when he finds out his childhood friend, who he thought was dead for over 10-12 years now - appears now to be actually alive 🤔

Law finding out his childhood friend is actually alive after a decade thinking they were dead

It was that time of year again where Trafalgar D. Water Law became an absolute nightmare for the Heart Pirates to deal with, their captain’s mood suddenly becoming as unreasonable as he could be cold. Fortunately the crew had learned roughly when to expect ‘the change’ in his behavior - as Penguin had once coined the term, everybody knowing to keep their distance as the ever increasing lack of sleep caused the bags under the man’s eyes to become that much darker and more pronounced.The stony stare spoke volumes as to how the Surgeon of Death had been feeling as of late, and as much as his crew loved their captain, they all knew that sometimes it was best to simply let him be. From what they had learned about Law’s past, there was a good reason as to why his usual smiles were in short supply around this time of year… Trafalgar Law was grieving, mourning those he had lost in the only way he knew how - and very much prefered to be left alone when he did. Twirling a cigarette he’d pilfered between his fingers, Law sighed as he turned his attention towards the cloudy heavens. It appeared as though the skies were grieving along with him that day, his wintery eyes reflecting the crashing waves of the sea close by. Those same grey irises look down at the stick clasped within his tattooed digits; he didn’t like these things at all, and barely knows why he’s even having it but the man lights up the other end with a shaking hand before pressing it through pursed lips.Death. He scowls upon reading his own fingers before inhaling deeply in defiance, welcoming the vile taste that covers his tongue. How ironic, yet so appropriate at the same time… swiftly he takes another drag of the foul-tasting thing, and while it does makes Law cough at first, the familiar scent and taste instantly soothes his frazzled nerves, bringing home familiar thoughts and feelings of him.Tomorrow would be the anniversary of Corazon’s death. Even after all these years, the missing hole in his heart had barely begun to heal, and it was only getting worse as he realized that two years from now, Law would be the exact same age as when his precious friend died.Just twenty six years old. How the time had flown. Exhaling deeply, Trafalgar Law watched as pale plumes of smoke allowed themselves to be carried away on the cold ocean breeze, the cigarette having done it’s work in bringing good thoughts and feelings of his oldest friend. Still. There was another person he was sorely missing, and unlike Corazon, thoughts of her weren’t brought back so easily…It was on an evening like this many years ago when they had first met, back when he’d still been a simple and carefree boy still living in Flevance. His beloved father had been a magnificent doctor, and sometimes he would be called upon to vistit neighbouring countries to help with issues that the lack of doctors in the area couldn’t. It was on one such visit that Law had made a new friend away from home, somebody who reminded him of his sister and wanted to keep contact after he’d gone back home.At least… they had, until the same man responsible for taking Corazon away had somehow found out about her too. Law frowned at the thought. It hadn’t been proven, but who else would have had reason to do something as awful as that? A bomb had been delivered to her family’s residence, a scenario that the Heart Pirate’s captain hadn’t even found out about until he’d come of age as a pirate and decided to stop by just to see her one more time before travelling the world…He hadn’t even started his first journey before discovering the shell-shocked ruins of her home, the rubble scattered everywhere much like his memories of the destruction of Flevance.Once again, Law inhaled his cigarette deeply, hoping to choke out the burning sensation building up inside his chest. It broke his heart all over again to think of his only other childhood friend gone like that, not even getting to say goodbye like he had with Corazon, but instead finding the ruined gift he’d sent with a letter congratulating her on her last birthday. Law had long since known that he’d never be able to rest until that madman was dealt with, the memories of his two oldest friends resting as heavy and painful on his heart as the smoke circulating in his lungs… ”Laaaaaaaaaw!” Bepo calls out in the distance, breaking Law out from his unhappy reverie. Frosty grey eyes instantly snapped open and turned towards the source of the sound, but the darkness in Law’s gaze faded somewhat at the sight of his cuddly friend dashing over, clearly at odds over something. Panting heavily as he arrived, the Polar Bear Mink presented his captain with the newpaper he’d just received, along with an odd collection of pages.Accepting the newpaper mindlessly, the Surgeon of Death flipped open the front page to read the surprising news. The destruction of Eneis Lobby? That place was locked up tighter than even Dressrosa, one of the World Government’s most well-hidden and protected locations on the planet. How on Earth had that happened? Law listened intently as Bepo explained the situation that had gone down, along with whom had been responsible for such a shocking event.Monkey D. Luffy, another Rookie… and a D. just like him?”And these too, Law! Their bounties really got big because of what happened!” Bepo continued as he handed over the collection of papers that had come along with the news. Idly flipping through the pages, the man’s interest piqued as he studied the faces of the motley crew, vaguely recalling some of the strange deeds that this crew had somehow accomplished over that time.Monkey D. Luffy. Roronoa Zoro. Black Leg Sanji. Cat Burglar Nami. Usopp. Tony Tony Chopper. Nico Robin. Franky. Only the first few names rang any bells, but it was the final page regarding their newest member that made him freeze, shaking him to his very core.It was her.Her face was exactly as he last remembered seeing her all those years ago, back when he’d still been that carefree little boy whose greatest concern had been becoming a fine doctor like his father, and the whispered secrets between silly children. Law’s eyes widened as his fingertips gently traced over the portrait before his eyes, tanned skin curving along soft eyes and the cheekiest grin he ever did see…He’d lied to himself, Law had. Her only existing memory over the years had been the dog-eared letters he still held in his possession, back when they’d corresponded until thinking she had died. Sometimes Law had kept these letters close, hiding one inside his pockets while other times, he locked them away once the memories had become too hurtful to hold onto any longer… and yet every time, he always found himself taking them back, reading each and every one all over again on those long nights when he just couldn’t sleep. The precious pages became that little bit more tattered with every cycle, as loving fingers wistfully traced over the aged parchment.There’s a hitch in his chest, along with that burning sensation again that spreads up towards his wintery eyes, the Surgeon of Death staring unblinkingly at the unexpected face printed upon the page. She was alive, and had been for all this time and he’d never known…“Law, please tell me what’s wrong!” Bepo wails, utterly distraught at the sight of his captain looking as though he were about to cry, but the Polar Bear Mink is astounded when Law finally smiles after days of seeming so faraway.“There’s nothing wrong at all, Bepo. At least, there isn’t anything wrong anymore… something’s very much right about the world again,” Law replies with a genuine grin, beaming in that roguish way that the bear had only seen on a handful of occasions.Everything was okay. Trafalgar D. Water Law was back again, and it was enough for him to know his old friend was still alive for the time being, not to mention clearly doing well for herself given the scathing details on what had gone down over at Eneis Lobby. The humilation of the World Government, how the Straw Hats had declared themselves mortal enemies of the twisted system that had hurt so many people over the years - it built up a hope in Law’s heart that he hasn’t dared feel for years, and doesn’t even frown when Bepo nuzzles him tearfully.It’s only when the rest of the crew rejoice openly at the sight of their captain behaving like his old self again that he snaps.“Alright, alright! Show’s over, people. We’ll rest up here this evening and move out as soon as it’s dawn,” Law yells over at them with a crooked grin, tucking the newspaper under his arm along with the collection of the Straw Hat’s bounties. God, how he loved them so, but even more knowing how much they really did care…It was almost completely dark now, as he knew it would be the same when he could finally strike against his old enemy, but for now, Trafalgar D. Water Law was content in the knowledge that not all had been as lost as he’d thought. His friend was still alive, and as if desiring to fuel his newfound happiness, the clouds above parted, revealing the night sky and the brightest star of them all, shining like a beacon of hope against an uncertain future.Stay alive, my friend. We’ll meet again someday soon, I promise you.

[themoonandotherslikeit]

Something More Than What I Had- Part Two

Part Two - Deuteronomy

“See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it.” Deuteronomy 4:5

Two Months Later

 Castiel ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, while Sam stepped over it. Due to his sheer stature, ducking under the tape often looked like he was limboing on stilts. Since Crowley had walked out of the precinct eight weeks before, the partners’ relationship was strained at best. They’d been virtually silent when not directly working on cases, and the kid was all too compliant when Castiel suggested that he should take back seat on the cases following Crowley’s. More than ever, he did not trust the rookie’s judgement. 

 “What do we have, Eileen?” Castiel asked eyeing the crime scene tech.

 “It’s a weird one,” she said out loud, her hands busy with her swabs and plastic evidence bags from her forensics kit.

 Sam tapped her shoulder so she would look at him. How, he signed.

 Eileen raised an eyebrow with a faint smile, turning away from him. “See for yourself.” The two detectives followed her lead to the middle of the crime scene. The closer they got the more that Castiel could smell it. The smell of burning. He reached up and covered his nose with the sleeve of his button up shirt. “Be careful where you step,” she said, gesturing to the ground. There were large, long patches of grass that were burned away now just black piles of ash.

“What is this?” Castiel asked to no one in particular, as he squatted down next to the ground. He didn’t smell gasoline, or any kind of excelerant, but yet the burns were defined. They looked intentional, almost like an art installation. 

 “Male, mid fifties.”

 “Holy shit,” Sam said, his voice was hollow, but Castiel barely noticed as he squinted to further examine the grass. “Novak.” 

 “What, Rookie?” Castiel asked, annoyed as his concentration broke. He turned his head and found the kid standing at the head of a body next to Eileen, who was gesturing to the victim. The burn marks went all the way up to the corpse, underneath him, and out the other side as far as he could tell from his vantage point. 

 The kid’s eyes were locked on the victim. He looked like he’d seen a damn ghost. “Do you need me to hold your hand?” Cas asked as he stood up, shaking his head. At some point it had to be sink or swim and with how short his patience was lately, Castiel figured that time was quickly approaching for his young partner.

 “No, it’s just… the vic. You recognize him?” 

 He rolled his eyes. What? Was it some celebrity? Surely the Captain would’ve told them if it was someone worth getting excited over. Castiel walked toward the kid to get a better look at the victim. When he got closer, he was able to make out more details. The expensive, pressed suit, red pocket square that perfectly matched his necktie, dark full beard against olive skin, but Castiel didn’t get a sinking feeling until his eyes rested on the victims hand that rested on his chest. The sun glinted off a gold ring on his finger. “Fuck.” 

 “What?” Eileen asked, looking between the two. What? She signed to Sam.

 “It’s Crowley,” he said out loud, fingerspelling the name to Eileen. “He’s one of our perps, but he walked. From the prostitute case.”

 Eileen raised her eyebrows, grinning as the kid successfully signed prostitute. 

 “What do you make of the burn marks?” He asked, gesturing to the ash. He didn’t get an answer, before the rookie grabbed ahold of Cas’ arm and lead him backwards. “What the hell are you doing?” 

 “Just trust me, okay?” The kid grumbled, climbing up on the hood of Castiel’s squad car. 

 “Kid, get down!”

 “Castiel!” Sam snapped, pointing at the spot next to him where he stood. 

 He groaned, shaking his head. Fucking kids, but he took Sam’s hand nonetheless and let himself be pulled onto the hood of the car. “Now what? Singer isn’t going to appreciate us climbing all over police sanctioned vehicles for kicks…” And then he saw it, and his jaw fell open. The burn marks came out from Crowley’s back, they were sixteen feet in length at least. “Are those… Christ, are those wings?”

 He turned to Sam, who nodded in return. “I thought the markings along the edge facing his feet looked like feathers.” 

 “It’s ritualistic. I wonder if he was into more dark things than we thought,” Castiel agreed, staring completely dumbfounded at the scene in front of him. He’d never seen anything like it, not even in books. How did the perp get away with it? It had to take time, precision. As sick as it made him feel, he was a little impressed. 

 “Has to be. This isn’t a crime of passion,” Sam said, getting down from the hood of the car. Cas followed suit, and they walked back to examine the body closer. “This was planned.”

 “Meticulously,” Castiel said, squinting. He crouched back down by the body to get a better look. It looked like there had been minimal struggle. He turned to Eileen. “What was the time of death?” 

 “Based on the scene,” she began, “it’s hard to tell. He was moved here, and killed somewhere else.” 

 He nodded, his eyes scanning Crowley’s coat, stopping at the disturbed pocket square. “There’s something in his pocket.” He pulled a rubber glove out of his pocket and slid it onto his hand, to keep the evidence intact. The sky was growing darker by the moment, a storm rolling in. A chill ran up the back of Castiel’s neck as he pulled out a folded piece of paper that was carefully tucked behind the pocket square.

 “What is it?” The rookie asked. 

 Castiel squinted as he carefully unfolded the page. The paper was thin and the print small, but a passage was circled in red ink. “The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1,” Castiel read out loud.

 “It’s a Bible verse?”

 Castiel nodded, standing to show Sam. “But that isn’t the alarming part,” he said slowly before pointing to the scrawl in red pen that read: ME. 

  Later that night

 “It was seriously fucked up, Dean. No wonder Novak never sleeps! It wasn’t just the stab wound, though. I’ve seen a murder victim before. It was the rest of it.” 

 Dean laid on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He tossed an old hacky sack up in the air and caught it. He was bored out of his fucking mind. He needed to get a writing job sooner rather than later, before he turned into one of those guys who spent Friday night on the couch in pants with an elastic waistband, a bowl of popcorn, and a blow up doll that was still too tired to fuck him. 

 He sat up and tossed the ball into the trash. Complacency be gone! “Rest of it?” Dean asked, distracted. Sam poked his head into Dean’s bedroom, his hair up in one of those god awful man buns that made Dean a little sick to his stomach. “Fucking really, Pebbles?”

 Sam exhaled out of his nose in a huff. “Shut up.” 

 “Need me to sleep with you tonight so you won’t get nightmares about the big bad murderer who is killing bad guys, or is Bambam going to protect you?” 

 “You’re such an ass,” he complained, walking back out of the bedroom. 

 Dean snorted and hopped out of bed, following his younger brother. “Sam, Sam, hey. I’m sorry.” He held up his hands in surrender. 

 “You done?”

 “Yeah, yeah. I’m done.” 

 His brother searched his eyes for a moment, as if he was trying to detect a lie. Once he was clearly satisfied, he continued. “He was moved to the scene, so it was intended for him to be found, and he had these burn marks.” 

 “On his body? Like the brand? That’d be some divine intervention.” 

 “No, not like that. It was on the ground next to his body. It almost… hell, they looked like giant wings that were burnt out in the grass.” 

 Dean scratched his jaw and looked at his brother. He could’ve been ten years old again. They’ve drank together, and Dean took him to the strip club for his eighteenth birthday, but Sammy was still his baby brother. At the end of the day he’d do anything for him, no matter how much he teased. “You were so fucked up a month ago about him gettin’ away.” 

 “I was,” he agreed with a sigh. “I just… It shouldn’t have been this way.” 

 “The guy is dead, Sammy. He can’t hurt anyone else. Doesn’t matter which way it happened. You’re really tellin’ me this isn’t a win?”

 “It’s more complicated than that,” Sam said cautiously with a heavy sigh, leaning his body against the wall next to the bathroom door.

 “Why?” Dean crossed his arms and looked up at his brother. “Seems like good riddance to me. Ain’t nothin’ worth beatin’ yourself up about.”

 “Maybe… I don’t know.” Sam walked back into the bathroom, shutting the door. “We swapped one bad guy for another, you know?” 

 “Right, but this guy kills other killers. Crowley kidnapped and murdered teenagers.” 

 “The law doesn’t really work that way,” Sam laughed dryly, opening back up the door and stepping out in his pajama pants. “A vigilante is still a criminal.” 

 Dean frowned at him and followed him into the kitchen. “So you’re saying Batman is a criminal?”

 “Batman is a comic book character, Dean.” He reached up and pulled out a jar of peanut butter from the cabinet. 

 “He has movies, too,” he grumbled in response.

 “But yes, for all intensive purposes, Batman would be a criminal. Good doesn’t just cancel out the bad, and bad definitely doesn’t cancel out more bad,” Sam said while he spread peanut butter on a slice of bread.

 He watched Sam’s wrist paint the peanut butter on both slices just like Dean taught him when they were kids, and his chest squeezed. “You’re pretty smart, you know that?”

 His baby brother offered him a small smile and a nod. “Yeah, I think I know that. Learned it from you.” 

 “Hey,” Dean said dismissively. “No chick flick moments, okay?”

 “Right.” 

 “Give me that.” He took the knife from Sam. “You’re not doing enough peanut butter. This is going to be a dry ass sandwich.” He scooped another dollop of peanut butter onto the bread and pushed it out evenly. “Want crust?”

 “Crust is good for you.” 

 Dean shoved the knife back into the jar and put his hands on his hips, staring at his brother. “Jesus, Sam. Out of everythin’ you’ve gotten from me, and you still don’t get it? Food is good. It tastes fuckin’ delicious. It ain’t about bein’ healthy. How much beer and pie do you think are on that weird ass pyramid? Not enough is the answer you’re lookin’ for!” He shook his head, plucking the knife out of the jar, licking peanut butter off the blade before pressing it into the bread to cut off the crust. 

 “Thanks,” Sam said, smiling a bit as he took half the sandwich from his brother. 

 “Welcome.” The brothers pressed the sandwiches together in a cheers motion. “So, uh, how’s Novak handlin’ the case? Got his perfect panties in a bunch?” Dean asked before shoving part of the sandwich in his mouth to keep him from saying too much. 

 Sam raised an eyebrow. “He’s surprisingly unaffected.”

 “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

 “Why do you care?” Sam asked, plopping the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, some peanut butter on the corner of his mouth. Dean instinctively reached forward and wiped it off Sam’s mouth with his sleeve, like he used to when they were kids. His younger brother batted his hand away. 

 “I don’t care.” 

 “Okay, sure,” Sam snorted, unconvinced. He reached into the fridge and grabbed a beer, twisting of the cap, and leaned up against the counter, taking a swig. 

 “So any news on that cute lab tech?” Dean wiggled his eyebrows, redirecting the conversation far away from the stern detective with his sparkling blue eyes. “Eileen?”

 “She isn’t a lab tech,” Sam complained, walking into the living room and settling onto the couch. “What about her?”

 “You ask her out yet?” 

 “I’m there to work, Dean. You know, solve cases, catch murderers. Not socialize.”

 “Well you’re doing a shit job, kid. There’s a murder you need to solve and nothin’ has gotten done about it.”

 “What murder?” Sam asked, squinting his eyes skeptically.

 “The murder of your goddamn social life.” Dean laughed, tossing the pillow from the armrest at his brothers head, barely missing his beer by an inch. “It’s Friday night for god sakes and you’re eating a peanut butter sandwich in flannel pajama pants.” All he needs is the blow up doll! “It’s fuckin’ pitiful.”

 “Shut the fuck up. It’s my night off, and I’m gonna watch Game of Thrones. What are you doing tonight?”

 “Not that.” Dean rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Come out with me. You can watch your nerd show later.” 

 “This is the highest rated show on television right now, Dean.” 

 “Hey, are you sure that Eileen is deaf? She may just be fuckin’ with you so she doesn’t have to listen to a grown ass man talk about dragons.” 

 Sam clicked on the television, shooting Dean a sideways glance. “You’re suck a dick.”

 “I’m just kiddin’, kid.” He leaned in and ruffled his brothers hair, pulling the elastic tie, releasing his hair from the bun. 

 “Seriously?”

 “I’ll be back late, don’t wait up.” Dean slid into his leather jacket, laughing like he was so goddamn proud of himself, because he was. “I’m going for a stiff one.” He smirked. “And maybe a drink.”

 “Wear a condom!” Sam shouted, tossing a pillow at him from the couch. Dean dodged effortlessly, laughing as he shut the door behind him. He jogged down the stairs and out into the cool evening. He pulled his jacket together to keep the elements from invading. 

 It was rainy season in the city. Women struggled with umbrellas to keep their hair and expensive wardrobes in tact, but nothing stopped the puddles from invading their fake Prada shoes. Dean didn’t mind the rain. It cleared him of his sins and sometimes it just felt good to be in the moment without any kind of veil. Sometimes he just wanted to be.

 The Winchester brothers lived close to the precinct, so Dean shouldn’t have been surprised when he entered a bar full of police officers. He shook the rain out of his hair and wiped his feet on the mat by the door. He instinctively scanned the bar for a place to sit and someone to buy a drink for when his eyes landed on a pair of slumped shoulders. Messy dark hair against a gray button up with the sleeves pushed up. Dean more often than not dated women. He was more experienced in that department, and that kept him in a place of emotional safety. Stay in your lane, he’d remind himself, but that never stopped him from flirting. It never stopped him from looking either and as he eyed the tired, disheveled man in front of him he wondered if maybe his lane could widen a little, just once.

 Dean put on his best stride to approach the bar, already digging his wallet out to offer to buy the guy a drink when the man at the bar turned slightly, glancing over his shoulder. His blue eyes caught a neon sign, causing them to glow brilliantly in the low light from the bar. “Well tickle my pickle, is that you, Detective?” Dean asked with a large grin as he approached Castiel at the bar rail. He hadn’t known it was the detective at first, but the happy surprise left his stomach in knots, twisting into itself. Guess he couldn’t shake Cas as easily as he originally anticipated. 

 “Did I do something in a past life to warrant this terrible karma?” The detective asked, turning to see Dean and meeting him with a squint.

 “Aw, terrible, really? Let me buy you a drink. It’ll bring your karma around.” Dean grinned, sitting down on the barstool next to Castiel, and holding out the cash that he’d already fished from his wallet.

 “No, thank you.”

 “I’ll take a scotch, neat,” Dean said offering the bartender a smile, before turning toward Castiel. The detective had a world of weight on his shoulders. It looked like he would collapse into himself at a moment's notice. So Dean offered a soft spoken olive branch. “Sammy told me about Crowley.”

 “He shouldn’t have,” Novak said, taking a sip from his own glass. “It’s still an open investigation.”

 “He can’t hurt anyone else. That’s a win,” Dean said gently. “Right?”

 “It’s complicated,” the detective said dismissively, his eyes somewhere else. 

 “So I’ve heard.” He took the glass from the bartender and welcomed the warmth down his throat.

 “Hey nerds. Sorry, the bathroom line was ungodly. I ended up peeing in the men’s,” a woman’s voice said from behind them. Dean turned to catch a redhead with a large grin, and a beer in her hand. She wore a bright pink tank top that was tied off at her waist. It had a unicorn on it. She was pretty, and fuck he was jealous. 

 “Shit.” Dean’s heart sank into his stomach, sending him swerving back into his own lane like he was avoiding a deer on the highway. “Sorry Cas, I didn’t know you were on a date.”

 “With me?” The woman laughed shaking her head. “No offense, Sweetie, but hell no.”

 “Ouch,” Castiel feigned hurt, holding his chest dramatically, and Dean had to look at Castiel and then look again. He was playing up the drama? He was playing? Maybe he was happier with Crowley dead than what Sam had originally suggested. Maybe wound up tightly wasn’t his normal resting state, after all. 

 “I’m single as a Pringle. Fly by the wind and all that.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Who are you?”

 “Dean Winchester.” He offered his hand out to her like a total dork. He stared at his own extended hand like, what? Is this a business meeting? 

 “Winchester? Like Sam?”

 “His big brother,” Dean said with a proud smile, the knots in his stomach untangling at the brush of their fingers. She shook his hand with an impressive grip, and he could hear Castiel snort next to him. Dean glanced at the detective to catch him muffling a laugh. Holy fuck, he’s laughing! If he was being honest, Dean didn’t think that was possible, but damn he was cute when he smiled. 

 “Color me surprised,” she grinned widely, letting go of his hand. “I’m Charlie Bradbury. I work at the precinct with your brother and Cranky here.” Charlie grabbed Castiel’s shoulder, shaking him slightly, invoking another smile. 

 Dean mirrored her smile. Seeing the detective loosen up a bit was giving him energy that pulsed through his veins like some kind of drug. “I thought I was the only one who called him that!”

 “It’s a universal name.”

 “Aren’t you supposed to be my friend?” Castiel grumbled at her, looking back into his glass as if there was something written on the ice cubes. 

 “Aw, Cas. Don’t live up to your nickname! It’s Friday night. Just let loose. In fact, let’s dance,” Charlie pleaded, offering him a hand. She wiggled her fingers at him as an invitation. She was unbearably cute, and if Dean was being honest, he could see how she would be irresistible in the same way that a kitten was. Charlie had this bright bubbly personality, matched with her fiery red curls, and glow of general goodness that radiated off of her. She was the kind of person that attracted other people. 

 “I don’t dance,” the detective said flatly, his nose damn near buried in his drink.

 “You do now,” Charlie insisted, grabbing his hand, and yanking him out to the dance floor. She pulled the stumbling detective behind her. With her small stature, Dean knew that Castiel could’ve prevented her from pulling him out to the dance floor if he really wanted to, but he let himself be pulled anyway. 

 Dean finished his glass, ordering another, as he watched Charlie dance around Castiel. She bumped into him, took his hand so he could spin her. He started off stiff, looking awkward as Charlie moved his hands for him. The more embarrassingly she danced, singing in his ear along with the music, the more Castiel laughed and loosened up.

  He’s got a kryptonite after all.

 He watched Charlie imitate a shopping trip, miming grabbing items off the shelf and putting them in her shopping cart, while rolling her hips dramatically. She was teaching a line dance to Castiel when her eyes caught Dean’s. He laughed, shooting her a thumbs up, and took a swig from his glass. Charlie narrowed her eyes on Dean and danced over to him, leaving Castiel alone, looking unbelievably relieved. “Okay, Dean, lets go. Nobody likes a lurker.” She wiggled her fingers at him, encouraging him to join the dumpster fire that was the two of them dancing. 

 “You want me to dance?” He asked, quirking an eyebrow.

 “No, I’m asking you to blow up the Death Star. Yes I’m asking you to dance!”

  Fuck, she’s cool. He shrugged. Watching the detective dance was a sight, but dancing with him was something else altogether. Something that he was dying to try out for himself. “Sure thing, Leia.” He finished his drink, took her hand, and let her pull him to where Castiel was standing alone.

 “Detective.” He winked at Castiel and shimmied toward him, moving his shoulders, and reaching his arms like he was going to pull the detective to him. Cas turned his nose away from Dean like he didn’t notice the impossibly loud dance moves.

 Dean frowned and turned to Charlie, taking her hand and spinning her in circles. “Dean I’m dizzy!” She laughed, letting go of his hand. 

 He glanced again at Cas. How could a man be so damn beautiful, but also be so awkward? The detective looked awkward in his own skin, tugging on a stray thread on his suspenders, his eyes trying to look anywhere but in Dean’s direction, or at least that’s what it seemed like to Dean. When Cas finally looked at him, Dean attempted to lasso him with an invisible rope, grinning widely. He was met with a hard, unimpressed stare, and Dean let his arms fall to his sides before closing the space between himself and Castiel. “Come on, don’t be a square,” he teased, shouting over the music. “You know you like it! You don’t have to fight it, Detective, you’re not on the clock!”

 “I most certainly do not love it,” Novak said sharply. He was stiff as a board, standing so tightly in place that Dean worried he might pull something, or that his pretty face might get permanently stuck in a stoney scowl. All he wanted to do was reach out, touch the skin on Cas’ cheek, and blend into him. He wanted to understand him, but more than anything he wanted to kiss that annoyed scowl right off his face. 

 “Cranky,” Charlie and Dean said at the same time with a laugh, turning to high five each other. 

 “I am not cranky!” Castiel shouted with a huff. If he were in a cartoon, steam would be coming out of his ears. 

 “You are, man,” Dean said gently. “It’s fine. It’s just your personality. Nothin’ wrong with that.” 

  No person can be perfect. Gotta have one flaw, at least. 

 Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean before turning dramatically, walking back to the bar. He took a step after the detective, his hand out like he was reaching for him, but he stopped with a sigh.“Did I say the wrong thing?” He asked, turning to Charlie. “I don’t get him, but he’s Sammy’s partner so I want him to like me. Ya know?” 

 He watched the detective push through the crowd of people, his suspenders illuminated by the strobe light. He could tell, even from this far away, that Castiel held a lot of stress in his shoulders. He walked tightly, like he was fighting a leg cramp. 

 “Cas barely likes himself, Dean. I wouldn’t take it personally,” she said dismissively.

 “He seems to like you.”

 “Well, yeah. He’s human, of course he likes me,” Charlie laughed brightly, reaching out to touch his arm.

 Dean snorted. She was confident, and he had a real thing for confident women. Confident, pretty, nerdy redheads. Charlie Bradbury was a dangerous combination of everything Dean looked for in a woman. “Touché.”

 “We have history, you know? We’ve known each other since high school. I’d do anything for him. He’s my person.” She squeezed his bicep gently, and Dean nodded in response. He did know. Sam was his. “Here’s the thing about Cas, he doesn’t open up easily. He’s really guarded, protected, but if you stick around and fight for it, when he does open up… it’s just, wow. He’s got the prettiest heart, Dean. It’s like stained glass.”

 He could picture it, then, Castiel’s chest opening up like cathedral doors, exposing a large stained glass portrait of his heart. It would glint and glow from the sun pouring through it, creating colorful warmth that’d bathe Dean when he stood under it. He’d feel warm, he’d feel whole. 

 “I am not cranky,” Castiel said, breaking the image in his mind, shattering the glass behind his eyes. He’d returned with a tray of shots in his hands, and Dean raised an eyebrow, his mind redirecting from the daydream to the real thing. “I’m not cranky, and I’m certainly not boring. You’ll see,” Castiel grumbled, meeting Dean’s eyes, before taking two of the six shots.

 ”Oh fuck yes!” Dean grinned and grabbed one from him, unable to resist the urge of seeing Castiel through an alcoholic lense. He clinked glasses with Charlie and they swallowed the shots together. “Guess we are in for an interesting night after all.”

 After four rounds of shots Castiel proved that he indeed was not boring. Not that Dean needed any convincing. With every ounce of liquor it was harder and harder for him to pretend that everything that came out of Dean’s mouth wasn’t entertaining, despite being incredibly childish, and Dean was eating up every second of it. He was high on the sound of Cas’ laugh.

 “Okay, okay, so.”

 “Get on with it, Winchester.” Charlie giggled, sipping out of her Pina Colada. She’d finally given in two drinks ago stating, I don’t give a shit. I am a feminist, and I can drink a fucking flirty drink with an umbrella if I goddamn want to! “We don’t have all night.”

 “Right,” Dean said, letting out a puff of air. His cheeks were warm and his head was swimming from alcohol. It was hard to focus, not taking into account the loud music pounding in the background, and Castiel’s thigh brushing his on the couch in the lounge area of the bar. It took everything in Dean not to just stare at it, the heat beneath the detective’s slacks burning a hole through his jeans. He cleared his throat, urging his leg to move away, but he pressed a little closer instead. “So, Sammy comes home the other night and starts digging around in the book shelves, and I’m like, bro what’re you lookin’ for? And he’s like, mind your fuckin’ business. That’s rude, right? Fuck, I’m his brother. Excuse me if I care. Anyway, he is looking for his old sign language books because he has a thing for your crime tech.”

 “Eileen?” Charlie gasped, chewing on her cherry. “Oh my god, yes! I ship them!”

 “You do what?” Cas narrowed his eyes at Charlie. One of his suspenders was slipping off his shoulder, like a girls dress strap. It felt like he was about to spill out, like Dean might get a chance to see the man behind the facade, but only if he was really looking closely. 

 “Ship, like relationship? Christ, Cas. You’re like an old man.” She rolled her eyes. “Hey, watch.”

 Dean raised an eyebrow, waiting expectantly for Charlie to do something. She just sat there, looking serious. Her eyebrows were knit together, and her lips twitched. Suddenly it occurred to him that maybe she was just as drunk as he was. Maybe she thought she could levitate or something. “Got it,” she murmured, sticking out her tongue.

 “Holy shit.”

 She had tied her cherry stem in a perfect knot. She stood up and bowed, handing Dean the knot. It was a short stem, and Dean was impressed, to say the least. 

 “Damn, woman. You’ve got some serious skills.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Bet you can put those to use.” He leaned forward a little instinctively, feeling an emptiness as Castiel’s thigh left his, but he’d denied every advance that Dean made. Maybe he was straight. Maybe Dean was just that bad at picking people. 

 “And I do,” she said smoothly. “But, Deano, I hate to break it to you, you’ll never find out first hand.” Charlie reached back for her drink, sticking her straw between her lips like a tease, making Dean suck his breath in. 

 “Aw.” He poked out his bottom lip in a pout. “Way to set fire to that fantasy. Is it my hair?” He touched the top of his head.

 “No, sweetie. It’s your penis.” She eyed his pants, biting the straw as a sad attempt to hide her smile.

 “You don’t know that my penis is no good! It’s good, I promise! I have references.” Dean may have been imagining it from all the alcohol, but he could’ve sworn that he heard Castiel suck in his breath. 

 “Oh my sweet summer child.” Charlie touched his hand. She was kind, letting him down easy. It was unlikely that the night would end with a drink in his face, and most of the time that was all that Dean could ask for when it came to sexual advances. “I like women.”

 Deans eyebrows shot up. That was unexpected. Yup, my gaydar is shit. “My fantasy is officially reignited.” He laughed, squeezing her hand in his.

 Charlie rolled her eyes, pulling her hand away from his. “Good lord. you’re such a guy.”

 Dean turned his head to the detective, who was surprisingly quiet during the exchange. “Cas, can you tie a knot in a cherry stem with your tongue?” He asked, eyeing Castiel, leaning in to him. The temporary distraction that he’d gotten from Charlie had dissolved as quickly as it had begun, and he was hyper focused back on Cas. 

 “I don’t know.”

 Dean grabbed a spare cherry stem from Charlie’s previous drink and plopped it into his mouth. He locked eyes with Castiel and worked his tongue along the cherry stem, twisting it in his mouth. Dean couldn’t tell if it was the buzz, the low lightning, or if he was really seeing it right, but he could’ve sworn he saw Cas swallow.

 Once the knot was secure Dean stuck out his tongue, offering up the perfect knot. “I still got it.” He grinned and winked, his eyes still settled on Cas’ blue ones. “For you, Detective.” He handed Castiel the slobbery cherry stem, and to his surprise Castiel took it, curling his fist around it. His eyes never leaving Dean’s.

   Three days later

 “So,” Charlie said, leaning over Castiel’s desk.

 “So, what?” He glared at Charlie over the steam from his cup of coffee. He was so fucking tired. After the night at the club he had spent the rest of the weekend alone mulling over the case and eating cold Ramen. He didn't make much progress, which added to his deep seeded annoyance. 

 “Dean.” She poked his cheek. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean. Holy shit, he was so cute.”

 “Please. He is a reckless child.” Plus, Castiel assumed by his flirtations with Charlie that he was straight, despite his earlier impression from Crossroads. He didn’t need to go down that road, no matter how boyishly handsome Dean was, and no matter how much disappointment settled into his chest when he thought about Dean’s freckled cheeks and striking green eyes. Feelings were a menace, and Castiel preferred not to have them when he could help it. 

 “Exactly, opposites attract.”

 He rolled his eyes at that, taking a sip from his coffee. “I’m too busy for relationships.” Charlie should’ve known his situation better than anyone. He was too busy to find the keys to unlock the dozens of dead bolts locking his heart away within himself. 

 “I didn’t say marry him. Just like...” Her eyes glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention. “Just fuck him. You could use a release, Cranky.”

 Heat rose up Castiel’s neck and into his face. “You can’t say things like that,” he hissed. His private life was private for a reason, and he’d be damned if he crossed a professional line at work. 

 “What? You are pent up.”

 “Not that. You can’t be so explicit,” he whispered. 

 Charlie rolled her eyes and adjusted the butterfly clip in her hair. “Okay, right, sorry.” She huffed and leaned in closer, her eyes challenging him. “Just admit that you want to, and I’ll leave it alone.”

 He narrowed his blue eyes at Charlie, begging her to shut the fuck up for once in her life. “What I want is irrelevant,” he decided. At the end of the day, she was still Charlie, and he couldn’t fake it with her. 

 “Well, that’s just not true.” She laughed. “Come on, just go for it. What is there to lose?”

 He sighed, rubbing his forehead. He was too damn tired. Where should he even start? “Well, he’s my partner’s brother, first of all.” He took another drink of his coffee. 

 “You talking about Dean?” Sam asked, walking up with a fresh coffee mug in his hand.

 “What?” Castiel choked on his own coffee. It burned shooting down his windpipe and for a second he felt like he was drowning. Drowning and caught. 

 “I just heard you say ‘your partner’s brother’. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Sam said sheepishly. “Sorry, Dean’s such a pain. He really does feel bad about messing things up with Crowley...”

 Castiel waved him off when he realized that Sam only caught the tail end of the conversation. “It’s in the past. Best we move on?”

 Charlie snorted, and Sam raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay. He will be happy to hear that you aren’t mad.”

 “Why would he care if I was mad?” Castiel eyed him, his curiosity peaked. He placed his mug down on the desk, focusing on keeping his expression emotionless. 

 “Don’t know, but he asks about you every day. Probably just making sure he didn’t ruin things for me here.” Sam shrugged, putting his coffee back to his lips. “So, any new leads on the Crowley murder?”

 “Nothing,” Castiel sighed, rubbing his face, Dean’s apple green eyes pushed to the back of his mind at the mention of the case.

 Charlie reached forward and grabbed Cas’ coffee, taking a few eager gulps. 

 “Well, Dean keeps saying good riddance. So maybe we should just take it as a win.”

 “Do you really believe that?” He asked, examining his partners muscles tensing in his forearms. 

 “Trying to,” Sam admitted, flexing his fingers, releasing the tension. “I figure it’s better than losing sleep over a scumbag.”

 “Good point.” He stood up, stretching, letting his neck pop. He’d been sitting in that same damn chair for much too long. “Get back to work, Rookie. I may not have a lead, but maybe you can find something I’ve missed.” He turned his back to Sam to grab some additional papers from the filing cabinet next to his desk. 

 “Novak,” Sam cleared his throat, causing Castiel to glance over his shoulder. “I was wondering if you’d want to grab dinner with me sometime? My treat,” he offered with a wide smile.

 “Why?” Castiel eyed him suspiciously, his eyebrows coming together.

 “To say thank you,” Sam said quickly, running his fingers through his hair awkwardly. “For your patience with me. For mentoring me.”

 “Wasn’t exactly my choice.” He raised an eyebrow, covering a smirk growing on his mouth with his fingers.

 Charlie elbowed him in the ribs. “He would love to go. It’ll be a million times better than eating leftover pizza or Ramen noodles again. Right, Cas?”

 “Right,” he mumbled. He didn’t want to be boring and antisocial, after all.

 “Awesome! Just let me know when you’re free,” Sam said quickly, looking relieved.

 “I will.” Cas looked at his watch and stood up. “I’ll check my calendar and get back to you.” He shrugged into his jacket and adjusted his tie.

 “Where are you going?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

 “Court,” Castiel grunted. “I am testifying for an old case that’s finally going to trial.”

 “Ain’t no rest for the wicked,” Charlie said with a nod, before resting a hand on his shoulder. “Put ‘em away, big guy.”

 Cas nodded knowingly. “I’ll try my best, ma’am.”

  Later that day

 “And how does the jury find the defendant?”

 “Not guilty on all charges.”

 The sound of the judges gavel knocking against the bench echoed through Castiel’s mind. It was haunting, like a knock on the door late at night when he wasn’t expecting a guest, or the sound of a shutter clicking against the windowpane from the wind. 

 Lucas Azazel’s jaundiced eyes locked with Castiel’s. He gave a sinister smile and a wink. He got off on a fluke. He was a rapist, and he’d been raping his young daughter since she was a toddler, sneaking into her room and doing unexplainable things. He did things that made Castiel lose the little sleep he got. The man was ill and dying of liver failure, which was the main reason the daughter finally came forward. She didn’t think he could hurt her anymore if the trial went exactly the way it went that day. 

 Even though he was a criminal, and the case was open and shut, the jury found him innocent- on a technicality. By law he was liable for what he did, because he was her father. He was in a position of trust, so even though he claimed she consented, it wouldn’t matter. He was the parent, and she was the child. Legally she couldn’t consent. The jury, on the other hand, didn’t think he was in a position of trust. They claimed she didn’t trust him because she was afraid of him. The fuck she didn’t.

 Castiel pushed out of the courthouse into the rainy afternoon, past the on-lookers, past Azazel’s daughter’s muffled sobs, and past the thick, suffocating air. He gasped for breath, needing the freshness, begging for oxygen. He stumbled down the stairs and slammed his fists onto the cold, stone pillar that held up the lip of the courthouse roof. He pressed his forehead against the damp, cool stone, hoping for clarity that never came. How could he do everything right and still not be able to put the perp away? It was a fucking technicality! He was a monster and it didn’t even matter. It didn’t make a lick of difference. What was the fucking point of even trying?

 Castiel couldn’t get the image of Azazel’s daughter, Jess, out of his head. Her big blue eyes spilled over with tears, her face red as she collapsed into the arms of her mother, who had stroked her hair, murmuring promises that she could never keep. Their only saving grace was that, hopefully, he was too sick to hurt anyone ever again, but Castiel wasn’t hopeful. He was rarely hopeful and every day on the job that a criminal walked, he was less and less so.

 “Detective?”

 Castiel let out a breath, the heat from it fogging up around his face. He would recognize that gravelly voice anywhere. “Hello, Dean.” He wanted to stay there, against the pillar, and disappear within it, but then there was Dean . 

 “Are you... are you okay?”

 He sighed, forcing himself off the pillar, turning toward Dean. He could feel his face wilting, the lack of sleep over the trial evident in every wrinkle and sag in his cheeks and under his eyes. “Just a rough case,” he admitted. “What are you doing here?” He straightened his spine, trying to pull himself back together. 

 “Parking tickets.” Dean waved the papers with a sheepish smile. His eyelashes held the mist from the rain, making his eyes glisten in a way that was extremely calming.

 “Parking tickets?” Castiel asked, confused. His voice was rough with emotion, as he tried his best to focus on Dean’s eyelashes, the freckles on his cheeks, anything other than Azazel and the trial. “You live in New York, why do you even have a car?”

 “They’re from when I first moved.” Dean scratched the back of his neck, his cheeks pink. He looked cute, Castiel noticed. “Before I put my Baby in storage, I had her parked in the street. Didn’t realize it’d be a shit show trying to find parking in the city. Thought that Sammy would waive them for me since he’s a cop, but no dice. He’s a slut for the law, ya know?”

 Castiel smiled at that, the claws that were twisted around his lungs loosened their grip, allowing him to breathe a little deeper. “Yeah, the kid sure is.” 

 They stood there for a moment, an electric, palpable silence between them. There was something calming about Dean’s presence, he was like a rain track, the sound of his breathing slowed Castiel’s heart rate. His fingers twitched at his side as he tried to avoid reaching his finger’s out to touch Dean’s. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets, picking at the lint inside. 

 Dean chewed on his lip like he was considering something, his eyes flickering up to Castiel’s and then back down to his feet. “Hey, Detective? Would you want to get out of here? Maybe grab a bite. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. There’s a good burger place not too far,” he offered, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder. 

 His eyes met Deans -  they were moss green and kind. He rolled a piece of lint between his index finger and thumb, considering the invitation. “Don’t you need to pay your tickets?”

 Dean shrugged, shoving them hastily into his pocket. “I think I’d rather be on the run from the law than being a law abiding citizen. It’ll get Sammy in a tizzy, plus it’s a lot sexier. It fits my aesthetic.” He grinned widely.

 Castiel laughed in response, running his fingers through his hair. He wasn’t quite ready to let Dean walk away from him just yet. “Burgers, huh?”

 “Best in New York.”

 “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  A half hour later

 Sitting across from Dean Winchester at a crappy diner was the last place Castiel expected to be on that rainy afternoon. “Alright, it’s judgement time.” Dean grinned, holding a greasy french fry between his fingers.

 Castiel chewed his bite of burger thoughtfully. It was delicious, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he had to give Dean that one. He knew a good burger. “Damn, you’re right.” He allowed the smallest smile to peek out from behind the burger, before taking another bite.

 “I knew it!” Dean grinned wildly, shoving his fry into his chocolate milk shake, and plopping it into his mouth eagerly.

 “That is disgusting,” Castiel commented. And juvenile. 

 “What? Do you live under a rock, Detective? This is a damn delicacy.” Dean dipped another fry in the shake. “Open up.”

 “No way.”

 “Open up, or it’s gettin’ all over your face and as funny as that’d be I’m sure you’d be pissed. That’d be a shame ‘cause I kinda think you’re havin’ fun.”

 He rolled his eyes in response and opened his mouth, allowing Dean to place the fry on his tongue. There was something incredibly erotic about being fed by Dean, his eyes partly closed, only showing a tint of green as the sweet and salty snack touched Cas’ tongue. Dean ran his tongue over his own bottom lip, mimicking Castiel as he tasted the snack. Their eyes met, Dean’s finger brushing Castiel’s bottom lip. It was intimate, like they were the only two in the diner, in the world. “Fine, you’re right,” he said, breathlessly. “It’s delicious.”

 “Told ya.” Dean smiled.

 Who would’ve known that Dean Winchester had an award winning smile? No matter how annoying he was, Castiel couldn’t help but smile when Dean did. It was infectious. He would give anything to watch Dean smile over and over again, and he had not realized until that moment.

 “Glad to see you aren’t pissed at me,” Dean said, dipping another fry.

 “I was never pissed at you.”

 “Sure.”

 “I wasn’t,” Cas said flatly. “Being pissed would indicate caring.” He shrugged dismissively, staring back at his plate.

 “Right. The cold, hard detective has no feelings. I buy it.”

 “It’s my aesthetic,” he teased, using Dean’s words against him, his eyes flickering up for just a second, catching Dean staring intently. Castiel swallowed hard, feeling his cheeks heat up under Dean’s gaze. 

 “Right.” Dean snickered in response. “Guess we are quite the pair.”

 “I suppose we are.”

 Castiel settled on Dean’s lips, and he had this extreme urge to lean across the table and taste the milkshake on them, but he refrained. Everything he told Charlie before was true. Dean was likely straight, Cas didn’t date, and even if he did, he would not date Dean Winchester.

 “Want to talk about what happened back at the courthouse?” Dean asked casually, pulling apart the paper wrapper from his straw.

 “Not really.”

 “Well, I’m here if you change your mind.”

 “Trying to get a story for the paper?”

 “Nah, just trying to be a good friend.” Dean eyed Castiel. “Hope you’d think a little more of me, Detective.”

 “I do,” he admitted. He knew that Dean wouldn’t exploit him. He was a good man. He could tell by the way he protected Krystal at the club, and the way he was around Sam. He was a smartass, but he was a good man nonetheless. His eyes met Dean’s and suddenly he wanted to tell him everything. “The longer I’m in this job, and the more evil I see... the less I can sleep. Sometimes I feel like I’m just doing damage control. It’s hard to get a conviction, even on a true criminal. How am I supposed to sleep at night knowing that?”

 “I bet it’d be hard.” 

 Dean was looking at him, his eyes flickered up to Cas’, and he sucked in his breath, his lips parted, his eyebrows furrowing for just a moment.

 “It is,” he agreed, pressing his own lips together, trying not to breathe in every one of Dean’s exhales. The table suddenly felt incredibly small, and Cas was conscious of the toe of Dean’s boot brushing against his dress shoe. 

 He reached forward and touched the top of Castiel’s hand, and Dean brushed his fingers along his knuckles. They both let out a breath that they’d been holding, as if their hands touching gave them permission. 

 “You can’t save them all, Cas.”

 “I was just telling Sam that…” Castiel laughed bitterly, before letting out a ragged sigh. “And what about the ones I can’t save?” He asked desperately, his eyes wet along the edges. He twisted his fingers up, touching the length of Dean’s fingers. They were surprisingly soft, apart from a small callous on his middle finger from where his pen rested. “What about them? All of that up to God?”

 Dean smiled sadly and shook his head, opening his palm wider, allowing Cas to run their fingers together absentmindedly. “Sammy may believe that, but I don’t. I don’t think God cares about us anymore. It’s just up to us.”

 “Us?”

 “Humankind,” Dean clarified smiling sheepishly. “But maybe you and I, too.” He squeezed Castiel’s hand, causing his heart to flutter under Dean’s touch.

 “Our mom… I dunno if Sammy told you, but she died when he was a baby.” 

 “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling sick. There was so much death. He could feel Dean’s fingers chill under his, and Castiel brought his other hand on top of Dean’s to shield him from whatever pain that he could. 

 “She was murdered. It was arson, but the police didn’t ever bring anyone in. There wasn’t enough evidence...resources. It’s not right. Sometimes it feels like there’s no fuckin’ justice.” 

 Castiel would’ve thought that Dean would be worked up, exasperated, but in reality he looked more sad. He looked defeated. “Sometimes it does.”

 “Don’t you wish you could do more, Detective?”

 “Every day.” He released Dean’s hand, letting his palms fall to his lap. He looked down at his burger and suddenly he wasn’t hungry. His stomach churned again. 

 “The system is broken, Cas. I just hope I can do my part.” 

 Castiel thought about that, while breaking up a fry on his plate. Dean was a reporter, and they always felt like enemy number one to a police officer. Everything that was written in the Times felt twisted. It felt a little too much like propaganda, but if it were Dean... Dean, knowing what he knew about Castiel and Sam, saying all the right things about justice. Maybe he could make a difference. Maybe he could instill change. 

 “You seem thoughtful, Detective. What’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours?”

 Castiel looked up at him, alarmed. His brain ran a circle, trying to find something to say. Anything to say. “Sam... Sam asked me to dinner.”

 “Like a date?” He chuckled. “No offense, but I don’t think you’re his type.”

 “No, not as a date.” Castiel laughed awkwardly, shifting in his seat. “He invited me out to say thank you for mentoring him, but truth be told, he’s teaching me a few things.”

 “The kid’s good for that.”

 “He is.”

 “I wouldn’t be who I am without Sam. He is good. Better than I’ll ever be.”

 “I hope he can be that for me, too.” Cas smiled, looking down at his lap.

 Dean reached forward and hooked his index finger under Castiel’s chin, tilting it up. “Detective, you are good.”

 “You don’t know that.”

 “Bad people don’t carry this much guilt. Your shoulders are heavy. Maybe it’s time you let someone else carry some of that burden.” He smiled warmly at Castiel, almost as if to say I’ve got strong enough shoulders to carry the weight for the both of us. 

  Two weeks later

 Castiel loved New York City. He was one of those New Yorkers that had it in his blood. He wasn’t a dreamer, someone who came over from Podunk Nowhere to try his hand in the arts. He wasn’t filled with love, hope, and Chanel No 5. Castiel was a New Yorker. His blood was dirty rainwater, subway tickets, and Nolita’s twenty-four hour pizza. He held his computer bag close to him, the strap across his chest like a seat belt. The air had a brisk chill, despite the exhaust pumping out of the cabs and into the street. He wanted coffee, needed some sunlight, Charlie insisted on it, and he couldn’t get what Dean said about his mom out of his head. So he left his shoebox of an apartment and went in search of caffeine.

 The woman at the coffee counter smiled at him when he ordered his Americano, but he looked right past her. It wasn’t his intention to be rude, he just hadn’t been sleeping. He needed more than the single mug he was given, he needed an IV drip. 

 Growing up gay made him a tough child, one not to be messed with. He didn’t have any other choice but to create a hard outer exterior. Sometimes distance was the only way. Castiel punched a little boy in the school yard for calling him a faggot. He went to the principal’s office and was given detention for fighting. Castiel’s mother threatened to move them to Staten Island, and he never hit another child again. He walked through the hallways with his head down, his brown locks in his eyes. He could be himself in college. He could fall in love someday. He didn’t have to be so gay. He didn’t have to get in fights.

  “Let people see what they want to see, Castiel,” Gabriel told his little brother, as he dabbed Castiel’s black eye with an ice pack.

  He winced, the pain radiating through his cheekbones and into his nose. “Why do they care, anyway?”

  “Kids are bored. Nosey. Mean.”

  “They aren’t mean to you,” he countered, eyeing his older brother with his one good eye.

  “That’s because I’m funny. I laugh at myself so they can’t.“

  “You aren’t funny,” Castiel said, scrunching up his nose.

  “Hey! I’m hilarious!”

 So, if someone hit him, he let them. He didn’t fight back, even though he wanted to. Things were strict in the Novak house, growing up. The boy’s father was a police officer, a Captain, like Singer. He was rugged, stiff, and angry. He was ex-military, only no longer active duty due to an escalated case of sleep apnea. He raised his boys with a heavy hand. Home was just another place that Castiel had to hide.

 Charlie had been his friend long before they were co-workers. She’d been a thorn in his side since they were fifteen years old. They were each other’s beards, prom dates, and everything in between. She was a beacon in the darkness that was his life. For awhile he suspected that he’d never love someone as much as he loved her. That maybe romance wasn’t in the cards for him. That was until Cas met him. 

 Inias was his next door neighbor. His father was a military man like Castiel’s. They spent the New York summer when they were seventeen working on an old ice cream truck. They’d lay in the grass in the park after a long day, plucking bubble gum eyes out of the frightening cartoon ice cream bars. 

  “These are disgusting,” Inias mused. 

  “You love them,” Castiel combatted, squinting at the beautiful blue eyed boy next to him. He didn’t know if he was gay. He didn’t think he could ask. He didn’t know what he’d do if he lost Inias. There was something fragile between them. He couldn’t risk breaking it and ruining everything. 

  “You have me confused with someone else.” 

 Castiel shook his head with a wide smile and looked at the melting Tweety Bird. Inias was right, of course, it looked like a horror movie character. A wax sculpture, melting in the hot sun. The grass tickled Castiel’s ears, and the heat felt good on his skin. “I wouldn’t confuse you, Nias. Trust me.” 

 The boy propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at Castiel. “You wouldn’t, huh?”

  “That’s what I said,” he deadpanned, not looking at his friend. 

  “What if I looked like this?” Inias asked, putting the ice cream bar too close to Cas’ face. 

  “God, quit! You’re going to get it on me.” He swatted at Inias like he was annoyed, but the boy knew better. 

  “No I won’t!” Inias said, right as he pushed the ice cream bar into Castiel’s lips. “Oops, shit, you made a mess.” 

  “You’re dead.” 

 They chased each other until the ice cream was melted and they were covered in melted dairy and artificial food coloring. They laid in the grass again laughing, staring at the too-blue sky. The day was clear, and the sky was endless despite the skyscrapers cutting into it. Castiel could’ve stayed like that forever, laying in the grass with the boy he wasn’t supposed to like. 

 He didn’t expect it when it happened, when Inias leaned over and pressed a sticky, artificial strawberry flavored kiss to his lips. It was brief and quick, but it left Castiel breathless. His first kiss. It was in the middle of Central Park, on a sunny summer day, with the boy from next door. It felt like a dream. 

 Castiel’s father had caught them in his bedroom a month later. They had been stripped down to their underwear, Inias’ hand on Castiel’s bare chest, Castiel’s lips on Inias’ throat. It was incriminating. Mr. Novak went into a blind rage, and Castiel woke up in the hospital a day later with a broken cheekbone, wrist, and heart. Inias was gone, off to a private Catholic school out of state. 

 He had moved in with Charlie after that, never looking back, and when he was eighteen, his father died in his sleep. He still hadn’t heard from Inias, but he hoped that the boy from next door was still alive. 

 He knew a little something about wanting answers. He didn’t have the resources to fight his own demons, but Dean’s? He was a detective after all. Maybe he could take a look at Mary Winchester’s old cold case. He couldn’t do right by his first love, but maybe he could do better for Dean. 

 He took a sip of his coffee and opened up his laptop, immediately typing away.

  One week later

 “Hey Sammy so I was thinkin’...” Dean poked his head into the bathroom as Sam brushed through his hair, he squinted at his brother through the mirror. “You goin’ somewhere?”

 “Just dinner.”

 “Dinner? Is it a date?” Dean teased.

 “No.” Sam glared at Dean through the mirror, placing the brush on the counter. “I’m having dinner with Novak.”

 “So it is a date! Do you think that’s appropriate, to be taking your partner out, Sammy? Unless! Is he your partner partner?” Dean waited for Sam to counteract, Jesus Dean, he isn’t gay. Stop making it weird! 

 “Shut up, jerk,” Sam said instead.

 “Bitch.” Dean grinned widely, taking the lack of denial as a win. He folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the doorframe while Sam gargled mouthwash and splashed his face. 

 When he looked up at met Dean’s eyes in the mirror, he rested his palms on the sink. “What, dude? Can I help you?”

 “You seriously not gonna invite me?”

 “You want to go? I got the impression that you and Novak didn’t get along.” Sam dried his face with the hand towel. 

 “We had a moment.” Dean shrugged, the picture of Cas’ face as he tasted the french fry covered in milkshake still perfectly preserved in Dean’s mind. 

 “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

 “What I just said. We’re good. Let me go to dinner, and you can bring that cute crime scene tech, too.”

 “Like a double date?”

 “You said it, not me,” Dean said with his hands up, grinning widely. It wasn’t the worst idea that Sam ever had, and the concept got Dean’s stomach flipping. 

 “Christ, Dean. No,” Sam groaned, but Dean knew the look on his face. His eyebrow was quirked and his dimple was making an appearance on his left cheek. He was considering it.

 “It won’t be a date,” Dean promised. He wouldn’t take the detective out to dinner with his brother for a first date, after all. “I was kiddin’, but it may be a good opportunity to get to know everyone better. We can even invite Charlie!”

 “You know Charlie?”

 “Oh, uh, yeah. I met her. She seemed rad.”

 “Rad?” Sam raised his eyebrow. “What’s going on with you?”

 “Just say yes,” Dean begged trying out Sam’s patented puppy dog eyes. “I’ll call Charlie, and she’ll get the tech.”

 “Her name is Eileen.”

 “Fine, she will get Eileen to come. Come on, Sammy! Live a little!” Dean ruffled his brother’s hair. When begging didn’t work, his next go to was to be as annoying as possible. He wasn’t proud of the tactic, but it was effective. 

 “Okay, okay! Just get off my back.” Sam swatted at his brother and tried to fix his mop again.  

 Dean grabbed Sam by the face and placed a big wet kiss on his cheek. “Thanks, bro.”

 “Gross, get the fuck off of me.” Sam laughed, shoving him out of the bathroom. 

 “You love me!” Dean called back, feeling his heart pound in his chest. He went into his closet to find something to wear, because he was seeing the detective, and damn it if it made him sound like a chick, but he was fucking excited. 

 “Do not!”

 Dean made good on his promise and Charlie arrived with Eileen at the restaurant promptly at eight o’clock. Castiel arrived five minutes late. He looked a little more casual than Dean and Sam were used to seeing him. He wore a nice pair of dark jeans, with a light blue button up untucked and a tweed blazer. Dean raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t had a professor fantasy before that exact moment. He adjusted his red flannel, suddenly not feeling as attractive as he had a moment before, and he ran his fingers through his hair nervously.

 “Rookie.” Castiel raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t tell me you invited the entire precinct.”

 “I didn’t.” Sam smiled awkwardly. “Dean invited himself.”

 “And everyone heard and couldn’t wait to spend time with me.” Dean batted his eyelashes at Castiel, taking a step closer to him.

 “I’m so sure.”

 “Eileen, this is my brother Dean,” Sam spoke out loud, fingerspelling Dean’s name slowly.

 “Dean,” Eileen said, offering her hand.

 He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “M’lady.”

 “Alright, bitches, let’s eat,” Charlie said with a wide, toothy grin.

 “Good idea,” Cas said, looking a little green.

 They settled into their seats and the waitress came around getting their drink orders, Sam ordering an iced tea, and everyone else ordering beer and wine. His cheeks grew pinker by the second, and Dean smirked at his brother. Eileen tapped Sam’s arm and signed, okay? He nodded, offering her a smile, and she laughed in response.

 Dean leaned over next to him where Castiel was sitting. “So, Detective. Want me to order for you?”

 “No.” He sat up a little higher in his chair and glared at Dean. “I can order for myself.”

 “Yeah, Dean, he isn’t some bombshell,” Charlie whispered from Dean’s other side. How he got stuck between them was beyond him. He’d been so focused on sitting next to that fucking tweed blazer that he didn’t notice Charlie on his left until he was already settled. “He can order for himself.”

 Dean smirked, realizing that Charlie hadn’t been let in on their burger date. “Yeah, but my taste is better. Right, Cas?” Castiel looked uncomfortable, and the fact that Dean was getting under his skin was lighting him on fire. He wanted to press the detective’s buttons until he burst. 

 Sam’s eyes widened at the two of them. “Am I missing something?”

 “No,” Cas said quickly, shooting Dean a look. “Nothing to miss.”

 “Uh huh.” Dean shrugged, moving his attention back to his menu.

 They all got to talking about work. Eileen explained to them some different deaf jokes, and Sam laughed along with her, his eyes bright and shiny. Dean smiled to himself; it was nice to see his little brother wrapped up in something that wasn’t murder. Someone alive.

 “So, Dean,” Charlie said, leaning into him. “You’re a writer?”

 “I am. A journalist.” He smiled widely, proud to finally be talking about something that he could really participate in.

 “But he used to write all kinds of crazy stories growing up,” Sam said, taking a bite of his salad. “He wrote all kinds of short stories about monsters.”

 “Creepy.” Charlie grinned. “I love a good horror story.”

 “So do I.” Dean met her smile. He could almost see it then, Cas’ tweed jacket slung over the back of his couch, he and Charlie teasing the detective until his cheeks pinked up. 

 “So, what brought you to  journalism instead of creative writing?” Castiel asked, mindlessly poking his dinner salad with his fork.

 “I wanted a job,” Dean laughed.

 “How’s that working for you?” Sam asked with a shit-eating grin.

 Dean flipped him off.

 “Are you working on anything right now?” Eileen asked, watching his lips for a response.

 He glanced at Castiel with a smirk. “Yeah, I’m workin’ on somethin’.”

 Heat crawled up Castiel’s neck at the double meaning of his words, and Dean noticed that he adjusted his collar to try to cover his growing embarrassment. “Got a little somethin’,” Dean murmured, taking his napkin, patting some non-existent dressing off Cas’ lip. “Got it,” he whispered devilishly. Another button was pressed, and Dean intended to find them all and learn what they each did. 

 Charlie snorted, since she apparently wasn’t as blind as the rest of the group, and Castiel shot her a look in response. 

 “Anything interesting?”

 “Still decidin’,” Dean said with a wicked grin.

 “I’m going to use the facilities,” Castiel announced, clearing his throat as he stood up. He moved his napkin from his lap and back onto the table. Nodding to the group, he quickly walked to the back of the restaurant. 

 “I’m gonna go, too. Be right back.” Dean said not a moment later, winking at Charlie, glad that Sam was wrapped up in a sign language conversation with Eileen. He was still pretty bad at signing, so it took all of his attention. 

 Dean followed the signs to the bathroom, but before he pushed in, he noticed the back door propped open. His palm moved from the bathroom door and walked out into the night air. 

 Castiel was pressed against the stone wall, sucking in smoke from his cigarette. 

 “Stressed out, Detective?” Dean asked, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed, watching the detective suck the smoke into his mouth and let it back out. He wondered if Castiel knew how erotic he looked when he smoked, with his lips curled around the cigarette, and the way his eyes rolled back in his head, his shoulders relaxing with the breath. 

 “To put it mildly,” Cas said coolly, the nicotine seeming to do its job to calm him down. “What’re you doing out here, Dean?”

 “Checkin’ on you.” He put his hands in his pockets. Now that they were alone there was a new pit growing inside of Dean’s stomach. “Am I... am I making you uncomfortable?” 

 Castiel coughed in response, as if the smoke went down the wrong tube in his throat. “Are you... Why would you be?”

 “Because I’m trying to flirt with you,” Dean said with an estaterbated groan, as if it was obvious. “And damn it, my gaydar is usually shit. So if you’re not into it then you’ve gotta...” 

 “I am gay,” Castiel said quickly, his eyes immediately widening, as if he couldn’t believe the words came out of his mouth. 

 Dean smiled widely, letting out a sigh of relief. He moved away from the wall, taking a step closer to the detective. “So does that mean you are into it, Cas? Because if not, this is a real weird way to turn me down.” 

 Castiel took one more puff of his cigarette before stomping it out on the damp sidewalk. He turned to Dean. “I’m not...” He paused, licking his bottom lip as if he was choosing his words carefully. “Opposed.” 

 Deans grin grew even wider, his arms falling from their crossed position back to his sides. “Color me surprised, Novak. You like my antics after all.” 

 “I wouldn’t say that.”

 He took a step closer to the detective, almost closing the space between them. “Then what would you say? Is it my bad boy aesthetic? I’ll have you know, I still haven’t paid those parking tickets.” Dean pressed his palm above Castiel’s head on the brick wall. He could feel Cas’ breath on his lips as he looked down at the detective, not trying to conceal his smile. 

 “You’re a regular degenerate.” Castiel smirked up at him a bit, quirking his eyebrow. “I may have to bring you in for that.” 

 Dean’s heart skipped a beat as he let out an airy, breathless laugh. “You’ll have to catch me first, Detective,” Dean murmured before taking Castiel’s cheek in his free hand, closing the space between them completely, pressing his lips to Cas’  in a hard, urgent kiss.

Read Part Three

Masterlist

Art by @cryptomoon

[ageeksnerdyworld]

It’s Only A Nightmare

Characters: Jett Leach, Emery Becker, Avia Carstairs, Kelly Ronan O’Connor, Isabelle Lombardi, Scribe Jenkins, Holland, and Walker

Word Count: 6,485

Trigger Warning: Death, Violence, Swearing, Fire, Flashback, PTSD Episode

A/N: So this took like forever to write because I’ve been sick and I had my wisdom teeth taken out. It’s real hard to write while you’re super drugged up and in pain. Also according to my laptop that word count equals 15 pages. And always The Cyber World and the viruses therein belong to @voiceoflarka

Summary: People are falling victim to heart attacks all over Dashland. None of the cases are alike except for that fact. The body count is growing. And so the team is sent on their first field mission. Click the read more if you want to.

~~~

The young woman tried to run but it was of no use. The shadows that chased her looked real but they weren’t. The monsters that lurked deep in those shadows weren’t real either. She felt them. Her fear was real. And that’s all that mattered.

All Enjay Sno could hear outside of her own screams was the sound of her boots against the concrete sidewalk.

Her mother always comforted her whenever she had a nightmare when she was a child. But she wasn’t a child living in her parents’ house anymore. She had moved out years ago and started to make her own life; she hadn’t even spoken to her mother in months. And she wasn’t really having a nightmare.

She ran down the alley and out into the street; screaming.

When the local police found her body the case surprised everyone at the station. The young female fox virus didn’t die because she was hit by a car. In fact she wasn’t hit by any of the vehicles on the road that night. She miraculously didn’t have a single scratch on her person. It seemed that her heart just gave out on her. The medical examiner ruled her death as result of a sudden cardiac arrest.

A few weeks went by and the young woman was quickly forgotten.

Key Scotts could feel the fear running through his veins as he searched for the source of his terror. But there was no one around. There was nothing to be seen in the middle of the woods and the deep, dark, of night. He had no reason to be there on a normal day especially if he was in his right mind. But neither of those things were the case.

Everywhere he looked he saw something terrifying.

He ran from everything that was out to get him. He ran from his deepest fears. He died cold, alone, and afraid. He had everything going for him in life. Just like the woman his death was ruled a sudden cardiac arrest. He was the son of a prominent lawyer; going into the same field of study. He had a fiancé and a happy home life. There was no reason for him to die that quickly. His family issued a statement to the press against the dangers of drugs.

Suddenly there were five dead and no one had any answers.

XXXXX

The day started just like any other day; hell on earth. Mornings were always hectic ever since the group was put together as a team. It didn’t make much sense to any of them. Putting eight people all on a single team? It was insane. This meant that eight people had to share a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living space. While a few team members were somewhat absent in the morning from time to time it was always chaotic.

“Avia you can’t hog the shower! There are seven other people here!”

“Calm down, sweetie,” the bird virus’ voice rang out from behind the bathroom door. “There should be enough water for you when I’m done.”

“Are you sure becau—Wait a minute! Was that a short joke?” Isabelle yelled; banging on the door.

Emery was sleeping soundly on the top bunk but the commotion from the girls woke him up. He tried to go back to sleep but that’s when Isabelle started banging on the door. People who never lived with a larger amount of other people tended to forget that most places had thin walls. Most of those people also usually thought that walls were completely sound proof. Giving up on sleep he swung his legs over the side of the bunk and hopped down. He knelt down and peeked into the bottom bunk. He saw a body shaped pile of blankets and pillows but he nudged it just to be sure. Jett responded with an annoyed grunt and rolled on his side; away from where he thought Emery was.

Satisfied that his best friend was still alive he groggily walked out in to the hallway.

“Ladies, ladies, stop yelling. There’s a civilized way to fix this.”

He walked into the kitchen and turned the hot water on full blast.

Avia came running out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel; carrying her clothes.

“You stupid troglodyte!” she yelled as she slammed the door shut.

“Hey! I’m not a caveman!”

“I’m honestly surprised you even know what that means,” she retorted through the door.

He opened the fridge and grabbed the first thing his eyes landed on. Grabbing a spoon from the utensil drawer he spun on his heels and walked to the living room. Once there he plopped himself down on the couch with a sigh. He pulled the lid off the yogurt cup and licked it clean. Sitting alone in the living he peacefully ate his yogurt while the others woke up and made their way to the kitchen.

Soon the others woke up and the dorm got a lot more hectic as people fought for the bathroom, space in the kitchen, or some other thing. Walker was making pancakes for the group which surprised everyone. Holland made a batch of tea which surprised no one. Kelly sat at the table with a mug of coffee and a bottle of whisky and was currently pouring the whiskey into the mug. Everyone was going about their morning. Except for Jett who seemed to still be asleep.

Emery sighed and got up from the couch.

He knocked on the door to the bedroom that he and his best friend shared. Jett answered with a grunt. Emery tiptoed in and closed the door behind him. He could see that in the bit of time that had passed Jett had moved around quite violently in his sleep. The bed was now a total mess. One of the blankets was shoved off the bed and wedged between the frame and the wall, another blanket was half on the bed and half draped off the edge. None of the blankets were actually on Jett’s body. His black tank top was full of wrinkles and rolled up; exposing his stomach. He held a pillow over his face with one arm draped over it. His other arm dangled off the side of the bed.

Emery walked over to the bunk bed and sat on the edge of the bottom bunk.

“Bro you gotta get up.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Emery gave Jett a hard shove. Jett responded in kind by slapping his friend in the face with a pillow.

“Dude, today’s the big day.”

“I don’t care.”

“Pretty sure you don’t want to be stuck in here all by yourself while we go take down bad guys, bro.”

“I’m not moving until somebody finds that bitch.”

“Well, you’re not gonna know if we find her if you stay here all day.”

Jett grunted in agreement and got up. Emery left the room and gave his friend time to get ready. Everyone else was ready and waiting. He gave the group a wink and they all collectively sighed. Once he was ready Jett emerged from his room to see everyone waiting expectantly. Avia was a bit annoyed having wanting to make a good impression with whoever they were working with. Jett apologized and held the door open for everyone as they filled out of the room.

Once outside the team made their way to the police station.

XXXXX

They were assigned to tag along with Detective Legacy Root. He was a good cop, with over thirty years on the force, who was nearing his retirement. Root was a grizzled centaur virus with a splattering pattern of gray, black, and white all over his horse torso and legs. The human half of his body was tan and muscled even in his old age. He had gray hair that matched his beard and a few freckles across his nose. His tail was stark white. His eyes were a deep brown, almost black, color and they set a stern and steely gaze on the group as they entered the station.

“Look what the Academy sent us, Sarge, a buncha wannabe heroes,” the voice of rookie cop Tyke Bunsen loudly proclaimed to his friend as well as everyone else in the room.

“Think y’all took a wrong turn this ain’t the playground, kiddos,” Sarge Rajah added; laughing.

Legacy turned his stern gaze on the young cops and they quickly shut their mouths. He greeted the group as they approached his desk. He took in each person who stood in front of him for a minute or so. There were eight of them in all and the detective was surprised that the Academy let this big of a group even exist. Even though he had been given a briefing on the group prior to their arrival he let each one of them introduce themselves.

“Go grab some chairs for yourselves,” he said once introductions were over with, “unless you all prefer to stand.”

The group left except for the black rabbit virus.

All Legacy knew about the kid was what the Academy knew. Which was actually next to nothing. The rabbit, Walker was their name according to the Academy’s records, looked around the station as Legacy went about collecting the copies he had made of the case files. The detective watched the rabbit out of the corner of his eye as they surveyed the room. Soon the group was all together again the detective handed out a copy of the case files to each of them.

After they had discussed the known facts of the case he let the kids ask a few questions. The tall, lanky, ginger kid didn’t ask any questions so much as he just talked out loud. The rest of the group ignored him and so Legacy did the same.

“This is crazy. We’re actually working a case, you guys! Heart attacks ain’t much of a real case if ye ask me but I can’t believe we’re actually doing this! This is the best day ever. Actually, no, that’s not true. If we saw any 99ers out there doing stuff then it’d be the best day ever.”

“Babe,” Avia whispered. “I love you but do shut up.”

Walker picked up one of the files and stared at one it with a murderous look. After a minute or two Walker set the file back down on the desk without a word; leaned against the side of Legacy’s desk and crossed their arms over their chest. Two of the girls, the dark skinned one with round glasses and the one with the Devil’s Eyes, asked if he had any suspects yet. He chuckled lightly before going into detail about the few suspects he did have in mind.

A small time crook with who went by the name Hilarity was a possible lead. Hilarity was one of the local criminals with a power of the Empath variety. Usually the guy would make his victims laugh until they cried using the scene to commit robberies and make his escape but it wasn’t a stretch that he had changed his MO. There was a succubus virus that had become quite known to the police recently who could’ve been involved. Another possible lead was this suspicious vagrant woman who had been seen in the area recently. No one knew anything about here but this wasn’t the time to be leaving out any suspects.

And, of course, there was also Fiyero Nonagon.

“Fiyero Nonagon isn’t your normal Empath, kids.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emery asked trying his best to tone down his usual snark.

“He’s pretty damn dangerous, that’s what it means.”

Walker turned a suspicious eye on the detective; looking him up and down but said nothing. The detective returned the look and Walker nodded; clearly impressed.

“What makes you think an Empath did it?” Jett asked; hand raised.

“No need to raise your hand, kid,” Legacy said with a chuckle. “This isn’t math class.”

An awkward silence fell as his joke went right over the group’s heads. Legacy gave them all a slight nod. These kids didn’t want to mess around and that was commendable. If any of them wanted a career in law enforcement in the future he wouldn’t be surprised.

“Like I said before every victim’s death was ruled by our ME to be cardiac arrest which is a big coincidence. The only thing that connects these cases is that fact that each victim’s body was found in a place they had no reason to be—”

“What about the fifth victim, the human?” Scribe asked.

“What about ‘em?”

“They were found in the only place they would’ve been. Seneca Orion had no other place to be besides the church. The only place.”

“Could be a fluke,” Legacy said, “or maybe our perp is just getting more confident. That happens all the time. Far too often, actually.”

“So you’re saying we could have a serial killer?” Avia asked knowingly.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

With that he stood up from his seat and told the kids to follow him. Sitting around talking about the case wasn’t going to get them anywhere. And if the group really wanted to help, or at least finish their assignment, then they had to get going. The more time spent doing nothing the more time the killer could use to strike. For all they knew the killer already could have. The group had to work fast if they wanted to catch this killer.

Legacy lead them out to the front and told them all to stay put.

In a few minutes he came back in a large police van. The group stared at him all with different expressions. Walker’s face clearly showed that they didn’t think the van was necessary. Avia was shocked to say the least. Jett’s expression didn’t really convey anything that Legacy noticed. Both Kelly and Isabelle stared with wide-eyed excitement.

“Kelly was right you guys. This is the best day ever!” Isabelle said excitedly as they all piled into the police van.

XXXXX

The sermon room of the church was large, empty, and cold. Even the large stained glass windows seemed darker than usual. Only a few candles were lit on the altar at the back of the room. The confessional booth that sat on the left side of the altar was open and empty. A few small pamphlets and religious texts scattered the pews. But the entire building seemed dead to the world. It was if the building itself knew of Seneca Orion’s death and was in mourning. If rumors were to be believed Seneca not only grew up in the church but he never left its walls.

“Right in the Academy’s backyard. No wonder they sent you all to work this case.” Legacy said; taking in the scene.

He sent the group to look around the rest of the building while he surveyed the sermon room. Walker went off by themselves to look outside while Kelly and Avia searched together. Neither choices were much surprise to anyone else. Isabelle, Holland, and Scribe all went to search the Jett and Emery decided to stay behind with the detective and search the scene of the murder for clues.

In the sermon room there wasn’t much to see or to search besides the body of the deceased. So the boys went to inspect it first.

“Don’t touch it, bro.”

“Dude, bro, why would I touch it?” Emery asked feigning innocence.

“Because you always do shit people say not to do and the detective told us not to touch. If you touch it I will burn your hands off.”

“You’re joking.”

“Dude, do I look like I’m joking?”

Emery knew by the sound of his voice that Jett wasn’t joking from the very beginning but he just wanted to test it. He held his hands up in front of him and turned them around to show that he wasn’t holding anything suspicious. Then he made a big show of putting them in the front pockets of his jeans. Jett nodded approvingly and then both of the boys laughed at how stupid that was. They turned their attention on the body of the deceased.

The body of Seneca Orion was still and unmoving. He lay in an odd pose; on his stomach, face to the ceiling, arms and legs akimbo. His jet black hair fell down over the front of his face in waves. The longer sections stopped just short of his eyebrow. The shaved sides of his hair had an intricate design cut into the short hair. He wore a long blue scarf that was wrapped around his neck a couple times. The rest of his clothing was typical of those who ran in religious circles.

“Isn’t it weird that his body’s still here?” Emery asked.

“This guy was killed last night… or was it this morning? I don’t remember, man. But yeah it is weird that his body is still here.”

“Guess they wanted the detective to check it out first,” Emery said with a nudge in the detective’s direction.

As the group went about searching the church for evidence the detective’s phone rang.

“Root, it’s me.”

“What is it, Rajah? I’m on a case.”

“That’s just it, we got another one.”

“Dammit,” he said with a sigh. “Where?”

“Harbor on Fanend. Not too far from the church you’re at now, actually.”

The officer gave Root the address of the where the victim was found and wished him luck. Root thanked him for the information. He told Jett to gather the test of the team and when they were all back in the sermon room he relayed it to the group. Then they all group into the van once again and drove off.

XXXXX

The body was recently deceased. By the looks of it the victim had been murdered not too long ago. The soul was still leaking from the victim’s right eye; a dull pulsing sea green. The victim looked to have died in the same way as the other five. The victim was another male. But unlike the others he looked to still be a sprite. His dark hair was cut angled across his forehead. He wore blue and gray tennis shoes, tan cargo pants, and a dark gray hoodie. The way his body laid on the sidewalk it looked like he had died while running from the building.

This one’s just a kid, dammit! he thought angrily.

Legacy knelt down and looked at the body of the boy more closely.

The boy’s brown eyes were filled with terror and his face was now a permanent fearful expression. He had a small crack on the bridge of his nose as if he had been in a fight some weeks prior and the injury was almost fully healed. While he inspected the boy’s body the students behind him argued.

“Whoever did this has to be in the area still,” Avia said.

“Yeah,” Walker said, “they couldn’t have gotten far.”

“Well, actually, they could have,” Kelly said. “If they were in a car, or on a bike, or a motorcycle they could’ve gotten far. They could’ve gotten pretty far actually. And if they’re a mervirus then, well, we are by the boardwalk. Or if they can fly or if they have super speed or even speed burst powers—”

“Fucking hell dude shut up! That isn’t helping.” Emery said; cutting him before he could continue any further.

“Control your boyfriend’s mouth.”

“You think I have any control over anything he says? Or when he says it?”

“What should we do, Jett?” Isabelle asked; bringing the group back to the task at hand.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because you’re team leader, dumbass,” Emery said.

“Oh yeah… okay um… I think we should look for clues around here. Maybe there’s something that’ll tell us where the murderer went.”

But before anyone moved to do anything Scribe tugged on Jett’s left arm.

“He went north. Could be going back towards the Academy or somewhere else.”

“Oh,” Jett said completely at a loss for what to do.

“We’re going north. On foot,” the detective said; standing up. And before anyone could protest he galloped away from them. The rest had no choice but to follow.

XXXXX

The group was approaching from the area from the south; going up the street. They were only about four or five blocks from where the sixth victim was found. And Nonagon was just there; waiting. He stood underneath a street lamp with an expectant look on his face.  He leaned against the lamppost with one leg bent at the knee and his foot resting up against the post. He wore a long tan, somewhat stained, leather duster jacket. Underneath the duster he wore a pair of dark washed blue jeans, black tennis shoes, and a plain white t-shirt. Legacy motioned the group to duck into a small alleyway and made them huddle up.

“I don’t like the look of this.”

“Oh yeah, really,” Emery said rolling his eyes; not even trying to hold back his snark.

Scribe tugged on Jett’s sleeve again and his ear turned to her direction. She whispered; “It’s probably an ambush. He’s just sitting there waiting for us. Ambush.”

“I agree, but, we’re kinda supposed to follow his lead right?”

“Maybe we can just talk to him,” Holland suggested.

“You really want to try talking to a guy who killed five people?” Walker asked. “Fucking pacifist.”

“I’m just saying we can maybe reason with him.”

“There’s no reasoning with psychopaths or serial killers, Holland.”

“Takes one to know one—”

All the while the kids were arguing Legacy was silent; blocking out the noise. He was unsure of what to do. It was pretty clear that this was an ambush. Maybe Nonagon wasn’t working alone like they thought. But he couldn’t see anything that pointed to signs of other people in the area. It didn’t make sense that he would just be here, a few blocks from where his latest victim was found, waiting for them. It was strange. Serial killers always do strange things but this was beyond that. He had to have backup posted somewhere or at least waiting on it to arrive.

But he didn’t want another body on his hands and so he had to act fast.

“By the looks of it he could be setting up an ambush for us. Now as far as we know he isn’t working with anyone else. I’m not sure whether he’s waiting for us or for his partner to arrive. So we’ll go with the latter and hope it works out.”

“What do you want us to do, detective?” Jett asked.

“You eight, damn they are eight of you isn’t there…”

“Yes, there is,” Scribe said matter of fact.

“Yeah. Yeah. So you eight are gonna all come at him from different sides, okay. How and when you do that is up to you, alright. I’m going to talk to him and maybe distract him so he doesn’t notice any of you.”

The detective walked over to the killer without giving the group much thought.

XXXXX

Jett divided the team into pairs and went about drawing a plan in the dirt of the alley. But then he realized that there probably wasn’t enough time for that and the plan was simple enough. They just had to circle the guy and then flank him when Jett gave the signal. He told everybody to make sure they didn’t all go in the same direction. He and Emery backed out of the alley and climbed to the top of the building on their left. They made their way down the opposite side of that building and rushed across the street. They had Nonagon’s lower right covered. While that was going on Kelly and Avia went in the opposite direction; ultimately taking the upper right. Isabelle and Scribe dived out of the alley and rushed up the street. They hid behind a couple trashcans and waited.

“Leaves us to stay here, then, huh?” Holland said turning to Walker.

“Guess so.”

Holland turned back to wait for the signal. The detective was alright from what they could see. The centaur virus was standing across from the guy, supposedly Fiyero Nonagon but Holland had no clue, with his arms folded across his chest. It seemed that whatever conversation they were having was going well. The detective wasn’t making a move to arrest the guy but the guy wasn’t making any moves on the detective. Then Holland saw a flash of reddish orange fly into the night sky before it dissipated into nothingness.

“That’s the signal, alright,” Walker said.

The group all rushed out of their hiding spots at the same time; affectively covering the killer from all sides. But instead of being frightened or the least bit surprised Fiyero Nonagon laughed.

“You’re resorting to this, Root? You’re sending Academy kids after me? That’s low. Even for you.”

“What’s he talking about, detective?” Jett asked; worried.

“Run along, little Fire Boy. Shoo. Go,” Nonagon said with a smirk on his face and a motion of his hands.

Jett instantly froze up.

But before anyone could react Fiyero turned his gaze on Holland. Holland screamed instantly and their entire body shook in fear. Their legs were quivering and felt like jelly; cold and weak. Their hands trembled at their sides. Their loud, terrified, screams never stopped. The shadows that crept in the corners of the nearby alleyways quaked in response.

The shadows moved with a rapid pace along the walls and the street; making their way towards Holland and the rest of the group. Long, outstretched, tendril-like shadows wrapped around buildings, pooled off edges of the sidewalk, and climbed up lampposts. A mass of shadows began forming on the ground next to Holland. The mass grew, pooling at the virus’ feet, and started to take shape. Soon the black mass wasn’t a mass anymore and instead was a pile of angry opossums. A few of the shadows wrapped around their legs and arms but the shadows slowly made their way up; creating a hooded cloak on Holland’s form. They were now concealed in total darkness. Their terrified screams echoed through the night air as they commanded the shadows to attack.

The black, void-like, opossums lashed out at whoever was near.

Avia screamed as the opossums jumped on her; slashing and biting at her. They scrambled up and down her body as she lashed out at them. But they were too fast for her and they evaded her attacks almost effortlessly. She struggled to pull her rapier out of its sheath at her side.

“Call them off Holland! It’s me, dammit!” she yelled in their direction.

“They can’t hear ye babe,” Kelly said rushing to his girlfriend’s side.

Suddenly he shadows were on him as well and many more were coming. Kelly gripped the handle of his axe with both hands and swung it at his feet. The blade of the axe cut the shadows and they dissipated into the night air. But more were coming, a few even starting to attack, and he still didn’t have proper footing on the ground.

“Get these things off me! Get them off now!” Avia yelled; her voice muffled through a sea of shadows.

“Give me a fuckin’ second will ya?” Kelly yelled back.

He swiped at the shadows but they were growing and growing.

The shadows engulfed his legs once more and he fell back on the ground. The shock made him lose grip on his axe and it fell from his hands. His axe was soon covered in shadows and unable to be seen. He lashed out against the shadows but it did nothing. More shadows crawled on his body; covering him from all sides.

Meanwhile Avia reached through the darkness; searching for her rapier. Punching and kicking at the shadow opossums didn’t seem to do much. And that didn’t do anything to the other shadows either. The shadows were suffocating her and she didn’t have many options left. She gritted her teeth angrily hating that she couldn’t get her weapon out. She tried everything she could and that was her only option. There was always the option of waiting for the others to possibly survive this fight with both Fiyero and Holland.

But if she did that she could be dead by that time.

Suddenly she felt a poke in the small of her back. She struggled against the shadows to turn and see what it was; hoping it wasn’t something that was actively trying to kill her.

There her rapier was seemingly floating in the darkness that surrounded her. But in reality one of the shadow opossums was holding it out. There was some part of Holland, deep inside the fear he felt, that knew what he was doing. Some small part of him knew that Avia wasn’t an enemy. Trying not to dwell on how insane and completely impossible this whole situation was she grabbed her rapier. In the same movement she swiped at the shadows around her.

“I made it out. I actually made it out,” she said between harsh breaths. Realizing what she said she shook her head and gripped her rapier tight.

“Of course I made it out.”

That much was true but the shadows were still everywhere; still on the attack.

XXXXX

Meanwhile the rest of the group, along with the detective, focused on Fiyero who was trying to get away during the commotion. While the commotion wasn’t enough to distract the entire group it was enough for Fiyero to dive across the street and into another alleyway. Legacy cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled to get the killer’s attention.

“We have you surrounded. This is over. You can--”

“It’s just you and those kids, Root. You can’t stop me.”

Emery stepped up, planted his feet firmly on the ground, and turned to the others.

“Stand your ground and cover your ears.”

With that he let out a scream that knocked over a couple trash cans and sent Fiyero to the ground.

“Dude!” Jett said giving Emery a slap on the back.

But the one attack wasn’t enough and Fiyero stood up once more; “Nice try, Songbird.”

“Songbird? What in the fuck?” Emery echoed with confused disgust.

“Oh crap,” Isabelle said readying her flail.

Fiyero rushed to where the others were in an obvious attempt to push the group back towards Holland and their shadows.

Isabelle swung her flail wide and it smashed into the side of Fiyero’s right leg. She pulled on the chain and the spiked ball of the flail fell away from the handle. With the spikes still embedded in the villain’s leg she punched him in the face. While that distracted him she yanked the chain and yanked the spiked ball from his leg. She pressed a boot down on the wound in his leg and leaned down; pressing the barrel of the gun against his temple. The black cord necklace hung off her neck the Nevermore talon dangling just a few inches from the man’s face.

“We got you now, mister. If you’d just--”

He gritted his teeth and yanked on her necklace; choking her and simultaneously pulling her face closer to his. Then he slammed his head against hers. She stumbled off him in a pained daze. He swung at her leg with his own and she fell to the ground.

In the middle of the group stood Scribe; frightened of all the noises around her. She sat on the ground, brought her knees to her chest, and held herself tight. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. As the noises around her became louder she thought about wanting to disappear. She closed her eyes tighter. Her shoes, and her feet inside, began to blend in with the dark gray of the road underneath her.

“Scri, do you have any—” Jett said turning to realize that she had seemingly vanished.

“Shit.”

“Don’t worry bro,” Emery said. “She’s probably gonna go do something awesome.”

Just as he finished his sentence he was tackled to the ground by Isabelle; completely caught off guard.

“What the hell? Stop it!”

Isabelle started hitting him and he put his arms up to block her blows. Kicking around he tried to use the momentum of his own body to throw her off of him. It didn’t work. Surprisingly she was stronger than her small frame made it seem and she held on. Elbowing her in the face he hoped the pain would distract her and he could wiggle free. But that was of no use either. He took a deep breath and waited for an opening.

He really didn’t want to do this.

But he had no other choice.

He let out a scream right in Isabelle’s face and it instantly flung her off him. Emery shook his head and pulled himself to his feet. Isabelle ran at him again but this time he was ready and he pushed her back a few feet with another scream. Soon she was engulfed in the shadows along with three other of his teammates.

“We’re fucked.”

Legacy and Jett tried to stay focused on taking Fiyero down. But the shadows at their backs were too much of a distraction. A large, swaying, shadow wrapped its form around Jett’s leg; tight. He tried to kick it off but it was of no use. A trickle of fear began to creep up his spine. Looking up his eyes met Fiyero’s and the trickle ballooned into a full on panic. His pupils went wide and his breath quickened.

Terrified, and unsure of what to do, Jett turned on the detective.

“What the hell’s gotten into you, kid?”

Jett didn’t respond. Instead he sent a harsh right hook to the detective’s face. Then he sent a knee to the detective’s chest. Legacy could see the struggle in the boy’s eyes as tears ran down his face. But he didn’t stop attacking the detective. His fear was too strong and overpowered any and all other rational thought. This was worse than the detective could have ever imagined. The rumors about Fiyero Nonagon were true. The virus wasn’t just some unstable junkie with powers.

They were dealing with a Nightmare Aura.

The detective shoved the teenage litten virus off him and he pulled his gun from the holster at his side. He turned the gun on Nonagon and pulled the trigger. But before he could actually get a shot off a small fireball hit his hands. In the pain and the surprise Legacy almost immediately dropped the gun. Jett’s right hand clenched in a fist and then opened again; a small fire emitting from his palm. He did the same with his left hand.

Jett launched fireball after fireball at the detective; forcing him back to the others.

Every last one of Jett’s team members were somewhere in that mass of shadows. And in this state he didn’t care if he was headed that way as well. He didn’t know, think about, or even care if his team was still fighting one another. The only thing that ran through his mind was sheer terror.

He forced the detective into the blackness and walked in after him.

Almost at the same time his fear suddenly melted away. So did Isabelle’s and her knees buckled underneath her. Emery caught her before she hit the ground. Holland gave one last terrified scream before they passed out on the ground. As Holland’s fear subsided the shadows began to crawl back towards the alley. The shadowy opossum figures dissipated into benevolent pools before gliding back to where they originated from. The long, flowing, hooded cloak that had engulfed Holland in complete darkness began to fall from his prone body.

Kelly was holding Avia; both of which were covered in minor cracks and scratches. Scribe came out from behind a mailbox; eyes wide and terrified. Her normal coloring slowly came back as she stopped using her camouflage. Walker found their way back to the group also covered in cracks and bruises. The detective slowly got to his feet and pulled small flecks of concrete out of his hair.

Jett was standing in the middle of the street; flames licking off his body. He stared out with wide eyes at nothing. His chest moved up and down in rapid time with his breathing. Panic crept up his spine once more. He wanted to run but there was nowhere to go.

Suddenly he was back home again.

He was outside and it was night. His parents were inside and they were crying; scared. His dad who always had a joke to crack or some other way to make light of a dark situation was shaking. His mom would always try her best to be a light in a dark room, to be there for those suffering, was now sitting the destroyed seating area of the bakery she tried so hard to bring to life. The majority of their small corner store bakery was trashed. Broken glass and cracked ceramic lay strewn about everywhere. He could feel the broken glass underneath his feet. He could feel a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the presence of two other people. One of those people stood next to him. She knelt down and whispered in his ear. Words he would never forget.

Burn it all down, Fire Boy.

He took a breath. Then another. A tear fell down his cheek. He couldn’t stop any of the others that followed. He stood there; stuck in terrifying moment he could never forget. Then he felt the very faint sensation of a hand on his back.

“Breathe,” a voice called. “You’re not over there right now, dude. Just breathe.”

Emery stood there with a comforting hand on his friend’s back guiding him out of the episode. Once his breathing was back to normal Emery pulled him away from the scene. Standing in the place where he almost set the detective on fire wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t helpful. This whole thing was horrible. Emery talked to Jett the whole time he walked away from the middle of the road. Once they were safely with the others he sat Jett down on the sidewalk.

“Wh—where am I?” Jett said; blinking.

“It’s okay, dude. You just had an episode. But it’s okay. I’m here.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said forgetting about the others in the moment. “The others are here too, Je. The detective’s here too. We’re helping him with a case. You’re at the docks.”

“The detective. The docks,” Jett repeated; nodding.

“Where is that asshole by the way, Detective?” Emery asked turning to Legacy.

Everyone looked around for Fiyero Nonagon. But he was nowhere to be seen.

[junker-town]

How the Nuggets built the NBA’s tightest defense

Can Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets take the next step as a contender?

Inside the Nuggets’ championship bet on defense and continuity.

In an attempt to put his finger on how the Denver Nuggets grew to own the NBA’s second-best defense, Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson didn’t see any statistical marks that leapt off the page. They rebound pretty well, don’t turn the ball over, and allow a ton of threes (albeit contested ones), but besides that nothing stood out.

Instead, chatting with his staff, they settled on something so simple yet inexpressibly important to explain Denver’s success on that end: continuity. “That’s the conclusion we came to,” Atkinson said. “Both their starters and their second unit, those guys have been playing together for a long time.”

Denver’s decision to run back the same roster (plus a spring-loaded Jerami Grant) is not breaking news. But coming out of a summer where nearly half the league’s players changed teams, their ingrained connection separates them from almost every other contender.

Last year, Denver returned 98 percent of its previous season’s minutes, second only to the Miami Heat. This year, they brought back a league-high 89 percent of a team that was one or two plays from competing in the Western Conference Finals. And within that same roster, the Nuggets play the same lineups. They spend more time with all five starters on the floor than any other team (41.5 percent of all their possessions), and more time with zero starters on the floor than any other team (19.7 percent of all their possessions). Depth makes that possible, but one hopeful byproduct is a togetherness that can delete hesitancy from the hothouse of playoff basketball.

So far, the results have been mixed. Thanks to a recent road trip through the Atlantic Division, the Nuggets have lost five of their last seven games. They’re slow and can’t score or get to the line, with a franchise superstar who’s off to arguably the most disappointing start in the league. On some nights Nikola Jokic looks like the profoundly creative All-NBA center he is. In others, he appears disengaged and out of shape.

But, at 15-8, that resilient defense has kept them afloat amid one of the toughest schedules in the league. Warts and all, their progress on that end is significant. Last year Denver finished No. 10 in defensive efficiency, and the season before that they were No. 23. This year’s group is almost identical to those previous two, with similar faces, terminology, and principles. What’s different, naturally, is their collective experience.

“It’s a huge advantage because I think you have a sense of where your teammates are going to be, always covering each other’s mistakes,” Nuggets President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly told SB Nation. “None of us are perfect, none of our players are perfect...You don’t stop anyone in the NBA, you just make it hard. But I think the energy and overall commitment to the gameplan have been excellent.”

Chemistry is a complicated, frustrating, and valuable concept. Common sense affords that the best (only?) way to establish it is through repetition. The longer players are around one another, the more recognizable everybody’s habits will be. Bonds will take shape and important dynamics found in any successful partnership will crystallize.

In an age of analytics, chemistry belongs in the cosmos. It’s hard to measure but easy to see. For teams attempting to leap from very good to great, it’s priceless. Teammates must know one another’s tendencies, how to read each other on and off the court. Denver’s base defense — which relies on back-line rotations, aggressive ball pressure, and constant communication — would crumble without it.

Against pick-and-rolls, the Nuggets typically bring the screener’s man up to the point of attack. As this happens, the low man behind him will sink into the paint to cover the open roller until his initial defender can get back. They keep their hands high, force difficult passes, and help the helper.

It’s a bet on timing and cohesion. When it doesn’t work the Nuggets forfeit shots at the rim and behind the three-point line. (Their location-effective field goal percentage is bad for this reason.) But more often than not every player on the floor shares the same brain, five synchronized swimmers scurrying around as one body. It’s beautiful to watch, and a nightmare to score on.

The clip below begins with Jokic doubling Bradley Beal at the top as Grant shuffles over to pick up Thomas Bryant. With no other options, Beal kicks it to Davis Bertans, which lets every Nugget settle back to their original assignment. The possession resets with the shot-clock winding down, and the Wizards eventually chuck up the exact contested floater Denver hoped they would once Jokic takes away Beal for the second time.

When they don’t have time to scram switch off the ball, help in the paint often comes in the form of an undersized guard or wing, but the Nuggets still don’t make anything easy. Everybody has quick hands and they either swipe down at the ball or wall up and try not to foul. It’s a vulnerable spot to be in, but the Nuggets have knowledgeable players who time everything right — from Gary Harris, Jamal Murray, and Barton, to Monte Morris and Malik Beasley.

“We’re not perfect,” Malone said. “But I think our guys, after five years, finally have a pretty good understanding of what we’re trying to do.”

All this chaos looks great when it works, but it’s not easy. Even the tightest units get burned by smart teams that anticipate what’s coming, and, in a three-point-happy league, there’s a reason why most teams don’t use multiple defenders to stop a pick-and-roll: It’s easier to drop the big, keep help defenders home on the perimeter, and force pull-up jumpers. But the Nuggets want to have their cake and eat it too.

For the second year in a row, Denver is allowing a bunch of threes, particularly from the corner. That’s not ideal. But also for the second year in a row, nobody is holding opponents to a lower shooting percentage from beyond the arc. Right now shooters are only making 35.2 percent of the wide-open ones, which is the second-lowest mark in the league.

Some of this is good fortune, and some of it’s because the Nuggets make an effort to race out and contest, run good shooters off the line, and let the bad ones fire away. They’re rabid, and aware that success in every possession is contingent upon multiple efforts, gameplan discipline, and wise use of their speedy athleticism.

This corner three by Sacramento Kings rookie guard Justin James is a decent example of what happens when they dictate the offense’s action instead of it being the other way around. The Nuggets neutralize Sacramento’s initial pick-and-roll, then settle into a coverage that allows them to dictate terms. It’s by design and speaks to their attention to detail:

To some degree, opposing three-point percentage is a noisy statistic that’s dictated by myriad variables outside Denver’s control — the most prominent being luck, which won’t always be on their side. And in the play below, Jokic compounds the high-risk nature of Malone’s scheme by putting himself in no man’s land. He isn’t high enough to bother Spencer Dinwiddie and isn’t low enough to let Harris know not to help in the paint. The result:

Beyond the pick-and-roll, their half-court defense is smart enough to take away primary and secondary options. Watch for the subtle feints on this possession against the Philadelphia 76ers, from Barton initially stepping off Matisse Thybulle to thwart Ben Simmons’ drive, to the three (count ‘em, three) major efforts Paul Millsap makes before he steals the ball.

Later on, the Sixers ran a similar action trying to get Simmons going downhill, but Jokic reads it from the jump, comes off Joel Embiid, and forces a turnover.

“Just knowing each other, knowing the spots where you’re supposed to be,” Jokic said when asked about continuity’s effect on Denver’s defense. “You sacrifice yourself for the team, and that’s the main thing.”

There are long stretches where the Nuggets will make perfect rotations and reads. Everybody knows Malone’s system like the back of their hand, and are prepared in switch situations that demand assistance, stunts, and a grasp of the entire opposing roster, not just their own man. “If you gotta help or switch,” Nuggets guard Monte Morris said. “You’ve kinda got a head start on it. I think that’s something we take pride in.”

If this defense has an identity, help is its name. Straight line drives don’t exist when they lock in. All ball-handlers see are bodies after bodies after bodies in front of them. There are occasional miscommunications and run-of-the-mill blunders seen from any team in any game, but for the most part trying to score against the Nuggets is a miserable, 1-on-5 confrontation. There are no spectators in Denver’s rotation. Everyone participates.

“It’s good because you know your teammate has your back,” Harris said. “You trust to send your man to a certain person, or you trust that your teammates will be in a certain spot to help you out if you do the right thing. So I think it just helps us all out, because we know that we’re helping each other out.”

(On Harris, Connelly said, “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a better perimeter defender in the league.”)

Familiarity breeds trust, and trust leads to the quick decisions that stand in as oxygen for Denver’s defense. It’s also the foundation of any cultural buy-in, wanting everyone else to succeed even more than you do. Sure, they know the nightly gameplan, each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and the fundamental philosophies behind how they want to get stops, but just as critical coming into this season was the bond from having shared a heartbreaking Game 7 loss at home in last year’s Western Conference semifinals.

That can either pollute a roster’s self-belief or make them thick as thieves. The Nuggets have gravitated towards the latter. As a minor yet telling example, they all watch NBA League Pass, and, outside of a film session, will chat among themselves about what they’re seeing around the league, then share notes about upcoming opponents. Every smidge of information helps when the margins are so slim.

“It’s helpful to see some of the intel they gather on their own pay off during the game,” Connelly said.

But continuity is no magic bullet, even when tied to a savvy scheme that’s well executed and understood. Denver has a glut of above-average-to-excellent defenders, too. And outside Jokic — whose perceived defensive shortcomings will be melded into his narrative as a franchise centerpiece until he either retires or wins a championship — the Nuggets don’t have any one rotation player who opposing offenses can sink their teeth into.

Murray is probably closest, given his minutes, size, and heavy offensive burden. But so far he’s vindicated himself as one of their feistier pieces. Players feel him, even when he’s not guarding them.

Before this season began, the Nuggets challenged Murray. Don’t be a guy that has to be hidden. Don’t be a guy that we have to try to be creative with. He’s responded, with more responsibilities to come. “Jamal knows the next step for him is to defend the elite guys,” Connelly said.

Guys like Millsap and Mason Plumlee are rock solid, and others have made noticeable strides on an individual level.

“I think it’s really neat to see a healthy Will Barton play at a defensive level he’s never played at,” Connelly said. “He’s a guy who really knows the game and has always had a high defensive ceiling, but maybe he didn’t have the commitment or the focus for 48 minutes.”

Denver’s defense allows 97.9 points per 100 possessions with Barton on the floor, and is 8.5 points per 100 possessions worse off when he sits. A lot goes into both those numbers, but they’re still ridiculous for a player who had the worst defensive rating on the team a year ago. (Barton currently leads the NBA in defensive real plus-minus. Millsap is third.)

Sustaining this defense for 82 games and then taking it into the holy hellfire that will be this year’s postseason won’t be easy. A bit of their success might be attributed to most of their opponents using the early part of this season to get acquainted with their new surroundings. Those teams will eventually figure themselves out.

But if Denver’s defense stays as locked in as it has, supporting an offense that’s too talented not to finish in the top 10, a deeper playoff run should be in the cards. The Nuggets won’t turn on each other in times of adversity, and more reps should only tighten the string they’re already holding.

[sentrava]

How Chambers, CVBs + DMOs Are Getting Tourism Marketing Wrong

In the past decade, we’ve seen a huge shift in the travel media space: Magazines are folding left and right, those that survive often scale back to 10 issues a year and then, eventually, a digital-only model, and earned media seems a thing of the past. Newspaper content is hardly “news” anymore; it’s product placements for its sponsors with zero concern for FTC disclosure. Even the few magazines that put up the facade of still running “editorial” often plan their issues around advertisers, so it’s not truly “editorial” at all. For tourism boards, it can be tricky to keep up with it all, and so it’s no big surprise really that many are doing it completely, utterly wrong.

My best gal Jade, vice president and creative director of top influencer marketing agency Travel Mindset, and I text frequently about this very topic. We share the same philosophy that tourism boards could be doing so much more with their funds but often phone it in, instead blowing their budgets on these third-party content platforms that do little to nothing for their brand awareness. They’re too quick to jump on the bandwagon—”everybody’s paying for Instagram content? I should be paying for Instagram, too!”—rather than drilling down into what truly makes their city or region unique and doing the hard work of thinking about how to reach their target demographic.

“Every destination is not the same and should think about how and why people are finding them, then go after that,” Jade texted me last week. “It’s just like you wouldn’t market tennis shoes in the same way you would flip-flops.”

In other words: Tourism marketing is not a one-size-fits-all model. So stop treating it as if what works for one city is a slam-dunk for the next.

And herein lies the greater problem: DMOs (destination management organizations), CVBs (convention and visitors bureaus) and chambers of commerce are totally missing the mark when it comes to tourism marketing. Thinking that maintaining the expensive status quo of magazine ads, legacy partnerships, trade show booths, shrimp-eating press trips and a bloated bureaucracy to scrape by while trying to stay relevant in a world where travel is so much more accessible than it once was—thus, meaning you’re now competing with thousands of other, often more attractive destinations—just doesn’t cut it anymore.

But guess what? There are nearly eight billion people on the planet, and while one traveler may gravitate toward Beijing, the next may be far more interested in exploring South Bend. It doesn’t take a million dollars a year to reach your target niche either—there are so many ways you could get it right by just hopping off the carousel of the mindless marketing chatter that’s spinning out of control around you by stopping to think about what’s best for your destination. Chances are, what everyone else is doing (and what you’ve always done) isn’t a good fit for you in 2019.

You still with me? Good. Let’s lay out what I see as lingering, ubiquitous problems in tourism marketing today:

You’re trying to be on all the platforms, when in reality you don’t need to be. If you’re a 20,000-person city with a CVB spearheading your tourism efforts, do you as the CVB need to be spending all day on Pinterest? No, absolutely not. Sure, you want to provide high-quality content and Pinnable images optimized for a platform that readers and search engine referrals are going to be inspired to Pin—you’ll notice I do this at the end of every post, and as a result get a good mix of readers Pinning my content onto their aspirational idea boards as well as regular referral traffic from Pinterest itself. But Pinterest is a search engine, not a social media platform like Twitter, so you should not be wasting hours trying to Pin your own imagery, but rather optimize those images for the platform and let others do the sharing work for you.

Speaking of Twitter, just because the POTUS has made the platform a relevant resource for tropes and decision-making doesn’t mean that you should be agonizing about whether you’re using the right hashtag or shouting loud enough into the nightmare stream of information overload that is social media. Only 24 percent of Americans even have an account on Twitter, and I’m willing to bet many, if not the majority, of that 24 percent don’t use it effectively enough to matter for tourism spending at your partner’s resort. Seeing that a destination has an actively managed Twitter account is just icing on the cake for a consumer and one more way to engage in a public sphere. We find Twitter a great way for engaging with readers, brands and writers we admire, in addition to sharing blog posts from our deep well of content, but again: What works for us might not work for you.

You’re not reading your market. Find where your consumers predominantly are and focus on one or two effective platforms (and please tell me you’ve dropped Snapchat by now; no one but tweens trying to hide things from their parents has taken Snapchat seriously since at least 2015). If you’re only getting a couple of likes per Facebook post, then mist out information via a few different avenues: Mixing up content, trying something new and tracking what kind of posts get the most traction (for me, this is often shares of popular stories and not links to my own blog content); using other platforms to drive eyeballs to your Facebook page; or (gasp!) stop focusing on Facebook altogether and put your efforts where your members or potential customers are (like, for example, newsletters that actually convert).

And for the love of God, do not post to one platform (like, say, Twitter) and enable the function that then sends a version of it to all your other social media sites. This defeats the purpose of “social” media that even rookie users of the Internet recognize. To add insult to injury, search engines don’t like duplicative content, so it’s actually a detriment for indexing and rankings if you’re posting the same thing on all the sites.

You’re putting the cart before the horse. Storyboarding! ROI! Native advertising! Influencer marketing! We must. Do. It. All! Even. When. We Have. No. Idea. What. “It.” Means!

No, no you mustn’t. If you’re a destination that has little to offer tourists (operative word: yet), you’d be wiser to put your money where your mouth is—or rather, put those funds toward creating a reason travelers are going want to visit your city in the first place. Don’t have an arts district? Start one. Don’t have a coffee shop or local breakfast joint that’s going to capture drive-by traffic? Launch a small-business initiative to incite entrepreneurs to want to start something new. Put tourism dollars into under-the-hood renovations that are going to create longevity in your community’s appeal, because if you build it, they will come.

But if you don’t—build it first, that is—what on Earth are travelers going to do in your city, what is the media to write about? You can’t market something that doesn’t exist. Don’t launch an ad campaign before you have a website. Don’t hire bloggers to visit your destination before there’s anything for them to photograph and experience. Influencer marketing is extremely effective when implemented correctly, but you have to have the basic framework in place before you even consider rising to that level of marketing prowess. As a journalist and content creator, there’s nothing sadder than visiting a town with good bones only to find that, in the words of Gertrude Stein, there’s no there there—and, thus, I have no story to tell.

Create the story first for your travelers, for the potential media who will cover your town, and for your locals, your hometown brand ambassadors, who are going to be your biggest advocates. Only then, focus on getting the word out through other means.

You’re getting hung up on all the wrong things. Say it with me now: Instagram is not the be-all, end-all. I’m starting to feel like a broken record on this one. Don’t believe me? That’s fine, but I’m not the only echo chamber out here: Read this and this and this and most definitely this if you need to get caught up to speed.

Furthermore, why are destinations without many visual draws, specifically, still trying to spend all their marketing dollars on a platform driven by aesthetics and with no marketing longevity? To steal a phrase from one of my past interviews with Steven Tyler, Instagram is “a quick shot to the arm.”

“If people really want Instagram-worthy destinations when maybe they don’t have one, then they should find influencers who influence the Instagram influencer crowd or the wannabes—the people who go to a spot just to take the same photo as their favorite Instagrammer,” Jade told me. “Then you’d have people come down and spend their own money because they just want to be in the hip place immediately after that influencer they so admire.”

But really, CVBs, is this the kind of travelers you want to be attracting? Those who are just going to parachute in and out on a whistle-stop tour of Instagram must-sees and not actually spend money in your destination? Places like California have seen the damage Instagrammers can do to a natural phenomenon like the Super Bloom, and even Auschwitz has asked influencers to stop taking photos posing at the concentration camp: two very different scenarios on opposite ends of the spectrum but, really people, doing it “for the gram” and nothing else? Why, exactly, do you travel again?

Despite my hate for it, I do still love Instagram. IG Stories, in particular, connect me with readers in a more personal way and serve as a supplementary marketing tool when working with CVBs on marketing projects. Regardless, if you’re a destination, Instagram should not be your entire marketing strategy, and yet I get requests almost daily to join campaigns for CVBs or brands that only want Instagram content. (I even got one the other day from a past client inviting me on an Instagram scavenger hunt and ended by saying: “if you have a blog or website and want to post there, too, we’d love it, but it’s not required.” %#&@^@.) Where’s the disconnect, and do you CVBs really think that’s the most important platform right now for selling yourself to the Internet for the long haul?

Instagram may yield instant gratification, but what do heart-shaped likes actually mean when it comes down to it? They aren’t heads in beds, that’s for sure. They likely mean that Instagram pod buddies are trying to boost their post to beat the system at algorithm games to morph themselves into a fictional celebrity with a paycheck at the end of the rainbow. It’s a reality that Instagram has no longevity more than 24, 48 hours max, or searchability on the web, which is what you want in your online marketing efforts: to create brand awareness and a constant stream of index-able content that reminds potential visitors that you’re there. That little pop-flash of scrolling content to a potential visitor is about as useful as rain in a river.

It allegedly takes consumers being exposed to a place or product a minimum of three times before he/she considers pulling the trigger—though psychographics are now showing that six to eight touches are more accurate. Either way, let’s be honest, for travel, you could triple that number and still be off in calculations: A vacation is not a $20 purse you liked to know on your favorite fashion blogger’s Instagram account. Most travelers plan their vacation time wisely, and you’re competing with thousands of other destinations for their same tourist dollars. Be the cream that rises to the top in an industry of sugar cubes that sink to the bottom of the coffee mug. This takes thought and not blind spends on agencies or platforms that, at their root, don’t make sense.

You’re spending too much time tooting your own horn. Chambers, in particular, are guilty of this (yeah, you all know it, so let’s just acknowledge that and move on), so very quick to post about members’ ribbon cuttings and little else—it seems like phoning it in to me, and really: How uninspired is an entire feed of boring ribbon cuttings? Personally, it does nothing to make me want to join a chamber. The most successful chambers and CVBs we’ve worked with are ones who do not just promote their paying members, but who recognize that economic development and investment are always beneficial to everyone and, therefore, are happy to help advertise events and happenings beyond their new membership by plumbing the depths of the community calendar. Not to mention, what better way to attract members than proving your value before they pay for your services, right?

You’re not using your marketing budget wisely. Why are you so quick to blow your budget on every traditional ad or billboard that comes your way, but then think you can’t spend money on commissioning content or building out marketing assets that are vital to your destination’s survival? Why not mix it up and implement new digital marketing techniques like targeted Facebook ads that go directly to the kind of customer or traveler you’re trying to attract, whether location- or interest-based? Why not spend the time to create marketable assets and hire an actual photographer to document places, events and stories, then inventory those assets for easy reach when needed? Why not—oh, horror of horrors—pick up a phone or have a meeting with partners and journalists to discuss holes in the narrative of your brand? Only then can you hire a trusted storyteller who’s going to do your destination justice.

I’m so tired of CVBs giving me the line “we don’t have a budget” for X or Y or Z, when they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on agency fees. You do have a budget, you’re just choosing to ignore the writing on the wall: that you don’t truly know where to put those dollars or perhaps that you’re not prioritizing digital content. I don’t care what people say, evergreen information will always be king, especially in this era of user-generated content (UGC) when it’s more necessary than ever to control facts and an online brand image. Reallocate those funds and figure out a mindful breakdown between PR, marketing and custom content. It doesn’t have to be one or the other; it can be all of them at once—if you’re smart.

You’re not holding your PR or marketing firm accountable. Do you know what’s being communicated to others by your agency in your company’s name? Do you know that they’re sending out a press trip invite to all 2,000 journalists on their press list and confirming the first five who respond? Do you realize that, for them, you’re just another name on a list, a quota they have to fulfill, an excuse to rack up a ludicrous hourly rate, and that they aren’t actually vetting journalists and culling through online clutter to find the best possible fit for your destination? Probably not, and well, let’s just say you should—you should know everything being done in your company or city’s name.

I stopped taking press trips 10 years ago, but just putting on my journalist hat for a moment, I’ve completely written off destinations simply because I was harassed or treated like a louse by a PR firm I’d never met, and I know plenty of other travel writers who have their own comparable version of this story. Or I see the same PR people cross-posting press trip “ads” across every binder on Facebook, and I know they’re not someone I’m ever going to work with because there’s no thought going into the process of outreach. And if there’s one thing I hate it’s wasting a city’s hard-earned tax receipts. Bottom line, if you’re paying someone tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars to be the public-facing representative of your destination, you better well know what they’re saying and doing. Again, this requires work and accountability conversations. It’s hard, but someone is paying you to manage these relationships so be #basic and ask folks if they are doing what they were hired to do.

You’re not keeping your social media in-house. Along the lines of the previous point, I’ve watched many a CVB’s social media presence go downhill the second they start farming it out to a third party. Use that third-party agency for strategy, tips and best practices, but keep the content production in-house and don’t buy the up-sell that will be farmed out to a college intern. I watched my own home-state tourism board in Tennessee use a Kansas City-based agency run their social media accounts for many years make some pretty grievous errors (anyone from Tennessee knows that Leipers Fork and Brentwood are two very different places, *face palm*). Luckily, they learned the hard way and have since brought the social media job back in-house.

Also, realize that your social media manager is not an entry-level position. It is (or rather, should be) a senior-level marketing, communications or advertising professional who has a solid command of the English language, knows good imagery when he/she see it and isn’t going to make a glaring mistake (like posting from Brentwood, Calif. thinking it’s Brentwood, Tenn.). It should not under any circumstances automatically be assigned to the lowest man on the totem pole simply because it’s one of the “newer” professions and therefore not yet a priority. If the newest or youngest hire happens to be the best one for the job, then sure—put him or her on all your social accounts. Otherwise, recruit internally for that position and use someone who is already well-versed in your destination and not starting from scratch.

Social media is not a 9-to-5 job, y’all, so stop giving the keys to your Twitter account to the employee who doesn’t believe in working more than 40 hours a week. Also, social media should be fun—take a page out of MoonPie’s book—and don’t be afraid to give your destination a personality.

A few of my favorite examples of mid-sized CVBs doing great social media in-house are: Visit Franklin, Visit Huntsville and Visit Savannah. They’re all personable (GIFs are always a winner), quick to respond (who doesn’t love a two-way relationship?) and interact through the platform with those talking to—and about—them (again, why all CVBs aren’t doing this is beyond me!). On the flip side, I’ve been to destinations like Puerto Rico or Portugal where I tagged the tourism board in every post hoping they’d chat back at me, share my content or even extend recommendations for my trips and … crickets. I’m there on my own vacation time, creating imagery and garnering interest about your destination simply because I’m inspired to do so, and it wouldn’t cost you a dime to further promote said content—why wouldn’t you jump at the chance?

You’re spending the money, but not following through. A big trend with tourism boards lately is to drop large chunks of cash on consultants who come in, do an audit and create a comprehensive marketing plan, and then the city or tourism board never does a thing with it. Why are you dropping $70,000 on a marketing expert to spend his time evaluating your destination and steering you toward excellence and then not doing anything with the suggestions he proposes? That seems like a huge waste of taxpayer dollars. As does spending $98,500 on a simple logo for a city branding effort that’s only going to be hastily discarded less than 18 months later. Studies and evaluations are worthless if you don’t act on the advice of those you’ve hired to give it to you.

You’re posting crappy photos that do nothing for your destination. Travel is very much a visuals-driven industry, and who wants to go somewhere that looks like undeveloped film that your mother-in-law took with a disposable camera back in the 70s? (I guarantee you there’s a filter for that, but keep that for your personal account and steer clear of filters for your destination’s own livelihood.) Everyone working for a chamber or CVB/DMO has an iPhone (or comparable), and many even have a DSLR in their departments. Either way, the best camera is the one you have on you, so learn how to use it. Good photography is rooted in basic principles that anyone can learn with practice.

Learn how to stabilize your shooting hand and capture crisp, in-focus images; use natural light when possible; and please, please, please take 20 seconds to edit before you post. (I use Snapseed and A Color Story almost exclusively.) In this day and age, there is zero excuse for bad photos even if you have no photography background, so let’s all commit to doing better for the sake of giving our destination or client our all, mmmkay?

You’re not using content creation correctly. For every DMO who tells me “we don’t do influencer marketing,” I want to ask: “do you set up booths at trade shows? Do you buy sidebar advertisements or purchase billboards? In-flight or convention advertorials?” Because “influencer marketing” (or “native advertising”) is a supplement to all the other marketing you’re doing and, in many cases, a far more effective way of spreading the message through a reliable third-party creator—so long as you’re hiring the right people. You can work for the Timbuktu tourism board and shout all day long how great Timbuktu is, but ultimately, people are going to believe a content creator who has established trust and credibility far quicker than an employee of Timbuktu.

You’re not amplifying the content you already have. We had a state hire us for a campaign in which four of us traipsed across it on a week-long road trip, discovered so many cool gems, took thousands of pretty photos, shared every moment in real time and on our blogs later … and they never so much as acknowledged our presence on social media. Why then were they paying us to come explore every corner of their outdoorsy state if they didn’t want to amplify the content? Don’t get me wrong: They got great content out of us that was shared with our own audiences, but imagine the amplification potential had they shared it with theirs, as well—an audience who has a vested interest in that state, at that, and is already following them.

On the flip side, SVV and I had such a good time on a project in South Dakota a couple years ago with campaign results that far exceeded our own expectations. This was largely attributed to the tourism board and its agency MMGY not only fully engaging their own followers every step of our trip and making it feel like it was the community’s projects. My inbox was flooded with recommendations from locals on that trip, several invited us out for a meal or cup of coffee, and we were even recognized on many occasions around town—and then back home at Bonnaroo two months later, a South Dakotan saw us and said, “hey, you’re that couple who wrote about why everyone should go to Sioux Falls! We were so excited to see South Dakota getting some great love.” Natives, local partners and fans of a destination absolutely relish others spreading the good word about their place, so why wouldn’t you as the DMO want to involve them and make them feel as if they are equally important to the success of a content creator’s trip?

Visit OKC is another prime example of a CVB who uses our content frequently on all their platforms and gets their entire city involved in our trips; as such, we’re also recognized on many occasions by locals who have followed our OKC journey over the past two years and are genuinely thrilled we care so much about their fair city. It has a cyclical and exponential effect: We already fell in love with OKC from the first day we visited in 2017, but the more we meet and interact with the local populace, the more connected we feel to this place that already has inspired and intrigued our creative spirits. An added bonus, too, of course is that, through these interactions, we often get tips for the best spots and happenings we might not have stumbled upon on our own.

*****

At the end of the day, being authentic and verbose—or really, just being a good human—will never steer you wrong, and keeping that ethos at the front of your mind as you approach tourism marketing along with a healthy dose of accountability and respect for knowledge will create a professional and effective digital interface with the rest of the world.

Want more tips on influencer marketing and new media marketing? Start here:

Why Third-Party Creator Platforms Aren’t Helping Your Marketing

Fitting Influencers Into Your Marketing Strategy

Why You Should Not Be Focusing Your Efforts on Instagram

No, You Can’t Pick My Brain—Here’s Why

How to Leverage Influencer Marketing for Brand

11 Lessons from 11 Years Blogging

I’ll also be speaking at the Elevate Marketing Summit in May, for which you can purchase your virtual conference pass here.

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How Chambers, CVBs + DMOs Are Getting Tourism Marketing Wrong published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS