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mst3kproject · 4 years ago

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The Ape

In the vein of movies that should not be confused with eerily similar previous entries, The Ape is distinct from The Ape Man... but not by much. Both feature a slumming horror superstar, glandular secretions, and a stupid gorilla suit. All these things also showed up in early seasons of MST3K, of course, and The Ape Man also has a surprise bonus. Apparently, the guy in the gorilla costume is none other than Crash Corrigan, of Undersea Kingdom!

Long ago, Dr. Adrien lost his daughter to polio, and ever since he's been obsessed with finding a cure. That sounds pretty noble, but unfortunately, Adrien is a mad doctor, so the cure he comes up with requires killing healthy people to drain them of their cerebralspinal fluid! In order not to arouse suspicion, he kills and skins a gorilla that escaped from a circus, and wears its hide when he murders people... you know, as one does. To nobody's surprise but his, he ends up getting shot, but hey, at least he cured beautiful young Frances' paralysis!

This is a weird, dumb movie but one thing I can say in its favour is that everybody seems to have given it a good try. This material was far beneath Boris Karloff but he takes it seriously and actually gets a couple of decent moments, as does Maris Wrixton (who was also in The Face of Marble) as Frances. Nobody else is even close to Karloff's level, being just bland 40's actors who talk too fast, but none of the main cast are phoning it in, either.

Conversely, the worst thing in the movie is its truly horrendous gorilla suit. The puppet face shows the actor's eyes and can curl its lip, which is cool, though the features don't look very gorilla-ish. The rest of the suit, however, is terrible. It's way too shaggy and in order to give it a gorilla-like silhouette, they stuck a big hunchback on it. This might have worked if Corrigan had tried to walk on all fours like gorillas actually do, but instead he waddles along upright like a toddler with a full diaper, which ruins it. The people who made the movie also appear to think gorillas are nocturnal which, for the record, they are not.

Gorillas were kind of a big thing in movies of the 40's and 50's. The species had been scientifically described a century earlier, but hadn't really been studied until the 1920s and most people had never seen one outside of King Kong. Films of the period were not kind to the gorilla. One of the first gorilla movies was 1930's Ingagi, which purported to be a documentary about gorillas kidnapping women as sex slaves. That kind of set the tone, and subsequent movies depicted gorillas as creatures prone to violence and rape. Examples from this blog alone are numerous: The Ape Man (1940), Panther Girl of the Kongo (1955), and Bride of the Gorilla (1951) for starters... Robot Monster (1953) might also count.

The Ape has a slightly more nuanced approach to gorilla behaviour. Yes, its gorilla does maul people to death... but the first victim is its trainer, who has been shown mistreating it. Another circus employee even tries to tell him that he'll catch more flies with honey. When the ape batters its way into Dr. Adrien's house, it does so in order to get at the trainer's coat, which Adrien left draped over a chair when the dying man was brought to him for treatment. We see far more fear of the escaped ape than we do of the animal itself, and it does not commit near as many murders as Adrien does while dressed in its skin!

So that's halfway progressive for the 1940s. We can also look at the treatment of Frances, the wheelchair-user partially paralyzed by polio. She is clearly meant to be an object of the audience's pity, and Adrien is obsessed with making her able to walk again – as he could not do for his own daughter. To some extent the movie infantilizes her, as she is clearly dependent on her mother, unable to have much of a social life, and her boyfriend Danny professes his willingness to 'take care of her'. When she regains movement in her legs at the end of the movie, she and her mother immediately burn her wheelchair. Apparently she's not allowed to build up her stamina slowly... if she walks ten minutes from home and then can't continue, she's just gotta sit there until she recovers or somebody finds her.

On the other hand, Frances' family aren't trying to force Adrien's possible cure on her, but let her choose it for herself. Her mother doesn't mind looking after her, and Danny is happy to accommodate her by, for example, hiring a cart so she can accompany him to the circus. Danny in particular is very suspicious of the fact that the injections Adrien gives to Frances are causing her pain, and takes the doctor to task for it, telling him he would rather have her disabled and happy than walking but in pain. “I'd rather carry her around all my life!” he says. Her loved ones are willing to try for the cure, but it doesn't seem like anyone will be miserable if it fails. Frances herself wistfully admires the acrobats at the circus, but shows no anger or bitterness that she cannot be like them.

Frances is even allowed some initiative, as she hurries down the road in her wheelchair calling to Dr. Adrien and trying to warn him that the gorilla is in the area. This, ironically, is what leads to Adrien getting shot, as it attracts the attention of the posse hunting the animal. But as Adrien lies dying, he gets to see Frances standing for the first time in ten years, so I guess we're meant to think this was all worth it.

But was it? Several people died in order to provide the spinal fluid that helped Frances heal. The movie shows them as terrified of Dr. Adrien and/or the gorilla, but other than that it is oddly uninterested in their fates. None of the deaths are presented as tragedies, with families left in mourning... the only family we hear about for the gorilla trainer is a father who is already dead, and another one of the victims was an asshole who told his wife if she didn't like him cheating on her she could always drown herself(!??). So... are we supposed to think they don't matter? That their deaths are acceptable because they helped Frances – who was not dying or even deteriorating, and was satisfied with her life as it was – to a cure?

It is notable that we do not see what happens when Frances finds out that people had to die for her to be able to walk. She would have to reassess her opinion of Dr. Adrien, whom until now she has thought of as a loving father figure. She would have to figure out what this means for her future and perhaps need reassurance that she is not culpable. Her unconcerned happiness at the end suggests that nobody bothered to tell her, and that she has not yet made the connection herself. This is really quite unfortunate, because it deprives Frances of her only real chance to be a character rather than a plot point – which is ultimately all she is here.

Nobody else is shown dealing with the aftermath, either. The town has long mistrusted Dr. Adrien because of rumours that he was experimenting on his patients, and a recent spate of missing dogs is shown to be his fault. An early scene shows a group of boys bothering the doctor by throwing rocks at his house (which made me wonder if toilet paper hadn't been invented yet. According to Wikipedia, it dates to 1857, so there's your Fun Fact for the day). Seeing their worst fears realized really ought to have some effect on the people. Even if nobody bothers to tell Frances how her miraculous cure was effected, others will surely figure it out and have to weigh up what he achieved versus the crimes he committed to get there.

Yeah, I know: this is a movie about a guy killing people while wearing a dead gorilla. I'm thinking too hard.

Finally, I want to note some interesting possible connections between The Ape and a number of other movies I've seen. Both The Ape and The Ape Man appear to have been inspired by the 1932 movie Murders in the Rue Morgue, which also features a gorilla and injections of bodily fluids in the name of mad science, and did not feature very much resemblance to Edgar Allen Poe's story of the same name. I don't know if these films directly inspired each other, and it's been ages since I saw Rue Morgue... but the combination of plot elements here seems weirdly specific to be something different people came up with independently. I should watch all three again and see if I notice any more similarities between them.

There are also interesting likenesses between The Ape and another Boris Karloff movie, 1945's The Grave Robber. The latter is the story of a doctor who needs fresh corpses as part of his research, which culminates in surgery to allow a paralyzed girl to walk again. The doctor in this film is more a victim than a villain, himself, as he finds that the man he's been paying to rob graves for him is actually murdering the homeless, and he can't expose this criminal without jeopardizing his work and incriminating himself. It's been a long time since I saw this movie, either (as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've had some shit going on and I haven't had a lot of time for movies, bad or otherwise), so I can't actually say if it's better than The Ape, but it's definitely less silly.

Anyway, the moral of this story is vaccinate your fucking kids or a gorilla will kill you.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the ape #40s #guys in gorilla suits #tw: rape #allow me to recommend a better movie #we're running out of plots

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scullydubois · 4 years ago

Text

Only the Light Ch. 16

Scully searches for Mulder in the desert; Missy encounters her own trouble back in Washington.

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

As she stands in the charred boxcar, she can’t help but fear that Mulder’s remains are scattered around her. She fears him being dead, of course, but thinking about his condition if he’s alive makes her insides swirl. She had heard coyotes howling through the night and all she could think about was what if Mulder was out there, what if their glowing eyes faced him in the dark, what if their howls drowned out his cries? She thinks of all the children on milk cartons, and their poor parents, and all the pain in the world.

Albert and his son accompanied her out to the desert while Melissa stayed back and phoned the Navajo Nation police department and New Mexico’s county police. Mulder is a wanted man in the eyes of the federal government, Scully’s sure, but she’s more concerned with whether he’s a dead man. And if the FBI knows what’s good for them, they’d be concerned too. Of course, that’s a hard argument to make when her name is probably scribbled alongside Mulder’s for aiding and abetting a fugitive. Still, the more manpower they have, the greater the chance of finding him, and that’s in everyone's best interest.

She kneels on the red-dusted bottom of the boxcar and recalls what Mulder had told her he’d found: bodies, piles of them--inhuman by his description--and smallpox vaccination scars. She hadn’t been thinking clearly the night before when she told her sister there’d be nothing left. When a body burns, the skeleton survives. Not intact, exactly, but there. Permissible as forensic evidence, capable of unfurling the secrets of the skin that once surrounded it. Crematoriums have to put bones through a grinder to turn them to ash. Scully sees neither bones nor ashes around her--what is she to make of that?

“Anything ma’am?” Eric calls down to her from where he and his father are searching the rocks.

Scully stands up. “No, nothing but sand and smoke.”

“FBI man couldn’t have gone far,” Eric emphasizes. “I never saw him leave the boxcar.”

“Well, in that case there’d be bones or some sign of remains...I see nothing, not even what he told me he saw down here.”

Albert appears at his son’s shoulder. “What was that which he saw?”

Scully squeezes her temple. “Bodies with smallpox vaccine scars. He said they didn’t look human.”

“Ah. The disappeared.”

“No, I don’t think it was the Anasazi. I think that...it’s related to whatever caused them to disappear. I think the government knew, and they wanted in on it.”

“You see?” Albert tells her. “Nothing disappears without a trace.”

Scully turns her back to them. She’s said that exact sentence to Mulder before...what if she was wrong? About all of it?

Eric helps her out of the boxcar. Vultures whine above them.

“Is the tribal police equipped to handle a missing person case?” Scully asks Albert, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“I sure hope so, but it is not often that a non-resident goes missing on the reservation.”

“Since this deals with one of their agents, the FBI could get involved,” Scully relays, “but I fear it might disturb the community.”

Albert nods. “It would be best to leave the federal government out of this.”

“Unfortunately,” Scully says, kicking a stray rock, “my partner and I were in the midst of a sort of dereliction of our duties, so I suspect the FBI will track me down no matter how hard I resist.”

“That is unfortunate,” Albert affirms. “But we will protect you as best we can.”

“Thank you.” Scully meets his eye. It is warm, but it is not the gaze she wishes she were looking into. “I’d like to get back to my sister now,” she divulges, moving toward the truck Albert brought them in.

“We’ll go,” Albert replies, ushering Eric into the truck.

And as the tires rattle over the earth, Scully realizes that the heart can choose to stop beating when it pleases, and my god, what a burden to bear.

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

Scully’s phone is ringing when she walks through the motel door. She ignores it--Skinner chewing her out is the last thing she needs right now.

At the desk, Missy labors over a spread of tarot cards, not even acknowledging Scully’s entrance. She whispers to herself as she analyzes the selections.

“You brought those?” Scully gripes.

Missy nods, still engrossed by the arrangement. She looks up from the cards. “I suspected I would need it.”

“And what do you need it for?”

“To make decisions. Specifically, to decide whether I should go back to Washington.”

Scully’s forehead wrinkles. “And what do they say?”

“It’s not definite, of course, but the cards are leaning toward yes.”

“And you needed the cards to tell you this why?”

Missy smiles. “Because the cards work in concordance with the universe, Dana.”

Scully turns away so her sister can’t see her roll her eyes. “Oh. Right.”

Missy slides her chair back, stands up. “I know you think it’s crazy, and I won’t try to change your mind. However, I believe that it’s a worthwhile instrument of spiritual guidance, and I’m inclined to follow its advice.”

“By going back to Washington.”

Missy nods.

“Does that mean that I come too?” Scully asks, suddenly seeing the appeal of putting tough decisions at the mercy of a completely arbitrary system.

Missy pushes a lock of her sister’s hair behind her ear. “Not so fast. I only asked the cards about me. They said I should go.”

Scully allows the corners of her lips to turn up slightly. Oh, to let child’s play seep into your adult life. “So you didn’t ask them about me?”

“No,” Missy says, eyes shining. “Because I already know the answer. You should stay.”

“Well, shouldn’t you check with the cards about that?”

“I can, but I know what they’ll say.”

Scully frowns now. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know the answer in my heart. It’s obvious, like what color the sky is, or should you take an umbrella when it rains. There’s no need to use the cards for that.”

Scully just stares at her sister, feeling backed into a corner. If she asks her to use the cards, that implies that she has some faith in them...but to her the answer isn’t obvious, it isn’t something she knows implicitly in her heart, and sometimes she doesn’t even take an umbrella when it rains!

Missy pats her sister’s shoulder, sensing the uncertainty. “If you want me to use the cards, I’ll use the cards. But I can tell you what the right answer is.”

Scully screws her eyes shut, opening them after a long moment. “Fine, fine, I’ll just stay. But were you able to get a hold of the police?”

Missy nods. “The reservation department doesn’t have enough resources to launch a search until tomorrow. And county police won’t get involved unless the FBI requests assistance.”

“But the FBI isn’t even involved!”

“The conclusion was that since the case involves their missing agent, they should be involved (or you know, would be if we told them), and they have superior jurisdiction over the matter. It would be considered rude if local law enforcement got involved.”

Scully bites her lip. “I’m sure there’s an APB out on us, is that not enough for them?”

Missy shrugs. “I don’t know. I only gave them Mulder’s name, and they didn’t mention anything about him being wanted.”

“Well, maybe they’ll get the memo…”

“There’s a simple solution, Dana.”

Scully raises an eyebrow, inviting her to answer.

“Tell Skinner where you are and what’s happened! Having the Bureau on this would increase the chances of finding Mulder.”

“If the Bureau doesn’t disown us first.”

Missy shrugs. “I’m sure it’s in their best interest to locate a wanted man, and maybe even his rag-tag partner…”

“That’s kind of what the rag-tag partner is afraid of,” Scully concurs.

“Look, you’re not gonna be able to avoid questioning him for his father’s murder, but you have evidence that proves he didn’t do it. And then that will be done and over with, and you can move on with your lives. Or you can continue to hide out in the middle of nowhere and further incriminate yourselves.”

Scully lowers herself onto the bed, her face in her hands. “That’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to say before we drive across the country!”

“I wanted you to make progress on the conspiracy. You have, now it’s time to stop hiding.”

“You call what’s happened here progress?” Scully grumbles.

“Sure. You got translations from Albert--”

“That don’t reveal much.”

“--and Mulder got a look at what was inside that boxcar.”

“What good does that do if he’s not here?”

“He will be. And this will motivate both of you to push even further.”

Scully looks at her sister with world-weary eyes. “I’m really hoping that elder sisters have some sort of psychic abilities that I don’t know about,” she sighs.

Missy pulls her lips into a smile. “We do.”

The girls hug, and Scully feels the world right itself just a bit.

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

As he steps out of his office, key in hand, the phone sounds. He answers without hesitation, not normal for him at such a late hour.

“Hello?” he barks into the phone.

“Director Skinner, it’s Agent Scully.”

“Agent Scully, where the hell are you?”

He hears her voice tremble with a sigh, then--”It’s a long story, and I can explain it all later, but right now I need you to know that Mulder is missing.”

“He’s on the run,” Skinner responds. “Because he killed his father.”

“No, sir, he didn’t. He came to me, and I...well, I’ll spare you the details right now, but we ended up on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, and Mulder’s disappeared.”

“Agent Scully,” Skinner booms into the phone, “Agent Mulder is a federally wanted fugitive. If you’ve known where he is all this time, you are complicit in his crimes.”

“He didn’t do it sir, I took his weapon to ballistics the morning after his father was shot. They ran a ballistic fingerprint test. The results are in our office, you can see them for yourself.”

“Why was I not informed of this? You had contact with Agent Mulder after the shooting--when he was a suspect--and you didn’t turn him in?”

“Yes, sir,” Scully sighs.

“You told our men you didn’t know where he was.”

“Uh-huh, and I gave them a weapon to run ballistics on, but I didn’t tell them it was Mulder’s. It was FBI issue, so I told them we should run it to confirm that a FBI weapon wasn’t used.”

“That doesn’t clear him, Agent Scully. He could have used another gun.”

“He doesn’t own another gun.”

“His father does.”

“Then ballistics test it. It wasn’t Mr. Mulder’s weapon, I promise you. I’ve seen the weapon, and I know who used it.”

“So you’re withholding information from the FBI as well!”

“It’s not that sir. I’d be more than happy to share it with you, but first and foremost, I need your help.”

“How can you expect me to help you when you’ve deserted your duties and committed multiple federal crimes?” he thunders.

“This is about Agent Mulder’s life, sir. As you said, he’s a wanted man. Here’s your opportunity to catch him.”

“I see you in my office before I do anything.”

“Please, sir. I’m in New Mexico.”

“You either come to my office tomorrow morning to acknowledge your failure to carry out your duties and provide me with the whereabouts of Agent Mulder, or consider yourself stripped of your badge with a warrant out for your arrest.”

Scully’s jaw clicks, he can hear it through the phone. “Alright,” she responds curtly. And with nothing else to add, “Good night.” The line clicks.

In the desert motel room, Scully turns to her sister. “He wants to see me in his office tomorrow morning.”

“You could fly back. I’ll take the car.”

Scully bites her lip and looks out the window, but all she’s met with is darkness. “I hate this, Melissa. It’s my job, or my partner.”

Missy frowns. It’s not cold, but she lifts a blanket and drapes it around her sister’s shoulders. “And you’re thinking of dad, aren’t you?...What he would do?”

Scully nods, pulling the blanket closer to her. “I thought I knew, but now that I’m faced with the decision, I’m not sure.”

“He loved his work, but he loved his family more,” Missy muses, a smile creeping onto her lips. “That was his last wish, wasn’t it? He visited you, told you that he wanted more time with you.”

Scully averts her eyes. He had, he had. A vision of him told her that when she thought she was dying, and it turned out she was not. But what is she to do with that now? Mulder’s not family, not in that way…

As if she could hear her sister’s thoughts, Missy responds, “It’s about love, Dana, in all its forms. What is life if not the connections we make with others?”

A dam tucked away in Scully’s soul has broken open. She looks at her sister with water-logged eyes, her lips trembling.

“I love him, Melissa. More than any…”

“I know you do.” Missy wraps her arms around her sister, rocking the two of them back and forth like a mother and her baby. “Act from that place. The world needs more of that feeling.”

Scully sniffles against her sister’s shoulder. The gears have clicked into place, finally. If this is the hill she has to die on, then so be it.

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

The tide climbs the shore like the man in the sky is holding magnets, drawing it onto land faster than even the moon could dare. This is no tsunami; no sky-scraping waves, no crash and burn as water meets solid. This is a flood. Like there was an invisible barrier keeping the water in its place so well delegated on maps, and suddenly that impediment has disappeared. Water sweeps onto and over land like it's been waiting since the dawn of Earth to do so. Like it’s been held back all this time, drifting in silent slumber. It’s beautiful, really. Natural. But in its celebration of freedom, it unwittingly wipes out the world.

This is the dream Scully wakes from, roused by a knock on the motel door. Through the curtains, night’s pure darkness softens to a navy blue. She rolls out of bed and pads to the door in her silk pajamas, standing on her tip-toes to peer through the peephole. Sheets rustle as Missy sits up.

“It’s Albert,” Scully whispers to her sister, who pulls on a robe and joins her at the door.

Scully unbolts the door and ushers Albert in. Chilly air slips in behind him. The desert becomes a void without the sun as its heat source.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” he mutters. “But we’ve recovered your partner.”

Scully feels like she’s had a stun-gun taken to her spine. “What? How? Is he alive?”

“He is not conscious, but there is breath left within him. My son was out feeding the goats and noticed buzzards circling over the desert. He rode down to see, and sure enough, FBI man’s body was tucked in a quarry.”

Scully’s voice leaps octaves. She gropes for her coat. “He needs medical attention right now--”

“Yes. We are handling it,” Albert says with the calm manner of a stately man. “We are preparing a traditional healing ceremony for him, the Blessingway. We will summon the power of our holy people to help him, but ultimately, it is his spirit that must choose to stay.”

While respectable, this is not a good enough answer for Scully. She pulls on her coat. “I need to see him. I’m a doctor, I can examine him.”

“It is not medical intervention that he needs now. He is being hydrated and will be fed when the time is right. He has no visible injuries...I believe that the desert simply wore him down, as is its way.”

“There could be internal injuries, and his vitals need to be checked…” Scully argues, the scant slice of sanity she held onto slipping away.

“We are caring for him, I promise you. You can come and observe our rituals.”

“With all due respect, I think what Mulder needs right now is more than rituals.”

Missy scoffs and lays a grounding hand on her sister’s shoulder, pulling her away from Albert. “Dana, please just let them do their work.”

Scully turns on her sister. “Mulder’s dying, and you want me to leave it in the hands of the spirits?!” she snaps.

Missy sets her lips in a line. “That is what prayer is, isn’t it?”

Scully crumbles, her world-views clashing like tectonic plates. Finally, she whimpers--“I care too much about him to leave it up to fate.”

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

And so Melissa sets off for Washington in Scully’s sedan, while Scully herself stays cloistered in that motel room trying not to scare off a miracle. The call she expected from Skinner comes, followed by many others. All go unanswered while she waits for an answer from the universe.

Albert invited her to look in on the Blessingway ritual, but she couldn’t do it. It would be intrusive and painful and maybe even blasphemous--she can’t tempt the fates at a time like this. Besides, looking at Mulder and not being able to help him would take her back to her med school days of staring at death through the glass. Nowadays, there are only two conditions where she’ll allow herself to face death: when she can strangle it, and when she can examine the damage left in its wake. It worries her, then, which one she’ll meet Mulder under.

Missy had gone in to see him before she left. She understood her sister’s apprehension and took the liberty of checking up on Fox herself. Albert had not lied; Mulder was unconscious, but he looked alright. No blood, no bruises, just sun-burnt skin and the aura of exhaustion. She would not have left if she didn’t believe that he would pull through and that his awakening would be a moment of reckoning for he and her sister to tackle on their own.

Four days pass before Eric greets Scully with the vague notion of a smile as he pulls up on his motorbike. She had been expecting him; he takes her over to Albert’s for lunch every day. His countenance is different today, but he is quiet like always. She snaps on the helmet he brought for her and settles herself behind him on the bike.

The growl of the engine reminds her of Maryland forests and Bill’s four-wheeler. How she’d sit behind him and Missy would sit behind Charlie and they would race over the paths traced by hundreds of children over hundreds of years. It felt like being a part of something bigger than herself. It felt like freedom.

Now, it feels like chains. Chains she’s had put around her because she’s choosing to do the right thing. The ones keeping her hidden in the desert. The ones making her pin all her hopes on the Navajo people and their gods. The ones holding her feelings hostage from her. And the ones hiding the truth from her and the man who needs it the most. She wants to be back in the basement office with Mulder. She wants things to be okay.

It’s a short ride to Albert’s, and he is standing on the driveway to greet her when they drive up.

“Hello Agent Scully,” he says as she swings her leg over the bike and hands her helmet to Eric. “It is a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

She had been too occupied with her thoughts to notice, but yes, it is as good a day as the desert gives. Sunshine offset by a breeze, low humidity, and temperatures that do justice to spring.

“It is, Albert,” she answers kindly. “How are you today?” She has become quite comfortable in his company. He’s been helping her scour the translated passages for useful information, though they have not come up very lucky.

“I am well,” he answers in his warm tone. “There is someone who wants to see you.”

“Oh?” Scully’s attention snaps to Albert’s house. Has Skinner tracked her down? Is he waiting inside to admonish her? There are no extra cars in the driveway, but knowing what she knows about helicopters and appearances and disappearances, this means nothing.

“No one in there,” Albert assures, following her gaze. He lays a hand on her shoulder and guides her toward the Blessingway tent.

Scully resists him. “I’ve told you, I feel it would be disrespectful to enter your sacred space as a non-believer.”

“You are not a non-believer just because you believe other things. You are one of the most fervent believers I have met. Besides, your partner wants to talk to you.”

Scully breaks away. “What?...He’s awake?”

“Yes, ma’am. As of dawn.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who reverses course as quickly as Scully does about the tent. She rushes toward it, Albert following after. “Is the ceremony over then?”

“No, it is up to FBI man to end it properly. He may not work, change clothes, or bathe for four days.”

Scully groans, then takes hold of the tent entrance flap. “I can go in…?” she queries, still uncertain despite days worth of invitations.

Albert nods. “Go on. I will stay here, and you can ask the boys to join me.”

Scully pulls the material aside and enters. She’s met with the same excitement one feels when stepping onto a train car or off of a plane. She is arriving somewhere only her imagination could previously touch.

At the far side of the tent, a cluster of Navajo boys about Eric’s age char a piece of bread over the fire. Completing their circle, with his back to her, her partner sits with a blanket pulled around his shoulders. His hair brushes the nape of his neck, and the curve of his biceps look less defined than she’s ever seen them. Yet undeniably, it is him.

“Mulder.” Hellos have never been necessary for them.

He’s heard so many voices talk to him over the past few days that he assumes this is one hanging behind. Only when he sees the boys stop their conversation and draw their attention toward the entrance does he turn and realize this is not a voice, but the voice.

He rises to his feet far quicker than has to be healthy and stumbles toward his partner. “I didn’t know if you had stayed or not. When Albert told me you were here…” Words can’t capture the feeling. Scully understands.

“I couldn’t leave you behind,” she says, deciding to gloss over the details of her dilemma. “Melissa took the car back, but yeah, I’m here.”

She lays a hand against one of the diminished biceps and walks him over to the pillows that have been laid out for sitting. She helps him down in a delicate fashion, then takes a place next to him. The Navajo boys exit without being asked.

“I didn’t think I would see you again,” Mulder confesses, his voice straining as it gains back its strength.

“Were you planning to join the Navajo?” Scully wisecracks, taking over his usual duty.

“No, I…” he chuckles at himself. “I don’t know. I just thought I’d wake up and it would be like Freaky Friday, like I’m in someone else’s body, someone else’s life.”

“In Freaky Friday, the mom and daughter switched bodies. They knew each other. So it would be like if we switched bodies, and I think we’d figure out a way to switch back, don’t you?”

Mulder cracks a smile. “On second thought, no take backsies!”

Scully rolls her eyes. She hasn’t done that, she realizes, in about five days. What an influence he has on her.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asks, threading a hand beneath the blanket so she can lay a hand over his.

“You ever asked the bodies on your autopsy table that? I think they’d have a comparable answer.”

“Is there anything I can get you?” Her voice is a rush of tenderness. “Water?...Have they fed you?”

Mulder rubs his eyes. “I’ve been fed, watered, and bathed like any respectable man brought back from the dead. I apparently have four days of lazing around ahead of me.”

“Yeah, I heard. Not very convenient for a wanted felon.”

“Damn, I was hoping I dreamed that part.”

“No, unfortunately not,” Scully sighs out. “And I’ve been ignoring Skinner’s orders, so I’ll be lucky to still have a badge.”

“So we’re the Bonnie and Clyde of the FBI now, ey?”

Scully smiles. “I think we’ve always been the Bonnie and Clyde of the FBI, though now we’re just...Bonnie and Clyde.”

“So fugitives without the employment of the federal government to protect them…”

“Yeah.”

“Great.” He pulls the blanket tighter against him. Then--“So do you have any idea how I got here?”

“Which part are you fuzzy on? New Mexico, this tent, life in general…” She is so relieved to have him back that she’ll indulge in a bit of playful banter.

“Um…” through his bleariness, he is still able to smile at her silliness. “I remember our car ride out here. I’m not really sure how I ended up the guest of honor at a Blessingway ritual.”

“Do you remember being in the boxcar? You called me and told me there were bodies with smallpox vaccination scars.”

“And that they didn’t look human…”

Of course he remembers that above all.

“Right, how could I forget?” Scully teases.

“And then I remember heat--really searing heat--and a long period of nothing, and then crawling into the rocks and hearing coyotes cry as I closed my eyes. And then I found myself here.”

“The boxcar went up in flames. CSM’s work, I believe.” She rakes her nails against his blanket. “I don’t know how you escaped without any burns.”

Mulder shakes his head. “I don’t remember.” He looks up at her. “Did you think I was dead?”

She bites her lip, thinking of the hours she spent on the imaginary-that-she-worried-wouldn’t-be-so-imaginary eulogy Melissa made her write.

“I was afraid of that, yeah,” she answers tautly. She considers...should she tell him of the heartache she poured out on paper because she had nowhere else to put it? It seems so futile now with him there in front of her, his heart beating blissfully.

She knits her brows together. “I had to think about what I would say at your funeral, so I would really appreciate if you could not scare me like that again.”

“I’ve seen your gravestone, Scully. I think we’re even.”

She contorts her face so as not to show her frown. “Maybe.” She rises, offering him her hand. “You wanna go back to the motel? Sleep in a bed for a change?”

He links his fingers through hers, and she hoists him up. “You’re still paying for that second room?” he jests, only half-joking.

She makes her way toward the tent entrance, looking back at him with a mischievous smile. “No, but Missy’s gone, so you can have her bed.”

Mulder snickers. “Cheapskate.”

Scully gets her revenge by letting the tent flap fall back on him as she goes through, and he laughs because yeah, that sounds about right. He has definitely woken up in the right life.

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

She’s just stepped out of the shower when she hears it: the faint clash of a rubber sole against hardwood. It shouldn't be; her sister is 2,000 miles away, her lover even more than that. She is to be alone...but she’s not.

And it scares her, but it doesn’t. She knows what to do--she’s read about this, thought about it, almost lived it dozens of times. It comes with the territory. A young woman, a conventionally attractive young woman, a young woman who walks hand-in-hand with her girlfriend in public...yes, she has been waiting for this like winter waits for the first snow. She was born with the knowledge of this fate in her bones.

And so she slides on her t-shirt and shorts, grabs the phone from the nightstand, and wordlessly locks the bedroom door. Seeking as much cover as she can get, Missy slips into her closet, her hair still bundled in a towel. If she could get to her purse, she could grab her mace, but it’s in the kitchen and that’s too much of a risk.

She won’t cower defenseless though, for she will not allow herself to become another name in the paper, a number on the page. She raises onto her tip-toes and grabs an old lamp from the top shelf. Sliding off the lampshade reveals some nice sharp carvings that’ll surely do some damage.

She presses herself against the slats of the accordion door and listens. Could she have been hearing things? She didn’t hear anyone break in, but the shower was running. Now she hears nothing more than the usual creaking of the walls. Still, she could have sworn there were footsteps, and that’s happened here before, so how could she rule it out?

She thinks of her sister, alone, running a bath to relax after another day on her new job and ending up laid out on her bathroom tile. Put on display like a mannequin in a store window. It sickens her. That was just the first time her sister became a board for bad men’s depraved darts. How do you end a violent cycle without further violence?

Murmurs--too loud for their speaker’s own good--confirm Missy’s suspicions. So it is not one pair of footsteps, but two, that stalks her. They come from the other side of the door, though not too much beyond it. She dials the three digits that can save her and squeezes the phone between her ear and shoulder.

As fate wills it, so it shall be.

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

Scully can’t take her eyes off him, and she’s not sure whether it’s the motherly instinct or its perfect opposite. He’s lounging on the adjacent bed in his undershirt and jeans, chewing leftover Spitz while absorbing some public broadcasting documentary about the Trail of Tears. His eyes prowl the screen, and Scully wonders if he always watches television like this: hungry desperation meets boyish wonder. It is charming, and it is sad. She wishes she knew him when he was growing up, and that he knew her too.

The documentary breaks for a word from its sponsors, and Mulder rolls onto his side, the front of him facing his partner.

Scully gives him an acknowledging smile. “Are you comfortable?”

He nods. “These are better accommodations than the Bureau would stick us in, that’s for sure.”

Scully smiles at her cross-legged lap. She doesn’t think so really, it’s the second cheapest she could find and all the drinking glasses have lipstick stains, but it’s a nice idea. And he’s spent days against the Earth floor, so she won’t challenge him.

She runs her eyes over him, thinking of the days and nights she passed staring at that bed’s emptiness. Forget the fear of losing her job, even the fear of arrest--none of that matters because he is back now, and that is all she could ask.

With a stretch, she pulls open her bedside drawer and takes out a notepad. The notepad. Just like that, she is a teenager taking a plastic key and unlocking her diary.

Mulder tosses a sunflower seed in the air, but it thuds on his chest instead of landing in his mouth. Scully pretends she didn’t see.

“When I said that I had to think about what I’d say at your funeral, I mean I thought about it a lot...I wrote it down even,” she stammers. Now she is a teenage boy asking his crush to the prom with a handmade sign and a balloon, and god does it feel inadequate.

Mulder’s face lights up. “Lemme see!” He sticks his arm across the way, flexing his hand like he’s begging for a cookie.

Scully clutches the paper close to her side. “It’s stupid and sentimental,” she insists.

“As opposed to the crushing takedown you were hoping to deliver?”

She shrugs. “It just doesn’t do you or your life justice, and that’s all the more clear with you right in front of me.”

“C’mon, Scully. I’m not asking you to create world peace--I just wanna know what you said.”

She scans her sprawling writing, her beating heart in ink. “I mean...it’s nothing you don’t already know.”

He leans forward on the bed, closing the distance between his hand and the paper. “Let me see it.”

Scully lets it slide from her fingers with a huff of apprehension. Indifference has always been her go-to defense mechanism, but there’s nothing about Fox W. Mulder she can be indifferent about. If he doesn’t already realize that, he will in a moment.

His eyes trace her sentences with a curiosity that is quenched by every word. He smiles up at her, and it’s the youngest she’s ever seen him.

“Best friend?” He can’t even make it through his teasing with a straight face, chuckling before he gets a chance to continue. “Scully, I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Thank god we got that out in the open,” Scully hums, riding his playful wavelength.

“No doubt.” Mulder caresses the paper between his fingers, absorbing all the care she put into it while she thought he was gone. “Well, at least you won’t have to read that anytime soon.”

Scully nods, a bashful smile adorning her face. “At least.” Her lips part decisively, but she closes her mouth, a self-imposed censure.

Mulder takes a stray look at the TV screen, the documentary having come back on. Quickly, his eyes fall back on Scully; she shines brighter than the television light.

“For what it’s worth,” he stammers, “I’m glad I didn’t die...that I get to be here with you.”

Scully’s eyebrows crease. That’s the most moving thing a living person has ever said to her...it’s as if she’s taken a bird with a broken wing into her palm, a display of trust so tender it renews her faith in existence.

She turns her face away from him. He’s left with a view of her profile--a dainty white cheek and the curve of her nose--and he’s never understood the urge to break out a sketchbook until now. This is a sight crafted for capture.

“Mulder, that’s...thank you,” she spills out. If she looked at him now, she’d do the thing she fears would ruin them forever. So she doesn’t. She closes her eyes and tilts her head toward the popcorn ceiling with something like a prayer in mind. It’s God’s hand, she knows it must be, when the phone rings at just that second.

She lifts it off the bedside table without opening her eyes. “Hello?”

“Dana?”

Her sister’s voice floats through the receiver, sounding as close as it ever does. Scully sits up, turns toward the table’s edge as if her sister were in the room. “I’m here. Is everything okay?” She asks this because she’s used to it being the first thing she’s asked.

“Well…” A pang leaps in Scully’s heart. Her sister is not one to know uncertainty. She lays the receiver on the table and hits the speaker button.

“There was a break-in.” Missy’s voice fills the room, catching Mulder’s attention too. He mutes the TV. “I’m okay, I wasn’t hurt, and I didn’t encounter the burglars directly. I hid in the closet and called the police--I don’t think they even knew I was home. They were gone by the time the authorities arrived. They dug around in your room.”

“My room?” Scully’s heart beats in double-time. “Did they take anything?”

“Not that I can tell.” Missy exhales. “They were looking for you, I think.”

Mulder leans forward, and Scully swaps a pin-prick glance with him. “Are the police still there?” she asks.

“Yes, they’re swabbing for fingerprints and shoe-prints.”

“Can I talk to them?”

“Yeah--I’ll give you someone better.” Before Scully can question what that means, she hears the receiver switch hands and a familiar voice boom toward her. “Agent Scully, we’re reviewing your complex’s security cameras to see what we can get.”

“Skinner?” Scully remarks, as if his voice is one she might fail to recognize. Mulder chuckles, and she wishes he didn’t.

“Are you alone?” Skinner asks, probably tipped off by her partner’s lack of finesse.

“No, Mulder is here,” she replies nonchalantly.

There’s an indiscriminate grumble on Skinner’s part, then he continues--”Well, this appears to be a targeted attack. As far as we can tell, all of the apartment is untouched but your bedroom and bathroom. Drawers were left open in both areas.”

“And this wasn’t law enforcement serving an arrest warrant or anything?”

“No, that situation has been resolved.”

Scully’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean…?”

“I found the ballistics report for Agent Mulder’s weapon in your office, and after speaking with your sister, mother, and Albert Holsteen, any charges have been dropped. For both of you.”

Scully’s mouth falls open. She and Mulder lock eyes. Stress he didn’t even know he had falls away.

“Now, there will still be internal discipline by the Bureau, but that’s not the subject of this call. We believe that whoever is responsible for killing Mulder’s father is the same person who broke into your apartment.”

“Krycek,” Scully and Mulder both choke out.

“Alex?” Skinner scoffs. “I’ll need the details on that, and I’ll need to hear them from you. In my office.”

“Yes, sir,” Scully exudes.

Finally, she and Mulder are homebound.

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

They are a sight to see as they crawl through airport security, Mulder in week old clothes and Scully lugging their suitcases just in case that might count as “work.” Mulder passes through the metal detector first, coming up clean despite the tangy stench he is taking on.

Scully takes her gun out of the holster and presents it to the security guard in one hand, her badge in the other. “I’m a federal agent. This is my FBI-issued weapon.”

“Alright, leave it here and we’ll slide it through.”

She does so, then slips under the metal detector herself. It whines in protest, and she’s surrounded before she can even process the sound.

Her hand goes to her cross. “Is it the necklace?” It doesn’t usually set off the detectors, but maybe this one is more sensitive. She takes it off and tries again. Again, the machine beeps.

“We’re going to need to pat you down, ma’am,” the guard informs her. She pushes away the fear that flashes in her core, then spreads her arms and legs. Hands--men’s hands, brawny and uncompromising--inundate her. She closes her eyes and pretends it isn’t happening, and god, she wishes Mulder weren’t standing only a few feet away.

After a minute that feels all too indulgent, the men back away. “I’m not finding anything,” one says to another, like Scully isn’t even there.

“Let’s see the x-ray again,” another says, limping off with the other while one stays positioned in front of Scully.

“Neck…” she hears them say. “I’m thinking it was just the necklace.”

The men return, and one moves her hair aside to examine the base of her neck. Nothing shows. “You got a bomb in there we should be worried about?” he jokes.

“I sure hope not,” Scully huffs, getting testy.

“Well, here’s your necklace, and your gun. You’re good to go.”

She takes her items with the feeling that she is nothing but a toy to them. They work at a candy shop, but only every once in a while do they get to taste the candy. She hopes she left a sour taste in their mouths, though she doubts that.

Joining Mulder, she feels a sense of cleanliness, a rebirth of a sort. How do his hands touch a woman, she wonders? She’s been privy to his gentle touches and reassuring swoons, so she knows he’s not greedy, but...would he be? If she asked him to?

A woman can only wait so long.

#good lord this got very long #we are getting close to the 'twist' that is the whole reason I wanted to write this...#also prob about 3/4th done with the whole thing :)#thank you so much for reading/liking/commenting #mwah 💋#only the light fic #the x-files #txf #txf fic #missy and scully fic #mine

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blazingopus · 4 years ago

Text

Green Haze - Golden Wind

This story ended up much darker than I had intended. It was very difficult for me to write in some places. Drawing from detective noir can do that sometimes. For the squeamish of you (and this is in no way a judgement), I will list the parts where there is body horror in bold. Please enjoy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LZDJ6gWi5HP2P2YCMTcn1?si=A4Kncm8JR_mkOdszS7TCww

You're a private investigator taking photos of someone who spots what you are doing. What happens next?

Napoli, and all of Italia for that matter, is ruled by The Famiglia. A complex web of businessmen, smugglers, politicians, assassins, drug peddlers, hustlers, bookkeepers, and every other role a mafioso could fill. Money acquired legally and illegally is funneled throughout the web, funding the various operations and front businesses. And pulling all the strings from the shadows is the illusive Boss, hiding his identity to preserve his life and keep control over all of Italia. He hears all, sees all. Little happens in the Famiglia without the Boss knowing at least in passing. This is the Empire called Passione. At least, this is what I hear when dealing in the underground.

I am a private investigator. I am paid large sums of money to investigate things that the police cannot, or will not, touch with their pristine hands. I say this, knowing that most of the police are in bed with corrupt politicians. The same politicians working closely, or at the very least taking bribes from Passione.

I only know this because I was in the police force for a few years myself. I saw first hand what went on behind closed doors. They say they want law and order. They say that they want to protect people. They say that they serve the citizens of Napoli. Lies. Nothing but lies. Most who join the force are corrupted by the system and the people. The few who do not leave of their own accord or are forced out.

Morality is a funny thing. Philosophers, authors, religious figures, and other thinkers have debated and formed their own frameworks to understand it. All of which are very different. But there are some basic ideas that most people tend to agree on. Killing innocents is bad. Stealing is bad. Lying is bad. Usually. There are more shades of grey to it all than an overcast sky. And many are willing to throw it all away for their own gain.

I walked away from all of it. The corruption, the lies, the posturing, the cutthroat environment. I was done with it all. I took the skills I had learned as a police officer and went into business for myself. You see, when the world is stripped of morals and decency, there are few things of value: Money. Information. Sex. Sometimes drugs, depending on how you felt that day. And the occasional organ. Of these, information became my currency. I procure information you want, for a price. Unlike the information brokers of Passione, I work on the street, I take the photos, and I steal the evidence. I can provide some of the most incriminating, career ending, reputation ruining information that the brokers would spend millions of Liras for. That is, if I were to sell it to them.

I don't work for Passione, and I have only worked with a few members. Poor souls. They had such ambitions of righting the wrongs, undoing the injustices from the inside. All of them ended up dead soon after their last visit to my office. Seems that the Boss doesn't much like members of his Famiglia trying to undo everything he had worked for.

It was a few days ago when another poor soul asked for my services. An up and coming politician with bright eyes and a noble heart. After being elected to a local office, he had found the government was as corrupted as any other. He was on a valiant quest to rid all he could of the "evil" out of Napoli. I told him that most do not survive that silly quest of his. He replied saying that, 'He would be one of the few who did, and bring some decency to his fair city.' He owed it to the people who elected him into office. I could tell he was a stubborn man, hellbent on his sacred duty. All I could do was shake my head and accept the upfront fee from him. How naïve he was.

Among some other things, he wanted me to look into a young man named Bruno Buccellati. The valiant knight had concerns about where Buccellati stood, since he liked to keep a low profile. While he was a mafioso, he was in good standing with the people of his territory and was a trusted right hand man to Polpo, the capo of Napoli. He suspected that Buccellati was either a noble individual like himself, or was playing nice to everyone to get an advantage. I told him it didn't matter either way.

I spent a couple of days getting a feel for his regular haunts. The people who lived and worked in his territory had a favorable view of him, but were somewhat protective of him. I was able to get more information out of them when I told them that he had helped me not too long ago, and was wanting to repay his kindness. Many said he would not accept any gifts or rewards, but wished me good luck. I didn't need it, but it was appreciated.

Buccellati moved around a lot, completing assignments from Polpo and maintaining the businesses under his jurisdiction. He did however, favor a particular restaurant. He tended to have small meetings there once a week or so with the team he was building. Such things were not uncommon in Passione. Many higher ranking mafiosi had a team of trusted few to help with whatever they were up to. It was a crucial part of the structure of the Familgia, and most teams were extremely independent. It was important that teams did not know of each other, so that separate operations could be conducted without interference or information leaking. At least, that was the intention. For some, it didn't matter how independent or how secretive a team was. Once they gained a certain level of status and notoriety, no matter how careful and secretive they were, word got around about their exploits. The only exception, of course, was the Boss.

The strange thing was, of the two people Buccellati had on his team, both were under the age of 18 and both had criminal records. Pannacota Fugo had allegedly murdered a teacher of his, and had a genius level IQ. If Buccellati played his cards right, he might make Fugo a crucial member of Passione. Narancia Ghirga was a different story. He had ran with gangs most of his younger years and only committed petty theft. From all I could gather, I could not understand why Buccellati had put him on his team. He had no outstanding qualities that I could find. The boy hadn't had an education in years, and had no particular skills.

There wasn't much else I could do now. I had been watching the restaurant for the past few days. I did a little snooping around the restaurant itself, and I found that Buccellati had made a reservation for tomorrow at noon. Four top. If I had to make a guess, he might be recruiting a new member or making some sort of deal. I would have to wait and see.

I made sure I look the part. The goal is to get a good look at Buccellati and his team. Take a few pictures. Start collecting some information about them. In order to accomplish this, I decided to dress a little casual chic. I was playing the role of a photographer for a travel magazine, getting some pictures of the local shops and the people in their natural state. It was important that the magazine had some candid photos along with the glamorized landscapes and reused building shots. At least, that was what I would use as an alibi.

I set up across from the restaurant at a quaint cafe with outdoor seating in the front. I had previously asked the owner if it was alright if I took a few pictures, and he let me eat free for the publicity. He didn't ask many questions. It was ten till noon, and the lunch rush was ramping up.

From what people told me, Buccellati had a few defining features. Piercing blue eyes. Dark hair cut in a severe bob. Pair of gold clips to adorn said bob. Suit with strange poke-a-dot pattern. Exposed chest with a tattoo or lace undershirt, no one could tell for sure. For someone who was so skilled at keeping a low profile, he was damn good at standing out from the crowd.

My eye caught someone entering the restaurant. Blue, hair, gold, pattern, chest thing. That must be him. I watched him talk to the host, who led him to a table right in front of a nearby window. My lucky day. At the table, I could see two other individuals, both looked to be young. These were most likely Fugo and Naranchia. They matched the descriptions I had come across earlier.

I was still watching the customers coming and going. Buccellati would not have reserved a four top if he was not expecting another person. Who that person was, I had no idea. A male walked in that made me pause for a minute. It was not his attire, which was also very distinct. Pale hair and skin deeply contrasted by his dark and broody clothing. It was the fact that it gave me a strong feeling of deja-vu. I didn't think it was a past client, or a past target. It went farther back than that, into the past I wanted to forget.

I took a sip of my water and made myself focus again. Fortunately for me, the mysterious man joined Buccellati at his table. He was lucky number four. It took about an hour and a half for them to order, eat, and discuss their business. The entire time, I was taking notes for one of the articles I was writing. At least, that is what I told the cafe owner. I was making note of particular ticks or quirks they had in their movements and speech patterns. I was also able to get a few pictures of them, but the main photos I was wanting would have to be taken as they left the restaurant.

I put my stuff in my bag when I saw they were beginning to wrap up. I left my camera hanging around my neck. I watched Buccellati pay the bill. The four of them stood up. They moved to the front of the building. I moved the camera to my face. I snapped a few photos as they came out the front door.

My heart stopped.

The last one out was the mysterious man. I finally remembered him. Abbacchio. He was one of the victims of the cruel justice system. I was coming to the end of my time in the police when I heard the news of his departure. He had made a hard decision, and it didn't pay off for him. I had worked close with him on some assignments, but I had not seen him since...

His deep purple eyes met mine through the lens. Deep. Accusing. Damn it. Why did I hesitate? I lowered the camera, keeping eye contact with him. His eyes bore into me. They were full of distrust and suspicion. Did he recognize me? Had he caught on to what I was doing?

Abbacchio finally broke eye contact with me, slowly walking away. I let our the breath I didn't know I was holding. I didn't know what his next action was going to be, but I needed to get the hell out of there. Damn it! How could I have been so reckless? So stupid? I could have just compromised everything. I put my camera in my bag and told the waiter my thanks.

I walked briskly toward the nearest train station. While it would be much more convenient to own a car, such a thing was dangerous. Cars can be tracked via licence plate, or could identify my apartment if someone should see me on assignment. That means my options for transportation are limited. Taxis would be faster, but I can blend into the crowds and loose people easier that way. If it all plays out properly.

When I reached the station, I bought a ticket and waited to board. I stood in the crowd, watching around me for anyone from Buccellati's team, or anyone else suspicious. I stepped on the train and found a seat. No one of note came on board. I spent the train ride anxious, my mind racing. Would Abbacchio do anything? Would they hunt me down? I could handle myself well enough, but the members of Passione were dangerous individuals. If they did, I probably wouldn't live through it. But this is what I signed up for when I took up this line of work. This is all my own doing.

The train came to a slow stop. I stood up and stepped onto the street. Heading straight home would be stupid. It would be better to head to the office first, where there would be people to witness anything that might happen. I walked over a block or two to the building where my office was located. I entered and unlocked the door. Inside was the same as I had left it. The heavy wooden desk sat in the back of the room with a chair to match. In front were two large chairs. I picked them out especially because they were very, very uncomfortable. I didn't want people staying longer than they had to, and having comfortable chairs just encouraged people to linger. It was important with the kinds of people I deal with.

I picked up the few documents I had sitting on my desk and stuffed them in my bag. They weren't of great importance, but I could not afford to leave any sort of evidence out. After most of my assignments, if I didn't think they would be useful I burned most of the information I had collected. I didn't want any evidence pointing to me if something got out. I usually didn't need it anyway. There were a few exceptions, though. I had a few safes in my apartment containing very valuable information that might come in handy one day. Don't know when, but you never know when you need to expose someone, or blackmail them, or call in a favor.

I straightened up the place before I left again. Speaking of calling in favors, if shit hits the fan, I might have to do that. Working in the professions I have, you get to know the right people, or the wrong people that need a favor. I didn't want to cash my chips in just yet, but I didn't know how all this would play out. I might not even have time to call in the first place. I have to be damn careful.

I locked the door and headed out onto the street, looking for a cab. My apartment was a bit away from my office. While I would have liked to be able to walk home every day, I didn't want anyone following me home that easily. I hailed a cab down and gave the driver directions.

As soon as I got home, I set the several locks on my reinforced door. Some may say I am paranoid, but that paranoia has kept me alive through some pretty bad scrapes. I quickly changed out of my clothes, throwing on a tank top and sweatpants. If they come for me tonight, I at least want to be comfortable. I then went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. It wasn't the first time I was going to miss out on a lot of sleep. I will have to keep up throughout the night.

I reached into a kitchen drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I needed something to calm my nerves. I hate smoking and would have much preferred alcohol. Alcohol makes me sleepy, and being able to aim is important if hell breaks loose. Nicotine would have to do instead. I took out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling the sickening smoke. Stale, this pack was getting old. I would have to pick up a new one soon.

I went back into my bedroom, opening up the top drawer of my bedside table. I took the two pistols I kept in there and checked the clips inside. I turned off the safety and stuck one in the waistband of my pants, feeling it settle against my spine. I picked up the extra clips I kept as well, putting two in my bra and sticking the rest in my pockets.

I went to the kitchen and grabbed one of my kitchen chairs, dragging it in front of my door. I poured myself a cup of coffee. I walked over to my chair and sat in it backwards. Pistol in my right hand, coffee in my left, cigarette in my mouth. I waited throughout the night with my eyes trained on the door, waiting for anything to go wrong.

The night passed to morning, and the time passed in silence. The sun rose on a new day. I was still alive and unharmed, for now at least. I rose from my seat and quickly showered. I hit myself with the cold water to wake myself up again. I tiredly put on clothes, keeping the pistol in its spot next to my spine. I put the other in the holster I keep in my jacket. I grabbed my bag and walked out my door, undoing all the locks from the night before.

I made my way back to my office without incident. The door was still locked and intact. Everything was in place inside. I sat down behind my desk and pulled out my notes, going over what I had collected over the past few days.

Buccellati seemed decent, at least. Many people went to him for counsel and help. He was Polpo's most trusted mafioso and went above and beyond to complete his missions. He ran his territory well and kept businesses alive. Giving his team a second thought, he probably picked them up off the street and took them in. The younger ones looked a little rough around the edges, and the one that was probably Narancia did not know what comb was. Still, I have run into a lot of people that looked like good people who ended up being rotten to the core.

I sighed and rubbed my face. I needed more coffee, but I didn't want to get up to actually make it. I was pretty much done with Bruno Buccellati, and I needed to move on the other targets my client had hired me to dig up dirt on. That is, if Buccellati didn't come after me and cut my life very short.

I sighed again and stood up, starting up the coffee maker. I watched blankly as the pot filled with caffeinated hot bean water. I needed to stay alert. I needed to stay awake. My life might depend on it.

I poured myself some coffee and walked back to my desk. I didn't need this information much anymore. I put everything in a manila folder and put it into a small safe under my desk. Damn thing was heavy, so it wasn't like anyone was carrying it out anytime soon. I took out my small spiral notebook from my bag, and looked at the list I had written a few days before. It was the list of targets I had been hired to investigate. I took out a pencil and crossed out Buccellati's name. Who would be the best target to go after next?

My head snapped up. There was a knock at my door. I quickly shoved the notebook back in my bag. There were a few possibilities going through my head. My client; he seemed to be a little impatient when I took the job from him. It could be a potential client, they liked to drop in sometimes. Or, it was Buccellati. That last one had my heart thumping against my chest and adrenaline filling my veins. I checked the guns on my person. Everything could go bad very quickly.

I stood up and crossed the room. I hesitated for just a moment before grasping the doorknob and pulling it open.

My heart stopped for just a moment. Before me stood Bruno Buccellati and Abbacchio, their eyes bearing down on me with serious expressions on their faces. I did my best to maintain a stony expression despite the terror filling me.

"Can I help you, Gentlemen?" I asked professionally. I might be able to talk my way out of this.

Buccellati nods his head slightly. "Yes. Do you have time to talk, miss?"

"I do." I moved aside and gestured for them to enter. They slid past me and moved to the chairs situated across from my desk. I swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. Of all the things that could have happened, this was probably the worst. I would have to be smart about this.

I moved over to my office chair to sit down. A part of me was quite pleased to see Abbacchio becoming visibly uncomfortable trying to settle himself in his chair. Buccellati also looked very uncomfortable, but he was trying his best to not let it show.

"Allow us to introduce ourselves," Buccellati said as I pulled myself up to my desk. "My name is Bruno Buccellati," he gestured to Abbacchio, who had a stern glare on his face, "And my companion is Leone Abbacchio."

"A pleasure," I replied politely.

"It's not," Abbacchio shot back in a low voice. The glare on his face intensified.

Buccellati looked back to me with suspicious eyes. "Though, I am sure that you already know who we are."

"It is my business to know things, Mr. Buccellati." I had to be careful. "Word of you has spread throughout Napoli. It is not uncommon to hear tales of you in the crowds." I looked over at Abbacchio. "And Abbacchio and I served on the same police force together. We had some assignments together from time to time. Now, you said that you would like to speak with me. Are you interested in my services?"

"Not quite." Buccellati shifted his weight a little. "Your reputation precedes you, Miss (Y/N). You are known as a very talented private investigator, perhaps one of the best in Napoli."

I chuckled a bit. "Those words are not mine, Mr. Buccellati. I let my clients decide for themselves if my work is up to par." I tilted my head a little. "It also seems you know who I am. You know your way among the town gossip."

Buccellati cracked a small smile. "It has helped me before in the past, I must admit." His eyes bore into mine again. "What exactly do you do in this profession of yours, Miss (Y/N)?"

I had to play it cool, use a bit of misdirection. "I am a private investigator. I investigate whatever my clients hire me to. Cheating spouses, missing family members, the occasional long lost flame. Many people think that we like working with reporters, but they almost never tell the full story. Police are not much better. Too wrapped up in internal politics to investigate properly and arrest the right people."

"Many people also think that you investigate corruption." Buccellati interjected, his eyes still trained on me. "There are many politicians that do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, no matter how illegal."

I took a breath in. "I don't do that kind of investigating, Mr. Buccellati. If I were to investigate one bad politician, it would take me years to unravel the web of misdeeds and lies. Bad people tend to work with other bad people, who would also be exposed. All for what?" I shrugged. "There will always be corrupt politicians. Removing one would lead to another taking his place, if you could remove him at all. Best to stay out of it entirely. There are many people out there who need help that the police and politicians cannot provide. In doing my work, I hope to provide some solace to them."

"Do you really believe that garbage?" Abbacchio growled at me. Anger was washing over him. "Talking about helping people by going through their private lives. Sounds like a load of shit to me."

"Abbacchio, calm down," Buccellati ordered. His voice was stern and commanding. Abbacchio turned away, becoming more broody by the minute.

Buccellati looked back at me. "Passione is a powerful organization in Napoli, and all of Italia for that matter. It controls one of the largest drug trades in the world, and engages in many illegal activities. Surely, there would be people interested in finding out all they can about it, and the people who comprise its members?"

Buccellati was proding around, trying to find a way to pin me down. I would have to be careful how I answered "Yes, there are many people who would like to uncover the secrets of Passione. I have had my fair share of people try to enlist my services, but I have made it policy to turn them down. The mafiosi don't much like it when people go sniffing around where they shouldn't, and they tend to respond rather violently when they do. I also do not take any assignments from members of Passione. One job leads to another, and you either end up a member of Passione yourself or very much dead. Neither sound very appealing to me."

Buccellati nodded intently. "What kind of people do you take these "assignments" from, Miss (Y/N)?"

I looked at him suspiciously. "A variety of individuals. If you are wanting specifics, I am afraid I have a strict confidentiality policy. I do not share any information about any previous or current clients, or anyone I have or am investigating. Any information I find stays between me and the respective client. What they do with said information is their business."

Buccellati narrowed his eyes at me. " I want to change subjects, if you don't mind."

I nodded. "Go ahead." I had the sense that this conversation was taking a turn for the worse. I could feel my pulse speed up.

"Yesterday, Abbacchio saw you taking photos of me and my team as we were leaving a restaurant." Abbacchio turned back to me and stared at me like he was reading my soul " Not only were you taking photos of us, you were in the perfect location to take them. You were either very lucky that day, or you had been investigating me and tracking my movements." He leans forward, his voice becoming more direct and commanding. "So I ask you, what were you doing there that day, and why were you taking photos of us?"

I had to keep reminding myself to stay calm. I could not let anything important slip. I could not show weakness. And I could not answer that question. "I am not at liberty to say. I told you I keep my work confidential."

"That's fucking bullshit," Abbacchio yelled at me. "You know damn well that someone is trying to get dirt on us!"

"I told you, whether or not that is true, I cannot and will not release any information to anyone but my client."

Abbacchio stood up suddenly, violently knocking over the chair in the process. Anger seethed across his body. "I am not taking any more of this. You tell us everything, or I will beat the living shit out of you!"

I stood up, pulled the pistol out of my jacket and aimed it at him. I knew that if I pulled the trigger, the first bullet would lodge right between his eyes.

"You can try, but you would have to reach me first."

Before anything else could happen, there was a small flash of blue light in the corner of my eye, before something hit me square in the chest. I fell back a few feet, my body feeling like it was tearing apart. I landed on my side, my muscles not functioning and my joints not moving. I didn't know what kind of weapon Buccellati had used on me, but it was very effective. I moved my head a little, just enough for Buccallati and Abbacchio to come into view.

Buccallati looked deep into my eyes, murderous intent in his cool blue pools. "I'm tired of playing games, Miss (Y/N). Tell us what we want to know, or I will have to resort to more extreme measures. And know that I am very good at telling when people are lying."

I gave him a defiant glare. "You think you are the first person to threaten me? I have put up with a lot of shit in my life, I doubt you can do anything to me to make me talk."

His gaze lingered on me for a few seconds. Then he looked to Abbacchio. "Move her onto her back and support her head. I want her to see this."

Abbacchio nodded and knelt down next to me, sliding his hands under my arms and easing me onto my back. He pulled me up to his chest, and I could see my body splayed out in front of me. My arms and legs were in strange and unnatural angles, but they didn't look broken or damaged. Still, they were doing some very unnatural things.

I looked up at Buccellati. He was rolling the sleeves of this suit jacket to expose his forearms. "There have been many sorts of punishments used over the course of human existence," he said as he kneeled beside me. "Disembowelment is particularly brutal and painful. Most people don't tend to live through it. It just so happens that I have an ability that allows such an act to be easier on the both of us."

He outstretched an empty hand, and touched me just above my collar bone. If I could move, I would have flinched away. Abbacchio and Buccellati's strange power kept me from doing much of anything. Buccellati clenched his hand like he was grasping something. He then moved his hand down my sternum, over my abdomen, and stopped just below my navel. A thin line was left on my clothing. He then took both hands and pulled on both sides of the line he drew. Slowly, my clothes and my skin separated together to reveal what lay underneath.

I could see inside myself. I saw my heart as it drummed and sent blood shooting through my arteries and veins. I could see my lungs rise and fall with my breathing. I watched my stomach churn and move. My intestines pulsed as they did their digestive dance. I could see all the red and soft organs that were keeping me alive and well. Everything was wet and held together by long, thin membranes you could see though. I couldn't move, but that didn't stop me from shaking in fear.

"How easy it would be to kill you," Buccelatti said as he looked into my eyes. "All I would have to do is squeeze your aorta until your cells die of oxygen deficiency, if your heart doesn't explode first. Or I could cut off the air to your lungs and let you suffocate. But if I wanted to make this really painful," He moved his hands over to where my intestines pulsated, "I could simply disembowel you. That would be much longer and more painful, giving me more time to get some answers out of you."

My shaking was becoming worse, my breathing becoming ragged. I kept my eyes locked on Buccellati, avoiding the horror he had unleashed. "Even if I do tell you, you would just end up killing me anyway."

He gave me a small, terrifying smile. "I may be a mafioso, Miss (Y/N), but I can assure you that I am a man of my word. You tell me what I want to know, and all this will end."

"Either way, I'll be spilling my guts."

"That's the idea."

He reached into my body and grabbed hold of my small intestine. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a small pocket knife, flipping it open. He brought the blade to my abdominal cavity, preparing to cut the thin membrane that held my organs in place. He was going to pull my intestines out right in front of me.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to thrash around, do something to stop it, but nothing was working. I could feel hot tears running down my face. I began to scream, to beg, to plead with Buccellati to stop. This was not worth getting my intestines ripped out for. This was not worth dying over.

"What were you doing yesterday?" he demanded an answer. "Why were you watching us? Why were you photographing us?"

The tears kept coming. "I was hired to."

"Obviously. Who hired you?" Buccellati nearly yelled.

I choked out the client's name.

He thought for a moment. "You said that you didn't work for politicians. You also said that you don't investigate members of Passione. You are either lying or you are very confused, and I doubt you are the latter."

I dropped my head back and stared at the ceiling. "It doesn't matter if I take the job or not. Either way, he ends up dead. They all do."

"They end up dead?" Abbacchio questioned from behind me.

"Fools who think they can fix everything. Undo all the terrible things that Passione has done. Rid Napoli of corrupt people. They don't understand what they get themselves into." I swallowed and let more tears fall. "I try to warn them. Try to tell them they are playing with fire, but they never listen. They are so hellbent on being the hero that they don't have time to listen. It doesn't matter if I get them the information or not. They never have enough time to do anything with it. Passione always finds out. Passione always comes for them. And the fools always end up dead."

My words hung in the air for a moment, the mafiosi taking in what I had said. "That still doesn't explain why you took the job." Abbacchio said softly. "You could have refused him."

"I know, " I whispered. "But if I did, he would turn to other places to get what they want, and most of them are being funded by the government officials or are members of Passione. He would be found out and dealt with much quicker than if he came to me. The problem is, idiots like him tend to have family and friends that care about them. If I take the job, instead of someone else, he might live just a day longer."

I lowered my eyes to look at Buccellati again. He looked intently at me, but I couldn't read his expression. What was he thinking? Did he hate me? Did he think I was a fool for even thinking like this? Did he feel sorry for me for lying to myself, justifying working for these poor souls?

Buccellati put the knife back in his pocket, taking out a handkerchief to clean his wet hand. He stood up and walked over to my chest. "Help her up, Abbacchio." The two of them lifted me to my feet, careful not to hurt me.

I looked down at my body again. My limbs were normal and straight. There was no gaping whole in my torso. I was magically whole again. I wiped some of the tears off my face. What kind of superpowers did these people have?

I took control over my body again, trying to regain my balance. I smoothed out my clothing and adjusted myself. I took a deep breath in. "If you gentlemen would excuse me," I said without looking at the mafiosi, " I will return shortly." I promptly walked out the door and turned down the hall. I opened the lady's room door and headed to the sink.

I took a few haggard breaths. My body had stopped shaking but I was still trying to recover. I wasn't dead yet. I was still intact. I just needed to let my body calm down.

As far as interrogations go, that was very effective for how little he actually hurt me. How the hell did Buccellati open me up like that without actually cutting into me? Was this all some sort of fever dream? Or a nightmare?

I turned on the faucet and ran the water over my hands. I needed to gather myself. I splashed the cool water over my face. I glanced at the mirror as my face dripped. I looked like death. All the color had drained from my face, there were dark bags under my eyes. Even the muscles under my face didn't have enough energy to move properly. I grabbed a few paper towels and dried my face.

I was so tired. I didn't want to be here anymore, to deal with Buccellati anymore. I just wanted to sleep forever and let the world pass me by. Damn it all.

I gripped the edge of the sink. I had to go back in there. I had to face them one more time. I didn't have a choice. They had gotten what they wanted from me. I didn't know what other information they would attempt to get from me. I didn't know if I would want to give it to them. Besides, my bag was still in there.

I gave myself a few more adjustments in the mirror before walking out into the hall. I told myself to breathe, to stay calm. I forced myself to walk to my office door. I gripped the doorknob. I turned it and opened the door.

Abbacchio was sitting on top of my desk, one leg tucked under him while the other dangled off the side. Buccellati stood off to the side, involved intensy with the conversation with his companion. The chair that Abbacchio flipped over was still laying on its side. They did, however, pick up my office chair. The both of them looked at me as I opened the door.

"Are you alright, Miss (Y/N)?" Buccellati asked me, a concerned look on his face.

I closed the door behind me. "Well enough, at least." I looked up at him. "I am surprised you would even ask that."

He gave me a strange look. "I may be a mafioso, but I am not heartless."

"You could have fooled me."

Buccellati looked at me intensely. "You would do whatever necessary to protect what is important to you, am I right Miss (Y/N)?"

I thought for a moment. "I suppose so."

"So would I. In my business, people important to you end up dead if not protected."

I sighed. "I see your point, Mr. Buccellati." I walked over to my office chair. "My question is, who is important to you? Who is so close to you that you would torture and kill to protect?"

"Haven't you done enough digging as it is?" Abbacchio growled at me. He was always a little prone to bad moods, but I don't remember him being this bad.

I glared at him. "I answered you damn questions, you might as well answer mine."

Buccellati raised his hand. "She's right, Abbacchio. We owe her an explanation for what happened that day." He looked back to me. "Miss (Y/N), would you join us for lunch? I would be happy to answer any questions you have."

I gave him a confused look. "Why would you trust me? How do you know I won't just sell all the information you give me?"

"I agree," Abbacchio spoke up. "This is stupid, Buccellati. We have more pressing matters to attend to."

Buccellati looked back to me, a small smile on his face. "Something tells me that you can be trusted. But I will only answer you questions if you come with us."

I thought for a few moments. This could be a trap, certainly. But I didn't think so. Buccellati didn't seem like he had something up his sleeve. Free food also didn't sound so bad either. I leaned down and grabbed my bag.

"Lead the way."

Half an hour later, I was sitting in a restaurant. The very same restaurant I watched the day before. Sitting across from me was a very calm Buccellati and a not as calm Abbacchio. I scanned over the menu, trying to narrow down what I wanted to eat. It all sounded so good. After the waiter took our orders, he whisked away our menus, leaving the three of us to talk.

Buccellati folded his hands over his face. "So, what do you want to know?"

I thought for a moment. "Narancia Ghirga. Why is he on your team? I can understand Abbacchio. He has a lot of skills from his career as a police officer. He also has a lot of knowledge on how both criminals and police operate. Pannacotta Fugo is extremely intelligent, and can probably think his way around problems. Narancia has no particular skills or qualities that set him apart."

He took a breath in. "It is not a simple story. Fugo found him alone and broken on the street. He brought Narancia to me in the hopes that I could help feed him. He was also in bad shape and needed extensive medical treatment. I made sure he had a full recovery. I could tell as time went on he began to idolize me." He looked away for a minute. "This life I lead is not for most people. It can destroy you if you are not careful. I didn't want to drag Narancia into it. I sent him home to his father to continue his education."

I leaned forward, intrigued by the story he was crafting. "Then how did he become a mafioso?"

Buccellatti gave a momentary smirk. "He went behind my back. Went directly to Polpo for initiation. He requested to be under my command. I accepted." He took a sip of his water. "He might not look like much, but Narancia fights to the bitter end. He is deadly when he wants to be, and is extremely loyal. I could not ask for a better charge."

During the course of the meal, I asked many questions. I learned more about what had happened to Abbacchio, the hard choices he had to make. I learned about Fugo, the difficult life he led of study and high expectations. And I learned of Buccellati, his life of fending for himself and his father. Now, he fights for Napoli, doing what he can for the people.

While the stories were being told, I told mine. I had always wanted to make a difference here. There was this righteousness that always burned within me. But whenever I tried, someone or something always stopped me. The only correct way to get anything done in Napoli is the illegal way. So I stopped trying. I used my skills to support myself, maybe help where I could. But the more you dig up, the more you realize how evil people can be. The more it beats you down and takes hold of your soul.

By the time everything was said, we had finished eating and Buccellati was paying the bill. Once he had finished, he looked to me. "Would you wait for us outside, Miss (Y/N)? There is something I would like to discuss with Abbacchio."

I nodded. "Of course."

I wandered out the front door and leaned against the building. I watched the people pass by. One person in particular caught my eye. A teenage boy wearing an altered pink private school uniform. His blond hair braided down his back and his bangs intricately set. A strange sight indeed. But not the most extravagant person you would see in Napoli.

I saw Buccellati and Abbacchio walk out of the restaurant. I stood up and walked to them. "Before we part ways," Buccellati said to me, "I have one more question to ask you."

"Another one?" I joked.

He smiled for a moment. "Just one. What do you think of joining my team? With your skills, you would make a valuable asset. You already know Abbacchio, and the two of you would work well together."

"I am the last person who would want to join Passione," I said promptly.

He shook his head. "You would be a member of Passione, but you would be working for me." He looked intently at me. "You of all people would know how I run things. I am trying to make Napoli better for everyone. Would you join me in doing that?"

I avoided eye contact, trying to make sense of everything. Just earlier that day, we thought of each other as enemies. Now, he had seen something in me that compelled him to ask me to join his cause. And Abbacchio had agreed to this? He had been so antagonistic towards me.

I looked Buccellati directly in the eyes. "I would need to wrap up my assignments, or try to get out of them somehow. But, yes. I will join you, Mr. Buccellati."

He nodded. "Good. I was hoping that would be your answer. By the way, you don't have to call me 'Mr.' anymore. Bruno will do just fine"

I smiled up at him. "You don't have to call me 'Miss.' either. (Y/N) works just as well."

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo's bizarre adventure golden wind #golden wind #vento aureo #bruno buccellati #leone abbacchio #narancia ghirga #pannacotta fugo #jjba #jjba reader insert #jjba x reader #jjba fanfiction

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antihero-writings · 4 years ago

Text

The Boy with the Unspeakable Name (Ch6)

Fandom: Harry Potter (and the Chamber or Secrets)

Fic Summary: Tom Riddle may have won his battle with Harry in the Chamber of Secrets, but there were a few unforeseen consequences; loss of Tom's memory being the most obnoxious of them. Is it possible to stop Tom's past from becoming his future? Or is the young Tom Riddle doomed to repeat his mistakes?

Chapter Summary: The interrogation scene

(I'll put the links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 in a reblog!! I also have a version of this fic with all the chapters in one place!!)

Notes: My apologies for the delay!! I was working super hard on a couple projects with deadlines, and I didn't really have the chance for a break. I tried to get back to it as fast as I could once those projects were done!! I hope you're still interested in reading, even so <3

In addition to other things occupying my time, this chapter itself wasn't easy; for some reason, for a good while I had no clue what I'd do for the interrogation scene, add to that to the fact that I picked a very difficult perspective to write for here and it wasn't the easiest XD I hope I ultimately did a good job, and that you guys enjoy it!!

Comments are always extremely appreciated!! And do let me know if you'd like me to add you to a tag list for this fic!!

Chapter 6:

Snape didn’t think his day would go like this.

One must keep a sense of preparedness about them, still, he didn’t think it remiss for not expecting a day that started with Neville handing him a bottle of goop that would be poison in a better context, would middle with the message that the Chamber of Secrets had opened and a student would be killed, and end with Potter standing in his office with Veritaserum conducting his tongue, telling him said student was dead, and the Dark Lord was back, but without memory, and in the body of his sixteen-year-old self.

And said day wasn’t even over yet.

They still had an interrogation to enact—(which would be a lot harder with the aformentioned truth-serumed Potter…and a lot easier with a mute Potter)—to make sure the missing-memory-claim was unequivocal fact.

He was about to walk into McGonagall’s office to see a sixteen-year-old Dark Lord. And he was expected and required to act like the boy was an ordinary student—(though the boy himself probably already knew he wasn’t).

The person most feared in the wizarding world, who’d killed so many he lost count.

Not the least of which was—

It wouldn’t be a problem.

There was a spiteful look in Potter’s green eyes as they ventured through the halls.

The silencing charm was proving enjoyable in addition to practical...But the small pleasure he gained from Potter’s plight had a fly’s life span.

As they approached the door to the office, his grip tightened around the truth serum in his hand. From a glance out of the corner of his eye he saw Potter had a similar tenseness about him.

He hated this boy, no question…but he’d be a monster if that story didn’t incite some form of empathy in him.

—(In another time there was another redhead lying dead on the floor Halloween, killed by the same person. Empathy wasn’t a choice.)—

They opened the door, and the sound was like a conversation being snapped in half.

“We’re not interrupting, I presume?” Snape’s voice carried across the room—(sure they very much were)—calm as if Dumbledore really was speaking to an ordinary student.

He let his eyes flick from Dumbledore to the boy in the chair in front of him, who had turned to them.

Annoyance may have flared in Potter’s eyes, but this boy bought his annoyance from an entirely different factory, one where they manufactured all sorts of other, far more gruesome emotions.

The eyes were brown, and human, but they were an echo—(What’s an echo before the real thing sings off the cliff edge?)—of the red ones he’d later possess. Red sitting behind the brown, like adult teeth in the skull behind the baby’s, ready to force the childhood out bloody, for something worthless as a couple coins.

“Thank you for coming, Severus.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he sneered as he stepped to Dumbledore’s side to face the boy once more.

He knew he’d be young, but a hex wasn’t entirely out of the question. Seeing this, this thing that once murdered thousands without blinking, this thing that shrieked the words of death with a high, cold voice over countless muggles and muggle sympathizers, and whose eyes held no form of remorse, or sympathy …sitting before him, young and handsome and perhaps even human—

His left arm itched.

“Well, unless anyone can offer a viable reason to continue dilly dallying, I suggest we begin.” Dumbledore spoke pleasantly.

Snape glided over to the boy—whose voice was level as he asked;

“What are you doing?”

Snape held up the truth serum.

“Do you have any idea what this is?”

The boy’s eyes flicked from the bottle to Snape wordlessly. Odds are it physically pained him to admit he didn’t know something.

A smirk tugged at Snape’s lip.

“Wonderful.

“And I don’t suppose you’ll drink it willingly, if we were to ask you to?”

The boy’s eyes lidded; You must be joking.

“Even better.”

He flicked his wand and ropes bound the boy to the chair.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Well if you won’t drink it willingly, then we’ll just have to make sure you do so unwillingly.

“Open wide.” A said like a dentist, that smirk marking his features as he grabbed his chin and forced his mouth open, like offering King Claudius the poison.

“Try not to enjoy this too much, Severus.” Dumbledore cautioned.

The boy started to protest, but the sound was drowned out by the potion pouring into his mouth—which Snape quickly cast a spell to keep him from spitting it out.

When he swallowed Snape cast the counters to each of the curses binding him and glided back around the desk.

The boy wiped his mouth, gaze throwing daggers at him. “Is this how you treat all your guests?”

“Only our favorites.”

“What happened in the Chamber of Secrets?” Dumbledore asked, his voice commanding, but never losing its calm.

“What happened in the where?” Tom demanded, not altogether politely.

“The Chamber that you woke up in earlier.” Dumbledore continued, still pleasant. “Would you mind filling us in the details of what happened there?”

“I don’t have to—” He was probably about to say ‘tell you anything’ but quickly found himself rather inexplicably compelled to do just that.

He detailed his waking up in the Chamber without memory to see Potter crying over the dead Ginny, about how they exchanged words, how they got out…nothing that would betray the idea that he had lost his memory.

“Thank you for telling us that.” Dumbledore replied simply—though something flickered behind his eyes when he spoke of the girl. Potter fidgeted in the back of the room, and likely would have asked why he had to stay if he could. “Are you certain you remember nothing prior to that?”

“I told you I don’t remember anything! What did you do to me?!”

“You mean you don’t usually feel overly compelled to tell the truth?” Snape examined his nails.

“No.” His eyes were lidded.

“Oh? If you don’t remember who you are, how would you know?”

“Does anyone feel overly compelled to tell the truth? Seriously, who are you people?!”

“We already told you,” Dumbledore intonated. “I am the headmaster of this school, a school for witchcraft and wizardry. The oddly silent Harry,”—He gestured to the boy standing mutely at the back of the room—“is a student at this school, and Severus Snape here is a professor.”

“I have a hard time believing teachers would strap a student to a chair and force a truth potion down their throat!”

“We are wizard teachers. That means, at times, our methods can be a little…unorthodox. Tom”—The name made him flinch—“we merely want to discern if you truly are without memory. You may remember more than even you yourself are aware of—and more than simple questioning would illuminate. There are few other ways to discern this efficiently. Personally I would have attempted a bit more explanation and persuasion before resorting to tying you down.”—He shot a glance at Snape—“But…though it may not seem that way, we are trying to help you.”

“I don’t think Severus”—Snape flinched at his name even more visibly than Tom had—“is particularly inclined to help me.”

Snape was seconds from doing something either very stupid, or very smart, but Dumbledore stood, his voice with a bite to it.

“Professor Snape is not particularly fond of you, that’s true.”

"Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow at Snape.

“Hmm…I would like to phrase this delicately…” Dumbledore continued. “In your time here, you could be a bit of a…a bully. This is of course why Harry here isn’t particularly fond of you either. He has been subject to your bullying on more occasions than one. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

Potter froze, as if surprised they asked him a question, then nodded.

“So what you really mean is that you are trying to help me, and these two are here to watch me suffer your ‘help’?”

“I did not intend my ‘help’ to cause you suffering. I apologize that it has. And just because you were not a particularly kind individual in the past doesn’t mean others are unwilling or undesirous to help you. That is what it means to be kind.”

Snape’s eyes met Harry’s, and he was particularly glad the boy’s overly truthful lips were sealed shut at that moment.

“Let’s get back to the questions shall we? Do you have any memory at all attached to your own name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your name. Names are very powerful. You mentioned you did not know it until Harry mentioned it to you. Does hearing it arouse any particular memories or feelings in you?”

“Memories, no. Feelings…”

“Yes?”

“Hatred.” Tom froze, eyes wide, and his hand flew to his mouth—the first real reaction they’d seen from him.

Despite his particular distaste for divulging the truth, he hadn’t said anything too incriminating yet. This was clearly one of those things he thought would grant him power if it stayed inside.

“You feel hatred at the sound of your name? I see. Do you feel this hatred hearing anyone else’s names?”

“Yours.” He said into his hand. “His.” He threw his thumb over his shoulder, gripping his mouth.

“Wonderful.”

His hand came back down into his lap. “Wonderful?”

“Well, not wonderful that you hate the sound of all our names, I don’t imagine that’s very pleasant. But this is helpful information. And this hatred does not come with any concrete memories?”

“No. Why do I hate—?”

“I imagine it’s because you were not overly fond of us either.”

“Why didn’t I like you?”

“Because we were two particularly large roadblocks in your path of bullying.”

He paused. “…Why did I bully you?”

“Troubled home life, perhaps? You may find it difficult to believe, but you did not divulge the contents of your personal life to us. But I imagine you were dealing with quite a bit of internal strife to take it out on your fellow students. I do hope you will choose a different path in this new life you have been given, so to speak.”

The boy tapped his fingers on the armrest. “…What are you going to tell my family?”

“Your family?” His eyebrows raised. “About what?”

“About the fact that I don’t remember them.” He said like Dumbledore was stupid for not knowing.

“Oh, well, in that sense you are both particularly lucky, and particularly unlucky, in that your family is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

The boy paused, his gaze falling to the ground as he thought. “So where is my home?"

"Of that I am not aware. I think, perhaps, Hogwarts was more home to you than anywhere else."

"...Where will I go, then?”

“Go?”

“When I’m not at this school. You yourself said you might not let me back. Where else can I go?”

“That’s what we will have to discuss over the next few days.”

A look of surprise crossed Potter’s face, as if he hadn’t realized the sixteen-year-old dark lord would be any sort of permanent fixture.

To tell the truth the thought was rather jarring, but Snape hadn’t ruled out disposing of him just yet.

"What about my friends?" the boy asked.

There was a small indication of surprise in Dumbledore's eyes at the question, but it faded quickly as he answered. "It pains me to inform you that—to my knowledge at least—you did not have any."

His eyebrow raised. "None?"

"None of whom I'm aware."

The boy looked down at his hands in his lap, as if pondering.

"Does that sadden you?" Dumbledore asked softly.

"No." The answer was cold and immediate...but apparently not truthful, as a moment later he barked the word "Yes," followed by an annoyed groan. Another pause. "...I don't know that 'sad' is the right word."

Dumbledore nodded. "Such a potion cannot always help one discern the truth of their emotions, that is, if they do not know them themselves.

“Severus, do you have any more questions?” Dumbledore’s gaze ticked to Snape, a meaningful glint in his eyes. Snape gave a small nod in return.

“You are completely certain you don’t remember anything prior to a few hours ago?”

Imperceptibly, Snape flicked his wand at his side.

“Why do I keep having to repeating myself?! I—”

Scenes flashed before Snape’s eyes. A darkened chamber, a tattered diary, a sword, a phoenix, a boy crying, a dead girl, red hair like flames on the stones—

“What the hell was that?!” Tom demanded immediately, shooting up. “What did you do to me?!”

“To what are you referring?” Dumbledore asked.

“That—That—Those visions! What was that?!” His eyes darted venomously between Dumbledore and Snape. “You’re looking through my memories, aren’t you?!”

“Merely a side effect of the potion.” Dumbledore answered as if they were having a conversation over afternoon tea. “Nothing to worry about. Please, proceed.”

“I said I don’t remember anything!” He spat.

Snape tried again, and again the same scenes that they had already described flashed by.

After exiting the memory, the boy’s eyes were wild and fiery, continually darting between the two of them, and Snape swore he saw something red there.

“Is that all the information you need?! Can I go now?!” He spun to storm out of the room before they gave an answer.

Another flick of Snape’s wrist, and the boy was lifted into the air by his ankle.

“Class has not been dismissed, Tom.”

Emotion rushed across the boy’s face; horror, rage, humiliation, and Snape reveled in it.

“You said yourself;” Snape stepped closer, and his voice softened into a taunting whisper, “where would you go? Would you wander the halls like a lost, little boy without his mommy?”

Tom’s eyes flashed once more, and he squirmed against the spell, and it almost seemed, for a second, like he’d hit Snape.

Another flick, behind his back this time, and this time he concentrated very hard at breaking past the scene only an hour earlier.

It was as if he hit a wall in the boy’s mind. Snape never thought of people’s minds as books to be perused by any passerby, but the harder he tried to break through, the more the boy’s mind looked like the ripped pages of a book too old to hold itself together. Like walking into a dream where the dreamer stopped imagining the world, so reality just…tapered off. The world in his mind, ripped, hazy, rotted and congealed.

“Would you stop that?!”

“That concludes my questions.” Snape pocketed his wand and turned to Dumbledore.

“What about you, Harry?” Dumbledore asked gently. “Anything to ask?”

Potter glanced between the two of them, surprised his opinion was of any worth in this situation—(and, if he was frank, Snape wasn’t altogether sure it was).

“I think you’ll find Potter is disinclined to speak for the next few moments.” He tried not to smirk.

Dumbledore looked over his half-moon spectacles at him.

“Will you Let. Me. Down?!”

Another flick, and the boy fell to the ground on his head and in a mess of limbs.

“You could’ve been gentler!” He sat up, rubbing the back of his neck.

So could you.

Notes Cont.:

As I said, Snape is a rather difficult perspective to write for, and I’m still not entirely sure I did a great job with him... I would have used Tom’s perspective and reveled in his horror, but I felt I should probably use Snape because of the legilimacy thing. I wanted you guys to know what he saw there. It's possible I might try rewriting this chapter from Tom's perspective to check if I missed any reactions or questions he would have/ask too, or even if it's overall better from his perspective...so keep in mind stuff might get edited in the future!! And do let me know if you liked in in Snape's perspective!!

FYI, these should be the three perspectives I use/alternate between (Tom, Harry, Snape). At the moment I don’t intend to add more. Maybe if I really need to for an off chapter down the road I will, but I can't imagine what that would be at the moment.

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monomonomagines · 5 years ago

Note

hey there! if it's okay, would I be able to request a similar thing as one of your recent posts with the V3 characters being taunted abt their s/o's death except it's for the v3 girls with a fem s/o? and otherwise p much the same if that's okay?? thank you!!!! yall are great!!!!

Thanks so much for requesting this. I’m sure since you read the last one of these I did, you know I can’t go into too much detail about gore/blood but I’ll still try my hardest! I’ve been working harder to make all of these imagines better written so I hope you enjoy this and if not please feel free to tell me where I goofed so that I can fix it up. Also for anyone that isn’t familiar with the previous version I did of this request with the V3 boys you can find it here.

Kaede

Kaede dreaded those awful announcements more than anything.

Whenever another body was found so was another murderer, both being the very people she knew to be her friends.

It was too much for her most of the time but she was determined to remain positive. As long as you were with her, she had nothing to worry about.

That’s what she thought at least until she entered the Gym and realized she couldn’t pick you out from the crowd.

She felt her heart suddenly sink but before she could even confirm her suspicions Shuichi pulled her by the arm to drag her aside.

He didn’t want her to have to see the horrible state your body was left in but even as he told her of what happened she couldn’t believe it, not until she saw it with her own two eyes.

When she did see you though, with your lifeless eyes crumpled on the floor like some forgotten rag doll with the murder weapon next to you she knew.

She knew but she couldn’t accept it at all.

The whole investigation she’s trying her hardest to still help Shuichi and during the class trial, she’s staying fairly strong.

However, that all comes crashing down as soon as the murderer is cornered by the two and begins to mock you.

Kaede couldn’t believe her ears but she definitely heard them mock the way that you didn’t even see them coming, the way that you thought of them as a mere friend passing when you saw them, and how you simply fell to the floor lifeless without even knowing what happened.

Kaede had discerned with Shuichi that the cause of death was instantaneous and was a result of blunt force trauma but she still didn’t want to hear about your suffering at all.

You were always so kind and for someone to betray your trust like that was just unacceptable!

She’d push Shuichi to finish things off as tears streamed down her cheeks but she couldn’t bring herself to watch the execution at all.

She knows you wouldn’t have wanted this but she had no choice but to do this for your sake and everyone else’s. That murderer had to pay for their crimes!

Kirumi

Kirumi had taken a while to dedicate herself to one person but now that she had, she had never been happier.

That’s why she was prepared to investigate as soon as she heard the Body Discovery Announcement with you and your remaining friends.

However, when she opened your lab only to find you hung up like some oversized ornament with the murder weapon laying below your dangling body she was in total shock.

She still wasn’t prepared to have someone like you and she wasn’t prepared at all for you to be taken out of her life.

She was normally so calm and so composed but just like when she had fallen in love with you she had only been able to fall to her knees and begin to wail like a child.

Everyone was shocked but no one dared to disturb her, not even Kokichi.

This was such a rare explosion of emotion from the Ultimate Maid and all of them knew it wasn’t a good idea to make things worse.

That is everyone other than the murderer.

As soon as there were a few pieces of incriminating evidence used against them they immediately turned to try to rile up Kirumi, telling her about how you cried for her to save you, how even as you died you were spouting nonsense about how she’d get them even if you didn’t make it, and most of all how she failed to do either.

Unbeknownst to them though, Kirumi had no tears left to shed. She was only filled with ice-cold rage.

Her expression didn’t change but her eyes certainly glared daggers at them.

She was ready to end this and if she had to she’d do it herself.

Kirumi brought things to a swift end, putting together the pieces without even investigating herself.

She thought she’d feel relieved but even as the execution played she felt sadder than she ever had before. This wouldn’t bring you back, nothing could.

Angie

Angie was rather carefree even when it came to the Killing Games so when the Body Discovery Announcement reared it’s ugly head she barely paid it any mind.

This just meant that she’d go spend more time with you, get through another Class Trial guided by Atua, and then she could go back to the dorms to hang out with you.

She expected you to already be there as you normally were a lot quicker about these things yet something was odd.

The place of crime was your room somehow?

She merely thought it coincidence at first but when she saw everyone but you crowded around the outside of your dorm she knew something was amiss.

Before anyone could stop her, she pushed her way through, calling for you.

However, once she saw you, she realized that you weren’t going to respond anytime soon.

There you lay on your bed as though you were just sleeping, the only difference on you being some blood on your hands.

She wasn’t ready to comprehend the intricacies of your murder though.

All she could comprehend was that she was back to being the world’s loneliest girl and that you’d never return to her.

Surprisingly she wasn’t emotional at all. No, instead her normally aglow face just held a strangely foreign downcast look.

It was so unusual for Angie to not be her usual smiling self but even when it was time to begin the Trial itself she still just stood in her place with that same expression on her face.

It was all she had done during the investigation. No one had heard a word from her within the entire Trial even.

That is until the murderer had dared to mock her.

She couldn’t feel anything but sadness and anger swirling inside her despite her lack of expression.

She didn’t retort at all she knew that you probably would’ve called for her.

She knew you’d believe in her to the last minute just as much as she believed in Atua but what use was it when those beliefs weren’t granted?

She knew she had to end this so finally acting like her old self she put on a smile urging Shuichi to finish things up.

She didn’t watch the execution at all she just would wait until she could return to her room before she could wail and scream at the heavens to give you back.

Tenko

Like Angie, Tenko can get carried away with her own interests.

She always cares if she loses a friend (including degenerate males even) but she doesn’t always help out the most during the investigation process.

Again not because she doesn’t care but rather because she has her priorities, priorities which happened to be you.

Because of dating you she’d be stuck to you like glue most of the time. That and you were what was always on her mind even in this awful Killing Game.

So when that blasted Announcement played itself she knew she would be needed. You were probably scared without her there to protect you.

She quickly sprinted to the Dining Hall, prepared to be a source of comfort for you in these trying times when her eyes didn’t spot you.

Huh? That’s odd. Perhaps she had just missed you?

She kept scanning all the standing students gathered around, not even bothering to look at the body until it sank in.

You weren’t here so that could only mean one thing. That body she saw sprawled out in the corner was none other than you.

Tenko always had trouble being a bit overemotional but this just made things worse.

She was equally angry and sad and she really couldn’t pick between crying over you and threatening the others even when they had to touch your body for the investigation.

She impeded the investigation more than helped it but no one wanted to blame her for that.

You two were so close, she always made sure everyone knew it too so for someone to do this was just plain cruel.

And that couldn’t have been more true.

The murderer just had to add insult to injury by mocking her about how you cried out for her, that she’d protect you because she swore to, and how you still died with the foolish hope that she would come in time.

It was too much for her and if not for Gonta holding her back they might’ve had another murder on their hands.

Tenko would push Shuichi to finish things, not being much help herself this time around.

She wouldn’t watch the execution but she wouldn’t be quite the same afterwards. Compared to Angie, she isn’t good at faking going back to her old self and wouldn’t seem like it until a good while had passed.

Then she’d decide to keep living on for you! Even if she couldn’t have protected your body, she’d protect your memory for sure!

Miu

Miu had made some basic walkie talkie like devices for you and her to keep in touch but you hadn’t been picking up.

She assumed you were just ignoring her or sleeping or some shit so at first, she was just anticipating you to send a message back.

However, more and more time passed and there was no word back.

She had begun to grow a bit worried by then so she decided to go by your dorm but even when she knocked there was no answer.

The only other option was the dining hall then! She quickly made her way over to the hall but something on the way stopped her.

Because of being in such a hurry she had tripped over something but when she looked down to see that it was a literal arm she couldn’t help but let out a shriek.

Soon all the others came running and as soon as they did that terrifying Announcement played.

At first, Miu was confused, but as she looked a little further beyond the arm she had tripped over she knew why you didn’t answer her.

She couldn’t look as they looked over your body, all she could do was dejectedly pick up your walkie talkie laying next to you.

Both of her newest favorite things were now in pieces and she didn’t even know how to react.

Throughout the investigation, she’d be rather angry impeding more than helping like Tenko.

However, that anger wouldn’t subside even in the Class Trial.

The whole time she kept both walkie talkies in hand ready to incriminate the asshole that killed her lover in a heartbeat.

In fact, she was so angry that even when the killer began to mock her she didn’t get meek like normal at all.

She didn’t care if you tried to call her with the walkie talkie or if you screamed or whatever. What she cared about was getting rid of the asshole that stole you from her!

She’d actually somehow wrap up a Class Trial herself, surprising everyone there.

But when the execution played she was more focused on fiddling with that walkie talkie. She had made it so that it wasn’t just like any old one. She could still get your chat logs if she fixed yours.

And once she did she’d just sit and listen to the sound of your voice. Now all those, “I love yous” and “Good mornings or nights” felt so long ago.

Himiko

Himiko was normally woken up by you so that she didn’t have to worry about getting up herself but weirdly enough that awful Announcement woke her instead.

It wasn’t like you to just suddenly not come to wake her up so she made her way towards the crime scene in the pool rather leisurely.

She didn’t feel hurried at all until she saw something that caught her eye in the pool.

Was that you?

She couldn’t comprehend it and even though she was always so relaxed she couldn’t help but feel panicked.

How was this happening? This was really happening, right?

Himiko felt her legs give out underneath her, falling to the ground in a small heap as she looked on in horror.

She couldn’t cry or scream, all she could was look on in a terrified stupor.

By the time she felt even slightly more balanced the whole investigation had gone by.

As far as she was concerned the investigation was a total blur but as soon as the Trial began she had some newfound anger.

She was demanding answers even before Shuichi had a certain suspect pinned and even then her questioning only grew in ferocity.

She wasn’t backing down at least not until that awful murderer mocked you.

That was a whole other story. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t hear you calling for help, that you believed in her even then, and that you died with such faith in her never being realized.

She felt awful and before she knew it she was a crying screaming mess.

She wanted this to end. She needed Shuichi to finish this for her. She was too weak to do this even with her magic.

After the Trial, she’s still just a sobbing mess. Tenko would have to take her back to her room, trying to comfort her.

But she doesn’t want to come out of her room again. You’re not there so what’s the point?

She’ll be down for a good while but with her friends encouraging her she’ll try to follow Tenko’s example, living to honor the memories of you she held in her heart.

Tsumugi

Tsumugi was used to eating breakfast with you in the morning so when you never came to the Dining Hall she immediately began to worry.

She’d run out before she even registered that her legs were moving towards your dorm.

She’d knock and knock but you wouldn’t respond and that’s when she knew something wasn’t right.

Running out to check whatever rooms she knew were nearby, she never expected to find you by the top of the stairs on the second floor.

Who could’ve done this!? She was overwhelmed by the sudden sight that all she could do was fall to her knees as a few tears began to trickle down.

She had to call for the rest of your friends, she knew she did but she didn’t want to acknowledge that this was really happening.

Even though her voice felt like it barely came out she was able to yell loud enough for a few others to come, signaling that terrible Announcement.

She was far too shaken up for the investigation and she wasn’t any better in the trial.

That’s why when the murderer began to mock her everyone was sure it was going to break her.

Instead, though, she looked very angry.

She didn’t ask to hear about how you screamed for help or how the life left your eyes. She only cared about delivering the final blow to this scumbag.

Even after the Trial is over though she can’t look anyone in the eye. She just feels so lost without you that she ends up being rather distant.

She’ll make a lot more cosplays to try to cope but she just ends up making all of your favorite characters even when you can’t wear their outfits.

Maki

Maki was used to losing people that she cared for.

That’s why she expected something like this to happen. She just didn’t know it’d happen so soon.

It was only last night when the two of you spoke. She had warned you to be careful, to not get yourself killed and you promised that you wouldn’t.

She didn’t know why but the fact that promise was broken only made that ache her heart worse.

She didn’t express anything even when the Announcement played after everyone showed up to the Gym.

She could tell what was going on. You were the only one not here so it had to be you laying in a puddle of your own blood there.

You were such an idiot. You promised her and now here you were.

As much as she wanted to avenge you, she knew she couldn’t kill to get back at your killer. She needed to do this right and that’s why she’s stepping up for the investigation.

She knew everything there was about murder obviously and she was going to use it to her advantage.

It was this very knowledge that helped incriminate the brute that killed you but they didn’t want to give up hurting others apparently.

Maki wasn’t too fazed when the killer mocked her but when they talked about how you cried out for her, an assassin of all people she was beyond mad.

How dare they talk about you like that!

She makes sure there’s a swift finish to that trial and she watches that execution with cold eyes.

She wasn’t happy to see another classmate of hers die but she was more concerned about one thing.

How could they look so scared to die? How scared were you with her not there to save you?

It all just left a bad taste in her mouth. It was worse than failing a mission. She had allowed herself to get close to someone and for what?

She was all alone in the world again.

#danganronpa #danganronpa imagines #drv3 #danganronpa killing harmony #danganronpa x reader #x reader #imagine #kaede akamatsu #kirumi tojo #angie yonaga #tenko chabashira #miu iruma #himiko yumeno #tsumugi shirogane #maki haruwaka #ask #mod toko

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thats-h0w-th3-light-g3ts-in · 4 years ago

Text

Blind Spot AE

This is my alternate ending for Law and Order: Criminal intent Season 6 Episode 1 Blind Spot.

“Where is she?“ Bobby yelled, pushing the old man against the wall. Declan was aghast by his former mentee’s sudden rage. “I … I don’t know.“ He revealed truthfully, his eyes wide open staring into Bobby’s tired face. Bobby didn’t really want to believe that Declan had anything to do with Eames’ disappearance, but he also couldn’t deny the obvious connections he had found. Sebastian? Was it really an old serial killer coming back murdering all those women? But why Eames? Sebastian was Declan's white whale, so involving Eames wouldn’t make much sense. But why was Declan so convinced Alex was dead? The mere thought of that image send a million shivers down Bobby’s spine. A million questions and not one clear answer. Usually, Bobby broke down a case like this in a clear pattern. First look at the abductee, who were the people close to them, who’d seen them last. But every one of those answers lead back to himself. None of her family had heard from her. It suddenly came to him that there was literally nobody else in Alex’ life except her family and him. This thought was immediately followed by an even sombre thought. What if she was seeing someone, but he didn’t know. What if she had fallen for a maniac psycho? No — he stuffed that thought right to the back of his mind where it had come from. But then again, why the connection to Declan and Sebastian? Bobby’s ability to focus, let alone ask the right questions had been disabled the minute the text message from Alex’ cell phone had come in. He felt like a phone in Airplane mode, able to execute the basic functions but unable to process any information. The sound of someone knocking on the transparent walls of the visitors room suddenly caught Bobby’s attention. It was Captain Ross’ stern look through the glass that made him realise he was still clenching Declan’s collar fast in his fists. He let go of him finally and the old man let out a relieved breath. Did Declan really not know where Eames was? But who would if not him, his mentor? If a guy better at reading serial killers than Bobby himself couldn’t tell him where his partner was held captive, how would he ever find her? Who else knew Sebastian and his MO better than Declan. Bobby wiped the sweat off his forehead as Captain Ross entered the room, Declan still crouched into the corner Bobby had shoved him in. “We’ve triangulated Eames’ cellphone, the signal bounced between three towers within the Red Hook area in Brooklyn.“ Ross announced. Bobby’s glance fell at Declan, to see if Red Hook rang a bell. “Sebastian stuck to the east side area, he wouldn’t have stepped one food into Red Hook …“ Declan exposed, his eyes avoiding Bobby’s. He knew Declan was holding something back. The blood was boiling in his body. “Are you sure?“ Ross asked, also sensing something was wrong with the profiler’s behaviour. „No he is not … what’s in Red Hook?“ Bobby was leaping at Declan again, his fists clenched tightly together. He couldn’t stand any longer that Declan might know where Eames was but didn’t tell him. “Goren!“ Ross hissed at him to stay away from the old man. Bobby obeyed, turning away from Declan, piercing him however with a flaming look. “He knows something…“ he yelled at the Captain, his anger directed towards him now. He dramatically flung his hands in the air and brushed the fingers through his hair. If anything would happen to Alex just because he wasn’t persistent enough to find out the truth, he would never forgive himself. “Sebastian, doesn’t have any connections to Red Hook.“ Declan repeated, stepping out of the corner sitting down at the desk again. “But I do… My brother worked at a butcher shop at the pier. I used to bring Jo there when she was a kid.“ Declan remembered. He was completely calm sitting at his desk, not even pondering about the fact he might just have incriminated himself or his own daughter. He also seemed oblivious to the fact that Bobby was on the edge trying to find his partner and that time was pressing. “Jo. Of course.“ The million thoughts in Bobby’s head suddenly seemed to come in order. Things seemed to fall in place now and it made him dizzy. The only one knowing Declan’s cases as well as himself and maybe Bobby was Jo. She’d grown up on stories of Sebastian as if they were afternoon cartoons. Everything seemed to make sense now, but the warm feeling of puzzle pieces falling together revealing a clear picture didn’t make Bobby any less agitated. He would be calm when they’d found Alex. “What’s there now?“ Bobby asked his mentor. “The shop closed ten years ago, it’s an empty building.“ Declan revealed calmly. Bobby barely let the man finish. He ran out the door determined to walk there if he had to. It was his only chance at finding Eames alive and he was not going to waste one second. Captain Ross started after him, making a dozen phone calls on the way.

Alex had finally been able to get the tie off her eyes, which had been used to blindfold her. She hadn’t heard anything from her kidnapper in what must have been hours so she finally decided to make an attempt to free herself. When her eyes were finally able to focus, she mustered her surroundings. Her stomach dropped as she realised she was hanging from a meat hook screwed to the ceiling, like a pig ready for slaughter. What she had thought was sweat running down her arms had now revealed itself to be blood from the shackles carving themselves into her skin. She’d lost the feeling in her fingertips hours ago but her twirled back shoulders burned like fire. She wasn’t sure if they’d not been both dislocated. Around her she made out empty boxes and a blood stained shower curtain covering the part of the room the screams had come from the night before. She was sick to her stomach thinking a girl had been killed five feet away from her and she wasn’t able to do anything about it. The tips of her toes were barely touching the ground underneath her but she managed to get herself rotating so the hook would unscrew. After what had felt like the millionth turn around her own axis, the hook finally unscrewed and she fell to the floor. As soon as her body hit the cold cement ground adrenaline started raging through her veins. There was no way she would get herself down from there and not be able to get out of this god-forsaken cellar she was in. She picked herself up from the floor and started running through the first door she could find. She ran as fast as the narrow halls allowed it, stumbling over boxes and what looked like dumped furniture. Her heart was almost jumping out of her chest and her lungs hurt from the amount of breaths she took per minute. She had taken the meathook with her and held on to it as if her life depended on it. After what felt like an eternity of detours and dead ends she finally made it to a heavy red bunker door. Although every bone in her body was burning and aching she pulled all her physical strength together and turned the wheel to open the door. Right as she had felt the heavy bolts retract she pulled the door towards her. She used her whole body weight to pull it open. Right as she wanted to escape through it, however, she came to an abrupt halt. She had run headfirst into something. The exhaustion and dehydration delayed her realisation that she’d actually run into a person. As soon as she grasped the fact that someone was clutching her arms, she started fighting. There was no way she had brought herself so far only to run into her kidnappers arms. “Alex, stop. It’s me!“ Bobby wasn’t sure if he should hold on to her or let go. Alex was kicking the air trying to free herself from his tight grip. He didn’t want to hurt her so he decided to let go. After Bobby’s grip loosened she finally took a good look at him. She recognised Bobby’s face in front of her. She stopped in her tracks staring at him fearing she was hallucinating. He grabbed her by the shoulders once again, bending his head down to look directly into her eyes. “Alex, it’s okay, you’re safe now.“ His words echoed in her buzzing head. His face finally came into focus, not only with her eyes but also with her brain. It was actually Bobby, surrounded by SWAT officers in helmets and armour. To his left she could make out Captain Ross’ face. Slowly, she could feel her body collapsing. The Captain’s face merged into one with the SWAT team. She could see Bobby’s mouth moving but she didn’t hear a single word he said, until everything faded to black.

Bobby felt Alex’ feet giving out from under her. He clutched her upper arms tightly with his hands as not to lose her. He let her fall into his arms and slipped his right hand under her knees to pick her up entirely. Her head fell heavy on his shoulder and he carried her all the way back the hallway he’d been coming from. He’d been so worried he’d never see her again. A huge burden dropped from his heart when he found her falling into his arms like she did. It meant she was alive, it meant he was in control now. It meant that nothing could happen to her now unless he let it and he wouldn’t. An ambulance was already waiting outside and he carefully placed her onto the cot. Her skin was grey and her closed eyelids appeared almost blue. Her arms were both covered in blood coming from her bleeding wrists. Her chest moved very shallowly up and down like she was barely breathing. The lump in Bobby’s throat grew with every scratch end every bruise he spotted on Alex’ body. How could he ever have let her get hurt like this? Part of him knew he wasn’t responsible for what had happened to her but a fundamental part of his self-loathing brain blamed himself none the less. The connection between Jo Gage and Alex Eames was none other than him after all. Maybe Jo would have never chosen Alex if her father hadn’t pointed out how much Bobby seemed to care about her. “Please move aside sir..“ A paramedic caused Bobby to zoom back into reality. He realised he was still standing beside the cot holding her hand. He let go of it quickly as not to stand in the way of the paramedics work any longer. He watched Alex being loaded into the ambulance and he lost sight of her as they shut the door and flashed away with sirens and red light. He wiped his nose with his sleeve. “She’s gonna be fine..“ He could feel the Captains hand on his shoulder. He knew she was. He looked down on his blood stained shirt and anger crept up at him again. “Jo. It all makes sense now. She used Eames and the other girls to get Declan’s attention.“ Bobby eventually revealed his theory to Ross. “Let’s find out..“ Ross gestured towards his car, for Bobby to follow him.

Jo had confessed. Bobby had lulled her into a conversation watching her father through the window of the interrogation room until she finally confessed. He wasn’t especially happy to have brought her behind bars, but he knew it was the right thing, to get justice for Eames and the other girls. After two officers took Jo away, Bobby made his way to the hospital. He watched his partner through the little window on the door to her room, before he entered. She was lying on the bed hooked up to all kinds of machines and with bandages around her head and wrists. She looked even thiner than she usually did, but Bobby was relieved to find her awake. He knocked on the door to announce himself then entered without waiting for a response. Alex slowly turned her head towards him and put a weak smile on her face. „Well, you look like shit..“ She greeted him, her voice hoarse and weak. Bobby pushed an audible breath out his nostrils and settled himself on a chair next to her bed. “I’m Sorry!“ He apologised his eyes mustering her pale face. “What for, it wasn’t you was it?“ Alex replied. Bobby shook his head embarrassedly. “Five minutes,“ The nurse warned him and pulled the curtains to give them some privacy. Upon the sound of the metal rings grinding on the pole Alex’ breathing got heavier and faster. She squeezed her eyes together tightly as if she was trying to blend something out of her sight. “That sound?“ Bobby asked. “There was a curtain like this in the cellar. It’s where he tortured a girl, the entire night. There was nothing I could do for her..“ Alex voice broke telling her partner about what had happened to her. Her eyes started glimmering at the thought that she couldn’t help the poor soul screaming and crying only a few feet away from where she was held. „It was Amanda, the video store clerk.“ Bobby carefully revealed. Alex turned her head away as not to have Bobby see a tear escaping her eyes. “There’s nothing you could have done..“ Bobby grabbed her hand squeezing it softly. Alex turned to him again, his warm hand on hers felt so good. “And it wasn’t a him. It was Jo Gage.“ He exposed to her. Alex frowned, not knowing what to make of this information. “Jo? Are you sure?“ Alex couldn’t quite believe it. She had imagined her kidnapper, tried to make out their face although she couldn’t see them. She had thought it was a man, never in a million years did she think it could be Declan Gage’s daughter. She thought she would be happy and relieved hearing they had caught the person who did this to her, but the euphoria was limited. Alex too had felt sorry for Jo. The only thing she had ever craved was attention from her father and the only way she would ever get it was through an act like this. Alex rarely had understanding for the perpetrators actions but in this case it was crystal clear. Jo’s father’s obsession with psychopaths eventually turned him into one as well, and over the years he had successfully driven his own daughter into the same madness. “You think she’ll finally get the attention from her father she’d craved all those years?“ Alex asked. „More than ever…“ Bobby was sure. Alex’ eyelids were feeling like lead. She could barely hold her eyes open for longer than a second. The pain medication made her dizzy and she slowly drifted off. Bobby watched her fall asleep, still holding on to her hand. He was determined to keep holding it and to occupy this seat next to Alex’ bed as long as he had to. The adrenalin this day had pumped through his arteries began to wear off, Alex was safe and he would make sure she’d stay that way. Her breathing was even and peaceful and after a while of watching her chest go up and down, listening to the monotonous peeping of her heart rate he drifted off too.

#law and order criminal intent #law & order: Criminal Intent #criminal intent #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #ae #alternate ending #bobby goren #robert goren #Alex eames #Alexandra eames #blind spot #kathryn erbe #vincent d'onofrio #ship #couple #otp #love

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white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen · 5 years ago

Text

Bite (Part One)

Summary: Peter’s team is invited onto a big case in which their involvement will have serious consequences.

Word Count: 4,529

A/N: The summary is vague and doesn’t include the request, because the request itself would give away the ending. This fic was supposed to be a oneshot, but the plot was largely left up to me and I had an idea I thought was fantastic. I didn’t realize it was going to become so long. I think this is part one of three. Anyway... enjoy?

“Yikes,” you said with a level tone. “Always wear a hard hat, I guess.”

Ruiz glared at you. “You think this is funny?”

“Calm down,” Hughes raised his voice to talk over Ruiz and he gave you a hard stare that said not to aggravate the visiting agents. You put your hands up innocently. It wasn’t your fault that Ruiz had such pressable buttons.

Ruiz glared back at Hughes for all of half a second before he realized he wasn’t going to win that fight, and he used his clicker to make the projector move to the next slide. The crime scene photo went away and was replaced with a candid photograph of a white man in a snug polo with shades over his eyes, hair gelled back.

“Look, the culprit is Caffrey’s dress sense,” Diana snickered. She earned grins from yourself and Jones and Neal scowled at her from the other side of the table.

“I resent that.”

“All of you, shut up,” Hughes commanded, a vein in his forehead looking particularly pink. Everyone from the white collar unit listened and the unit chief gave an aggravated wave of his wrist towards Ruiz, whose agents were all looking either plainly amused or secretly amused and trying to hide it. Neal had always gotten under Eric’s skin, and so did everyone who took Neal’s side by extension. It was funny to see how bent out of shape he could get in such a short time.

Ruiz clenched his jaw and it looked like he ground his teeth while getting his temper under control. “Seamus Brady,” he said angrily. You still weren’t sure if he was morally outraged by the suspected murderer, or if he was just still being fussy about being ordered to invite Peter and his team onto the case. “43, American, with friends in Ireland and Wales. This bastard works hand-in-hand with suspects on Wall Street we haven’t been able to bag yet, managing a private company and swindling his investors.” He fixed his eyes on you and glared. “Henry Wallace was goin’ to take him to court next month before he ended up with his head bashed in.”

You just looked back at him. Working in law enforcement, you saw a lot of people do really awful things, and if you let every violent crime get you down, you’d never have been able to do your job for this long. You weren’t going to feel bad for not breaking into tears instead of quipping during the uncomfortable silence following the completely context-free reveal of ugly CSI pictures.

“You think Brady took Wallace out of the picture because he knew he was going to go down for it,” Peter urged Ruiz to continue, and, because they rarely saw eye-to-eye, Ruiz sent him a disgruntled look before resuming.

“I’m damn sure of it. Now that Wallace is gone, there’s no one to press charges. Problem is, Brady has got near a dozen people corroborating his alibi for the night this happened, but does that look like an accident to you?”

“Have you considered he didn’t do it?” Diana asked seriously. “Some people are really unlikeable. It can make a lot of enemies.” You got the distinct impression that she was referring to the number of people in the room who wouldn’t mind popping Ruiz in the jaw once or twice.

Ruiz glared at her next. The guy needed to loosen up. “I’d consider it if it was worth the time,” he said shortly. “Everyone supporting his alibi’s suspected of getting cuts of his profits.”

“Ah, the old “you knock mine, I’ll knock yours” method.” Neal nodded with his nose wrinkled in distaste. It was an increasingly commonly-known way of getting alibis to discount a motive, but mostly, the artist had never thought highly of violence, or anyone who resorted to it.

“Looks like,” Ruiz grudgingly acknowledged. “But instead of waiting for the turnabout, we want to lock this monster up before more bodies start dropping dead in Queens. I’ve already talked to him, so I want your boy to go undercover, Burke.”

No one commented on the way he referred to Neal. Infantilizing and deriding were pretty much the norm when it came to Ruiz’s interactions with the ex-con, no matter how civil Neal tried to be, and now everyone had stopped batting an eye because it would only fire him up more if you did. Neal certainly didn’t appreciate it, though, and neither did Peter.

“You just showed us all a picture of the last guy who threatened him,” Peter objected, pointing up at the projection screen. “I can’t send Neal into that without a good plan in place.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t at all,” Neal interjected dully, looking very aware of the fact that his vote didn’t really count.

“We got a plan,” Ruiz told Peter, his nostrils flaring from the quick and negative response. “You think your team’s the only one that does any field work? Nah, Burke.” You and Diana both looked at each other at the same time, wondering if Ruiz had intended to rhyme or not. The organized crime agent clicked his remote and the projector went to the next image – some fancy-shmancy residence for the rich you’d never be able to afford to spend a night in, much less live indefinitely. “Every other week these dirtbags get together. It’s probably where we got the best chance of getting something incriminating on them.”

“So you want Neal to somehow get invited into that high-as-heaven loft and wear a wire,” you predicted, finishing the plan for Ruiz and crossing your arms. Neal mirrored you, also crossing his arms, going off of your tone of voice to figure out that you didn’t like the plan and deciding to lend his support to anyone interested in keeping him out of it. “That’s a long-term op. They have to build rapport before anything happens.”

“Unless we apply some pressure,” Peter theorized, and immediately, Neal uncrossed his arms and looked at his partner, wounded, as though he were thinking how dare you get on board with this?

“Let’s be careful where we go applying pressure,” Neal requested pointedly, “Because pressure can be deadly. Especially for me.”

“It’s good-cop, bad-cop,” Ruiz puffed, putting a hand on his belt. “A crook goes in looking for a legit, high-profile, high-payoff job and a fed makes it seem like the bureau’s gonna get our guy unless he moves faster than we can,” Ruiz finished, ignoring your interruption. “Guy knows the crook’s history, knows he’ll take a risk for a heftier profit, knows he’s got the skill to do it. He takes the chance, except the crook’s on our side, tapped and live.”

“We’ve done some really similar ones,” you said thoughtfully, recalling a particular case where Neal had gotten himself hired as a political fixer while Peter filled the role of an obstinate, dogged cop. The pressure Peter put on the dirty politician led the man straight to Neal, who, under an alias, pushed things in the right direction. It hadn’t gone exactly to plan, but it had ultimately worked out.

“It’s this or the guy walks.” Ruiz looked at Peter and almost dared him to disagree. The man had a very aggressive way of cooperating with other agents and you were tempted to ask if he’d ever considered being less of a hardass. Maybe people would like him more. “Chatter says he’s gonna be takin’ a trip out of New York in the next couple months. We don’t try now, we may never get this chance again.”

Peter didn’t answer right away, looking at the loft on the projector screen and thinking deeply. As you had remembered, the last time this scheme had been used, it almost ended poorly – if Diana weren’t so quick with her gun, she may have been badly injured. However, there was probably not any chance of things going as unexpectedly off the rails as they had that time, and since Neal would be wearing a live transmitter, he could use a safe phrase the moment an attitude shifted the wrong direction. If he had to call it, then the bureau would probably lose the case; Brady would clam up and leave the jurisdiction, if he had any brain cells to rub together. It was unacceptable to let Neal be harmed for the sake of a ploy that may or may not work, so Ruiz was banking on Brady not being quick to anger or turn to violence. It was a brave gamble, considering his entire basis for being so pushy was that someone was already dead.

“Say I agree,” Peter said slowly, and Ruiz made the hand against his belt into a frustrated fist. “Neal goes under first, gets to know the guy, see his baseline. Then we introduce a federal agent. If he gets agitated, Neal can spot the difference and get out.”

Ruiz said briskly, “Yeah, duh, if he doesn’t think Caffrey’s an option there’s no point in sending an agent in.”

“Who plays the agent?” Neal piped up again. “Because I vote it’s not you.”

“Can’t be you, Ruiz,” you agreed, having Neal’s back. You tended to agree because he was a good strategist. It had nothing to do with a personal dislike for your fellow agent. Nothing at all. “If he’s already seen you, it’s too risky, he might think something’s up.”

“But if it were a different agent, from a different division…” Jones trailed off and held a hand out like he was saying it could work.

You nodded, and you, Jones, Diana, and Neal all looked to Peter. Your team leader was often very diplomatic about the choices he made in how to pursue cases, and this was no different. He saw you all seemed prepared to plan the operation, and gave Neal an extra look to make sure that his CI wasn’t completely opposed to the idea. Then the senior agent looked to Ruiz, and Hughes, and nodded assent with a tired sigh.

“Alright,” Madeline, one of Ruiz’s agents, said, making a note on her laptop. “Burke is the bad cop.”

“Or is it good cop?” You asked thoughtfully. If the fed in the plan were trying very hard to arrest an embezzler, then wasn’t the cop actually doing his job?

“Not to Brady,” Neal told you, shaking his head. “Bad cop. Good criminal.”

“No such thing,” Peter corrected right away.

Neal pretended not to hear him. “Who’s the good criminal?” He asked, leaning in. “Rydell’s probably burned after last time.”

“Nick’s got a history with math and money,” you suggested.

“Nicholas Halden?” Madeline asked, trying to keep up. You kept Neal’s aliases pretty close to the vest for his own safety, but a little bit of word occasionally got around. Offhandedly, you questioned why Ruiz’s agents had been so quiet during the meeting. Maybe they were more afraid of their boss.

Neal gave a full smile. It wasn’t the real thing – you knew the difference – but it was still an attractive smile, all confident and charismatic. “I think Nick has the time free to fit this into his calendar.”

~~~ Bite ~~~

You definitely had to give the bureau credit – they could move fast when they wanted to. Nicholas Halden was a ghost most of the time, but the FBI, combined with some work in the shadows on occasion from Neal and Mozzie, kept the man alive through talk and false documents.

“You’re a lucky man, Nick,” you called as you waved the file over your head, walking over to Neal’s desk and joining him as he readied for his first meeting with Brady. “Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic in the same three months.”

“What can I say, I have a taste for the Caribbean,” Neal responded with a playful grin. He reached up and took the file from you, then started flipping through it to see what had been added since the last time he took the identity out for a spin.

You sat down on the edge of his desk and picked up the papers he had been studying. He was intently looking at the most recent public reports on Brady’s company’s finances. A little bit of job research went a long way, no matter who you were applying to. While putting the papers back down on the desk, you caught Neal looking up at you instead of reading Nick’s file and you flashed him a little smile, rolling your shoulders back and sitting straight.

“Happy with the edits?” You asked, not that you could change them if he wasn’t.

Neal kept his eyes on you while he answered, “I’m just thinking how lonely it is Nick doesn’t have a partner.” Your heart felt like it skipped a beat and Neal added on, “Nick and Y/N sound good, don’t they?”

You knew there was a blush on your face but you refused to let an expression of interest go by unrequited, even if he could clearly see the redness in your cheeks. “I can think of a pair that sound just a little better,” you said to him, not looking away from his eyes until you were done talking. Neal and Y/N…

“I like those,” he said evenly, his face open and sweet. “Y/N-“

“Neal!” Peter snapped his fingers and both of you jumped a little. You leaned back and wondered exactly when you had started leaning forward. Your boss was standing on the mezzanine, looking exasperated. “What, is your phone dead? Hurry up!” He turned and went back into his office, but his coat was on and so was his holster, so you knew he would be coming out in seconds.

You cursed his timing, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it. When you and Neal turned back to each other, the moment was gone, and although the mood was still there, it wasn’t the time or place to try to bring the magic back.

Neal saw the frustration on your face and touched your knee gently. “Later,” he said, standing up. He took out his wallet and started swapping out his ID cards for those of Nick Halden that had been included in the folder.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” you told him wistfully.

~~~ Bite ~~~

Diana drew van duty with Peter and Madeline, leaving you in the office with Jones while the rest of your team was in the field. No matter how often it happened, you never got used to the itchy feeling in your legs of sitting around when your teammates were being shot at, for all you knew. (Though you could be reasonably sure they weren’t.)

It took about half an hour longer than you had expected it to, but it was impossible to tell until you got the call whether that was a good or a bad thing. Sometimes things took longer when there was a better opportunity than expected for building rapport, or even going straight to the throat, so you didn’t get too flustered. Peter eventually called, said that the op had gone well and Neal did good, and that since it was already later in the evening than planned, he, Neal, and Diana were going to head back to their respective houses and work from home. They would relate the details of the afternoon the next day. He invited you and Jones to do the same.

Jones, who had a girlfriend in his life, took the advantage of an early leave, but you stayed in the office and caught yourself looking at Neal’s empty desk more than a couple of times. No matter how much you had observed it already, it still surprised you just how much you missed Neal when he was gone. The thief felt like a more necessary part of the office than the chairs or the lights or the cheap and gross office coffee, which really sucked because one day he wasn’t going to be here. Whatever he chose to do after the anklet came off, he wasn’t eligible to be an FBI agent – his days in the office were numbered, no matter how well his work-release went. And it was going to be really hard adjusting to work without him.

“Good thing that’s still a long time away,” you told yourself, leaning back into your chair and letting out a long sigh. Still, it wasn’t the best thing in the world that your thoughts kept drifting back to him when you should have been working. You blamed it on the warmth in your knee, where it felt like his hand was still touching you. His gaze caressing your face. Voice soft and words just for you.

Yeah. You had it bad.

~~~ Bite ~~~

Peter briefed you all in the conference room the next morning, alongside Ruiz, Madeline, and the other two agents Ruiz had picked for the collaboration, whose names you learned were Matt and Damien. Nick’s interview with Brady went exceptionally well. From what Neal could tell, he was the most qualified applicant and Brady had been particularly interested when he’d been deflecting questions about the hedge fund he had briefly worked for. (Said hedge fund had been part of an older case in which Neal pretended to be a corporate spy and almost got killed for it.)

Now that Neal was in your mark’s good graces, you had to take the biggest gamble of all and decide how long was long enough to wait before sending Peter in to make Brady jumpy. It was a balancing act of factors. On one hand, a greater time gap made Brady’s introductions to Neal and Peter appear less connected and gave him more time to reach out to Neal to build a stronger rapport, increasing the odds of him going to Neal when Peter started waving the hammer over his head. On the other, if you waited too long, then the risks increased that Brady would look too deeply into Neal’s cover. There were a lot of ways that it could fall apart – he could find out that the manager of that hedge fund was now in a federal prison; he could do a reverse image search of Nick’s face and come up with Neal’s pictures from when the FBI had him on their website; he could try to talk to shadowy contacts and realize that very few people had actually seen Nick in person over the last six or so years.

“I haven’t heard anything from him,” Neal announced, but his posture was relaxed. It had been less than a day. “Give him time to come to me. I say if he doesn’t do it on his own by Monday, then we go in.”

“How quickly does he make his decisions?” Peter asked, looking to Ruiz instead of Neal, even though only one of them had a friendly relationship with the man in question.

Ruiz curled his lip. “Can’t say. It’s hard to find any intel on this guy. He covers his tracks.”

Before Peter could say anything, you were already guessing his priorities. “On it, boss,” you promised, opening up your laptop. Digging up information on slimy businessmen was one of your favorite ways to spend your work day, just on the off chance that something particularly scandalous came up that you could use against them.

“Get Diana to help you,” he said, pointing at Diana as the other female agent let out a soft sigh of complaint before taking her own computer out of its bag. “Di-“

“I get it,” she cut him off. “I already got my excitement. Out of the van with me.” She smirked slightly as she said it.

“And into the van with me,” Jones dryly said. It was no secret that the only person who hated the van more than Jones was Neal. “Yippee.”

Peter frowned at both Diana and Jones in turn before continuing with the conference. When you all came out of it twenty minutes later, there wasn’t much new on your docket. Unfortunately, you couldn’t stop everything and only pursue one person when there were so many other cases waiting to be investigated. It wasn’t to the point that this one was prioritized highly enough that Peter and Ruiz could justify having almost ten agents working on nothing else.

What you did have was the decision that, if Brady hadn’t reached out to Neal by Monday, then Peter would go in on Tuesday; if he had, then you would re-evaluate the following workday. In the meantime, Neal was to keep his head down and minimize his chances of being seen in public as much as possible while you and Diana were to continue trying to find any more background information on Seamus Brady.

While you worked on both the Brady case and your other cases, you tried to catch spare time to fulfill the promise of talking later with Neal, but the opportunity was just out of reach. You were busy when he wasn’t and vice versa, and because of how deep he was in the undercover portion of the operation, he was spending his lunches with either Peter or Ruiz, being debriefed and making statements. By the time the end of the day was near, everyone on Peter’s team was just tired, and between your irritable temperament when you were tired and Neal’s tendency to be more guarded when he was stressed, you had both seemed to agree that it was better not to touch the subject yet. The weekend was especially needed for recuperating after the work days, and since Neal was being holed up safely away from any risk of sighting or scrutiny, you knew you shouldn’t be heading over to his penthouse during the case, anyway. It was disappointing, but the bottom line was that your “later” didn’t come that week.

Although you had Neal weighing on your mind, your weekend was pretty relaxing. You grabbed a couple of naps, started reading a new book, and walked your neighbor’s dog for a little bit of exercise and homemade lasagna. By Monday morning, you were ready to go back to work and deal with whatever had happened since Friday.

It turned out that there were no new developments. Honestly, it wasn’t shocking. Working for the FBI was rarely as glamorous as people tended to think. Neal reported no contact from Brady, and so Ruiz and Peter began working up a tweaked profile of Peter’s work history in order to suit the purpose of his role in the con (no, not con, operation. Peter was very picky about that). That was going to occur Tuesday, right before lunch, and it would be a quick in-and-out of attempted police intimidation.

Then they turned the attention back to Brady, who he was and what he had done, and you and Diana had a lot of small things to report but no major discoveries. It was like Brady had suddenly come into being nine years ago, which made you suspect that it was probably a stolen identity, but you had exhausted all possible avenues for finding out who he had been before then. According to Neal, he spoke like an American, but you couldn’t find a social security number and now you weren’t totally sure that he wasn’t undocumented, which only made the situation messier.

That conference lasted until eleven, and just as it ended, you met Neal’s eyes as you both stood up. He gave you a small smile, almost like he was inviting your attention, and you made an equally small gesture with your hand towards the door, asking him if he wanted to leave with you, maybe get lunch together. He had just started to nod when Peter brought his hand down on his shoulder, not noticing that he was interrupting.

“You, me, my office,” he said. You looked down – you couldn’t fight the boss over Neal’s time when you were both on the clock.

“You know,” Neal said, sounding a little stiff. It was gratifying to know that he didn’t like it much, either. It had been almost a week since the incident that wasn’t really any sort of incident at all, but possibly could have become one. “Sometimes humans eat lunch at this time of day.”

“The Domino’s menu is downloaded to my computer,” Peter replied, missing the point and shepherding Neal out of the conference room.

The artist caught your eye as he went past and grimaced. You nodded sympathetically, understanding.

And your time still didn’t come at all on Monday, with Peter insisting on triple-checking everything he and Neal had related to each other about Brady, what he might be doing, and how best to get under his skin. You knew the case was important, but damn. At five in the evening, Peter clocked out (not really – you didn’t work on time cards). You knew that El made Peter come home on time with Neal and had them both sit down and eat a full meal every Monday, so you didn’t even bother hoping that Peter was leaving alone. You left not long after.

Tuesday morning wasn’t your friend. Traffic made your commute to work particularly slow and you got there a few minutes later than you would have liked. Another case task force conference drilled everything into your head until you could’ve recited it in your sleep, and then Ruiz, Matt, Peter, and Neal all left for the next stage of the scheme. You really weren’t sure why Neal needed to go, but at this point, it was probably your irritation talking, not the thorough agent you worked hard to be. When they all returned, both bosses gathered their respective underlings into the same conference room for another update which lasted through the lunch break, and since your entire morning had been spent on one case, you were then told to spend your afternoon and early evening working on the rest of your caseloads to compensate.

You wanted to strangle Peter. You didn’t meddle in his marriage. In fact, you supported his marriage and sometimes offered advice on presents or gestures for Elizabeth, and this was how he repaid you? By making it his life’s mission to ensure that you never, ever got any private time with Neal ever again, right after it finally seemed like the playful workplace flirting was going to result in something more meaningful?

With enough hurrying, you managed to power through a good half-day’s effort with about ten minutes left before five. You took another look at the clock on your computer, relieved you made it. Ten minutes was enough for a conversation. Ten minutes was –

You looked up to see if Neal was done, and he wasn’t even at his desk. After looking around for him with exasperation, you spotted him up in Peter’s office. You couldn’t see the thief’s face, but you could see Peter’s, and the seriousness of his expression made you want to throw your hands up in the air. You knew that look. It was the serious breakthrough look.

Brady had been intimidated into contacting Neal.

~~~~~~

A/N: Remember, there is at least one more part to this story and possibly two, so keep your eyes peeled!

If you like my writing and would be interested in skipping the request queue, please consider checking out the details of my Ko-Fi commissions here or go straight to my Ko-Fi page here. Imagines are $1, oneshots start at $4, and a story of this length would be just about $8.

#white collar x reader #white collar #neal caffrey #neal caffrey x reader #casefic #white collar lawmen and conmen #lawmen-and-conmen #fic #oneshot #bite #peter burke #diana berrigan #clinton jones #reader #x reader #reader insert

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manate-a · 4 years ago

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—— @grimgrinnr devoured: ⚰️ Honestly I'm mostly curious to see what she and Al could do with this sorta thing

IF THEY KILLED.

MORE LIKELY TO KILL ?

is there really much of a surprise when i say BOTH ! keiko has no restraint and alastor’s himself—

ONLY THREATENS, WOULDN’T GO THAT FAR ?

mm honestly neither would do that, because I can guarantee you that when Keiko makes a threat, it’s very likely she already planned on following up way in advance. her threats are never empty, and even when they’re abrupt / unplanned she follows through anyways. alastor probably matches this question just a BIT though, because i imagine he’s probably the type to give out thinly veiled threats as warnings and then when further prompted (or, on a whim) he’d act out.

tldr; keiko’s fucking unhinged and alastor maybe kinda sorta fits this?

WHO FREAKS & WHO IS CALM / COLLECTED ?

neither of them freak, they’re both level headed and horrifyingly calm for what they dabble in, there’s no panic in either. the ONLY time keiko would ever freak was if she was exposed to something that might spring forth traumatizing memories. there’s a chance that she might freak if her eldritch form was exposed, but it’d be heavily masked and not at all related to the murder, just her own disconnection.

PROVIDES UTENSILS TO DISPOSE OF BODY ?

iiiii would think alastor, honestly. keiko doesn’t really use materials to dispose of bodies, she typically leaves them as is (whether that’s hotel rooms, alleyways, apartments, etc.) and takes her exit. if we’re basing this on pre-hazbin, then yeah maybe alastor tbh!

COMES UP WITH HIDING PLACE ?

mm, again. alastor! keiko doesn’t bother with hiding places unless it’s INCREDIBLY incriminating, which she makes every effort in advance for it not to be. it almost sounds laissez - faire, but for her it’s much easier and she’s never had the need to commit a crime with anyone besides herself, so yeah. while she’d make some suggestions, i feel like alastor would be more knowledgable in that regard.

KEEPS WATCH FOR WITNESSES ?

UHHH this is kind of a tricky question, because logically NEITHER of them would wanna stand guard while the other has their fun lmao. keiko for sure wouldn’t want to unless she was getting something further out of it, so yeah chances are it’d be entirely dependent on that situation itself. keiko’s persuasiveness vs alastor’s rigid goals FIGHT.

HIDES BODY & MURDER WEAPON ?

MMMM alastor probably, because keiko doesn’t use murder weapons often! and again, this is entirely verse dependent, but yeah i figure alastor would be more likely. if keiko does use one, she’ll take it with her to later dispose (or keep it on her for future fun) because she doesn’t really ‘hide’ weapons. and she has no need for them anyways? the girl’s strong as fuck and can tear through ribcages and muscle like butter, and even then she has parts of an eldritch form she utilizes more often than not so.

KNOWS THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO DEAL WITH THIS ?

alastor definitely LMAO. keiko is an outcast, she’s isolated and distant, she doesn’t HAVE contacts or associates. alastor, at the very least, knows niffty and husk, potentially others too! keiko has, and will always, fly solo. she doesn’t need help with what she does, and if offered she’d sooner tear off their head than accept the offer tbh. she’s just very yknow, “independent”.

ISN’T DOING THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME ?

boooottthhhhhh, they both have equal experience in the crimes they’ve committed which makes this combo really fuckign deadly but OH WELL GOOD LUCK!

WILL CAVE IN / CALL THE POLICE ?

neither hello??? though, to be fair, keiko would throw him under the bus if it meant ensuring her own safety, survival, and maaybe just a little bit for funsies. it’s not a distinct guarantee that she WOULD but there’s no saying she wouldn’t. and if she did throw him under the bus it definitely wouldn’t be to the police.

tldr; neither but keiko MIGHT if it was in the interest of herself (and to be a vindictive bitch)

PUT BLAME ON SELF TO SAVE THE OTHER ?

neither! they aren’t self - sacrificing, at least to my knowledge anyways and keiko DEFINITELY isn’t self - sacrificing.

IS THE BETTER LIAR ?

both! i imagine their dynamic is very much just mindgames, mindgames, mindgames. what can one get from the other! neither of them would tell the truth and i imagine a lot of their association would be highly unstable? leaning volatile, sans the anger, simply because they’re both very unpredictable! anything could happen yknow, both of them would be shrouded in mystery bc i don’t imagine either would ever give up willing information, and there’d be a lot of deception involved lmao.

#cant think of my tags rn #BUT SUPER FUN TO WRITE OUT ACTUALLY #VERY FUN AAAND LONG LMAO a lot of this was theorizing from keiko's pov #BUT AND HOWEVER!!!! THIS WAS GREAT #alastors pulling all the leg work in the covering up crime department

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scripttorture · 5 years ago

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Torture in Fiction: Black Butler, Season 1, Episode 20

My first impression of this anime was that uh- the writer has some odd ideas about Victorian England. It makes the show a little bit strange for me; there are so many things about the way the period is portrayed that are just… wrong. For me that made the episodes I watched very jarring and distracted from the carefully constructed undercurrent of menace that runs through most episodes.

I didn’t dislike it. But I love history. I know my history. And watching this felt a little like watching an updated period propaganda piece that wasn’t written by a Brit. It’s bizarre.

But I’m not here to talk about how other cultures are depicted in Japanese media. I’m rating the depiction and use of torture, not the anime itself. I’m trying to take into account realism (regardless of fantasy or sci fi elements), presence of any apologist arguments, stereotypes and the narrative treatment of victims and torturers.

The central idea in Black Butler is that the Earl of Phantonhime, a 12-13 year old boy called Ciel, has a contract with a demon, Sebastian, who acts as his butler. Sebastian has agreed to serve Ciel in any way he desires in exchange (eventually) for Ciel’s soul.

Ciel has used this power to fight crime in the Victorian underworld and try to protect the interests of the Queen as well as get revenge on the people who murdered his family.

I haven’t watched the whole series, so I might well miss some points as we go into this. The episode I’m focusing on is 20, which is close to the end of the first season. I’m aware that part of Ciel’s backstory is child abuse, but I couldn’t find a clear indication of which episodes actually covered this. So I choose to stick to the episode that inarguably depicts torture.

Ciel is being framed for drug smuggling. The officer arresting him states that a Lord can’t be tortured but no such rules apply to butlers. Ciel orders Sebastian to show no resistance but to reveal his power only when Ciel calls for him.

Ciel is taken to- what I presume is meant to be a police station it’s never made clear. Sebastian is taken to the Tower of London and a set up that looks like it predates the Tower. The camera pans over instruments from Anglo-Saxon times and the Tudor period.

The torturer (who also looks like he pre-dates the Tower) seems excited to have someone to hurt. He comments on Sebastian’s beauty and talks about cutting out Sebastian’s eyes as he judges these to be Sebastian’s best feature. He then decides to ‘save the best til last’ and approaches Sebastian with a set of metal pincers instead.

Up to this point the torture appears to be aimed at forcing a confession from Sebastian that will incriminate Ciel.

Some time later an angel (and recurring adversary for Ciel and Sebastian) comes into the cell. She comments on how humiliating this must be for Sebastian, dwelling on the fact he’s allowed himself to be injured in the course of fulfilling his contract. She then wonders how long it has been since Sebastian consumed a human soul and how long he’s waited to consume Ciel’s. She says he must be ‘starving’ and offers him all the souls he can eat if he surrenders Ciel’s to her.

Sebastian refuses and the angel whips him. She doesn’t question him or ask for a confession but spouts some very Spanish Inquisition-like guff about repentance and cleansing souls by fire.

In the mean time a police officer takes pity on Ciel. He thinks Ciel is being framed and seems to see Ciel as an innocent child in need of protection. He allows Ciel to escape.

Ciel finds one of the men responsible for framing him, breaks into the man’s carriage and holds a gun to his head. He demands to know the truth. The man he threatens tells him everything.

I was honestly unsure how to rate this because, while there are some elements of torture apologia here, the most unrealistic element throughout is historical: the portrayal of torture in these episodes does not match the era or the culture. I’m inclined to rate that as a ‘bad’ point, it’s unrealistic, but at the same time it’s nowhere near as serious as excusing or condoning torture.

Fiction shouldn’t have to be entirely historically accurate.

At the same time the way the author chose to use torture in this plot and the way in which she chose to divert from history don’t sit well with me. I’ve changed the review format slightly in order to accommodate some discussion of why that is.

In the end I decided to give it 2/10

Elements that are not Historically Accurate

The Tower of London was not used as a prison during the Victorian era. By this time most of the institutions the Tower had housed had been moved elsewhere and the building was in a state of disrepair. As far as I can tell for most of the Victorian period the Tower was being rebuilt.

Use of burning tortures, pincers and threats to remove eyes would all have been illegal for a few hundred years by this point. They were typical of Anglo-Saxon tortures but this pre-dates the Tower and regular use of the Tower as a prison. I’m unsure if any of these tortures were routinely carried out in the Tower but they certainly weren’t common practice anywhere in Britain during this era.

The visual choices for the depiction of the torture chamber and the torturer are- well to me they’re utterly ridiculous and out of the place. It’s a Tudor structure and stereotype, beside Anglo-Saxon instruments, menacing a Victorian butler.

The religious bent that the scenario takes when the angel starts torturing Sebastian is really not typical of torture in Britain at any period. The idea of torture cleansing souls and torture primarily motivated by religion owes more to the Spanish Inquisition then the Tower. Religious minorities were tortured and persecuted in Britain but as far as I can tell from the sources I have this was much more about prejudice and politics then religion. It wasn’t about ‘repenting’ and full confessions to save souls. Both of these ideas were rooted in Catholic Christianity and by the Victorian times Britain had been Protestant for a considerable period.

The ideas that Lords were, at any period of British history, exempt from torture is ludicrous. The titled gentry were tortured, both as punishment and to extract confessions. Sometimes they were tortured just because the current monarch didn’t like them that much. So far as I can tell the only punishment titled gentry were exempt from was hanging, drawing and quartering: the gentry were beheaded instead.

Underlying this there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the British class system functions. It stands out because the scenario is so focused on the divide between classes: the entire plot relies on toying with the unequal relationship between master and servant.

The Good

The artwork highlights a lot of Sebastian’s injuries, avoiding any suggestion that torture is harmless.

Sebastian doesn’t give either of his torturers what they want. He doesn’t incriminate Ciel, he doesn’t confess and he doesn’t repent.

The Bad

Ciel getting accurate, useful information from an enemy at gunpoint isn’t possible and it’s an idea that’s rooted in torture apologia. It suggests that if you make someone afraid or cause them pain they’ll be forced to tell the truth. That isn’t how the human brain works.

Torture doesn’t have a lasting impact on this story. It’s here to keep Sebastian away from Ciel for a narratively convenient period of time. It could be replaced with a huge range of things without having any impact on the plot.

The choice of older historical tortures in this context doesn’t sit well with me because it’s choosing to show scarring tortures instead of the clean ‘non-scarring’ tortures typical of the time. To me this suggests that the author only considers scarring tortures to be ‘proper’ tortures and believes the audience will feel the same.

Sebastian is unmoved by torture and doesn’t give in to his torturers’ demands. But the story leaves it ambiguous as to whether this is because torture doesn’t work or because as a demon Sebastian is immune. It’s very easy to watch this and walk away with the impression that Sebastian is the exception, not the rule.

Even without a clear idea what happened to Ciel he doesn’t really show any of the symptoms I’d expect from a survivor. Let alone a child survivor. There’s also no indication he’s been through any kind of recovery process and improved.

Miscellaneous

While I don’t think the story suggests torture is harmless Sebastian doesn’t really show pain. Usually I would put this down as a bad point because it downplays the damage torture does. But in this case it seems to be linked heavily to the fact Sebastian isn’t human, it’s linked to his supernatural abilities. And as a result I’m not sure how to categorise it because it’s not clear if is showing victims are unaffected by torture or that Sebastian as a demon isn’t.

Overall

While I don’t think this is a bad series, on balance I do think this is a bad use of torture.

There is some apologia here although unusually it isn’t the main focus and much of it is down to interpretation rather than what the narrative states or shows.

But the choice of anachronistic tortures isn’t neutral here. It’s feeding into a large popular misconception that the only abuses that ‘really’ cause pain also leave physical scars.

Most tortures now leave no obvious physical marks and this misconception puts survivors in a position where they’re asked to ‘prove’ they suffered enough to count.

On top of that the use of torture here seems unnecessary. The only function it’s serving is keeping Sebastian out of the main plot for a while. There’s no lasting impact on the plot or the characters and the result is that torture here is rather toothless.

Combined with the narrative use of threats to extract accurate information and Ciel’s lack of symptoms the result is a repeated suggestion that abuse doesn’t have a lasting impact and only scarring abuse ‘counts’.

That suggestion probably isn’t intentional but it comes from ignorance of the subject the author is trying to depict. It also comes from using abuse as a narrative short cut rather than trying to engage with the topic.

In the end I think the problem with Black Butler’s use of torture comes down to this: the author could easily have replaced it with something else. And when that’s the case the writer does both torture and the narrative a disservice.

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#tw torture #tw child abuse #torture in fiction #Black Butler #tw scars #scarring torture #clean torture #historical torture #historical prisons #fantasy #torture apologia

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beesmygod · 5 years ago

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this is what riverdale is about (part 6)

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

and now...we come to the end of our journey...the final 4 episodes of the season. who killed jason blossom? you forgot that’s what we were doing, huh. you were way too distracted by sex archie and the jughead/betty relationship (called ‘bughead’ in universe).

i have a friend who has been watching riverdale because i have basically tricked him into doing so and frankly, what i am typing here was and is only the surface of this show’s nonsense. as he watched episodes, he reminds me of all the completely bananas shit that this show throws at you literally every second it is on screen and honestly its a relief to know that, as much as i can try to just give you some basic facts, watching the show itself is still a totally different transcendent experience. its really the only show of its kind; shamelessly stupid but unaware of it while openly delighting in all the silliest cliches presented as straight faced as possible. if these write up do anything for you at all, please, please. watch the show. you will be shocked at how much more there is to discover.

images are from the riverdale wiki

---

SEASON 1 (PART 4):

the lost weekend: this is the one with a very special guest star in it: molly ringwald as archie’s mom! she and fred (luke perry) have been separated for some amount of time for an unknown reason. yay she’s so cute! i love her. oh uh, also they’re getting a divorce. the papers are going through. archie gets the bad news in the middle of a gaming sesh with jughead.

meanwhile, veronica meets with her dad’s lawyer (whose name is paul sowerberry?? he never shows up again despite his unbelievably silly name) and tells him she’s not giving him a good statement as to her father’s character to help him get a lesser sentence. “fuck you dad!” is the general sentiment before she stomps out to go to school.

oh man there’s a weird aspect of this show that i have neglected to mention. this isn’t something i’ve ever experienced in school so it was totally foreign and weird to me but the students have their own lounge that they mingle and talk in...at...some point during the school day?? jughead’s opening monologue of this episode makes great pains to talk about how every moment of their lives are scheduled from 8am to 3pm but there’s apparently plenty of sittin’ time where they can just laze about this random room talking about crimes they have or are going to commit. a great deal of talking happens in this room when usually you’d have to like, sneak a convo while getting shit out of your locker between classes. i dunno, it’s weird. this is where archie tells veronica about clifford blossom sending her dad to jail so he can jack the land everyone is fighting over.

archie and betty make plans to celebrate jugheads birthday by taking him to the movies, which i feel like is in poor taste given his movie house was just destroyed but whatever. with betty coming along it’ll be just like the three muskateers! betty replies “AcTuAlLy ThErE wErE fOuR mUsKeTeErS” and somehow he doesn’t beat her to death with his bookbag right there and then. betty then doubles down on the bad words flowing out of her mouth and proposes they hold a surprise party for jughead since, according to his dad, he’s never had one. i have no idea what would compel her to think he would want this. even i know he doesn’t want this and i only know him through a tv screen. on top of this she goes out of her way to invite his deadbeat alcoholic dad multiple times. i thought she was supposed to be the smart, observant nancy drew type but like...what the fuck betty. jughead does, in fact, get pretty pissed at archie just for telling his girlfriend that he even has a birthday. presumably instead of telling him he emerged fully formed from the leader of the black parade’s forehead.

after finding out from some files that her dad was receiving money monthly from clifford blossom for some unspecified reason before the arrest, veronica challenges cheryl to a dance off and wins. unfortunately, veronica cant come forward with what she knows because it would make it look like her dad put a hit out on jason in retaliation. dance off to relieve the pain.

jughead fucking hates his party and makes sure everyone knows it. this is something NORMAL people do and he is NOT normal!!! he leaves the party in a huff when cheryl shows up to get her dance off revenge by ruining the party by inviting the whole school. this is the episode where he does his famous “im a weirdo, i have a hat” speech, which is deliciously dumb. they get in a fight, while jughead’s dad talks to kevin’s boyfriend (who you will remember is a member of his gang he assigned to keep tabs on the progress of the teens looking into the whole land plot mess) while betty’s mom secretly listens in?!

cheryl activates chaos mode and locks everyone in the house so they can play a game called “secrets and sins” which is really just an excuse for her to ask everyone horrible questions to make them feel bad. veronica accuses cheryl of fucking her brother, dilton doiley tells everyone about grundy’s statutory rape of archie andrews and chuck tells everyone about dark mode betty drugging him for an impromptu bdsm session which causes jughead to go apeshit and try to throw a weak little baby punch. jughead’s dad, as the only adult who for some reason let all this happen, finally throws everyone out and tells them to go home.

archie and veronica sleep together, by which i mean, next to each other in the same room. veronica testifies on her father’s behalf and discloses to betty the link between jugheads dad and the serpents and her dad’s land plot dreams. molly ringwald appears for 20 seconds.

INHALES. OKAY.

to riverdale and back again: its homecoming babey! archie’s very supportive mother has a nice talk with him. :) veronica founds out that her dad only has to serve “a few more months” in prison for his various white collar crimes, further proof that riverdale takes place in america. jughead and his dad have a nice normal breakfast while fp sweats and asks him “hey uh, how come uh you’re writing about the uhhhh murder and investigating it and stuff” like a normal dad would. archie and veronica tentatively agree to start going out.

penelopy blossom brings polly (betty’s pregnant sister, remember her? i didn’t) a strawberry milkshake in the most ominous way possible. veronica plans to sneakily find out if jughead’s dad is helping her own and for what purpose, ultimately. jughead accepts and invite to betty’s house for dinner, not knowing her mom is going to grill the shit out of him and his dad over the whole kid murder thing.

polly finds the ring jason proposed to her with back in penelope’s room while snooping, and has no idea how it wound up back in the hands of his mother. according to penelope, jason threw it in their face when he renounced his lineage, then gives her another milkshake.

the cooper family event is disrupted when betty, wise to her mother’s horseshit, invites her estranged dad to dinner too. all hell breaks loose when the subject of homecoming comes up and fp reveals that while alice and hal were crowned homecoming king and queen, they got in a knockout, drag-out fight backstage. alice flips out before he can reveal what it was about and betty and jughead flee for the dance. meanwhile archie and veronica try, and fail, to find something incriminating in fp’s trailer.

cheryl discovers the milkshakes are DRUGGED and polly is going to sleep through homecoming. she informs her parents that she has disposed of the ring (evidence) and they dont have to worry about it anymore. you can see where this is going.

jughead’s dad drops a bomb on him right before homecoming that they’re going to move to toledo to meet up with jughead’s mom and baby sister. jughead hates this bc he just got used to betty and he wants to write his murder book.

archie and veronica sing a truly terrible cover of “kids in america” that has to be seen to be believed.

youtube

meanwhile, sherrif keller tears up fp’s house with a search warrant and finds the gun that was used to kill jason blossom. WHAAAA??? BUT ARCHIE AND VERONICA JUST SEARCHED IT??? how could this happen.....jughead finds out about the web of deception weaved by the friends and tells them all to fuck off so he can go to toledo with his family. jughead literally turns around and is informed that his dad was just arrested for murder. his life is so hilariously bad.

the sheriff sucks so bad at his job because he tells his gay son everything who then spills the beans to archie and co (sans jughead) who learn that fp is being framed, because they already tossed the place before.

cheryl has the ring. at this point none of these things mean anything.

i cant believe i still have two more of these. i’m going to have to split this post after this one.

anatomy of a murder: as it turns out, archie discovers, information you discover during a breaking and entering won’t hold up in court. oops. meanwhile fp inexplicably confesses to kidnapping jason after his fake drowning at sweetwater river so he could use him as ransom after discovering he heir to all that sweet maple syrup money. according to fp, jason nearly escaped so they cut their losses and blasted a hole in him. he also confesses to torching the car and stealing the sheriff's files (which we, the audience, know hal cooper did, not fp). well. that’s that, i guess.

betty’s dad comes back to the family home to destroy the murderboard evidence all like “whoo hoo! fp took a bullet for me!” hal’s concern and his reason for stealing the files in the first place, as it turns out, was because the feud between the coopers and the blossoms is more complicated than we thought. the coopers WERE blossoms, until grand-pappy was murdered, so they packed their shit and left with a new name. so that makes polly and jason related. cool!

fp apparently used his his last phone call to call kevin’s boyfriend who, after some pressing by the gang, admits that while he didnt see fp pull the trigger, he did help him put jason’s body in a freezer. this tip leads them to the corpse of a serpent who had a sack of money in a monogrammed dufflebag with the initials “h.l.” (hiram lodge). this is a comically dumb move for a crime boss to make. it is shockingly stupid.

joaquin tells kevin about a secret stash he and fp set up before he bounces from town forever because riverdale sucks. in the stash is jason’s jacket. everyone puzzles over what it means until betty, noted brain genius checks the pockets. in it they find a usb drive.

they sit down and watch the usb and react like they’re watching a sad documentary and not a snuff film. betty calls CHERYL OF ALL PEOPLE and tells her what they just saw on the usb. cheryl, queen of chaos, confronts her dad and tells him that everyone knows what he did.

it turns out the video depicts jason tied up in the basement of the whyte wyrm, there the dead serpent watches over him. clifford blossom walks in and blows a hole in his kid. fp confessed to protect jughead, who was threatened by cliff as the heat poured on.

clifford dies surrounded by his greatest love, maple syrup, by hanging himself in the syrup barn. lol

the sweet hereafter: how the fuck is there another episode of this? they solved the murder, what else could there possibly be to do. wtf. anyway.

the cops find hella drugs in the maple barn after clifford’s death. the assumed story is that jason learned about his dad’s heroin smuggling business and threatened to tell the cops on his dad which lead to his abduction, and eventual death. i guess the polly thing is in here too somehow. not important i guess. the lodges prepare for hiram’s arrival. betty and archie are going to be honored by the mayor for cracking the case at the 75th annual jubilee (wtf). hermoine attempts to buy fred out of the project now that the cops are cracking down on the serpents and making them the face of the construction company is now a very bad look.

betty tries to write an article for the town paper about fp being innocent but her parents wont publish it, citing it as a conflict of interest given she’s smooching the subject’s son. jughead FINALLY JUT NOW gets a social worker who realizes that fred has a dui and is not fit to care for a kid. he has to transfer to a new school district...SOUTHSIDE HIGH SCHOOL!!!

cheryl apologizes for throwing hands at jughead in a previous ep and gives him her iconic spider brooch. i am only bringing this up because she says, specifically, that selling it will net him a good amount of hamburgers and “s t-shirts” for years. why is she the only one who notices he only wears one kind of shirt. betty’s article getting published in the school paper leads to the above retaliation.

veronica’s mom honest to god asks her to sexually manipulate archie into convincing his dad to sell the project to her.

betty’s mom, after a confrontation, tells betty abt the fight she and her dad had on homecoming night when they were high schoolers. turns out...alice was pregnant. she gave the baby up for adoption after she went to the sisters of quiet mercy, like she did with polly, even though hal wanted an abortion. betty immediately tells all her friends this shit.

jughead transfers to the new high and flourishes. turns out they’re all baby gangsters there so they look at him and his dad as kings to be admired. when the archie group heads off to go rescue him, it turns out they dont need to do anything. but now that theyre all conveniently together, veronica gets a txt from cheryl saying she’s going to go be with jason....

they rush to the river where cheryl is having her ophelia meltdown in his stupid little river boat dress where she punches through the ice until she falls through. theres no way to describe how silly this scene is unless you see it so i won’t try but its so melodramatic and cheesy that youre going to be amazed that it got through the writing team at all. archie saves her by punching through the ice the other way. from under the ice. you will soon find, that all of archie’s solutions are to punch things.

betty does a speech at the jubilee that convinces fred not to sell. a nice ending for him.

meanwhile cheryl burns her fucking house down for a lark. just for the drama of it all.

the same night, jughead and betty start to fuck, as do veronica and archie. not int he same room, like totally separately. but jughead is interrupted by the serpents and a dog named hotdog, who give him a jacket of his own so he can join the team. betty is scandalized.

archie goes to meet his father for a breakfast at pop’s chocklit shoppe for a serious talk. but while he’s int he bathroom, a man with a gun is holding up the chocklit shoppe. he demands fred’s wallet, then pops a hole in him and runs off.

and that.........is where this season......ends.

---

thank you for joining me for season 1 of this shitshow. i love this shitty show. if you loved reading about it, or were mortified by whatever the fuck happened here, then you should watch it as well.

i never pass up an opportunity to shill myself, so if you like what i write, drop me a buck or two at my patreon. i do more writing like this, but also i mostly make comics, so make sure to read the page when you’re signing up so you know what you’re getting!

i WILL return...with season...2!

https://www.patreon.com/aghoststory

#riverdale

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bounnostra · 5 years ago

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As per my last post || Trial 3.2.6 || pip || RE: Cowboy, Duck, Ivey, Maverick

Another heavy, exhausted sigh escapes the Cryptozoologist. At this point it's not even because he's resigned to losing BOOTS, but because he's tired. Tired of deaths, of trials, of playing this same rat-and-cat game over and over again. The very youthful and energetic spirit he had at the very beginning had vanished long ago, and replacing it was now merely a husk of its former self. A sad, disappointing, childish, naive and lackadaisical kid. He supposes that maybe this was the consequences of his actions... But he could wallow in self-pity later, once he gets some proper rest. Right now, he just wanted to get things over with.

"Hiding evidence under noses? Don't be ridiculous... MAVERICK himself held this amulet, and it did absolutely nothing either to him or to me, did it? I already explained where the traces of magic come from on this trinket. Besides, don't you think that if this amulet was, in some way, shape, or form related to the premeditated butchering of Masaki, that it would've been mentioned in the notes? It's just... That. An amulet."

His brows furrow, but what IVEY is saying is right, and he doesn't want to acknowledge it, but this truly was a premeditated murder against PINCER... Just the thought of it makes his stomach turn in on itself. The aromas bringing forth the nausea that's been bubbling within him ever since he laid eyes on Amita's desecrated body.

"... I'll just... Review the concrete facts we all agree with. First, Amita is the mastermind behind this operation. I don't know for how long, but for a while now she's been planning to commit a crime, and she had already chosen her victim upon noticing his pattern to spend time at an isolated part of this... Hell dimension we're in; the Udon Stand. Knowing she can't rig the game on her own though, she likely consulted with Gambit before setting everything in motion. I don't know if they struck a deal or not, but it's certainly something that could have possibly occurred. We've surmised that it was Amita who planned everything because of the specific instructions and detailing of the notes of objects Fae in origin."

He sort of... Glances at COWBOY as he speaks, eyes filled with... Trepidation? Fear? He just... Worries about what they'll think of him, of what they'll think of Amita and BOOTS, who is in this very courtroom... He can understand how the Jockey feels, after all what is he doing right now, if not betraying the person he promised a bright future too? And that future, he's going to snuff it out himself with his own hands...

"... Regardless, Amita needed someone she knew had blended into the background but also had wild impulses and mannerisms. Enter BOOTS. BOOTS was very wary about showing her skills to anyone, while Amita was very open about them. It's likely that it wasn't until they began corresponding with one another through Hoots that Amita discovered BOOTS' potential. Together, they plan to assault Masaki, and contrary to what they expected to be an easy victory, something went wrong. You all keep suggesting that Amita planned her own death, but there is nothing hinting towards that. The 'excitement' and 'clean' comments you've all been making about the notes likely refer to the excitement of getting to spin the Prize Wheel after committing the crime, a 'clean' crime, may I add. One without flaws. We already know that it failed... Perhaps somewhere along the lines BOOTS realized that Amita perhaps intended to only use her rather than work along with her."

His eyes drift over to BOOTS, and then to where PINCER-- Masaki once was. To think that just a few moments they all had his joyous presence around them. Even if they weren't close, PIP truly thought of himself and Masaki as kindred spirits. But perhaps now that he realizes how truly pathetic he is, he should not compare himself to Masaki. Even if he was powerless to prevent his death, he was the one person everyone could rely on. He brought smiles and happiness to everyone! What has he brought along? Confusion? Anger? Tension? He doubts anyone here could ever truly replace Masaki... BOOTS may have done a splendid job to impersonate him, but there's only one Masaki Miyamoto, and his soul is now with the others who have perished in this game... The only solace he can think of is on the fact that at least he and Runa can now be together, happily!

He wishes he could have a happy ending too, even one at the cost of his life... But that's selfish. Maybe he's always been this selfish and he's finally realizing it. This is the world of grown-ups, and it was about time he started acting his age. The real world is cold. The real world doesn't care about 'spirit.' All it cares about is-- well, certainly not whatever he is! MOSS' words echo at the back of his mind. 'You have a good heart, PIP.' He wonders how true that was. No, he doesn't need to. It's not true at all.

"Still, the two team-up and ambush Masaki. Perhaps Amita was in hiding, or perhaps she was contributing in keeping him from running away, that would explain the traces of Magic on his body, correct? That implies to me that he was certainly being assaulted by Amita. We are all assuming BOOTS lost control, but isn't it a lot more logical that she simply grew tired of Masaki putting up a fight and killed him quickly by transforming into a large animal? Either ways, Masaki meets his end and his arm is promptly removed and his body ditched in an alleyway that we had no access to prior. Certainly an easy task for BOOTS to accomplish, given her ability to fly. Amita then disguised the crime by using her Fae Magic to turn Masaki's severed arm into BOOTS,' but that was as far as BOOTS was willing to go with the plan. Then, perhaps due to knowing Amita reeked of betrayal, or simply because she saw it as a means to an end, or there was a fallout of sorts, BOOTS attacks Amita and kills her quickly. A slash to the throat and then her flesh is carved out. I think the body mutilation occurred while Amita was still alive. Hence her expression of shock and horror... A brutal death that perfectly matches Masaki..."

He just wishes that this could've been prevented... But he's not done with the overview of the case.

"Once Amita died, BOOTS herself transported Amita's body to Sonya via flight, avoiding creating any incriminating traces and dumped her corpse in the same place where we found Valerio's body and flew back to the hotel. She was wounded, for sure, but very much in her own mind. She likely transformed into Masaki right then and there. That was over six-- maybe seven or even eight hours ago now and pretended to be the same man that served us gentle and warm smiles every morning and the dulcet tones of his words. She has been pretending to be him the whole time, and with a perfect illusory disguise, there was no way we'd be able to even realize she had been wounded. The 'why' is simple; she wanted to obtain the primary objective described in the notes: she wanted to use the portal and escape. For all we know, that's the exact same thing Amita primarily wanted. The wand was, perhaps, just to save face and claim that she did what she did for all of us knowing that with the Supernatural characteristics of Masaki's murder and BOOTS' abilities, no one would be able to suspect her."

He was almost done... Just, lay the final nails in the coffin of his beloved, and he could go to the kitchen and drink himself until he passes out either from the poison burning his throat or from the pain gripping his heart.

"... Unlike the previous two cases, this was a premeditated murder, on both sides... Amita and BOOTS both knew what they were doing... Nothing was an accident. It was a plan that was not meant to go wrong, but it did because of both sides' selfishness. I believe that about perfectly explains everything, does it not? Amita couldn't have possibly chosen to die because this entire plan relied on her own self being alive to fill all the necessary roles. Just like with the amulet, there's nothing hinting she wanted to die, it was just... BOOTS covering for herself..."

He just, gives her a sad stare, before looking at the note that ORWELL's Hoot put in his hands. He... He's not going to read it right away... He doesn't want to know what's inside of it, because he's afraid. He's afraid of learning what someone else actually thinks about him. So he's going to do as he's done ever since before coming here, he'll bottle those feelings up and greet ORWELL with a small but selfish smile. A machine dispensing a cordial message, but nothing more than just that.

"... That's the most likely scenario. We... Have the 'why' and the 'how' now, don't we? So there's... Nothing else left to do but to vote..."

Once he's finished speaking, he glares at DUCK. It is now his own eyes that are burning with ire, fury and wrath. How dare she. How dare she?! First she chews him out for what he said at the beginning of the trial, and now she has the nerve to repeat exactly what he's been suggesting?! How laughable... What a cruel, twisted joke. So this was the real her. All his talking to her during the second Investigation. This was the culmination of all that heartache?! Of that abandonment?! How... Thrilling. He doesn't say anything, not yet. His expression is just replaced with a smile, a chilling smile that's unlike him. Perhaps Amita, or even BOOTS, weren't the only ones reeking of (Takumi voice) b e t r a y a l .

"How... Inspiring, Prosecutor DUCK. Thank you, thank you very much for your utter... Honesty. I'll see through that I don't disappoint... It. I'm so very glad to find out you have not strayed away from your path of... 'Righteousness.' You truly do stick to your 'ethics' quite closely. I'm glad to find we feel the exact same way."

With that, he's finished. The smile doesn't leave his face, but he refocuses and just, stares at the horizon.

#boun #ch3 #trial #pip #submission

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lovelyirony · 6 years ago

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Checkmate

@thormlm

Tony Carbonell was good at what he did. He knew it, no one else did. Why? Because again. He was good at what he did. Tony stole stuff. Not snacks from the convenience store, not jewelry from an old lady’s home.

Documents that incriminated some syndicate. Paintings that no one in public had seen them. (Van Gogh had a crazy other side to his paintings, it was wicked.) And mostly, scammed enough people into forgetting his face. He was John Howard, Arno Stark, whoever he needed to be. He was not Tony Carbonell. He was just another face in the crowd. That’s how it was meant to be.

There’s a new cop in town. “Corrupt,” or so they say. Not corrupt, just a little bit more willing to get criminals in jail than most. They call him Captain. He’s also known as Steven Grant Rogers, served in the army for three years, honorably discharged. Awards and honors out the ass, a degree in art history, and a talent for making posters for local events on the side.

Captain is smart. He knows exactly where Tony’s kind hangs out, where they get information, and just what they call Tony.

They call Tony “Iron Man.” It’s a stupid nickname, earned a few years earlier when Tony did a job involving a safe. No one knew how he did it. How the safe was opened, because no one had accessed it in months. And then, of course, they don’t look at who accessed it all those months before. Who pays attention the morning cleaners?

Tony got in, he got out. No combination, just DNA processing. They don’t know how he did it, because a.) the man was dead, and it requires a recognizable strand of DNA to be done. b.) there were no relatives that thieves knew of.

Keyword: knew.

Tony robbed his own father, which really most people would have a problem. But as it turns out, Howard Stark was a piece of shit, and Tony really thought that the ruby cuff links and stacks of cash deserved to see the light of day and not rot in an iron safe in some “secure” bank.

But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that Tony has to deal with Black Widow texting him “lol ur in deep shit” with a screenshot of Steve Rogers texting someone that he would get Iron Man.

Which, you know, is great. Wonderful. Tony loves that he’s being pursued by a man with more resources than he needs to catch Tony. He loves knowing this all before he gets his coffee, the one that’s flavored Amaretto, and just sitting in his kitchen saying “shit.” He loves life. Wow. Tony wishes he could live forever, this is amazing news! Great, Tony might die!

Fact: criminals who are convinced that they will never get caught are the worst. Tony has met many criminals who boast and say they will never get caught. He smiles, says “okay”, and watches from the back of the courtroom as they get sentenced to forty years in prison, rotting. Tony knows that eventually, he may get caught. But he’ll get to that when he gets to it.

Tony calls Pepper first. She is his lawyer that he loves more than life itself, even though she has called him “an inconvenient goblin” and “really, Tony? This again?” She loves him, though. He knows that she does. So when he calls her and says

“Hey Pepper, I’m in deep shit! Fun!” She knows Exactly what’s going to go down. Someone is onto Iron Man. Which means that she is on standby just in case things go haywire.

“You might want to call Jim,” Pepper says. “You know how he gets when people threaten you.”

“Overprotective?”

“Careful,” Pepper suggests. “He’s not overprotective, you’re just reckless and paranoid.”

“Those who aren’t paranoid die, Pep. Consider me an expert on that.” Once upon a time, Tony had not been paranoid.

Then there was a car crash. An uncle who smiled and said it was so unfortunate, would Tony like to go on a trip to forget about it? Dubai, maybe? And then Tony ended up in Afghanistan where he was supposed to die.

But that’s the thing, sometimes, about Paranoia: it gets you out of some weird situations. Tony was supposed to die. But he’s just paranoid enough of dying that it didn’t happen.

Tony calls Rhodey up anyway. “Hello Rhodey! How are you today? I am doing Fantastically Wonderful, It’s So Nice Outside, What? No, I’m Not Bullshitting You--”

“Yeah, you are. What’d you do?”

“It’s more of what I’m about to do.”

“If you’re finally buying that Danny Devito cardboard cutout, I’m legitimately cutting you out of my will.”

“You can die?”

“This life around? Yes. What’s your point?”

“The Captain is coming after my ass.”

“Like...in a sexy way?” Tony splutters.

“You are Unbelieve, no, not that way. I cannot believe you thought that within, like, two months of knowing about the Captain, that he would even look my way.”

“So he’s looking your way,” Rhodey says. “But in a ‘I might be murdered’ type of way?”

“Exactly,” Tony responds. “So I may die in a couple of months to a year.”

Rhodey laughs. “You’re so stupid, no you’re not. You ate an egg roll from a gas station in the middle of nowhere and you survived. It’s fine.”

“I really feel like you’re not getting the severity of the situation,” Tony says. “The Captain is trying to catch me. And he knows more than enough about the criminal world to actually get the job done. He knows people.”

“Like who?” Rhodey says. “The guy’s in the police force. He just got awarded for rescuing a cat, I hardly doubt that the people he knows can actually pull this off.” He’s kind of laughing. “I got your back.”

“Against the Winter Soldier?”

Silence.

“Oh fuck. You’re screwed. You’re so screwed. Do you know how screwed you are?”

“Screwed as a nail,” Tony mutters. “So I’m going off the grid. I’ll catch you in a year or something. I don’t know. Off-the-grid schedules are tricky.”

“Don’t do anything weird, okay? Don’t, like, blow up the White House or something to escape.”

“I don’t have access to that much C-4,” Tony quips. “Bye, honey bear.”

Line goes dead. Phone gets smashed. Easy peasy, lemon whatever.

Tony has fine taste. He’s not gonna deny that much. He has Italian leather shoes, pants specifically tailored for his legs and ass, and a passion for the finer side of thread-counts and furniture. All acquired through a man who goes by Bruce and Bruce only. He used to be a radiation scientist, Tony actually knows about him. But then something went haywire, he has anger issues, and refuses to talk about deep-seated issues. Can you believe?

But Tony walks to the store, unassuming and beige with everything else. Ugh. Tony hates beige.

“Bruce! I have a favor to ask!”

“Yeah, what is it?” Bruce says. “If it’s murder, I charge money for my no-doubt-eventual-counselling sessions.”

“Nonsense,” Tony says. “I’m not doing murder, and the only thing I need for you to do is deny that I’ve ever shopped here.”

“Why?”

“Bruce, only scientists ask questions like ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and the damning ‘why’. You don’t need to know.”

“You forgot the ‘how’, Tony.”

“Damn your perception,” Tony says, light and cheery. He’s actually teetering between the line of “Is this Okay or is it Anxiety Time,” which is better than a lot of other lines he’s teetered on. (One was literal, too, which is not good for your state of health if you’re not trained to go on tightropes, by the way.) “Anyway, promise not to tell anyone that you sell me good cotton sheets?”

“Sure,” Bruce says. “But you also can’t tell anyone where you got the sheets.”

“Never have, probably never will,” Tony says cheerily. “Talk to you maybe later!”

And then comes a text. I’ve been assigned to come after you. Headstart of one hour.

Well, fuck. Just because you’re friends with Black Widow doesn’t actually mean that she refuses to take jobs referring to Iron Man. She hasn’t refused any, but she also hasn’t been given any.

I’ll double the sum they’re paying.

They have blackmail on me, you can’t double that. They know more about me than you.

Even that you like cherry-nut ice cream?

Less than one hour, Iron Man.

So then, Tony has to do something drastic. He may have told his driver/friend/low-key criminal hitman Happy to pose as him, buy a ticket to France, and actually get on the plane. Natasha doesn’t kill those she isn’t assigned to. And she’s real good with faces, so she’ll know when he turns that it isn’t Tony.

Tony actually gets to an apartment in Brooklyn. It’s his back-up apartment, technically owned by his mother. His mother hates Brooklyn, refuses to go anywhere near the area, and doesn’t technically know that she owns an apartment in Brooklyn. Tony finds it funny.

He’s wearing a t-shirt that he likes, jeans that he hates, and lugging some boxes in. Maintain the cover.

“Hey,” comes a voice behind him. “Looks like we’re neighbors. I’m Steve.”

It takes everything in Tony’s willpower to not just whip the knife out of his pocket, but you can’t do that to neighbors you just met. Even if they signed a contract with Black Widow to get you and maybe-kill you.

“I’m Tony,” Tony says, because he is an Idiot Under Stress. “Nice to meet you, Steve.”

They talk. For an hour. Steve is surprisingly funny for a guy who wants to kill him. Steve likes appetizers at restaurants, does art as a hobby, and wants to own a dog. He also used to be allergic to peanut butter but isn’t anymore, and isn’t that the Funniest thing? Tony half-laughs and says “yeah, it is,” and then Steve says it.

“So, what do you do for a living?”

Tony does a lot of things. He stole a Renoir. He also has sixty thousand dollars in an off-shore bank account. Which actually isn’t a bank account because Tony doesn’t like banks, but more of a dresser in a house in Manhattan Island.

“I’m, um, tech support,” Tony says.

“Really? I’m sure that’s interesting,” Steve says. “A lot of asking people to reboot their computers, huh?”

“You have no idea,” Tony mutters. “Well, as lovely as it has been getting to know you, I need to get everything set up. See you around?”

“Definitely!”

Tony shuts the door, sits on the couch, and looks out the window.

He can do this. It’s like a game of chess: you just need strategy. Tony used to play all the old guys in Central Park in chess, you could probably call him an expert at this point. Maybe. He’s not exactly sure of all the rules, some old guys made up their own. But still. He could do this.

(Rhodey would be laughing at him right about now if he could see this predicament.)

#this was based off a post i made yesterday about tony knowing all the moves before you even made the first one #yeah it's fun #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #captain america #Iron Man #yeah buddy this is fun #i like this #lovelyirony writes #tony: chill but Not Really #this was infinitely longer than i had originally planned #oops

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unwelcome-ozian · 6 years ago

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Hello, I was wanting your opinion and thoughts on Katie Goves and their system from YouTube. Mostly if you would consider them to be a trustworthy and or reliable source? They talk about being an MK victim, my concern there lies mostly in their age in relation to that. I remove they said they're only 20, didn't the "program" with MK end before they where even born? Not trying to call anyone out or anything like that, just want to check validity and such. Thanks in advance!

I typically don’t share my opinion on what other survivor’s stories or experiences. I will if I see some issues with what they are sharing and other ‘red flags.’ Full disclosure; I did not watch her full videos, I watched a few minuets of a few of them until I felt confident enough to form an opinion. I read what she wrote and will pull from these.

Sorry the post is so long.

Katy Groves

Published on Jun 5, 2018

In this video, I pour my heart out about the child sexual abuse and snuff images of myself (alone and alongside others) that I had the horrific burden and privilege of seeing during my deprogramming process. I talk about my experience with taking them to law enforcement and my ultimate “decision” to throw the pictures away.

The concerns I have with this portion of what she has said, 'snuff images of myself’. Snuff is a pornographic movie of an actual murder. She could not see herself being 'snuffed’ she would be dead.She said she threw the pictures away. I find this interesting as she disposed of proof that could rip through anyone’s shred of doubt, help other survivors, help those who remain trapped, and so much more. Why then why even go to the police?

A couple of edits: when I said the pictures implied sexual abuse but were illegal, I misspoke. I meant to say that they were legal instead; and when I said there was a Christmas tree in the photograph and then said I didn’t think it was “Christmas time,” I should clarify what I meant. I meant that I didn’t think it was the time of the Christmas season in which I would have likely been opening presents, not that it wasn’t the Christmas season itself.

How can pictures that imply sexual abuse be legal? The child/children would have to be over the age of 18. If the pictures were snuff and child sexual abuse they wouldn’t be legal. That is where her testimony/report would establish the “legality” of the pictures.

When I reported these crimes in Dec. 2016, I was interviewed by two officers, one male, one female. Partway through the interview, I handed the child snuff to the male officer, who stared at it blankly and then immediately handed it back to me. I asked him if he saw what was in the picture and he said “no.” He appeared very dissociated and triggered, may have had a trauma history of his own, so I left him alone and instead handed the picture to the female officer, who was able to process its graphic content enough to interview me about it in depth.

I’m confused. Katy hands the snuff picture to the male officer first. Survivors of abuse, female survivors of abuse who have a picture of other children being abused as well as them-self (perhaps) would not give them to the male officer first.The officer would not have handed the picture back to her but would have given it to the female officer to look at. Second, the pictures would not have been returned to her.

He then took the photograph into another room and returned it to me, stating that he had made a photocopy. I was told that my case would be transferred to my home state and was escorted out of the premises. Within an hour, I was notified that the male officer had called mental health authorities regarding my case and two things became clear: 1. Were I to pursue this case further, it was more likely that I would end up incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital than my perpetrators would ever do prison time and 2. Were I to keep the incriminating images of my exploitation as a child, there was a chance that I would face criminal charges and incarceration for possessing them.

A photo copy wouldn’t have been made, they would have kept the original. (a lawyer would have a field day with a photo copy) They would have kept it as evidence if they were going to charge her for being in possession of child pornography.

Someone doesn’t get 'incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital.“ There have to be very valid reasons for a court to hospitalize someone. A threat of harm to themselves or a threat of harm to another person. The mental health act of 2001 established the protocol for involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations. They can’t keep someone until the end of time anymore.

As I was homeless and had no one whom I was willing to put at risk by entrusting with the photographs, I made the extremely painful decision to discard them. I decided that rather than pursue what felt like a futile legal battle in a corrupt "justice” system that was more likely to result in my incarceration than my perpetrators’, I would focus on healing myself and helping survivors of ritual abuse and human trafficking in other ways.

I am blessed to say that within a year of making this decision, I was able to create this channel. This way, I am able to devote my time directly to survivors without having to jump through the legal system’s hoops and suffer the hideous retraumatization that so typically accompanies the pursuit of this kind of case. The legal system in the United States is not built for survivors of ritual abuse, but for those who perpetrate it.

I agree with her when she says: “the legal system in the United States is not built for survivors of ritual abuse.” The Satanic panic lead to this. But, there are cases where ritual abuse is prosecuted successfully. For survivors of any form of abuse the legal system is a nightmare.

What doesn’t add up is she is now on you tube with a large number of videos talking about the abuse. Which can be more traumatizing than court. Here are some reasons why: Everyone can see her and who she is, in the future anyone can google her name and find out about her past (5 years from now, ten…more), I’m not sure if she has considered that, it opens her up for even more scrutiny than going to court would have. Putting videos on you tube, running a blog, anything on social media opens you up for criticism and the magnifying glass of the public.

For example she posted this: Hi everyone, in this video, Kayvon opens up about our struggles with a delusional subscriber who is obsessed with us and has been sending us highly triggering emails on a near daily basis for the last two monthsKaty Groves 4 tuần trước (đã chỉnh sửa)I’m deleting all comments that tell me what to do and/or violate other boundaries I have directly set in comments that I think you have seen. At the end of this video, I told y'all explicitly not to tell me what to do, but it seems like some of you didn’t watch it, don’t care or can’t set limits with your own codependence, so I’m going to do it for you.

It has to be apart of what you’re willing to take on if you chose to use such a public platform. So, saying going to court would be 'hideous and retraumatization’ is interesting to me when I saw the her posts.

Nov, 14, 2017Hi there, we are a 21 year old survivor of Project Monarch, CIA child trafficking and Satanic ritual abuse with Polyfragmented DID. At the time that this video was recorded, we had been deprogramming ourselves with success for over 3.5 years.

I watched this video and listened to her (Deprogramming pt 6-Deprogramming My Inner Child) First someone can’t de-program themselves. If she were programmed there are safety measures in place to prevent this. She say’s she’s 21 and has been working since she was 17.5 to deprogram. That is too short of a time frame. From how she is talking in the video, the terminology (inner child) (higher self/ inner loving parent) she sounds like she is at a facility/program that has used these phrases or was at a facility. Someone pointed out that her videos sound scripted, they do. She may not be reading a script proper but has been coached or practiced in some form. Something is very off.

August 11th ’18Dissociated parts of my system collaborated extensively with one another inside in order to outline how best to present our story to the general public in under ten minutes, but a lot of it was unplanned and we never wrote anything down. If it looks like I am reading from a script, it is because I am accessing a partially formed eidetic script, so to speak, of things my system and I agreed to say.Eidetic memory and other such abnormal abilities are common for survivors of MK and something we have experienced since we were very small.

Here is the issue with this statement. If she were programmed she would not have access to a majority of memories or alters who hold these memories. Eidetic memory occurs outside the system and in programming only one or two alters will hold this skill. You don’t want a whole system with this form of memory.

May 9, 2018I will say that I focus mostly on my traumas with my narcissistic, sexually abusive mother – who programmed me in MK. I do not talk about the “worst of it” but mention infantile sexual abuse, child trafficking and other forms of abuse and exploitation in some detail.

If you have ever struggled with eating disorders, especially anorexia, please watch this video with extra caution as this could be particularly triggering for you.

Her mother couldn’t have programmed her 'in MK’. MK programming takes a lot of time, knowledge, medical setting, psychotropics, and a team to complete.

She isn’t a survivor of MK programming. She’s too young. Programming can’t be broken when someone is 17.5 years old. So, the question is, what happened to her?

As I was watching the videos Ozzie pointed out, “She’s acting like 11 from Stranger Things."

Over all she is too robotic in the video’s I watched, she’s too young to have been a survivor of MK-Ultra, too young to have escaped and ‘deprogrammed’ herself, too young to have survived the type of torture it takes to program someone and have access to those parts in the system and have them willing to share their memories, to be a survivor of pornography and have alters who would agree to have parts of their story shared on camera or be on camera themselves, she shows her face you can’t 'deprogram’ yourself from MK-ultra, the phrases she uses sound to scripted, a programmed system doesn’t learn to communicate on that level in 3.5 years, (trauma survivors can tell you 3.5 years of living with D.I.D and working hard doesn’t look like this) someone can’t work on healing their trauma day in and day out as Katy says she did, this would lead to more issues and all kinds of problems with programming and system stress. And lastly, Katy stated she was homeless for a while before she started posting her videos about a year ago.

Those are some of my thoughts from what I’ve read and watched

#Katy Groves #answers to questions

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wcamino-confessions · 6 years ago

Text

Phantom talks to damn much

Seeing how the clan leadership reacts to the confessions blog isn't surprising. In fact,I I'm stunned that a screenshot leak hadn't occurred sooner considering the popularity of the community. However, I can say it's very easy to judge what the community and its participating members are when sitting in an onlookers perspective. Before the discord chat in particular, it was more common to find people who viewed the confessions community as a location of pure toxicity and mindless hatred. I have had Moonfur speak to me in a conversation in the past about my own and others usage of the blog.

At the time, we used it mostly to vent and I can say that the blog has evolved in it's silent and progressing evils. These are toxic and generally harmful members of the confessions community. Denying that is the same as denying the foundation in which the blog itself was built on. However, this toxicity is born from the community itself. The blog did not come from nowhere. Keep in mind that the WA leadership team IS ACTIVE in the discord. The true community are the ones who come off anon and participate actively within the discord and uphold rules that prevent immense negativity. In fact, the mod actively manages mindless witch hunts by removing the ones that contain obvious bullying with ZERO reasons behind it [though I do enjoy the ones that go, “this person sucks, don't argue or @ me about this because I don't want to hear it”].

However, negative comments regarding dissatisfaction with certain existences within the community is not by any forms of “bullying”. It's very easy to mess up, but it's a thousand times more difficult to redeem your public view once a standard has been set. Confessions send warnings of caution to users to re-examine and consider relationships and the personalities of those in question. Some are obviously bullshit if we're being realistic about it. “This person's commission prices are too high,” or “such and such a person treated me poorly, but there are probably some hidden circumstances that we're not mentioning.” These exist everywhere in day to day life and it is the fault of viewers if they take everything they hear at face value. Anyone who has seen Fox News versus CNN should be aware of how everything that is stated can be biased and questionable in context. You always hear number 45 mentions taking down CNN and the New York Times because they broadcast a different view than they would like to see printed. Another example is the ever so popular Pkrussel argument that swamps the Warriors community as of late. Some claim that Pkrussel's “critiques” are valid and become defensive when others point out the other side of the argument.

The reality is, there will always be a separate viewpoint that may make others unhappy. Yes, they may paint users in a bad light. However, recognizing that you've changed or the whole story isn't being told is on YOU. It's not the fault of the users who speak out to make sure they are 1 on 1 buddy buddy and know everything that's currently going on in the lives of the person they're speaking of. Hell, what happened to Astro should prove this well enough! There were people being SCAMMED while those who were close to and defending Astro potentially didn't know. That's not to say that Astro is not a great person outside of what they did, but is it hard to understand why others might see things differently? People who had run-ins with people on bad days will have a different perspective and understanding than others who didn't since first impressions do mean everything. Another good way of looking at it is school. Ever heard an F is heavier than and A? You could be a straight A student, but I assure you if you don't do too hot on a few assignments that will change really quickly. Doesn't mean you're a bad student, but that's just how it works. You have to be held accountable for your failures and it's up to you to make enough A's to win back favor.

It's also not anyone's job but the followers of the blog and maybe their parents [if you really want to play that game] to ensure that kids are aware of how to judge the truth of a situation. I don't give a hot diggity god damn what regular members say about leadership team activity of clans or WA itself because we have no way of knowing if they aren't focusing more on management of higher issues that we have know way of knowing about. Maybe it's an age or experience thing, but it feels like common sense to take certain things with a grain of salt. Now if another LT member starts talking, sure I'll listen. They are someone who is a far more reliable resource than LittleBittyKitty69 the whateverclan warrior because they have access to the information that under normal circumstances, no one else in the clan would know. Why do you think people are always asking for screenshots on the blog when people start claiming stuff is going on? Because more people than you think get that taking everything you see and hear at face value is far more idiotic than it may be presented. Remember Lionclan and the edited screenshots that Nightfur, Four and Goldeneyes presented to incriminate Primal and Rain without revealing the context behind what was really going on behind the scenes? The cultish mindsets that they put in the members to make them vulnerable and more open to their influence? The way they victimized themselves without ever showing their own or others responses? Sure, there are people who will lie to you on this blog, but really it happens everywhere. If you can’t make decisions yourself on how to handle these presented issues then honestly you probably need to take a break from the internet and examine the important details you might have missed as of late.

Finally I’m going to be real with you. If anyone views Warriors Amino Confessions as a blog centered around “bullying”, I’m terrified to see how you handle real bullying. Everywhere you go, people are going to call you out on mistakes. WA Confessions may be a blog dedicated to prioritizing problems within the community, but that’s not to say that we don’t do the same on a day to day basis. Complaining about rules and negative experiences that we witness and deal with are the way to protect yourself in this community of thousands of users. Scammers, pedophiles, disturbing content, individuals with potentially dangerous viewpoints and more can be tracked within this blog. Sure, there’s definitely hate, but at its core, the blog can function as a clear and concise support system that benefits far more than harms. Yeah, there are people who are only here to cause harm, but when have you not seen the blog turn around and call them out on it.

1-800-boi is a flawless representation. This was a new member no one knew, who was targeted because someone had their own opinions on their artstyle. They were an asshole about it and the good majority of the blog called them out on it. The blog has a system, even if onlookers can’t view it themselves. As an “active member” of sorts, it’s much more clear. You’re entitled to your own opinions and no one is going to judge you for confessing what’s on your mind. However, if you attempt to harass, verbally assault or discriminate against, manipulate or scam anyone, you will be called out for it. We argue amongst ourselves all the time, but at the end of the day we have more than enough sense to recognize problems. The Mod [our great saviour, Lord Eris] actively limits openly recognizable attacks on a person(s) that may be hazardous or unlawful in nature, along with people who are clearly just trying to start things. The discord is legendary for actively calling out and being aware of users and opinions that mean nothing but trouble and the Mod doesn’t hesitate to subdue these problematic topics. If anything, confessions community is a thousand times safer than the amino itself BECAUSE the users aren’t afraid to tell you how it is. The regulars are more than certain to do a bit of digging to ensure they know as much as they can before they dip their toes into issues that they may not be fully able to comprehend at face value.

The community hold no power. The only power we hold is over ourselves and what we choose to perceive as the truth. Users of the Warriors Amino app have a right to know where or towards whom we need to be aware of; stop acting like this is some sort of political game! If the community chooses to side against you because you cannot prove yourself to them, are you even in a position to feel wronged? No one is holding a loaded gun to anyone’s head or threatening them and telling them that they have to believe everything stated on the blog or else. If so, the leadership team would be very quick to deal with publicizing the incident like they did with Lionclan over a year ago. No one has the right to claim the entirety of this blog to be an uprising of evil when they do not witness the full conversation. A few assholes want to do something to make someone else miserable, then focus your emotions on them. It’s illogical and restricting to forcefully disregard an entire peoples based on your emotional standpoint towards a minimum. There are 200 or so followers of the blog compared to the 1608 members active on Warriors amino at the time of me writing this essay of a response, and that’s disregarding the listed 172,867 members in total. Some of these members are banned, former members, and random users scattered across the interface. Some aren’t even in clans or positions of leadership.

If I were to compare the blog to anything, I’d advise members to watch episode 1 of an anime called Kino’s Journey [spoilers for those who haven’t watched]. It presents a country where murder isn’t illegal and a man Kino encounters who longs to seek asylum within its walls due to his rebellious nature and desire to disregard the rules implemented in society. Within the walls however, the city is strangely tranquil and Kino finds little to no security measures in place despite what he imagined would be a place of endless brawls and bloodshed to meet an end. The only oddity is that everyday citizens carry weapons and acknowledge that they are all meant for murder. When Kion encounters the man later, he has become a citizen of the town and targets Kino as his first murder victim. However, before he can fire his gun, other citizens of the country pull out their weapons and kill the man, protecting Kino. Why? The answer is simple. Legal does not equate to socially acceptable. In order to keep the peace of the nation, those who murder, have murdered or intend to murder must be eliminated before they disrupt the harmony of the nation. If a person is presented with a place where you can commit murder without legal ramifications and suddenly are willing to do it, are they really in the right?

Note: I’m not coming after anyone when I say these things, however those messages do rub me the wrong way as someone who has grown to love our small blog home despite the hiccups and less than welcome posts that do appear. Have your own opinions, but don’t conspire to eliminate those who see things differently than you based on your own emotional standpoint. As a member of a volunteer leadership team, there shouldn’t be a reason to start such a witch hunt just because some less than desirable people are showing out. Be better than them and PROVE them wrong with your actions. It’s hard to overlook these comments are simple “lies” when you are incapable of standing up straight and performing without melting down over a collected group of silent opinions. Let them talk. The ones whos opinions matter are the ones judge you for your actions over a bunch of silly chats on a confessions blog.

TL;DR: WA confessions is its own separate entity from WA that follows its own set standard of rulesets. However, do not be deceived by outward appearances. If you come of our community with the mindset that you are free to be toxic and controlling, you are incredibly misinformed. We protect ourselves and our rights by flushing out those with malicious intent. If you cannot handle that what happens here can be a bit rough, that’s fair, but bullying, harassment, discrimination and abuse IS NOT WELCOME HERE. We don’t want you, nor do we tolerate it. If your feel hurt by what is said here, reevaluate your own shortcomings and work hard to overcome the stigma that you potentially dug for yourself to prove those opinions wrong. No one is here to damage you, but it’s unfair to silence the viewpoints that you are too shamed or simply unwilling to acknowledge and address because you don’t like them.

#submission

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