#in incident number five he's been through too much bullshit

[mzminola]

#dc comics asks #tim drake #lady shiva #ask me stuff #robin #tbf in a VERY different context Shiva using that white line on a mixed race part-Asian Tim would have interesting possibilities #but that's very much not what this was it was just Dixon being cringe and racist again [tags via OP]

Yeah as someone from a mixed & multicultural family who was not paying any attention to the writers, I did not read that line as any kind of confirmation Tim was white or christian, just that Shiva is being an asshole and doing the racism version of negging.

Anyway I'm still going through Tim's comics, but I can think of at least five interactions between them:

1. Paris One: the above-mention Robin miniseries. Shiva is going after Edmund "King Snake" Dorrance for a lethal fight because he's one of the world's best non-meta fighters, and once you hit a certain skill reputation level in DC Shiva just Does That.

2. Tengu: Bruce got real fucked up and needs Shiva to train him. She agrees on the grounds that he kill someone during his final test. He fights in a theater mask, and fakes his opponent's death. Shiva and Tim don't really interact directly here, but they're both present and Tim is SUPER upset when he thinks Bruce broke the no kill rule.

3. Paris Two: Civil War Boogaloo: Tim goes back to Paris to finish his training with the healing and martial arts master he was supposed to the first time, that man is dead so Tim learns from someone else, meets a girl who's learning every possible Single Strike Move she can. Turns out she's in the resistance in small European country, with access to a drug that makes you go super fast so single strike moves are for maximizing that effectiveness.

Shiva shows up to fight (and probably kill) her. Tim had been given the speed drug too, accidentally kills Shiva trying to save the girl, and successfully resuscitates Shiva. She runs off at partial super speed, since some of the drug was on Tim's mouth.

4. Is This Racist Or Is DC Just Awkwardly Adapting Kung Fu Movie Tropes: there's an ancient martial arts organization trying to kill Green Arrow (currently Connor Hawke) because he's got the reputation as one of the best non-meta fighters on the planet. They're all called [Material] Monkey, Shiva's achieved the level of Paper Monkey (highest possible) through defeating so many others.

Shiva beats the shit out of Connor, and Tim leaps in before the killing blow to say "Hey you owe me a life debt! Since I didn't leave you dead that one time! I'm calling it in to save Connor."

Shiva makes it clear that she doesn't consider Life Debts to be a thing, but Tim's attempt amuses her so she pats his cheek with a smile and leaves.

5. Near The End of Robin 1993: I haven't read the full arc, but Shiva is in Gotham to fight Tim. I guess he's finally gotten past the 'potential' stage and into 'fight'? He tracks down her hotel, poisons her complimentary chocolates with a paralytic that only kicks in once your heartrate raises above a certain level. Their fight starts, he might get beat up a bit, and then Shiva falls the fuck down.

Tim informs her the cops are on the way, and that if she breaks out of jail, he'd prefer she not go after him again, thanks.

Note: Everything between Shiva & Cass in Preboot Era happens between these 4 and 5. And since I haven't finished my read, I don't know if Tim & Shiva have interaction in between there, or if she shows up again after the poisoned chocolates incident.

~

Lady Shiva shows up in a fair number of DC titles as a chaos element. I feel like I need to read more appearances outside the Bats to get a bead on how she feels about individual people, but I get the impression that she has similar motivations as a particular type of stock immortal character (despite not being one) -- that life gets boring when there's no risk of anyone killing you.

Sandra "Lady Shiva" Wu-San will fight any non-meta that she suspects has a decent chance at killing her. Sometimes she kills them, sometimes she lets them live. According to some meta I've read, she tends to find people who are stuck somehow and drastically change something in their lives so that they have to change too.

For Cass, that's killing and reviving her so she's free of her death wish.

With Tim, I get the impression that she met him early enough that he's not stuck in anything (though prodding about the no-kill rule might be an attempt to prevent him getting stuck). She sees potential, they're going after the same guy, and teaching is interesting. So why not?

Tim is a chance for her to watch how someone grows as a fighter instead of only meeting them once they're highly skilled. Teaching him is also a way for her to make more waves in the world, and give him a better chance at surviving his vigilante career; wouldn't it be so terribly boring if he died too soon?

So how many times did Tim meet Lady Shiva or interacted with her? What was their relationship like?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure, I'm not as well versed in that particular relationship (and I'm in the middle of unpacking from my move so I'm not currently in a position to research it.) I know they run into each other at least twice because Shiva turns up at some point during the Robin ongoing but I don't know if it's just the one encounter or if there's more.

I'm most familiar with the relationship they form during the first Robin miniseries, which I've read a couple of times. Tim was sent to Paris to train with someone else, he fell into Shiva's orbit because of the King Snake investigation, and she simply... took an interest in him. Seems intrigued by his potential.

The short version, at least by my read, is that Tim respects Shiva because of her skill and worldliness, but is also wary and low-key terrified of her because she's a cold-blooded killer who keeps calling him 'little bird' and implying that she's either going to turn him into a murderer, kill him in battle, or both. Shiva, meanwhile, seems intrigued by Tim's potential and actively tries shape him into "her weapon" but it's not really clear what she means by that -- maybe she wants an appreciatice or a partner, or maybe she hopes he'd be the one to kill her in the fight she's been craving when he's an adult, it's kind of left up to interpretation. The last one would explain why she kinda drops this thread after Cass is properly introduced.

Mind, the mini is from 1991 so there is also some uncomfortable elements to it... like implying that Shiva is literally trying to seduce the underaged boy and also having her describe his vow against killing as, "How very Christian of you. How very white of you." which is just... yuck. Chuck Dixon everybody, still a racist.

[fictionalmenxyn]

🝊𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐫🝊

Pairing: cop!rafe x reader

Warnings: language and suggestive

🝊🝊🝊

You were on your way home, yes, you may have been going a few numbers over the limit. It was a 55 and you were going 60, not too bad. But you saw the famous red and blue lights flash along with the ‘woop woop’ of the sirens.

You mentally smacked yourself, also rolling your eyes at the slight fact the cop was being over dramatic. You indicated and pulled over.

You roll down your window, reaching over into the glove box grabbing your license and registration. You put them in your lap as you waited for the officer to walk over.

You see the figure, through the side mirror walking over. You double check over the things in your lap. The officer spoke “hey sweetheart”

You head whipped to the side to look out the window. Seeing Rafe “Rafe?! The fuck are you doing pulling me over??” He grinned. His thumbs tucked into his tactical vest “someone was goin’ over the limit, baby.” You roll your eyes “you do the exact same and you’re a cop” he chuckled “I know, I just saw your plate and wanted to see you, while I’m on shift.” You nodded “touché… so officer? Any big things happen today??”

He leans down so he can talk to you better “hmm not much, few speeding, one dui… you know, the usual…” you nod. “And do officers take a kiss as an apology for going over five above the limit?” He smirked “hmm for now, yeah, officer Cameron would take that as a temporary apology…” you rolled your eyes. You lean out of the window and give him a peck. “Not good enough, sweet girl.” “What?!” “You heard…” “babe…” Rafe grinned “not babe, its officer, right now”

You rolled your eyes for what felt like the hundredth time. “Alright, officer…” you give him and another kiss. This time a proper and longer one. He pulled away “thank you” he stood straight again. He glanced to the road then to you. His thumbs still tucked into the armpit of the tactical vest. “You’re lucky you’re cute, I’m lettin’ ya off this time, no ticket for you pretty girl…” you look up at him. “Bullshit, you just don’t wanna do the paperwork.” You grin as he chuckles and shake his head “I like your logic, babe…” you smile “thank you…”

“That doesn’t mean you’re getting away with it when I get home…” “gonna need to teach you a lesson on how you shouldn’t sass the officer…I saw the eye rolls, can’t hide it from me, sweetheart” you blush slightly. “You can’t hide that blushin’ either…”

A voice over the radio speaks, Rafe looks back to you. Quickly leaning down and pressing two quick kisses to your soft lips. “Gotta go, see you later, I love you” you smiled “I love you too, go get those bad guys.” You smirk as he playfully rolled his eyes.

As he walks away, he calls out “don’t forget I’m not done with you, baby!” You chuckle as you start your car up again.

You watch as he drives off, sirens and lights beaming. He speeds off, going to god knows what incident. You smile, you loved seeing him all geared up and in uniform. It did things to you, especially when he wore it while getting you ready for some fun. Or when he lets you wear his training clothes. Like his ‘OBX PD’ training tee. Or the sweatpants, he liked you lost in the shorts though.

You couldn’t wait for him to get home to you. If it wasn’t illegal to actually speed. You’d do it more just for him to pull you over. The half-assed stern look he’d give you for going over just a little bit. Or when the one time you did a quick break at an empty junction. You only did a quick stop at the ‘stop’ sign because no one was there. So you didn’t think you needed to stop and wait a few seconds. He taught you a good lesson on that one…

You were already in bed, wearing only his PD tee when he got home. Dropping his bags to the floor and taking off his heavy tactical vest. Kicking his boots off as he crawled into bed and on top of you.

He kissed you like he hasn’t seen you in weeks. Your tongues clashing. He moves down your jaw and marks up your neck. Then he moves up your neck and to your ear. He whispers “I still haven’t taught you a lesson about speeding have I?” You gasp as his knee goes between your legs. He smirked “words” “no, officer…” he smirked “you look so good in my tee baby..” he smashes his lips against yours.

And the night was only just beginning…

🝊🝊🝊

[violettelueur]

— JUJUTSU KAISEN EPISODE TWENTY ONE || JUJUTSU KOSHIEN

↳ featuring : basically everyone at this point from jujutsu kaisen

↳ warnings : mention of violence + mention of injuries + EXTREME grammar issues

↳ form : story

↳ published : 20 april

↳ pronouns : she/her

↳ word count : 4.4k

↳ synopsis : within the jujutsu world, there were three famous clans to be aware of, the Kamo clan, Zenin clan and the Gojo clan. However, unknown to many sorcerers there was one last family that was known to be apart of the three, only for them to disappear after the golden era leading some to speculate that they had died in battle after the sealing of ryomen sukuna, but....

↳ previous episode : nonstandard 

↳ next episode : jamais vu

↳ barista’s notes : let me admit, i ain’t confident in this chapter since i started school again, but i hope you enjoy this episode and thank you for being so patient with me as i try to fit tumblr into my schedule with school ʕ ꈍᴥꈍʔ

BEFORE READING, I NEED YOU TO BE AWARE OF THIS:

1. the whole story belongs to Gege Akutami and the credits go to them and them only.

2. the spell curses used belong to Tite Kubo due to them being the ‘Kidos’ being used on the manga and anime ‘Bleach’ - but none is mentioned in this chapter.

2.5. for the ‘cursed spells’/kidos (bleach) i will link this video here and tell you the time stamp to check out what i am intending to show - remember i add a few twist here and there by adding the katana to link with Y/N’s cursed technique : hopefully this video is slightly better...

Destructive Curse Spell Number Thirty-Three : Sokatsui (6:00-6:07) (blue lighting explosion - Itadori Yuji)

3. if you are confused on anything, please don’t hesitate to message me since i know this whole thing is so confusing.

this is Y/N outfit when she came into the baseball game (blame twitter)

“How much longer are you going to stare at her? It’s creepy”

Snapping out of his daze, Gojo quickly looked up from your sleeping figure to find his stoic student (who was now sitting up) looking at him with a deadpan expression before he turned to look at your sleeping figure as well with somewhat of a worried expression, wondering what caused you to be knocked out since what Fushiguro could recall was that the last time he saw you, it seemed like you were well and confident before he was carried away by Panda.

“Is it bad to worry about my daughter?” Gojo questioned with a hint of a teasing tone before looking back down at you with his small smiling turning into a straight line.

“Student to be exact, but I guess not after what the curses were after,” Fushiguro quietly mentioned causing Gojo to once again, look up to view Fushiguro with a confused expression painted on his face, trying to convey that he didn’t have a clue on what his student was trying to say. “The special-grade was after L/N...but I don’t know why,” Fushiguro instantly declared as if he was answering to his teacher’s perplexed expression leading to Gojo sighing in frustration before taking one of his hands out of his pocket to stroke your hair as if it would bring you some comfort in your dreamless slumber as he then processed to remove his other hand from his other pocket to reveal a carton of orange juice before placing it on the bedside table.

“Is that so?” Gojo asked rhetorically, before making his way towards the door since he was informed that there was going to be a meeting with the Jujutsu Tech principles and sorcerers that were involved with the whole Exchange Event incident.

However, before he was able to grab onto the handle, the wooden door violently flew open showcasing his other students Itadori and Kugisaki on the other side with a box of pizza in hand leading Gojo to smile at them both.

“Oh Gojo-sensei! What are you doing here?” Itadori asked once he comprehended that it was his teacher blocking the way to see his two other classmates.

“Ah~ I was just visiting Megumi and Y/N before I go, make sure to not make too much noise, I’m sure Y/n would really appreciate it,” Gojo answered with a cheerful tone, leading Kugisaki to tilt her head to the side to realise that you were sleeping - much to her disappointment.

“She’s still recovering?” Kugisaki then questioned, leading her teacher to look at her before explaining that you were knocked out due to using an excessive amount of cursed energy within a short amount of time causing Kugisaki to nod to his little lie since he didn’t even know why you were extremely distraught when he came to collect you.

“I’ll be going now, so see you later~ don’t wake up my precious daughter!” Gojo states with a playful tone, before waving his hand to all of the first-years leaving them to themselves with a warm box of pizza in hand.

                                                 ꕥ

“Next up are the casualties: three second-grade sorcerers, one semi first-grade sorcerer, five assistant supervisors, and two cursed storehouse guards. They’re all sorcerers who were standing by at Jujutsu High and working separately from Gojo-san and Principal Yaga. We’re waiting on the report from Ieiri-san, but we’re nearly certain it was the work of the cursed spirit that Nanami-san encountered before,” Ijichi explained as he was looking down at the document sheets he had in hand to inform all the sorcerer that was in front of him about the situation at hand.

“Tsk,” Gojo tutted in annoyance while leaning against the door with his lower face tucked into the collar of his sorcerer uniform.

“Do you think we should share this information with the students and the other sorcerers?” Utahime asked as she turned to her colleagues.

“No,” the Kyoto principal: Gakuganji quickly answered, as the fellow principal from Tokyo: Yaga explained that it was better for this information to be among the higher-ups as he didn’t want to cause anymore panic to the students residing in the area right now as well as not wanting any of the curse users in their captivity to know that a few special-grade objects that been stolen from the school premises.

“Has the curse user we captured spilled anything?” principal Yaga queried, leading Ijichi to explain that it wasn’t hard to get the certain curse user to talk at all since he was quite cooperative but all they managed to receive was irrelevant information that was deemed somewhat unhelpful to them.

“However, he claims that he only participated in the attack because he was ordered to as part of a deal,” Ijicji added, before informing everyone about the monk that the curse user was talking about when he was interrogated.

“An androgynous monk kid with a bob cut? That ring any bells?” MeiMei asked, as she turned her head slightly to peer at Gojo, who was right behind her.

“Nope! We sure he’s not spouting bullshit? Is there any sorcerer skilled at getting confessions?” Gojo answered before asking his questions since he knew he couldn’t be too sure if the curse user was even telling the truth in the first place.

“How did a cursed spirit and outsiders get through Tengen-sama’s barriers in the first place?” Utahime questioned, as she was still confused on how so many people were able to get in without any problems and alerts.

“That was probably the work of the special-grade cursed spirit the students fought, that one has a unique presence. Even though it’s a cursed spirit, it’s incredibly close to a natural spirit. According to Aoi, it was able to hide among plants and was quite burnt from a few techniques like wood would be, and Tengen-sama’s barrier doesn’t function against plants. Tengen-sama’s barrier puts all its power into hiding, not protecting, so once you get in, it’s kind of weak,” Gojo answered his colleague with an explanation that led the whole room to turn completely silent for quite some time.

‘Are they worried about Sukuna’s Finger enhancing Yuji’s potential? Or are they trying to enhance themselves? Why would they need Y/N then? Something isn’t sitting right’

“For now, let’s be glad our students are safe,” Utahime mentioned with a calm smile presented on her face as there was one calm and good news that they would celebrate on.

‘Safe? How long until Y/N is going to stay safe? For how long?’

“But it goes without saying that the exchange event is now cancelled,” principal Yaga informed everyone as he turned to look at the fellow Kyoto principal, who was sitting right near him.

“Hold on, that’s not for us to decide, is it?” Gojo asked in a light tone, causing everyone in the room to look at him in confusion since they didn’t know what they meant by it not being their decision.

                                              ꕥ

“When did you start getting along with that gorilla?”

At this moment, Itadori and Kugisaki were sitting next to each side of Fushiguro’s bed, as they were visiting both you and him, while all of them were munching on the pizza (which only had a few slices left) that was currently sitting on top of Fushiguro’s legs.

“Well, we got along, but like...I remember what happened, but I wasn’t exactly myself then…” Itadori answered in complete uncertainty as he didn’t even know the answer himself, causing him to scratch his head in confusion.

“What, were you drunk?” Kugisaki questioned in confusion since she was expecting a confident answer from her classmates.

“You believe I could’ve been drinking liquor in this situation? I’m shocked,” Itadori mentioned before looking down with somewhat of a disappointed look that his owl friend thought of him like that. “But I’m glad you and Y/N weren’t seriously hurt, Fushiguro. You’re able to eat pizza now, too” Itadori stated with a smile on his face as he turned to look at the shikigami user before turning his head to see your still sleeping figure on the bed behind Kugisaki causing her to turn around to check if you had woken up yet.

“Come on, bring me something easier to digest,” Fushiguro replied since he was still recovering but nonetheless, took the food that was given to him.

“No complaining,” Kugisaki answered back before taking another bite of her pizza slice before snatching the box away from Itadori, who was about to grab another slice, due to her wanting to save the last remaining two slices of the cheesy food for you.

“Apparently, I got off easier because my cursed energy was all dried up, Ieiri-san was still able to fix me up as soon as the roots were removed, but I didn’t know Gojo used up so much cursed energy as well, Gojo seemed really worried when he went to Ieiri-san,” Fushiguro explained before turning his head to glance at you.

“Huh, so that’s a thing that can happen?” Itadori questioned.

“You fought against them, didn’t you? Also, did you see the flowers right above us when we were in the veil? They were so pretty!” Kugisaki commented, before looking up as if she was going to answer who was the person was that released the technique.

“Flowers? Oh, you mean the pink ones?! Kugisaki, those were so dangerous, didn’t you see the blue lighting explosion that happened right after?! It literally gave the curse a whole gash across its body!” Itadori exclaimed in shock causing Fushiguro to remember the array of flowers that were hanging in the sky when Panda was carrying him just before he crossed the veil.

“It was so beautiful though, I hope to see them again, I wonder who it was?” Kugisaki questioned before finishing off the last piece of pizza.

“Itadori, you’ve grown stronger. Back then, we both said our convictions were proper ones, I still think that’s true. Or, put another way, we’re both wrong,” Fushiguro mentioned with a low tone, causing both Itadori and Kugisaki to look at him as he was talking.

“Huh?” Itadori uttered in a confused tone, while Kugisaki processed to rest her face on the palm of her hand with a small pout.

“Some questions don’t have answers, you know. You’re thinking too hard, you’ll go bald,” Kugisaki mentioned.

“That’s right. There is no answer, it’s just whether or not you can accept it. But there’s no accepting anything if you can’t have it your way. Weak sorcerers can’t do that,” Fushigurp replied back causing the whole room to go silent as they were beginning to process what Fushiguro had said in his mind.

“So I’m going to become strong, too. I’ll surpass you in no time,” Fushiguro declared as he turned to face Itadori with a look of determination.

“You never change,” Itadori responded with a small light giggle.

“Don’t just move the conversation forward without me, we need to catch up with him and Gojo,” Kugisaki mentioned with annoyance painted on her face.

“That’s my brother’s friends for you!” 

Suddenly, the first-year trio rapidly turned their heads forwards to suddenly discover Todo sitting down right in front of Fushiguro’s bed with a smile on his face as he nodded proudly of the conversation that he had interrupted.

Unexpectedly, Itadori rushed towards the glass sliding door next to your bed and opened it with a loud bang before swiftly sprinting away from Fushiguro’s room as fast as a cheetah, only for Todo to follow behind him yelling out where his brother was going.

“I’m grateful to you, but give me a break!” Itadori screamed, causing Fushiguro and Kugisaki to look at the scene with deadpan shocked faces. However, what they didn’t seem to notice was you softly groaning at the loud noise that was happening right now leading your eyes to slowly open but quickly close due to the bright lighting in the room right now.

Hesitantly, you slower opened your eyes again to see a maroon coloured ceiling before blinking a few times to focus your sight, causing you to gradually sit up on the bed you were laying in as your looked down onto your lap leading your hair to cover your face away from your classmates, who now finally noticed that you had awakened from your slumber.

“Gojo, you’re awake!” Kugisaki announced with a smile on her face, yet that smile slowly disappeared once she noticed how you weren’t answering her at all, but rather you kept silent as your hand began to bring itself to your forehead as if you had a headache.

‘So loud…’

After sitting in silence for a while, you noticed that you were wearing a long white button-up with some black Adidas shorts leading you to wonder who changed you since Kugisaki was the only one to ever see you in your undergarments since she was always the one barging into your changing room to throw more clothing pieces for you to try. However, that was one minor inconvenience to think about right now.

Slowly, you turned your body around (so your back was facing Fushiguro and Kugisaki) before placing your feet down onto the wooden flooring, leading Fushiguro to worry about you falling since you had been asleep for quite some time, yet for some reason, you couldn’t hear him at all.

Steadily, you began to stand up with your hand on the mattress to keep some stability in case you did stumble back before you began to make your way towards the gap of the glass door that Itadori and Todo left through before gently lifting your head up to admire the clear sky from above.

‘It’s warm…’

Casually, your body began to lean on the side of the door to give yourself some support as you began to brisk in some of the light warmth the sun was giving you as if that was enough to bring you the comfort that you wanted right now before noticing how the wind was slowly picking up.

“Gojo, you would really get back in bed, you’re still in the healing process and it’s quite cold,” Kugisaki mentioned as she stood up to come to collect you and guide you back to back. However, for some reason, something was telling her to stop as she noticed how you were not listening to anyone at all - or, you just didn’t hear them as it seemed like your hearing was blocked for any human to human communication.

Instantly, the wind that was picking up suddenly blew out a large gush causing some of the leaves from the trees to violently ruffle from its branches while your hair was now messily blowing in the wind as you leaned against the side closer to maintain your footing before you steadily noticed a few pink petals making their way towards you from your right side causing your eyes to widen in shock.

‘There’s still some more?’

Slowly lifting your hand to the sky, you lightly felt the petal grazed your fingers ever so slightly before they slowly become disintegrated to a flow of cursed energy they were made out of causing Kugisaki to look at them in amazement as she stood by your side, as she realised that more was coming towards you both as if you were a magnet to them leading her to come to an assumption that you were the one that cast the flowers back when she was in the veil with the other students and teachers as she remembered that Gojo mentioned that you had used a lot of cursed energy.

“Pretty…” you softly muttered with a small but disheartened smile, trying to hide the emptiness that your heart now had to endure.

“Right,” Kugisaki answered back as she leaned her body on your side while continuing to admire the small flower show that was happening right now causing you both to not realise that the person behind you had his eyes widened as if he had just remembered something that he had completely forgotten about.

                                              ꕥ

“So anyways, a lot happened and some people died, but how about it? Want to  continue with the exchange event?” Gojo asked all the students who were in the room right now...well all of them minus one.

“Where is Gojo though? Shouldn’t she be here?” Fushiguro asked while standing here the staircase as Kugisaki and Maki began to look around the room to see if you really weren’t here with them causing him to look at Fushiguro, scared about his perspective skills.

“Ah~ about that, she’s moving her stuff from her dorm to my clan’s estate for her safety!” Gojo announced before clapping his hands to the side like he did when you first came into Jujutsu Tech leading everyone in the room to widen their eyes at the news since it was quite unexpected since you seemed like the type to reject the idea since Tengen’s barrier was helping you to be protected - but for you, it was easier for you to hide your family heritage if you weren’t in the dorms much to your dismay.

“I don’t know what to say about it…” Itadori muttered as he was thinking of an answer for both the continuation of the Kyoto Sister Exchange Event as well as your sudden move away from the Jujutsu Tech student dorms.

“Obviously...we continuing it, of course,” Todo declared, causing Itadori to suddenly tense up as he steadily backed up near Gojo to have some coverage and security.

“Your reasons?” Gojo asked as he turned to look at the Kyoto student.

“First, only those with a connection to the dead have the right to mourn them, it’s not our place to butt in there and second, if people have died, that’s all the more reason we need to become stronger, besides if it weren’t for the flower technique back then, we wouldn’t have been able to cause more crucial damage to those cursed spirits. Acquired strength comes from the accumulation of results. Tasting defeat and savouring victory is what leads up to grow, the most important part is for those results to exist,” Todo explained as he became to recall the blue lightning that damaged the special-grade curse to a massive degree which was enough for him to gain the upper ground during his fight leading Gojo to internally smile at the information.

“Todo-senpai’s surprisingly reliable,” Miwa whispered to her classmate Mai.

“Reliably crazy,” Mai answered as she rested her head on her knuckles.

“Third, when a student feels like they weren’t able to bring out their best, it hangs over them until they die,” Todo mentioned with a confident smile.

“How old are you?” Gojo suddenly questioned, as Todo wasn’t even as old as he was and the Kyoto student was already talking about ‘hangs over then until they die’.

“I’m fine with that,” Fushiguro mentioned.

“We’ll win anyway,” Kugisaki stated with confidence.

“It sounds stupid, but he has a point,” Kamo replied with calmness.

“Why don’t you rest, Kamo-kun?” Nishimiya mentioned as she stared at her classmate with a fed-up expression due to the bandages wrapped around his face.

“No objections here,” Panda declared as he was answering for the second years in the Tokyo side.

“Salmon~” Inumaki replied back.

“Will we draw lots for the individual battle pair-ups? I want to see Gojo beat Todo’s ass again,” Maki asked before mentioning you since she wanted to see you in a proper fight rather than the million of practice rounds you had with her causing Kugisaki to smile at the thought as well.

“Huh? There are no individual battles this year,” Gojo unexpectedly announced, causing all of the students from both Tokyo and Kyoto to become extremely perplexed.

“I hate routines, you know. Every year, we put the competition methods in this box and open it on the day of,” Gojo explained before tossing the wooden box to Itadori, who looked up for his permission to take out whatever was in the box which he was granted when the teacher nodded at him.

Reaching into the wooden box, Itadori’s fingers felt one single piece of paper within the box before he carefully took it out to see what was written on it, only for him to blink that the wording in pure confusion.

“Baseball?!” Principal Yaga exclaimed in confusion leading Itadori to suddenly discover that both principals from the Jujutsu Tech schools were peering over his shoulders, causing Gojo to walk out of the building with a pleasant smile on his face.

Once outside, he could hear the commotion from behind as he stretched his arms happily before placing his hands in his pocket as he noticed you were standing in front of him with some distance, while one hand on your hips and the other holding a familiar carton of orange juice that he remembered leaving on the bedside table when you were recovering.

“Going home?” he asked before making his way towards you.

                                              ꕥ

Currently, you were walking towards a certain baseball field after finishing some moving your items to the Gojo clan’s estate with an outfit consisting of a simple white button-up shirt tucked into a long black skirt paired with black heeled ankle boots that you decided to wear for the first time since they had been sitting in the box for quite some time after you had brought them on your last shopping trip with Kugisaki.

From what you could hear from the distance, there seemed to be a lot of shouting going on meaning someone didn’t know the rules of the game or they just been called out and the player wasn’t having it at all.

Opening the metal gate, a few people began to notice you coming into the field leading some of your Tokyo classmates to greet you while a certain black divine dog decided to leave it’s owners side to rush to yours before sitting down in front of you with what seemed to be a happy look on its face causing a small smile tp quickly appear on your face as you began to pat its head.

“Hi there,” you greeted it, causing the dog to bark back at you while its tail continuously thumped the ground as if to express the happiness it had when it saw you.

“Shouldn’t you go back to Fushiguro to play the game?” you questioned it causing it to whine slightly before listening to you as it got up and turned back around to head towards Fushiguro, leading you to look at the side to see if there were any seats for you to sit on.

“Ah, Gojo! Are you going to play baseball with us?” Itadori asked cheerfully, causing you to smile back at him before rejecting the offer.

“You guys already started, so there is no point in my playing, but thank you for the invite,” you stated before quickly taking a seat on the bench behind you as you patted your skirt to stop any creases that were going to appear before spectating the game that was happening in front of you right now.

After a while, you had to admit that watching everyone from Jujutus Tech play baseball was certainly more interesting than the actual official game themselves on the TV screen you see from time to time, while Kugisaki throwing her helmet to the ground after the whole pitching machine incident to everyone being shocked at Momo catching the ball on her broom leading Itadori and Inumaki to shout to Todo being hit by Maki’s pitch leading everyone to encourage her further.

‘What a mess’ you thought with a grateful expression on your face that you weren’t playing in his game for the second day of the Exchange Event.

“Are you okay?” someone suddenly asked, causing you to snap out of your thoughts to look to your right to find Fushiguro looking at you with an unreadable expression on his face. 

Unable to say your answer, you nodded at him before turning back to face yourself forwards as you gradually began to recall some of the events that had happened for the past few days before your head steadily placed itself on the middle of your chest as the empty feeling was somewhat still lingering - like as if something was dragged out of your soul.

‘1000 years ago…’

“Yeah...I’m fine,” you answered slowly as more information began to recall in your mind. From how you were sealed a thousand years ago only for the same sealed to be opened fifteen years ago leading to where you were now...surrounded by people that could potentially either keep you safe or do something that had many outcomes, especially with Sukuna residing within Itadori - with relief he didn’t know anything about your real birth.

‘Should I tell Gojo?’

“Gojo...I wanted to ask...have we met before? Like before we met in Sendai?” Fushiguro questioned you with a stutter causing your eyebrow to crook up in confusion leading Kugisaki, who was next to you to look at you with the same confusion.

“No, we never met before, you drag,” you answered, still perplexed on how he came up with a question with such an obvious answer leading you to lift your hand to flick his forehead for such a stupid question.

“Is that so?” Fushiguro muttered under his breath before looking up in the sky with amazement at how far Itadori had hit the ball with his bat while you and Kugisaki did the same.

‘Tiger of the West Middle...still lives up to that name’

Unexpectedly, you heard a childish giggle leading you to turn your head to find Gojo passing the school principals while using his infinity to keep the ants below his feet safe to which caused you to scoff in amazement at how lacked he was to use his technique all the time.

“Let’s go home Y/N!” Gojo shouted, causing you to look at him with a crooked eyebrow before scoffing once again at his playful behaviour.

“Let’s go home,” you whispered under your breath before everyone in the first year stood by your side and followed you out of the field to have a conversation with you before you left to go back to the Gojo estate.

‘Home huh?’

© violettelueur 2021 : written and published by violettelueur - do not steal or repost

[yellowocaballero]

hi i know it's been the hottest of seconds but director's cut for the prophetic spring if you're still doing these? 👀

Sure! I’ve spoken a lot about the prophetic spring, but I’m fairly certain I could give some meta information about my intense life-long obsession with Tim Drake. Dude has been showing up in my fics since I was 14.

But actually, the ficlet I wrote ages ago might be more interesting? So here it is. Exploring a dynamic that was WAY underserved for how important it is: the Steph, Cass, Tim dynamic!

No CW that haven’t appeared in the prophetic spring, but specific mention for drug addiction and drug depiction, as well as references to molestation, abortion, torture, and suicide. Story under the cut. 

Tim stared down into the toilet bowl. It was a little yellowed. He needed to clean it. 

He stared at the small baggie of pills in his hand. 

He visualized dropping it into the bowl, flushing it. Possibly mutating an alligator, or giving the race of mole people that lived in the Gotham sewers a nice surprise. 

Tim sighed, and pocketed the drugs. Maybe tomorrow. 

**

A month after the incident with a runaway foster kid and a, in retrospect, kind of embarrassing fake fight with his older brother, Tim got a text from an unknown number. To make matters worse, it was at an insane hour of the day - noon. 

Texts from strangers were hardly uncommon. Tim had an extensive contact network, growing larger by the day, but he had set up a Google Voice on his computer so they were all routed through a program there. Being bothered at all hours of the day on his phone was hardly his idea of a good time. The only people who really had his real number were his bullshit ‘friends’ and his asshole ‘family’. He hadn’t even given his number to his ‘friends’ - he had given it to Kon under strict confidentiality, and then Kon had given it to all of Young Justice. Asshole. 

405-555-1998: dropping by in three hours so make sure ur presentable :)

As Tim had just woken up, most of his brain was occupied by a single whuh? 

Just as his mind swirled in sleepy confusion, his phone buzzed again.

405-555-1998: B1706XQE45

The code checked out. It was an ally, not an unknown or an enemy. 

Tim groaned, covering his eyes with an elbow. He needed coffee.

****

The coffee was a new thing - rather, it was something he had drunk plenty of growing up, because there had been nobody around to inform him that coffee was bad for developing brains. Growing up completely unsupervised was probably why Tim was a drug addict now. He could totally blame this on his parents never loving him. 

Not a drug addict, Tim thought to himself anxiously as the coffee sputtered into the extra large gallon pot. Just someone who...uses drugs...in an unhealthy way. Substance abu - substance user, who just used it maybe as a bad coping mechanism. Not that Tim had good coping mechanisms, but it was better than sawing off heads or becoming a drug lord. When you thought about it, it was either being a serial killer or doing drugs, so logically it means that he should do more drugs to decrease the amount of fun little murders he does -

Tim made toast.

The coffee was a new thing, because he was trying to use it to replace the drugs. He had cut back. The stupid little sorority that called themselves the Birds of Prey had been talking to him about it. He had agreed to try. It was best to set expectations low, so he couldn’t disappoint. Actually, Tim loved disappointing, maybe he should set them higher. Maybe he could make inspirational speeches about how he was a good guy now? Ha ha. 

The three hours had been a deft move. The texter knew noon was his average wake-up time at best, and the three hours gave him enough time to sober up if he had been high or drunk at the time. Tim didn’t like to start popping the minute he woke up, but - well, sometimes he did. Or sometimes he was awake at noon because he had been on an all-nighter drug binge. They hadn’t given their name, either, which meant that it was somebody who he wouldn’t want to see. 

He could bounce, escape to some corner of Gotham until they gave up. Except he had the sense that whoever had gone through the effort to get his number wasn’t the type to give up. Almost nobody Tim knew was the type to give up. His ‘friends’ and his ‘family’ never gave up. On anybody but him. 

A voice in his head, not quite yet suffocated, sounding altogether too much like the Replacement, echoed in endless attempts to get him to come back. Oh, whatever. Kid was a try-hard. He needed better taste in made up families. 

Over the next three hours, he debated his tactics. If he wasn’t escaping and the texter was playing the buddy card, then the situation probably wasn’t dangerous. He strapped in his armor under the baggy pyjamas that he never took off anyway, and spitefully made no effort to control his hair. He did put on make-up, an old hand from keeping CPS off Bruce’s trail - man, he should have pretended Bruce was molesting him, that would have been funny as fuck - to hide the bags under his eyes. No use looking pathetic. 

He hid a few more weapons around his apartment. He anxiously checked his phone, staring not at the new texts but at Harley’s offer sent a week ago. He still hadn’t replied. He didn’t know what to do with it. 

As if he could ever feel safe sleeping under the same roof as her?

As if he ever felt safe anywhere?

Maybe he had nothing to lose. That was the greatest part about this, the most wonderful aspect of what he had done to everybody in his life. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. That’s freedom, or so Janis had always told him. She knew what she was about. Overdosing on heroin at 27 - that was understanding what it meant, to have nothing. To be free.  He was almost jealous. 

At two on the dot, a polite knock echoed through the apartment. Tim looked up from where he was relaxing on the couch, with all of the possible entry points in his line of sight. That wasn’t a knock he had memorized, and he had memorized everyone’s knocks. 

Nothing for it. He’d have to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Maybe he can pull the insane sociopath schtick again; that had always been effective in ditching his parents. Tim sighed, walked over to the door, swiped his thumb against the keypad, undid the three deadbolts, and opened door only to see - 

Stephanie Brown, hands propped on her hips and smiling widely. Cassandra Wayne, standing right behind her, serene as ever. 

Tim closed the door - or he tried. Steph had expected the move, and the minute he had opened the door her foot had jutted out and blocked him from closing the door. Effortlessly, she wrenched it back open and stepped into his apartment, forcing him to press against the wall and scowl as insane women infiltrated his space. 

“Wow,” Steph said loudly, “this place looks like a wreck!”

Tim groaned. 

***

The thing with Steph and Cass was this:

How to describe it?

The sister he had never expected, the best friend he had never thought he would have. Cass was his twin, Robin’s shadow, the other side of his mountain. Bruce had adopted Cass barely five months after he became Robin, and Tim had unabashedly resented her for stealing Bruce’s attention so quickly. He had always liked her more, but Bruce had liked everyone more than Tim, so maybe it was no surprise. She was sweet, kind, gentle, and no trouble. Tim wasn’t any trouble either, but he couldn’t be the rest of it if it bit him in his ass. 

Robin was the brain. Cass was the muscle. They were a team so closely linked, conjoined at the hip, that Tim couldn’t remember a patrol ever done without her. Bruce had let them start patrolling alone at fourteen (“You didn’t let me work alone until I was fifteen, and I was an assassin,” Damian had spat), and they had been an unbeatable team. Robin’s hand-to-hand was weak, but nobody ever got through Batgirl. Batgirl struggled with technical knowledge, reading and writing and investigating and chasing down leads, the only area where Tim had ever excelled. Together, they had almost been as good as Batman. Sometimes, Tim had let himself think that they might be better.

They had been so similar. Everyone had always said so. They’re both so quiet, the Justice League had said. Emotionless little freaks, the Rogues had said. Neither of them blink, their schoolmates had said. But there had been nothing to say, not between them: they could have a conversation without words, without even Sign. Cass had known every twitch of Tim’s body, had understood him down to his core. Nobody else ever had. Everybody had always called Tim inscrutable and impossible to understand - but to Cass, Tim had been an open book. She knew every inch of him. And she had loved him anyway. 

And Steph! When Steph had found them when they were fourteen veering on fifteen, and from then on it was as if she had always been there. She was so big, so smiling, so much, and she had never apologized for any of it. Nothing scared her. To Tim, that was the perfect vigilante - somebody who was scared of nothing, who never hesitated, who was good. 

Not even Bruce could intimidate her. When Tim was fourteen, he had thought that was the most amazing thing in the world. Bruce intimidated everyone, but Steph had just stuck out her tongue and kept badly backflipping off roofs anyway. Through twin convincing, Tim and Cass had convinced Bruce to give her a chance, and Spoiler had slot into their dynamic perfectly. She was their best friend, always. 

She wasn’t good at hand-to-hand at first, but Tim had improved by then, and they could cover her. She improved faster than he had, and judging from the reconnaissance footage Tim had frantically consumed after he came back to life, she was amazing now. She was wickedly smart, practical and down to Earth. If Tim was better at hacking into a computer, Steph was the one who found the post-it note with the password stuck under the desk. 

But more than any of that, she had brought the social skills. She had brought the calming presence, the sweet hand to victims and civilians, and her good humor was infectious. Steph was good with people. She was a born leader. Resilient. Brave. Everybody liked her. Everybody loved her. Tim had. She had loved him too. She could have done so much better than Tim and Cass, weird little societal rejects, but she had chosen them as her family. 

It had been the three of them. For as long as Tim’s life had meaning, for as long as he had been loved, they had loved him. Tim had grown up alone, in a world of one, and they had infiltrated it. They had expanded it, and they dragged his life into more than just Tim. Into Tim-and-Cass-and-Steph. Into Robin-Batgirl-Spoiler. Into meaning, and love. 

Tim hated them. And he wanted them to suffer. 

“That’s the Stephanie Brown I remember,” Tim sneered, closing the door behind him. Steph had quickly thrown herself onto Tim’s couch, clearly somewhat surprised at how comfortable it was, and Cass had  perched daintily on the arm. Cass had always refused to sit like a normal person - she would rather sit on the backs of sofas, or on the arm, or perched on chairs like a bird - “If I had known you were coming I would have jumped cities.”

“We would have chased you down and you know that,” Steph said cheerfully, like she said fucking everything. “Besides, if you had known we were coming you would have gone into witness protection. You’ve been avoiding the fuck outta us.”

“Wonder why,” Tim said, injecting as much mean-spirited sarcasm into his voice as possible. “I need more coffee, don’t go through my shit.”

The apartment was small, and the kitchen had a cut-away wall where he could see through into the living room. Stephanie hated nothing more than being ignored or looked down upon, and if he dismissed her and didn’t react then she’d grow infuriated with him and leave. He couldn’t fight with her, because if it came down to a battle of rhetoric or emotions she’d win single-handedly. She was so good with words. Cass...had no weaknesses. 

Which was inconvenient, because it was Cass he absolutely had to get rid of as soon as possible. She was very emotional, and more than a little sensitive. Especially to rejection. If he was cruel enough to her, she’d start crying and leave. There was only one problem with that. 

As he jammed more grounds into the machine he watched the girls out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t talking or whispering to each other, both fully aware of how well Tim could read lips. They weren’t even having one of those body language conversations they could only have with each other, aware that Tim could crack that too. Instead Stephanie was casually sprawled on his couch, looking for all the world like a middle aged dad watching the football game, looking around the room. Cass, as usual, was zoning out. Or, of course, looked like she was zoning out - Tim could tell that she was waiting for something to happen, and was preparing herself for it. 

Shit. Tim fought the urge to gnaw on his fingernail. Cass was going to be a problem. 

He risked another glance backwards. She could see him, so she knew. Fuck. He had never been on the other side of her mind reading. It was fucking inconvenient. Psychics should be shot on sight. 

The coffee sloshed into the biggest cup he could find in his kitchen, and Tim began draining it immediately as he leaned over the cutaway. He kept the cup held up to his face, obscuring it. Face covered, everything under the elbows covered - best he could do without preparation. 

“This little field trip sanctified by Sgt. Brother?” Tim asked, sipping the scalding hot coffee. Not hot enough. He needed - he needed - they’d see -

“We’re nineteen, we don’t need his permission for everything we do,” Steph said, amused. So she was going to speak for Cass - hardly unusual, as whenever they were all together Steph tended to be the only one who spoke - but seeing as Tim was Tim then it was definitely a strategy. 

“He lets his precious baby sisters knock on the door of drug lords for fun?” Tim sneered. 

“If they’re incompetent and retired, sure!”

Tim gritted his teeth. Don’t rise to her bait. Don’t. She was the best person in the family at getting a rise out of their enemies. He didn’t stand a chance. 

“What do you want?”

“We thought we’d take you roller skating at the rink,” Steph chirped. 

Tim stared at her. 

“Or the pool,” Steph said, faux-thoughtfully. “Or just the mall?”

Fuck this. Tim headed for the door, ready to walk out of the building barefoot in his pyjamas. He tugged at the doorknob, only to find that it wouldn’t open. 

Tim breathed in through his nose, then out through his mouth. There were other exits. He was not trapped. Had his apartment always been so small? He could have sworn that it was bigger. 

He turned around slowly. Stephanie was grinning at him, twirling what looked like a small plastic cylinder. Tim recognized it instantly - fancy League tech. Overrides all electronic locks and controls them. They all used it to trap perps and heighten their fear tactics. Tim jammed his thumb on the keypad. Nothing happened. 

Cass glanced at Steph, and made a small motion. Tim couldn’t interpret it. Why couldn’t he interpret it? Did they have a new code? It was Cass. When nobody else had understood her, Tim always had. Now they had their own language, one that Tim couldn’t interpret anymore. Tim was lost in translation, always drifting. 

“We aren’t bringing you in,” Steph said, just as light as ever. No trace of pity or caution or gentleness in her voice: just relentless cheer. “Literally all we want to do is talk. Play a board game, maybe?”

 Tim’s eyes flickered to the hidden panel in the wall next to him where he had stashed a gun and a sword. 

“Bro,” Steph said, “you really don’t want to escalate this.”

“Do you think you can take me?” Tim asked curiously, letting his hand drift to his arm. He shook his long pyjama sleeve down to cover his wrist. “That’s pretty cute. Last time I checked, you’re the shittiest at hand-to-hand in your team.”

But Steph just rolled her eyes. Shit, wasn’t he supposed to be ignoring her? He couldn’t, not so long as she kept pushing and pushing. Not so long as she was in his house. “Leave off. Just because Jay and I are the last people in the fam who weren’t trained in Mystical Ninja Arts doesn’t mean I’m incompetent. Hands in the air, by the way.”

Stephanie was overly sentimental. New tactic. He raised his hands slightly in the air, caught reaching for the weapon hidden in his armor. “Incompetent enough to let me die.”

There. Finally. Thank god, Tim thought he was losing his touch. The muscles clenched in Stephanie’s jaw, and just a twitch of her eye - banishing a bad memory. “Everybody’s been saying you’ve turned rude. I guess you’ve just been avoiding us because you don’t want to hurt our feelings, right?”

“I didn’t remember a lot when I was first resurrected,” Tim said casually, despite the fact that he had never told anybody about the first awful six months. Something about Steph and Cass just pried it out of him, like invasive surgery. Or an autopsy. “I remember everything about those six months, though. Homeless. Practically retarded. Brain damage does that to you, you know. I lived on the streets, did you know that? It was a miracle I lived through it.” He gasped, as if he was remembering something. “I slept on 34th street! You lived near there, didn’t you? Maybe you even walked by me.”

Steph went white. Cass’ expression froze. He was pushing hard, but these two wouldn’t react to anything less. Steph could trade barbs better than he could, even now. 

“It’s a good thing Talia found me,” Tim continued. “She was the only one who cared.”

That did it. Steph tensed, leaning forward, and even Cass stiffened. “Is that what she told you? How can you believe her?”

Tim just shrugged, walking back to the kitchen and hiding his body language again. He took an extra loud slurp of the coffee, just to be annoying. “Talia never lied to me. She said that nobody cared enough to save me. And guess what!”

Steph’s jaw clenched again. She was a hot head. A fierce temper, an impulsive girl who jumped in feet first and sanity second. Woman, now. When had that happened? “Cut that shit out. We all know what you’re doing. You’ve been doing it to everyone. Did you think Connor didn’t warn us?”

Snitch. Tim slurped his coffee again. “Connor’s been telling everyone to give me space.”

“Yeah, everyone but us.” She stood up now, ignoring the flicker of a frown on Cass’ face, and folded her arms. A challenge against the world. Against Tim. It didn’t matter. “You don’t believe half the shit you’re spewing. You’ve never believed your own bullshit, Tim. You’re just saying it to drive everybody away. It’s not going to work on us.”

“Why?” Tim asked innocently. “You’re too thick?”

“Because we love you!” Steph cried. Tim rolled his eyes. As if he hadn’t heard that one before. “Saving Richie proved it, you aren’t as insane as you keep pretending you are. You know what you’re doing is wrong, you just don’t care.”

“Wow, you caught me.” Tim took another long swig of his coffee. It was making his hands jittery. Good. “Local genius aware of his actions. Call the press. Call Uncle Clark, he needs a scoop.” He arched an eyebrow at Steph. She hated that expression of his - she had always found it so aristocratic and pretentious. Joke’s on her, he was pretentious. “Do you mind if I go do a line? I’m not high enough for this conversation.”

If she had told him who she was, he would have done a line anyway just to spite her, and she knew it. “You don’t want to try,” Steph said stubbornly, “but you’re trying. You don’t want to care, but you care. You don’t want to feel it, but it hurts so much you can’t bear it. You can’t get anything past us, Tim. It’s always just been us. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Doesn’t that mean -

“What that means,” Tim said, and he found the words scraping his throat. He found himself talking a little louder than he meant to. The coffee, you know. Made you jittery. “is that you should have saved me. If you loved me so fucking much, you would have been anything other than useless. You’ve always been the most useless girl in the world, Steph. You couldn’t save your crook of a dad or your junkie of a mom. You couldn’t save your baby and you couldn’t save me. You’re ghetto trash putting on airs, and everyone can smell it on you.”

As soon as he said it, he tensed. He shifted his stance, ready to throw the coffee and spill the scalding liquid on her. Obscure her vision. It would take a second for her to vault the cover, so he could duck down. From there he could get the gun, shoot the window, jump out the window. She couldn’t win. Tim had the most powerful weapon in the world in his disposal and that was his infinite, burning hate. His hate for Steph and Cass burned him to the ground, and his world with it, and he was going to burn them to cinders because he couldn’t do anything else. 

But Steph didn’t move. Cass got off the sofa. She walked up to Steph, and gently pressed a hand on her shoulder. She squeezed. Steph exhaled, long and shaking, and nodded at Cass. She walked into Tim’s bedroom - hey! - and shut the door. 

Then Cass stared at Tim, and there was no more need for words. Not between them. 

Tim vaulted the cut away wall, aiming for her feet first. Cass didn’t dodge - that would imply that she moved like an object moved. She moved like water moved - swift and supple, with such infinite grace and precision that it was like she wasn’t human at all. 

But he had gotten better. He didn’t spend two and half years trained by the League of Assassins in crochet. Tim lashed out with a foot, she dodged again. He threw a punch, she moved. He feinted, clearly leaving her an opening, and she didn’t take it. 

Bitch. 

Cass shoved away his coffee table, sending it skidding across the floor and opening the floor space. The rug became their arena, tight and intimate, no room for maneuverability. Tim acted and she reacted, Tim lashed out a sweep kick and she jumped over it, Tim tried to grapple and she broke his hold. She never threw him to the ground, never pinned him. She just moved. 

She was good, but not good enough to toy with him and win completely. The way to win against Cass was to leverage your height - Tim was taller than he once was, although that wasn’t saying much - weight, and strength against her. A couple good hits and she was down. 

The issue, of course, was hitting her. 

He got a hit in. It was much easier when she wasn’t even fighting back. She rolled with it effortlessly, taking the impact to gain a little space between them. She breathed deeply, sweat rolling down her neck. Tim used to take a cold compress and press it to that neck. She used to smile at him. Thank you. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass said. 

“Too bad,” Tim said. 

Fights weren’t like in television, long and choreographed extended scenes to entertain and thrill. When Ro - Tim was in a fight, a real fight, it was typically finished in less than a minute. The only way that a match can get long is if the other person was deliberately tiring you out - a risky strategy - or if you were of completely equal strengths with similar fighting styles. Or if it was a spar. 

As Tim tried to hit her again and again, he realized that it was a spar. 

No, not even that. It was a conversation. 

Tim grabbed her wrist, and said: I want you to hurt. Cass broke the hold, telling him that he can’t. Tim leveraged the motion and kneed her in the back, telling her that the only goal of this fight was pain. Cass let the impact take her down to the mat, an incredibly disadvantageous position, but rolled out of the way just as Tim tried to exploit the opportunity. I’m not scared of you. Tim hit again, and again, and again, failing every time. I want you gone, Tim said, and this is the only way I know how to do it. 

This is what Tim said: as much as I once loved you, I now hate you. The infinite depths of my love, my twin sister, how we moved in perfect sync. I hate it all. As much as I cared, I now hate. Feel this hate. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass said. 

They moved in perfect sync, even now. Cass couldn’t predict his movements before he made them, like she used to - his training was different now, developed and refined. But Cass knew the League of Assassins too, had been trained by them just as he had, and they were written into her bones when they were only carved into Tim’s. After his third patented Talia move, she adjusted to fit his style, and their fight metamorphosed into more of a dance. Like they used to. 

“Why not!” Tim screamed, the stupidest possible thing to do in a fight, but Cass didn’t take advantage of his exhale. He lashed out a fist to cover the opening, but it was lazy and over-extended, and she dodged easily. “I’m going to kill you!”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Tim desperately tried to call the green to his vision. It was so easy. All he had to do was tap into that rage. Talia had called it blood lust. Said it was normal, even good. But it wouldn’t come. Where was it? It was his only friend. 

Desperately, Tim went in for another punch to the face - Cass’ jaw was the weakest part of her body, an old injury - but he over-extended again, and this time Cass took the opportunity. She grabbed his arm and pulled him forward, dropping him to the mat. She didn’t try to twist him around, instead landing him on his back. Bad move for her. 

She kneed him in the chest, putting her full hundred and thirty pounds on him. She twisted his hands behind his back, pinning him, and Tim could do barely more than wheeze. 

He looked at her in the eyes for the first time. They were infuriatingly calm. Her hair was tangled and clumped with sweat, but she wasn’t breathing hard. Her expression was placid and serene, as if she was watching one of her stupid fucking nature documentaries instead of pinning her brother to a hard and scratchy rug in a shithole apartment, three years after he was tortured to insanity and shot himself in the head. 

So much time had passed. So much had happened, nasty and festering and putrid, and Tim had let it happen. He had made it happen. There was a rot in Tim, and it had eaten him up until there was nothing inside. If you cut him open, would it spill out? Would it infect her, infect Steph? Could he make them suffer?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cass repeated. “So don’t be scared.”

“Scared?! I’m not fucking -” Tim wheezed, cut off by the lack of air as Cass pressed down. 

“I’m sorry you’re scared. I didn’t mean to leave you alone. But I did. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to kill -”

Cass pressed down on his chest again, cutting him off. She had finally done the one thing nobody in Tim’s life had ever figured out: how to make him shut up. “You can be as mean to me as you want. It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll stay.”

Tim wheezed. In that, maybe, Cass heard something, because she continued as if he had spoken. Or maybe she just wanted the chance to talk. It had been stolen from her for thirteen years, and it was valuable to her. 

“You do not have to be kind. You do not have to hug me, even if I want you to. You do not have to be my brother. I know it hurts too much. But you are me. I am you. You do not even have to try for that. I do not have to give it to you. You have it.”

Tim couldn’t help it. He cried a little, and then he couldn’t stop. 

Cass got off him, but she kept her promise. She didn’t hug him. She just propped him up against the sofa, holding his hand, and didn’t speak. At some point the door creaked, and he felt Stephanie next to him. 

This is why, Tim thought hysterically, he had been avoiding them.

He knew this would happen. There was no hiding from Cass. There was no posturing, no pretending. She didn’t want anything from him. She never had. There was nothing he could say that would drive her away, because Cass did not listen to the words people spoke. She spoke only for clarity, when she could not afford for her words to be misconstrued, and for the comfort of others. 

Cass knew that he had been lying out of his ass. Cass knew that he wasn’t as insane as he pretended, as cruel as he wanted to be. 

He couldn’t make Cass hate him. Shit. 

None of them said anything. Nothing needed to be said, not between the three of them. Cass might be having a silent conversation in Sign with Steph, but he didn’t care enough to open his eyes and look. When they had first met, it used to make Steph so mad that Tim and Cass were having ‘secret conversations’. She had poured over her dictionaries, learning as quickly as physically possible so she could keep up. Everything Steph had, she had worked hard for. 

Steph was in college now. Premed. She wanted to be an ER doctor. Steph wasn’t a genius, she had to study hard. She wouldn’t be able to superhero in med school, so she was ready to hang up her cape for a few years until she achieved her dream. Steph said that she could do just as much good as a doctor as a superhero. She hadn’t always wanted it. When they were kids and Bruce used to ask her what she wanted to do when she grew up, in his awkward faux-dad way, she had always shrugged and said that she might be a nurse. 

“Why not med school?” Bruce had suggested, between sleepy spoonfuls of oatmeal. She used to spend more nights at their place than at her own. Her mom hadn’t noticed. 

Steph had just shrugged awkwardly, nibbling her whole-wheat organic toast that she would stare at suspiciously. Rich people, she would say, sighing. “I would never be able to afford it. And no way I’m smart enough.”

“You’re good enough,” Bruce said, which was the closest he ever came to praising somebody. “I’ll pay for it.”

Steph had gaped. Cass had eaten her Lucky Charms smugly. Tim had rolled his eyes. “An in-the-know doctor for the vigilante community would be invaluable,” he had informed her, pretentious and callous. “We could use you.”

“You deserve it,” Cass had signed. 

“You have a bright future, Stephanie,” Bruce said, buckling under the panic of being a responsible adult. “I would hate to see you waste it.”

He would hate to see any of them waste their future. He had hated to see what Tim had become. He knew that. The last time he had ever seen Bruce, it was just to disappoint him. Bruce was the only parent he had ever had, and his standards were so sky high it was impossible to do anything other than disappoint. 

The fact of the matter was this: he loved Cass and Steph more than he loved Bruce. He could hate Bruce. He could hate himself. But Cass and Steph…

Bruce had ear-marked a lot of money for Steph, both for whatever continuing education she chose and for her future. It had raised a lot of questions among the lawyer team, but ultimately she had been written off as another of his strays. Tim had left her a lot of money too. There probably wasn’t any point: when she married Cass she’d have equal access to the fortune. Rich people, Stephanie used to whisper in awe, looking at organic toast. 

Cass was majoring in dance. She wanted to be a ballerina. 

Tim’s future...Tim’s future…

“Or we can watch a nature documentary,” Steph said out loud. “If we all promise not to say a fucking word.”

Incredibly, unmistakably, irrevocably, Tim groaned. “Not the fucking bee one again.”

“I like the bees,” Cass said serenely. 

“If you aren’t going to get out of my house can I at least smoke up?” Tim asked miserably. 

“I brought gummy bears,” Steph said, chipper as ever, “which are way better.”

“I’m going to the fucking bathroom,” Tim grumbled, which everybody knew was as good as a yes. 

“If you take anything I’ll know,” Cass said serenely, and also threatened. 

“Fuck you, bitch.”

Steph and Cass high-fived, and Tim sulked angrily to the bathroom. He took a second to look at himself in the mirror - looking for Tim Drake, failing, as always - before opening it and grabbing his baggie of pills. 

He looked at it. He looked at the toilet. He looked at the baggie. 

He didn’t flush them. He put them back in the medicine cabinet. Tomorrow. He’ll do them tomorrow. Not today. He can hold out for 24 hours. It’ll be fine. 

For a wild, stupid, insane second, Tim wondered if he could say that tomorrow too. If tomorrow he would look at them and say: maybe tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that…

If there was a future, for a fuck-up like him. 

The faint strains of Cass’ stupid fucking bee documentary began playing through the thin walls of his shitty little apartment, and Tim turned out the lights of his bathroom and closed the door, locking it securely behind him. 

[fkingsteverogers]

Tell Me We’ll Be Just Fine

A/N: A couple points: 1) I made a new blog for these writings to make them easier to find 2) I have a tag list! lmk if you want to be added to it 3) For my non US babes and others, your third amendment rights say you can’t be forced to house soldiers. Long Story Short 

Contains TFATWS Episode 5 spoilers

                                                        ****

With John Walker being Honorably Discharged after an International Incident, you’re stuck under house arrest.  (The United States Government would tell you house arrest is too strong of a word, it’s simply Strongly Advised you stay in your apartment.) You want to scream from the rooftops that you had nothing to do with him, that it was all an act, but you’re being Strongly Advised, so that’s not an option. You hope, wherever he is, Bucky is having a better time than you are. 

Five Days; Eastern Europe:

Bucky is not having a good time. They’re in a country where everyone wants them dead, holed up in a shitty motel and all he can think of is the absolutely devastated look on your face when he walked out the door. It makes him brood. 

“You have to talk about her sometime.” 

“Who?” 

“Whoever makes you frown like that.” 

“‘M not frowning. What do you know about it anyway? You’re single.” So maybe he was being an ass about it. You were so far away, probably cuddled up with John or Steve, and he was here, sitting in a motel room with Sam. John Walker was probably feeling you up right now, running his hand over those beautiful thighs of yours as you kissed him, making soft little noises--he clenches his fist so hard he breaks the bowl he’d been holding, splattering rice and beans all over the floor cracked tile floor. 

“Yo, man, what the fuck?!” 

Day One; New York City: 

Steve’s allowed to visit, because of course he is. He flashes some badge and the guards (who are Strongly Advising you), stand down. “Why are you here, Stevie?” And you hate that you still call him Stevie. Stevie is what you called him on the quiet nights when you two were alone and he was still yours. Steve gives you his sad smile and you want to fall into his arms, to sob into his chest and tell him how you fucked it all up. You don’t. 

“Just go, Stevie.” 

Four Days; Eastern Europe: 

Sam goes to do some surveillance, announcing that he “couldn’t deal with this shit,” leaving Bucky alone in the shitty room they were sharing. Before he’d been deployed, he would’ve spent an afternoon alone in a hotel curled up with a pretty girl or a handsome boy. During the war, he’d spend a quiet day catching up on some sleep or rereading a well loved copy of The Hobbit. During his Hydra days (which he hated thinking about but also couldn’t stop thinking about), there really weren’t days off. There were days where he killed and days where he didn’t. Since then, he’d spent most of his days off trying to remember how to be a human. 

You had made those days feel like living again. And now you were John’s girl, dressed all pretty up for him and everything. Bucky’d been fucking stupid to think you’d want someone like him, someone damaged, someone with blood on his hands. You were good and soft and pretty. You spoke four languages and had probably read every book ever written. 

You’d been good enough for Steve. 

He breaks another bowl and has to lay down after.

Day Three; New York City: 

You glare down the solider that’s sitting in your kitchen, eating a sandwich. “This is violating my Third Amendment Rights, you know.” 

The smug bastard grins and keeps eating his sandwich. 

Two Days; Louisiana: 

“That shield’s the closest thing I’ve got left to a family, so when you retired it, I felt like I had nothing left.” 

The mission had gone down as well as any of their missions go, they’d been shot at, gotten out by the skin of their teeth. Sam left to go back home as soon as he could, Bucky followed. Where else did he have to go?

“You have her.” 

He didn’t, not really. 

“I don’t want to talk about her, Sam.” Bucky tosses the shield, scowling deeply. 

Sam sighs, catching the shield. He turned to face his friend, were they friends?, and looked him up and down. “Yeah, you do.” So maybe Bucky does want to talk about you, about how betrayed he feels by you choosing Walker over him. The government hadn’t been powerful enough to stop some gossip magazine from publishing a spread of you and Walker, you in a little red sundress that makes you look incredible and his hand on your thigh. There’s some bullshit story about how you met and had been so enamored with him you’d asked him for coffee on the spot.

 It makes Bucky physically sick with rage. 

Day Four; New York City: 

After four days of being Strongly Advised, you’re ready to start pulling out your hair. The news is nonstop coverage of what happened to John Walker, the green beret who had gone crazy and killed a man in a moment of grief induced rage. And to top it all off, People released a spread that makes you want to scream. The whole shoot hadn’t been your idea, some government publicist had insisted it was necessary to sell the story. In reality, it’d been five hours with John’s hands all over you, grinning like the cat that got the cream. During a break, he’d asked you about Steve, his tone suggesting something that was none of his business. 

“You don’t get to talk about Steve.” John had smirked at you, running his tongue over his teeth. It clearly annoyed him, someone thinking he wasn’t good enough for something. “What about your wife, John?” A look of surprise crosses his face but it’s gone in a moment, the mask he wears to keep people out back in place. 

“Olivia isn’t part of the deal. I thought we could be friends,” he spits the word out like it’s dirty, “but clearly you’re not interested in that, clearly you’re interested in--” 

“Be careful how you finish that sentence, John.” Your voice is low, betraying the landmine he’s almost stepped on. Given the chance, you’d stab John Walker in his pretty face. Decades in prison means nothing when the love of your life abandoned you and the man you thought you could count on ran out. (So maybe you were thinking about Bucky, it doesn’t actually matter.)

Bucky had been a solid presence in a sea of uncertainty. He’d made you feel safe and okay. After Steve’s departure and the death of Tony, the only member of your family left, solid and safety had been in short supply. He’d showed up, ate his cold beans in silence in the kitchen, and hadn’t left. He’d made you laugh in a way you hadn’t in months. You’d developed a routine, Bucky would wake up before you and boil water for tea, you’d stumble out and cook something to serve as breakfast, and you’d both go about your days. In the evenings, you’d come together, talk about the stupid shit that had happened during the day, watch a movie on Friday nights, and go to bed. It was nice to have a routine, something and someone you could depend on. 

The nights had been quiet since he left. 

Twelve Hours; New York City: 

Bucky’s plane lands and he breathes a sigh of relief. 

It’s raining when he steps out of the airport, a down pour by anyone’s standards. Fine by him, less people to avoid. He manages to make it to the little coffee shop outside your apartment without getting too soaked. Going up there wasn’t an option, not when you were probably angry with him for running out. So he sits, drinks endless cups of coffee and watches. 

“She takes it two creams, no sugar, if you want to bring it up to her.” Bucky turns and finds himself face to face with Steve. His friend looks old, but happy, at peace even. There’s so much he wants to say, he wants to ask Steve why he left, what he thought about Walker. He wants to punch him or throttle him or hug him. Bucky wants a long fucking hug. 

“I don’t think she wants to see me, punk.” Steve sits, shaking his head. 

“I didn’t think she wanted to see me, either. Sometimes she doesn’t know what’s good for her..” 

Before Bucky can reply, before he can really process what Steve is saying, he gets a text from Sam and he’s off to save the world again.

Day Five; New York City: 

Because the universe hates you, you can’t even use your phone to entertain yourself. Someone leaked your personal number and it hadn’t stopped ringing since. And, since the internet has no nuance, they’re mostly death threats. You’re reading a book when the guards who are Strongly Advising you abandon their posts. There’s something going on, something that no one bothers to inform you about. 

You go back to reading your book. Hopefully Bucky’s not being thrown through a wall. 

Thirty Minutes; New York City: 

Bucky gets thrown through a wall. 

It fucking hurts and he’s dizzy after. Like can’t-walk-straight-am-I-actually-drunk-dizzy. Sam, the useless bastard, loads him into a taxi, tells him he’ll be fine, and gives the driver your address. Bucky’s dimly aware of this fact, aware of the fact that this poor man is driving him, a bleeding super solider, to the one place he wanted to be but wasn’t welcome. 

Two Minutes; New York City: 

The guards aren’t back by the time the downstairs buzzer starts ringing incessantly. You’re in the middle of your book, right at the moment where the head-strong damsel and the Lord she hated are about to kiss. You try to ignore it, With a groan, you stomp down to the doors. 

Standing there, half supported by Vasily, the Russian cabbie (who is definitely into some shady business), is Bucky. 

Now; New York City: 

You thank Vasily, telling him you’ll pay for the cab when you see him on Friday for Shabbat, and take the bleeding Bucky into your arms. Bucky mumbles something, clearly speaking Russian but too lowly for you to actually understand. Vasily glares at him, muttering curses as he stalks away. 

Dragging Bucky up to your sixth floor apartment means sharing a run in with Daisy Mae, your elderly neighbor who’s 90% blind and enjoys loitering in the elevator. She seems to take offense to Bucky mumbling Russian children’s songs to himself. 

“Speak English dear, not Communism. We’re in the United States.” 

“Mind the business that pays you, Daisy Mae.”

She hmphs, but doesn’t say anything else. Bucky, for his part, gives a rousing performance of the Russian alphabet. Finally, you get Bucky into your apartment and unceremoniously drop him on your couch. 

It’s not long before he falls asleep, leaving you to stare at him for hours, wondering just what he’s going to say when he wakes up. 

When he does wake up, it’s to the scent of your soap, sweet watermelon that always leaves an aching in the pit of his stomach. Waking up on your couch, smelling your soap, and listening to you cook feels like a dream. How many times had he thought about this exact moment while he was with Sam? Soon enough you’d turn the corner from the kitchenette and smile at him, that beautiful smile that never failed to make him feel a little dizzy. 

And then he’d wake up in a shitty hotel room, listening to Sam take a shit through the paper thin walls. 

He waits, but when you appear, you’re frowning anxiously. And God, you’re so fucking beautiful. You’re wearing a pair of tiny sleep shorts that expose your long legs to his greedy eyes. Your hair is pushed back off your face, exposing the most beautiful eyes he’s ever seen. 

Steve was a lucky man, to be able to love you.  Maybe one day he’ll find a woman like you to love, if he’s lucky. Has he ever been lucky?

Bucky looks confused when you appear holding tea. “Hi.” He doesn’t say anything back, just frowns back. Your mind races, realizing he probably doesn’t want to see you, that he was dropped off here by some well meaning friend, and he was going to get up and walk out the door again. 

“At least let me clean you up before you go.” Bucky nods wordlessly, looking like he’s still a little stunned. He takes a seat at the kitchen table as you pull down the first aid kit you’d put together when Steve was still here. There’s a cut above his eyebrow that’s still oozing a little blood. It’s in such a place you have to situate yourself between his legs in order to get to it. 

It’s quiet while you work, Bucky’s never been a man of many words and now he’s probably trying to figure out how to tell you you’re never going to see him again. As soon as he’s cleaned up well enough that you’re satisfied he won’t die sitting at your kitchen table, you step away to admire your handy work. Bucky’s left hand, his metal hand, catches your wrist and pulls you back to him. It holds you there while his right hand comes up to cup your face, running a thumb over your cheekbone. 

“You’re so beautiful.” 

He’s not sure what possesses him when he pulls you back into him. All he knows is if he doesn’t get you close, if he doesn’t tell you how fucking beautiful you are, he won’t be able to breathe. You make a little noise of exasperation, your gorgeous lips parting. “I mean it.” “Bucky…” You try to pull away but he holds you there, studying every inch of your face and committing it to memory. There’s an electricity between the two of you, it feels like the air is charged enough to light that stupid snail lamp you’d bought from Arrow or whatever that store you loved was called. “Bucky…” You repeat, your voice softer, in a tone he can’t quite describe

Before either of you can move or say anything else, the door swings open to reveal Sam and Torres, flanked by three soldiers. None of them take notice of what feels like a very compromising position. 

“Oh good, you’re here, Sargent Barnes. You're all being moved to a safe house. Pack enough for an indeterminate amount of time.” 

[criminalminds4days]

Family Matters | Chapter 10: Believer

Hello everyone!

I apologize for my lack of posting. I have barely survived midterms and I have found myself with a writers block once more. I am hopefully going to be able to give myself a little break between the end of the semester and after finals and the beginning of my summer courses. Thankfully I only have 2 summer classes so hopefully that will make it easier to post. 

I have some announcements coming up soon and I will hopefully finish writing the missing chapters for this story and only have to post and edit. So far, I have not been able to edit anymore so I apologize for any grammatical error. 

I really hope you are enjoying reading the story because I had a really great time writing it. Hope you have a great weekend!

I apologize for constant flashbacks but they are important to the plot, I promise!

Warnings: Swearing, sexual references, violence and murder references, public embarrassment, and very bad jokes!

Word Count: 4k

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Tag list: @mcntsee @lets-be-gay-for-the-angel @evelyncade @haylaansmi @paulaern @myfandomlife-blog​

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(This gif is not mine)

Chapter 10: Believer

"Very well, this seems like a good start." She said as she finished reading his confession. She moved towards the camera and turned it off, signaling that she would be taking the paper and would adhere to her part of the deal.

"What is she doing?" Spencer whispered to Emily. "Without a video confession, the written one can be considered coerced. We would be back at square one."

"There is the surveillance camera, genius."

"Of course she has a backup plan." He looked at the black camera, smiling at the knowledge.

"Now tell me, who left you, was it, mom or dad?"

"My dad." She readjusted in her seat. "How many victims did you kill total. We've found five, but it seems to me that is a low number for someone as angry as you."

"Fifteen, some of them are lost in the desert, some are by the arches, they should be found fairly soon." He shrugged and continued to look at her. "Why did he leave?"

"My mother got pregnant when she was young. It was a mistake, they didn't love each other. They married because of me, so it was only a matter of time before they broke, and break they did." She fought the urge to look back, hoping that nobody aside from Hotch would review the security tape. "Did you kill your father?"

"First one. He's in the arches, his favorite place in the world."

"Did your mom not accept his apology?"

"Well, he didn't really apologize until I had a gun to his head, but my mother was always kind, so she forgave him."

"Why did you kill him then?"

"I didn't forgive him." He winked at her. "Did you look for him?"

"I did."

"And?"

"That's your fourth question."

"I don't care, I want to know."

"He is dead. As dead as can be." She said out loud for the first time. "I hired a private investigator and found he crashed his car two years after he left us."

"Karma is a bitch."

"Why keep killing if you got rid of him?"

"For the same reason, you joined the FBI." He smiled at her, "to show my dad that he wasn't gonna dictate my life. That I was not going to let him be my end goal."

"It seems to me he is. You tracked him down, killed him. For some that might be enough. But you never got closure so you decided to pray on people who made mistakes. Where did you find them?"

"I worked at a counselors office."

"Well, that is rather obvious now. Maybe you should have gotten some help yourself." She stood, ready to leave the room, "hope you enjoy prison." She turned to exit the room.

"My final question, if you had found him, what would you have said?"

"I don't know." She responded.

"Bullshit."

"Well, I couldn't  ask him why  he left because I already know that, so I don't really know what I would have said." She turned to him, "what did you tell him?"

"I told him trousers weren't his thing." He stood, the handcuffs falling from his hands as his smile grew wider. "You should really be more careful with what you leave laying here, doctor."She reached for her gun but everything happened so fast she had no time to fire it. He seemed to run into the wall, only this one was not as hard as it seemed and a giant chunk collapsed as he made his way through, and just like that he had exited the station. Prentiss and Reid rushed in and through the now giant hole in the station but the man was nowhere to be found. Lucas Heavensbee had just vanished on her watch.

"Fuck!" She yelled and made her way to the office, the team was now making their way to the interrogation room but stopped in their tracks as they saw her approach. "I need access to the security cameras, now." She moved towards the security office and asked for the feed of the last couple of weeks to be played, there she found there were about three days missing. "He planned this, and someone helped him. He knew exactly what he was doing. That bastard played us!" She rushed out and into an SUV, driving directly to his house that was now under surveillance. She looked around, looking for anything that would indicate he had been there. It was fast to spot it, he had managed to slide through the police cars and left a note for her.

I just wanted to make sure you knew this had nothing to do with you doctor, but I simply can't let my father win. I am sure we will hear from each other, and then we can converse from one orphan to another. Until then.

She was ready to show the note to them, as Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid made their way through the house. The note was still crumpled in her hand, but as the local police entered she decided against it. The two agents were the best people she had ever met, she knew it since the moment she joined the FBI, and she knew they were trying to make her feel better about the whole situation, but there were some things she couldn't get past. This man had killed fifteen people and kidnapped so many more and he had slipped right through her fingers. He had made a fool of her, and she would be damned if she didn't catch him. Telling Emily and Spencer would worry them, and they would be on her case about it becoming an obsession, just like she had done after their first case.

One year ago (I think?)

Her leg bounced as she drove with the social worker and two of her co-workers. This was her first big assignment, and she wasn't sure she would measure up. It was also important to note that while Emily and she tended to get along well, Spencer and she hadn't spoken almost at all since the sweater incident.

"Should I introduce you as FBI agents?"

"No, I think it's best if we come as social workers, there is less hostility." Prentiss' said as she gave both Reid and her their fake badges. She placed her FBI ID inside her bag and took a deep breath, it was a simple mission, they would be in and out.

Never, and I mean never, say something will be easy, as this almost assures you that is not the case. The social worker, whose name was Daisy, had been shot and was now dead. They had become trapped in the middle of a war between the cult leaders and the local police. It's as if the universe wished to remind her just how much bad luck she could have.

She heard them talking to the FBI, and food had been delivered so she assumed they had implanted microphones. Now they had to find a way to communicate with them and let them know what they had concluded.

"Which one of you is it?" The man said as he pointed a gun at them.

"Are we playing tag?" She asked stupidly, earning a glare from her partners.

"Do you think this is a joke? Which one of you is the FBI agent?" She turned to look at the woman and man, trying her hardest not to freak out.

"What are you talking about?" Spencer asked, clearly nervous.

"I will ask you one more time, and if none of you tell me I will not hesitate to shoot all three of you. Which one is the FBI agent?"

She saw Emily stir and knew she had to act fast if she wanted to save her. "I am." She said before either of them could stop her. "I'm the FBI agent. Though I'm fairly new so I don't really have that many secrets to tell. I was barely cleared to be on the field. If you really think about it, I'm not very helpful, so I think maybe if you let it slide I could-" she felt a fist connect with her right cheekbone, silencing her.

"Take her to the back." He instructed one of the men. She gave one last reassuring glance to her teammates, hoping this wouldn't be the last time she saw them.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, the door to the room she was in opened and Ben came in. You would think that having a name like Benjamin wouldn't exactly command respect, but she wasn't one to judge cults.

"Why are you here?"

"Because you told your men to lock me here." He slapped her across the face.

"Who sent you?"

"My boss?" Her response was received with another slap.

"Do you think this is a joke?"

"I think that you need to feel powerful because a part of you knows you're not enough." She spoke hoping her team could hear part of their discovery, even if she was receiving punches from the man as she continued. "You think you can get away with stuff because you prayed on the week, but deep down you know that there are people here who could stand up to you, and if they did you would be done for." She felt a warm liquid fall from her lips as he continued to beat her. "I know you pray on young girls. You're nothing more than a pedophile that uses the bible as a way to manipulate women to give their children to you." As she fell he started kicking her and she tried to avoid making noise, but the pain was too much. "This is nothing, I've dealt with worse." She spoke, hoping they would understand. "I've dealt with much worse, this is nothing."

"Who do you think you are?!" The man said, enraged at her defiance.

"Nobody, just the one person that knows you better than you know yourself." That earned her the hardest hit, and she knew she wouldn't be conscious for much longer, she had to let them know. "Your suicide won't work, there are people that are skeptical and you know it. This isn't about God, or even your preferences, this is about you Ben, and how you are so terrified to go back to prison you are willing to kill your followers to avoid it, because you know they would see right through your act, you are nothing but a coward." The last kick took place and the man left the room. "Don't change the plan, I'm okay." She whispered, hoping they could hear her, wishing that even if she died right then and there, they could save the people trapped in this church.

When she woke, a woman was there tending her wounds. "Be careful, I think you might have some broken ribs."

"Don't tell Ben, he might come and finish me off" she joked, but the woman gave her a pointed look as if letting her know that was a possibility. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"I don't know, maybe a couple of hours. They will come and get you for the ceremony, use you as an example."

"That's okay, I've always wanted to be one of those."

"This is not a joke girl, he's dangerous."

"I know. The trick is to have nothing to lose."

"Well, I have a daughter."

"Ben's wife, right?" The woman flinched at the mention. "You're not okay with that, are you?" And then, the pieces of the puzzle fit together. "You made the call, didn't you?" Before the woman could confirm her suspicion, a man entered and pulled her up, not worrying if her body ached, and took her to the church. She used the door frame to help her stabilize herself and took in the sight before her. It was still light, but with the time she lost she couldn't be sure how much time they actually had left. Emily and her locked eyes and she approached, her eyes full of worry, but her facial expression was one of pure anger and hatred. "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you hate me?"

"How could you lie to us?" She asked, and as the men made their way to the front, her tone didn't change, but her questions did. "Are you crazy? Why would you do such a stupid thing? They could have killed you."

"I know, but it was either me or all three of us. Besides, I'm fine. We need you and Reid on the inside."

"This is reckless behavior."

"I know, but you were about to do the same."

"I have experience."

"Exactly, I can be a scapegoat."

"You are the most stubborn person I have ever met."

"I know, it's a gift. Now listen, I think there are mics, in the food, and if I'm right, I think I have been able to feed some information to the team, but we need to figure out when this massive suicide will take place."

Emily nodded and gave her an apologetic look before shoving her harshly. She fought the urge not to wince but it was almost impossible with her broken ribs. "You are a disgrace to this country, and I hope whoever you work for knows that they will not get away with it."

Ben looked over and stared at her, and despite her pain and the fear of another beating, she stared him down, letting him know that he would not get the best of her. She was gonna save as many people as possible and he could suck it. He was just another man who thought they were invisible because they weren't afraid to beat you up.

Spencer observed the interaction and the defiance she had amazed him. Despite the bruises and the swelling of her eye, not once did she lower her gaze or show any sign of weakness. Never in his life had he felt so attracted to someone as he did right then and there, but now was not the time to daydream of your coworkers, especially when they could be on the verge of dying.

As the day progressed, she continued to look for ways to tell the team, finally resorting to using the window to write a message. When she was younger she used to huff into a window to create fog and used it to write, so she did the same, letting the team know she could possibly convince some people to exit and they could come in after.

"What are you doing?" The woman from earlier spoke as she entered the room.

"If I'm gonna die, I might as well go doing something I like. Fog drawings." She said and covered her work. "Listen, don't ask me how I know this, but the FBI might strike tonight and if they do, he's not gonna cooperate, we need to get as many people as possible out."

"No, I can't do that."

"Please, I know you're scared, I'm terrified right now. I might have peed my pants earlier today, but that's not the point. The point is we need to save as many people as possible. Please help me get them out." Through the window she saw a figure, holding three fingers up. She nodded and turned back to the woman.

"Three a.m.?"

"You saw him too?"

"Yeah, one would think the FBI would be a little more discrete."

"We have our moments. Now please, make sure to get everyone out before then." The woman sighed and nodded, agreeing to the plan. "And one more thing, the people I came with, how are they?"

"Are they also agents?"

"No, of course not. I just dragged them into this and feel responsible for them. They are good people."

"The man seems to be fascinated by Ben, and vice versa. The woman keeps pacing around as if hoping for enlightenment. She has talked to some people though."

"Okay good. Please make sure to get them out too." After she left and closed the door, the woman sat down, her injuries making it hard to breathe. "I don't know where I am, or how to get out, but that will not change the plans okay? I need to make sure all these people are safe."

She wished she could hear someone ensuring her that would be the case, but there was no answer. She felt herself get dizzy and knew there was definitely internal damage that would take time to heal. Turns out her mother was wrong, money couldn't get you out of everything. It felt like an eternity, but she knew the time was approaching. She saw and more and more dark figures gathered around the church. She even caught a glimpse of Derek, who seemed to be looking around, as if hoping he could find her. She huffed one last time and wrote a message to him.

The door opened and nobody came in. She knew what it meant, so she gathered her remaining strength and walked out. Everything was dark and she could hear Spencer's voice coming from the main room. She followed it and stopped as she noticed him trying to talk a man down from placing explosives. She cursed under her breath. She stepped forward only to be pulled back by someone.

"Don't even think about it." The man said.

"Derek, we need to help him."

"I know, I'll go, join the rest. Everyone is already out."

"But-"

"Go!" She began walking out before it all happened. Reid ran towards them and Derek pulled the both of them to the nearest and hopefully safest area before a sharp pain on her head made her vision blurry and soon after she lost consciousness.

"I think she will appreciate it if you showered." She heard someone say, once she finally regained consciousness.

"Well, then she can tell me that herself." Another voice responded.

"Emily, you and Spencer have been here for a week. You need to go to the hotel and rest. At least the kid has been using the shower."

"I am not leaving until she wakes up. That includes leaving to bathe."

"Neither am I." A third voice added to the mix. "Though I can't say the same thing about avoiding water."

"How am I supposed to leave if I can't trust the two of you to take care of yourselves?"

"Easy, your flight leaves in less than an hour and you are still here. Unless you want to be paying fees you will get out of here."

There was a sigh of resignation before the voice spoke once more. "Reid, you're in charge until she wakes up. Then she's in charge."

"You're gonna put the one of us that was hit in the head 'in charge'? What does that even mean?" The female voice complained.

"I have made my decision. Maybe if you showered, things would be different." The voice faded, and the steps of the person became less clear, so she assumed the person was leaving.

"I think Morgan is right, you should take a shower."

"Don't make me hurt you, Reid."

"It was just a suggestion."

She didn't want to interrupt their banter, but her urge to sneeze was bigger, so she let her body do its thing. Though it is important to let you know that sneezing with broken ribs is horrible.

"She's awake!" Emily screamed and launched herself onto the bed. She started crying from pain after the action. "You're so happy you're crying!"

"Prentiss, that might be because you just jumped on her ribs." The man clarified as he stood, placing his hand on hers. The feeling was foreign, but she could let it slide once.

"I am so sorry! But I am so happy you're awake."

"What happened?"

"After the explosion, you hit your head, and because you already had injuries your body gave out, exhausted. Thankfully the ambulance was already there and we could rush you to the hospital. You've been sleeping for a good week." He explained.

"Well, then I don't get a lazy day for another three months." She joked and the two joined her. "How are the believers?"

"They're all safe and accounted for. Sadly we lost Ben's wife."

"Does her mom know?"

"Yes, but she wanted me to tell you she doesn't blame you and hopes you do get better." There was a moment of silence, as she processed the message, as well as her guilt.

"And I want you to know I ate your Jell-O." This caused her to laugh again. No matter how painful it felt, she was glad to be alive.

"Remind me to never get stuck in a hospital under the care of Spencer Reid. He'll eat my Jell-O."

"Let's make it a no trip to the hospital policy."

"Do I need to remind you where we work?" The woman shook her head, and both of them looked at her with a heartwarming smile. "I hate to break this moment, but please go shower, Prentiss."

"Ugh, fine." She placed a kiss on her forehead and moved out. "Reid, if anything happens, call me. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Got it."

She walked out and the two remained silent for a couple of minutes. Their hands were still together and she squeezed it to get his attention. "How are you doing? I wasn't the only one that got caught in the blast."

"I'm good. Morgan and I barely had a scratch, they cleared us that same day."

"That's good. What about the rest of the team?"

"They are all good. They wanted to stay but they had another case, Hotch said your family was out of reach so Emily and I refused to leave. Morgan also stayed behind but they called him up today, without three agents they needed all the help they could get."

"You guys didn't need to stay." She assured him. His grip on her hand tightened, enough to let her know he wasn't letting go, but not enough to hurt her.

"You could've died. Because of me."

"That's not true and you know it."

"I should've said I was the agent."

"We both know the reason he didn't kill me was that I'm a woman. You wouldn't have been so lucky."

"Still."

"Reid, listen to me. This is not your fault, and this is not Emily's fault either. I knew what I was getting into, and I would do it again in a heartbeat."

"You are one stubborn woman."

"I know." She smiled at him, "now please go find me some Jell-O."

He laughed, but nodded, letting go of her hand. Just before he exited the room he turned and gave her the most endearing look she had ever seen, "thank you, for saving our lives. I'll never forget that."

"Good, that way I can ask for favors at any time." They both chuckled and he left the room hunting for the dessert.

The reality in her brain, however, was not as calm as she portrayed. For months she had obsessed over what she had done wrong, and she had spent sleepless nights thanks to her recurring nightmare, in which Ben didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, and as she watched Spencer and Emily's bodies lie in a pool of blood. This alone was enough to make her train and perfect her skills, to the point of complete exhaustion. She wasn't going to fail, not again.

That was until Lucas Heavensbee had brought her right back to her dark hole.

[gumnut-logic]

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Always in a hurry, damit. Language warning on this one.

For @soniabigcheese cos she did it.

-o-o-o-

All three brothers sat down on the lounge, Scott directly next to Virgil and Gordon one seat over.

They were hovering.

He shunted the reason why aside.

Staring up at his holographic brother, he found himself missing John in the flesh. Instinct wanted to draw his family close and keep them safe from whatever the hell was going on, but John, as always, was far, far above them.

Alone.

“Can I tell him now?”

Well, maybe not quite alone.

“Eos!”

“It’s not fair to Virgil. You tell me to be honest and open and yet you treat your brother like this? Not very consistent at all.”

Virgil stared at John and his brother suddenly appeared uncomfortable.

Turquoise eyes darted to Virgil’s left...and back.

On Virgil’s right, Gordon sat up straight. “What is going on?”

Already barely composed, Virgil continued to stare up at John as the astronaut fidgeted before sighing and letting his shoulders drop. His eyes darted once again to Virgil’s left and the engineer knew who was truly hiding something.

Honestly, he had had his suspicions. Scott had been acting weird since London and the roof.

Hovering.

Was it logical to avoid looking at his eldest brother? As if not seeing eye to eye could avoid discovering something he knew he really didn’t want to know.

But he did.

“What did you find out?” The words were pushed through his larynx and his vocal cords creaked.

“Virgil-“

He spun where he sat. “For fuck’s sake, Scott, what is it?!”

Shocked silence as blue eyes widened. One advantage of being the sensible and stable one was when you did crack, it had impact.

Calmer. “What are you hiding from me?”

Young and flippant. “It’s quite simple really-“

“Eos!” John’s tone was sharp enough to cut cahelium.

Virgil turned back to his holographic brother. “No, John. Let her speak.”

“Virgil-“

He cut his brother off. “Eos, report!”

“Okay.” Her high-pitched voice was almost eager with glee. “I found something. It was quite a challenge. Triple layer encryption, hidden, not even on a hard-wired network. I had to sneak in on a mobile connection and decode onsite.” She was obviously quite proud of herself. “John was impressed.”

John obviously wasn’t quite as impressed right now, his arms folded across his chest, his expression both sad and pissed off at the same time.

Virgil forced what little calm he had left. “What did you find, Eos?”

“Notes. From a meeting. Not very legible. Her handwriting is atrocious.”

“Whose?”

“Councillor Wainwright. Honestly, her phone is a mess.”

“You hacked a World Security Council phone?”

“Hmph. Hacked is such a human concept. I simply visited.”

He refused to look at Scott. Refused. “What did you find?”

“A photo of notes. A short list of International Rescue’s vulnerabilities.”

“Vulnerabilities?” Gordon was definitely stoking a fire. Virgil was unsure whether the note-taker or a couple of brothers were going to be the ones roasted. “What vulnerabilities?”

A photograph of scrawled notes appeared beside John. Paper was rare and obviously used for security reasons, but to then photograph it and turn it digital…someone was an idiot.

Virgil frowned at the barely legible handwriting. The letters ‘IR’ were scribbled at the top, Five Tracy names scrawled below, each crossed out except for Virgil. Scott’s and Gordon’s name had the word military in capital letters next to them. ‘Space’ was written next to John and Gordon.

Further down the page, almost at random in relation to the rest of the scribble, was the word ‘Vulnerabilities’. Underneath was a list. A very short list.

1.     Popular opinion

2.     Political standing

3.     Virgil Tracy

Something else was scrawled next to his name, but it was illegible having been crossed out quite vehemently.

Virgil swallowed. “Who wrote this?”

It was John who spoke up, his voice wary and a little hesitant. “Handwriting matches Wainwright’s.”

“Why?”

“It’s bullshit, Virgil.” Finally, Scott said something.

Virgil turned to face him. “Yet, you hid it from me.” The hovering. The visit to Jack.

Jack.

“You told Jack.”

“Of course, I told Jack.” Scott threw himself to his feet, obviously unable to contain himself any longer. “It’s a threat from the government. Our own government, Virgil.”

John cut in. “No, it is from one councillor.”

“One bitch.” Gordon was on his feet now, echoing his eldest brother with his furious energy, unable to keep still. “Wainwright obviously has an agenda. An agenda that doesn’t care about those sixty-three people!”

Virgil flinched.

“We have no proof that Wainwright is connected to today’s incident.”

“Circumstances disagree, John.” Gordon was glaring up at his holographic brother. “I find it hard to believe that Thunderbird Two’s scanners being messed with and the resultant media shitstorm is not related to this. Too much of a coincidence. They’re targeting Virg to take us down!”

“Gordon!” Scott’s voice cut across the room.

Virgil let it all wash over him. He was being used, he was a vulnerability, but that wasn’t the important thing.

Not important.

Not important.

He pushed himself to his feet. Gravity seemed more of an opponent than usual. He straightened up, looking up at his holographic brother as if he was some deity offering answers.

“Why?”

“You’re not a vulnerability, Virgil.” John’s voice was soft and concerned.

Virgil had no patience for it and waved it away. “No, why are they doing this? Why does someone, Wainwright or whoever, want us out of the picture?”

“Because they want to replace us.” Eos’ voice was far too chirpy and bright for the topic of conversation.

“Eos, tact.”

“What? Oh. Sorry. Please let me rephrase.” A moment that allowed John’s lips to thin just that touch more, the tightly strung muscles in his shoulders prominent enough to stand out in relief despite his uniform. “There is a possibility that the World Security Council is seeking expressions of interest from business entities interested in providing first responder services for the government.”

Virgil blinked.

Beside him, Scott shifted. “What? John? Explain.” Virgil didn’t have to look at Scott to know the frown would be cavernous.

Their space brother sighed. “Eos has tracked a number of gaps in calendars, meetings that didn’t happen, several coincidences that are far too coincidental to be genuine. Lady Creighton-Ward Senior contacted me about half an hour ago with some information that confirmed my suspicions.” There was something in John’s expression.

Scott frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

John looked down a moment as if steeling himself. “You know Lady Penelope identified several upper echelon GDF suspects following the Janus incident.” His eyes latched onto Scott’s as if in challenge. “What you don’t know is that we have had them under surveillance since that time.”

“We?” Scott’s tone was cold.

“IR security.” John’s tone was unapologetic. “Kayo, Lady Penelope and myself. There were things we needed to know.”

“And I didn’t?”

“Not at the time.” John shrugged, but Virgil could see it was forced nonchalance. There would be discussions later, but to be honest, Virgil hadn’t expected anything less.

Virgil ignored Scott. “Who is involved?”

“Wainwright, General Strond and the CEO of Robotics Industries, Jim Lucas. Eos has only just now collected enough data to confirm the connection. Lady Creighton-Ward’s advice backed up the conclusion.”

Scott was a pent-up explosion waiting to happen beside him.

Virgil just felt numb. He held out a hand. “So, these people want us replaced. They’ve found our...weaknesses...” Gordon literally snarled beside him. “...and they have succeeded in shutting us down. The question remains...why?!” And if that last syllable came out louder and a little more desperate, so be it.

John shrugged. “As Parker said, ‘Power’.” His brother frowned and looked off to his left, a hand poking hidden buttons. “And, I suspect, control. We are free agents, not under any direct chain of command. We are an unpredictable variable. You do realise how much power we can wield, Virgil?”

Virgil let his shoulders drop. Power, other than to help people, really wasn’t something he cared about, but John was right. The IR logo inspired a lot.

Or it used to.

He sat back down on the sofa and rubbed his face with his hands.

His military brothers remained standing. Gordon started pacing, the aquanaut’s furious energy spilling over onto the floorboards.

Scott looked like he wanted to stab someone.

Virgil was busy not thinking about the sixty-three people he had killed just because some asshole wanted to control-

“So, what do we do?” Gordon was standing almost on Scott’s toes. “We can’t just sit here.”

“I’m aware of that, Gordon.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Russet-brown eyes stared up at their eldest brother and Virgil found himself hoping to god that the commander had an answer.

“We shutdown, lick our wounds and bide our time.” Gordon opened his mouth and Scott held up his hand. “For now.” It was firm and declared no argument.

Gordon let out a disgusted sound, but deflated.

Scott turned back to John. “Thunderbird Five, you will send me a full report...immediately.”

“FAB.”

“Gordon, contact Brandy. Enquire with caution, but find out if WASP has any information on the topic. We do not want to alert those involved that we know what we know. Be subtle.”

Gordon grunted. “I can be subtle.”

Scott’s mutter was non-committal. “Virgil, you need rest-“

“No. I’ll be in the hangars repairing Two.” He stood up and turned towards the elevator.

“Virgil-“

“NO!” Both his hands were up, defensive. “No, Scott, I’m...I’m just going to fix my ‘bird.” He didn’t give his brother any more time to protest, spinning on his heels and stalking out of the room.

He didn’t bother to look back.

-o-o-o-

Next

[grownups-are-the-real-monsters]

Just leave it up to you

Summary: McVries ignored the question. “You can forget the heels though. My feet wouldn’t look so hot in those strappy’s being that all that’s left of 'em is blistered skin with red goo in the middle like a donut.” He clicked his tongue and Ray found a bit of anger well up from that ‘bee-sting’ again. “The point here, Garraty, is...” What was either a clap of thunder or a gunshot rang out (honestly who could tell the difference at his point?)

Ships: Gavries 

Word Count: 3,789

Not until some time after the incident with Jan & his mother did Peter McVries attempt another conversation with Garraty. But when the sky bled from blue to black, the boy had drifted his way back to Ray’s side. Nights on the walk were lonely & scary, it did one well to have a buddy. And Ray didn’t prefer anyone above McVries. 

“I’m jealous, Ray.” Pete--McVries slanted his grin to the right as he spoke, looking like a boy trapped inside an oil painted night sky. His eyes seemed gravely distant, glazed over & being hung out to dry. The promise Abraham mentioned burned deep in Ray like an internal bee-sting. ‘Number 61 coming up the road is lookin’ about ready to pop, wouldn’t you say?’

Garraty swallowed a thick ball of mucus. “Of what?” He whispered with hesitation. No one was all that close to them but something about what was coming seemed personal. 

“Jan.” A guttural sort of chuckle broke up his throat. 

That answer shocked Garraty some...maybe a lot. McVries hadn’t ever seemed interested in talk of Jan let alone...the girl herself. “Well, I’m sure a lot of guys here would’ve loved to grab onto a chick like her-”

McVries shook his head, the hair which wasn’t plastered down by sweat flayed out and sprinkled. “You’ve misunderstood me, my dear.” Turning then, his eyes were fully alive again. They once more reflected the hot inside Pete’s internal organs like a Jack-O-Lantern. “I wish I was your girl back home, Ray.” The cynical joke was hard to find under the tender voice but Garraty was almost sure that it had to be there. 

“Don’t know if you’d look as good in a skirt, Pete.” He chuckled, unwavering but nervous at the same time. 

“Oh, I would.” Pete shook a finger under his chin, smirking proudly. “These legs love to tease, Ray-Baby.”

Garraty blushed hard. “Why do you say shit like that?”

McVries ignored the question. “You can forget the heels though. My feet wouldn’t look so hot in those strappy’s being that all that’s left of 'em is blistered skin with red goo in the middle like a donut.” He clicked his tongue and Ray found a bit of anger well up from that ‘bee-sting’ again. “The point here, Garraty, is...” What was either a clap of thunder or a gunshot rang out (honestly who could tell the difference at his point?)

“If it wasn’t for you, Garraty, I’d want to die a whole lot more than how badly I actually want to live right now.” Earnest & hoarse emotion sang in his voice. So much it began to frighten Ray to a shocked silence. 

“You could win this damn thing. Though, I’m still a bit of victim to cynicism for thinking Stebbins might just run us all down...Ray, you have a real chance.” Pete looked like he might just stop to shake him by the shoulders which turned Ray’s stomach. “If I was your girl back home...”

Garraty waited for the big joke from the cynically insane. Something like ‘Then I could jerk you off’ because it would validate everything McVries had said was bullshit. All of it. That would be ok...Ray might be able to live with that. 

“Then you could come home and hold me when this hell was over.” 

That....That was what he couldn’t live with. Thoughts of Jimmy Owens danced through his panicked mind. “Pete, are you ok?” A damn insult of a question. 

Pete’s eyes blazed with anger. “What? I express an attraction to a guy so that must mean the walk is starting to get to me?” He challenged but gave no time for argument. “Priscilla and I had a threesome once.” Was added onto the end of his statement but not to brag...

Ray didn’t really know what it was for. That sticky-dryness began to coat the pink of his throat again. A hot blush crept over his ‘innocent’ face but something like anger beat hard in his chest. “What did he look like?” It was the dumbest question to possibly ask but it’s what he vomited out. Even Pete looked a little dumbfounded. 

He took in some air. “A bit like Stebbins.” He tilted his chin to the blonde, much closer than he’d been at the beginning to their conversation. “If I’m being honest.” He shrugged, keeping a neutral expression and pace. “The point is that I found them both attractive, Ray.” 

“Who? The guy and Stebbins?” 

Pete laughed again, not harshly but with amusement. “The guy and Pris, dear-one.” He melted with some exaggeration. “You though...” He looked Ray up and down. “You, I could eat with a spoon.” 

“Could you be serious for once?” 

McVries pulled away, looking almost insulted. “I’m not asking you to confess something back to me.” His voice hitched. “You got a girl back home, I know that. Just meeting you and being your friend’s been enough for me.” He closed his eyes like a sharp pain had cut through him. “So if you’re looking for the punchline, there isn’t one. This ain’t a joke.” Pete smiled, miserable & soft, shoved his hands into his pockets and left. 

Ray was the most confused he’d ever been in his entire life. 

Stebbins quickened his pace to join his side with something like joyful vigor. He very well could’ve started skipping. He hated the boy for it. “The masochism continues. McVries claims his love before succumbing to his suicidal ideations.” His laugh was manic yet calm. 

“Fuck off.” Ray growled with anger yet barely paid him any mind. His eyes stayed focused on the back of McVries. 

                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stebbins had been walking in pace with Ray ever since Abraham had gotten his ticket from Scramm’s contagious cold. Garraty missed him. Five more boys had lost their lives & the weirdo kept busy.

“Another one down.” Stebbins whistled casually, talking up at Ray like they were the best of friends. It annoyed him to no end but at least it was better than silence. That was until he glanced at Garraty with an eager-push. “How’s the bittersweet love story, huh?” 

Frustration pumped into his body as it so often did when interacting with the headache of a person. But a part of his head drowned in the thoughts of actually missing the boy when the time came to win or die. Ray silently hoped for death before having to ever witness McVries’s come to pass. He looked at the sad remains of his feet. “What do I do Stebbins?”

The blonde’s stare grew cold like an old dinner, astonished and nothing short of it. Ray guessed Stebbins wasn’t expecting such a show of vulnerability now from him now. In all honesty, he’d shocked himself with that one too. Boiling tears attempted to pour down his cheeks as he stared ahead at Baker and McVries. Poor, poor Baker covered in his ‘rain’ being accompanied by a haunted friendly escort. For a maddening moment, Raymond Garraty felt the flood of ‘rain’ break from his nose & waterfall down his clothes, warm & wet. 

He panicked, organs twisting deep in his gut as he gasped for a breath that didn't gurgle. 

Stebbins cold hand on his shoulder woke him up from his bloody hallucinations. "Hey, what are you doing old boy?" 

Ray spit up plain clear mucus (no blood) onto the road and coughed into his fist. McVries had turned to watch in subtle alarm. He walked backwards, still next to Baker, with adoring eyes for the boy with spit running down his chin. 

Stebbins couldn't help but roll his eyes fondly at the idiots until Ray dribbled the mucus onto his shoes. He picked up his toes and frowned. "Aim with the eye, shoot with the mind, kill with the heart.” 

"-What?" Ray wiped his sleeve against his lips. 

Stebbins shrugged, pursed his lips and walked off towards the others. 

:

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:

Garraty pleaded for more time with Art Baker but that didn’t give him shit. Sobs painfully ricocheted through his body but ultimately made no change in his pace which was difficult but the art was masterful now...upsettingly. Turns out a person got good at shit like that if faced with enough practice time. 

‘Lead-lined’

Ray nearly vomited for the millionth time. “Walk a little longer, Art.” 

A glimmering sheet of tears filled Art’s eyes like a final curtain. “No--I can’t.” He shook his head, covered in rusty ‘rain’. He spoke more unrehearsed lines which broke whatever the hell was left of Ray’s heart. 

McVries found his way back to him though. That was something at the very least. The dark haired boy came upon Ray with enough leg-room in the hell-hole hint contract to press a small kiss onto Garraty’s temple. He received a warning for slowing pace but didn’t seem too concerned. 

The heat from his mouth alone caused a shutter through Ray’s body. 

:

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:

:

:

“Another time, another place.” Stebbins repeated Art Baker’s final words without even a hint of emotion. Pete & Ray intended to ignore the rabbit but the kid made it difficult. He glanced at the only other boys left in the walk, something awakening inside him. Garraty habitually darted closer to McVries. 

While Stebbins kept on mumbling to himself; words that Garraty didn’t completely understand, Pete started drifting towards the crowd. The hand Ray wasn’t even aware was grabbing his, started to fall from the grip. Skin sliding against skin as it dropped.

“Pete!” 

Helplessly he grabbed whatever he could reach and yanked him back straight. He expected Stebbins to protest--to let him alone--but the kid was still isolated in his own world. “Pete, no!”

McVries opened his eyes, squinted like an old cowboy and smiled. “No, Ray. It’s time to sit.” Horror struck Garraty so badly that it nearly knocked him onto the road first. 

He did what only he could. He blubbered. “Pete--please, walk a little longer. Please, please-” Hopelessly he grabbed onto his boy. The boy who just wanted to be held by Garraty was getting a twisted sense of his wish now. “Please, Pete. I-...I love you.” He whimpered.

McVries broke into the most delicately beautiful smile that Ray had ever seen in his life. 

“He’s right. Time to sit, Garraty.” Stebbins finally woke. Ray turned with venom but found the kid was standing lone within something gentle & true; no gross selfishness marked in his tone. He lost interest in staring at Ray and spoke into the air past the soldiers. “We are ka-tet. We are one from many...” He mumbled. 

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Garraty turned back to McVries, scarred and beautiful but looking ready to die. “Honestly, shut the fuck up for once, Stebbins!” 

Pete giggled at that, still walking but wilting towards the ground all the same. Stebbins ignored Garraty and spoke to their only friend left. “McVries can you wait ten more seconds?” 

Pete blinked. But his loud-mouth remained shut, feet still pounding against the road. Stebbins took that to mean yes and aligned his eyes with Garraty’s again. “I’m going to win this.” He spoke, winningly but added. “So are you two fucking assholes.” a smirk then he began to count-down quietly. 

The crowd hushed but still couldn’t manage to hear Stebbins. The soldiers drew closer but there wasn’t much to do in the case of three boys still continuing to walk in pace. 

At the number 6...Ray finally clicked on to the meaning & couldn’t believe what was happening. Never once had the idea crossed his mind and hell, maybe Stebbins was pulling a fast one on them but he found that it did not matter if he could die with Pete. This gave him an out. 

“3...2...1″

Three boys from different states & in different states of mind, dropped like falling boulders. Ass first onto the road at the exact same time. In a perfect semicircle with their backs up against each other, they let out horrendous sighs of pain-relief. 

For a long time, the only sound was their low breathing & hesitant stomping of soldier boots, up and down the road. Men so unsure of what to do that it ignited terror through Ray’s gut but he kept his eyes closed. His head leaned against Stebbins & McVries’s.

Two seconds before The Major himself came upon the group...one of many...Ray supposed, Stebbins spoke up again. “A long road, like a tall Tower, must be most be conquered one step at a time...” He took in air like a balloon. “Forgot where I heard that, Ray but we got to the end of the road--to the top of the Tower--” 

McVries hummed. 

“I knew it was time for the wheel to run Peter over. But I figured the plan. Ka is a wheel but I am a driver...Ha!” He wasn’t making a lick of sense & Garraty would’ve gladly reminded him of the other Musketeers he let die before his little ‘revelation’ but...

According to The Major, they had to decide which two of them would be sacrificing themselves. ‘Ha! What a laugh, huh?’

                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They would not be celebrated. 

They were to quietly be paid off & to have their lives spared. 

It was to never happen again. 

Rules would be re-evaluated for the next go of The Long Walk.

The boys were to be treated in hospital for what was needed and no more. Garraty--Maine’s own--laid in bed hoping that Art Baker got his wish. That it wasn’t dark & that he could remember them. Too he hoped for his friend not to be mad. Their plan could’ve worked for him...though Ray excepted that Baker would’ve had to have been saved before the rainfall of blood. 

He thought that all over in the morning just before Jan--sweet & kind came to visit him for the very first time. 

“You pulled quite the stunt.” She spoke two seconds after the nurse left the room, wasting no time. Her smile was full of love that Garraty hated being on the receiving end of for the first time. 

“Stebbins did.” He clicked his tongue, grabbing her soft hand. 

“Which one was he?” 

Garraty bit into his cheek. “The blonde. Purple pants.” 

Jan nodded, looking to the TV in the corner of the room with quiet debates going on in her mind. “He’s the one with no visitors.” Turning back, her expression lost all joy. “Heard some rumors he’d gone manic.” 

Not surprising. Garraty frowned. “Hope that isn’t true. He was basically already in manicville at the start” He shrugged. He tried to think of anyone but Pete but it was just about the hardest shit to do--besides the damn walk itself. 

He blinked up at his girlfriend still sitting on the edge of the white-sheeted bed with a matching skin-tone. “The other boy’s parents & little sister have come today.” 

It was as if she knew & she most likely did. “Talked about how happy they were in the elevator up. The staff accompanying us--I think he was a male nurse--” She looked off in thought before deciding it mattered none & came back down on him with despair. “He said they ought to be ashamed. Raised a cheater, he said. Nobody likes a ‘hero’ who does only to serve himself.” Her hair fell against her chin. “97 sons--their mother’s boys--lost their lives thinking only one boy got to win. Not three queers who decided they were bigger than The Major.” 

“And what do you think, Jan?” He muttered. The girl rolled her eyes. 

“I’d be agreeing if I thought the same, wouldn’t I?” She let one tear loose. “Screw The Major.” She wiped down her cheeks and Ray vibrated from pure astonishment. “It wasn’t in the rules. And three boys were saved. They were given second chances.” 

That idea terrified Ray. He was given a second chance curtesy of Stebbins & how in the Hell could he make-up for the 97 lives gone?

“If this is the part where you break up with my because you’ve grown past me or-or grown tired of me, please just do it quickly.” More tears threatened to spill but she kept those ones in. 

Ray felt sick to his stomach. “If it helps, it’s neither of those things.” 

                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nurse Barnes was a bitch. 

Garraty found that out rather quickly considering she had he own opinion on the Long Walk end results. ‘But it barely effected her work, great news!!’ She just did everything expected of her extremely aggressively like petulant child. 

Ray allowed her to escort him to Pete’s room and did his best to ignore her grimaces, annoyed sighs & mutterings. It could not dampen his great sense of relief and joy to see the person he turned out to love more than anyone else in the world. 

When Barnes turned the door-handle, Ray nearly fell to the floor in a heap of nervous sweat. “Give us privacy, please.” He would’ve mumbled the request, usual of him but a new fire burned inside him since he awoke in the hospital. Barnes slammed the door shut after him. No words. 

Pete McVries was getting up from his bed with caution for feet that still ached with pain but were getting better. He’d been on Garraty’s mind like nobody had ever been in all his life & he was the most beautiful sight in the world. 

“I’ve been focusing on getting my feet stable for weeks now.” Ray spoke slowly, eyes never leaving Pete. 

“Way to show off, Ray.” He managed a laugh. 

“Meaning, I can hold you now if you want, Pete.” He opened his arms wide. “That is, if you’d still have me?” 

McVries got up like the wind, almost as if his feet weren’t bloody and basically useless just some weeks ago. Ray assumed Pete was betting a lot on his recovery because he wasted no time jumping into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist. 

Unfortunately Garraty wasn’t quite there yet & the cute moment lasted just five seconds before they collapsed together onto the clean white floor. Their laughter blended together effortlessly in sweet harmony. Pete climbed atop Ray slowly, bumping their thighs together in the process. 

It killed most every calm nerve in Ray’s body staring up at the man he’d fallen in love with. His dark hair waved in contrast to the stark white of the ceiling as he drew closer & closer...noses touching. 

“I thought Priscilla was my great love...” he whispered, breath against Ray’s lips. “But Ray, you changed my life. I don’t want to die anymore. Every night, I kept walking just so I could see your face in the sunlight one more time.” He scrunched up his face in the cutest way. 

“Sappy shit sounds so cute coming out of your mouth.” Ray giggled, reaching a hand up to stroke his cheek along the scar. 

Pete pulled back, sitting now on Garraty’s lap. Ray brought himself to a seated position. “What about Jan?” his voice was small and almost accusatory but Ray could hardly blame him. 

“I broke it off with Jan.” 

Pete tried to hide his grin, seemingly sick of letting all his emotions pour out like a broken faucet. But Ray caught a gorgeous glimpse. “I love you, Pete.” He added, brushing his hand against the boy’s hair once more. 

“I love you too.” 

:

:

:

:

:

“Can you accept the thank you or not? I’m never giving you another one.” McVries huffed, staring down at Stebbins who was merely sitting in his bed and flipping through a paperback. Garraty was sitting at the edge of the bed, knitting him a ‘Thank you’ scarf because it helped with his anxiety. Plus, he figured the blonde wasn’t much one for facing his own rewards. He might just take a lame scarf for it though if it meant no talking about his generosity. 

He looked up. “I’ll accept your compliment of a good plan because I’m a fucking genius for it.” He smiled, crooked yet nice. “But no, I won’t accept a thank you for saving your asses. I couldn’t have been in my right mind for that one.” He chuckled. 

Pete groaned. “Great. Good.” His eyes rolled as he gently scooched Ray over to sit next to him on the bed at Stebbins feet. Pete watched his boy knit with adoration that almost sickened Stebbins. “You gonna let him talk to us like that, Ray?” He poked him. 

Garraty held up what he had of the scarf so far and smirked when Stebbins just nodded. “Do you remember what you said?”

Stebbins looked off towards the wall and shrugged. 

Ray ignored his clear indication that he was done talking about it. “You called us a Ka-tet? What did you mean by that?” 

                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter McVries vowed to keep Ray safe & happy. 

Once out of the hospital & freshly encouraged to keep as far from the public as possible, he moved his boy into his boyhood home until they could get on their own feet. It was strange but the McVries family was warm and welcoming. Garraty enjoyed this stage in his life immensely. 

After that, came a cabin-style home nestled deep in Boulder, Colorado. Far from Maine but Ray’s mother was welcome to visit all she wanted, same with Pete’s parents and wonderful little sister--who had never looked so happy before as she did that first day in the hospital. Her big brother was alive and could still hug her.  

Stebbins had gone off on his own but was likely to pop by for visits, Garraty was almost sure of it. McVries felt he owed the strange boy something for what he’d done no matter how many times he rejected the idea. So he hoped to see him again. But for now...

Pete’s ebony hair dripped water down in a slinky path against his dewy skin, tired droplets paused and waited as flybys sped down to collide against them. Smoke breezed from Pete’s mouth and settled into the air. He took a deep breath, eyes fluttering closed with satisfaction as the heat in his chest returned. 

He brought his legs down to stretch as his back straightened, making his body a true reflection of his current state. Tiny pins and needles poked from under the bottoms of his feet, He wiggled his toes. But after a few seconds, he let them be. Sometimes it was a little euphoric to feel that little vibration of sleeping limbs. 

Ray carefully came into the bedroom looking tired from a long day of his new little life & slipped the cigarette from Pete’s fingers, taking his own drag. He coughed as he handed it back. "Cute.” McVries mumbled happily. 

Ray hummed, neck hot from a lingering blush and life truly felt amazing. 

[dakotacrisis]

Deal’s End (3)

Marinette makes a deal.

(Read on AO3)

---

Getting used to a demonic roommate was not as hard as Marinette thought. He was like a regular roommate but on occasion he would play some juvenile prank to get a laugh. It was easy enough to quell him when he started getting restless. All she had to do was grab him something chocolatey from the bakery and he’d settle down.

Felix had even been good about obeying the rules she set down. He hadn’t shown up in her bed again and while he still bothered her a tad while she was working it was nowhere near as bad. In order to entertain himself he had taken to working his way through her YA novels. He’d come up to her quoting dramatically from some of them when he found a good or cheesy line. One such incident he had popped into the room to deliver one of his line reads while Marinette was changing and she chucked a shoe at him.

During their free time together they would discuss this deal she needed to make. Any loophole she thought she found Felix shot down. Any wishes Felix suggested Marinette was not interested in. It was a tedious process of trying to find a middle ground.

Honestly the worst thing about all of it was that because Felix was around her all the time at school everyone was gossiping about them. Marinette asked Alya what it was everyone was saying and apparently all of her peers thought that they were dating and that if they weren’t they should be.

That tid bit of information almost sent Marinette off the deep end. If everyone thought that her and Felix were a thing then what did Adrien think? She didn’t want her crush thinking she was taken! This was a nightmare!

“Love?” Felix watched Marinette gently hit her head against a library bookshelf. “I think you are being a tad melodramatic about this.”

“The love of my life thinks I’m dating you! I am being the perfect amount of dramatic!” She snapped without pausing in her metronomic self punishment.

“And what is so bad about dating me? According to Alya and the rest of the school I am your type. Why not just accept the inevitable? You’ve fallen in love with me.” He draped himself over her like a dramatic soap opera star.

“Shut up.” She tried to push him off.

“Is that the reason you haven’t made a wish? Cause you know I’ll have to leave after?” he hugged her to him squishing her face into his chest, “You gotta try and move on from me. You gotta be strong, love. A human and a demon just can’t be!”

“Felix!” her shout was muffled by his chest. “Let go of me!”

“There there, cry it out. This is a no shame zone.” He patted her head.

“Get off!” she shoved him away. “I am not in love with you! This is the kinda crap that makes everyone think we are actually a couple. Stop it!”

“Are you always such a stick in the mud?”

“I think I’m gonna add a fourth rule. No invading my personal space!”

“And the answer to my question is a resounding, yes. It’s just a joke. Lighten up.” He wrapped an arm around her and steered her out of the library. “If it means that much to you I’ll let your precious crush know that I am in fact not crawling up on you when we go home. Okay?”

“Why do you have to say it like that?”

“I’m sorry if my people skills leave little to be desired. I can’t help how some of things I say turn out. I served fifty years as sex demon. Twenty five incubus. Twenty five succubus.”

“That is something I really didn’t need to know about you but also explains a lot.”

“That line of work does something to you. There’s only so many times you can quietly await your summoner while being tied up naked to a bed and slathered in exotic butters--”

“Felix.” She cut him off before he could get into further detail. “I cannot stress how much I do not want to know about your past as a sex demon. I got a good enough picture already and I wish I didn’t. Could that be my wish? Could I wish that I never heard about you being covered in butter?”

“Oh please, that was nowhere near the weirdest summons I ever had. There was this one time this lady brought a goat into the bedroom because she--”

“Don’t want to know! Seriously am not interested in whatever it is you were about to say.”

“I don’t blame you. I can never look at goats the same way again.” Felix stared off into the distance as if he was reliving some awful memory.

“Snap out of it.” She peeled his arm off. “We have one more class and then we can go home. Try to keep it together until then.”

“I’ll try but I opened the floodgates and now everything is coming back to me.” he shivered, “I’m not one ot kink shame but I don’t even remember being in Guatemala. How did I end up there? I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be in Argentina that night.”

“Calm down.” Marinette pulled a chocolate bar out of her bag and handed it to him. “Eat this. Pull yourself together.”

Marinette sat down at her desk. Felix hopped on the corner of her desk and ate his chocolate. The rest of the class filtered in. Felix caught sight of Adrien and shot Marinette a wicked smile before hopping off her desk and walking up to him.

Oh dear, this might have been a mistake. She couldn’t hear what was being said but they were both smiling so it couldn’t have been too bad. Then of course she was dealing with a demon. Why would anything he did be anything but bad?

Suddenly the pair of them looked over at Marinette. Oh god, why were they looking at her? They laughed a moment and parted to their seats. Adrien flashed her a smile that sent her heart racing.

On the walk back home she grabbed Felix by the elbow. “What did you say to him?”

“So quick to judge. I told mister model that we are not dating despite what the entire populus of your peers may think.”

“You were laughing. Why were you laughing?”

“I told him a joke. I’m really funny.”

“Felix!”

“Calm down. It wasn’t anything bad. I may have actually helped you in your fruitless endeavor to snare your green eyed boy toy.”

“Fruitless?” Marinette scoffed.

“Yes. Fruitless. Meaning also, useless.”

“That is not for you to judge!”

“Sure it is.” They entered the bakery and grabbed their snacks before heading upstairs. Felix had convinced the students at school and her parents that he had moved into the apartment across from theirs to throw off any suspicion.

“Listen, how long have you had a crush on this guy?”

“A while…” Marinette muttered.

“Give me a number.”

“Two years.”

“Two years?” Felix gawked, “And he is still just a guy you have a crush on? Have you even tried telling him that you like him?”

“I mean I’ve tried but I always end up chickening out or I forget to sign the card or--”

“And this is why I said your endeavors were useless. You sit there waiting for this guy to fall in love with you without putting any actual effort in. It kinda makes me wonder if you even like him at all.”

“Of course I like him! I love him!” She fell back on her chaise.

“Or maybe,” Felix hovered above her, “You’re using him as a pretty place holder to project your dreams of romantic love onto. You want a relationship but you’re so scared of rejection that you’d rather live in your novels and songs about love without ever taking the risk to actually find some for yourself.”

“What do you know! You don’t know anything about me!”

“I wager in the week I’ve been bound by your side I’ve learned more about you then Adrien-eyes-as-green-as-matcha-tea-Agreste has in two years of you pining from the sidelines.”

“Shut up!”

“Oooh, or maybe even further the problem isn’t that you’re scared of rejection at all. The problem is you’ve built up this expectation of what you hope a relationship with him is like. Everything is so perfect and quaint in that fantasy world of yours that if you were to actually date him it would all come crashing down. You’re scared of losing the fantasy because you know you’ve built up an impossible dream in your head and the knowledge that it can and never will be like that hurts more than him saying no ever could.”

“I said shut up!” She threw her backpack at him. “Who are you to come into my life and say you know me? Say that you understand my heart? I have no preconceptions when it comes to Adrien. I know what kind of a person he is and I love who he is. He isn’t perfect but he has my respect for being one of the most kind and understanding people I’ve ever met. His home life is anything but great and I can tell it hurts him a lot of the time but he pushes forward with a smile on his face. He could have grown up bitter and angry at the world but he chose to see beauty where he could. That’s the boy I love. Not whatever bullshit you’re spouting!”

“Then do something about it!” he yelled in her face, “You can’t expect everyone else to do the work for you!”

“I’m not--”

“Wait.”

“No! I will not stand here and--”

“Seriously, shut up!” he covered her mouth. “Thinking.”

“Mmmm!” She pried his hand off, “Felix--”

“I got it!” he threw his arms up to the sky. “I am a genius!”

“Good for you, genius.” Marinette picked up her bag and pulled out her homework. “Now how about you go haunt the neighbors and let me work.”

“Nope!” He pulled her out of her chair and spun her around, “I know what you are going to wish for. I cannot believe I didn’t think of this sooner. You are gonna love me for this.”

“How about you tell me what it is I am supposed to be wishing for and then maybe I won’t jam this pen through your eye.” Marinette held up her glittery pink gel pen. “You have pissed me off enough in the last five minutes. I just might follow through.”

“Geez, fine,” He set her down. “Do your friends know how violent you are?”

“None of my friends have ever threatened to reap my soul.”

“Not to your knowledge.”

“Felix!”

“Okay.” He pulled the picture of Adrien off her wall. “Here we have your dream guy. You love him. You want him. You gotta have him. Summer is on the way and you need some summer loving in the sun--”

“Yes. We know this part. Move on.” Marinette sighed.

“There is a way for you to get him without forcing him to fall in love with you via the usual deal.” Felix went on to explain. “So I am willing to provide my services to this end.”

“Huh?”

“I can be your love doctor! Your hype man! I can be your cupid dispensing love arrows and condoms from on high!”

“One, I’m fifteen. Two, please be simpler in your words.”

“I don’t use my powers to influence Adrien but rather my words. I talk to him, make you look so damn desirable that he cannot help but fall in love with you. The feelings would be natural so you’d know it was real and instead of reaping your soul I collect something of a smaller price. What do you say?”

“Is your grand idea that I should wish for you to be my wingman?” This was his genius idea?

“Yes!”

“No.”

“Why not? You are not asking for Adrien to be in love with you against his will. You are asking for my services to help him along his way.”

“What does a demon know about love?” She asked.

“Nothing. But I do know a little something about attraction and pheromones and how often people confuse that crap with love.”

“This is your sales pitch? Drawing on your sex demon days?”

“There’s a reason all demons have to do it. Makes us smarter and also scars us for life. Well, except for those that choose to stay that way after the appointed time period. Woo, you do not want to get into a birds and the bees talk with them.” That haunted look was back in his eyes.

“Felix, you’re drifting again.”

He snapped back to the present. “Think about it. You want this guy but you’re too damn timid to make any moves on your own. What you need is confirmation that he likes you first. What if I could get you that confirmation? I approach him as a friend, you get mentioned randomly in the conversation. He learns more about you, a chance encounter gets him spending more time with you, a little time and maybe a low cut top and you’ll have him on his knees proposing by the end of the week.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“There is a test out there that claims you can make two strangers fall in love with thirty six questions. It really is that simple.”

“Didn’t you say the deal had to be for something I really wanted?”

“And this is….from a technical standpoint. You want me to be your wingman cause it will help Adrien fall in love with you. Hence you are not asking for love but assistance. A deal like that will take five years off your life at most.”

“Five years? What if I’m supposed to die at twenty two and end up dying at seventeen because of this?”

“What if you’re meant to die at ninety and you end up dying at eighty five?”  Felix shrugged, “Any second could be your last. If you die young you die young. If you die old you die old. That’s the thing about being mortal, you never know when it’s going to happen. You could live a full life or you could get hit by a bus tomorrow crossing the street. It’s not like I’m asking for thirty of forty years off your life. I’m asking for five which is a hell of a discount by demon standards.”

“I don’t know.” Marinette curled into herself, “It seems sketchy.”

“You are making a deal with a demon. It’s gonna be plenty sketchy.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, “Marinette, you need to understand that what I am offering you is incredibly generous as far as demon dealings go. In any other circumstance I would have worn you down with ploys and temptations until you were desperate enough to make your deepest wish. I’d collect your soul and be on my way. I could go and twist your words into making it sound like you made a wish and, again, be on my way.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“Because I am bored all the time. Centuries as a demon can get monotonous and messing with you and arguing with you is the most fun I’ve had in over three hundred years. Finding a middle ground is not in my nature but I liked the challenge. So here we are. I have found the middle ground. You are not going to have a better offer. So what do you say?” He held out his hand to her.

 She tucked her hands closer to her sides. “Can I sleep on it?”

He sighed and dropped his hand back to his side. “If you must. But I will need an answer tomorrow. I already received a message from my bosses telling me I’m taking too long on you. If I don’t strike a deal soon then they’re gonna take me out and put someone else in my place and trust me, there are others that are a million times worse than me.”

“I got it.” Marinette nodded, “I promise I’ll have an answer in the morning.”

“Good.” He slumped into her desk chair, “Now can we play a game of Mecha Strike? I promise not to break the controller this time.”

“Sure.” Marinette sat down next to him.

The night went on and Marinette’s decision weighed heavily on her mind. She made a list of pros and cons but it didn’t help much. Was she really willing to give up five years of her life in exchange for letting Felix be her wingman? It didn’t seem like a fair deal.

Then again it’s been a week. All her other ideas were no good and if what Felix said was the truth then she could end up with a much less patient demon. She hadn’t exactly thought about how lucky she must have been to summon the one demon that she could shut up with eclairs. Whoever came after him had to be a thing of nightmares.

Then there was her thoughts about how Adrien fit into all of this. Felix said he wouldn’t use his demonic powers to influence Adrien. Any feelings for her that Adrien developed would be real. All she had to do was trust that Felix knew what he was doing.

She tossed and turned all night and woke up the next day looking and feeling like crap. Felix had been quiet the entire morning and as she was walking to school he disappeared entirely. A shot of fear ran through her as she thought maybe he had been called away and a new demon was about to appear to reap her soul.

Marinette walked into the school and caught sight of a blonde head. For a moment she breathed out in relief thinking it was Felix but it was only Adrien. And Adrien was talking to a cute girl. Marinette couldn’t place where he’d seen her before but she looked familiar. Had to be from another class. The red headed girl seemed awfully comfortable with Adrien and he wasn’t shying away from her either when she touched his arm.

‘You sit there waiting for this guy to fall in love with you without putting any actual effort in.’ Felix’s words from last night filtered through her mind. ‘It kinda makes me wonder if you even like him at all.’

The girl walked away and Marinette stayed rooted in her spot across the courtyard watching as Adrien watched the red head leave. Was this really her fault?

“NEAR! FAR! Wherever you are!” Felix came up behind her singing loudly for all to hear. “I believe that the heart does go ooooooooooooooooon!”

“Shut it!” she clamped a hand over his mouth. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little relieved to see he was still around. “Why are you singing.”

He licked her hand. “Ew!” And the relief was gone. She wiped her hand off on his shirt.

“What? I couldn’t talk with you covering my mouth. Anyways, I was watching you from the steps and decided your obvious pining could do with some musical accompaniment. Did you not like it? I have others.”

“No. You plague my life enough with your presence I don’t need you to start adding incidental music.” Marinette watched as Adrien walked towards the classroom. “I thought about what you said last night.”

“You got an answer for me?” Felix asked, the playfulness was gone replaced with a seriousness she wasn’t used to from him.

“I’ll do it. It’s the best I’m gonna get after all, right?”

“Right you are.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his bag. It was the bloody design Marinette had accidentally summoned Felix with. He turned it over to the blank side. The drops of blood seeped through the page and spread out to form words. “Here is our contract. It states that in exchange for my services to help Adrien fall in love with you, or at the very least make him your boyfriend, you are willing to give up five years of your life.”

Marinette took the contract and read over the bloody words carefully. “What’s this?” she pointed near the bottom, “A money back guarantee?”

“Our deals are supposed to better your living life. If for some reason you are not satisfied with your wish during your life then it is rescinded and the contract is void.” Felix said. “But people are usually quite content with their lot while they’re living so we don’t do a lot of refunds.”

“That’s a little reassuring.” Marinette pulled a pen out of her backpack. “Sign on the dotted line?”

She signed her name. The pink ink glowed for a moment before turning black on the paper. Felix tucked the contract back in his bag and held out his hand. “Looks like we have a deal.”

Marinette took a deep breath and grasped his outstretched hand. “Yes we do.”

---

(1) (2) (4)

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(tagged)

@sannsibarr @miss-mysterys-blog @maribug-adrienoir @mermaidreject

[luki-fanfic]

KHR/BNHA Fanfic: Role Model Part 1

Sometime last week in the dead of night

My Brain: Hey, you know what?

Me: It’s 2am, why are we not sleeping???

My Brain: If Dabi is Todoroki Touya, then it means he’s a character that was trained for a future role he couldn’t have, that was taken away from him by his father figure due to circumstances outwith his control, was heavily scarred because of it, and as a result; wants to kill said father figure.

Me: …And?

My Brain: …And who would you say that describes almost perfectly?

Me:…

…

No.  Nonononono!  I do not need another plot bunny setting up shop in my-and we’re already getting out of bed and writing this down before we forget aren’t we?

My Brain: ^_^

Enjoy!

—

Role Model: Part 1

Xanxus would really like to know why, when other Trash screw up, he’s the one who has to pay for it.

Seriously, if it’s not his asshole of a not-Father lying his face off for a decade, it’s the baby-Trash getting flung into the future and knocking out the entire Varia high command for 48 hours while they process an additional decade of memories, or some kind of ramen-eating-God trying to kill his Mist via flame-devouring-pacifiers before he shoves one on Xanxus to do the same.

And people wonder why he has a short temper.  He’s a reasonable man!  Just give him a mission that doesn’t involve everything he’s ever known getting flung into a blender with a side of magical-crap and tossed 180 degrees in the air.  Whatever happened to good old Mafioso shoot outs and negotiation’s over dinner?

…God he misses assassinations pre-flame bullshit.  They were so much more fun when he was the only one in the room that knew how to use them.

And now…this.  

In the toilet attached to the lavish meeting room he’d found himself in, he leans over the sink and scowls at the face in the mirror.  A good decade older than he should be, with red, spiky hair and matching stubble on his chin.  Inarguably Asian features, skin paler than his own had ever been, and shoulders like goddamn Levi.

For fucks sake!  Now he has to deal with idiot-Trash in other universes screwing him over? This kind of thing is supposed to happen to the Baby-Trash!  Not him!

He’s still not entirely sure what happened.  One minute, he’s enjoying the last glass of scotch the Bronco-Trash sent over in gratitude for a job well done, the next, his brain’s free falling into nothing.  For a brief moment, panic had taken over, and - positive he was being put under the Zero Point again - lashed out the second he could use his arms.

This resulted in him knocking out someone leaning over his body, and when he heard metal smashing against hard floor – two things that shouldn’t have been anywhere near him - his eyes slammed open to reveal the inside of an ambulance, and a very nervous looking medic overlooking him.

“Endeavour, please relax,” he urges in Japanese, trying to retain eye contact as he kneels down to check on his prone partner.  “We’re still checking for any other effects from the Villain’s quirk.  Do you feel okay? Is there any negative blowback?”

Xanxus just glares at him, trying to piece the words together and wondering why the hell Squalo had called in an ambulance when they have a Quality medical team in the damn mansion, before his eyes catch a glimpse of his legs.

He can’t stop gaping as turns and takes in his full body, pulling up his hands in furious disbelief.

“What the fuck?” he yells, turning them over as if the front will be any less ridiculous.

Xanxus has never, in his life, worn something this humiliating.  It’s a skin tight (almost obscenely so), navy blue bodysuit with orange highlights, along with white bracer’s that go up half his arm and a pair of knee high boots – all of which reek like they’ve been hung to dry in a building undergoing an arson attack.

His first thought, is that whatever mist did this is going to pay.  Painfully.

“Endeavour, what’s wrong?” the man asks again, only to squawk as Xanxus shoves him with the heavy hand and stumbles to his feet, jumping out the door.

What he sees when he staggers outside the ambulance doesn’t help the situation.  While there’s cameras, they don’t look like they’re filming so much as reporting.  There’s chaos outside, but the citizens trapped behind yellow tape have him wondering if someone drugged his booze. Horns, wings, two heads…so many people in the crowd are just ‘off’ in a way that doesn’t make sense.  

An even deeper glance in front of the tape doesn’t make things any easier.  One of the men – he’s assuming police – has a cat head, while there are several men and woman dressed even more ridiculous than he is. One of them is dressed feet-to-nose in fucking denim!  

There are so many possible scenarios, and one is not raised by Vongola standards without acknowledging the truly ridiculous.  As such, the realisation comes very quickly.  This is not his world.  Not even remotely.

Denim-Trash is starting to make his way towards him, and he can feel the paramedics staring at his back.  His eyes flick down to his hand, and he tries to reach for his flames – searching for the primal rage and right of rule that encompass his entire will.

But there’s nothing.  His core feels empty.  Not sealed, but rather, just not there.  Wherever he is.  Whoever he is, flames don’t exist.

No flames.

That…complicates things.

The man in the ridiculous denim getup appraises him.

“You’re not Endeavour, are you?” he says.  Xanxus looks him over.  Considers his options.

“What makes you say that?” he growls.  Denim-Trash raises one eyebrow.

“Endeavour would be screaming blue murder at being put in an ambulance where anyone could see him.”

Well doesn’t ‘Endeavour’ sound like a charmer.  Not that Xanxus would act any differently, but he’d never need the fucking ambulance in the first place.  

The survivalist in him wants to play along.  Bluff his way into solitude until he can figure out what’s happening.  But the Boss part of him has already lined up his options.  There’s just too many variables here.  If he wants home, he’s not going to figure it out alone.

He huffs and crosses his arms.

“No,” he admits. “Looks like somebody royally screwed up.”

Denim-Trash sighs, and runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair.

“And to think, I thought this was going to be a slow week…”

—

He’s immediately ushered to a tall skyscraper not too far away from the incident site, and taken straight to the top floor, where the office of his ‘host’ resides.  There, he finds his way to the bathroom he now finds himself in, trying to compose himself while he figures out what the fuck to do.  Denim-Trash had handed him off to some kind of support staff, but it had been clear nobody had wanted to answer any questions until they had him contained.

It at least gives him time to recover.  He desperately wants a drink, if only so he can throw something at the assholes who are going to come escort him again.  

The information he has is limited.  There was a phone in his host’s pocket, but without knowing the code it was useless.  All he can go on is what he’s seen.  This city looks very Japanese, but the people barely qualify as human.  And the advertisements are all showing people he doesn’t recognise, who look like they should be hand drawn on the front of the comic books he used to read as a kid.  

His flames are also gone, and as far as he can tell, the concept doesn’t exist here. But this outfit was designed to handle fire, and he keeps hearing the word ‘quirk,’ which makes him think there might be something else that substituted on a more mainstream level.  

When he hears voices entering the office, he slams the door of the bathroom open and strides into like he’s not dressed like some idiot on a Sentai show.  He gives a huff of approval as he takes in the room again – the idiot’s whose body he’s somehow possessing might have awful taste in clothes, but he at least knows what he’s doing with interior decorating.  

There are five arrivals when he drops into the plush office seat, and he makes a point to push it away from the computer.  Along with Denim-Trash, one of them is dressed worse than he is and looks terrified to be here, while another screams ‘cop’ with his suit.  The third is an old woman, who merely cocks her eyebrow as Xanxus glides over the floor in the chair, and at her back is a man about Xanxus’s age, dressed in shapeless black and the world’s ugliest scarf.  Seriously, if his Sun was here, that thing would already be aflame, and the world would be better off for it.  

He leans on one hand and scowls.

“So?” he asks. “Figured out how to undo this yet, Trash?”

Terrified makes a squeak that reminds him of the Baby-Trash, but it’s Scarf-Trash that steps forward.

“We spoke to the Villain who attacked Endeavour, and tried to deactivate his quirk,” he explains.  “Unfortunately, once activated, it can’t be shut off.”

Xanxus files away the term ‘quirk’ for future research, and Cop-Trash starts speaking.

“Three days,” he says.  “That’s how long it takes to wear off.  Which is three days longer than anyone really wants the number 2 hero out of commission.”

“To be honest, it might be to our benefit,” the old lady adds.  “Endeavour is known for burning the candle at both ends, no pun intended.  A few days of forced relaxation could be just what he needs.  More importantly, I want to know exactly who we’re dealing with in the mean time.”

Xanxus immediately titles her as the smartest person he’s met so far.  Nobody else has even thought to ask.

“Yes,” the cop says.  “According the registry, his quirk swaps a person’s mind with someone of a similar mindset.  However, he also said that quite often, the people he brings do not seem familiar with this world.”

All of them - minus Terrified, who looks like he wants to sink into the floor – face him with curious looks.  Scarf-Trash also has a hand on his accessory, while Denim’s fingers are twitching.  

“So, who are you?” Scarf-Trash asks.  “And what’s your quirk?  According to records, it varies on whether or not it follows.”

Xanxus stares back, glaring in challenge.  The Cop’s eyes slide away, but the other three match him head on.  His lips twitch slightly in respect.

“My name is Xanxus,” he offers.  “And where I come from, superheroes belong in comic books.  I’ve never heard of ‘quirks’ before today.”

Terrified seems to perk up at that, and the others seem somewhat relieved.

“Well, this world may seem a little strange to you, but I promise you’ll be kept in good hands,” the older woman offers.  “And I’m sure Endeavour will try to keep a low profile until his return.”

Xanxus thinks about what would happen if a self proclaimed hero suddenly landed in the middle of the Varia mansion, and can’t fight the snort of laughter that follows.  It makes the old woman frown.

“That amuses you?” she asks, and Xanxus grins.

“My world is a lot more dangerous” he tells them.  “The criminal underworld is still a thriving commodity, and no quirks, so we don’t have heroes, and don’t look kindly on those that think that’s an option.”

Well, not unless you count a certain brat in Japan who still seems to think he can make the mafia a nice place through the power of friendship…

“It’s a cruel irony,” he continues.  “Your Endeavour isn’t going to know what to do with himself.  Better not get himself killed before we swap back.”

Their faces go dark at that, and Xanxus allows himself to grin.  If it’ll kick their asses into gear and get them to figure out how to get him home quicker, he’ll tell them anything they need to know.

“What about yourself?” Scarf-Trash asks.  “Not a hero, and no quirk, what is it you do back home?”

Xanxus quickly amends his earlier thought.  Certain things would not go over well in such company, and he’s still not sure how well he can defend himself.  It’s probably going to be better for everyone if he doesn’t mention his own personal alliance.  He’s sure Endeavour will do a fine job of explaining that once his traumatised ass returns.

“I run a field office that’s part of my adopted father’s company,” he bluffs. “Lot of classified, high pressure, time sensitive work.  Not looking forward to having it sit on a desk for 3 days.  My employees are going to go mental.”

There’s an understatement.  He guarantee’s Levi is already halfway through a mental breakdown, and Squalo will be screaming at whatever idiot made the mistake of walking down the hall.  Bel will take the opportunity to go ‘play’ (hopefully not with Xanxus’s body), and Mammon is already charging him for the inconvenience of this whole affair. He’s calling it now.

On the plus side, his audience seem to buy it.

“Well then, Xanxus,” the cop says.  “We’ll do our best to get you back as soon as possible.  Until then, I hope you’re willing to work with us to mitigate the damage.”

Xanxus rolls his eyes.

“What do you Trash want me to do?”

—

In the end, his jury decide that since Xanxus doesn’t have a quirk, and doesn’t appear to be able to use Endeavours (fire, which makes sense and is something he might see about rectifying while he waits), that they’ll hide him in his host’s home for the three days.  The man’s family has already been informed, but if he steps out of line, they’ll be taking him back into custody.

It could be worse, he guesses.  He’s in the body of someone important, which means they won’t do anything too damaging to him, and they’re working as fast as they can to get this Endeavour guy back.  He doubts he needs to do anything but stand aside and let them work. Since he’s the victim of a quirk and had no say, he’s clearly being treated with kid gloves.  

No, the biggest threat to getting home is, ironically, home.  If Endeavour is a- oh for fucks sake he can’t believe he’s saying this with a straight face – hero, having him land in Xanxus’s body will not end well for anyone.  The Varia are many things, and most of them are obvious – not even the densest man on the planet could look at them and think they were anything but criminals.  Which means he might run, and that’ll end badly since he’ll be eyeball deep in Mafia territory and probably try to find, ugh, law enforcement.  God willing, his inability to speak the language will convince the Vindice that it’s clearly not Xanxus doing it and keep him out of Vendicare.

Then again, that might be preferable for Endeavour trying to act his way out of it. For all his complaints, his men are Quality, and trained to spot possession and plants.  If Squalo or Bel don’t notice something is off within five minutes, Mammon will.  The lot of them are crazy, not stupid, which means when he gets back, his body will probably be covered in additional scars from ‘interrogation’ while they try to get him back ‘Varia-Style.’  They definitely won’t call in Vongola’s tech team till they’ve tried their own avenues, and Xanxus just prays they confirm that it’s his body before they let Lussuria bring out his ‘toys.’  

He really wants a drink, but he’s expected to keep this body in top condition, and no doubt the man’s family will want their precious hero in one piece, so it’s going to be a long three days unless he can sneak something.  Or maybe Endeavour will turn out to be a secret alcoholic and he’ll be just fine.  If not, he’s going to need to find something for entertainment, or flame or no flames, something is going to burn.

‘Terrified’ is apparently some kind of support aide for Endeavour’s agency, and is put in charge of handling Xanxus while he hides out.  It doesn’t fill him with confidence – the man is definitely used to sitting in the back and giving ‘yes, sir, no sir,’ answers.  As such, he’s not putting much stock in the Todoroki family bios the man is awkwardly stuttering out as they drive to his temporary home.  It sounds like the blurb for some crappy sitcom.  A stay at home wife, two teens, a pre-teen and a brat, all living in harmony.  The eldest son was supposed to be following in his fathers footsteps, but had to hold back on applying due to illness.  The daughter is a perfect Nadeshiko in training, the next boy is thinking about medical school at fucking 12, and the youngest is already on the path to enter hero school in a few years.

Xanxus is the last person to ask about functioning families, but there’s no way this happy cookie cutter description can be accurate.

The car rolls up to a lavish Japanese style house, and Xanxus gives it an approving nod. He’s always preferred Western design, but he won’t deny quality when he sees it.  The security is actually much better than he’d expected too – proper walls and cameras set up in a manner that means he’s missing at least a few.

When they stop, the front door opens to reveal the Todoroki family, and his good mood evaporates.  The woman is a twig, hands a little tight on the youngest boy, whose hair would probably make his Sun squeal.  Both of them are looking at him with some suspicion.  For that matter, so are the pre-teen and the girl.  However, to the side…

The oldest boy has a shock of red hair similar to his current body, and while he refuses to meet Xanxus in the eye for more than a few seconds, his body language is clear.  He’s relieved.

Interesting.

Terrified has been speaking to the wife while he took in his own impressions, but he turns his attention back when he realises they’re looking at him.

“It’s strange,” the woman says.  “You still look so much like him.  The expressions are…well, very familiar.”

She gives a strained smile, and Xanxus feels satisfaction curl inside at the pain the woman is hiding.  

‘I knew it. This Endeavour fucker isn’t half as honourable as they think.’

“I’m Rei,” she continues, oblivious to Xanxus having read her actions.  “We’ll set you up in one of the guest bedrooms for now, is that okay?”

“Is Dad really gone right now?” The pre-teen pipes up, and Rei’s head turns sharply in his direction.

“Natsuo!”

The boy in question pouts.  

“What?  If he’s gone, that means we can play with Shouto today right?  He can’t be trained.”

The youngest, still pinned by Rei’s hands, looks up at his mother with something resembling hope.  Her eyes flicker between him and Xanxus, unsure what to say.

“I haven’t got the slightest clue what training Endeavour-Trash was doing,” Xanxus says, making the decision for her.  “Do what you want.”

The little brat and the pre-teen both grin, but Xanxus notices the red head turning to look at them-

Oh, now that’s interesting.  It’s not there for long, but there’s a very specific array of emotions flashing on the teen’s face when he looks at his youngest sibling.  They’re gone almost too quick to notice, but Xanxus caught it all.

He’s the only one though, as the girl takes his comment as an invitation, suspicion fading away as she steps forward and into a quick bow.

“I’m Fuyumi,” she says.  “We’ll try to make your stay as comfortable as possible.  Is there anything you need?”

A drink and a plane ticket to Italy, Xanxus thinks, but he doesn’t answer, choosing to stare at the boy on the end.  

There’s something about the Trash’s appearance that’s bothering him, and he can’t figure out what.  His hair is long, definitely grown to hide his face, and he has the personality of a mouse judging from how much effort it takes to get him to raise it for more than a few moments. Every inch of his body is covered, from the turtle-neck down to the combat boots.  Given that it’s not a cold day and everyone bar Xanxus is in shorts, it’s probably a style choice.  But whenever he does look up, he’s grinning, and trying to hide it – between that and the earlier interaction, Xanxus makes his mind up rather quickly.

“How about a tour of this place?” Xanxus asks, and points at the teen.  “Yo, Trash, show me where I’m allowed to go.”

That gets the boy’s head up.  “W-what?  Me?”

Fuyumi looks a little blind sided, as does Rei, while Natsuo is frowning, but Xanxus just nods.

“Yeah, you,” he says.  “That a problem?”

“Touya?” Fuyumi asks, glancing at her other brother, but the teen – Touya, Xanxus tries to remember – just swallows and gives a shaky nod.

“Okay.  I can do that,” he says, and gestures with his arm.  “Follow me.”

Xanxus grins and does just that, passing the confused family and immediately tossing them out of his mind for now.  When they enter the building, the boy risks looking up at him, agitation on his face for the first time.

“Why me?” he asks.  “Fuyumi would have done it.”

“I didn’t want Fuyumi-Trash to do it,” Xanxus said.  “You’re more interesting.”

Touya’s eyebrows furrow, and Xanxus smiles – the expression slipping off when Touya flinches.

“Your old man, he’s Trash, isn’t he?”

The teen at his side pauses as he walks down the hall.  

“He…Endeavour is the Number 2 hero in Japan,” he replies.

“And my old man is one of the most powerful men in the world,” Xanxus counters. “Doesn’t change the fact that he’s a piss poor father”

Ah, there is is. Touya’s lips peel back in a wicked smile for a quick second, and Xanxus goes in for the kill.

“I picked you, because you’re the only one in this family not trying to hide it.”

Another flinch, and then the teen looks up at him, confusion in his eyes.  Xanxus faces him head on.

“I saw the look you gave the baby brat, Trash,” he tells him.  “Back when he learned he didn’t have to ‘train.’  I might have only gotten the media approved profiles, but I’ve seen this before.”

God has he ever seen it before.  Resentment at a sibling, followed by guilt for feeling resentment, finished off with anger at the whole situation.  He knows that look well.  Before his brother’s died, when the Ninth chose them one after the other instead of him, he wore it on a daily basis.

Before he knew why, and resentment and guilt disintegrated into pure rage.  

Touya almost looks guilty, and his eyes are getting wider by the second.  Xanxus grins.

Looks like he’s found his entertainment.

“I’ve got three days here, Trash,” he says.  “Quality can destroy worlds in one.  So why don’t you tell me what’s really going on in this house?”

[in-tua-deep]

Ok so like I’m big dumb and have been stalking your blog for hours and just realized the tua should be pronounced like too ripppp anygays I absolutely fucking love and live for your writing and have a question for you (feel free to ignore it this is your blog!),,,,what do you think would’ve happened if Klaus had died instead of Ben.

asdfgDFSGH okay big mood but admittedly I pronounce as in too-ah deep myself lmao

HMMM that’s an interesting question because if Klaus died, he would just vanish. No one can see him, because he’s the only person that ever saw ghosts to begin with. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, does it still make a sound? If a boy becomes a ghost, but no one can see him, does he really exist?

You have Ben, who doesn’t numb himself with drugs but also probably withdraws from the rest of the family. Klaus used to coax smiles out of him, and Five used to throw books at his dead and demand Ben discuss metaphysics with him. Admittedly different relationships, but they were the ones that held him together. And then Five vanishes. And then Klaus dies. 

And Ben is well enough liked by the rest of the family, but he’s not really close with any of them. Luther and Allison are too obsessed with one another, Diego is too obsessed with beating Luther at anything, and Vanya is a ghost that only Five ever really reached. 

Ben leaves the day he hits eighteen. He doesn’t tell anyone, he just leaves. He quietly finds the shittiest apartment on earth, works two jobs, and puts himself through community college during the time he doesn’t have. He changes his name. He keeps the Ben, but ditches the Hargreeves.

He keeps his head down, he works hard, he never mentions the Umbrella Academy and he spends his nights with his hands pressed against his stomach wishing that his ‘superpower’ was anything but what it is. 

He’s a bright kid. He makes friends. He doesn’t have the money for med school, which he wanted since he desperately wants to heal instead of hurt, so he compromises and goes into nursing instead. He gets to help people just as much, and he doesn’t have to deal with the staggering amount of debt he would be in. (He’s still in debt from schooling, just not as much.)

Ben works long thankless hours. He holds the hands of an addict whose organs are failing. There’s nothing the doctors can do but ease the young woman’s suffering. He sees Klaus in the eyes of the desperate young people who come in, and he rolls up his sleeves and tries to help. 

Vanya write her tell-all book, and Ben reads it as carefully as he did the various tomes that Five tossed at him so he would know what Five was yelling about this time. He traces his fingers across Klaus and Five’s names as they appear, and he pretends he isn’t angry that Vanya just pulled back the curtain and exposed their gaping wounds for all the world to see. 

Five and Klaus are not props in Vanya’s coming of age story. They are background characters killed off for development. Ben understands that Vanya is angry, that she was abused, but he wishes she could see that this wasn’t the way to go about it

(Ben understands now, that Vanya was abused. He sees her, sometimes, in the people who float through the hospital with scars on their arms and legs and stomachs. The ones who stare right through the doctors and look away when their very concerned parents speak up. He sees her in the young man whose father yells for all the ED to hear that he is selfish, that he needs to be more like his older brothers who are successful. The father is escorted out, but the young man checks himself out against medical advice. Ben never sees him again.)

He isn’t as impacted by the book as perhaps the others are. No one knows what happened to the Horror. Ben isn’t questioned about it, because no one knows that they should question him about it. He watches the youtube videos of Allison getting accosted by paparazzi and wonders if Vanya knew what she was doing when she published that book.

Somehow, he doubts it. 

He adopts two cats. Their names are Séance and Boy. Ben calls them Seya and Brat. His friends ask him if he was a fan of the Umbrella Academy growing up, and Ben shakes his head with a wry smile. “My brothers,” He explains, “They were always more into it than I was.”

And then Reginald dies, and there’s going to be a funeral, and Ben doesn’t want to go. But he thinks about the siblings he never calls, thinks about the hospital room with the old man who is dying who told him with a bitter smile that he never mended any bridges, and picks up his phone. Ben applies for time off due to a death in the family, is granted it, gives his spare key to the girl across the hall who has vowed to take care of Seya and Brat as if they’re her own, and he goes. He goes to the manor for the first time since he left it, over a decade ago. 

He almost thinks it’s his power at first, that something went terribly wrong because he hasn’t let out the Horror for a good long while and the flash of electric blue was unmistakable. But it’s not him, and the portal in the courtyard spits out a child and Ben’s hand shoots to his mouth and it’s shaking because that’s Five. That’s Five the day he left, all scrawny limbs and drama, in a too big suit.

He ushers Five inside, and gets down some bread to hand to his brother who already has the peanut butter and marshmallows well in hand. (Ben wonders, for a moment, why those ingredients are in the house to begin with. He’s positive Reginald doesn’t like marshmallows, after all. But he has more important things to worry about right now, so he lets that thought go.)

He listens as Five tells them they have eight days, and he believes. Four-Five-Six have always had more nebulous powers that the first three children combined. Strength, mind control, and knife throwing are surprisingly straight forward. Ghosts, dimension ripping tentacle monsters, and fucking with the fabric of space and time are… not so much.

Ben looks at his siblings, who have changed so much and yet so little, and decides that priorities are in order. Because as much as he cares for his siblings, and he does, they’re all grown ass adults. Despite what he says, Five looks very young and Ben has seen too many children with the same haunted eyes and sharp words. 

Somewhere in the middle of all of this there’s an open window, and Pogo saying something about a missing box or a book or something, but admittedly Ben isn’t paying all that much attention. Not when he has bigger things to worry about

And Five has a choice between Vanya, who he loves but doesn’t want to drag into his general bullshit because she doesn’t have powers, and Ben who is a nurse and who seems most inclined to believe him. So after the Griddy’s incident, he goes back to the manor and Ben stitches him up with steady, experienced hands and asks Five what he can do to help

Five looks almost surprised. “You believe me?” He asks, suspicious lacing his voice. It makes something inside of Ben ache, but he blames it on the Horror. 

“I’ll tell you what.” Ben says, looking Five in the eyes. “I’ll make you a deal - I’ll help you with anything apocalypse stopping, no questions asked.”

“But?” Five asks, but he sounds less suspicious and more comfortable with terms on the table. Their family isn’t used to unconditional support, after all. 

“Come stay with me after we save the world.” Ben requests, and holds up a hand before Five can protest. “Yes, I know you aren’t a child. I know you can take care of yourself. But quite frankly, I’ve been missing my brother for almost seventeen years now, and I don’t have anyone to debate the finer points of mathematics with at three in the morning, do I?”

I don’t want to let you go now that I have you back. Ben doesn’t say, because he’s already pushing Five’s ability to deal with sentiment as it is. 

Five’s eyes look suspiciously wet as he looks away, but he spits out a quick “Fine.” and they shake on it. 

And so Ben ends up accompanying his brother to MeriTech to check out a serial number on the back of an eyeball. He places a calming hand on his brother’s shoulder, and calls in a favor with a doctor who he prevented from killing a patient who talks to a friend of a friend and they find out that the eyeball they have hasn’t been manufactured yet.

And hey, if Ben didn’t believe the whole time travel thing before he certainly does now, looking at an impossible eyeball in the hands of an impossible boy. 

And Ben is a trustworthy ally, level-headed with enough deadpan humor to make even Five snort in laughter. Ben cherishes even aborted giggle close to his heart. 

Five comes to him with a shy look and introduces him to a mannequin named Dolores. Ben thinks about the little girl with the spiral fracture telling him solemnly that she wasn’t scared but Mr. Hippo was, and he thinks about all the years that Five spent alone, and he gently takes Dolores’s hand in his and thanks her very much for looking after his brother all those years.

Five blinks in surprise, but it’s a good kind of surprise, and he’s notably warmer towards Ben after the interaction. 

It reminds him, just a little bit, of Klaus before Reginald ruined him. The way he’d occasionally just talk to thin air or react to something that no one else could hear. It makes Ben oddly nostalgic, and probably means that he’s much more tolerant of Five’s interactions with Dolores than he should be.

Ben is with Five when Hazel and Cha-Cha storm the mansion. Luther and Allison and Diego hold their own with knives and kicks and the destruction of one chandelier. No one is taken, no one is kidnapped, because there wasn’t anyone just getting out of the bath with headphones in to catch unexpected. 

Eudora Patch listens to Diego tell her that his mother is dead, and that his brothers are running off together to who knows where, and she doesn’t find a message on a van’s window and go to rescue a hostage. Detective Eudora Patch lives to fight another day. 

Five scribbles probability maps on his walls and tells his audience of Luther and Ben that he plans to kill to save the world. Luther gets up in arms about it, but Ben just stares Five down and quietly tells him - “You promised.”

Because Five can’t stay with him if he’s in jail. 

And Five looks away and says there is one way to get more information, and Ben can already tell he’s not going to like this. 

They don’t have a suitcase to bargain with this time, so Five offers himself. He tells Hazel and Cha-Cha to meet him, because he’s decided to give himself up in return for them leaving his family alone. They get there, and they’re having a stand off, and Five demands that the assassin duo call the Handler.

Between one breath and the next, Five vanishes. Not like he’s supposed to vanish, in a flash of blue light. Just gone between one blink and the next.

Ben may or may not be responsible for the ensuing destruction of Hazel and Cha-Cha’s car and subsequently their briefcase which was located within said car. In his defense, it had been a while since he last drove out to the middle of nowhere and let the Horror go ham. And if, in this timeline, it’s Hazel who gets taken hostage because Ben is furious and he’s not losing his brother again, and Cha-Cha figures she’ll bust her partner out later but for not retreating is a wise move well

“Call your boss back.” Ben says, voice tight as he stares holes through a Hazel that Luther has helpfully tied up with some rope from the trunk of the car. “This is now a hostage exchange, you for my brother.”

“I’m just a grunt.” Hazel informs Ben, helplessly, “They’re not going to trade me for a legend like Five.”

Ben gestures for Luther to drive as he shoves Hazel into the backseat. As someone who has seen a man burst into an eldritch horror and destroy his only chance at going home, Hazel wisely complies. Ben smiles with all his teeth as he informs Hazel cheerfully that he’s going to tell Ben everything he knows about the Commission, the apocalypse, and his legend of a baby brother.

Later, in a family meeting with Hazel sitting tied up on the couch as they all loudly debate what they’re supposed to be doing now, Five shows up in a bright flash curled around a suitcase and scaring everyone

In another world Five brushes everyone off and proceeds to collapse. 

In this one, Ben pats his brother down while ripping him a new one about telling him to full extent of plans for gods sakes and when his fingers come back wet with blood Ben frog marches his brother to the infirmary for Mom to stitch up with his assistance. 

“We are a team.” Ben informs his idiot brother, “Yes I know we have to do everything to stop the world from ending, but it’s no use if you die along the way! I care about you, you idiot! So you’re going to sit here and heal while I go with Diego and Allison and deal with this Harold Jenkins motherfucker, okay?”

And Five grudgingly agrees when Ben pops a phone in his hand and teaches him how to facetime so that technically Five is with them the entire time and kept in the loop. Allison’s sacrifice of her phone for this purpose is duly noted and ignored, and Ben spares a split second to make a mental note to get Five his own phone at some point.

And when Luther finds out about everything, Ben quietly asks Five to pass the phone over and basically informs Luther that yes, Dad was a grade A prick but Luther is Number One. Dad might not care, but the dozens of people that Luther helped save during their stint as the Umbrella Academy? They sure as hell cared. And right now, Luther has a mission. Babysit both assassins sitting under their rooftop, because as proven by the break in Hazel is dangerous and where Hazel is surely Cha-Cha isn’t too far away.

That, at least, keeps Luther from going off and drowning his sorrows. 

Since Diego isn’t wanted for murder in this timeline and Patch is alive, there’s no splitting up involved. Ben and Allison and Diego trick a cop, investigate a hospital, and find their way to Vanya’s cabin where secrets come to light.

Allison reveals that she rumored her sister into believing herself ordinary, and Ben can’t help it when he just loudly mutters “I hate this fucking family.” which breaks the tension and makes everyone stare at him.

Since he is not going to admit that he’s stress quoting a vine (god damn Dr. Hernandez got him hooked on them) he ends up just blurting out “I can’t believe Dad made Allison do that!” because really it’s important to establish that yes, Allison did the thing but also Allison was four it’s not like she knew what she was doing, “I’m glad he’s fucking dead, jesus. What kind of a prick does that to a couple of toddlers? Fuck him like, for real.”

and in the aftermath they’re all just sort of standing there staring at one another?? And then Diego is like “Uh. so. i have a police file on your boyfriend? And turns out his name is also the name of the dude Five says caused the apocalypse? Say hello Five” and Five just waves from his little screen

and Ben puts his hands on his hips and is just kind of like “Five if you repeat any of that language I will gut you like a fish. You’re too young for that.” and Five starts sputtering about being older than all of them and cursing and Vanya is giggling and Diego is grinning and mission accomplished! And then he turns to Vanya and is kind of like “Hey Vanya also if you need me to kick Leold Jenbody whomstever the fuck his name is’s ass, I do kind of have a big old tentacle monster at the ready. But of course, you get first dibs. Also like, have you seen his creepy attic shrine to the academy with all our eyes x’d out and our throats slashed? Because it’s like, honestly up there on the level of creepiness. Not quite as bad as that very explicit letter Allie got when we were fifteen, but not too far off either, you know?”

and look i’m not an expert but Ben just. De-escalates everything. He’s a tiny bit like a capybara who will also kick your ass if you really need him to. 

And they confront Leonard-Harold and he tries to convince Vanya that her siblings are evil and he’s the ultimate good of whatever but it’s really hard when there’s Ben there muttering “God we all need so much therapy” to the side and “why is this family such a hazard to society. why do we always attract the weirdos.” and “this is what we get for the lack of a strong father figure in our lives I just know it” and other weird shit like that

anyway Vanya realizes that Leonard has only ever been using her for her powers and was manipulating her from the start, especially when he pulls out his knowledge of her powers as his little trump card as if they didn’t all just have a weird heart to heart about Allison sort of erasing Vanya’s knowledge of them as toddlers

“So do we just? Lock Leonard up until April 1st passes?” Ben asks Five and he feels a little like he’s cupping a magic 8 ball instead of a phone but whatever. But it’s Diego who just is kind of like “Oh hey I got this, this fucker has skipped out on so much probation and done a runner and shit and I can totally just call Patch to come out here and lock him up. Can’t cause the apocalypse from jail now, can you?”

And okay when Patch arrives to them all cornering Leonard in this cabin and also she sent some people to his house and there is a Whole Ass Dead Body up in there alongside this creepy serial killer shrine and oh yes Harold Jenkins is going away.

After that it almost seems a little anticlimactic to just climb in the car and go home? But I mean. That’s what they do. They argue half heartedly about music choice in the car and arrive home to find out that Five has untied Hazel and they’re both chilling at the bar drinking and honestly no one is sure where the little umbrellas materialized from because surely Reginald wouldn’t allow such a thing in his house, right? Luther is just kind of shrugging in the background (maybe a little tipsy) because you can’t expect him to know what’s going on in Five’s head

on the bright side Hazel seems pretty chill and has decided he is not going to try and kill any of them anymore because what he really desires is to run away with the nice donut shop lady. No, no one knows how to respond to this except perhaps Five who is cheerfully wishing Hazel luck. 

and considering that Luther has the whole general time they dealt with Leonard and the car ride back to come to terms with Vanya’s powers and the fact that Dad sucks and there’s also the matter that in this au Vanya did not slit the throat of his most favorite siblings so i mean. He’s okay with this. He is so beyond caring about the shit this family gets up to anymore. He’s going to need so much therapy when this is all over. 

Ben just sort of looks at this motley crew and everyone just looks fucking exhausted and he’s just kind of like. “Okay! Well. I for one did not get that much time off work for all of this but seems like y’all could use a vacation. My apartment is sort of shitty but i have a fuckload of extra blankets because sometimes I stress quilt, and no, no one is allowed to judge me for that fact, and my sofa is pretty great so I mean. You guys can come meet my cats?”

and that’s how everyone piles up into the car and goes to Ben’s place and meet his cats while buying a metric fuck ton of ice cream (Allison insists because even if Leonard ended up a creep, Vanya liked him at first and so it’s break up time) and no one can agree on a movie to watch and Diego is complaining because Ben put Dolores in the best spot while Five argues it’s because she deserves it

and look. Ben has been quiet and kept his head down and lived his life for a very long time. But looking at his siblings, at Luther ducking his head because he burned the popcorn and Allison gesturing dramatically with a bottle of nail polish as she does Vanya’s fingers and Diego teasing a scowling Five who both cats are fighting over his lapspace

and Ben can’t help but think that if Klaus were here (and his brother’s power was seeing the dead, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility) he would be proud of how far they’d come.

Ben certainly was.

[sparklingxsoda]

A Letter To S.T.

Dear S,

I’m writing this letter because I should’ve done so a long time ago. We’ve had our ups and downs throughout our 22 years of friendship. We’ve been best friends for most of that time too. But for the past couple of years, I’ve been questioning the state of our friendship. You’ve really changed - and not for the better. 

Let’s start from the beginning. 

We became friends when we were 5. And we stayed friends because of our similar family backgrounds, and because it was convenient for the both of us. I am very grateful to have had you in my childhood, throughout teenhood, and throughout young adulthood. We have our common interests: we both love fashion (though we have different styles), we’re both bougie, and we both love to pig out and try new foods. Growing up, we had similar values and approaches to life - we’re both straight forward people and don’t deal with bullshit. But that’s changed.

Fundamentally we are both very different people. And ever since uni, we’ve had an increasing number of fights. A lot of those fights attributed to the differences in our personality, and the way we view things. You’ve even said so yourself: “Every time we go out on trips, it seems that we always have fights.” The Cuba Trip really shook our friendship. I’ve been meaning to write this out, but never found the time to really do so - perhaps I’ve been trying to cling on to our “best friendship” (and I’ve noticed you have too) - but here I am. I’m finally writing everything that I feel about our friendship right now, and all the things that I wish you’d do instead of being the shitty friend that you are now. 

I’m so sick of the false promises that you’d make. “Let’s have a proper celebration for your birthday next week!” you said, through text.  We didn’t. Sure you called to say Happy Birthday and we had a 3 hour conversation. But you don’t go the extra mile anymore. Yeah it’s hard during COVID but like...actually follow through with the picnic birthday that you wanted us to have!? I saw that you attended a surprise birthday party for another friend. Very interesting, considering how you said that you didn’t want to use your car to go out, since you’re supposedly trying to save money from being unemployed and after investing in your so-called lingerie business. 

You also ignored my text from last Friday. You wanted us to do yoga together but I guess that’s not going to happen. It’s been over a week and you still haven’t responded. And I know that you use your phone - I saw you peeping my IG story during the weekend. 

Some other shitty things that you’ve done in the past five years:

1. You are such a bitch to M. Okay, so he has a different personality to yours. But you and your loser boyfriend Blob just had to be dicks to him, didn’t you? Just going back to the first time that you guys met him - you did not have to go, “Oh, that’s private” when M asked about the type of business that you want to eventually have. It’s called having a conversation you inept bitch, learn how to open up for goddamn once. And saying that M was rude for eating first - no he did not eat first. He picked up his fork and was about to eat, but realized that Blob didn’t have his food yet so he stopped. Don’t fucking try to gaslight me into thinking he’s rude. The only mistake that I made during that phone call was trying to make excuses for M to you. Literally I had no reason to make an excuse but I fucking did because if I didn’t, you’d try to attack me. 

2. You’re late to EVERYTHING. You’ve been upwards 2 hours late before and it has really made me question your respect for other people’s time. Yeah you say you try to work on your time management but I don’t see much improvement. I’ve seen you get ready before. You just listen to your music and you act as if you’ve got all the time in the world. You’ve been late to shifts, and you’ve been late to interviews. There were two particular incidences that I remembered that really stood out to me because not only were you LATE, but you were shitty about it - you didn’t seem to be truly apologetic at all during those times. You acted like you were above everyone else because you were last to show up. NEWS FLASH: you’re not a CEO. You’re not royalty. You’re not some socialite or public figure. You know what you are? You’re a fucking loser that likes to think that she’s better than she really is but you never bother to do anything to fix your situation. And everyone knows it. 

Remember the last time a couple of our other friends got together to hang out for Lunar New Year and you kept everyone waiting (and starving) for 2 fucking hours!? And then you proceeded to saunter in like it was nothing? Yeah, everyone was shooting daggers in your direction and throwing subtle shade at you. “Thanks for waiting for me!” You exclaimed, while giving everyone a patronizing smile. “I know I kept everyone waiting.” Yeah they say to stop apologizing so much if you keep on doing it but in this case, you really have to apologize. And show remorse. And try to make up for your extreme tardiness. But you didn’t. Everyone had to wait for you to finish eating and then we left because you literally showed up like 15 minutes before everyone had to leave. 

And don’t forget you (and your mom) made us late for our flight to Cuba last year. That I can never forget. You were packing mere hours before the flight instead of doing so the night before (at the very latest!). WHO FUCKING DOES THAT!? And for some fucking reason, you decided to do your makeup before the flight. Okay - you can do that several hours before - but don’t wait until the last hour to do it! No one knows you or cares. They were literally calling our names on the intercom and you caused me to panic and run to board the plane. “Shit happens you know, just don’t overreact and panic!” You said. Fuck you. You know how I am under stress. Don’t fucking say “Don’t overreact and panic!” when we almost missed our flight. You did apologize to me, but you did it through the fucking Notes app on your phone. “I didn’t want to say sorry because I didn’t want the person next to us to hear.” You later explained. Okay, but you could’ve apologized after we got off the plane too. And then you accused me of not accepting your apology. Bitch, it takes time for someone to accept an apology, especially when you almost made us miss our flight. And even more so when you know that I hate it when you make us late. 

3. You were oddly formal between November 2019 - February 2020. Because Blob has such a strong influence on you now, hasn’t he? Yeah I know everyone goes through their issues and they need some time away from their friends to figure out their situations. But don’t be so fucking formal about it and ignore me and respond to texts a week+ later. Don’t send me a fucking formal ass text saying “I am currently working on myself right now so please excuse me if I do not respond promptly.” Like who the fuck are you? I’m not your fucking colleague, I’m your best friend. Also, you’ve started to become pretentious (no thanks to Blob). At restaurants for example when servers ask if you’d like water, you would go “Please.” and you would emphasize the word “please” as if you’re saying it in such a sophisticated manner. News flash! You are not sophisticated. You lack the upbringing and the looks to use that term. Just a simple “yes please” would suffice. Don’t say “please” as if you own the restaurant. Fuck off.

4. You didn’t tell me the name of your new job. Normal best friends tell their friends about the big events that happen in their life. You told me that you didn’t want to tell me because “you don’t want to share too much of a good thing to too many people because you don’t want the good thing to be ruined”. At that point, I couldn’t tell if you became crazier, or if you simply didn’t want to tell me because you didn’t view me as a best friend anymore. After some insistence from me, you eventually told me the location and how the firm is like. I guessed the name and you nodded to confirm that I was correct. Wow. Like you made me work to guess your new job. 

But guess what!? I got a new job too! AND I DIDN’T TELL YOU THE NAME OF MY NEW COMPANY! BECAUSE KARMA’S A BITCH!!!

5. You are deeply insecure. You’re insecure about your family. You’re insecure about your looks. You’re insecure about your lack of control over your life.

Let’s talk about the looks - you know you’re good-looking. You know this because when we were younger, people would comment on your looks and not mine. I was usually looked over as the less attractive friend. But I got over this eventually. You always have this need to look good wherever because for some reason, you crave the approval of strangers. You’re the one always preaching on how we should only seek the approval of ourselves and those we care about, yet you care about what complete strangers think about your looks. Hypocrite.

In regards to the events happening in your life. Look - shit happens, and there are things beyond our control. What matters is how focused we are on our end goal. You lack discipline and focus in almost every aspect of your life. This is what causes you to fucking fail every time. You’ve almost failed out of Ryerson (and Ryerson is supposed to be an easier school), and you’ve failed at pretty much every attempt in a career. And then you fall into the trap of getting into your feelings and succumbing into insecurity, and then blocking everyone out and not letting people who care about you know that you’re still there for them.

5. You’re selfish as hell. It’s always about you. You you you. Everything has to be on your terms. What you say is always true. You think that being stubborn would somehow convince others that you’re right but you’re not.

You’re a taker. You’ve always been, even as a kid. You would always take the best lollipop in the pile and leave the less popular flavours out to others. I see it in your eyes - you like to take advantage of other people’s generosity. You purposely make friends with people who are generous (like your friend J) “because they’re not cheap” you said. You don’t seem to reciprocate whenever people gift you things. Yeah it’s a gift, I’m not supposed to expect anything (least of all you) but have the fucking courtesy to do something in return!!

On my 16th birthday we went to the mall. You didn’t buy me ANYTHING. You shopped for yourself and when I reminded you that it was my birthday, you said that you’ve spent all of your money. No, you’re cheap. And you’re selfish. But I shrugged it off because I didn’t want to seem demanding. I never told you this but I’m writing this down anyway because this was something that has always bothered me.

I’ve also noticed that you like to gift people who aren’t very close to you nicer gifts and then you would give me things that aren’t as nice. Cheaper gifts that are on sale, or what looked like regifts. I always wonder why that is.

You also like to take advantage of people’s kindness - that’s why you’re friends with R. She’s a pushover and a people pleaser and you know it. 

You also tried to take advantage of me because I’m generous by nature. After The Cuba Trip, I went to the flower market to get peonies. I decided to let you know since I know you love those flowers. It was also my way of saying sorry to you after The Cuba Trip. I offered to get you some. And then when you finally came to pick them up, you were calling me “your best friend” and saying “how I’m the best”. And later, you proceeded to mostly ignore me for a long period of time to “work on yourself” and spoke to me formally. You never did anything nice to me in return. Maybe I’m expecting too much (especially from you) but most people try to reciprocate the generosity. They would take their friend out to a restaurant for example. Or offer to do something for them. Not you though! So fuck you. Yeah maybe you do need to work on yourself.

Not only have you done some shitty things, but it also seems as if you’re getting crazier every year. You’ve really gotten into astrology and it seems as if you’re using it as crutch. And you also believe in mediums now. Oh you tried to deny that you do but yet you kept talking about the medium who told you about your future! I can’t even help you on that part. You’ve also taken to smoking weed multiple times a day, every day. I’ve tried to tell you to stop smoking so much but of course you do what you want. 

We used to be so upfront and brutally honest with each other. Truth hurts sometimes but at least we appreciated the honestly. I realize that this is something that has changed after Cuba. You’re no longer upfront, and all you do is disappear whenever “shit happens”. 

If what you’re doing is some sort of poetic friend breakup, congratu-fucking-lations. You win, since you no longer seem to care about me, yet you got me to call you today to follow up. You’re making me crazy just thinking about you. But guess what? One day, you’ll wake up and you realize what you’ve missed. You’ll realized that you’ve fucked up. And then you wonder if you should’ve contacted me after all.

You’ll probably never read this letter. You’re not supposed to. This is something that I’ve decided to do for me, since I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m sick of your shit.

I hate myself for putting up with all the shit that you do. I have been learning how to set boundaries so I’m no longer disappointed by you. And I’m slowly trying to process that you’re no longer my best friend. You still have the title of “Oldest Friend” though. I just can’t call you a best friend right now. 

- S

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 122

Chapter Summary - Danielle is under considerable pressure with work and a small incident with the dogs causes her to react badly, much to Tom's concern.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

All image rights belong to their owners

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog​ @jessibelle-nerdy-mum​ @nonsensicalobsessions​ @damalseer​ @hiddlesbitch1​ @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly​ @salempoe​ @wolfsmom1

Danielle exhaled anxiously as she stared at the notes she had woken to that morning. It was clear that an insurance company as trying to weasel its way out of paying for something that had happened on one of the US sets and a “Blame Game” had commenced between the client and the insurance company, and both thought they could pin their issues on Safeguard and sue them for the damages, meaning their legal team were gearing up to fight back, but once again, the slack fell on Danielle to sort.

She groaned in frustration as she tried to make heads or tails of what Lucas had sent her. She was used to her own way of doing things, which, as she had learned from many of those that made up her team, was identical to how they did things, and even though his method differed from her own, she was used to how Lucas laid out his work, but what was in front of her made no rhyme or reason as far as she could see. She could see how errors could be made if this is how they organised things, not that she would ever acknowledge that publically.

After three hours of head-wrecking attempts to decode and decipher someone she did not even know to see’s shorthand, she rose from the kitchen table and went to make herself a cup of tea. As soon as she did that, Bobby and Mac began to watch her. ‘Bathroom for you boys, I left you too long as it is.’ She insisted as she ushered the two dogs to the back door. Both dogs walked into the back garden and had begun to consider where to alleviate their bladders when Danielle turned to turn on the kettle, only for her phone to begin to ring. Looking at the number, she swore and cursed the caller before answering. ‘Hello, Lucas.’

‘I see you are just as cheerful as myself regarding the whole situation.’

Danielle scowled at the phone. ‘It is one thing having to clean up mine and my crew’s mistakes, though to date, my worst mistakes have been not dressing as though there is a chance of a northerly wind, not dating paperwork as you want, month, then the day and forgetting my own fax number. This is tidying up the mess of someone I don’t know and who seems to write in a code that would take Alan Turing three years to decipher the work of and I am curious as to why something regarding the US office is once again finding its way to mine.’

‘We have double the workload over here, Danielle, you know that.’ Lucas stated defensively.

‘You also have almost double the staff.’ Danielle countered. ‘I have four guys, all of whom are on jobs at the moment, leaving me to deal with the office paperwork, the managerial work I have to do anyway, my own personal workload and this, Lucas. I cannot delay the paperwork or the Legendary project and I have the next part of the Branagh project due soon and in case it has slipped your mind, having a scene where they effectively bomb a city and shooting the chaos that ensues from such bombings, is not an easy thing to sign off on.’

‘Look, Danielle, I know you are incredibly busy, I do, and I cannot thank you enough for the immense volume of work you have put in over there, really. We never thought we would have a British office up and running this quickly, much less so considering having it as efficiently as you have it. There is a reason why you were able to name your price, you are able to see things that no one else can, you were able to tear apart my work so easily because you are brilliant at what you do. Unfortunately, that also makes you the best person for this job. Your abilities are both your greatest attribute and most cursable one.’

‘Except I don’t even know Matthew’s shorthand, so this is taking far longer than it should.’

‘Because of the legal aspect of things, this office was asked to keep away from it all, especially Matthew, he cannot be seen to be involved in this in any way and we, as his close teammates are deemed to be bias. We have proof via receipts, according to the legal team, that the company paid for low-quality equipment.’

‘It is all Safeguard though, why don’t they want an independent contractor to look through it.’

‘Yes, it is all Safeguard, but we have nothing to hide, so we are going to show them that and the legal team knew you were the best for the job. We also need to be ready to countersue for defamation for trying to ruin our name. That is part and parcel of this, and unfortunately, when the shit hits the fan over there, it will be us cleaning up your mess, myself or Zamir in their office, it is all fair exchange at the end of it all.’

Danielle wanted to snap that thus far, there was little work coming from her side and to not hold their breath on the British office giving them any major work anytime soon, but she knew if she started, she may not stop, and her work relationship with Lucas was tethering between cold and barely courteous at that best of times, so instead, she swallowed back her anger. ‘Have those receipts faxed to me, and I will look at them too.’ she ordered. Looking to the window, her eyes widened as she realised what she was seeing. ‘Shit, Lucas, I have to go.’ she did not wait for a response before hanging up the phone throwing it on the counter and rushing outside. ‘What are you two doing?’ she snapped. Immediately both dogs looked at her, Mac had his ears down, knowing that they were in some form of trouble, Bobby acted as though she was simply coming out to join them, and rushed over to her. Danielle was so busy looking at the destruction site her dogs had created in front of her, she did not realise that Bobby had forgotten his manners in the excitement of having her out with them and that he jumped up on her leg. When she looked down and saw what he was doing, her eyes widened more. ‘No.’ she snapped earning a confused look from Bobby. ‘Bold.’ Having never been chastised in such a manner by her before, Bobby whined, not understanding fully what was going on. ‘Bold dog.’ he lowered his head. When she turned and looked at Mac, he was looking at her guilty. ‘You actually know better.’ He too lowered his head. ‘Bad, bad dog.’

‘Elle?’ She turned to see a very concerned looking Tom behind her in the doorway. ‘What’s happened?’

‘What do you think just happened, these fucking dogs just wrecked the place and to add to that, I am trying to deal with complete and utter fuckwits that are trying to weasel out of acknowledging their own faults and are trying to sue the fucking company, I am taking the slack yet again because of Lucas’s fucking office and what does he say about it, that they’ll have to cover my ass someday like I am on some sort of borrowed fucking time before I fuck up, and while I am trying to deal with all of that shit, these two decided to re-enact the Great fucking Escape,’ She ranted.

Tom looked at her, paying attention to how she was speaking, the sheer number of times she swore and her general mannerisms. ‘Darling, have you eaten or drank anything today?’

Danielle gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Tom, when the fuck in the whole of that do you think I have five minutes to eat? I left the bedroom and I heard the machine whirring to inform me of the sheer level of fuck ups I have to deal with today, I have not had five minutes.’

Tom went over to her and put his arms around her. ‘You need to take a small break, just an hour or so and get something to eat and a little headspace,’ he insisted, his voice low and his tone soft.

‘I have too much to do, Tom.’ She dismissed.

‘No, Elle, you are getting some food and you are taking a break, you’re incredibly stressed, you need to take a step back.’ He kissed her head.

‘Tom, I don’t have time for this bullshit.’ She growled.

‘Elle, you know I love you, I do, but you are being incredibly horrid and bitchy right now and we both know it is because you are terribly stressed and quite hungry.’

‘I am not….’

‘Elle, you just called Bobby and Mac “these fucking dogs” and you are ignoring the rules you set down for their training and shouting at them, you have Bobby looking as though he is scared of you. You are scaring them.’

Danielle turned and looked at Mac, who was looking at her as though he was expecting her to start giving out again and then she looked at Bobby, who had the appearance of an animal that had just been kicked. She said nothing and her throat began to feel tight and she felt the guilt begin to seep in. She inhaled and looked down at Bobby, who had been clearly happy by Tom’s return but was unsure as to whether he should move or not for fear that he would receive another telling off. Danielle knelt down and scooped the puppy into her arms, kissing his head, then she looked at Mac and called the dog over to her, he obeyed immediately and she hugged him against her too. Mac nudged her chin and wagged his tail slightly, smearing the mud that had been on his snout from his digging efforts onto her, while Bobby ensured no part of her clothes were left clean and he began to wriggle around as he licked her face. ‘You two need to be cleaned up.’

‘I’ll get changed and I will do that.’ Tom turned and went to walk into the house.

‘No, I’m destroyed as it is, I’ll do it. I need to step away from work, anyway.’

‘You need to eat.’

‘I will, in a minute.’ She insisted. ‘Keep Mac out while I do this guy, I will do them one at a time.’ She carried Bobby through the house to prevent him from wrecking the place.

She washed him quickly enough, talking to him as she did, apologising for how she acted, keeping her tone soft and rewarding his good behaviour with affection and attention. As she dried the excess water off him, she cuddled him to her. When that was done, she placed him on the dog bed and went and got Mac. Though he was significantly heavier than the other dog, she carried him through too to prevent too much cleaning, repeating the process with him, though taking longer due to his two layers of fur. When he was dried and she brought him back to the dog bed too and the pleased dog curled up with his smaller partner in crime as Danielle placed the dirty dog towels at the washing machine before stripping off her wet and muddy clothes and choosing to grab some clothes she had planned on washing but were not too bad and walked back into the kitchen, where Tom watched her pick up the paperwork again.

‘You still haven’t eaten.’

‘I’m not hungry.’ She dismissed.

‘Do you have a headache?’ Tom asked, already knowing the answer. She nodded. ‘Take a painkiller, get a wash and I will have some tea, soup and a nice sandwich waiting, no arguing.’ he insisted.

‘Work…’

‘Can wait. Elle, I know you’re busy, you made that very clear earlier, but you were the one that told me you never wanted me going too far for a role, especially if it was going to harm my health. When I am at my busiest, you always make sure that I am fed and watered and here you are, dealing with more than that and you need me to tell you, stop and take a step back, and that is what I am doing, like it or not.’ Tom walked over and kissed her head. ‘I am worried about you. I have never seen you act like that before.’

‘I…’

‘Talk to me, Elle.’ He pleased. ‘Take a few minutes in the shower, and when you come out, we will talk. I want to help, but you need to tell me how.’

‘Sure.’ She nodded, going over to the press and taking out a painkiller and taking it before she walked off.

When Danielle returned to the kitchen, Tom, she realised, had not simply cooked her own soup for her, but had run to the shop for her favourite wrap and a nice strong coffee. ‘Sit and eat.’ He ordered.

‘Yes, Sir.’ She joked.

Tom watched as she sat down and looked at the food. ‘Elle?’

Danielle looked at the counter she had thrown her phone onto unceremoniously and got to her feet and retrieved it before going to the call log and finding what she needed. As soon as she pressed the call button, Tom frowned in disapproval. ‘Hi Lucas, Danielle here, I’m sorry about earlier, the dogs decided we needed a make a pond feature in the garden. Have Matthew send on a key of his shorthand, that is not “assisting” in any way, but it will mean that I may actually decode that damn thing. Thank you, goodbye.’ she hung up the phone and placed it down before smiling at him. ‘Thank you.’ She smiled before taking some soup. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What’s going on, Elle?’

‘I am so stressed with all of this, and then our dogs act like dogs and I...Jesus, I was so horrible to them, but with the Branagh job, all the office work and everything with….’ Tom walked over and put his arms around her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You need to step back.’

‘Tom, I can’t, you know that.’ She argued. ‘I cannot just pull out of this contract and I cannot just back off because it is shit for a few weeks, I worked my ass off to get here.’

‘I know, but you’re not you and you need to relax a bit. Elle, you have to look after you.’

‘I know.’ She leant in against him.

[imuybemovoko]

A profoundly bad childhood experience

I ...don’t have a whole lot of specific memories of my childhood. The things I do remember, I tend to lack good detail on. I think a good deal of this is because a lot of weird shit happened that I just don’t think about until something makes me think about it. A few months ago I was forced to think about some of the weird shit. I might be a bit lacking in specifics here, it’s been around 15 years since this happened and I don’t always have detailed memories from this period in my life, but I’ll do my best.

I’m writing a large document about my years of experience with Christianity and my eventual exit from it. I decided to write this in roughly chronological order, as best I could remember it, and trying to write about my early childhood in a small-town United Methodist church in upstate New York brought this experience crashing back in ...most of its weird sad glory. 

For those unfamiliar with this kind of environment, many churches run week long summer programs to indoctrinate children, calling them “vacation bible school”. In my experience, it was a week long, typically in June at this church, and was a bit different under like seven or eight years old than it was between then and sixth grade or so. The younger kids just like heard cutesy messages about Jesus and played little games all day, and the older kids moved around between like four or five little stations consisting of crafts, Jesus messages, music that even my kid brain found lame and awkward, a 20 minute TV show of a traumatizing chipmunk puppet called Chadder, and some teaching that took place in the context of an adult LARPing and setting up scenery. 

That’s Chadder. He’s fucking terrifying and his voice is annoying. He talks about Jesus entirely too much.

The first year I was old enough for this more mature version of VBS, on like the second day of the five, the theme was Jonah and the whale. For the blessed uninitiated, the story is basically that of a prophet called to yell at the city of Nineveh for their sins who runs away in a ship, then God throws a nice little hurricane at him, the crew of the ship yeets him overboard, and he spends three days inside of a whale, at which point he repents and goes to yell at Nineveh. (And then gets pissed off at God for sparing the city from destruction after they repent, but somehow that part isn’t taught to children and the rest of it is.) 

The adult who did the LARPing for this program every year was this lady about my mom’s age who I’ll call “Sharon” for anonymity. (I don’t remember her first name but it’s probably not that.) She always went all out with the costumes and got really into character, and the settings were usually pretty damn well thought out too. On this day, she’d set up an entire scene that fit with the theme of Jonah’s experience. Her scenes were always set up in this atrium area behind the sanctuary that could be closed off with one of those collapsible walls. 

Like this, but in a church. That fucking building was full of those, and even seeing them in person mildly triggers me half the time. :^) There was this atrium area behind it that people tended to gather in to talk before service got started, but for VBS Sharon repurposed it for scenes. The lights were generally pretty low, though I don’t think that was their only setting in there. The room also had this little hallway that was next to one of the narrow ends of it, with a door both going into the sanctuary and into this atrium, and attaching to the front door of the church with a crumbling stone staircase to the uneven sidewalk. 

They tend to break the kids up into small groups, the number and size of these groups depending on the number of kids in the program. I think there were eight or ten of us in each group this year, and we rotated through the stations they set up. They recruit the kids older than about 13 to escort us around all day. I think we were like the second group to go to the LARPing station this day, but I’m not completely sure. We came to the door from the corridor to the sanctuary and the teen leader knocked. Sharon came out dressed in this biblical-style outfit, trying her absolute best to look like the prophet might’ve. She may or may not have worn a stick-on beard or maybe one that hangs on and attaches behind the ears. She was easily dedicated enough to pull something like that. She certainly had one of these outfits going on: 

And definitely one of the male-styled ones with headwear. She led us into the corridor, acting all frantic. The corridor was very dimly lit this day, and as nervous as she was, I started to lowkey freak out too. I had no idea what was coming.

Sharon ushered us into the atrium thing, which was now very different from its ordinary state. My memory of the exact conditions in here isn’t perfect, so I’ll explain this as best as I remember it. The entire fucking room was dimly lit and lined with black plastic, I think she ripped up some trash bags and stuck them to the walls and ceiling in there. She was running some kind of high-octane humidifier and fan in there I think, because the whole place was dark and wet and humid. I’m a bit less certain on these two details, but she might’ve brought some pungent fish into the place to make it smell weird and played loud ass whale song on one of those little boombox/CD player/radio things that were common around that time. I think the other kids could handle it a bit better than I did, but this was a terrifying environment. Then she started talking about how the reason we’re in here is because she ran away from God (as Jonah; remember, she got real in character) and maybe this is her chance to repent and it’s so bad that she didn’t follow God’s command the first time. At some point in this display I freaked the fuck out and had to leave this place. They took me back to some room where the younger kids were doing something so I could cool off. My parents, and I think some of the other adults, expressed some disappointment about this. I don’t remember specific words; I do remember being shamed for being afraid of this ...intentionally scary display. And then when I was calm and they were done with all that bullshit, they brought me back in for Chadder of all things. 

I had a recurring nightmare for a while in elementary school. Every time I had this, it came in threes. I’d enter a dim, sweaty room where some faint, horribly distorted voices were crying out and have to climb a slope. I’d pass the first, shallow one fairly easily, but I’d go straight from that into a darker, sweatier, louder room with a steeper incline. I’d pass this trial too somehow, by this point being stressed and scared every time, and come straight into something so, so fucking much worse. This room was extremely dark, the incline was goddamn near to vertical, it was wet in there to the point where everything was dripping (or, in some cases, at least I was; I kind of think the scenery other than the light levels, sounds, and inclines varied quite a bit from instance to instance), and the voices. The fucking voices. They sounded like people yelling, except... through insane levels of distortion, to the point where everything was echo except the vowel sound, usually like the one in “sleep” or maybe a bit retracted. After the fact I’m inclined to project everything from coherent phrases to my first name onto the sounds, but I don’t remember them having any actual definition after all the distortion. These calls would kind of burrow into my consciousness as I tried (and, somehow, often partially succeeded) to climb this fucking smooth, deep slope, and when it all got too overwhelming I’d wake up sweating and terrified. (And usually I’d have to pee.) After I remembered this incident from VBS, I made a connection with this recurring nightmare and I kind of strongly suspect that it was a major contributing factor to these. This may or may not be accurate, but it bears some chilling similarities to Sharon’s whale stomach display: wet, loud, scary, dark.

I often have a fairly hard time writing about this. This shit had me shaking and unable to sleep for hours when I remembered it after apparently somehow repressing it for over a decade. Writing about it was easier this time, but I still kind of shake and struggle talking about it. It’s a whole time. I think I might need some therapy because of this and other fucky little incidents that happened during my childhood and when I was older and, for around five years, fully embraced Christianity and yeeted myself into some of its darker branches. But the more bullshit I remember from my childhood, the more I learn about the foundation, even from what I remember as a somewhat more progressive than average environment, that led me down my dark path. So that’s food for thought I guess.

Have a deepfried Chadder and a good day.

Chadder takes his mask off (2020, colorized)

[misssunflowersandsangria]

Adorned in Green

Thanks for the ask @sehuntema .  Hope that you like it!

Shikamaru leaned against the wall hidden in the shadows scowling annoyed and upset. He was sure that he was supposed to be mingling and promoting unity and peace between the nations and whatever other bullshit a state representative was supposed to do. He couldn’t find any motivation within him to even act interested in such things. His mind was solely focused on the vision of emerald and gold just beyond his reach. When Naruto had told him about Suna's state dinner he was so excited to see his Sand Goddess that he had failed to remember that she was their Sand Princess.  Tonight Temari played into that role quite well. She was a dream draped in the finest silks of jade that tried to compete with the green of her eyes. Precious jewels complemented the gold that naturally crowned her head.  She was in her element, in a position and place that was worthy of her.  

She was regal, gracious and welcoming to people who had come from all over the five great nations. She’d explained to him how important it was for Suna. This was their opportunity to show how much they’d progressed as a nation under Garra's leadership. She also wanted him there as moral support. She was very good at rubbing elbows with these people but hated it all the same. He should be right there next to her whispering words of encouragement but right now he was sulking in the dark.  

This was better for both of them because if he had to watch one more Lord, head of state or whoever stare, fuss and fawn over her he would start an international incident. 

There was a particular one that was asking for it. He looked like a squid which made sense because he was someone from the Land of Waves.  Besides, he looked slimy.   He watched as the squid reached up one of his tentacles to touch her exposed shoulder but was stopped in his tracks. Temari turned immediately towards him leveling him a stormy look but Shikamaru wasn’t moved, he was annoyed and upset and he wanted her to know it. The Lord seemed confused about why he was suddenly stopped and Temari took a step back excusing herself.  She passed by Shikamaru wordlessly to the balcony. Once she was outside and out of his clutches, he released his shadow causing the Lord to fall forward on his face. He smirked then followed after her. 

 “That didn’t last long.” Naruto laughed to the redhead Kazekage.  They'd been watching this play out for a while.  

“Well that particular Lord deserved it. He’s been inquiring about courting her for a while, incessantly, despite Nara’s claim. And the fact that he’s old enough to be our father.” 

“It’s been pretty amusing to see all these confused people coming to dead stops around her.” Any person that came within a foot of her that Shikamaru didn’t know found themselves trapped in his shadow jutsu. The Hokage wasn’t sure whether his friend realized that he was doing it or if it was a gut reaction to keep her safe.

“Hopefully once they’re married this will be less of a problem.”  Temari could be just as jealous and he'd seen her have some not so friendly conversations with different women all night.

“I doubt it, Hinata and I have been married for a while now but I still find myself sending clones to watch her from the shadows but I'm pretty sure that she knows by now."

They shared a laugh but ultimately Garra was happy for his sister.  She’d found someone who would love, care for and protect her, it was the most that he could wish for his sister.  

 “Want to explain to me why you’re being such an asshole tonight?”  Temari demanded the wind whipping around her. Even while in the throes of her anger she was still so dazzling.  He’d been rendered completely still and speechless when he’d first seen her that night.  He was used to her wearing her regular Shinobi garb.  Delicate fabrics wrapped tightly around her, priceless jewels, and exposed skin were overloading his senses.  He wanted to tear off that green dress for a number of reasons, but also because it was replacing all his images of her and that would be distracting in his daily life. He'd always known that she was gorgeous with her sandy blonde hair and teal eyes but to have it so highlighted and on display tonight was killing him.  It only made him more annoyed that other people got to behold her beauty like this, which was meant only for him.  

“Why? Did you want to dance with that guy?”  He replied harshly leaning against the wall.  He really wished that he could smoke.  

She glared at the response.  “Are you serious right now? Do you think that I'm enjoying this?  I’m Suna’s Princess, this is part of my job. Besides if you weren’t sulking in the corner you could have been right there with me instead of trapping everyone in your shadows like some petty child.”

Surprised she was caught in his shadow and placed against the wall his warm body caging her in.  She knew that she had pushed him and that he was upset but a part of her was thrilled to be 'trapped' like this.  She could overpower him if she wanted but she was safe and she wanted to see what he would do. 

“Yes, you may be their princess, but you’re mine. Call it possessive or chauvinistic if you want but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re mine and no one else gets to touch you.”  In any other situation with any other person, she would have destroyed him but this was her Shikamaru, her usually calm, lazy nin. To see him so fierce and passionate, his normally soft eyes firey only made her feel wanted.  She reached forward his shadows allowing her to move so that she could wrap her arms around his neck.

“Shika, I love you, only you. These other people, Lords, shinobi or whoever doesn’t matter to me.  I’m here with you, I'm wearing your clan’s crest sewn into this dress against my heart. You’re mine, just as much as I am yours, never forget that.”  He picked her up to pull her into a kiss her legs wrapping around his waist, desperately needing to remind himself that no one could take her away. They’d been through too much together to ever be apart.  He’d happily start a war if he needed to, just to keep her.

He scattered kisses along her neck in apology not caring if they left marks for the world to see.  “I’m sorry. You’re an important figure to Suna and I’ll have to share you sometimes, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it. But, I can learn to handle it better.”  He mumbled knowing that he was being childish and that this wouldn't be the first time.

Her hands gently played with his hair.  “That’s why I wanted you here. I want people to know that you’re the most important person in my life.  That I chose you and I’m proud to stand next to you.”

“Really?”  He asked unsure.

Temari kissed him sweetly.  “Baby, we’ve gotta work on your confidence.  You’re the Hokage’s adviser, you’re from a storied, respected clan, your jutsu is strong, your contributions during the war are known far and wide.  You are good, kind and loyal. I had to put my claim on you before someone else tried to take you from me. Never think that you’re less than anyone in that room.  I’m lucky that you’re mine.” She assured him kissing him fiercely and possessively. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen the ladies of Suna eyeing him while he pouted and sulked.  He looked incredibly handsome tonight clothed in a fitted suit that she had specially made for him that incorporated traditional Suna fashion. She was glad that he didn’t realize how attractive he was or else she’d have a lot more talking to's by the council because of her behavior.  

After a few more kisses, and shared promises about what the night would hold for them after the event they returned to the ballroom and he remained steadfast by her side.  He was charming and intelligent, his presence only elevating the guests’ feelings and experiences in Suna. He wanted Temari to shine and so he reflected all the greatness and glory that was within her.   His hand was warm and ever-present on her back, his figure looming over her like a shadow. She felt safe and protected under his watchful gaze and no one dared cross his path. He may not particularly enjoy politics but he knew how to play the game well.  By the end of the night, no one could question her choosing him, a ninja from another village with little title or status, as her mate.  

 “I think that we’ve gotta invite you to these things more often Nara. People were impressed.” Kankuro toasted him before they both took a drink. The guests had all left but the Konoha delegation remained along with the Sand siblings for the after-party.  Temari seated comfortably in Shikamaru’s lap playing with his hair while the group enjoyed more food and drinks relaxing by a fire under the desert sky. 

“I had to pick up a lot of broken hearts after they found out you were with my sister and after she threatened to exile them from the country,” Kankuro added with a grin knowing that she’d take the bait. 

“Shut up Kankuro.” She growled about to jump and attack her brother till Shikamaru’s arms wrapped around her waist pulling her back into his lap. 

“Didn’t know you felt that way about me Trouble.” He teased her and Kankuro took that as his opportunity to get out of harm’s way. 

She pouted and blushed before ducking her face into his neck. 

“I wasn’t jealous.”  She mumbled. He just chuckled before turning her gaze back towards him.  She couldn’t help but smile at the way his eyes shined in amusement. He was very much her Prince.  While she had no illusions of what being a Princess meant for her she couldn't help but feel that she had earned him and their fairy tale. 

“I love you.”  He told her simply and while she’d heard those words many times before they always filled her such an immense feeling of joy.  

“I love you too.”  It wasn’t always easy being with the Suna Princess, famed Sand Kunoichi and wind mistress, but he wouldn’t trade her for the world.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21393019

[cryptologicalmystic]

a tedious argument of sinister intent

[This is going to make absolutely no sense if you aren't caught up on @trashfoundation 's blog. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure it'll make sense even in that context! As far as canonicity goes, I don't think the first part should contradict anything, but the second part may be incompatible with what's happening on the blog. Who knows. *shrug emoji*]

[[MORE]]

This is the third time today Leah has gone to check on the gremlin boxes. They're deceptively simple-looking - you push a certain button on one, a little screen powers up. Save for occasional minute variations in the numbers, the readout it shows has been basically the same for the past few weeks, ever since the boxes appeared: "anchors in array" constant at thirty (they've only actually found twenty so far, none of which they've been able to move at all), "inside array" at one hundred, and "correcting from value of" somewhere between eighty and ninety-five - excluding the first few hours after the boxes actually showed up, where it didn't break sixty the entire time. 

But the cultists that now haunt the Chipotle like particularly droopy ghosts have been on edge for the past few days, ever since shortly after the "feast" with the gremlins-who-had-stopped-being-gremlins ended. And the cultists, unlike the gremlins they seem to worship, have actually been a positive influence on the place!

Since the cultists came, none of the Night Shift - the employees' tacit moniker for the little group they've created to obsess over the surveillance footage of gremlins and fistfights and gods - have been mindwiped. Not even once. 

The gremlin-specific panic button they came up with has only been pressed once, during the "feast", and Leah remembers doing it as clear as day. The footage from the security cameras matches up with the footage from the miniature cams Ed started sticking everywhere after the third or fourth time they'd found things on the tapes they couldn't explain, with the audio from the microphones they'd installed after incident seven, even with their memories.

So, yeah, if they're this agitated then Leah is going to regularly check the other tangible evidence they have, thank you very much. With this certainty in her mind, she presses down on the readout button - and freezes.

SCRANTON REALITY ANCHOR

ANCHORS IN ARRAY: 30

INSIDE ARRAY: 

100.01 (+0.12/-0.16) Hm

READINGS NOMINAL

CORRECTING FROM VALUE OF: 

26.11 (+21.61/-12.16) Hm

!!WARNING!! STRENGTH OF LOCAL REALITY SUBSTRATE BENEATH ACCEPTABLE LEVELS

!!WARNING!! HIGH FLUCTUATIONS IN STRENGTH OF LOCAL REALITY SUBSTRATE

!!WARNING!! 11.62% PROBABILITY OF ACTIVE REALITY BENDER IN VICINITY

It doesn't take much to connect that last line with some of the things the cameras have recorded: the unidentifiable man who comes in at the end, pays the fighters' bill, and fixes all the damage they caused. Leah's had years of experience in customer-facing positions; she doesn't doubt for a moment that, if there are enough people like him to warrant a fancy label, then the vast majority are going to be more interested in breaking things than fixing them. 

(Unconsciously, she reaches a hand up to touch the scar cutting through her eyebrow.)

Leah stands up, moves back until she's absolutely sure she's within the boxes' - the anchors' - area of effect, and takes a moment to panic. Then she turns to march back into the Chipotle. 

Nobody is getting unmade today, not on her watch.

- 

Elsewhere, a seagull struggles through the air, claws tangled through the straps of an opened purse - and through the chain of the gaudy necklace the purse is holding.

Jack Bright hasn't slept since this whole thing began. Technically the bird he's possessing has, but he hasn't. He's not entirely sure how the hell he managed to escape, especially since he doesn't actually remember doing it, but he's out. Unfortunately, he had to ditch the phone he was carrying - too heavy, plus there's a good chance the Insurgency could use it to track him if he held on.

He's resolutely trying not to think about the events that led to him getting captured in the first place. Him? A reality bender? That's ridiculous, he'd be dead by now if that were the case. Maybe even really dead and not just in the limbo of the in-between. (Now there's a thought!) If they couldn't manage that, they'd have strengthened the containment procedures for 963. (...Would the List count?) At the very least, he'd have been demoted or something.

(Unless he's subconsciously bent their minds so that nothing like that could happen. Ridiculous, of course. He wouldn't do something like that. Right?)

But his coworkers seem to believe it, and the Insurgency seems to believe it. And it would make a lot of offhand comments on the blog make a lot more sense.

("Do you WANT to resume the CK-ass-clay estructuring-ray enario-scay?")

("if the thing you were thinking of rhymes with "ebay pass", then yes it is!") 

("Bright's on his bullshit again".)

But it's not possible... right?