#i’ve already written my bit on why it should be dismantled

[understandably-odd]

i just want to get cozy and read my book is this to much to ask 😭😭😭

[ultimatetrashyfanfic]

Wooow, first time writing a fic for this fandom. I’m stupidly nervous. Also I only just finished SDR2 so I’m just gonna make this a Non-Despair AU in case there’s any big events in the next canon games I don’t know about yet. Plus i want everybody to be alive and well (chapter four hurt). This is also the first time in years I’ve written any fanfiction, so forgive me if I’m rusty. I do love this pairing. Can be taken romantically or platonic in this one (as this isn’t my only ship for Hajime so I tried to keep it ambiguous). - Circle

Also posted to AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/33332596

Warning: sickfic, descriptions of vomiting (I don’t go into much detail), nightmares/general anxiety.

Kazuichi was the only person Hajime knew with a worse sleep schedule than his own. For months he hadn’t realised - everybody had their own space on the island and Hajime was occupied enough with his own fatigue - but as Fuyuhiko saw how much Kazuichi grew to trust and confide in Hajime, he reported the issue.

“He’s like a fucking baby,” Fuyuhiko muttered bitterly. “If he gets tinkering on something he’ll be at it for days without sleeping. You gotta make sure he doesn’t overdo it. I can’t babysit that dumbass by myself.”

Hajime nodded, letting the insults sail over his head. Fuyuhiko may swear and yell and tell everyone over and over that Kazuichi and Hajime and Akane were the bane of his existence, but he was really the closest thing their group had to a mum friend.

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Hajime promised. It was an easy enough job. At least it gave him something to do. Whenever Hajime found himself unable to sleep now, he’d go hunting for Kazuichi. More often than not he’d be at the airport, dismantling or building things as the mood struck him, and all Hajime had to do was hook his collar and ignore the whining as he dragged his friend away to bed.

But that night was different. Hajime could sense it the second he walked into the airport. Since the other students rarely went in there, Kazuichi had taken over the space, scattering bits of parts and machines in various stages of completion. But he wasn’t hunched over with a fiddly screwdriver or hidden underneath some big contraption with only his legs visible. He was sitting against a large machine, resting his head against the cool metal, his thumb rubbing at the motor oil embedded under his bitten fingernails.

That was concerning. Kazuichi was never still. He was forever biting his fingernails or twirling his wrench idly in his hands or messing with the pockets on his jumpsuit, dragging the zips up and down over and over. It used to drive Hajime mad, but after knowing Kazuichi for so long Hajime could recognise it as a nervous response and he knew not to complain about it.

Because kazuichi was fragile. Not physically - he could easily haul heavy engine parts around and didn’t buckle when Akane jumped on his back - but it was pretty easy to upset him. When Fuyuhiko had started mocking Kazuichi over his obsession with Sonia - “you gotta bully the shitty behaviours out of people, Hajime.” - it had led to Kazuichi knocking at Hajime’s cottage in the middle of the night, tearfully asking him why Fuyuhiko hated him.

Sometimes Hajime really wished they had an Ultimate Therapist on the island.

So now, looking across the abandoned airport to Kazuichi behaving in a very not-Kazuichi way, Hajime proceeded with caution. He made sure to step purposefully, his footsteps loud on the linoleum floor; he’d once surprised Kazuichi from behind and almost received a wrench to his temple… as well as a burst eardrum from the screaming.

Kazuichi looked up, hastily fumbling with his glasses and shoving them into his pocket. He hated anyone seeing him wear them, so Hajime knew not to comment.

Usually Kazuichi’s face brightened when he saw any of his friends, but now his smile was wary, reserved. “Hey, Hajime,” he said, his voice thick with fatigue.

“When was the last time you slept?” Hajime asked bluntly. “Or ate?”

Kazuichi turned back to face the hunk of metal beside him (unidentifiable to Hajime), though he still didn’t start tinkering. “Not hungry.”

“That doesn’t answer my question at all.”

“I slept yesterday. I think… It’s Monday, right?”

Hajime sighed heavily and hooked the collar of Kazuichi’s jumpsuit with his fingers. “Come on, get up. Bedtime. You’re not even doing anything.”

“Mmn. Can’t seem to focus tonight.”

“That’s because you’re exhausted. Go to bed.”

“Okay! Jeez, man, you’re acting like my mother,” Kazuichi whined, sounding more like himself.

The pair walked out into the cool night air together, Hajime taking hold of Kazuichi’s sleeve when he stumbled. Just how long had he been awake? He was acting like a zombie.

“Fuyuhiko said you weren’t sleeping,” Hajime grumbled. “You should take better care of yourself.”

“Fuyuhiko said it? So why did he make you come get me? Are you sure he doesn’t hate me?” Souda pressed.

“Yes, I’m sure. I told you, he was only harsh because he wanted you to leave poor Sonia alone.”

“Well. I have been, haven’t I?” he muttered.

Hajime assumed that was meant to be a rhetorical question, but it came out like Kazuichi was looking for reassurance. It hadn’t occurred to him how often Souda seemed to do that, as if he was worried anything he said would elicit a bad reaction.

“I’ve even been nice to Gundham,” Kazuichi said, much more irritably. “Though that’s a damn uphill battle, Hajime, I’m telling you. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about half the time.”

Hajime snorted. Watching Souda trying to interact with Gundham was becoming a running joke between the other students now. There was always a five second pause when Gundham finished talking before Kazuichi could reply, his face contorted as he hastily tried to translate.

“You’ll get used to Gundham. I didn’t understand him much at first either.” Hajime frowned as Kazuichi wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. “Are you cold?”

“I’m freezing. Maybe I do need to sleep better. I’m not feeling so good…” He stumbled again as they went across the uneven boardwalk to the cabins, bumping Hajime’s shoulder.

Hajime caught hold of him instinctively - then paused for a second. He quickly cupped both hands over Kazuichi’s cheeks.

“H-Hajime?!” Souda reeled back so fast he almost toppled right off the platform. “What the hell are you doing?”

“You have a fever, Kazuichi,” Hajime groaned. “You’re burning up. That’s why you don’t feel good.”

“I do?” Souda cupped his own cheeks contemplatively. “Huh. That makes sense. I couldn’t focus properly all evening.”

Hajime sighed heavily. Souda could be so oblivious at times it was hard to believe he was so talented with his machines. He seemed so much more confident when he spoke about that stuff. When he’d started getting closer to Kazuichi, Hajime once asked about some little mechanical toy Souda was making - and Souda’s face had just lit up. He talked Hajime’s ear off for a good fifteen minutes about every little piece of the toy and how it worked. Hajime didn’t understand the majority of it, but he always made sure to ask Kazuichi about his various projects after that. Souda was delighted every time, his words tripping over each other with excitement and his eyes shining like beacons. For a second Hajime wondered if that was how it felt to be Sonia.

“Well, you’d better come with me for now,” Hajime said. “I know you don’t have any first aid supplies in your cabin, and we don’t need Mikan to tell us you have some standard virus. I’ve got painkillers and fever reducers.” Hajime held onto Kazuichi by the elbow, guiding him along to the correct cabin. He seemed beyond argument. He flopped onto Hajime’s bed as soon as they went inside, curling onto his side and closing his eyes.

Hajime hovered over him, feeling a pang of anxiety. He wasn’t used to caring for any sick people except Nagito, and caring for Nagito was a wholly bizarre experience all around. Hajime had never seen anybody swing so wildly between self-deprecating, passive aggressive and strangely clingy when he was forced to babysit a sick Nagito. Hajime figured Kazuichi might fall into the clingy category.

Hajime grabbed fever reducers from the bathroom cabinet and went to crouch beside his bed, shaking Kazuichi’s shoulder. Maybe it was the fever or the several days without sleep, but Kazuichi already seemed to be breathing deeper. There was a red flush across both his cheekbones, garishly bright against his pink hair. Hajime checked his forehead again; it was burning.

“Hey, dude, wake up. You’ve gotta take some medicine and go back to your own cabin,” Hajime said, shaking Kazuichi’s shoulder harder. Kazuichi whined irritably, reaching out a clumsy hand without opening his eyes. He managed to find Hajime’s face and tried to shove him away weakly.

“Kazuichi!” Hajime caught hold of his wrist, sighing. “You have motor oil on your hands. Look, I don’t care if you don’t want to take medicine, but go sleep in your own cabin. This happens to be my bed.”

Kazuichi didn’t move, breathing deeply. Hajime wasn’t sure if he was actually sleeping or just ignoring him.

“I kissed Sonia,” Hajime lied.

No response. Hm. Maybe Kazuichi really was asleep.

Well, what was Hajime meant to do now? He didn’t feel mean enough to boot his sick friend off the bed. He supposed he could go stay in Souda’s room, but he didn’t know where his key was, and he didn’t want to go rifling through Kazuichi’s pockets for it while he was sleeping - and maybe Souda needed somebody with him in case his fever got worse. Fevers could turn nasty, right? Not that Hajime would be any use, but he could go get Mikan.

Sighing resignedly, Hajime went to the unoccupied side of his bed, lying back to back with Kazuichi. Most of the bedsheets were trapped under his sick companion no matter now Hajime yanked them, but Souda was so hot Hajime was soon uncomfortably warm. The sleeping boy was taking up a lot of the bed too; he had Kazuichi’s hair in his face and elbows jabbing his ribs no matter what sleeping position Hajime tried. He sighed again. “You’re an utter pain to deal with, Kazuichi,” he mumbled into his pillow. “You need to take care of yourself before you get really sick.”

Hajime, though sure he’d never be able to even doze in this situation, must have slept at some point, because he woke with a start to find the bed shaking so violently he almost toppled off it. In his drowsy state Hajime wondered for a second if the island had any seismic activity, but the earthquake seemed confined to the bed alone. He sat up and fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and turned to his sleeping friend.

Kazuichi was shaking violently, curled into a foetal position. His face had bleached several shades whiter and his fists were clenched tight, crumpling the bedsheets. His brow was furrowed and he made intermittent whines in the back of his throat, barely audible. Whatever dream was playing in his feverish head, it clearly wasn’t a pleasant one.

“Kazuichi,” Hajime called, shaking the sleeping man’s shoulder. Hajime could feel the heat radiating through Kazuichi’s clothes. “Come on, man, wake up.”

When he received no response, he shook harder, momentarily panicked. It was a mistake. Kazuichi jolted awake with a scream, the momentum sending him tumbling right off the bed onto the floor. He banged his head hard on the skirting board.

“Shit! Fuck, Souda, are you okay?” Hajime cried, hurrying over to Kazuichi. Souda scrambled backwards in a panic, clonking his head all over again when he hit the wall. His eyes hadn’t focused yet and he was breathing far too quickly. Hajime was starting to think he really should fetch Mikan.

“Kazuichi, it’s just me. Hajime. You know, your…” He paused, cringing. Only Kazuichi ever called them by that dumb name. “Your soul friend.”

Kazuichi looked up, locking eyes with Hajime. He didn’t stop shaking, but his breathing calmed slightly. For what felt like several minutes, both boys stared helplessly at each, unsure what to do or say. Souda swallowed thickly and finally whispered in a hoarse, rasping voice, “I’m gonna puke.”

“What?” That certainly broke Hajime out of the awkward staring contest. He grabbed hold of Souda by the wrist and yanked him across the bedroom to the bathroom, shoving him firmly towards the toilet. He turned to leave - he didn’t want to witness any of that - when something snagged onto the back of his shirt.

“Are you serious?” Hajime groaned. Souda felt too nauseated to dare opening his mouth, but he tugged insistently at Hajime’s shirt.

Hajime paused. Part of him - maybe even most of him - really wanted to brush Kazuichi’s hand away and flee the room before anything gross started happening. But Souda looked so… pathetic, sitting there trying not to vomit, still shaky and tearful from the nightmare, his hair tangled across his sweaty face.

Damn it. Hajime shouldn’t have looked at him.

“Fine, fine,” he sighed, kneeling beside Souda on the bathroom floor. He hastily gathered Kazuichi’s messy hair away from his face as the sick boy leaned further over the toilet. “You owe me big time for this. Especially when I end up catching this from you.”

Grumbling aside, Hajime stayed, managing not to complain or pull too many faces when Kazuichi was vomiting. He focused on holding Souda’s hair out of the way, glad he had one job he could manage. This comforting thing was way out of his depth. Souda kept one hand reaching backwards to clasp Hajime’s shirt, as if he didn’t quite trust him not to run away.

When the retching finally tapered off, Hajime released Souda’s hair and reached up to flush the toilet, grimacing. “Better?”

Kazuichi made a noise between a whine and a sob, head resting on the toilet seat.

“Well, at least it’s over. I’m gonna go grab you some water, okay?”

He stood up, but Kazuichi hastily lifted his head, looking outraged. “You’re leaving me? I could be dying here!”

“You’re not dying, Souda. Honestly, sometimes I think you should’ve been Ultimate Drama Queen.”

“Stay with me.” Kazuichi shuffled away from the toilet and latched onto Hajime leg.

“Souda, it will take me literally thirty seconds to grab a bottle of water. Now get off.” Hajime tried to yank his leg free, but Souda had a strong grip, even when ill.

“Nope. Don’t leave.”

Hajime sighed heavily. “Then get up and come back to the bed.”

Souda slumped down onto the cool linoleum floor, making sure to keep his arms around Hajime’s ankle. “Don’t wanna move. Everything hurts.”

“Oh, for fuck sake!” Hajime tried to pull Souda up himself, but Souda let his body go limp, sprawling across the bathroom floor, and Hajime couldn’t lift him up when he was dead weight like that.

“You know that’s exactly what toddlers do when they don’t want you picking them up,” Hajime snapped. Honestly, this was almost as bad as Nagito. Why did everybody mess with him when they were sick?

“I can see why. It’s very effective,” Kazuichi muttered.

“I could just leave, you know. Just say fuck it and let you lie there on your own.”

“Don’t.” The jesting tone had disappeared from Souda’s voice. He looked close to tears again, flat on his back and staring up at Hajime pleadingly.

Hajime tried to hold onto his frustration, but he couldn’t. Not with Kazuichi looking at him like that. He sighed and sat on the floor beside Souda, putting a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“Keep your hand there,” Kazuichi mumbled. “It’s cold.”

“Fine. But if you let me leave I could get you a cold cloth for your head.”

“Noooo…”

“Okay, okay.” Hajime paused. Souda’s eyelids were drooping again. If he wanted to ask, Hajime had to do it quickly. “Hey, Kazuichi..?”

“Mn?”

“What happened? Earlier, I mean.”

“I puked.”

“No, you dope. Earlier than that. When you woke up. You seemed really terrified. Were you dreaming?” Hajime was already regretting asking. Kazuichi was sick and over-emotional. They were sitting on the bathroom floor, for God’s sake. Nothing good could come of emotional conversations on a bathroom floor.

There was another silence, so long Hajime checked to see if Kazuichi had dozed off. His eyes were wide open now, staring at the ceiling. “It was just a dream. That’s all.”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kazuichi mumbled.

Hajime sighed. “Look, it’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it. But it clearly freaked you out really bad. If there’s something you’re worried about or something that’s scaring you, I can-“ Hajime stopped as Kazuichi sat up abruptly. He kept his face turned to the wall, but Hajime heard the sniffles, saw his shoulders start shaking.

“Fuck,” Hajime muttered helplessly. “Kazuichi, I’m sorry. I’ll just be quiet. You don’t have to tell me anything. I’m messing this all up, I’m such a fucking idiot sometimes.”

“I’m a fucking idiot,” Kazuichi sobbed. “So stupid I still dream about him! Why can’t he just go away!” He went on talking, but he was howling too hard for Hajime to understand. He’d seen Souda cry countless times before, but this was different somehow. This wasn’t just wailing because some girl he liked had turned him down. This was raw, painful terror.

“Hey hey, calm down! You’re gonna make yourself sick again,” Hajime said, trying hard to keep the panic out of his own voice. He took hold of Kazuichi’s wrists, pulling him gently away from the wall. He’d meant to lay Souda down in the same position as before, but Souda instantly fell against Hajime’s chest, practically knocking him over.

“Right. Um. You’re okay. You’re safe here,” Hajime mumbled, patting his sobbing friend awkwardly. He wasn’t used to embracing people. It felt strange and unnatural but not unpleasant - and Souda clearly needed a hug more than anything else right now. “Souda, breathe. It’s okay. You’re safe. The fever is probably making it worse. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked about the nightmare.”

“Home,” Kazuichi gasped.

“Huh?”

“I was dreaming about being back at home.”

Oh God. Where was that Ultimate Therapist again? Hajime didn’t know how to handle this. He couldn’t sort his own problems, let alone anyone else’s. “Oooh. Okay. Shit. Your dad..? You mentioned him once before.”

“Don’t. Don’t talk about it.”

“Okay. Sorry. So your dream was a memory? When he… hurt you?” Hajime guessed.

The sobbing, which had been gradually calming, quickly returned to near-hyperventilating.

“Sorry, sorry. Breathe, okay?” Hajime’s own heart was thumping hard. This was way more than he could handle. “Look… You’re away from there. He’s literally across an ocean. It’s just me and you here. Because you usurped my bed tonight.”

Kazuichi gave a snort that could’ve been a laugh. “It’s not… not usually this bad,” he said, his voice still jerky with sobs. “I-I can handle it on my own. The nightmares.”

“Fevers make nightmares worse. I think. I’d have to check with Mikan,” Hajime said. “But at least you were here this time.” He was surprised to find he really meant that. He couldn’t bear to think of Souda dealing with all that on his own.

They sat in silence for a long time, until Souda’s sobs died down to sniffles, his head still resting on Hajime’s chest. The front of Hajime’s shirt was now damp with tears and snot, and Souda’s feverish body was like a furnace, but he didn’t suggest they move. After a long time he found he’d wound his arms around Kazuichi’s shoulders.

“Are you still awake?” Hajime whispered eventually.

“Mn. Barely…”

“Listen, this is important. If you have dreams like that any other night, you can come over here. If you want. Just knock hard so I wake up.”

Kazuichi shifted in his arms to look at Hajime’s face. “You don’t have to do that. Don’t feel like you’re stuck with me.”

“Maybe I don’t mind being stuck with you,” Hajime retorted.

A ghost of a smile flickered across Kazuichi’s face, though he was still red and tear-stained. “Then you’re fucking crazy.”

“It’s not crazy to want to be your friend, Souda. So will you ask me for help next time you dream something like that? Please?”

Kazuichi wound his arms around Hajime’s middle and squeezed so hard it made Hajime gasp. “Okay. I’ll come get you.” He paused. “Thanks, Hajime.”

Kazuichi fell asleep soon after, still pinning Hajime to the bathroom floor with his weight. And though Hajime would moan about how sore and stiff he was the next morning, he was still glad Souda came to him for help. Just about.

[vesperlionheart]

Mamihlapinatapei - The look between two people in which each loves the other but is too afraid to make the first move. For KisaSaku. :D

KisaSaku & a belated happy birthday for @darth-salem-emperor-of-earth!

(Sort of a companion fix to This One)

‘In matters of inheritance in the land of Kirigkure, the country is old and small enough to cultivate its leftover practices from the oldest days, when Kiri citizens had to fight tooth and nail to protect what was once only a small fishing inlet. Their monarchy equivalent is selected from the previous ruler and approved by a majority vote from the three departments.’

“It shouldn’t count until an official hearing is held to conclude such matters,” Sakura grumbled to mostly herself. Mei was the least sympathetic out of all her supporters when it came to Sakura’s mood and opinions on her stupid country inheritance.

When Mei heard Sakura’s grumbles she only giggled and added another ‘grievance’ scroll to the ever increasing pyramid of incoming missives that would need to be addressed by the end of the day. “Honestly, you have no one else to blame but yourself. What did you expect would happen when you arrived on our borders with all of Tsunade’s tutelage and the copy nin’s keen sense for seeing underneath the underneath? You thought we’d let you go?”

Speaking of Kakashi made Sakura remember the old man’s poor advice: “Just go and check them out. Get in a few fights, drink a little and show them how terrible of a leader you would really be.”

That had worked out terribly.

While Sakura was legally considered a citizen of Kiri, she had grow up outside its boarders and adapted to the culture of the Fire Country where it mattered to have manners with strangers. Her strategy had been to walk in with a buzz and a beer in hand, provoke a shop keep, fight a swordsman-a legendary swordsman-and curse her way out of town. Everything had been going tremendously well, except actually it hadn’t. Kiri was wet in more ways than one and Sakura had unwittingly impressed more than just a few curious eyes with her tolerance of the local booze. Shit talking was seen as a greeting amongst Kiri locals, and fighting might as well have been synonymous with hugging.  

“They’ll kick you out soon enough and you’ll be back home before you know it.”

For not the first time, Sakura lamented Kakashi’s backhanded advice. When she berated him about it later on he only congratulated her on the revitalized economy, the updated hospitals, and all her efforts towards dismantling the caste system. Sakura’s protest that she never meant to do any of that fell on deaf ears.

The trial month was nearly over and plans had already been made to install her as their Mizukage, a position that would put her on par with her one time teacher, the Hokage in the Land of Fire. There was a lot of pomp and ceremony the elders were caught up in that pushed back the actual initiation-but the decision had been made and Sakura’s will was not enough to reject the concessions of the Trident-or the three seats of the Mizukage’s cabinet.

Mei made up the executive branch of the Trident, while the seven swordsmen made up the military branch. Yagura was the head of Economics and the mouthpiece of the Elders who weighed tradition against advancement. Sakura’s job would be to balance all three of their voices and carry the responsibility of any decision they came up with. Only a 3 to 1 vote could overrule a Mizuekage’s executive orders.

“Have you chosen your Second Shadow, yet?” Mei asked.

“I’m actually hoping that if I don’t that this whole party thing can get called off,” Sakura sassed back to Mei, already half finished with the next scroll and all but made up on her finial verdict for the request it presented.

“Have you looked at my boy?”

“Chōjūrō is a sweet kid and will make a fine swordsman one day,” Sakura answered diplomatically.

“But…?”

Sakura looked up and glared. “He’s as shy as an Angel Fish and he still somehow came up with the idea, completely on his own with no help from anyone, to wait for me in my hotel room in a silk robe and slippers and nothing else.” Sakura’s tone was heavy with sarcasm. “I don’t take kindly to attempts of coercion.”

“The kid just wanted your favor and you would hold that against him?” Mei playfully teased.

“I didn’t appreciate it, Mei. Don’t bully your boy into my bed.”

Mei rolled her eyes and picked through the finished missives Sakura had set to the side. “He needed the encouragement. He wouldn’t have done it, even though he wanted to, without some help.”  

“I’m not like you, I don’t enjoy robbing the cradle.”

Mei snorted. “Okay then, babe, tell auntie what your type is?”

Sakura paused and looked up over her next scroll. “Why?”

“Can’t you just believe I’m curious? Why do you have to sound so suspicious of every one of my questions? I’m honestly just curious.”

Sakura’s expression turned blank but Mei didn’t seem to care. “Sure, and my answer would have nothing to do with an attempt by you and the elders to set me up with a nice local boy who will convince me to stay. Suuuuure.”

“So if you’re not interested in our little prince, what abut the naughty type. Suigetsu doesn’t have anyone right now.”

“I thought you were trying to convince me to stay, not scare me off. That starfish can’t keep a relationship on lock for more than a month for a reason, and it isn’t the fault of any of his partners.”  

“So the naughty type is a turn off. What about the daddy type?”

Sakura’s face made an expression of horror. “Gross.”

“Not literally a daddy, don’t look at me like that. You might be surprised so don’t knock it till you try it. I’ll put that down as a ‘maybe’ for now.”

“Please don’t.”

There was a knock on the door and Sakura shouted out for them to enter before Mei could even turn around. A half second later Sakura realized her mistake when she saw Mei’s gloating face. The office already felt like it was Sakura’s.

Damn.

“What?” Sakura barked a bit rudely when Yagura stopped in front of her desk.

 “There’s an issue with deployment.”

“Why are you telling me this? Aren’t Kisame and Zabuza usually the ones who tell me what’s shit with their nin?” Sakura dropped her scroll and leaned back in her seat before waving for him to continue. “What is it?”

If Yagura was bothered by her rude address he didn’t let it show on his face and he never let it carry over into their conversations outside of work. “More of the Kaguya raiders are making issues for the settlements but we don’t have the resources to send out anyone to deal with it. Kisame and Zabuza are both off on missions you approved.”

“This really requires an S ranked response?” Sakura asked, knowing there were few others who could do what Kisame and Zabuza did. If Yagura was asking for either of them he deemed the threat S ranked.

“I’ve already written up the details of the response we’d need.” Yagura produced a thinner scroll and Sakura took it as it passed over her desk.

“If we didn’t have one of the swordsmen on this we’d need at least two dozen nin and we just don’t have those kind of numbers right now.”

“What’s the best we can do?” Sakura asked while rolling back in her chair to check the chart on the wall with a dozen different secret symbols that helped keep her up to date on the military numbers. It showed how many nin of different rank were deployed, how many were wounded, how many were undercover, and how many were available for deployment. It still took Sakura a minute to decipher everything on the chart but she would have it like a reflex by the end of the month.

“Eight.”

Sakura made a face. Eight was a really low number and it was her fault they were in this situation in the first place. She had gambled and played the number game with her nin. Kiri always needed a coalition of soldiers to defend it in case of invasion, and so even if there were over two dozen shinobi at home, she couldn’t touch those.

“Kisame is due back this afternoon, how time sensitive is this issue?”

“It depends on how much the lives of these colonists matter. They’re notorious for skirting on tax payments and regularly sell their produce to rival groups before our citizens.”

“But they are our citizens,” Sakura clarified. They lived outside the walls of Kiri and were largely bitter old marsh farmers and fishermen, but they were culturally more Kiri than Sakura.

“It would be a shame to loose their assets,” Yagura honestly answered. “The Kaguya clan would only grow emboldened if they took over the rest of this territory for themselves.”

Sakura was already standing, pulling off her robes. “Mei, tell Kisame to head over to the settlements as soon as he gets here, even if he’s on fumes. Just the sight of his big blue mug will send some of them running.”

“What are you doing?” Mei asked, eyes wide.

“I’m dealing with this. I still have my rank from Konoha. I should be sufficient with these four,” Sakura said while showing off the mission scroll with her name and four others filled in. “I’ll let them know personally. Yagura will-”

“I understand. I’ll stand in until you’re back.”

“You can’t leave, you’re our Mizukage,” Mei agrued. “That’s against customs. If you fall-”

“I’m not Mizukage yet and you still can’t tell me what to do,” Sakura warned before stalking out of the office with hands itching for a fight.

Hours later her Kabutowari was soaked with blood on both ends, both the hammer and the axe head had been fed enough blood and savagery to sate its appetite for carnage. Sakura was proud of their success and how cheep it cost. Not a single soul on her unit had been seriously wounded or lost and that was quite an accomplishment considering the Kaguya attacked in bands of eight to twelve.

“It’s cause we got to fight with our Mizuekage that our moral was so high,” old man Jinin cheered, looking ready for a stiff drink and maybe an audience who could listen to his tall tales and elaborations on the day’s battle.

Haku came up beside Sakura and touched her elbow to get her attention and she leaned in while he whispered the status of the nin’s health along with the injury inventory. It was a new step Sakura wanted utilized when units emerged from battle. If hospital records could be updated with a complete list of all injuries-including those treated and healed on the battlefield- it would help in future diagnostics.

Haku had helped develop the program and sell it to the other medic trained min. He had been invaluable in helping roll out new changes and on the battlefield his skill set had complemented her fighting style well, since he was more of a long range fighter while Sakura liked to deal damage up close.

“We’re good to go then,” Sakura sighed. “I’m tired. Someone treat me to hot saké once we’re back,” she playfully whined only to get a roar from the men and women on her team. 

Haku kept close to her side and walked with her until they got to the natural mist. Sakura gave the signal and the rest of her team blurred into the fog and took off like birds in a dive, unseen and deadly.

“You wanted to ask me something?” Haku queried.

Sakura was about to say yes but something else caught her eye and she pat Haku’s back in dismissal. “It can wait until after we’re back. I need to catch Kisame up but I’ll see you at the Drunken Whaler.”

Haku turned and saw Kisame emerging from he fog with the blood and grime from his last fight still stuck to his uniform. The two locked eyes and Haku nodded first before taking off.

“So, are you slipping for any particular reason or are you just getting old?” Sakura teased while approaching Kisame.

“Hey, no jokes about my age when my boss orders me to pull a double shift. Slave driver actually expected me to do some good here. Shows you what she knows.”

“Maybe she just wanted you to see what she could do, ever consider that?” Sakura teased back, shouldering her Kabutowar’s axe end on her shoulder while she carried the hammer half with an idle swing in her left hand. The weight never bothered her but she wondered how her weapon would react to a new pair of hands.

“How willing are you listen to your bad ass boss?” Sakura asked.

“You mean my hard ass boss?” Kisame teased back. “Dunno, it depends on the request. Does it involve drinking?”

“Eventually all decisions and requests involve drinking, but not yet. We can get sloshed at the Drunken Whaler with the rest of them but before we get that far…” Sakura rolled the axe head off her shoulder and held it out. “Wanna trade?”

Kisame whistled low and reached up to rub at some of the blood on his chin with the heel of his hand. The twilight was creeping in but the clouds were heavy and low so everything shaded in tones of gray and diluted yellow. Sakura saw a fragment of that sunken gold color in Kisame’s shark eyes when he looked at her weapon, but she wished he’d been looking at her.

He reached over his shoulder and rolled Samehada off his back, letting the bandages drop. The trade off was as natural as any other tradeoff would be between the swordsmen. If the seats hadn’t been filled Sakura might have replaced Haku as a swordsman, since she had a legendary blade and he didn’t. If she had been a swordsman she might have had the chance to do this earlier and with more than just Zabuza’s Kubikiribōchō, but she wasn’t a swordsman and this wasn’t a guaranteed thing.

“Thank you,” Sakura said before Kabutowari finished leaving her hand.

“Careful with him, Samehada can-oh, ya know, never mind. He’s a bitch that’s roll over for anyone with tasty chakra, I shouldn’t have worried for ya,” he chuckled while watching the handoff.

With issue, Sakura held the massive blade level and admired its scale pattern in the gray twilight. There was a delightful shiver as it sucked on her chakra and swallowed it down like a drunk with fine wine. Sakura could feel it purr not unlike how Kabutowari would in her mind once they were linked.

“Let’s see how you like this,” Sakura cooed before swinging Kisame’s blade against the wind and  stepping into the dance she had first learned for Kabutowari with minor adjustments since she was wilding Samehada in one hand. She felt it tense and almost cut at her hand but settled down as it realized what she was playing at.

Samehada cut into the fog and then shaved it down into a finer mist before wrapping it up around Sakura the way the first swordsmen would, back in the old days when chakra was still too wild to name and gods dared to walk amongst the children of men.

Through the mist and over her shoulder Sakura could see Kisame have fun on his own, dancing through the same steps with her two handed Kabutowari, showing mastery of the finer points in spite of his bulk. At first glance Kabutowari seemed too heavy and burly a weapon to expect any delicacy with, but if one wanted to unlock it’s full potential they would have to know more than just the brutal steps that wrought the most damage, they would need to know how to dance and make both the axe and hammer sing.

She watched Kisame twist through her steps like a ghost of her old master’s memory and watched, transfixed, as he let go of the axe side to swing around and snap back with perfect timing.

“Jealous?” the voice in her mind purred. Samehada helped himself to a drop more of her chakra as she paused in her steps.

“No, I know Kabutowari is my blade and he’ll return to me in time. There’s no reason to be jealous of your master for handling my blade so well.”

“Didn’t mean Kabutowari,” Samehada chuckled so deeply it made Sakura’s mind feel like a cavern with no end. A half second later she realized what Kisame’s blame meant and she giggled, almost manic at the implication.

“No,” she hissed through his stifled giggle. “No way, not you too. Leave me alone and let me have my fun.”

“Don’t see a reason you can’t have it both ways,” Samehada teased, poking at her palm but doing no real damage.

It wouldn’t hurt her if she could hear its voice and give him her chakra to sip on, but even if tried she’d be able to heal such a modest attack. There wasn’t any real danger to her from Samehada, but she felt unbalanced by his words enough to step out of the old steps and swing the monster blade down against the earth with a surge of chakra that split the earth.

She heard his excited cheer and delighted cackle as he served as the conduit to her legendary chakra release. Sounding almost drunk it asked for her to do that again but Kisame was already laughing at her and that was the only sound she could pay attention to.

“I think I’ve had enough fun for one night,” Sakura said with a tired laugh, hopping over to Kisame’s side with his sword. The exchange was easier this time but before Kisame could press Kabutowari into her hand their fingers touched enough for Sakura to feel where all his blisters had hardened into callouses. Even down the sides of his fingers she could feel the evidence of his devotion to the blade and she wondered, wickedly, what it would feel like to be handled by hands like that.

“Naughty,” Samehada purred to her before their link was severed. Sakura felt her face roar with heat and embarrassment, which she tried to play off by jumping back with Kabutowari and a nervous chuckle. Her weapon purred in confusion and almost understood but Sakura sealed him away into one of her pocket dimension before he could scream out the truth like an echo in her mind.

Damn, dirty thoughts-this was all Mei’s fault for planting the seeds in the first place.

Sakura ran her hands through the fog and then combed them through hair, grateful for the cool the almost night allowed. She knew she didn’t have a ‘pretty’ blush like some other girls. She went beat red and it was almost impossible to hide.

“We should head back, we’ve held back long enough the others might get worried. Plus, I wasn’t exactly quiet just now,” Sakura said.

“Aww boss, don’t make this old man run all the way back after I ran all the way out here only to be late,” Kisame playfully whined.

“What, you want to walk back. That’ll take forever,” Sakura said.

“Not for the whole while, but we can run off later. Can’t we just take it easy for a little while?” he asked.

Only because he asked Sakura agreed.

After a minute Kisame spoke up. “So the word going around is that you haven’t picked a second yet. Don’t you have any ideas or is no one willing to take on the load? You’re kinda a slavedriver.”

“I’m still thinking about it.”

“What are you thinking about.”

Sakura made a face, not knowing if he was teasing or being serious with his question. “It’s so different compared to Leaf, I mean this second almost feels like a marriage partner according to Mei, and it’s kinda serious enough that the thought process is similar. You pick someone and then they’re with you the whole time, nearly day and night, and that’s similar to how Shizune was for Tsunade, but…I don’t know, the cultures are different.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” Kisame chuckled. “When Kiri loses a kage it’s tits up and everything goes to shit real quick-we know because we’ve seen it more than any of the other hidden villages. More assignations mean more hard lessons learned.”

“But does it have to be one person? Tsunade had ANBU who were rotated out all the time.”

“Yeah but that’s such a shit idea here. If I wanted to kill the Hokage I’d just impersonate an ANBU and wait in rotation until I was alone with-ah, don’t give me that face, I’m just saying hypothetical things.”

“It’s not so easy to infiltrate ANBU.”

“You say that like we haven’t ever done that,” Kisame snorted and then when he saw Sakura’s face he laughed. “Nothing so bad, boss, nothing so bad! You’ll see for yourself when you get access after inauguration, but those ain’t your people no more. You are ours.”

There were a few too many things making Sakura’s gut church with complicated feelings. What Kisame said about belonging to Kiri was right and it hurt, not because she hated being accepted, but because of what it meant for her ties to everyone back home-back in Konoha. Tsunade and Kakashi were her teachers but they couldn’t call her their disciple anymore. For the sake of the future of their foreign policy, Sakura had watched as the steps were taken to cut her off from the village hidden in the leaves until there was only one place she could run to. It wasn’t a vicious thing and there was nothing personal about it. Sakura actually understood why they did what they did-changing out the codes and locking her out of accessing ANBU updates.

Kiri was supposed to be her home now…her village.

“Boss?”

“You know you can call me by my name when it’s just us,” Sakura said instead, trying to sound annoyed so he didn’t misunderstand the meaning of her words and think she wanted him to speak to her familiarly. “Boss makes me feel like an old lady.”

The other feelings that made her gut churn came from the last thing he said to her. “You are ours.” Someone once said the people in Kiri were a people who knew loss to well to share decently in the future, thus they were a possessive people who coveted many things.

“Then Haruno kun-”

“Haruno kun?” Sakura sputtered. “What are you my uncle? No-ugh, you’re-oh man I had a teacher who would call me Haruno kun in school back when we were in the academy. You’re banned from the ‘-kun,’ if you’re gonna tack something on at least make it sound cute.”

“Sakura chan?” Kisame playfully called out, pitching his voice high and squeaking out the title.

“Never mind, I take it back, just Haruno or just Sakura, but nothing else. Gosh, I thought someone said that in Kiri they didn’t have manners or shit. Just call me whatever, I don’t care,” Sakura said even though she cared.

“Then Haruno, who do you think would be a good candidate for second. You’ll pick from the swordsmen right? Where else would you go?”

“Mei wanted me to go with her boy Chōjūrō but can you see that working out?”

“That jellyfish?” Kisame hooted. “He’s as shy as an Angel Fish. You’d eat him alive for breakfast.”

“I live to entertain,” Sakura mocked with a silly bow. “But you’ve got a point about pulling from the swordsmen. What would that do to your seats? Would you replace whoever left or take in someone new?”

“Maybe Chōjūrō,” Kisame joked.

“He’s an excellent fighter, he just doesn’t have a future in politics,” Sakura defended. “I could see him growing into that role.”

Kisame watched Sakura a half minute longer before saying anything new. The sun was half sunk into the horizon and all the mist seemed to choke on dying colors as they waded through the distortion.

“You have someone in mind, don’t you?”

“I have ideas but I don’t want to have ideas since I don’t like this whole set up. If it was up to me and the elders didn’t insist on tradition, I’d just have the Seven of you on rotation as my guard.”

Kisame made a thoughtful sound. “That could work as a back up, but you know how those old tradition fogies are.”

Sakura rubbed at her neck and looked ahead. “I need a drink. Race you back?”

“Ah, but I’m all tired from-” Kisame never finished his sentence since he chose that moment to flash step forward and take off running. Sakura cursed and raced behind him but came last and ended up having to buy a round for everyone at the pub.

When Kisame woke a week later he was wide eyed and energized, which was a rare thing for him these days. He normally hated mornings but the sight of his fresh dress uniform hanging up was enough to make him remember why today was such a big deal. It wasn’t just any other day, it was Sakura’s inauguration.

The whole of Kiri was hyped as fuck for a new Mizukage like Sakura, one who revitalized their economy and recovered their crumbling hospital system. The fact that she was the wielder of Kabutowari made it feel like a long lost child coming home from the war with spoils to share with the whole country. Sakura felt like she had always been theirs, like Kiri had always been her home. Even when she had been trying to piss people off and get out of the inheritance she had fit in too well. Her brash personality and strong convictions made her-

“Perfect,” Kisame said out loud, a little too caught up in his thoughts.

He grimaced a the sound of his thoughts and moved to wash up before dressing for the day. He needed to finish waking up or else he was bound to say something else equally stupid. Today was too important to look like a fool.

In short order he was as handsome as he’d ever get with an ugly mug like his and dressed for the occasion. Samehada fit into the latch carrier on his back and outside he saw the others waiting in the courtyard to the mansion where Sakura would start her procession.

Already, people were filling the streets in hopes of catching an eyeful of their new Mizukage on her first day on the job. Some were selling flowered crowns and wreaths as the newest trend had been to emulate Sakura’s flowery good looks. Young girls were cutting their hair like her and boys were dreaming about an impossible future among the swordsmen because of her. There was a building that had been painted with a modest mural of Sakura trees and different blooming flowers in celebration. The love his people had for her was everywhere.

“You’re not late,” Suigetsu taunted.

Kisame punched the younger boy in the face, ignoring both Suigetsu and his brother in favor of seeking out Zabuza. “Hey, you hear anything yet?”

“No one here knows who’s getting the nomination, that hasn’t changed,” Zabuza answered.

“Did you sign the consent form?” Haku asked, lookin up at Zabuza first and then Kisame. The consent form was basically a way those with the qualifications could put their name in the hat that Sakura could pull from.

“On day one, brat. Why, you didn’t?”

“I…I mean I eventually put my name in for consideration. I think I’d do well at it,” Haku answered, steeling his words towards the end even if he kept glancing back at Zabuza.

Between the seven of them, the only one Kisame seriously considered a challenge was Zabuza when it came to winning Sakura’s second. The pair of them were the strongest, arguably, and had a good working relationship with others. But, between the both of them, Kisame knew he was the only one who had been on Sakura’s side since day one when she first arrived. Even if Zabuza had been won over and was loyal now, no one had been in Sakura’s corner like Kisame.

Kisame thought his chances were good.

“Get in your dame spots,” Ameyuri snapped with a dangerous edge. Since Sakura had cured Ameyuri’s disease the kunoichi was near fanatical in her devotion to Sakura. When Kisame pretended to drag his feet Ameyuri snapped her sharpened teeth at his face and he backed up with a chuckle.

The doors to the mansion opened and the elders filtered out before Yagura and Mei. Yagura and Mei paused at the top of the stairs before joining the elders in the courtyard where their respective bodyguards were stationed. That’s when Sakura emerged at the top of the stairs to the mansion and the moment Kisame thought his heart was going to stop. 

The robes had never looked so good on anyone before. Underneath the white and blue folds a soft dress of flaring gray and white, detailed with pearls and accented with a thick mother of pearl gorget around her neck, like the kind samurai would wear of a heartier material. It was ceremonial but Sakura wore it like armor.

The bells on her hat tinkled as she descended the steps and took her spot at the head of the group. Her painted lips were pressed into a hard line and her jaw was set with determination, but she still looked soft where it counted.

Kisame caught her eye at one point and it made his smile grow when the corners of her eyes crinkled for him.

“Haruno Sakura…” one of the elders began.

The ceremony lasted no longer than twenty minutes before Sakura was told to turn around and address the others. “And in line with the traditions of our ancestors, I will honor them with this choice and accept a second. Should I ever fall may their strength be measured by the gods and men,” she recited perfectly. Then she locked her lips and held up a hand before adding, “and in addition to a second I will be installing a rotating support guard for the Mizukage, with the blessing of the elders who safeguard our traditions. Every member of the Seven Swordsmen will rotate into the role of a tertiary figure of my inner circle, behind my second.”

Beside him Ameyuri gasped in delight, suddenly filled with hope that even if she wasn’t chosen she would still be able to serve her idol.

“Mizukage, your pick for second shadow?” one of the elders prompted.

Sakura nodded and the bells on her hat tinkled. “For my second shadow I have chosen Yuki Haku to serve me. Yuki Haku do you accept?”  

That…didn’t… make sense. Kisame snuggled to hear what Sakura said next as Haku approached her and knelt before accepting the mother of pearl pin with the symbol of Second Shadow. Haku said something back to her, maybe in thanks, but all Kisame could hear was the rush of blood in his ears as his gut churned in a grief he couldn’t understand.

[thetpot]

Hello and happy ffwf! What is a fic you have been wanting to write for a long time that you haven't had the chance to start? What's an idea for a scene or dialogue that you want to include in it? Feel free to jot down a little snippet or just describe your thoughts! 💕💕

ooh, this question only has one answer. i want to write another long-form zukaang fic with a side of roku/sozin, that deals with aang and zuko finding a chamber under the caldera that sozin built specifically for himself and roku. it's a heavy fic idea that would bring aang intimately in contact with sozin's most private journals during the time he was planning and leading the genocide against the airbenders. so aside from the eternally interesting question of how do zuko and aang resolve the complexities of the fire nation's legacy to find their way to one another, it would also deal with sozin's relationship with roku, how it began as friendship, morphed into love, and as roku moved against him, twisted into possession and obsession. i want to write something for roku and sozin that fits within the canon timeline and doesn't change the outcome of anything, so i envision it as an extremely passionate, life-ruining kind of love that offers an alternative explanation for why roku handled sozin the way he did. this fic idea was singlehandedly birthed by the episode 'the avatar and the firelord', and the possibilities have lived rent-free in my mind ever since. the PARALLELS, the inherent drama, i live for it.

the reason i haven't started this fic yet in earnest is because i know it's going to be a VERY long boi and i simply don't have the energy, time and patience for it. i also want to be careful about how i center the fire nation characters in this story, because writing about aang, his pain and his loss is central to this story. tbh, the zukaang elements might end up being the least important part of the whole story. it's something that'll require a fair bit of research and empathy to execute. for all that after the flame, a pause deals with the impacts of politics+history on zuko and aang's relationship, it is nothing compared in scope to what i envision for this fic.

i had about 30k words of this fic written before i realized the scope of it and ended up splitting it into after the flame, a pause. this is one of the scenes from the original draft when after the flame, a pause was just a baby fic inside this larger one. 

Zuko looked at Aang and Aang looked back at him, his mouth open as if he was just about to speak. At that moment, he would have been glad for the earth to start rumbling around them, for the volcano they were in the heart of to start erupting - anything, really, to move them from this moment to the next. But nothing came and they both turned to stare at the statue again.

"Is that who I think it is?" Aang said weakly, a question and somehow also a statement.

"Roku and Sozin," Zuko said, just to make sure he wasn't the only one seeing it.

Aang laughed strangely. "I was hoping you saw someone different."

"Yeah," Zuko said simply, because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I should talk to Roku."

"And say what?" Zuko said with a weak laugh. "This is weird."

Out of the corner of his eye, Aang threw him a nervous glance. "Which part?"

"The part where there's a sculpture of my great-grandfathers kissing. Roku is your past life," Zuko said and then shook his head hard at the words he was speaking. "This is weird."

Aang made a sound that could barely pass as a laugh. "I feel like we shouldn't be looking at this. I mean, they're naked and all."

"I think that's the least objectionable part of all of this, but you're right," Zuko said.

Aang airbended the sheet back onto the sculpture and Zuko took several steps away, rubbing at his eyes. The low shelves running through half the length of the room were piled with scrolls. There wasn't a single empty spot in sight. If they'd been looking for secrets, they'd certainly found them but this was something else. Sozin had outlawed homosexuality in his time and it was a policy Zuko had dismantled in his time, but only in name. It took a lot more than just a law to change one hundred years of Sozin's legacy. To find a sculpture like this, kept deliberately secret, surrounded by scrolls full of who knew what, Zuko couldn't begin to imagine the implications. If this depicted some truth.

Even years later, he remembered the words Sozin had written in his last will and testament. Close to death, he'd written only about Roku. And what he'd done to him to ensure the Fire Nation's expansion.

Aang was still staring at the base of the covered sculpture, a frown on his face. "It's dated 27 years before the war began. And it has Sozin's name on it."

Zuko took a moment to count. "Sozin was 55 then."

"But they're much younger than 55 here."

"Maybe it's… artistic interpretation of a memory," Zuko said, feeling ridiculous even as he said it.

A sheepish look returned to Aang's face. "I can't ask Roku about this."

"You don't have to. I'm sure there's something here that's worse than this," Zuko said, trying to keep his tone light but the words fell flat into the space between them.

There were crates neatly stacked against the walls in this corner and a long marble tabletop, also covered by a sheet. Aang edged away from it and closer to Zuko. "Maybe we should take a look at some of the scrolls instead."

Zuko nodded and surveyed the rest of the room. This place had been set aside like a tomb and yet, it felt so lived in, so meticulously designed with an eye to both form and function that it felt alive. It wasn't like the tunnels outside and above, where the earth pressed in close and sound vanished as soon as it was uttered. It was like a room plucked from the Palace and nestled deep into the earth. And yet, locked behind a series of doors only an Avatar could unlock. But which one had Sozin meant it for?

Aang moved over to the living area and Zuko stuck close by, eyeing everything around them. There was a beautifully constructed bed here, next to two comfortable chairs and a low table. On the table, there was an arrangement of writing implements and in the center, next to a stack of blank paper, a bound and sealed scroll.

Aang stared at the scroll, his face progressing through a complicated series of expressions, giving the overall effect of a horrible stomach ache. Zuko reached over to pick it up but before he could grab it, Aang had already snatched it up and ripped it open. He began to read aloud, his voice pinched and rushed.

As death draws closer, I leave this chamber standing, not by choice but out of necessity. It seemed a grand idea when Roku and I first conceived of it, in the those bright few months we shared together, a place entirely and solely our own. But I see now the error I made in nestling our memories so close to home, in a place where only Roku could remove them from under the earth without bringing the catacombs crashing down on it, and the city too, eventually.

These scrolls and trophies, I leave for you to find, whoever you are. If you are the Avatar, as I hope, then I bid you welcome. I failed in my mission to find you and if I am to speak the truth I've never spoken to Azulon, if I did not succeed, he also will not. What mettle his descendants have, I cannot say from this vantage in time. If you are the Avatar, then we have lost, although defeat is also hard to conceive of. But I've lived a long life and I have seen plenty I once thought impossible.

I could have burned all of this in my final days in this realm, but consider it a gift. You will find plenty here that is close to your heart and familiar to your spirit. 

And if you are not the Avatar, then count it my final mistake leaving such treasures undefended.

[re-diesirae]

14. Leon

He'd never liked old-fashioned houses, and this one certainly made him uncomfortable. He checked each room with his gun raised, but nothing human or non-human seemed to lurk in the corridors of the place. He did notice the signs of struggle, and despite the absence of corpses, he could tell that the inhabitants of the manor were most likely dead. As they walked, he noticed how Claire rumbled curiously through the papers that laid scattered over the place. She seemed to have caught interest in a file she had found lying on a desk. He had never taken Claire for a bookworm, but she certainly was.

He knew Claire was a smart woman and a good fighter, too; but her inclination had always been to the brain side rather than muscle, the reason why she'd chosen her current job rather than following her brother's steps. Claire went to college and graduated a little after the incidents of Raccoon. He knew that. She had mentioned once in a phone call, but their conversations rarely focused on mundane things.

It's easy to forget conventional questions if each time we bump into each other, it seems like the world is about to end.

When Claire told him that she had graduated from biology and taken a virology specialty, he couldn't help but see the irony in there. However, he did notice Claire's enthusiasm as she explained her reasons and, somehow, he thought it suited her. She was someone born to help the world, after all. Now, with the possibility of a new virus, he could understand why she was so interested in finding out what sort of research had been taking place there.

He, too, wanted to know. If there were any potential threats out there, he'd do anything to prevent it. He'd never allow a third tragedy after Raccoon and Tall Oaks if he could help it; but, for the time being, his main objective would be dismantling whatever thing was jamming his signal. He wanted to contact Hunnigan as soon as possible.

When they reached the tower, he'd immediately started to work on the antenna. He noticed that Claire paced around the room until she finally settled in front of one of the computers and began typing into it.

Smart and lethal. Guess I see why men would feel intimidated if they could pass the first filter. He thought and chuckled at the image of threatening Chris scaring off any of his sister's potential love interests. A sudden thought crossed his mind. How would Chris have reacted if he had tried to court Claire?

The thought made him grin, and in the middle of his thoughts, his mobile made a soft beeping sound, letting him know the signal was back. Now he just needed to get a hold of Hunningan.

"I think I got it."I have the signal back. I'll try to contact Hunningan."

"That's great news…!"

"What about you? Did you find anything?"

"No, and yes. I managed to hack into the security system, but the servers aren't linked, so I have no access to research data from here. I did get a nice blueprint of the facility, though. Just look at this, the main research area is right underneath us, which is not surprising at all. I also checked the security protocols, and from that, I can say they were doing in vivo assays, and I found something alarming and unexpected."

"How come?"

"They have a viral repository in here. It is curious because, with the T-virus, C-virus, and all those new strains that Umbrella had been spreading, most bioterrorists had dropped the use of traditional pathogenic weapons."

"By traditional you mean…?"

"Regular viral agents: influenza, Nipah Virus, chickenpox, ebola… Ring a bell? They have a bacteria stock, too; Anthrax, Tuberculosis, MRSA," she said, scrolling down the screen, " Basically Level 3 and 4 pathogens. Just what the hell were they doing here?"

" If you don't know, neither do I. Can you get the information from here?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I am a virologist, not a hacker. The information should have a back up in the central server, but I am not skilled enough to break through their encryption to get it. We would need a vicious hacker for that, and the only one I know is somewhere in Hughesville."

"So, in other words, if we want that data, we'll need to go down there."

"Very sharp, Kennedy."

"Well, I guess we should bring some company down there," Leon commented,pulling his mobile to his ear. "Hunnigan… I need a favor."

"Thank goodness. It's so good to hear from you, Leon."

"Yeah, something was interfering with my signal, but I took care of it. Hunnigan, can you patch me up with Chris Redfield from B.S.A.A?"

" Of course. His team was supposed to head your way to help you, but they got delayed by a sudden bioterrorist attack. Just give me a moment…"

Leon waited in the line for a moment. He saw Claire's questioning look, and he replied with a small wave of his hand. Suddenly, there was a soft ecstatic sound, and Chris's agitated grumbles resounded in his ear.

"Leon?"

"Chris, good to know that B.O.W didn't kill you."

"As if. I am glad to hear from you. Is Claire there?"

Straight to the point, as usual.

Leon turned to Claire and had to drown a laugh when he saw the woman roll her eyes and mutter something that sounded like: overprotective and old enough.

"Yeah, she's with me. She's a little beaten up, but overall she's fine, and she doesn't seem to enjoy your overprotectiveness..."

"Tell her I'm her brother, and I am in the right to do so." Chris grumbled, "Leon, we're heading your way, but the trip will take some time. We have to cross the continent to reach you.".

Cross the continent, so they were somewhere in Europe.

"Yeah, I guess that shouldn't be a problem. I think we are in a safe place until dawn," Leon said, looking around the tower. The walls had reinforced metal, and the door was lockable from the inside, so it was mostly safe.

"Dawn? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Long story short. There's a high chance of a new virus development in this place. The new B.O.W.s are tough and very violent, but the movement seems restricted to nighttime. I'll explain in more detail when you get here. Claire believes there might be important information in this facility. However, the information seems to be in the underground research center, which, in my experience, must be filled with more B.O.W.s. I don't think Claire and I can handle them on our own."

"Of course, you don't! Don't you even dare to go down there until we arrive, understood? If those things are as bad as you say, make sure to stay in a safe place."

"I know, don't worry. "

"We'll talk soon, then. I gotta go."

"All right. Do you want me to hug Claire for you?"

"Don't dare, Kennedy. Keep those charms off from my sister..."

"I'll try..."

Leon cut off the call before Chris could say something about the last statement and snorted. He had to admit it was fun to tease him. He turned to Claire, and she shrugged, but he saw the small smile on her lips.

"I already locked the door, also…" She said as she began typing on the computer again, and Leon noticed that one of the screens was now showing security cameras images of the house. " I activated the CCTV and the security system around the main house and the corridors surrounding this tower area. If our dear nocturne friend decides to pay a visit, he'll have a nice welcoming party."

And there it was again. Claire Redfield would never cease to amaze him.

"Thought you said you weren't a hacker."

"I am not, but I might have learned a trick or two when it comes to security systems. I did save your butt back then in Willpharma research center, remember?"

"Another of many other things I owe you."

"I dragged you down to this mess. I guess you can consider most of it paid," Claire sighed, " Considering that I will drag you all down into another one soon."

Claire's look traveled to the 3D blueprint that was glowing on the screen. He noticed how she bit her lower lip with a worried frown as she traced her finger around the different rooms.

"If it can prevent another outbreak, I'll gladly follow you to hell, Claire, and so would Chris or any of your friends."

"I know...it's just, what if the information isn't worthy?"

"If there's something I've come to learn with my years of services is that no information is ever worthless. It might not be useful at first, but sooner or later, it becomes relevant. Believe me, Claire, finding out what this place was for is necessary."

Claire let out a tortured sigh and returned to the computer. He could see her shoulder tensed up as she muttered something to herself.

"So...virology, huh? Sounds a little, ehm…"

"Go ahead and say it, but it isn't as boring as most people would think. I've come to understand a lot of things about B.O.W's, and... I've always been the family's nerd." she added the last part with a playful wink, "Besides, it's helped a lot with TerraSave's work."

"You're truly devoted to that organization."

"I don't think I am devoted to TerraSave. I am devoted to the people in need. TerraSave is….it's just a means to reach them."

"I doubt you studied all that just to sit behind that desk."

"I used to be more into fieldwork, and of course, I still prefer that, but I've been more indoors the past few months."

"Not only signing papers, but I am also sure. "

"Right, maybe someday I'll tell you."

"Can't tell me now?"

"I could, but where's the fun in that?"

Leon frowned but ended up cracking a smile. He saw her browse into a long list on the screen; most elements were written in code using numbers and letters in combination with a different color; he had no idea of what they were supposed to mean, but Claire seemed to understand it.

"So...what exactly are we watching?" Leon asked, resting his hand on the table and leaning a little closer to see better what showed on the screen. He could almost feel his face grazing Claire's cheek.

"Well, it seems the security system kept a small datalog of biohazards in here. It's not very detailed, but it might give us an idea of what we'll find down there. This file here is the list of viral subjects kept in their repository. The number corresponds to strain number, followed by the short name and then the color signals hazard category," she explained, pointing at the screen, " green is level one, blue is level two, yellow is level three, and red is level four. White names must mean they're unlisted."

Leon watched at the screen, noticing that most names were in the red.

"There's also the mutant viruses: the T-virus, G-virus, T-Veronica, T-Abyss, C-Virus, T-Phobos, Uroboros….they pretty much have a sample of every virus developed by Umbrella. Also, they seem to keep bacterial samples and parasites, too. God, this place is a time bomb. If any of these things were to fall into the wrong hands or got released by accident, it would be a disaster. I mean, B.O.W's can get killed, but these pathogens are invisible killers. Just what kind of Frankenstein were they trying to create using this?"

"That's what we'll have to find out. Anything else of our interest?"

"Yeah, there is a list of B.O.W's kept in here. Most of them are small old friends: hunters, creepers, lickers…, but there are these numbers over here. They have no data information, so I can only speculate and say those are the poor unfortunate souls used as guinea pigs for their test with whatever thing they were trying to create."

"That information sure is useful. "

"It is. Leon, can I borrow your phone?"

Leon was perplexed by the sudden request, but he pulled out the device and gave it to her. The redhead connected it to the computer and began typing; a few minutes later, she returned the device and pulled away from the machine.

"I put the map into it and also the datalog. We should send it to Chris, too. That should come in handy."

Like I said, smart, he thought of taking the command resending the data to Chris.

"Not bad. Ever considered entering the secret service? I could use a partner like you, Ms. Redfield." he said, putting the device back into his pocket.

"I am not an agent material, Mr. Kennedy. " Claire replied with a smile.

"I wouldn't be so sure. I think you would be a great partner, and I'm a picky one."

"Then I should be honored, Leon."

Leon chuckled. He pulled out another chair and sat by her side. The place was warmer than the one they had stayed at last night, but it was still a little chilly, so when Claire had intended to return his jacket, he had politely rejected it.

"Don't blame me if you catch a cold." she had laughed.

" I wouldn't have to. I am sure you would show up in my apartment to nurse me back to health if that was the case."

"I wouldn't steal that opportunity from your sweetheart, Leon. Besides, I am too busy to do that."

"I am sure you'd make the time for me. We are good friends, after all."

"Good friends that haven't seen each other in centuries..." she chuckled.

"We are here now, so I doubt that's a problem."

"We barely know each other outside from saving the world and surviving an apocalypse?"

"That can be fixed, Claire. It's a matter of talking."

"With biscuits and tea...preferably." Claire laughed.

"Can't say that wouldn't be nice, but I accept any other alternatives as well." he smiled in the same playful manner.

"I am surprised that you're still single. You're such a flirt," Claire chuckled, punching his arm affectionately, "You were already a flirt back then, but I guess the years made you worse."

"So, I was flirting?"

"You still are a flirt." she laughed, "But I kind of like that from you anyway."

"From me, huh?" he repeated thoughtfully, and for a moment, he thought he'd seen a dim shade of blush across the woman's face, but when he watched again, she was as pale as she usually was.

"Ah, don't mind me. I'm saying random stuff. I tend to do that when my mind isn't busy with something. Guess I'll flip over these files again."

Claire pulled out the folders she'd picked earlier and began rumbling through its contents. Leon wasn't much into that sort of thing, but he pulled himself closer to take a were nasty looking pictures of ill people. Some of them were probably very old, judging by the yellowish color on the material, but some others were particularly recent. One of the pictures caught his attention, a grotesque creature with its torso all covered with bulbous pores.

"I know that one…" he said, pointing at it, " I fought a couple of them in Tall Oaks and Lanshiang."

"Lepotitsa," Claire read, "I superspreader, huh? Nasty thing, it must have given you lots of trouble."

"You have no idea."

"Let's see. It's a full mutation of the C-virus, intended to disperse an airborne form of the virus around its immediate area. It can transform surrounding subjects into zombies spontaneously. Well, it does sound like an inconvenience. Huh, project supervisor, C. Radames," Claire read, "Dr. Radames, huh? So she was into this."

"Friend of yours?"

"No, but I met her once or twice. She was a genetics prodigy. I heard about her from my contacts at the university and saw her in a couple of lectures. Unfortunately, she went missing in 2009. I guess this might explain what happened. C-virus, huh..." Claire passed the page, and her expression darkened, "I know this one. They were in Sushestvovanie, so they were called Revenants…"

Leon watched Claire's bitter look. He could understand that watching these creatures also brought him unpleasant memories. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze, to which she replied with a soft pat on it.

She closed the folder with a sigh and put it rubbed her temples, and he could see that her head was probably bothering her again. He was not a medic, but he didn't think concussions did not last that long.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, my head it's bothering me again, but it isn't that bad. I am just glad that we don't need to run away today."

Leon was glad, too. He was used to the continuous hunt and get hunted cycle with B.O.W's, but it didn't mean he wouldn't get tired. Especially when they were new types. He moved close to Claire and pulled her closer, allowing her head to rest on his shoulder. An innocent gesture. Surprisingly, she didn't pull away, and she seemed to welcome it warmly.

"How many women have had the chance to use your shoulder as a pillow?" she muttered softly.

"I lost count…" he snorted, "I'm just kidding. You're probably the first and the only one I'd lend my shoulder to."

"I am pretty sure that's a lie, but it is still kind of sweet."

"Why would it be a lie?"

"Because you are a gentleman. I am sure you would lend it to any lady in distress."

"Well, maybe only those whom I like," he admitted, but contrary to popular belief, he wasn't much of a lady's man, and there were only a few women he cared for deeply. Claire was one of them. Despite their little interaction after the incidents in Raccoon and Harvardville, Claire was an important part of his life that would always stay by his side: the lovely woman who stormed to him in a city filled with zombies, looking for her brother. The rest of the list was a short one, and naturally, it included Ada. The Asian woman might be hard to read, but she had helped him on many occasions, and he considered her some kind of ally; then there was Hunnigan, who had become his partner in most of the missions, and of course, there was Sherry. He had had contact with other women in his years of service, but they didn't leave a mark on him as these ladies did.

"So….that means you like me." Claire snorted.

"I do," he replied sincerely.

He liked her, yes, but now that he had said it, he wondered what sort of "like" he meant. He liked her in the way that he enjoyed her company. He liked her in the way that he wanted to keep her safe; he liked her for who she was. It wasn't a physical attraction as it happened with Ada, but something more psychic. Claire was pretty, but even if she hadn't been, he still would have felt attracted to her, so no, it wasn't physical. The more he happened to learn, the more he found her attractive.

"Well, to tell the truth, I didn't expect such a bold answer," Claire admitted, and this time, he was sure her cheeks had grown pink.

"I didn't expect it either…. It just came out."

"Well, I suppose I should have known. We are friends after all, of course, you'll say that."

Was it friendship behind his answer? He was beginning to doubt himself. He would lie if he said he had never had some sort of feelings for the younger Redfield. After all the mess they had gone through, he had developed a small infatuation with her. She was the young girl with an auburn ponytail that fought bravely despite her fears. When the two of them had chosen to take separate paths, he had pushed those thoughts away, but maybe they had never left.

"Maybe...maybe not," he said thoughtfully.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I like you."

"You already said that.."

"Yes…" Leon replied absently, "Claire, have you ever wondered why we didn't end up together?"

"We had different ideas...you wanted to fight, and I had had enough fighting. We chose different roads, you said it yourself, and those roads took us into different places."

"That…"

That's not what I meant, he thought, but now, the question made him embarrassed. Had he wondered why they had never taken their relationship into something more serious?

Claire and Leon had always gotten along well. They had automatically clicked for the very first moment they had met in Raccoon, which had helped to keep them alive. Of course, at the time, he had been young, and he had caught interest in Ada. Something that Claire disagreed with his reasoning.

"That might be it."

"To be honest, you probably see Chris more than I do." she giggled.

"Not as much as you think, but we often bump with each other when our missions happen to overlap. The last few times weren't that nice..."

"I guess that's pretty much the only way you can get a hold of him. I learned the hard way. No use chasing after him: I can only wait patiently until our paths cross. Applies to you, too."

"To me? I am not as hard to find as Chris."

"No, but you're not easy to grab either."

"Then what about you?"

"Me? If any of you call me, I can promise you. I'll be there. Whether it is 3 am or in another continent, but if it's later, I might take a while to get there. Agg..."

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and let out an annoyed groan.

"I hope Chris brings painkillers. I'd rather be painless when we get down there. "

"Maybe you should let us handle this."

"No way, I need to see it myself. It's just a stupid headache. It won't kill me."

"Then...sleep a little. Maybe the pain will be gone when you wake up."

He felt her nod, and a few minutes later, he caught on her steady breathing as she had slipped into sleep. Leon sighed. There was nothing more he could do but watch over his companion until the sun or the rescue team arrived.

NOTE: if you guys want to come and chat about the fic, or just about CLEON in general. Feel free to drop by the discord and say hi! JOIN SERVER

[mimik-u]

Fragments III, 1-100

300 drabbles about Steven Universe/Future, 100 words each! These are the first 100 prompts and writer’s choices that have been fulfilled.

Asterisks are placed next to my personal favorites that I’ve written.

Baggage* — Steven meets his new therapist!

Eternity —How about a Bellow interaction you've always wanted to see in canon but didn't get to?

Foe —Jasper is simultaneously satisfied and yet left deeply empty inside by her self-isolation on Earth, and doesn't understand how to even begin to process this dichotomy. (So she doesn’t.)

Letter — Young Greg's POV when he wrote those letters to his parents Steven found on Mr. Universe episode.

Sword —Connie interacting with someone she doesn't usually talk to by herself (ex Jasper, Bismuth, Lapis, etc.).

Reconciliation — Idk about you but I wanna see more Mega Pearl. The others have not met Mega Pearl.

Marks —How about... Spinel, and the tiny, everyday baby steps towards healing?

Tangled — Peridot finds out/is told about PD/RQ? (And is confirmed in her guess that Pearl is fancy...?)

Challenge* — How is Steven’s TubeTube channel doing?

Bruises — Priyanka tends to Connie's wounds after training sessions with Pearl. [Writer’s Choice]

Rest* — Yellow Diamond gets to relax. (She's the one who most expresses regret and real understanding. Let her take a nap! She deserves it!)

Barbecue* — Post-movie, during cleanup, Steven and Lars talk and plan the BBQ we got a glimpse at during the final song.

Ghost — Yellowtail and Greg talk about fatherhood and how it can be ruined (mentioning Marty and Greg's father subtly).

UNO* — Date between Pearls (platonic or otherwise).

Height — The pebbles!!! They're so small???? Where are they? *Sobs, points at the Heaven and Earth Beetles.*

Embrace — Steven gets a well-deserved cuddle pile from family and friends.

Constructs — Bismuth and Peridot have a lot more in common than they think.

Horns — Amethyst makes an unexpected new friend at Little Homeschool. (Whichever other character you feel would fit best!)

Garden — Pre-show scene. While having a funny chat, Greg mentions something that reminds Rose about her abandoning Spinel, which makes her regret more of her choices.

Advice — Garnet can tell when Stevonnie has a lot on their mind. [Writer’s Choice.]

Hum — Yellow and her relationship with music.

Love* — Pearl considering her romantic feelings towards someone and thinking about how she's finally moving on from Rose. (Doesn't mean she'll ever forget her.)

Kid — A glimpse into “Sadie Killer.” Maybe when they played their first show, while Steven was still in the band. Celebrating afterward or a discussion on why Steven didn't stay IN the band?

Troubleshooting* — Integration of gem communication networks and Earth Internet and phone lines and the resulting inevitable disaster.

Fairytale — Connie gets a tour of Little Homeworld.

Hope — Jasper finally starting to let her guard down and realize her self worth.

Song* — As for prompts... Steg? Like, him in general, just being himself. It's a bummer we only got to see him in the movie.

Mistakes* — Steven talking to someone (not a therapist, just another character) about his trauma?

Forgiveness — The Topaz fusion reconnects with the Crystal Gems at Little Homeschool and apologizes for her role in the kidnapping all those years ago.

Visions — Sapphire and Ruby reflect on the events of "Together Forever." [Writer’s Choice]

Reunited — Maybe a scene where Yellow comes home from a long escapade and is reunited with a worried Spinel?

Beginnings — After CYM, Lapis and Peridot discuss where to live since the barn is destroyed.

Pet* — White Diamond happily announces one day that she has decided to take in a small creature (of your choosing) as a pet.

Together — What were Doc, Army, Navy, and Leggy doing during Future?

Desert — Steven meeting Lion from Lion's perspective. I dunno, I think it could be neat.

Freedom — For a post-CYM/SU:F prompt, what do you think about the exact moment it hit either Blue or Yellow Pearl that they were completely free to follow their whims?

Apologies — Greg apologizes to Steven due to the incident in “Mr. Universe” and both have the talk they should've had in that episode.

Change — Blue and Yellow Zircon's relationship has improved even if they are now rivals in the new democratic Homeworld. This last tiny bit is related to the “Homeworld Bound” episode.

Hug — Bellow cuddling. Yellow has no idea what to do, but Blue is loving it.

Valentine* — Steven gives Peridot a Valentine's Day gift. [Writer’s Choice]

Spite — Aquamarine and Eyeball are distraught at knowing they won't be rewarded for their actions because their worst enemy, Steven Universe, has been labeled a hero and royalty by the Diamonds.

Reevaluation — How about more Peedee and Steven friendship? Like, Peedee noticing Steven’s change in demeanor the farther along the show we get?

Camp — Connie kicking ass at space camp.

Family — The night after the events of the movie, Steven gets some quality family time.

Homestretch — Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth spend time together while preparing Little Homeworld.

Enough — We know what Jenny, Sour Cream, and Buck are gonna do for their futures, but what's Kiki been up to? Is she gonna take over the pizzeria?

Spillage — Vidalia and Amethyst catch up after Steven's monster episode.

Reformation — White Diamond has learned how to be so extremely empathetic to the point that she literally becomes another person, but has she really begun to understand others?

Comment* — Sardonyx makes some Internet videos.

Unicorn — While traveling through California, Steven encounters two fishermen arguing about unicorns. [SU/GF crossover.] [Writer’s Choice]

Worry — Andy and Greg stay in touch.

Homerun* — I hopal for Opal—perhaps she will attempt some baseball.

Skydancer — Post-CYM, Pearl getting to “truly” take Steven out for a joy ride through the cosmos in a properly operational ship of her design.

Mercy* — The shattering-is-wrong discussion between Rose and Bismuth that led to Bis being bubbled.

Happy — Smoky Quartz hasn't made a self deprecating joke in a while—is it Steven's therapy?

Electric* — Yellow’s gloves—I feel like they’re covering something up, maybe.

Cake — Fusion Cuisine 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Belonging — The Rose Quartz sisters visit again.

Transcendence — Fluorite offers someone wise caterpillar grandma advice.

March — Connie and Steven reflect on changes in life after the pandemic. Not canon compliant. [Writer’s Choice.]

Understanding — Onion be doing Onion things.

Ocean* — Andy and Steven post-”I Am My Monster”? I love their relationship, lol.

Ignorance* — Does Lapis even realize Bismuth was probably the one who poofed her?

Reflection — Did I already say more Mega Pearl? ‘Cause there can never be enough Mega Pearl.

Possibility* — Yellow deciding she should try putting shattered gems back together. (She probably broke the most.)

Storyboard — Peridot’s budding career as a storyboarder.

Fall — Lapis and Steven talk about trauma and recovery. Pre-The Future.

Limbo — How the dismantled gempire has affected the lives of noble gems like Emerald, Holly Blue Agate, and others.

Now — Garnet reminds herself to live in the present.

Grief* — Alexandrite forms for the first time. [Writer’s Choice]

Inauguration — Wait, did Connie's parents ever meet Stevonnie?

Please — Did Kevin ever learn anything? Naaaaaah....unless...

Friend — General prompt? A sequel/prequel to this, please [White D’s panther].

Treatment — Greg starting to learn more about gem stuff to be more involved in Steven's life if something ugly happens.

Numbers — Pearl, please do something with all those phone numbers in your head.

Generations — Rose continues to discover the wonders of Earth, even after all this time. (No angst allowed in this one, just pure wonder.)

Survival — The Off-Colors used to have more members in the past.

Acting — How did Rainbow 2.0 even get invited to babysit Onion?

Kindness* — Former Mayor Dewey coming to terms with his new position in town.

Play — The Gems and Greg try to capture Steven's first moments on a bike. [Writer’s Choice]

Documentary — Ronaldo makes a real actually informative documentary about Little Homeworld.

Rain — Blue Diamond still cries sometimes.

Zoophobia — Also, I saw Z and my immediate thought was "Zoophobia.”

Echo* — Why does the tiny floating whale have Rose's voice before Steven ever heard it in the tape?

Sketch — Steven and Connie discover an anime character/mythological figure who bears an awfully similar resemblance to Obsidian.

Unironically — Why does Buck wanna be a doctor?

Club — How did Bismuth, Lapis, and Peri become such tight friends?

Nostalgia — Greg considers a comeback tour.

Pressure* — The creation of the Diamonds, maybe?

Coping — Amethyst and Pearl grapple with Rose's pregnancy. [Writer’s Choice]

Theatre — Sugilite, meet Rainbow 2.0.

Dadhood* — Whatever happened to Mrs. Fryman? IS there a Mrs. Fryman, or was it only a passing on-and-off thing that resulted in kids?

Lingering — Jasper finally lets Malachite go.

Human — Steven talks to his therapist about his mom, the feelings of before and the now. (It was left open-ended—his relationship with his mother.)

Words — Kofi is proud of his daughters.

Quest — [Letter prompt] Quest.

Picture — Sour Cream and Steven talking about absent parents and bad parenting. Post-The Future.

Bittersweet* — Shep finally gets to meet the notorious Lars.

Gemini — Spinel discovers memes and we're all doomed.

Weird — When he's younger, Steven doesn't quite know how to label the Gems.

[heyheydidjaknow]

What is this witchcraft? Me? Not posting after midnight? I’m shocked to my very core. Anyways, this is one of my longer chapters. If you have any feedback, do not hesitate. As always, previous chapter (and next when applicable) is at the bottom.

Chapter 5

“Dude, hear me out here.” You are vibrating like a kid on pixie sticks. You slide your hands apart as if to display written words. “Lightsaber.”

“What’s a—”

“Donnie.” You put your hand up before he can continue. “Imma stop you right there. I am going to take your hand and kindly ask you to tell me that you know of, or at least have heard of, Star Wars.”

“I do not.”

“That is a fucking crime.”

You have been sitting with him for approximately an hour, watching him dismantle a “Kraang bot” as you register for school and start ordering supplies. You are quickly starting to realize his knowledge of anything outside the bounds of science is limited to whatever he read by virtue of his father, which consisted of one book on Greek mythology, one on the Italian renaissance, one on ancient Japanese history, and one on Japanese folklore, or anything he learned via the interests of his brothers. Because of this, he seems to know exactly jack-shit about things you consider common knowledge, such as the concept of foreshadowing or Poptarts or Hitler outside of a general association with the name and emotion of some sort, leading to interactions like the one you’re having right now.

“It’s not a crime,” he defended. “It's just I was never really interested in that kinda stuff.”

“But it’s Star Wars!” You throw your hands up. “How do you not know of Star Wars, at least?”

“Look, you’re saying it’s really good, right?”

“Well, yeah.” Your voice lowered.

“Why would somebody throw out a good movie?”

You sigh. “Yeah, that’s fair. But!” You point at him. “But I need to watch it with you, if only out of principle. Besides,” you settle down, “it’s a very… traditionally plotted story. I still have to give you that lesson.”

“Yeah, but after I finish this.” He pushes his laptop to the side, picking up the soldering iron and moving back over to the pile of metal you know will become Metalhead.

You nod in agreement, leaning forward in your chair to watch him fuse wires. “You know what?” You smile. “I may give you shit, but it is really cool watching your whole process.”

“Hm?” He looks up at you from his lean forward.

“Well,” you shrug, folding your legs on the chair, “I just mean that it’s cool seeing how you go about building all this junk that is just… what’s the word?”

“Untraditional?”

“Revolutionary.”

He has a funny look on his face. “You think so?”

“Oh, totally.” You nod eagerly. “I told you that I thought you were one of fiction’s greatest minds, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t.” His face is turning red.

“Really? I swear I did the day I met you…” Your eyebrows furrow as you try to remember.

“You said something about inspiration.” He smiled softly, voice airy.

“Oh, then I—well, it kinda is the same thing.” You rub the back of your neck, feeling your own face heat up. “Must’ve—uh—misspoke. I do that,” you trail off, “kinda a lot.”

“I think it’s cute.”

You feel your heart skip a beat. ‘Oh come the fuck on. Really?’ “See,” you hear your voice rise a register, “that is so not fair.”

“Huh?” The color drains from his face as he tries to remember what sounds just came out of his mouth. “What did I say?”

“You’re not allowed to just say shit like that.” You cover your face with your hands, feeling your heart swell. “You’re not my boyfriend or anything.”

“Wait, what did I say?”

“Nope. Shut up.” You try to calm yourself down. “You didn’t mean it, whatever it was. It’s fine.”

He blinks, very confused. “You sure?”

“Totally.” Your voice is tight. “One hundred and ten percent sure.”

“You can’t be one hundred ten percent sure.” He looks back down at his project, writing your behavior off. “It’s mathematically impossible

“You wanna bet?” You start looking around the room, prior embarrassment now replaced with a desire to win this artificial conflict. “Got graph paper?”

He scoffs. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding right now?” You lean across the table, tilting his head up to face you properly, determination burning in your eyes. Your voice lowers. “I am going to show you one hundred and ten present sure right here and now as a matter of principle.”

He swallowed, face going red again. “One moment, please.” He fumbles around for a piece of paper and hands it to you, along with a marker.

“Thank you.” You smile sweetly, acting as if nothing happened as you start to sketch. “Give me a bit of time and I will show you one hundred and ten percent sure.”

He rolls his eyes, a smile coming back to his face as he calms down. “Sure you will.”

You stick your tongue out at him. “Go back to your transformer while I blow your freakin mind, kay?”

“What’s—”

“Don’t even.”

“Gotcha.”

You chew on your tongue absentmindedly, remembering how much you love spacing out pixels when you hear a notification on your phone. You pull it out, read it, sigh, slide out of your chair. “I’ll be right back,” you promise, heading for the door. “I gotta make sure plot shit happens.”

“You know where to find me.”

“Always do.” You shoot him finger guns as you drag the door closed. You walk over to the brothers, currently engaged in their digital hockey match. You watch, waiting for Raphael’s inevitable victory— ‘Wow, my life is getting pretty damn predictable.’—before clearing your throat to catch their attention.

“So,” you smile, “what’s the game plan for tonight?”

They seem to not understand the question. “Yeah, Leo,” Raphael prompts, shooting a look at him, “what’s the game plan for tonight?”

He paused. “Is there some sort of sport thing happening?”

Your heart drops. “Leonardo,” you ask again, voice lowering, “you have a plan for the thing happening tonight, right?”

“What thing?”

You grab his shoulders. “The spill,” you clarify, voice quiet and sharp. “The mutagen spill. The spill I told you about three days ago?”

His eyes widen. “You said that was happening Friday!”

“Today is Friday!” You let go, throwing your hands in the air out of pure frustration. “That’s why I told you today is Friday! What, did you think I just liked talking about days of the week? That it’s my hobby to keep track of how many days I haven’t died?” ‘I mean, it is, but that’s not the point.’

“Well, it can’t be that important if you forgot about it.” Raphael leaned against the machine. “We’ll just go in and bust some heads. No problem.”

You groan. “Do you guys just have something against planning? I swear everything with you guys has to happen at the very last minute.”

“We don’t need the time to plan. I dunno if you noticed, Y/N, but our ‘plans’ aren’t exactly plan worthy.” He shrugged. “You just have to beat the Kraang out of them and that’s the end of it. It’d be like planning to raid a trailer home.”

You sigh. ‘They’re teenage boys. This is only episode six. Deep breaths.’ “Just… please try to heed my warnings in the future, alright? The last thing we need is for something to sneak up on us.”

“Alright, alright.” Leo focuses his eyes on you. “When is the mutagen getting spilled?”

“Tomorrow. The show wasn’t very specific on times, but some time tomorrow.”

“Then let’s air on the side of caution and assume they mean midnight. What’s the time?”

You pull out your phone. “Seven forty-five.”

“That should be enough time to get there, scope out the place, and be home before dinner.”

You feel the ground shake under you as a metallic clang pierces the air.

That is your cue to leave for fear of getting hit with a laser. “You can’t beat Metalhead. Also, Mikey calls him Metalhead.” You start heading out. “I’d stay and watch you guys waste time trying, but I haven’t eaten today, so I’m gonna grab food and meet you there.” You run out before they can ask any more questions.

If nothing else, all the running has been helping you get in shape. You are not typically the type to take runs, but you also are not typically the type to be pressed to see people. Loneliness is one hell of a motivator, as it turns out, and you were starving in more ways than one. You stop by the first place you see, grabbing some food item with a name you already forget—some sort of burrito, you think—and climb a fire escape belonging to a building overlooking the warehouse in question. You sit on the edge of the building, dangling your legs over the side as you wait for them to get here.

‘Do I like him?’ You pause at your question, mid-bite. ‘I mean, I had a crush on him when I watched the show, but this attachment isn’t romantic affection, is it? I’ve had crushes before, and I’m acting too suave for this to be that.’ You swallow, taking a drink out from your nameless cup. ‘Considering my emotional state? It’s highly likely I’m just latching onto him for lack of anyone or anything truly familiar in my life right now.’ You sigh. ‘But, then again, if that were the case, this feeling what be more familial, wouldn’t it?’ You conclude, whether you are attracted to him romantically or not, it is entirely unfair to both of you to pursue a romantic relationship with him unless he makes the first move. You have more faith in his critical thinking skills than in your own, anyhow. Besides, he acted irrationally enough around April as is; introducing a proper romantic relationship into the mix sounds a bit too risky, especially at such a vulnerable time in his development.

You hear the distant sounds of mechanical joints approaching. ‘Already liking this better than ninja silence.’ You spin around, hopping off the ledge and onto the roof proper as you go to properly admire the metal wonder.

It looks infinitely cooler than the show would have you believe, if possible. Each piece of its hull has a past and you can see it in every scratch, every dent. It wasn’t anywhere near perfect; you can easily see where Donatello had hammered out the shell of the artificial terrapin, where he had had to settle for using concrete, even the faintest ghosts of the pennies making up its chest piece. It was a glorious collage.

You run over, going down on your knees to look it over. “This thing is so fucking cool,” you gush, shuffling around it. “Like, totally fucking awesome!”

You can hear the pride in his voice, the excitement. “I know, right?”

You hop back to your feet, keeping yourself from jumping up and down for the sake of pride. “That is the coolest shit ever!” You grin, sitting back down and taking a drink from your soda. “You never cease to amaze, Hamato.”

“You think?” He sounds almost like a puppy, excited as he is.

“Dude, totally.” You sigh, feeling yourself mellow out a little. “But, more importantly,” you continue, clapping your hands together once, “we should be properly watching the warehouse in case they need backup.”

“Oh, right!” The robot stomped over to you, standing slightly behind you as you dangle your feet over the edge.

You take another drink of soda, feeling the excitement in the air dying down as you look out over the buildings. ‘It’s oddly peaceful up here. Must not have started the attack yet.’ You swing your legs back and forth as silence settled between you two.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. “I meant to ask you before,” he said stiffly, “but how did you know this was happening today? You never explained it.”

You silently thank him for cutting the tension, turning around to face him properly. “Well,” you start, lacing your fingers together around your cup, “remember when I said that the show Leo watches shows up a lot in episodes?”

“Yeah.” You are not exactly sure why he sounds so interested in a detail like this.

“And you know how you watch on cable?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, as it turns out,” you dig into your jacket pocket, “they release television guides, telling people when certain shows are playing, what times they’re playing, shit like that. So,” you conclude, admittedly smug that you had reasoned this part out, “as long as I know what episode is playing during that episode, I can accurately predict any actions that happen during the periods in which you guys have cable access.”

“So, you map out what episodes are scheduled to play on what days and create a timeline around that?”

“Exactly. Not a bad plan.” You pull up a document, showing him the timeline you’ve created with this information. “As long as you guys are on the grid, and as long as Leo sticks to watching that specific channel, I’ll be able to predict the movements of every major player in the series, which means I’ll be able to determine who we can and can’t fuck with based off how they act later down the line, and I’ll be able to give you proper foresight when the situation—”

Your plan is interrupted by a section of the ledge directly next to you to gain a new hole. You leap to your feet, quickly backing up and almost tripping on Metalhead as you regain your senses and hear Mikey’s panicked yelling.

“That doesn’t look good.” You watch the machine starts backing up. “I’m gonna go in and help.”

Something strikes you. “Donnie, real quick, be careful not to run into anything. The technology you’re using is susceptible to Kraang influence.”

“Relax. I got this.” Metalhead gives you a thumbs up before running and leaping off the building, crashing through the glass roof feet first.

You sigh, getting to your feet. ‘Theme of today’s episode is not to rely on technology. Granted,’ you muse, starting to climb down the fire escape, ‘this probably could’ve been solved by adopting a more intuitive controller and having a bit more experience, but I digress.’ You hop the last few feet down. ‘In any case, I’ve done all I can. If that isn’t enough, so be it.’

You hear the explosion as you start walking back to your apartment. ‘He should be coming here in about three or so minutes.’

If you did not know how this would end, you would be much more concerned. As it stands? You know the score before the game is even played.

You wave hello to the doorman as you walk to the elevator. You tap your foot absentmindedly to the elevator music, walk to your apartment, unlock the door, and step inside, picking a large box off the ground in front of it before locking the door.

You walk over and set the box down on your bed, walking back to the kitchen. You pull a Tupperware box from on top of it, pulling a red velvet cupcake from the container and setting it on the counter.

You had died the first time you had made cupcakes. When you had tried making them again from your mother’s recipe, you had found yourself surprisingly unintimidated as you slid them into the oven. Of course, you had sat directly in front of the oven and stared at it during the entirety of the baking process, but you were hardly going to let the worst experience of your life separate you and the most nostalgic, joy-inducing feeling there was. Who else was going to make cupcakes?

You dry your hands, not realizing you had washed them as you pick the confection off the counter. You peel off a portion of the wrapper, biting into the savory and sweet bundle of joy in your mouth. You moan softly in satisfaction, licking the icing off your lips as you walk back over to your bed, sitting down and reaching for the knife under your pillow. You slice the tape, sliding your baby out of its packaging with a soft smile. You reach back in, taking another bite as you pull out a smaller bag. You set the box on the ground, tossing the now-empty wrapper into it and wiping the excess frosting on your jeans, pulling the instrument from its packaging.

Your father had taught you how to play a couple of years back. You never thought you would get weepy over a musical instrument, and yet, here you are, cradling a hunk of wood costing a little more than one day’s allowance. You purse your lips, running your fingers along the neck as you check for any defects in its construction. You crack open the bag and, after about half an hour of fiddling and research, manage to get the strings onto the violin bass without snapping it. It wasn’t an exact replica, but it was close enough that you feel comfortable holding it, feel joy hearing it come in tune.

You play a scale. It sounds like heaven to you.

You put the rest of the trash in the box, laying down next to the first item you have bought. A stand for it would be arriving tomorrow. That makes you smile.

This is the start of something healthy for you. Ironically, it has started with you eating a cupcake, but, still, you have begun to come to terms with your situation. Granted, you have a long way to go; you still have not deleted your social media, wanting to look out for photographs and clips from the funeral, but this is a step in the right direction. You have to believe that.

One small accomplishment: you have kept your apartment sparklingly clean. It is not as if you have much to do, but none the less.

You find your fingers playing an almost lullaby. You stop yourself, not wanting to fall asleep before getting yourself situated. You set your instrument to the side, getting up to close and shelve your cupcake box for future use. You wash your hands again.

You slide your jacket off and throw it onto a seat, knowing you will likely need it tomorrow. You make it a habit to at least get outside once per day, now. You understand that, even if it is not vital, you need to establish a routine. You must keep moving, if only for your sake of mind.

You check to see the curtains are closed, strip, put your clothes in a hamper. You take a shower, comb out your hair, brush your teeth. You do these things consciously, now. You change into a shirt for sleeping, crawling into bed and turning off the light. Tomorrow, you will have to go down to the laundromat to wash your few changes of clothes. You will eat three meals. You will drink eight glasses of water.

You set your phone on the nightstand, plugging it in. You reach over, fingers curling around the handle of the kitchen knife as you slide it under your pillow.

You close your eyes, feeling your heart pang again tonight.

“Goodnight,” you call to no one. “Love you.”

Silence.

It is better than it was. You do not cry tonight, wrapping your arms around your pillow.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” you mumble, feeling yourself drift into unconsciousness. “Love you too.”

Table of Contents

Chapter 4 Chapter 6 part 1

[jaybug-jabbers]

Review: Pokemon Fusion Generation

If you are a fan of pokemon, it’s very likely you’ve visited the Pokemon Fusion Generator. This website became terribly popular because it can automatically ‘fuse’ any two pokemon that you select. The results are not always the most sophisticated fusions, but they are always wildly entertaining and occasionally come up with some truly cool-looking new creatures. There have been many artists inspired by these mash-ups, and people have drawn some truly gorgeous pokemon fusions. There is something almost endlessly entertaining about seeing these surprising variations on familiar faces.

Imagine my intrigue when I stumbled over a fan-made pokemon game titled “Pokemon Fusion Generation.” The screenshots I saw confirmed my suspicions. This was exactly what it said on the tin– a game filled with pokefusions that you could catch, collect, and battle with. I decided I had to download it and try it out.

But does “Pokemon Fusion Generation” live up to the hype? Was it just a gimmick that quickly grew dull, or was it a satisfying game? Read on to find out!

(Note: spoiler warnings for the plot of this game, but I try to be as spoiler-light as possible.)

This game is titled “Pokemon Fusion Generation” because it was intended as a fan-made sequel, a ‘generation’ that could be slotted in between gens 3 and 4. Made with RPG Game Maker and material from Pokemon’s Gen 3 as its base, the story takes place in the region of Kanto. In a lot of ways, the game feels like you are playing Pokemon Firered/Leafgreen, but there is a significant twist to the usual adventure we’ve all known since childhood.

The story begins with the protagonist, who is the current Champion of the Hoenn region. You have travelled to Kanto with the idea of trying out the gym challenge of that region, since you have already conqoured Hoenn’s challenges. Things begin rather typically, besides the fact you’re Hoenn’s Champion– you begin at Oak’s lab, meet with your rival (Brendan), grab a typical Kanto starter, pick up a new Pokedex and prepare for your new trip.

However, things quickly begin to change when we run into Bill just a little further up the path. There is a crowd and everyone is excited about one of Bill’s new inventions. He unveals it before the crowd, and announces the creation of pokemon fusions. The audience’s reaction varies. Some people are awed; some are incredibly excited and want some fusions of their own. However, one elder comments that the pokemon fusion is horrifying and an affront to nature. This causes Bill to hestitate and reconsider what it is that he’s created. He retreats to his house in Cerulean to think.

Once you pass through Viridian Forest and Pewter City and track Bill down again, it seems he’s had a change of heart. He decides it’s wrong to fuse pokemon, and he’s going to stop making and handing them out to people. Before he dismantles his machines, however, he decides to fuse one last pokemon to give to you. He offers to fuse your Kanto starter with an Eevee.

There’s someone sneaky afoot, however. A woman in disguise lures you and Bill out of Bill’s house, and that’s when their evil plan is hatched!

Bill’s entire house, fusion machines and all, is yanked from its foundations and carried off by a school of Zubats. It’s revealed that Team Magma and Team Aqua are behind these shenanigans, for reasons we have yet to learn. With the power of pokemon fusion creation in the hands of a nefarious team, we’re not simply going to be taking the Kanto gym challenge; we’ll be trying to track these hooligans down, too, and get to the bottom of things. As you travel throughout Kanto, you find that pokemon fusions have become quite the new craze, and you’re forced to contend with these strange new creatures.

That is the general set-up for this game. But is this a solid fan game worth playing?

The Fusions

Arguably, the heart and core of this game are the pokemon fusions, so it makes sense to judge those while trying to decide if this is a quality fan game.

The world of Kanto is not filled to the brim with fusions. You will not be encountering a new fusion every time you step into the tall grass or battle a trainer. Instead, these rare little prizes are only in the hands of a select few. The rest of Kanto’s population is quite normal. At first, I found this slightly disappointing, as I was expecting an overload of these freaks. However, I came to find that the rate at which you encountered fusion pokes was a nice balance. You didn’t run into them constantly, but you did see them– especially when encountering gym trainers, gym leaders, and team Aqua/Magma foes. It was always a nice surprise to see what new pokemon would pop up, and leaving the fusions to only special moments made the experience feel more exciting. Fusion pokemon were a fashionable trend, and anyone lucky enough to have one of the rare creatures was envied.

Among those lucky enough to own a fusion pokemon were the gym leaders. Each gym leader had added a new poke-fusion to their usual lineup, and one of the rewards for defeating the gym was that the gym leader would give their prized poke-fusion to you. In this way, you ended up slowly building an entire collection of the poke-fusions.

Now, you could not usally find these creatures in the wild. If you wanted to use a pokemon fusion on your team, generally your only choice was to make use of the prizes from your gym victories. Naturally, this leads to a very limited selection of pokemon to choose from. I can understand why some people would find this disappointing. If you happen to dislike the fusions you’re gifted, there’s not much you can do about it. It also severely injures the replayability of this game.

That said, I still enjoyed collecting my team of fusion pokemon. I won’t claim every single one was a fusion that I would have chosen, if I had a choice in the matter. But having that choice removed, I still found ways to appreciate the pokemon that I had. There is a certain satisfaction in figuring out how to use what you’ve been handed, a sort of Nuzlocke quality. Of course, I could have captured and used regular pokemon on my team, if I so desired, but I had decided from the start to use only fusion-pokes, as it was more interesting to me.

Also, I should mention your choices open up a little later into the game. In Fushia City, there are a handful of pokemon fusions who escape from Fushia’s Zoo, and scatter across the land. You can eventually track down and capture these special pokemon in the wild. Thus, you can eventually choose from a slightly wider selection.

What about the fusions themselves, though? Were they any good?

In terms of the sprites and the aesthetics of the pokemon, not all of them were particularly sophisticated merges. Sometimes it was little more than pasting the head and perhaps the tail of one pokemon onto another, with awkward results. If you are familiar with the Pokemon Fusion website, you’re probably rather acustomed to this sort of thing. That said, not all fusions were that way. In fact, the spriting for this game was very well done. Things usually looked clean and well-proportioned, and while some fusions were a little simplistic or awkward, most of them were thoughtfully created and were more complex mixtures. The choices of fusion were extremely off-the-wall, combinations that you would normally never dream of.

It seemed that the goal of these fusions, for the most part, was to make as wacky and silly a combination as possible. The stranger and wilder, the better. Many of them made me laugh and shake my head and wonder why anyone would choose to make that combination. However, occasionally I would run into a fusion that was a truly awesome-looking combination.

Take Girafiloom, for instance. This was a particularly lovely combination that I would love to own myself. Again, it’s kind of a shame we could not choose from a wider pool of fusion-pokes for our own use. However, it still was nice to see what everyone else had. The game has a very wide variety of fusions to encounter when entering into pokemon battles, and you keep encountering new ones at a very good clip. You’re never going to get bored meeting new ones, and the game kept me very amused and entertained with these creative combinations.

The pokemon’s movepools and typings were also fused, of course. In fact, a large part of the entertainment value of battling fusion pokemon was trying to decipher what sort of combination you were looking at, and thus what sort of moves and typing you could expect. It wasn’t always immediately apparant, especially when there were multiple ways to potentially fuse types. Sometimes, the choices this game made on typing confounded me. Why was my Suntank, a Sunflora/Miltank fusion, pure Grass instead of Grass/Normal? I’m not sure. But at any rate, these mixes made for an interesting battle, especially when the battle was a more dramatic one, such as the Elite Four.

The Plot

Now, if this game was nothing more than what I’ve described so far, it would already be a game worth playing. It has a very solid gimmick: collect and battle with pokemon fusions. If I just spent the whole time wandering Kanto and playing the same exact plot as FireRed/LeafGreen, but with fusion pokemon, it would have been enough to convince me to keep playing. It’s pretty charming.

However. This game has something else going for it besides the fusion pokemon. It has actual plot. Well written plot, at that. The story and all of the dialogue feel perfectly in-place in the Pokemon universe, which is something I deeply appreciate. The plot unfolds gradually with Team Aqua/Magma, with a pacing that also feels very much in-line with the official Pokemon games. It feeds you information a little bit at a time at just the right speed, keeping you interested in the story. As you travel and conquer gyms, you learn more about the fusion fad that’s sweeping Kanto and about the mysterious plans of your foes.

I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, but it includes teaming up with Janine to investigate some stolen zoo pokemon, a charming sidequest in Lavander Town’s catacombs that’s right up my alley, a mystery in Cinnabar Island that involves strange weather, and a very entertaining adventure on-board the Magnet Train. Perhaps my favorite part  is the story of Ellie, a Team Magma member who becomes involved in the adventure in a unique way.

The truth is that Pokemon Fusion Generation’s plot is beautifully and thoughtfully done, and it changes this from a decent fan game to an excellent one. While this game does not feature a new region or new locations to explore or new music, the combination of the always-entertaining pokemon fusions with a top-notch story makes the game well worth playing.

The final conclusion of the plot with Team Aqua/Magma was a fun surprise, and I enjoyed it, even if it did leave a few lingering questions about Aqua/Magma’s motivations in my mind. Anyone who’s played Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire is sure to enjoy the ending.

The Team

Herawoodo (Brick Break/Strength/Megahorn/Rock Slide) - Rock/Bug

The first fusion I received, from Brock. While I was very sad to lose STAB on all the fighting moves that this pokemon could learn, adding a Rock typing to Heracross was a rather welcome addition, neutralizing his weaknesses to some common types. Rumble’s Rock Slide really packed a punch and he did a lot of work on this team.

Chareon (Dragon Claw/Flamethrower/Quick Attack/Earthquake) - Fire/Flying

The creation of this pokemon was unique. I had already been using my Charmander, the starter I received from Oak, for a fair bit of time. It was only when I reached Cerulean City and spoke with Bill that he then offered to fuse my Charmeleon with one of his Eevees. Around mid-game, Charlie was having difficulty pulling his weight on the team, limping by with the weak Ember and not much else. But then sometimes happened– he evolved, something I was not sure was possible until it happened. I was thrilled and gladly welcomed the stats boost. In the late-game, Charlie was an incredibly powerful ally, mowing down fellow fire-types and using Quick Attack to pick off almost-dead pokemon surprisingly often.

Wurmlord (Bug Bite/Waterfall/Ice Beam/Surf) - Water/Bug

This pokemon was gifted to me from Misty (who noted the pokemon fusion kind of creeped her out, anyway). Blobby was definitely the weakest link of my team; there’s no need to beat around the bush about it. With poor defenses and poor speed, the Wurmlord crumpled to just about anything before she could even get a shot off. Perhaps it’s not so surprising, considering its Wurmple half. Even her healthy HP stat was of little to help save her. That said, even poor Blobby had her moments of glory. When fighting Lance, she survived a Wing Attack and got an Ice Beam off on a dragon, so who knows? Perhaps she was vital to our victory after all.

Suntank (Body Slam/Petal Dance/Milk Drink/Giga Drain) - Grass

This … abomination was given to me by Erika, who told me I needed to love and cherish it. While its appearance horrifies me, I have to admit the Suntank was extremely hardy, powerful, and useful. In more than one of my important battles, it was Suntank that let me scrape by into a win. The bulky pokemon had redundant health recovery and thus was hard for my foes to kill, and its magnificent Petal Dance was truly a force to be reckoned with. The Thick Fat was especially nice and made Suntank even bulkier, even when faced with super-effective moves.

Chantabuzz (Ice Beam/Softboiled/Light Screen/Thunderbolt) - Electric

Lt. Surge was able to part with this fusion and gave it to me, although I was a bit skeptical of it at first. An electric Chansey? I gradually adjusted to using Orb, and it filled an important slot on my team in terms of coverage. That said, I think I never quite got the hand of using Orb. I don’t normally use Chansey, so the fact that all of its defenses are in its special was something I continuosly forgot. That’s probably why poor Orb fainted an awful lot, despite its massive HP– I kept tossing it in the way of physical attacks. Despite that issue, Orb did a lot of work on my team.

Skarbok (Steel Wing/Fly/Poison Jab/Toxic) - Poison/Steel

Skarbok is one of the more absurd-looking pokemon fusions. Koga will hand you this creature when you defeat him in Fuchsia City. Its typing is unique, and no current real pokemon possesses it. The Steel/Poison pokemon is resistant or immune to a wide range of attacks, and its healthy defenses keep it quite safe. As such, Corkscrew was very often a vital defensive wall on my team, shrugging off Outrages, avoiding poison, eating up ice beams, and many others. His Achilles’ Heel was Ground, something he was four times weak to, but if I was careful I could avoid throwing him into the range of an Earthquake. In terms of attack, Corkscrew never had a move with really high BP and STAB, so he couldn’t always hit hard enough. However, his Toxic + stalling with Fly was a handy tactic, and he could often outstall the competition.

Conclusion

This game is a hidden gem. While it may lack replayability, it’s so very worth that first playthrough. I deeply enjoyed the entire playthrough, from start to finish. If you’re willing to re-visit the region of Kanto and are looking for a quirky, highly entertaining jaunt into the world of pokemon fusions, definitely give this a try.

[wanderinginksplot]

Commander

Kind of a cheat day cross-post from fanfiction.net. One-shot about the word ‘commander’ and all the things it has meant to Rex over the years. Written before the final season of Clone Wars premiered, so don’t roast the details I didn’t get right!

It started as a simple word, one mentioned during flash training as part of a long list of ranks in the military. If he had any true association with it, it was only that it seemed far from his reach, but CT-7567 - or Rex, as he soon became known - was filled with determination. Someday, he wouldn't in flash training or on Kamino. He wouldn't be a shiny anymore. He would be a real soldier, and after that...

Commander.

…

As he worked his way through the ranks of the Grand Army of the Republic, 'Commander' no longer seemed like an unattainable goal. His first few battles had brought him acclaim, set him apart from the identical mass of his vode, and he had not allowed that recognition to fade in the following missions. Instead, he was steadily gaining ground on the rank. If he managed to survive a few more battles with the clankers, it would be a reality.

Commander Rex had a nice ring to it.

…

"Okay, men," General Skywalker began, pacing back and forth in front of his troops. The Jedi seemed to always be in motion. At first meeting, Rex had believed it to be a case of nerves, but after spending only a few minutes in Skywalker's presence, he knew better. The General wasn't constantly moving because he needed to work off nervous energy, but because he could scarcely hold himself in check. He was just that ready to tackle their next mission, as shown by his speech: "Taking Christophsis from the Separatists isn't gonna be easy, but the GAR chose us above all the other planetary landing battalions. Let's prove 'em right."

Not much of a speech, all things considered, but it did the trick for the men of the 501st. Even the inter-HUD chatter moved from anxious questions to confident bets on who could dismantle the most clankers. Rex shifted to the balls of his feet, squaring his shoulders. His men would take out as many clankers as they could, but he intended to best them all. If this mission was a success, the rank of commander was all but guaranteed to him. Skywalker had promised before the assignment was even handed down that a well-handled battle would be enough to give Rex that much-desired promotion.

Commander.

...

He had done everything right. Though it had broken something inside of him, Rex had arrested his vod, Slick, for conspiring against the GAR - the Republic as a whole, really - and what had it gotten him? The same title he'd had before, but with an added responsibility.

A kid.

Inside his helmet, HUD transmission firmly shut down for the moment, Rex let fly several curses in guttural Mando'a. Who thought it was a good idea to send a kid - a completely green kid at that - out into battle? The kriffin' Jedi, apparently.

She would be good for the General, as long as she didn't get herself blown up by rushing into a battle the way she had into the meeting with her Master. The first thing Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano had done after stepping off her transport was give Skywalker an insulting nickname. Strange kid, especially for someone who belonged to an order he had been told was filled with stuffy, rule-obsessed wizards. Maybe the Jedi couldn't handle the energy and pawned her off on the first person who needed a Padawan.

But then, the 501st was filled with misfits and oddities. The General himself was filled with so many attachments that Rex was shocked the Jedi didn't ban him from speaking to any being across the galaxy. All things considered, Padawan Tano was better suited to Torrent Company than any other division.

Yes, she would be good for the newly-christened Skyguy, and for the men as well. He had already noticed an improvement in attitude with the addition of her confident and curious nature to their already… eclectic battalion. If she stayed, and he believed she would, Padawan Tano would become the new commander of the 501st. He couldn't bring himself to dislike the kid, either. He was a clone, and that meant he had a clear expiration date. A title as important as 'commander' should belong to someone with a little more staying power. He was disappointed, but the best way he could serve his general and his men was by helping the Togrutan female acclimate to her new position as painlessly as possible. Lives depended on it.

…

Rex was tired beyond any post-battle weariness he had ever experienced before. The Kaminoans had warned the clones during flash training, told them about the effects of mental warfare, but he had never believed that it could take such a toll. The effort of keeping Asajj Ventress from mind-tricking him into betraying his General and soon-to-be Commander had taken a toll. He was wracked with such intense fatigue that his muscles literally shook with the effort of standing.

Numbly, he set a course for his bunk aboard the Resolute. He had never believed so completely that his life had come to an end as when Ventress had held him at the end of her red lightsabers.

"..ex? Captain? Captain!"

Rex dimly became aware that someone had been calling after him for a few minutes, but it had never broken through the fog in his mind. With the weariness in his entire being, Rex was slow to turn and slower to salute. "Commander Tano."

She pulled a face, the markings on her cheeks and forehead moving oddly with the expression. "Please don't call me that, Captain. I'm a Padawan, not a commander."

"With respect, sir, if you choose to stay with General Skywalker, you're both."

She blinked at him and the sight of her eyes closing made his own ache all the more fiercely. "Did you need something, Commander?"

"Yes, Captain. I need to speak with you about your run-in with Ventress."

"I will record every detail in my initial report, which will be filed tomorrow, well within GAR guidelines."

Commander Tano frowned. "That's not what I meant. I want- I need for you to know that it was me. I'm the reason we didn't come back to save you from Ventress right away. I insisted that we save Stinky- I mean, Rotta. I made Skyguy stick with our mission and you almost died. A lot of men did die. He would have given up on everything else to come back and so many men would still be here. It's my fault. I just- I'm sorry."

The fog cleared from his head slightly, enough that he could stare at the Padawan. The Commander, he reminded himself. It was clear that the guilt was eating her alive. She had just come to the front lines, come from a life on Coruscant where clones were regarded as little more than droids made of flesh and blood. Why should she feel guilty?

"Listen, kid," he said gruffly, and her eyes lit with a spark of hope at the nickname. "That's why I think you're good for the General. He cares about his men and we respect him for it, but this is a war. The mission comes first, always, and if you had come back for us, the sluglet may have died and then where would we be?" Her lips quirked up and his did the same in reply. "It's a tricky balance to keep, but maybe working together will help both of you."

Those blue eyes began to shine and Rex fervently prayed to every god he could think of that she wouldn't cry. The Kaminoans had no flash training covering how to deal with a crying female. Thankfully, her voice was even when she spoke. "Thank you, Captain."

"You can call me Rex, sir," he offered, holding his hand out for her to shake. "Seems like we'll be working together for a while." She didn't move, staring at his hand instead. He softened his tone a bit before adding, "I hope so, anyway."

She smiled broadly at that and grasped his hand for a clumsy shake. "I hope so too." The silence threatened to grow awkward, but she dropped his hand and took a step back. "I'll let you get some sleep now. Thanks again, Rex."

Rex nodded and continued to his quarters. Maybe Commander Tano wouldn't be so bad after all.

...

"Did you see that, Rex?" the Commander asked excitedly, swiping dirt from her face with her forearm. "I took down three droids at once!"

"Yes, but you almost missed the one aiming at your back," Rex reminded, pausing in cleaning his deeces to make the point.

Far from discouraged, she only grinned saucily at him. "That's what I have you back there for."

Rex shook his head despairingly, but they both knew he was amused by her antics. General Skywalker's busy schedule and... ahem, involved battle plans often left the two working together and he had grown to respect Commander Tano's work ethic, spirited behavior, and caring nature. Her boundless energy made her exhausting to be around at times, but there was no one he would rather have at his back.

When had that happened?

"In all seriousness, little'un, that was some nice work. You're definitely getting better."

She sighed, growing visibly frustrated under the praise - an odd reaction for the flamboyant Togruta. "Could you tell Skyguy that? I've been asking him to let me dual-wield forever, but he says I haven't even mastered one blade yet."

"I'll talk to him, kid, but I know less about lightsabers than either of you. If you ever want to work on dual blasters, though…" He finished re-assembling his blaster and raised his eyebrows, pausing as if to offer her the weapon.

The Commander laughed. "I think I had better figure out the Jedi weapon before I try to branch out into clone territory."

"Fair enough," Rex conceded, tucking the blaster in his empty hip holster. "I have to go work on my reports. See you later, Commander."

"I've told you a thousand times; call me Ahsoka!" she called after him and Rex grinned, confident she couldn't see him. No matter how much she hated the formality, dropping distance between a commanding officer and their subordinate was always a bad idea.

He hadn't been lying; she was indeed improving quickly. Frighteningly so, in fact. The young Padawan had adjusted so thoroughly to her reckless master that General Kenobi seemed prone to a fit, but no one could deny their effectiveness. The 501st was being sent on more missions than they ever had before and - though some of the other legions mocked them for answering to a teenager - Rex could see the pride his men felt for their pair of Jedi. It was a pride he felt himself.

And with a sigh of regret for the late night that would be required to finish his reports, Rex performed a quick about-face and went in search of General Skywalker. Surely it couldn't hurt to let the kid dual-wield under the watchful eye of her master?

...

"How long until it's fully healed, Kix?" Rex asked, pacing the floor until he was shocked he hadn't worn a path through the durasteel.

Kix answered belatedly, his entire attention focused on tucking in the ends of the gauze he had placed over the bacta patch on Commander Tano's arm. "Rough-edged cut, worryingly deep, significant burns and bruising on the surrounding skin. With the bacta? Probably a standard week or so."

"A week?" the commander groaned, disbelieving. "Maybe Barriss will agree to practice her force-healing on me. I need to be at peak performance for our next mission."

"You won't be-" Rex snapped before remembering that the girl outranked him. "Commander, you cannot seriously intend to come with us on that mission. You're injured."

"It's a scratch, Rex," she disagreed.

"I have to side with the captain on this one," Kix interjected. "A fraction deeper and this injury could have severed a number of tendons in your arm. Even Jedi have trouble healing from that."

"But it wasn't deeper," Ahsoka pointed out. "And I'm leading half the 501st when we attack the Seppie facility. If I don't go on this mission, Skyguy and Master Kenobi will have to create an entirely new plan of attack."

Kix shot Rex a sympathetic glance and packed his equipment. It was Kix's medical bay, but they both knew Rex wasn't going to let this go and the resulting argument could last for hours.

When the clone medic had safely fled the medbay, Rex turned to Ahsoka, knowing that his expression was dark but unable to change it. "Commander, we need to talk about the risk you took out there."

Ahsoka glanced up from her arm, narrowing her eyes already. "It's the same risk all of us take every day: step on the battlefield, fight as well as you can, and if you get the chance to save someone else, do it."

Rex had to admire how she came at him full-force. The kid she had been when she first joined the 501st would have feigned ignorance for a while before finally conceding to his point. The little'un had grown, and it was clear her argument was already planned out and locked down.

Doggedly, he continued undaunted. "You aren't supposed to take the same risks as the rest of us. The Jedi are leaders-"

"Yes," she interrupted, "and the Jedi - the ones attached to the 501st, anyway - lead by example. It's the Jedi standard."

"That may be so, but it's a bad battlefield practice. The heads of the chain of command have to stay alive long enough to formulate changes in plan or coordinate the attack efforts. We can't have you risking yourself for a single man."

"Rex, do you know why Skyguy trusts you so much?"

It was an odd change in conversational topic, but Rex was curious about where she was leading. "Because I've never failed him."

"Well, yes, but also because you've proven that you can think on your feet. My Master and I both have total confidence that, if we both fell, you would be able to 'formulate changes in plan or coordinate the attack efforts'."

Rex grimaced at having his words parroted back at him. "Even if that were true, how many men do you think would keep fighting after you or the General fell? Some would fight harder, maybe, but a lot of them would lose hope altogether. You are our leaders and we respect you too much to allow you to risk your lives without protest."

She stared at him, unimpressed. "Give me the name of a single 501st soldier who hasn't risked his life to help another man."

"That isn't the point, sir. No one is ever expected to enter a situation where they have little chance of surviving. The point is to reduce casualties, not trade lives."

To his surprise, Ahsoka laughed. "Rex, I've seen you sprint through Seppie fire to retrieve men who didn't think they were going to live. And you did it without any backup. Face it, I did what any soldier would do. The only difference is that I'm a Jedi, so my man-saving reach is a little longer than yours."

He would have dropped it, he really would have, but Ahsoka tried to cross her arms and stopped with a stifled gasp and a muscle spasm he knew had to be involuntary. In his mind's eye, he watched as she began to dismantle a super battle droid. Swinging in from the side, she had neatly sliced off both of the SBD's forearm blasters and was ready to put a saber through its head to fry the programming when Skid stumbled in their path. The droid, malicious in its own mindless, drone-like way, reached to attack him with what remained of its arms, but Ahsoka had stepped in the way first. She had blocked one arm, but the other swung in unnoticed. Not only had the jagged metal sliced deeply into her arm, but the metal still glowed red-hot from the blade of her lightsaber.

Rex had shot the super battle droid before it could do any further damage, but the smell of Ahsoka's burning flesh still haunted him, as did the cry she let out when the droid fell, ripping away the metal that had already fused to her skin. He had called Kix through his HUD system, but the young Jedi was already sprinting away, performing ridiculous and graceful acrobatics as she mowed a path through the droid army. Instead, Rex had only put the medic on standby for when the battle ended or the commander collapsed, whichever happened first.

"Commander… Ahsoka," he altered when she didn't respond to her rank. When her gaze met his own, he said sternly, "We need you and the General out there too much to allow you to take risks like that."

"Skid would be dead if I hadn't gotten in the way," she returned immediately. "A cut and some burns are worth it if it means our men survive."

Our men. Rex wanted to be angry. He had certainly been livid on the field at Ahsoka's reckless disregard for her own well-being, but he understood her reasons. Ahsoka Tano had built a reputation as a Jedi who fights for and alongside her men and - though she took some terrible risks for their sake - they would all cheerfully die for her in return.

Rex sighed, eyeing the confrontational tilt to Ahsoka's chin. "Just- promise me you'll be careful."

She smiled, gratitude and affection glowing in her eyes. "Oh, Rexster, when am I anything else?"

...

Commander Rex.

What had once sounded promising, sounded right, now made something inside of him ache until he never wanted to hear it again. Above all else, Rex was a soldier and that meant going, doing, and living as he was told. He had no say in the actions of his superiors, that was perfectly obvious, or Commander Tano would never have been accused, or tried, or found guilty and expelled. She never would have left and she wouldn't be off in the cold galaxy without him - without anyone - to watch her back. If he had his way, things would never have gone so terribly wrong.

He could still remember with aching clarity how his stomach had dropped after General Skywalker had gone to support Commander Tano in her appearance before the Jedi Council, the one after Barriss had been accused and found guilty. The general had confided in Rex that Ahsoka had been cleared of all charges and would be allowed to return to the Jedi Order. He had said, pride in his voice, that this would likely be considered her trials and she would be with them only briefly before she would be made a Jedi Knight and given her own company.

Rex had immediately formulated a plan to transfer into her company. Even after all that had happened, there was no Jedi he would rather serve under.

But the general had not returned with a bright-smiling Padawan behind him. Rather, he had stormed past Rex initially. Only Rex's confused, "Sir?" gained his attention.

"It's your lucky day, Rex. Looks like I can promote you to Commander after all."

That was it. There had been no further mention of Ahsoka, though her Padawan beads had dangled from General Skywalker's fist as he strode back toward the Jedi Temple. It had taken only hours for the 501st to learn the full story, as clones were trained to horde information and most had become terrible gossips.

'Commander' had become a haunted word since then. It had been two standard weeks since they were called back to Coruscant and told they were receiving mandatory planet-side duties while they processed the loss of their commander. In that time, the men actively avoided talking about her or even mentioning the rank, several conversations halting mid-stream as they remembered Ahsoka's involvement. Several of the men, Rex included, suffered even more because they knew the feisty commander so well and never had the chance to say goodbye.

"Rex?" General Skywalker asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the armrests of the well-padded chair Rex kept on the other side of his desk.

Rex shook his head, half to bring himself back to the moment and half in answer to the general's question. "I'm sorry, sir. I can't accept it. I- I would rather remain a captain for now."

Skywalker bowed his head briefly in acceptance. "I understand. You do know that this leaves an open position in the 501st?"

"I do, sir. If you decide to take another Padawan, I'll be happy to serve under them as a captain."

The general snorted, seeming in a lighter mood than he had been since Ahsoka left. "I don't think the Jedi Council wants me to take another Padawan just yet, especially considering how well I handled the last one."

"Comman- Ahsoka," Rex corrected himself, "was never one to be pushed into doing what she didn't think was right. She left because she has things to figure out, but you took her on when no one else even wanted to try. She never forgot that and I doubt she ever will. If your Padawan thinks you were a great Master, what does it matter what the Jedi Council believes?"

General Skywalker remained silent for so long that Rex began to worry he had spoken out of turn, but eventually, his gaze rose to meet Rex's. "I won't be taking another Padawan, Rex. I also won't be taking applications for a commander from another unit. If and when you want the position, it's yours. For now, the 501st doesn't need a new commander."

Rex nodded slowly and the general excused himself shortly afterward, leaving the clone captain to his thoughts. It was fitting in a way, he thought with a touch of amusement. He had waited so long, pushed so hard, all for a promotion he ended up refusing when it was offered. It was only sheer luck that he had a general who understood.

Rex had meant what he said; he wasn't ready to be a commander right now, not when the wound from Ahsoka's departure still ached.

Commander Rex would have to wait.

…

"Commander?"

Though it broke half of the regs he had drilled into his men, Rex tore off his bucket to stare at the flickering, bluish image of Ahsoka. She didn't disappear with his movement, instead giving him a ghost of the mischievous smile she had worn on a regular basis during her time with the GAR.

"Hello, Rex. I need to speak with Mas- with General Skywalker."

"I'll call him," Rex volunteered immediately.

Confusion crossed Ahsoka's matured face, framed by her more pronounced montrals and lekku. "Can't you just patch the transmission through to him? I don't have much time."

"Sorry, sir," he said, more out of habit than anything. "New regs."

"I understand. Would it be easier for me to contact you again in an hour?"

"No, transmissions are a little spotty here. Better that you just continue transmitting and hold the connection until the General can get here."

Rex hurriedly turned to the nearest vod he could find and signaled him to call the General. From the look on the man's face, he was dying to ask why Rex had lied about new regulations, but wouldn't do so in front of someone he wasn't sure was trustworthy. It was for the best anyway. Rex couldn't really tell a shiny that he only wanted to keep Ahsoka online so that he could be in her presence, even just over a hololink.

Besides, he reasoned, if Ahsoka was calling now, after all this time, it meant she needed something. He wasn't going to risk the general saying no. If Skywalker refused his former Padawan whatever she needed, Rex would help her himself. If he patched the transmission through to the main bridge of the Resolute, he would never know why she had called or what the general had said in response.

In any case, he felt a rare, blissful sense of serenity talking to Ahsoka. If she was here, the part of him that never stopped worrying about her safety could relax. It was a welcome break from the worry.

All too soon, his wrist communicator chimed. "Generals Kenobi and Skywalker incoming, Captain."

Rex frowned slightly but tried to keep the expression from lingering on his face. "The General will be here momentarily, Commander."

Ahsoka smiled slightly at that, but he didn't care for the expression - rather than the pure joy that had radiated from her even during the darkest of battles, her smile was now tinged with a grim sort of cynicism. "I'm not a commander anymore, Rex. I'm only surprised Skyguy didn't make you take the rank as soon as I left."

With a careless shrug, Rex drawled, "I like being a captain. Less responsibility. You know how I am under pressure."

"You mean rock-steady?" Ahsoka retorted with a lighter sort of smile. "You're the best man I know in a rough situation."

"I suggest you don't tell the General that when he gets here. Next thing you know, he'll be finding us a rough situation or two to prove himself…" Ahsoka laughed outright at that and the sound soothed Rex's frayed nerves. "And the reason I'm not lobbying for a promotion is because there is none to be had. The 501st already has a commander."

A furrow appeared between Ahsoka's white brow markings as she mused his words. "Who could be more worthy of the position than you, Rex? You're the best soldier I know!" Her offense on his behalf nearly made him smile, but Rex fought back the expression in case she mistook his next words as anything less than the solemn truth.

"It's you, Ahsoka. You may not be a commander for the GAR anymore, but you'll always be our commander."

Her montrals darkened but her eyes lit up with gratitude.

"All right, Rex," General Skywalker said impatiently, stepping through the door with General Kenobi in tow. "What's so important that you brought us all the way back here?"

Ahsoka turned in the holoimage, glancing back at the two new arrivals. "Hello, master. It's been a while."

It was lucky that the General was so focused on the image of his former Padawan, because Rex couldn't fight the smirk that flitted across his face. The Commander always did like to make a scene and he was glad he hadn't missed it, but he shouldn't have worried. From the look on the General's face, Ahsoka would get whatever she needed from the 501st.

---

A/N - cross-posted as-is, no major edits made. If you liked it, consider reblogging or leaving a comment?

[mollymauk-teafleak]

don’t go where I can’t follow

I don’t know guys, I’m sad so I wrote some sad podcast twins

Please leave a comment on Ao3!

Trigger Warnings: Underage Drinking 

----

Juno hated waking up more than any other part of his day. And, this morning, he hated it even more.

Dry mouth and cracking headache that had made its home, all nice and cozy like, right behind his eyes. The tacky, sour taste on his tongue that told him he’d thrown up last night and probably would again before the morning was through. A disconnected feeling in all his limbs, lying there in pieces, a dismantled puppet in too many parts. His head rocking like his bed was bobbing in the middle of the ocean.

And, already, before he’d even twisted his face into an expression of disgust, flashes of last night. A best bits clip show of all the ways he’d made a complete ass of himself in the previous twenty four hours, shoving him over the edge of these fresh ones with the heavy realisation that he’d probably fuck them up just as badly.

Juno finally got out his groan, turning his face to the pillow, taking a bleak assessment of all the smells on his breath. Gin. Beer. Vodka. What the fuck was that, was that vermooth? Where the hell had he gotten that from? Had he gone back in time to the 1920s? And overlaying it all the thicker smell of what it had all come back up. Hopefully not on someone else, hopefully not in the middle of his classmate’s living room. But Juno knew better than to hold out any hope.

He was grateful, for once, for the miserable drabness of his and Ben’s bedroom. No bright colours to make his eyes ache worse, no sunlight making it through the smog of Oldtown to sneak in through the broken blinds. Just the plain brown walls and the plain brown carpet, the dull stains on everything. He was glad Ben’s attempts to liven it up had died around the time they were six.

Ben. That thought snagged on something and he lifted his head to peer into the identical bed across from his own. He felt anxiety pinch for a second before he remembered it was Sunday and Sunday meant dance classes. Ben had three paper rounds to fund those classes and the bus to get him from Oldtown back up into Halcyon, he wasn’t going to miss them even if he was as wretchedly hungover as Juno. Which Juno doubted, Ben always had the good sense to drink water and all that crap before bed.

And, yeah, there it was. A glass left on Juno’s side table, gathering some dust now like anything left unattended in their house for more than five minutes. Ben’s way of tugging him towards some kind of functionality, even when he’d been too belligerently drunk to listen.

Juno sighed and drained the glass, of course it was exactly what he needed. He wiped off the thin trail that ran out the side of his mouth and sat up, the movement dragging a whine of pain through his teeth as his body protested. One glass of water wasn’t going to be enough to bring him back from the dead.

He was still wearing his party clothes under the duvet, the sequinned drop sleeve shirt and billowy skirt, his only nice clothes now rumpled and sweat stained. He couldn’t see but he had no doubt his make up was a state too. He brought a hand up and confirmed there was mascara congealing in clumps on his eyelashes, glitter shedding from his eyelids and…

Why was their lipstick halfway to his cheekbones? Had he tossed and turned enough to ruin it that much? But there was none staining the pillow as there should be if some nightmare had been throwing him this way and that, sending him cowering against the bed enough to rub off his lipstick. Juno winced. The only explanation left was that he kissed someone last night, kissed them hard enough and sloppily enough that he made this ruin of his face. As if this morning couldn’t get any worse.

He didn’t really want to know, there was no one at his school he’d be willing to admit he’d made out with, but Juno couldn’t help but run through the candidates anyway. Carlos, maybe, he was cute enough but he’d hated Juno’s guts since he wrecked their science experiment back when they were partners in freshman year and he’d cost them a final. Appoline could be a possibility, she’d been staring at him all night but he’d thought she looked more likely to punch him in the nose than kiss him. Maybe Dev but they’d been even drunker than he was, they hadn’t looked fit to stand, let alone make out with someone. Oh god, please don’t let it have been Sasha…

Juno froze, stomach clenching sudden and hard and he’d been positive for a horrible second that he would vomit all over his bed. Memories crashed down on him like an ice cold wave. Throbbing lights, music that barely qualified for the title, stolen champagne drying stickily on his fingers. Something making sense in the way things only did when the world was coloured by liquor. And a very, very bad decision.

The muffled sound of the front door slamming into the wall of the hallway made Juno jump. Not because that was an uncommon sound, that was how ma always came in whether she’d had a good day or a bad one. Juno jumped because he knew that wouldn’t be ma, not with the way his luck was going.

Angry, heavy footsteps in the hall, ones their owner was deliberately making audible for effect. And then, the bedroom door flew open.

“Juno, you asshole!” Benzaiten screeched.

The worst thing about an angry Ben was the tears. They came tumbling down his cheeks in an endless tide, making his skin a blotchy and furious red. That was the worst part by far, knowing you were the cause of those tears.

“Ben, listen…” Juno croaked, cringing back against the headboard.

“There were loads of people you could have kissed at that party!’ Ben threw the door back into its frame, nearly cracking the wood, “Loads of people! And the one you picked was my fucking boyfriend?”

Juno wanted to curl up in a ball so tight he would just disappear. He hadn’t kissed Sasha or any of his classmates. He’d kissed Mick. Mick Mercury. The tall, perpetually grinning idiot they’d been friends with since they’d moved to Oldtown. And his brother’s boyfriend.

“Ben, I’m sorry,” Juno closed his eyes tight against the headache and the tears that were building up. He didn’t have a right to cry right now, he knew that, “Listen, it wasn’t Mick’s fault…”

“Yeah, I know that!” Ben raged. He was still in his dance gear, curls kept back by a headband.

He usually looked so calm after class, the happiest he’d be all week, like there had been something building up inside him he’d only managed to shake off during those two hours. He’d walk on the balls of his feet like he didn’t see their shitty house and their shitty town and their shitty life, like sun shone out of his skin.

And Juno had taken it away from him with one stupid, drunken decision.

“He called me and told me everything, he told me you came up to him when he’d been drinking and wouldn’t be able to tell us apart and you didn’t speak so he wouldn’t know and you kissed him,” it all came rushing out of Ben like a burst pipe, the tears still dripping from his chin onto Juno’s blanket, “And I believed him because he isn’t a fucking asshole, like you. I can’t believe you’d do that to me, Juno!”

“I didn’t think like that, I wasn’t trying to hurt you!” Juno’s heart wrenched, “I just…”

What had he been thinking? Why had he done it?

“I don’t want to hear it,” Ben snapped, hand reaching for the first thing he could grab. It ended up being a pillow, thankfully, because he pitched it right at his brother’s head. His headache didn’t take kindly to that, pain exploding at the base of his skull.

“I don’t want to hear excuses, I don’t want to hear apologies because guess what, it isn’t going to be enough this time!” Ben scowled, reaching again, “He’s my boyfriend, Juno, after everything I told you about how much he means to me? You’d go and try and take him?”

“I wasn’t!” Juno managed to lurch away from the book that came flying at him next, “I...I just…”

“Shut up!” Ben yelled, sitting down on his own bed, head in his hands, “Shut up and let me be pissed at you!”

Juno bit his lip, guilt hot and prickling under his skin. The only thing he’d ever been good at, the only thing he’d ever strived for, was to be as decent a big brother as he could be. It was written on every one of his cells, right down in his DNA. He was the eldest so he had to do everything he could to protect Ben, to put his happiness above his own. It was all he could do to keep going sometimes.

And he’d hurt him worse than anything ever had. Worse than Ma, worse than the bullies at school, worse than the bad luck that clung to them like oil that never washed off.

Juno knew he’d been told to shut up and that for once he should listen but he couldn’t help it, “Benzaiten, you should be angry at me, I’m never going to tell you you shouldn’t. I fucked up so badly.”

“Yeah,” Ben mumbled tearfully, shoulders shuddering, still not looking at him, “You did.”

“But I didn’t do it to hurt you. I’d never hurt you, Ben. I mean, I know I did and I know I’ve done it before and I said sorry and it meant less than dirt…” God, he was crying, sobs building up in his chest, making himself even angrier at himself.

He could feel Ben’s gaze on him, not angry but wounded. Wanting answers, in spite of what he’d said.

“I didn’t do it because I want to take away what you and Mick have,” Juno tried to say things he only knew were true but it was hard to pick them out of the roiling mess in his head, “He’s good for you, he knows I’d break his jaw if he wasn’t.”

“Then what were you trying to do?” Ben sniffed, rubbing at his eyes like he was six rather than sixteen.

Juno forced himself back into those memories, even as he wanted to recoil away from what he’d done. He remembered the flute of champagne he’d stolen from some senior girl who was busy sucking the face of the girl hosting the party. He remembered going out into the front yard, where Mick was sitting, watching the cars go by as he liked to do when he got tipsy and moony eyed. He’d turned when he’d heard heels on the wooden porch and his whole face had lit up with such pure and uncomplicated joy, the way he’d always looked at Benzaiten…

Juno took a deep, shuddering breath, “I...when he saw me and thought it was you, he looked at me so...well, like a guy in love. And it was so nice and soft and...and it hit me that no one is ever going to look at me the way he looks at you. No one is going to love me like that. And...and I just wanted to keep hold of it for a few moments because I’m stupid and selfish and awful. Okay?”

Ben didn’t say anything, looking at his brother through tear beaded eyelashes.

“We kissed but he realised it wasn’t you,” Juno continued thickly, “And as soon as he did, he pulled away and he was apologising and crying and he ran away. He really didn’t mean it, Ben. He really cares about you.”

“I know that,” Ben murmured, shoulders slumping as some of the tension left him, “And someone will care about you too, Juno. But it won’t happen until you stop thinking it won’t, y’know? You treat yourself like crap and it makes you do stuff like this...and yeah, then people are going to think you’re a dick if you act like one.”

Juno rubbed at his eyes, mascara coating the heel of his hand, “Maybe I am just a dick, has anyone ever considered that?”

“No because it isn’t true,” Ben aimed a kick at him that wasn’t really a kick at all, just a nudge with his foot, “You’re not a dick. Just apologise to Mick and maybe don’t drink too much and kiss other people’s boyfriends?”

Juno sighed, plucking at his blanket, “I mean, I’ll do my best. I sure as hell won’t kiss yours anymore.”

Ben rolled his eyes, red rimmed now but the tears had stopped. He threw another kick in his brother’s direction, one that meant a little more business, “Don’t do it to anyone! Maybe you’re done with parties for a little while.”

“Yeah,” Juno admitted, running a hand through his hair, “I feel like shit.”

“You look like it too.”

“Shut up…”

Ben managed a rough laugh, leaning back against the wall. Juno sank back onto his side, wincing again, wrapping his arms around his pillow and trying to find a position where his head wouldn’t throb so badly.

After a while, he mumbled, his voice barely more than a whisper, “Ben?”

“Yeah, Super Steel?”

“Just...promise that when we’re grown up and you and Mick are married and you’re off being the solar system’s most famous dancer somewhere on another planet...just promise you’ll still call me?”

He couldn’t see Ben’s smile but he heard it, “What makes you think I’m not gonna bring you with us? I’m not going anywhere without my brother.”

Juno smiled crookedly into his pillow, hoping he wouldn’t see the relief on his face.

“I’m gonna hold you to that, Benzaiten.”

[alfernover]

Strike of the Dragon - Chapter 2

(StrikeTeam!Genji AU)

Pairings/Characters: Gency, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Mccree (awww yeah baby)

Chapter 1, Chapter 3 (coming soon)

Warnings: none

A/N: This chapter has been the most chaotic thing I’ve ever written development-wise. The first draft of the chapter I hated sooo much I went back to the drawing board and decided to do this. Then once I completed this one, I still hated it but it was better than the last one I’ve got to admit. Then I went over the chapter to delete stuff, add stuff, redo stuff and now nearly every word is completely different, apart from the first part of the story. This wasn’t much of a joy at first, but at the end I felt pleased with myself and gave a pat on the back for it. Hope you all enjoy!

"A month! A month he's been in the strike team and he went from zero to hero in under that time!"

 Genji gave out a fake chuckle as Reinhardt patted his back a little hard – but he was expecting that anyways – he didn't complain though as other members of Overwatch listened and laughed as Reinhardt carried on about how Genji saved and protected the French President a week after he was put on the team, and then go back to talking about the mission that the strike team had deal with some Junkers who had decided to try and terrorise Sydney in Australia.

 At first, people did not like Genji, being that he was a Shimada and there were many rumours about the Shimada bloodline possessing a deadly weapon able to kill someone instantly. And there was also the Shimada Clan which everyone feared of so Genji was expecting immediate backlash on having him on the team which was widely known to be heroic and to protect the citizens no matter what, a boy with Shimada blood was obviously not what people were expecting. But then Genji’s first two missions came and became remarkably successful to making people trust him with live footage of him on both. Unfortunately, Genji had now become quite popular through the media, even though he was appreciated not having himself be shone in the light as the worse thing Overwatch had ever decided on. He still didn’t like the fact that people had swarm onto him like bees when he was only out to at least buy new pairs of shoes.

 At least he has a bigger chance of getting some entertainment at night with a few girls, he thought to himself which made him smile broadly.

 "I mean when those Junkers went towards Genji, they thought he would be an easy target, and me and the rest of the strike team just stood there with me shielding Ana and Torbjörn, but no! Genji deflected all things that were thrown at him and back at them and completely knocked the rest out who were attacking us! Not even a scratch to his suit! He's incredible!"

 "Excuse me Reinhardt," said Genji, trying to sound polite as possible, "I'm off to do some training, call me on my comm if something comes up."

 "Ahhh! I will my friend!" Reinhardt exclaimed, "I might join you later if you save some training bots for me to smash!"

 "Let's hope not," muttered Genji, "we would destroy the training grounds."

Reinhardt bellowed with laughter and patted Genji hard on his back once more. Genji swallowed the pain like it was a drink and managed to create a stiffen smile back at the tall, muscular man. He put the remainder of his lunch into a bin, left the mess hall and headed to the training grounds. He didn’t need to get changed, he was already planning on training anyways and opened his usual orange locker that was at the training grounds and eagerly got his usual training equipment out, they weren’t the ones he wore out on missions just so he doesn’t harm anyone if he did one-on-one combat, but they good enough to destroy any training bot, he inspected every piece of his equipment and then strapped them on to him, he then headed to the actual training grounds where training bots were held, platforms could be raised and flattened for anyone who wanted it to be an open ground, he looked up to see the outside world which had been cut off from with thick walls made of cement, Genji always thought that the tall, snowy mountains looked like paintings plastered to the sky and the buildings from nearby Zurich barely could be seen with how tall the wall was. Genji sighed deeply, then went back to why he was here in the first place.

 "Athena," called Genji, as he did his stretching.

 "Hello Genji," came the robotic reply, "do you want to do your usual training protocol?"

 "Actually," said Genji, in his confident way, "I want to change it up a bit."

 "In what way may I ask?"

 "Increase the stinging lasers for the training bots up from level 6 to level 9."

 "The 9th stinging level is quite power and painful," replied Athena, sounding quite cautious, "the result of you getting hit in the limbs means numbness, no movement for a limb for at least an hour and the sting could cause you to go unconscious, not to mention if it hits your chest or head it could be possible death or cybernetic replacement to them."

 "Then just be grateful I'm not making it go up to level 12 then," Genji retorted, "now do it, I want to challenge myself a little, the rest can be the same as usual."

 "Confirmative Genji," Athena said, the Japanese ninja began to warm himself as he waited for the countdown.

 "Training begins in, 3,2,1."

 There was silence afterwards. But a second later, Genji draw out his wakizashi and deflected the lasers coming out of a pair of two training bots’ arms which had suddenly appeared from the metals doors that confined them and made the lasers go into their heads. He began to dodge another pair of them, who were shooting rapidly, trying their best to lock on to the ninja. But Genji was quick, dodging all of them quickly and deflected them with his wakizashi, heading straight back and into the training bots' faces or into their arms, making them shriek out there usual, annoying ‘OWW’ or ‘ARGH’ or ‘HEY’. Even when he was in the air, he made a single blow fatal to the bots with using his shurikens either all three of them coming out of his training arm to strike in one direction or they go in three directions, most of them hit the bots, some just got stuck in the wall or laid on the ground, making dents to the rubber ground. He then got his main, curved sword out from his back, and began slashing the metal bots up like they were a piece of paper. At last, once Genji place his sword back into his scabbard, the last bot fell to the ground in pieces, joining the remnants of the others.

 "Training exercise protocol for Agent Genji Shimada wave 1 of 20 enemies, completed," announced Athena, "wave 2, beginning shortly."

 Genji sighed and began to catch his breath. He checked his shurikens and made sure that his blades weren't blunt whilst cleaning bots came to take the dismantled training bots so they could be repaired for who else was going to train with them. He then went over to a bench where he got a towel which he wiped on his sweating head, he drank water and rested before Athena was ready.

 "Wave 2, will commence in 20 seconds," Athena said, "I'd advised you get ready Genji."

 Genji nodded and got up. He went to the middle of the arena and withdrew his wakizashi. He walked to the centre of the arena and start to decide on which position he should use before the next part of his training began.

 "Wave 2 commences in 10 seconds."

 Genji leaned into his position, his hand gripping the wakizashi and his eyes darted around the doors in which the bots would come out of and attack him. Then the door to enter the training arena opened, and then the familiar dwarf came out of with his usual cap on him, but Torbjörn wasn't alone, he seemed more happier than usual and was talking to this woman. Genji looked at her and immediately froze, as the woman looked around the arena, she had blonde locks which were in a loose ponytail, her eyebrows were thin like pencils, and she was wearing the doctor's uniform for Overwatch members. Her curious eyes finally came upon Genji’s and they were both immediately locked onto each other, he swore he could make out the ocean and sky at the same time.

 "Wave 2 commence."

 "Wait, what-"

 A strike to the ninja and he fell to the floor with a thud, whilst the training bots immediately withdraw from shooting – they were design that way – Genji felt his left leg go numb for the first few seconds and a wave of stinging came soaring through afterwards, and did it hurt. Genji groaned in pain, it felt like teeth were sinking into his shin and calf and ripping away from the rest of his body. The world around him became a little unrealistic to him the world became blurry and he could only hear a muffled version of Torbjörn's voice, angrily shout things as usual. He was then turned around from laying on his stomach, to his back, and then he saw a shadowy figure above him, blocking most of the sun and making the remainders of it wrap around the head of a woman like it was a halo. The blonde hair which draped to one side of her shoulder sparkled in the sunlight making the ninja know it was the very same woman he was distracted by. His sight refocused and his hearing became much clearer, as he blinked a couple of times to make sure his eyes focused, but to also make sure the pretty blonde woman was still real, and it wasn’t him hallucinating.

 "Hello? Can you hear me?" came a clearer reply compared to Torbjörn, which he was now clearly muttering something under his breath as usual. Genji responded with a nod and got up from his back with both arms holding his upper body up. The woman went to his leg to see where the burnt part of the joggers was. He then gasped in pain and both of his arms moved to clench his leg as another wave of stinging shot through his leg, just as much pain as the last one. The woman placed her hand on his back and rubbed it gently, trying to help sooth him down.

 "Athena!" called Torbjörn, "out of 1 to 12, how much power did Genji put to the training bot's weaponry?"

 "He asked for level 9 for laser power," replied Athena, "I personally insisted not to encase these circumstances came to a reality, but Genji was quite stubborn."

 "Of course, he is," grumbled Torbjörn, "he’s ruddy Genji."

 "Thanks for comforting me after getting hurt," Genji groaned back at the drawf.

 "Yer were the one who wanted to be stung so badly!" snapped back Torbjörn. The woman then cut in.

 "Torbjörn, I think he needs to be checked," she said, with a strong accent that Genji thought sounded very much like the civilians in Switzerland, "I’ll take him to my office."

 The dwarf looked at the blonde woman and grumbled a response whilst nodding. The woman looked to Genji with a warm smile. "Do you think you can stand on one leg?" she asked sweetly.

 Genji blinked for a split second, still not believing that her soft voice was real, then he finally nodded once more. The woman gave him another warm smile which made Genji’s heart beat faster and lifted him up, then she placed his arm over her shoulders so he can balance himself between his one leg and the woman. The ninja looked over to where Torbjörn use to be and look towards the exit as to where the little blonde dwarf was now heading towards without a care in the world about Genji. "Going to help me?" he asked, clenching his jaw once more to swallow a third wave. Torbjörn turned and looked at both Genji and the woman who was helping him balance, with a raised eyebrow.

 "I think she's got you covered," he muttered and carried on moving out of the arena, "I'll see you later!”

 The woman sighed and shook her head whilst having a small smile on her face. "Typical Torbjörn," she said quietly, she looked over at Genji who had clenched teeth, "best get you to my office then."

 They headed there with Genji hopping on one foot whilst his left leg remained numb and having waves of stinging coming to him every minute or so, whilst the strange – but attractive – woman helped him to where they were going. Other agents, doctors and scientists stared at them as they walked by and Genji just felt embarrassed with hopping along with one foot whilst the seemingly new member of Overwatch encouraged him on. They eventually reached the medical department and the woman helped Genji towards a door which made his head tilt.

 "That's the head of medical research's office," he said. The woman chuckled.

 "I thought you were told that the previous one was retiring, and you were getting me as the new head," she responded.

 "I don't listen to briefings," said Genji.

 "Obviously, you don't listen to Athena," came the response which made Genji's eyes widen a little and look to the Swiss woman whilst she opened the door who didn’t have a smile on her face and eyes were now a little wary. Even though he felt anxiety built up from his heart and clash with the pain of his leg, Genji said nothing as he was helped through the narrow door. He had only been in the head office once in his life and that was a few years ago, it was the right size for a medical ward too, not too big or too small. Its walls were the usual white that covered most of the base. A desk and a chair sat at the end of the room with the usual equipment of pens and pencils, but with slips of scattered paper on the desk and whilst a mug of coffee sat near the edge. Genji didn’t have enough time to continue his scanning, as he was tugged by the woman to a medical bed which was at the third corner of the rooms.

 "Sit," she ordered, Genji obliged with no complaints, besides, his right leg was feeling the ache of hopping all the way to the medical ward. The woman grabbed some plastic gloves which sat on a table. "Where did the laser hit you?"

 Genji pointed to place where shin met calf and the woman rolled up his training joggers up to examine his leg. "I never got your name," he stated.

 "Doctor Angela Ziegler," came the reply, "and you are this famous Genji Shimada, am I correct?"

 Genji chuckled whilst rubbing his neck with his hand. "I'm that popular, aren't I?" he joked.

 "With the stuns you pulled in front of the public and with your announcement," responded the doctor, Genji swore was trying to hide a smile as she went on, "you made headlines where I was, it's quite impressive with how agile you are."

 "I was trained by the best," smiled Genji, "I'm guessing you're the new head of department for medical research?"

 "That is correct," she said.

 "I see... how did a young, pretty woman like yourself managed to come here?"

 Immediately, the doctor froze, she stayed like that with her body tensed until she just shook herself back to reality. "Your leg will be fine after an hour," she finally states, ignoring Genji's flirtatious quote and getting up where the ninja could examine her face, her eyes showed more wariness now which Genji absolutely hated, he was just making it worse and worse for himself now and he just looked the other way whilst Doctor Ziegler stepped over to one of the closets. "I will give you some painkillers, so you won't experience the stinging at it's worse. I suggest you remain here for a while though."

 Genji nodded, still a little flabbergasted by the doctor's response to his flirtation. He was given a pill which the doctor offered him water so he could swallow it whole and he was shoved fully on the bed with a pillow underneath his leg. Whilst Doctor Ziegler walked over to her desk and began to move around her paperwork. The ninja watched curiously as she rounded up her scattered papers. "What are they all about?" he asked intently.

 "Just somethings I need to sign and examine," she replied, not looking over to Genji, "some for my arrival and some for the purpose of work."

 "I see," Genji smiled, "sounds a little boring doing paperwork."

 Doctor Ziegler immediately looked at Genji then, who was grinning innocently, she gave him a look that made Genji felt like a brick wall was put firmly between the two now. His smile falter and he looked to the wall next to the medical bed, pretending like he said nothing. He heard Doctor Ziegler mumble something under her breath and he heard paper being moved and crinkled. They both didn't say anything after that, the once comfortable silence had now become awkward for Genji, and all because he didn't keep his mouth shut. Doctor Ziegler hadn't checked up on him yet, not even a glance from where she was sitting. He just laid there, bored. He looked to where she was for what felt like the 50th time and watched her write on the paper, which was organised but felt like it was going to fall into scattering mess.

 "How old are you Doctor Ziegler?"

 The Swiss doctor finally glanced up at Genji, her hand stop moving her pen from writing and she pursed her lips a little. "I am 23."

 "23," repeated Genji, "that's quite young for a doctor that is head of this medical department, you must be very clever."

 "I hope I am," she replied plainly, as she returned to the paperwork, Genji was feeling a little perplex on how something as a piece of paper with words on it was more interesting that a guy who had made media headlines a few times in only a month.

 "I am finding it peculiar that you find that paperwork interesting," he said arrogantly.

 "People find different things enjoyable," replied Doctor Ziegler, she then looked back at Genji, "what do you find enjoyable then?"

 Genji smirked, thinking of how he had gotten a hold of her now but not realising how cold her eyes were looking at him. "I do like playing games and training keeps me fit," he replied, he then paused impressively, his smirk growing and making the doctor lean back a little. "There's also one other thing I do enjoy."

 "And what is that?"

 "Why don't you visit my headquarters and find out."

 There was a pause, both knowing exactly what Genji had just said and then the brick wall that Genji felt between him and the doctor now felt like it had doubled its strength with the doctor's eyes seemingly taking the shape of missiles so to complete the fortress. The next minute, Genji was given a crutch from another corner and was shoved out of the office by the doctor.

 "Who's your personal doctor?" she demanded, as Genji turned around in absolute disbelief, now realising the cold stare he was getting now.

 "Oh-well-I-umm.... Doctor Muller," stammered Genji.

 The Swiss doctor noted this in her head and looked back at a stunned Japanese ninja with her blue eyes, they locked on again like they did when they first saw each other, the Swiss doctor then looked down to the ground, whilst Genji stood there, more confused and perplexed. "I'll give him the report on your incident at the training arena today Agent Shimada," she said formally, "use the crutch for until after an hour where your leg feels fine and then return the crutch by tomorrow."

 "Wait, what-"

 "Good day Agent Shimada."

 She gave a smile that made Genji’s heart feel like ice had been dunked over it and the door slammed right into his face and the ninja was left standing there with a crutch on his left side, staring at the newly place door sign, saying: Doctor Angela Ziegler. He let out a groan, feeling like his flirtation had failed miserably, but it had never failed before! He turned and then noticed an agent roughly in his thirties smirking at him, whilst sitting patiently in a chair for his medical treatment. Genji only scowled at him and began to walk away with his crutch helping him keep balance.

 He almost getting to his headquarters, and every step he was taking with crutch and right foot made him feel humiliated with members of Overwatch looking at him with bemusing grins and curious glances and was feeling the relaxation being hidden away in his headquarters. "Torbjörn told me about ya little incident at the arena," said a manly voice with a thick accent, "didn't expect it to be this bad!" Genji stopped suddenly and then rolled his eyes whilst sneering to a wall as the man with dark clothing and a weird-looking cowboy hat came up to the strike team’s ninja with a wry grin that could’ve made his facial hair separate from each other from two metres.

 "Hello to you to too Mccree," replied Genji quietly, "I thought you were at the base in Norway."

 "Got moved here last night," said Mccree with a wry grin, "came in around the same time as the new doc. How did you find her anyways? Apparently, Torbjörn decided to leave you with her when you made the decision to lose a leg!"

 "Haha funny Mccree and to answer your question, I don't know," the ninja muttered, "it was mostly a one-way conversation whilst I was in her office."

 "Ahhh, I see what you did," smirked Mccree, “there’s only a few ways to not make the doc not talk and I know exactly which button you pressed.”

 "I did too," said Genji, his sour mood from being shut out was getting worse with Mccree’s pestering.

 "The doc is a stubborn sort and wants things to be as professional as possible within a workplace, a little too much if yer ask me. But she even cares for the people she dislikes and even though you might’ve treated her an object or a trophy like you do to every girl yer see, which she highly dislikes, she will still care for you if yer injured.”

 Genji then felt a pang of realisation and tried to remember some of what he had said to the doctor, and with every word he thought of made his heart go lower down in his stomach. "How do you know all of this?" he quickly asked.

 "Well, I've known her since I first joined," smirked Mccree, "Torbjörn showed her around the base at Norway and that’s where we met. We’re both good friends though, so it'll just be you who'll be gettin' the door shuttin' on yer face."

 "Yeah... totally," Genji said, he had finally reached his headquarters which was where the usual strike team members were held at, with Reinhardt next to his since he was the one who usually stayed there, whilst Morrison had his own personal place to sleep in and Torbjörn and Ana usually go to their home country to spend time with their families most often. Genji was quite glad that he had made it but Mccree was insistent on talking to the ninja whilst he typed his passcode to unlocking his door.

 "I'm guessin' yer made one of your stupid lines come out of yer mouth again," he mused. Genji felt insulted, but Mccree didn't seem to notice the expression on his face or just didn't care as he went on. "Honestly, I don't know how you managed to get to some girls apartment when you go to those parties in Zurich.”

 “I’ve said much worse.”

 “Like what exactly?”

 The door had just unlocked, and the Japanese ninja had placed his hand on the handle, but he didn’t open the door and stayed still for a bit. Then he sighed deeply and let his free hand go through his black locks. “I only said that her work must be boring and that I don’t listen in important meetings.”

 Mccree looked at Genji and smiled sympathetically and patted his friend’s shoulder. “It would be a miracle for you to ever catch her now,” he said, “you’ve literally insulted her to a degree of no return!”

 “How much did you think I hurt her?” asked Genji, with his heart beating harder and his face trying hard not to cringe for he new Mccree’s response wouldn’t be good whatsoever.

 “You know the insult when we were teenagers and we say to Reinhardt that his hammer looks like it could be salvaged to be a steam piston and then he would literally chase us down whilst gripping it?”

 “Yeah, that really got to him hard-kuso,” said Genji, as his soul felt like dying, “it’s that bad?”

 Mccree nodded solemnly and Genji groaned and banged his head on his door. The cowboy patted his shoulder again with his gloved hand.

 "The doc is a kind-hearted soul Genji," said Mccree, “but what you’ve said to her in the medical ward well… if you think you were gonna have anythin’ between you two that’s gone down the drain then… actually, naah it’s way deeper.”

 Genji didn't look back at the Blackwatch agent with the funny cowboy hat, he shrugged Mccree’s hand off his shoulder and opened his door and went through it with his body making him look like the saddest thing on the planet. Mccree shook his head as Genji closed the door on him and he was left all alone in the hallway. The cowboy had known the Japanese ninja to be quite rebellious and flirtatious to women and was still extremely arrogant about the whole ideal of him being in the strike team. Mccree knew Genji preferred to work alone and he could tell when he did tests and when he did his first ever mission when Morrison asked Gabriel to take him out on a Blackwatch mission. But it seemed he had gotten a small wake-up call from the whole ordeal with Doctor Ziegler, but as Mccree began to walk away to find Gabriel, he thought of how bad Doctor Ziegler was with her work and stubbornness. But both had heart with protecting and helping the people of the world he knew that. Whilst he got his cigar out of his pocket, he began to think of Genji and the doc as a thing, then brushed aside instantly.

 “Never gonna happen,” Mccree confirmed to himself as he lit his cigar.

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Non-Sequential [Ch. 7]

Pairing: Pre-Serum Steve Rogers/Steve Rogers x Reader

One night, Steve Rogers met a beautiful dame named Y/N. He hadn’t intended on letting her get away. But fate had other ideas. Y/N appeared and disappeared in his life so hauntingly that Steve started to wonder if she was an angel meant to watch over him.

Word Count: 2,880

A/N: Inspired by the film The Time Traveler’s Wife. But not one of those fics that just literally rips off the whole movie and plugs in characters where they please.

Chapter 6

Steve was leaning against the doorway for one of the many labs in the compound. Y/N was sitting on a stool across from Nat. On the table between them were countless mock door knobs and locks. Nat was talking in an quiet and patient tone. And Steve could tell from Y/N’s expression alone that she was listening as intently as possible. “How long you think your boyfriend is gonna stare at us for?” Nat asked so seamlessly after her instructions that it Y/N had to process what she actually asked.

Y/N blinked and then looked to the door. Her face immediately broke into a loving smile when she spotted Steve. She jumped up from her seat and practically skipped to him, giving him a quick peck on the lips as her greeting.

“How’s my little criminal doing?” He joked.

“I already told you. I’m only using my skills for survival.”

He smirked at her. “That’s what you keep saying. But when Tony’s expensive wine starts to go missing from his wine cellar, I’m not protecting you.” She scoffed and giggled. “Yes, you will.”

And Steve knew she was right.

“I came down to see if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight,” he asked.

Y/N’s eyes lit up. “Yes, please.”

“What do you want to get?”

Without missing a beat, she answered, “Can we get cheeseburgers?”

Steve couldn’t help but smile and nod. It didn’t take a lot to make her happy. She could’ve said she wanted to get gourmet grasshoppers or frog for dinner, and he would’ve said yes. By some miracle, Y/N had yet to fully comprehend how much she had Steve wrapped around her finger.

Y/N even had the cheek to jump a little in excitement. “Let me just go change really quick and I’ll meet you in the living room.”

“You look beautiful, Y/N. What do ya need to change for?”

But she ignored his question and kissed his cheek before hurrying off to his bedroom.

Nat slowly got up from her seat and had a teasing smirk on her lips.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you…for showing her all of this,” Steve gestured to the table of locks and doorknobs.

Nat had offered to teach Y/N how to pick locks. 

When Y/N traveled, she unfortunately didn’t get to bring her clothes with her. Therefore, the first goal was always to find something to wear and also get out of the elements. Almost nobody would let a strange, naked woman into their house. And the ones that would, were after something that Steve couldn’t let himself ever consider.

So…Y/N had to break in to places quite often.

When Steve and Y/N had their first fight about trying to find a cure for Y/N’s time traveling, Steve realized what he should put his focus on instead was giving her the tools to survive and keep herself safe.

The next thing on his list was teaching her self-defense. He’d probably need Nat’s help on that again. He valued her perspective on teaching a woman how to fight men twice her size. Y/N wasn’t forced to learn like Steve and the rest of the Avengers.

“It was no problem,” Nat shrugged. Then she eyed him a moment. “I like her.”

Steve grinned and lowered his head sheepishly. “I like her too.”

But they both knew it was more like love for him. 

“I’m happy for you, Steve.”

The playfulness had disappeared. Nat was being serious.

He sighed, “There’s a ‘but’ coming in somewhere, isn’t there?”

“You’re waiting for something,” she pointed out cooly.

Steve huffed. “Yeah, for the floor the drop. For her to disappear. For her to never come back because something happened to her.”

“Is that why you’re holding back?” Nat accused.

“I’m not holding back. I’m trying not to be…overbearing.”

“She doesn’t want distance, Steve. Don’t you think the two of you have had more than a lifetime of it?” Nat pat his shoulder then. “For once, can you just let yourself be happy? You deserve it, Steve. Really. And Y/N does too.”

Steve’s eyes softened.

But she had already started walking away.

“Hey, Nat?”

She turned.

“Thank you.”

—————

“Are you ever going to stop looking at me like that?” Y/N asked with a smirk before taking a sip of her beer.

“I just saw you inhale that double cheeseburger and a family-sized order of fries, like your life depended on it,” Steve laughed.

“Yeah. Well. I’m a lady.”

Steve chuckled.

“Have I ruined my allure now? Is this it for us?” Y/N asked melodramatically, mischief evident in her eyes.

“Oh, no. You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Steve answered instantly and added a shake of his head. “If anything, you’re even more alluring now.” 

Then he reached forward and used his thumb to rub away a small dot of mustard that had been left on the corner of her mouth.

Y/N blushed like it was the most intimate thing he’d ever done to her.

She hid the embarrassment by chugging her beer. Then she eyed Steve’s, which he had barely touched.

“Why do you order drinks when you can’t get drunk?”

Steve shrugged. “Guess I just do it to fit in…feel more normal.” Then he slid it toward her. “But that shouldn’t stop you from having fun.”

Y/N’s cellphone suddenly started ringing and all Y/N’s amusement was wiped away when she read the screen. She instantly silenced it and shoved it back in her purse.

Steve shifted in his chair and knew he had to tread carefully. “That your mom again?”

“Yep,” she replied, emphasizing the ‘p.’

“Maybe you should just answer it,” Steve suggested carefully.

Y/N ignored him and drank his beer.

“You still mad at her?” “Maybe,” she mumbled.

“You know, I wasn’t offended by what she said. If you’re mad at her for my sake, that’s not necessary.”

Y/N’s parents had made it very clear that they did not approve of her dating an Avenger. Her even being near them was off-putting for them. Her parents were convinced The Avengers were taking advantage of her powers and would probably convince her to join the initiative…and then eventually be killed protecting the world.

Steve wasn’t mad because he knew what they were really upset about: her safety.

And he could relate.

After a bit, Steve also found out that Y/N’s mom and dad blamed him for all the time travel events where Y/N got hurt or nearly killed.

Y/N tried to explain to them why her traveling was so attached to Steve’s lifeline. But they just didn’t seem to want to listen. Y/N grew more and more frustrated, until she just stopped answering their calls altogether.

The movies would probably romanticize dating a superhero. But in reality, having their daughter date Captain America was a parent’s worst nightmare.

What made it worse was Steve completely understanding that.

“I’ll torture them a little bit longer,” Y/N muttered.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Steve tried to joke. “I don’t think I could handle a silent treatment from you.”

—

They were driving back from dinner when Steve’s phone vibrated with a text message.

“That Sam?” Y/N asked carefully. Steve sighed and nodded.

“Another dead end?”

He nodded again.

Sam had been in and out of town, tracking down any lead he had on Bucky. It was strange to have Steve’s best friend of the present hunting down his best friend of the past. If Steve had his way, he’d be doing it himself. But he was handling Avengers business. Most importantly, he couldn’t spend any more time away from Y/N. He was already constantly going on missions. The idea to add even more to his plate, to be gone even longer, made him feel sick.

“You knew what would happen to him?” Steve asked her lightly.

“Yeah, I tried to stop it even.”

HIs brows raised and he turned to look at her. She’d never admitted to something like that before.

Y/N’s eyes watered. “I tried to warn you of the date. I tried to give you hints. One time I even tried to stop Bucky from going on that mission. But nothing I do changes the past. It’s like my attempts were already written in history. My time travel from the future was already embedded in the past.”

Steve reached over the console to grip her thigh. “Y/N, it means a lot to me that you even tried.”

She sighed shakily. “If I knew where he was now, I’d tell you. But I don’t.”

“Have you…Have you seen him in the future?”

Y/N shook her head, “At least…not yet.”

———————

Steve rarely slept through the night. He woke up constantly through the night. His anxiety was his worst enemy. It was hard for him to rest. He kept thinking about upcoming missions or how he could made fewer mistakes on the last one. Then he worried about Y/N. If she was sleeping in his bed, he would often wake up in a startle and check to make sure she was still sleeping beside him.

Tonight was another one of those nights.

Both he and Y/N were naked under his sheets and comforter from their activities earlier in the evening.

Y/N’s naked back had been pressed against his chest. In his sleep, he held her close.

So when he woke up, he wondered why he had a bad feeling.

He placed a kiss on her shoulder. And when he looked over at her face, she was peacefully sleeping.

But their little piece of nirvana was dismantled.

It started at her finger tips. Her skin, bones, and muscles were evaporating as if they were made out of clouds.

Steve gasped, realizing what was happening. He didn’t want to wake her, worried it would panic her. She traveled in her sleep before, she had once told him. This wasn’t new territory for her. But it still pained Steve to watch his lover disappear in his grasp, while he could do absolutely nothing to stop it.

———————

1944

By some miracle, Y/N didn’t end up alone in a freezing forest during a war. Instead, she was standing naked in the middle of a god damn camp of WWII soldiers.

Men gaped at her, wondering if they had completely gone insane from the war to see a beautiful and naked woman before them. Others seemed to register what they were seeing immediately and started whistling at her.

Y/N’s face had never felt hotter, even in the cold winter air. She tried to cover herself and knew that her cheeks had to be bright red.

Her heart rate started picking up as she began to panic. There was no escaping. Her eyes raced around the camp, hoping to find the blue eyes of Steve.

“What do we have here?” A brave – but sleazy – soldier said as he got up from his spot next to a fire. He made his way toward her.

Y/N started backing up.

She jumped when she felt a heavy weight on her shoulders and a firm grip.

“Back up, private,” a deep voice growled in warning.

But it wasn’t Steve’s voice.

Y/N turned around, wide eyed, to find Bucky Barnes. 

He had thrown his military overcoat around her shoulders. The heavy and thick wool shielded her naked skin and instantly warmed her.

“What? You’re not sharin’ Sergeant Barnes?” The private had the guts to challenge.

Bucky put himself between Y/N and the man, which stopped her from being able to see the deathly glare Bucky was giving.

“Wanna try that again…private?” Bucky emphasized the man’s lower rank with a hiss.

The private blinked and seemed to finally snap out of his daze; a daze that could only happen when a man hasn’t seen a woman in too many months.

Bucky then turned his attention to all the curious gazes that watched him or gawked at Y/N. “She’s a woman from the village that got attacked the other night. Anyone even thinks about laying a hand on her, you’re answering to me and the Howlies. Got it?”

There were a lot of nods and some ‘yes, sergeant’s from the group.

Bucky turned, and as soon as  his gaze met hers, his tough and authoritative demeanor vanished. He looked at her with sympathy and kindness.

“Come on, doll. You’re gonna freeze to death if we don’t get you inside,” he told her as he ushered her away.

Y/N didn’t even know it was possible for Bucky to sound so quiet and gentle.

He glared at any soldier that stared at Y/N in a way he didn’t like. Meanwhile, Y/N shivered as she followed Bucky through the camp.

Finally they reached a tent that clearly belonged to the sergeant.

“Th-Thank you…for what you did back there.” Y/N managed to say through her shivering.

Bucky winced at her obvious freezing and knelt down, rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm her up quicker.

“W-Where’s Steve?” She asked.

Then Bucky couldn’t seem to look her in the eye.

Y/N put it together real quick. Her head lowered and she smiled wistfully. “He’s with Peggy.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew.

“They’re in a meeting,” Bucky tried to sound as casual as possible.

She ignored him and pulled the coat tighter around herself.

“Here,” Bucky hurriedly grabbed the blanket from his cot and threw it over her shoulders.

“Really weren’t kidding about the whole time-traveling thing, huh?” He said with his infamous Bucky Barnes side smirk.

Y/N eyed him. “Clearly not.”

Bucky’s face went a little serious. “Steve told me how it works – that you can’t control it.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“But now it makes sense,” his eyes were filled with mischief. “What makes sense?”

“Why Steve never made you his girl.” Y/N couldn’t help but glare at him slightly. “Steve’s with Peggy.”

“That mean you don’t got a fella in whatever time period you’re from?” Bucky teased with the raise of a brow.

“Why? You interested?”

That seemed to take him aback.

“After all,” Y/N continued, “You did just see me completely naked.”

Bucky blushed. “That’s not – I wasn’t-”

“What?” Y/N cut off his stuttering. “Girl’s never outwitted you in flirtation, Sergeant Barnes?”

Bucky finally broke the spell with a loud chuckle and a shake of his head. Then he noticed that Y/N was still shaking.

“Let me go see if I can find you some soup or hot coffee,” he thought aloud as he tried to think about where he could find such things when their rations were so low.

“You don’t have to do that,” Y/N tried to argue.

“You kidding me? Steve would have my ass if I let anything happen to you.” He opened the flap of his tent. “Don’t go wandering around. Just because they’re soldiers, doesn’t mean they’re all good men.”

After what felt like forever Bucky found some soup.

But as he was walking back to his tent, he found Steve walking toward him alongside Agent Carter.

“Where the hell have you been?” Bucky accused, a little too aggressive for his usual self.

Steve looked taken aback. “I told you earlier, Buck. I had a meeting with Agent Carter and Stark.”

“Well, someone wants to talk to you.” But Bucky tried to communicate more through just his eyes. “Someone who was early…very early.”

“You usually speak in riddles, Sergeant Barnes, or are you just being unusually strange today?” Agent Carter mocked.

But Steve’s eyes widened slightly when he realized what Bucky was trying to tell him.

“Excuse us, Agent Carter,” then Steve rushed away and dragged his best fired with him, without any further explanation to Peggy.

“How long has she been here?” Steve whispered in a hiss.

“About an hour or so,” Bucky answered. “She just appeared in front of the entire infantry. I had to practically drag her out of there, as if she were a piece of meat being dangled in front of a pack of wolves.”

Then he saw panic flash across Steve’s face.

“Relax, punk. She’s safe and sound in my tent.”

Steve blinked. “What part of that sentence is supposed to comfort me?”

Bucky punched his shoulder. He started to argue with Steve about the jab. 

But when they entered his tent, Steve slapped his chest to quiet him.

Bucky looked over at his cot to find Y/N fast asleep. Then he looked back at Steve, who hadn’t moved his gaze away from her.

“She gets tired after she travels. It takes a lot out of her,” Steve whispered.

He moved to sit on the edge of the cot. Careful not to wake her. He brushed some hair away from her face. Y/N seemed to sigh with content at the touch.

Bucky watched the way Steve looked at Y/N.

The two of them were not romantically involved; they might be separated by time. But in that moment, Bucky realized that Y/N was still Steve’s girl.

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

Chapter 8

Thank you to everyone who sent me asks on suggestions or what they wanted to see in this series. It was super, super helpful. But I’m also shocked at how many of you did it. You guys are the real MVPs.

I do not do taglists. Here is the series’ masterlist: Non-Sequential

[arcanalogue]

Notes on the Tetractys: Vol. 1

I have promised to do some writing about the Tetractys, so here it goes.

The first time this symbol blipped onto my radar was in 2009, when I learned about the it via somebody else’s artwork. At that point I had studied a bit of Greek philosophy and a heap of that Hebrew-adjacent mysticism that modern occultists appear to have bet everything on.

There’s literally no end to the amount of information out there about all of my favorite subjects, just waiting to be learned! This is why it’s so daunting for beginners who want to connect to certain magickal traditions: you want to know your shit, but we’re talking about areas of study which are notoriously difficult to access, and in many cases have been selected against in the great evolutionary arms-race of education. And then there are the gatekeepers upon gatekeepers upon gatekeepers...

The internet is an amazing tool for educating oneself, but there are so many ways to use it, and not a lot of instructions (just endless corrections). It takes a dexterous and inquisitive mind to exercise its potential in any focused way — to know what there even is to search for in the first place, and then how to search for it, how to dig into the crevices you find between related subjects and mine them for additional information... which informs future searches, etc.

But we still have it so much easier than anyone who came before us! Reading about the ways in which knowledge was passed down from teacher to student, from generation to generation, during the times of Pythagoras and other Greek philosophers is just fascinating to me. How did they manage to keep the chain from breaking? 

Then you realize how many chains did break along the way. Those we have access to are just the ones which gained a critical mass of interest, or happened to be preserved, or managed to survive all the historical incidents that have wiped out massive amounts of history. 

We gradually realize that at virtually any point during its existence, a thing can be lost. Sometimes these things are lost on purpose, other times they slip through our fingers as we reach for other things. And then in some rare instances, a lost thing can be found again. So there’s often a continuity in a thing’s existence that isn’t evident in our historical record — which, from a distance, could probably be visualized as a string of lights blinking on and off again as various things (ideas, objects, people) are lost, forgotten, rediscovered, and then lost again, blipping across humankind’s awareness and then retreating, over and over across centuries.

Basically we humans are playing a giant “don’t let the balloon touch the floor” game with our own history, except with billions of people and balloons in play at once, and some of the players unfairly seem to be armed with pointy sticks. It’s an absurdly clumsy scenario, and no matter how well we try to play together... suffice to say, there will be casualties.

The Greeks knew this. They’d already seen it! Which is why some of the traditions you read about were so strict, or so eccentrically intense. These teachers knew their entire body of work could go up in smoke, literally anytime. In many cases they’d observed it firsthand. In some instances, they’d personally wielded the torches! Since the very dawn of technology, probably pre-dating language itself, humans have been engaged in informational warfare.

This is one way that teachers, inventors and explorers actually manage to change the course of history: by determining who can be trusted with emerging information. That’s why security and access remain central to conversations about technology to this very day. What is beneficial to keep secret, and what should be made available to the public? 

Some make these choices wisely, others choose unwisely, and everything we see around us is basically the grand result of all those choices.

Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be about the Tetractys? 

*bops balloon back toward ceiling*

There’s a reason why certain symbols and designs from antiquity remain in play today, thousands of years later. It’s the same reason that creators are constantly trying to create new ones, or in some cases just scooping up old symbols, dusting them off, remixing and repurposing them for a new mission.

Symbols and patterns are sticky. We like looking at them, thinking about them, playing with them. Remember how you did this as a child, over and over: encountering a new symbol, you would draw it, repeat it. As a product of embedding it in your own memory, you leave it where it may be found by someone else. As a technology, symbols are uniquely equipped for longevity in the human world.

The human eye and brain are linked in a way that’s predisposed to recognize patterns, and pattern recognition is key to learning (among many other things) mathematics.

Mathematics (which I’m terrible at, so don’t worry, this isn’t about to become a math blog) will always the key to understanding the reality we inherited, and to seeing its potential as we gradually fabricate a new one.

The Tetractys is both a symbol and a pattern, which makes it especially sticky and especially fun to play with. With very little explanation, its layers of meaning begin to unfold in the mind. It teases, it reveals, it obscures. The Tetractys nudges us new toward thresholds of awareness, echoing the cascading effect of reality’s formation described in the Tetractys itself.

As such, it remains its own best recommendation. Is it any wonder that Pythagoreans flipped their collective lids over it?

The author at Organelle writes:

“What [Pythagoras] was gave us is nothing like what it at first appears to be. This is why people were swearing by his name for having brought this simple diagram into the world of human experience: a toy which none could own, and anyone with a stick and some dirt could instantly play with. It requires no manufacture — it cannot not be stolen or co-opted, and ‘giving it away’ causes the giver and the gifted to become ‘exponentially more wealthy’ — in ongoing progressions.“

As early mathematicians fleshed out new concepts, and invented new symbols to represent their discoveries, they were basically just skipping stones further down the stream, packaging ideas in ways that other humans would be able to recognize and access and build upon. Sometimes this was done in full public view, but often they worked in secret, because their bodies of work (as well as their actual bodies) were vulnerable to being dismantled by anyone who found them threatening.

The reason I chose to begin writing about the Tetractys this way was to highlight that there are many different forms of information, many forms of teaching, many forms of learning. And, as we have finally proven, the world is also full of different kinds of human intelligence, capable of many different things. We’re slowly digging out from preconceptions imposed on us by minds that were overly concerned with ideals; any deviations from the ideal were considered to be of lesser value, selected against.

That’s one consequence of hierarchical religious thinking, and it’s not hard to see how even the Tetractys — with its depiction of reality cascading downward from a perfected “monad” state to an earthly “tetrad” — could end up appearing to confirm earlier humans’ preconceptions about what human perfection ought to look like, sound like, be like. Contemplating the pure language of mathematics, or seeking the pure spiritual experience, we crave to reform ourselves and our world to reflect this pursuit. 

Science and religion were conjoined for so long in our ancient history, it’s not surprising that notions conflating scientific purity and spiritual purity still turn up everywhere you look. We’re hooked on them! You see it a lot in New Age thought, and the desire to find confirmation of our spiritual beliefs in “natural” phenomena; the dreaded quest for “authenticy.”

I wanted to start by pointing out that I am not qualified to teach others in the formal sense. I have no accreditation. My academic pedigree is limited to... well, words written in a blog post, however thoughtfully I manage to string them together.

To learn tarot and other various practices, first I had to learn how to learn. For the most part, my education was missing this crucial step. I’ve always been quite naturally absorbent, but the moment my curiosity in any subject was satisfied, I considered my work done. 

That’s probably how most people function when left to their own conclusions... unless survival dictates otherwise. But some of us discover we simply have to keep evolving, keep looking for answers, in order to endure. How do I adapt to survive in this world? What are its qualities? Where are its boundaries? What am I actually capable of?

Taking responsibility for my own education in the longer term is one of the greatest accomplishments in my life. I never thought so before; it’s been too easy to focus on everything I’m still lacking. But now that I’m looking back from my forties, I see a surprising amount of continuity and steady progress. By now I’ve also noted the way knowledge fades when it’s seldom-used, so that means I’m often stuck with the humbling, non-glamorous chore of re-learning everything that used to be right at my mental fingertips.

The Tetractys flickered in and out of my awareness back in 2009, and then lit up again years later when I was working on a series of instructional posts about the minor arcana cards. 

This was the phase in my own practice when I began to leave the Tree of Life and other Qabalistic studies behind; the deeper I’d dug into them, the more I had to admit that my questions weren’t being answered — and in the meantime, I was being inundated with information that I had no practical use for. And as a non-Jewish person who reads and discusses the tarot quite often, I became uncomfortable relying on concepts related to the Hebrew alphabet that had been passed down by Western occultists.

At best, I had to admit that it was no longer helping me survive in this world.

Researching the overlapping history of the Tree of Life and the Tetractys, I realized this was a much firmer basis for my own personal investigations. The history of numbers and of symbolism has no direct path! But it’s very easy to end up sticking to the most well-trod path, even if it’s not going exactly where you’d hoped.

The Tetractys jewelry I created with Azamel was a way of marking that commitment with a reminder to keep learning, to question and refine my own interest in the subjects that appeal to me. I must be willing to adjust course, even if it means wandering through grass higher than my head. That feeling of ignorance and vulnerability is reminiscent of being child again, and comes with all of the wonder and discovery of childhood, as well as the requisite bumps and mistakes and redundancies.

In upcoming posts, I will share some of what I’ve learned from the Tetractys and how I’ve reinvested that into my tarot practice. I’m not “teaching” you how to use the Tetractys in your tarot practice, but I’m happy to help give the balloon another bump, and point to sources that might give you that delightful cascading sense of awareness. 

By now I know many of you personally (even if just a bit!) and I know that our love of that feeling is one that knits us together. It also unites us with all the teachers and students of past traditions, many of whom made tremendous sacrifices just to be able to pursue and relive that feeling.

Thanks for reading! And special thanks to those who snapped up this bit of jewelry early on, it has meant the world to have SOME small thing to show for the long months sitting here in the vast semi-darkness of 2020. Developing the consecration ritual for the Tetractys jewelry, I felt almost like I was visiting people, imagining their surroundings, their cards, their questions.

It’s comforting to be surrounded by so many who are still searching, still learning. I do not believe this ever ends, even after death.

[adgiggles]

everything hurts

And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened.  - Douglas Coupland

I wish you had enough discipline for the both of us. Just because I don't know how to turn off the way I feel. I know you always fell out love so damn easily. But honestly, I don't think you ever had something real.  - Chelsea Cutler

You think you can change a guy, that he’ll be different with you, that you’ll finally be the one to tame him... and before you know it, you’re alone in your underwear at nine o’clock on a Saturday night, crying to Adele songs, eating ice cream straight from the gallon, and wondering what the hell is the matter with you that you fell for such a goddamned man-child, after he explicitly warned you not to. - Julie Johnson

There is part of me that wants an answer and part of me that doesn't want to know. Part of you that I am in love with and the part that I am willing to let go. This is a delicate unraveling now and then I find pieces on the floor. Tiny little bits that tell me maybe I shouldn't do this or love you anymore. - Mandy Moore

I am a collection of dismantled almosts. - Anne Sexton

People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain. - Jim Morrison

I feel you crumble in my arms down to your heart of stone. You bled me dry just like the tears you never show. Why don't you take what you want from me? Take what you want and go. - Austin Post

Erase your touch, it's all too much for me. - Billie Eilish

It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone. - Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away. - Frida Kahlo

Sure I loved him - too much. And he loved me, only not enough. I just want someone who thinks I’m number one in his life. I’m not willing to accept emotional scraps anymore. - Amy Tan

If you’re searching for a quote that puts your feelings into words – you won’t find it. You can learn every language and read every word ever written – but you’ll never find what’s in your heart. How can you? He has it. - Ranata Suzuki

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. - Pablo Neruda

People with depression have something very valuable to teach us...how to live when it doesn't ever feel good. - Kay Warren

Yes, I understand why things had to happen this way. I understand his reason for causing me pain. But mere understanding does not chase away the hurt. - Jocelyn Soriano

I desire the things that will destroy me in the end. - Sylvia Plath

I can't make you understand.I can't make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I can't even explain it to myself. - Franz Kafka

May you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agised as in that hour left my lips: for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love. - Charlotte Brontë

The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one. - Queen Victoria

Silence bounced, fell off his tongue and sat between us and clogged my throat. It slaughtered my trust. We exchanged blind words, and I did not cry, I did not beg, but blackness filled my ears, blackness lunged in my heart, and something that had been good, a sort of kindly oxygen, turned into a gas oven. - Anne Sexton

Don't you know I'm no good for you? I've learned to lose you, can't afford to. Tore my shirt to stop you bleeding but nothing ever stops you leaving. Don't you know too much already? I'll only hurt you if you let me. Call me friend but keep me closer. But nothing is better sometimes. Once we've both said our goodbyes, let's just let it go, let me let you go. - Billie Ellish

Was I heartbroken or furious? I didn’t know. I did know: that’s it. Our relationship could not continue like this, out of balance, unequal. And as surely as I knew this, I knew something else: But of course it can. We can continue to live exactly as we do right now, in a heavy-lidded state of love and unspeakable compromise. Isn’t that what people do? Every day? Don’t they ache but rename it tired? It made me wonder: Was it even fair to expect the person you’re with to be just as happy as you? Furthermore, how could you ever even know for sure? You couldn’t, was the truth of it. You could not know this. - Augusten Burroughs

Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don’t. - Stephen King

No one ever tells you how much a heartbreak physically hurts. How it literally feels like you've been kicked down the stairs. How you can't swallow. How every muscle aches. How your heart lurches inside you like it's been poisoned. Nobody tells you that. - Holly Bourne

A divorce is like an amputation: You survive it, but there's less of you. - Margaret Atwood

Con cada amor volvemos a nacer y con cada amor que termina se nos abre una herida. Estoy llena de orgullosas cicatrices. - Isabel Allende

No amount of soul searching would fix my past. There was no magical Band-Aid I could stick on my heart, no special glue I could use to make myself whole again. I had shattered to pieces like a fragile vase on concrete; some fragments could be roughly cobbled back together, but many of my vital parts had simply turned to dust, pulverized and scattered by the first gust of wind. - Julie Johnson

Tears are words that need to be written. - Paulo Coelho

So now if I figure this out, apart from my beating heart, it's a muscle but it's still not strong enough to carry the weight of the choices I've made. - Halsey

What if love is something that shapes us because of what we give, not what we get in return? What if God wants us to love people until it hurts and then continue to love even more? - Chelsea Rotunno

And if only you could see yourself in my eyes, you'd see you shine, you shine. I know you'd never leave me behind but I am lost this time. What if the love you deserve is love you never find? I've learned in love and death, we don't decide. - Dermont Kennedy

All good things in life are fragile and easily lost. - Khaled Hosseini

But when it comes to you, I’m never good enough. - Demi Lovato

I understand your grief; even time does not always heal this kind of pain. - Frédéric Chopin

Sometimes it's not the people who change, it's the mask that falls off. - Haruki Murakami

I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug. I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved. - Lewis Capaldi

Passion may fade. Affection may wane. A heart may change. Falling in love can be a risky act if your love flows like driving a race car full speed ahead down the freeway. Risk assessment is needed for a romantic venture. - Florence Chow

Memories do not always soften with time; some grow edges like knives. - Barbara Kingsolver

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God. - Victor Hugo

Maybe we all have darkness inside of us and some of us are better at dealing with it than others. - Jasmine Warga

She loved him. But he didn’t know how to love. He could talk about love. He could see love and feel love. But he couldn’t give love. He could make love. But he couldn’t make promises. She had desperately wanted his promises. She wanted his heart, knew she couldn’t have it so she took what she could get. Temporary bliss. Passionate highs and lows. Withdrawal and manipulation. He only stayed long enough to take what he needed and keep moving. - G.G. Renee Hill

Cause love is harder than it used to be and life is nothing like we pictured it. Who are we to blame ourselves for moving on? - Elina

So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love. - E.A. Bucchianeri

Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.” - C.S. Lewis

Perhaps this is what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching. - Gabriel García Márquez

It’s amazing how someone can break your heart and you can still love them with all the little pieces. - Ella Harper

You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it. - J.K. Rowling

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing. - Anaïs Nin

I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. - Plato

Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. - W.S. Merwin

The worst feeling is not being lonely. It’s when someone makes you feel special, then suddenly leaves you and you have to pretend you don’t mind at all. - Nishan Panwar

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. - Margaret Mitchell

You flew off with the wings of my heart and left me flightless. - Terri Guillemets

Some things just can't be put back together. Some things can never be fixed. Two broken pieces can't make a lot of anything anymore. - Jamie Ford

I know my heart will never be the same but I’m telling myself I’ll be okay. - Sara Evans

This is what it felt like to have a broken heart. It felt less like a cracking down the middle and more like she had swallowed it whole and it sat bruised and bleeding in the pit of her stomach. - Wendy Wunder

It's a shame you left without a word, you know. She was just beginning to trust you before that. Before you got angry. Before you ran off. Just like every other man in her life. Lusting after her, full of sweet words, then just walking away. Leaving her alone. Good thing she's used to it by now, isn't it? Otherwise you might have hurt her. Otherwise you just might have broken that poor girl's heart.  - Patrick Rothfuss

Nothing makes you hurt like hurting who you love, and no amount of words will ever be enough. I looked you in the eyes, saw that I was lost. For every question "why", you were my "because". - Louis Tomlinson

You know me now. I am only good at beginnings. - Allen Ginsberg

I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong. - Haruki Murakami

My sadness has become a routine that no one notices anymore. - Paulo Coelho

And if I get burned, at least we were electrified. - Taylor Swift

So I never really knew you, God I really tried to. Blindsided, addicted, felt we could really do this. But really I was foolish. Hindsight, it's obvious. - Ashlyn Rae Willson

I hate that because of you, I can't love you. - Taylor Swift

When you are not fed love on a silver spoon, you learn to lick it off knives. - Lauren Eden

If you keep reaching out then I'll keep coming back. But if you're gone for good then I'm okay with that. - Maggie Rogers

I close my eyes all I see is you. How many times can a heart get bruised? It's an end to you, just empty space that I never use. How many faces will I lie next to? How many times until I get to you? - Gavin James

Boiled down, isn’t love just a form of vanity? You know, the wish to be adored. To be the absolute center for someone else. - Carol Shields

I am sorry someone loved you badly, and that they made you feel like you take up more space than you deserve. I am sorry they abandoned you when you need them the most and it has made you believe that love is an awful thing that hurts. - Nikita Gill

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[realm-sweet-realm]

What have I done?

This is chapter two of the body swap to the death au. I really like this one and hope you do, too.

---

It was day two, and now was Henry’s time to begin implementing his plan. As far as confidence went, he felt good. Physically, he felt as weak as a man thirty years older; like his legs were struggling to handle his weight. He’d felt kind of off the day before, but not like this. Joey’s note hadn’t mentioned anything about physical illness.

Well, hopefully it wasn’t anything that would need attention. Henry burst into the recording studio and announced, “Good morning, everyone! I trust that you’re all doing an efficient job? Well, that’s great, because I have lots of changes to make and they need to be made by the deadline. Essentially, scrap the whole episode. We’re doing the next episode in our queue instead this week!”

An almost goofily large on his face, Henry approached Jack, trying not to limp, and trying to read everyone’s expressions. “Jack, we’re going to need you to write a new song. Something... 4th of July based.” The puffy-faced pout was very Bertrum Piedmont-like, but that could have just been because they had somewhat similar faces.

“Sammy, you’ll be collaborating with Jack,” Henry had expected at least a little annoyance that Sammy, an award-winning and (in Sammy’s mind, at least) chronically under-appreciated composer, was being treated as less important than Jack. Instead, Sammy just nodded indifferently. Not much of a hint.

“Allison, you can stay where you are. The new lines are ready for you to start recording, and I’m sure the song won’t take long.” Indifference. No hints. Darn.

“And Alice? Well, there’s no bit parts for you in the new episode, so I’ve put your shows and meet-and-greets back on the table. Your first show is this afternoon.”

Oh, Thomas did not like the sound of that. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he cooed in an exaggeratedly girly voice. “I’m going to have to go home sick. I could handle recording some lines, but shows are just too much for me right now. I have a fever.” Goddamnit, of all illnesses to fake, he had to go with the body producing too much heat. Still, he walked out, keeping his temper under control until he was just outside their view and could finally slip out of this idiotic persona. Maybe he’d stay home for the rest of the week. He sure as hell wasn’t singing. Even disregarding his desires, Susie seemed like a nice girl and it would probably ruin Susie’s reputation.

“And if anyone thinks there will be any trouble meeting the deadline, arrange to meet in my office,” “Joey” finished. Of course, they all would. And then Henry could test them further.

One person even took him up on the offer that day: “Sammy,” who had asked to meet him in his last available time slot that day.

When “Sammy” entered, he closed the door and smiled as though he’d barricaded them in. Henry’s pulse quickened.

“Alright, I’ll make this quick. I’m not here about the deadline, and I’m not here to figure out your identity, either. In fact, I’ll tell you mine if you can do one little thing for me.” Sammy walked over and sat on Joey desk.

Henry was flustered. “What? What do you want?”

“Take me to “your” home. I know “you” have secrets you’re hiding.”

Henry had some ideas, but didn’t feel sure of a single identity yet. He needed that identity to stay alive. “Sure,” he answered.

“Sammy” smiled. “Wonderful. But no identity until I’m satisfied, understood?” Allison leaned over and stroked “Joey” under the chin. She loved this. She was getting high on this. Getting the upper hand on Joey, flustering him by letting her seductive side out to play, and getting to learn his secrets? Impulsive and stupid this might be, but she must have been dreaming.

“Please don’t touch me,” Henry said, brushing her hand away. “I suppose we can leave now, since you’re the last one I’m meeting with.”

They set off. On the way there, Allison was tempted to make fun of Joey’s limp, as she’d wanted to do for ages. She figured she ought to dial back the meanness, though. As fun as this was, this wasn’t actually Joey. For all she knew, she could have been bullying Jack, or Susie, or Tom. Yes, from then on, she’d be kind to “Joey.”

Joey lived in the penthouse of one of the apartment buildings downtown, and surprisingly enough, Henry hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary there. Then again, he hadn’t exactly been looking, let alone hunting like “Sammy” was. The first thing he did was to go through every room, quickly checking every door until he came upon one that was locked. “Your keys,” she demanded, putting out her hand for them. Henry handed them over. After every key had been tried, “Sammy” handed them back and immediately marched to Joey’s bedroom and began going through the drawers.

“Uh... can you have a little respect for his privacy?” Henry requested.

“Sorry. Not until I have a key.”

Resigned, Henry obeyed his aching legs and sat down on the bed as “Sammy” continued to turn the room inside out.

“Aha! This drawer has a false bottom! Lemme just unscrew this, and...”

How on earth was Henry going to explain to Joey why his furniture was dismantled? He was pretty sure that “Sammy” had either lost it or was up to something, but he was too tired to stop him.

Allison lifted up the plank, which had been held in place by a single screw. It was a lighter colour than the rest of the desk, and underneath it was a bottom that matched the rest of it. Slowly, she turned the board over to reveal exactly what she’d hoped for: a taped-on key.

The key fit the lock perfectly. What was on the other side of that door was enough that she was almost scared to go in alone. “Joey, you need to come see this!” she called before entering.

The room was about the size of a guest bedroom, and in fact did have a bed shoved into a corner, with a lamp and a few other items of furniture piled onto it. In the other corner, the carpet had been pulled back almost halfway across the room to reveal concrete floor with three pentagrams drawn on it and a few smaller symbols in between them. There was a bookshelf as well, halfway filled with big, black, unlabelled books. The other half of it was occupied by jars, containing dried plants, unidentifiable red and black fluids, and other items that Allison couldn’t identify. On a nearby desk was a cage filled with at least a dozen live rats, many of which were currently feeding on a dead rat. The desk also contained several more jars of indeterminate contents, and a diary with the words “ritual log,” written on the front in Joey’s extravagant handwriting.

“Oh, Joey, what have you been doing...?” “Joey’s” voice came from behind her.

“Sure you don’t want to back out now?” Allison asked, eyes trained forwards. This was more than she ever dreamed of finding.

“No.” Henry said. The note hadn’t said anything about pets, or, as the rats seemed to be, specimens. Henry had heard them squeak, but he’d just assumed that the place had a pest problem. Whatever Joey was hiding, he was willing to let them go without care for a week to keep it hidden.

“Alright. Then let’s find out,” Allison said, making a beeline for the ritual log. “Interesting. It seems like he uses the same spell every day or two.”

“Which one?” Henry asked, but Allison was engrossed, flipping back, looking for a specific date. When she got to it, well, its entry didn’t shock her, but it was upsetting. And it needed to be shared.

“I’m taking this home,” Allison stated, and made her way to the door.

“Sammy, I can’t let you do that! I don’t even know who you are!”

“Are you strong enough to stop me?” Allison nearly snapped, attempting to push her way past him. As it turned out, he was. Barely.

“Can’t you just tell me what this is about?”

“No. I don’t know who you are.”

“It seems to me that this is more important than that. I’m Henry Stein. And you are?”

“Susie Campbell,” Allison replied. Allison had planned on saying that since the walk over. This way, she was not only protecting herself, but as a bonus, she was protecting Susie, should Henry try to find her. Plus, after the fool she’d made of herself in his office, well, no one else would have been believable.

“Can I see the book now?” Henry asked.

Allison opened it to the proper page.

April 20th, 1941.

Ritual: creation of ink creature (soul in forefront, failure)

Details: Sammy Lawrence and I had Susie Campbell meet us in the studio after hours. She had consented beforehand and is a skilled actress, so instead of burying her soul under the essence of a cartoon character like in previous rituals like this, I decided to let her essentially be an ink-skin actress. We used chloroform to get her unconscious and began the ritual in book 3, page 219. However, she woke up before we could complete the ritual as Sammy and I wasted too much time arguing. (Note: next time make much stronger chloroform. Susie is very light, and even she wasn’t out very long.) We had already begun the chant and could not stop until the ritual was complete, so we had to slit her throat while she was awake.

There were further complications when a bit of film was twisted in the machine, and Susie came out as a nondescript ink blob. Her level of consciousness in this form is unclear. I think that the trapped demon in the machine must have had its will entirely extinguished at this point- if it were still conscious, it might have asked what I wanted when the reel made it unclear. It’s just a cog in the machine now, just as planned.

Allison turned the page.

April 20th, 1941.

Ritual: creation of an ink creature (soul in forefront, success.)

After I had fixed the film reel, we repeated the ritual described on the last page. She emerged from the ink machine a perfect Alice Angel, and physically unharmed. Her corpse was embalmed and then disposed of in the sewer. This was highly successful: she should be doing shows within a matter of days. Unfortunately, I cannot foresee anyone else consenting to this ritual, so I will have to continue with the older variant of the spell.

“Oh my God,” was all Henry could think to say. “I mean, I knew he’d killed-“ his eyes fell on “Sammy” with absolute pity for a moment, then fell to the ground, “but I didn’t know that he was killing people who hadn’t agreed to it. The way he’s writing, you’re not the first or the last.”

“You see? We have to turn this in.” Allison forced a tearful tone into her voice, as Susie might have if she were reading about her murder. “We have to give it to the police.”

“Absolutely. But... can we do it at the end of the week? I mean, if they arrest me, I’m going to die. I need to find at least one more identity. But I promise, I’ll hand him over, Susie.”

“Thank you,” she croaked before turning to leave.

“Oh, uh, one more thing-“

“Yes?”

Henry gently stroked Susie’s arm. “This is only if it won’t be emotionally hard for you. But since you’re in Sammy’s body, could you bring me that picture of your dead body? You know, as evidence?”

“Of course,” Allison said. She was happy to get out of there. To think that just a couple hours ago, she’d been engrossed the mystery of all of the secrets that she’d just sensed beneath Joey’s skin. But none of it was worth it. Not if it required hurting people. But... what if not all of those spells did require hurting people? What if there were some simpler, less violent, but still fantastic spells that she’d just missed her chance at finding? She tried to block out the thought, and the hunger it aroused in her. It was a struggle, at least she had her special revenge plan for Sammy to look forward to.

Henry stayed in Joey’s dungeon for quite a while after “Sammy” had left. The first thing he did was to look for a specific date in the book: the day that he and the others had been forced to watch the memories. He found it:

March 24th, 1941.

Ritual: summoning of a benevolent demon. (failed disastrously) (success?) (status unknown)

I used the spell found in book five, page 34. According to it, a benevolent demon is easier to control than a malicious one, but can only fulfill tasks that don’t require hurting others. Their purpose is apparently to be a more approachable lure into the occult than malicious demons- a gateway drug of sorts. They are not in any way actually benevolent. The demon appeared as a small, purple blob. Thinking up a task for him was difficult, as I am well on my way to having most of what I could want through my own doing. I thought of having it make Bendy cartoons more popular, but that seemed too big and risky. Perhaps when I have had more experience with benevolent demons. I asked him to reignite my friendship with Henry. (It’s not as though he could have made it worse, so it was relatively riskless.) It nodded, then squeezed through this tiny scratch in the pentagram that was meant to contain it, and disappeared. It escaped before I could bind it to me. I can only hope that it leaves me alone, now. It was supposed to just be a trial.

Update: I think it did what I asked. Maybe I did bind it to me? I hope so- that would mean it’s back in Hell.

Henry put down the book, feeling exhausted. He should have felt shocked. He should have felt... well, anything. But it was as though that part of him was used up.

He got up and performed that one spell that Joey was apparently performing every other day. It was a strength spell, and it involved spilling a few drops of his own blood on a rune drawn onto the floor. Henry could feel strength return to his legs, and a fair amount of energy flow into him. So, Joey was sick, and self-medicating with satanic magic. Why not?

Apparently, it hadn’t been a mistake that the rats had been eating a dead rat: that was a planned part of their diet, and many were being kept preserved in a jar. Henry dropped another one in along with some rat food.

Henry just wanted to go to bed after that. His body felt so... wrong. Foreign. He didn’t even want to think about Joey, and he was seeing him every time he looked down at his own, scarred hands.

Maybe he’d feel better once the lights were out.

Henry didn’t sleep at all that night. His mind was too full, mostly of the thought that the whole reason he was back in New York was because of a trick pulled by a demon. Henry had had to fight Linda to get her to agree to moving back to here. The kids were already settled in with their current school, the whole family had friends in Florida, Henry had a good job, and so on. She’d accused him of a mental breakdown for wanting to leave that all behind to work with Joey Drew. But that was after he’d seen those memories that he and Joey had shared, and how he’d almost needed him back then. That was after he and Joey had had their talk, and had offered to make him the co-owner of Joey Drew Studios. “We could even change its name!” he’d said. Most importantly, he’d promised that this time would be different.

Had it been different? Well, Henry wasn’t being overworked like he had been in the 30s, and he wasn’t hearing as many complaints about Joey anymore (Though that was partially because he was the head of a company with hundreds of employees, not the two dozen they’d had in the beginning, he figured). He hadn’t been given any actual management tasks yet, but Henry had only been there for a couple weeks and wasn’t in any rush with that anyhow. He might’ve pressed the issue if it had gone on much longer. Their relationship was also a lot more equal now that Henry was older and more self-assured. And yet, his first thought when doing a Joey impression had been to make an idiotic, selfish, unreasonable decision with a big smile on his face.

Had things really changed? Well, now he supposed it didn’t matter. At the end of the week, he’d take the evidence to the police, and try to keep his own thoughts away from the question.

He hoped that whoever was in his body was doing well by Linda. After all he’d put her through by moving here, their relationship definitely didn’t need more weirdness. She probably really did think he was breaking down right now, unless whoever was playing the role was doing an incredible job of it. Five days. Five days, and hopefully he’d be able to patch things up with her. Hopefully he’d at least get the chance.

[queen-scribbles]

Cracks

Or “I picked a wrong dialogue option in Onslaught and get catharsis through fic” . Not sure how canon this is for the Spy Nerds, but it demanded to be written, so I obliged. (Spoilers for Imp-side Onslaught, obviously) 

---

Only once in her life had Jaaide’s composure cracked while on a mission. No matter how difficult, no matter how draining, she kept her focus, held her emotions in check until she had privacy. She was a professional, after all, and no matter how deeply events might affect her, it was important to project both confidence and competence to any who might be watching.

It was only by sheer force of will this didn’t become a second entry on what she never wanted to be a list.

 Ironically, both incidents  traced back to the same source. One of the very few weaknesses she had in the this galaxy, in fact, and probably the biggest among them. (Her heart held in another body, she’d termed it once to herself, if no one else.) A source currently sitting in the pilot’s seat of the shuttle, radiating so much tension and frustration Jaaide could feel it from where she sat.

She should say something, she knew she should. She was the negotiator, the diplomat, had smoothed over countless problems big and small with her words alone. But with her composure held by a shimmersilk thread, she feared opening her mouth would shatter it like never before. And she couldn’t... she didn’t want anyone to see that, not even Lana.

And so the silence reigned, crackling and tense, until they landed. Jaaide was free of the restraints and striding purposefully from the shuttle even before the engines had shut down.

“I know you didn’t pull the trigger...”

The echo set her spine rigid and her jaw tight as she headed for her quarters, even without the end of the sentence in the mix.

“Commander!”

She didn’t slow down. Whatever Pardax wanted could wait. And if it couldn’t, well, there was always Lana. 

It took three tries to punch in her door code correctly, and she hit the inside controls with far more vehemence than usual behind her. She was removing her armor before the door was even completely closed, gauntlets and bracers shucked with a dull clatter on her desk, boots kicked off to thunk haphazardly by the sofa as she moved past it, and she only slowed to a stop when her anxious fingers fumbled with the clasps of her jacket. Come on, damn you, unhook.

The door swished open behind her as she battled leather and metal, and Jaaide froze for a moment before resuming her struggle. Neither of them spoke as Theron stepped into the room, as the door slid closed, and the silence stretched as Jaaide worked on the jacket clasps.

Finally, however, “Anything to say?”

“Like what?!” she demanded, voice already brittle at his barely concealed hostility. The last clasp gave under her efforts and she whipped her jacket off to hang over the arm of the sofa as she wheeled around. “You said plenty back on Vaiken. D’you want an explanation? An apology?” She gestured briefly and let her hands fall to her sides. “What?”

“The explanation would be a good start,” Theron said, crossing his arms. “How the hell did this happen?!”

“Did what happen, sabotaging the Imperial efforts to stop the Republic Fleet? Twice? Preventing them from destroying the Meridian Complex...?”

“You know what I mean, Jaaide,” he growled, fingers digging into his arms.  “Krovos killed untold thousands--if not millions--of civilians and-”

“I may as well have pulled the trigger,” Jaaide snapped sarcastically, wriggling out of her tank top. She’d never needed to wash a mission off her as badly as this one, even if she had to argue with him all the way to the ‘fresher. “I know.”

“That is not what I said,” Theron shot back, arms swinging free so he could point a finger to underscore the words.

“It was implied,” she bit out as she balled up the tank top and threw it toward the bed.

“So, what, you want me to pretend that I’m okay with it?!” he demanded hotly.

“No!”

“That it’s just a sacrifice for the greater good?!”

“No!”

“Then what, Jaaide, what?!”

“I want you to accept that I am trying my best!” she hollered, chest heaving as she climbed on the couch so she could actually look him in the eye.

“If this sort of pfassk is still happening” --a vague gesture with one hand--”maybe your best wasn’t good enough!”

“Maybe not,” Jaaide managed, voice on the very edge of breaking as she blinked to clear the stinging from her eyes. If he wanted to play like that, she could oblige. “That’s still rich coming from the man whose best needed my help to take down a single cult.”

Theron swallowed hard and she watched a vein throb in his temple. “Low blow,” he ground out.

“Oh, you mean like implying I’m just as culpable as Krovos for all those deaths, simply because I failed to dissuade her?” she fired back, crossing her arms and meeting him glare for glare.

“Please, Jaaide,” he snorted, “things I’ve seen you talk people into and out of? You could have at least tried harder.”

Would his words sting less if they weren’t so closely echoing her own conscience? “And if I had? If I’d opted for directness over subtlety and still failed to sway her, would my hands be clean enough for you?!” Her voice finally cracked on the last word, hurt and guilt oozing in. “I thought you of all people would understand how precarious undercover work can be.” She held his gaze best she could as angry tears blurred her vision.

“Well, if your undercover work isn’t saving any lives-”

“I know, I know, ‘what’s the point’?” She made a futile effort to swallow the lump in her throat. “You think I wasn’t asking myself the same thing all through Onderon?” she demanded. “Or Mek-sha? Where I was forced to fight the very people I want so desperately to help for the sake of my damn cover?!”

For the first time since he entered, Theron looked taken aback by the heat in her words. “Jaaide-”

But the dam had burst, the desperation that had been building since Onderon lending a note of increasing hysteria to her words. “I am trying to tear down the damn Empire, Theron. Not a cult, not a splinter group of fanatics or radicals; one of the largest, most entrenched powers that exists in the galaxy, I am trying to tear it down. Because I know what they can do, the methods they deem acceptable and sacrifices they think worthwhile if it will bring them victory. Why d’you think I want to fight it so badly? I know, far better than you, the lengths they will go, and I want it gone, dismantled, no more than an unpleasant memory. And if the Alliance isn’t strong enough to face them and the Republic won’t take me openly even when I all but beg, well,” Jaaide gave a tremulous laugh as she scrambled over the back of the sofa, sacrificing height to move closer, gesturing emphatically with the words, “I will rip out the guts of it from inside, alone, if need be, I just thought you, of all people” --she raised a hand to poke his chest, but instead curled it into a fist she pressed to her lips as another lump rose in her throat--”would have...” the words caught on a half-stifled sob. “Would have my back,” she whispered around her fist, as the tears finally built enough to send one rolling down her cheek.

There was an agonizing heartbeat of silence as her words hung in the air, both of them tense and brittle, before Theron closed the remaining distance between them and pulled her into a hug.

Jaaide stiffened briefly, started to flinch away, and then buried her face in his chest with a ragged sob.

They stood like that for a long minute, neither saying a word, Theron’s hands rubbing her back as her shoulders shook with the release of several months’ repressed tears.

“I am always going to have your back, sweetheart,” he finally said, voice soft.  “Always.” He snorted a sort-of laugh. “Unless you turn into a bloodthirsty psychopath or something, I guess.”

Jaaide couldn’t help a hysterical giggle, even as she sniffled.

He rested his chin atop her head. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll keep my mouth shut-”

“I know,” she mumbled into his shirt, nudging a loose buckle from his jacket aside so it wouldn’t dig into her cheek. “You wouldn’t be you without the passion for protecting people.”

“Someone has to look out for the little guys,” Theron deadpanned, “and since that’s never been a particularly high priority for the Sith, guess that role’s all mine.” Another long moment of silence, still sort-of tense, his finger tracing lightly along the path dictated by the shoulder strap of her bra. “Still, sorry for coming down on you so hard.”

Jaaide shook her head, rubbed her eyes with the heel of one hand. “D’you think you were saying anything my conscience hadn’t already screamed at me?”

“Still...” His fingers trailed down her arm. “Coulda phrased it better.”

She shook her head again and tipped her chin up to look at him. “Much as it hurt, you weren’t wrong. I could have tried harder. I have a well-established record of attempting to minimize civilian casualties, all the way back to the start of my career. It’s not as if it would have roused suspicion to be more direct.” The emotions swelled again, making her voice quaver. “But I was so focused on being careful, maintaining my cover, I didn’t even think to...” Her hand tried to gesture, but her wrist was trapped between her shoulder and his chest so it just flopped a little. “I’ve played the double agent for so long, and I’m so damn tired and just wanted it done, and I fell back on subtlety as my stock in trade and it wasn’t good enough.” Her fist pounded ineffectually against his chest. “And now I have several thousand more ghosts to haunt my dreams, if that makes you happy.”

Theron winced and while she could see in his eyes he was still angry at how things had gone, concern was starting to creep in. “Of course not. Just ‘cause I’m pissed doesn’t mean I’d wish nightmares on you.” He pulled her close again. “You’ve had enough of them for several lifetimes.”

“Maybe I deserve it for losing my edge,” she muttered. She’d talked a Dark Council member out of a truly monstrous plan before; surely she could have done it again if she’d just said the right thing. She’d gambled on subtlety and lost, and this was just the cost of her failed wager.

“That’s ridiculous,” Theron said firmly, running his fingers through her hair, and she finally felt some of the angry tension bleed from his posture. “Just...” He sighed. “Keep it in mind next time, if there is one.”

“Oh, I will, believe me,” Jaaide said wryly. Learning from failures--especially one as painful as this one--was part of the job. She started to ease back. “I need to take a shower, which won’t be nearly as long as I want it to be. Balkar... Balkar’s waiting to meet on Nar Shaddaa.” A thin smile. “Wants to check in with one of the Republic’s most valuable assets.”

“Jaaide...” Theron didn’t let her go, instead tracing his thumb along her jawline. The righteous anger and hostility were almost fully melted away, replaced by blatant worry. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Where, in the shower or to meet with Balkar?” she asked, trying for levity but hearing how tired even that sounded.

“Well, I’d been thinking more meeting with Balkar,” he said dryly, playing along despite the lingering concern in his eyes. “So I can deck him if he flirts with my wife again.”

Even utterly drained that pulled a genuine giggle out of her as she rested her forehead against his chest. “Darling, he doesn’t know. We kept that from becoming common knowledge for a variety of reasons,” she reminded him. “This is just one of the downsides.”

“Hell of a downside,” Theron muttered grumpily. “But if you’re offering to accept company in the shower, too, that might balance it out...”

She met his eye with a tired smile. “Deal. And when we get back from Nar Shadda, maybe we can talk to Hylo about working out some sort of aid for Corellia? Something beyond what the Empire knows about?”

She couldn’t quite read the look that flickered in his eyes, but it was much more encouraging than at the start of their spat. 

Theron kissed her forehead. “I love you.”

Jaaide smiled, feeling the cracks begin to slowly mend. They could get through this. “I know.”

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

Welp, I found Jaaide’s breaking point. She’s apparently been holding onto a LOT for a long-ass time. >.> And, I mean, I can’t really blame her? If my figuring is right, we’re up to at least a decade post-class story, which means it’s been ten kriffing years since she first accepted Kothe’s offer to defect and she’s still playing double agent instead of openly supporting the Republic, never mind all the Valkorion/Eternal Throne bs. She’s so tired.

Also, this is the one and only time she even sort of uses the Zildrog mess against Theron in an argument. And it only happens because she’s a completely broken, exhausted, distraught emotional mess and his “I know you didn’t pull the trigger on all those civilians, but you didn’t do anything to stop it” remark hurt her more than the entirety of said Zildrog mess.(she also apologizes while they’re in the shower, but I had to cut the fic somewhere, or these two would go forever.).

Oh, and I”ve always felt the song “Human” by Christina Perri is good for Jaaide, but by the end of this expansion, it was fricking perfect.